Great Week, Great Classes
I’ve had, I think, a particularly successful week of teaching; maybe because the term is coming to a close, maybe because testing is over and the students are more at ease, or maybe I’m actually seriously getting the hang of this teaching ESL thing. Whatever it is, I am truly thankful for whatever beneficent entity aligned the planets of teaching in my favor.
My Mega kids are learning about “Unsolved Science Mysteries” and we’ve been considering the possibility of life in outer space, particularly on Mars. I’ve supplemented the in-class readings with internet images of Mars’ surface as well as images of the various space vessels that have been propelled to that planet. The kids are not as amazed by these realities as I was when I was a child and space travel was still very new. They seem to have every confidence that scientists will in fact find life on another planet or at least discover a planet that is compatible enough for life that we earthlings will be able to immigrate to it before global warming fully destroys our earthly climate.
One of the “Critical Thinking Projects” asked the children to envision what life in Mars might look like and draw a picture of same. Most of their illustrations were based more on fantasy than fact, but the exercise was fun. One group depicted alien life as looking very much like Sponge Bob. I put everyone’s pictures on the classroom wall.
Monday night’s Bridge class only consisted of four students this week. Our subject was “Prehensile Tails.”
I started the class by asking the kids “if you could be any animal at all, what would you choose.” The answers were bird, dolphin, whale and cat. I showed them a couple of videos of animals with prehensile tales, namely a pangolin (a kind of anteater). Later, during the post reading (which was about prehensile TONGUES) I showed them a video of a chameleon catching a grasshopper with its tongue. I teased them all about having prehensile tongues and tails and accused them of hiding them from me.
The “Critical Thinking Project” involved considering attributes non-human animals posses that are useful and imagining what two attributes would be neat for a human to have. Everyone picked the ability to change colors, like the chameleon, but no one picked prehensile tails. We all drew pictures of our ideas and taped them to the wall. One student thought wings would be nice (the same student who said he’d like to be a bird), another student chose smelling as an attribute so she could find chocolate cake easily, which I thought was a great reason. The other two students chose the ability to run fast so they could shop quicker and easier. I chose a turtle shell and wings, which my students found pretty fascinating. That way, I explained, I could go to far away places but still have my home with me.
Tuesday’s Teras are learning about the “Roots of Rock and Roll.” During this unit I have showed them youtube clips of Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, the original movie trailer for “Blackboard Jungle” (which they really disliked) and finally a clip of Run DMC on “Reading Rainbow” (mostly because our text makes a connection between the rock movement of the 50s and the hiphop movement of the 80s in terms of cross-over music). They thought Fats Domino was ugly and had a hard time believing Chuck Berry was really black. The kids love it when I dance to rock-n-roll music, especially when I do the twist.
I have twoBirdie level classes, one on Tuesday nights and one on Wednesday nights. My Tuesday night Birdies are a surly, sullen bunch, but I am starting to get through to them. I have of late been rewarded with a smile or two from some of the most surly. My Wednesday night Birdies are all girls and the atmosphere of my Wednesday night class is quite the opposite from Tuesday’s. I spend more time trying to get the girls to stop talking and focus on the lesson. But we all really like each other and, amidst discussions of pop music, shoes and movies, manage to get our work done every week.
November Already: NO NaNoWriMo for Me
Sunday again. These things come around like once a week or something. This particular Sunday is gray and rainy, but at least not terribly cold. Muggy is a better description.
Gary’s putting together a small bookshelf we bought at E-mart last night and I am puttering on the internet. I’m feeling particularly distant from all my people in the states; and lonely. Invisible. Forgotten. I’m also feeling particularly uncreative and uninspired, which interferes with my high-falluten ideals of writing a book before I leave Asia. I’ve been getting email from NaNoWriMo groups in Kansas, Albuquerque, New Mexico and even Seoul (I signed up when I arrived). I just delete them with a sigh of disappointment and try to “let go” inevitable feelings of “this-is-not-what-I-expected.” I’ve been playing with the idea of writing a poem a day as part of the PAD challenge that Poetic Asides puts on every year. I’ve drafted two poems so far.
I’ve canceled my plans to attend the Seoul Stitch-n-Bitch group today because Saturday got away from me and I don’t feel like I got anything done and want to play catch-up today. Mondays loom LARGE and are always followed by equally difficult Tuesdays, which are in turn followed by long Wednesdays, so it’s hard to think of anything else but prepping for the week. Fortunately there are only three weeks left in this “Track-A” term, and next term’s Track B is supposed to be much (much) easier.
On a more positive note, we get paid this week (our 2nd paycheck) and have plans to do some shopping at Costco Wednesday (yes, Virginia, there is a Costco in S. Korea – several actually). They are running a sale on a 10 mp digital camera from Nov. 9th – 11th that I am hoping to buy. I haven’t been able to use my perfectly good digital camera since arriving because I screwed up the charger when I plugged it into a adapter without a transformer, thus blowing it out (I melted my culing iron the same way). A replacement charger and battery only costs $12.00 at Amazon, but they won’t ship electronics to Korea (no one will). So I’m just going to invest in a new camera.
So, this is where I am at the moment. Not much of a blog, but an update nontheless. Drop me a line folks.
Halloween and the Days Following
Up until last Saturday, which was Halloween, the weather south of Seoul had been quite mild and quintessentially autumnal. The front that moved through that Halloween day has drastically changed all that, and it has been very cold and gray these three days since. Cold enough that Gary and I decided it was definitely time to invest in winter coats. So, Monday night we went to the E-mart down the street from our OfficeTel on our way home from work. As we get off at 10:30 and E-Mart closes at Midnight and is a good thirty minutes from our Hogwan, we had to keep a close eye on time. We decided to take a cab to save time and because it was a warmer alternative to walking all that way. A cab from the Hogwan to our ‘hood costs from around 2300 to 2600 won – that’s a little over two bucks.
Gary, another friend (who I will call Phoebe) and I spent Halloween day at the Korean National Museum of Contemporary Art. A great place to spend a rainy day, though we got plenty wet walking to the museum from the subway exit. Had we paid closer attention, we would have come up at exit 2 and taken the Elephant Tram – but we weren’t so we didn’t.
I probably cannot adequately express how much I enjoyed the museum. Seriosly, experiencing art in whatever form and wherever it presents iteself is kind of like a religious experience to me. Sort of like a soulful coming home. I’ve been telling Gary for a few weeks now that I needed to get in touch with some kind of artistic expression. Life since arriving here has been mostly about working very hard to “make the grade” and, in my perception, keep from getting fired. Everyday life in Korea is about working and then more working. When not working, drinking or shopping; exactly the kind of lifestyle I try to avoid. I mean, I try to lead a more deeply meaningful life – journey not destination and all that. What I was really seeking is the Korean perspective and reaction to the Korean mainstream way of life. I’m happy to report that I found some of that at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). I am currently working on a project that will hopefully flesh that experience in words.
Even though the permanent collection at the MOCA is free to view, we bought tickets for the featured exhibit, “Peppermint Candy.” Besides entry into a fantastic exhibit, our museum tickets entitled us to a free bus ride from the museum to the subway. That is, a warm and DRY ride from the museum to the subway.
So, after a lovely day at the MOCA, and a mostly dry journey home, a trip to our local E-Mart for snacks and dinner at the “Food Box,” our trio headed to Phoebe’s OfficeTel to watch scary movies. After the first movie, we all decided to head to Happidus’, a bar in Beomgye that caters to foreigners and who we’d heard was having a Halloween party. At Happidus’, Phoebe and I played a game a pool, and before we knew it, the place was filled with costumed foreigners, many of them our co-workers. So, we hung around until around 1:00 in the morning before heading back to Phoebe’s to watch “The Exorcist.” Everyone was glad we had come and was sorry to see us leave. Gary, Phoebe and I wound up falling asleep during the movie.
As I mentioned, the weather has been quite cold since then and we have been very busy at work administering the IBT Achievement Tests – THE test that determines if a student can “level up.” Word is that once these tests are over, the kids will be wild and difficult to manage – and we still have three weeks left in the term! I look at this week as the calm before the storm and try to have faith in my ability to direct these children in positive ways in the weeks to come.
My plans for the upcoming weekend include going to Gangnam to attend a Seoul Sitch and Bitch meeting. I’ve done very little knitting since arriving and tore out what I had managed to knit because there were just too many mistakes in the piece. I look forward to meeting new people and expanding my social circle. And I really look forward to some meditative knitting.
Travel Trivia: Details of My Journey
After packing, repacking and weighing my luggage a dozen times on bathroom scales, turns out my bags each weighed a bit over 50 lbs. Fortunately the attendant wasn’t worried about it and I was not charged anything extra. (I would still have to drag the damn heavy things through Seoul though).
I made it through airline security with my bamboo knitting needles, but never once got them out to knit; there simply was no elbow room.
Alan Arkin was traveling on the plane as Gary and I from ABQ to LAX. He and a female companion were seated just a few rows in ahead of my and Gary’s seats. At LAX, while waiting for their luggage to appear on the conveyors, Mr. Arkin and his female companion were quite affectionate with one another, which was very endearing. It was one of the few times I kind of wished I had twitter.
We did not have to pick up and transfer our luggage at LAX; United and Asiana airlines took care of that for us. We did have to get tickets for our flight from LAX to Seoul, however. (They talked me into signing up for Asiana Frequent Flier Miles).
Gary and I ate at LAX. We both had “Asian” food.
There was a family in line in front of us to go through security before boarding the plane in LAX who were so dramatic we thought for sure they were filming a Novella. There were tears and hysteria and lots of photos and hand grasping over ropes – at least until LAX Airport Authority tired of them and put an end to it. That only caused the drama level to increase.
Just as were were attempting to go through the metal detectors, a child belonging to a large family in front of us decided to throw a full-out fit. I mean, lay-on-the-floor-kicking-and-screaming-fit. Security scuttled around trying to keep the line moving and lots of folks were getting antsy. The mother was simply horrified and I felt bad for her. I was also glad it wasn’t me having to deal with that kid.
There are video monitors on the back of each seat on Asiana Airlines’ Airplanes, so each person can choose to watch what he or she wants. Available choices included movies, Asian TV shows, informative clips and video games.
Gary and I had seats in the center section of the plane. Our seats were in the middle of the row. This meant we had to disrupt the people sitting on the aisle seats on either side of us every time we wanted to get up to use the bathroom. I tried to get up when the woman next to me got up to minimize disruption. Unfortunately, she had a bladder of steel.
I watched three movies during the flight from LAX to Incheon: Monsters vs. Aliens, which made me giggle, The Soloist, which made me cry (a lot) and (part of) She’s Just Not Into You – the last of which was too stupid to tolerate, even as a free in-flight movie, and kind of pissed me off.
When I ran out of appealing movie options, I read the first third of Julie and Julia, which was better than the last two-thirds. Now I don’t even want to see the movie.
I wasted a good 90 minutes playing a mindless video game that gave me a headache.
The row in front of us was occupied by American Frat boys who found the flight a perfect opportunity to drink all the free beer they wanted.
I had my first Korean meal on the plane – Bim-Bap. Unfortunately it was “Airplane Food Quality.” (I have since had much better authentic Korean food.) I was not crazy about the side dish that looked somewhat like coconut flakes, tasted salty-fishy and, I later noticed, had eyes. I liked the kimchi alright – but again, I’ve tasted some wonderful varieties of Kimchi since then that put the airplane variety to shame.
We beat the sun to S. Korea by about one hour.
Temperatures were taken at Incheon as we dis-boarded the plane and before we went though customs. The now drunk frat boys who were sitting in front of us were as obnoxious as you might imagine. One Hispanic guy threatened to tell the attendant taking temperatures that he was from Mexico. (Ok – I admit, I snickered at that one.)
Incheon Airport is every bit as impressive as everyone described. I may go back there some time just to shop.
Cave Canem 2009 Book Award
The day after we arrived in South Korea, Gary received an email notifying him that his manuscript “Missing You Metropolis” won the 2009 Cave Canem book award. He was told not to tell anyone else until they had published the announcement on their website. It has since been announced and Gary has shared the news with all his important peeps – so I am now free to brag about his great work on my blog.
Here is an excerpt from the official announcement:
NEW YORK, NY (September 3, 2009) — Cave Canem Foundation, Inc., North America’s premier “home for black poetry,” is pleased to announce that Gary Jackson has received the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for his manuscript, Missing you, Metropolis, selected by Yusef Komunyakaa. Graywolf Press will publish the collection in fall 2010. Additionally, Mr. Jackson will receive $1,000 and a feature reading. Honorable Mentions were given to Lillian‐Yvonne Bertram and Jarita Davis for their manuscripts, Inside the Face Inside the Heart Inside and As If Returning Home, respectively.
Most impressive of all is Yusef Komunyakaa’s comments about Gary’s manuscript:
Yusef Komunyakaa writes, “Gary Jacksonʹs Missing you, Metropolis embodies and underscores a voice uniquely shaped and tuned for the 21st century. Playful, jaunty and highly serious…the collection is gauged by a sophisticated heart. Pathos breathes within and slightly underneath the
visual comedy, and this quality is the true genius of Missing you, Metropolis.”
Here is a link to the Cave Canem site for more information about the award…
http://www.cavecanempoets.org/cave-canem-prize
Sunday Again: Prepping for a Week of Classes
For four weeks now we have been living in our little officetel in the Tres-bell building in Anyang City and for five weeks teaching at Chung Dahm. The term is half over and soon we will be giving our students exams to determine who will “level up.” Outside the weather is beginning to change. The hot sultry days and nights of late summer are giving way to sultry days and cool autumnal evenings and mornings. I miss home daily but find the challenge of living in a new country while also meeting the demands of a challenging job quite satisfying. At times, I am even downright content. Now that we have internet in our home, I can finally get back to the business of writing regular blogs.
There are so many things to write about and yet I’ve no idea where to begin. I have journal entries and blog drafts about many of my experiences since our arrival here in late August, yet the task of organizing every bit of information and putting it in chronological and coherent order is a bit daunting to think of at this moment, a Sunday evening. Since prepping for the coming week’s classes is foremost in my mind, I think I will write about my classes.
Chung Dahm is one of the better established English Language academies in S. Korea, which basically means its employees can count on getting paid regularly. The Pyeonchong branch, where I work, is located on Hogwanga Rd. It is called Hogwanga Rd. because it is lined with Hogwangs – or cram schools, of which Chung Dahm is a variety. And not only are their Howangs on both sides of the street for several blocks, they are als stacked one above the other for several stories.
Every night on my walk to and from the school, I see hundreds of Korean School children being dropped off in cabs or shuttles or getting off of city busses to rush to class. I also see a fair amount of foreigners too, who are almost always English teachers.
I teach five different levels of English classes. Two of the levels I teach are known as Memory Classes and are geared for elementary school students. These two memory classes are Memory Mega and Memory Tera. There is one level between these two classes, which I do not at this time teach; Memory Giga.
Since children in S. Korea do not begin school until age seven or even eight, elementary school students here are a bit older than elementary school children in America. I sometimes have difficulty remembering I am dealing with eleven and twelve-year-olds, especially when they are so petite of stature, and find the personality of most Memory students to be a curious mix of precociousness and naivety.
Memory level classes are generally fast paced, have several components and involve a good deal of student management. As a result, I am getting a crash course in edutainment. My Mega students are reading about Elian Gonzales while my Tera students are reading about “Extreme Science Jobs.”
The reason these levels are called “memory” is that a large component of each class is dedicated to memorization. I have my memory students twice a week, and each time we meet, they have a model summary they are expected to memorize. The first class period of each week they are tested on their memorization. Memory students also learn about skimming, annotating and scanning.
My memory classes begin at 4:30 PM and end at 7:30 PM sharp. There is one five-minute break every hour, the first of which I am required to take each students temperature (Chung Dahm’s response to fears over S1N1). My Memory Mega class meets on Mondays and Wednesdays while my Memory Tera class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I do not have a Memory Class on Fridays.
I also teach three reading classes, which are geared towards middle-school students (ages 14-16), and meet from 7:30 to 10:30 PM. Monday nights is Bridge Reading, in which we are learning about symbiosis, Tuesday and Wednesday nights are Birdie Reading, in which we are learning about immigration, and finally, on Friday nights, PAR reading, in which we are discussing the fascinating subject of Global Communication. I do not teach a reading class on Thursday nights.
The other reading levels available to students are all above PAR and include Eagle, Albatross and Albatross Plus, none of which I am teaching this term.
Students in reading classes are notoriously tight lipped, sullen and self-conscious, as may be expected from any group of people in this age group. It takes a considerable amount of silliness to get a reaction out of many of them, yet they are able to smile (though they prefer teachers not know this). There are also a few charming, gregarious and bright middle schoolers who make working with middle schoolers all worthwhile.
For all my classes, I use stickers as bribes, which works on all but the most stubborn of sullen students. We can also award “Bonus Tickets” for perfect scores and completing all homework. Students can use Bonus Tickets to increase their test scores by a few points.
The staff at Chung Dahm is composed entirely of Korean people who are good enough tolerate us foreigners. They try to help us, though I suspect we are mostly hopeless. They speak primarily Korean, which can make it difficult to get one’s point across, but with enough pointing, pantomime, drawing and a few key phrases, we all manage to get the kids where they need to go and see that their parents are well enough informed.
Our Faculty Manager is, in my opinion, Pyeongchon branch’s greatest asset at this time. He is conscientious, gets things done and has so far been a pleasure to work with. I have found in him exactly the level of support and freedom I have needed to learn my job and get along at Chung Dahm these past five weeks. While there is still much, much more to learn, I am eager to meet the daily challenge and am every day glad I came to South Korea for this adventure.
Until next time…
Fourth Saturday
I’ve been in South Korea for about three and a half weeks now and so much has happened in that time that I hardly know where to begin. This is the first time I’ve really had time to reflect on my experiences so far and formulate any kind of real opinion. Up until this moment, I’ve had to rely on quick reactions and sometimes very basic survival skills. I’ve met some great people and a couple of real assholes too; faced overwhelmed, overworked students whose accents are so strong I could not understand them; gotten up in the early hours of morning to prep for classes; and wished a million times I had not left my comfortable home in Albuquerque. But I persevere and have even begun to feel like I can make a place for myself here, even if only for a year. This belief is drastically different from the one I held only three days ago when I was certain I would have a nervous breakdown If I didn’t have a plane ticket back home in my hands before the day was out. I really don’t know how I moved through those feelings except by paying close attention to my breath and reminding myself that nothing and no one here can truly hurt me. I look forward to sharing some of the details of my first three weeks here as some of them are truly hilarious and some quite frightening. The best part is that these are my own true experiences of my own real-life adventure.
Thanks to everyone for your continued support and messages of encouragement. You have no idea how truly helpful they have been!!!
New Address
Many, many people have asked for our new address, and here it is…
Kyunggi-do Anyang-si Dongan-gu Gwanyan-dong 1598-1 Trebell officetel Apt.
517
DO means Province
Si means City
Gu means District
Dong means Neighborhood
Latest from Pyeongchon
It’s 3:21 PM, September 11th S. Korea time and I’m sitting in my classroom (Rm. 504) at Chung Dahm. I have only one class to teach tonight and it does not begin until 7:30 PM.
This week has been quite an emotional roller coaster for me and there have been moments when I positively hated S. Korea. I have shed some bitter, bitter tears but I’ve had some pretty hilarious laughter too, thanks mostly to a woman I’ve met here who started the same day as Gary and I.
Everyone here says that the fist week is the hardest and assures me that each week gets a little better and a little easier. It hasn’t helped that we’v had to commute daily from Gangnam this first week, which involves taking the green line (2) to Sadang where we transfer to the blue line (4) to Beongmye where we have to catch the 03 or 10-2 bus to the school. On a good day, the commute takes about 50 minutes, and on any given day, there are at least three opportunities to get turned around and lost on this route. After four days of this commute, I think I can do it on my own – but alas, we are moving again on Saturday to Peyongchon and will have to learn a whole new route. Fortunately our offic-tel is only 10 minutes from our school.
While there is still so much to catch up on, I have to run and prep for my class. I hope I will find time to write more this weekend.
Very Quick Update from Seoul
We’ve been moved from the Casa Ville hotel in Samsung to the CoAtel in Gangnam Seoul and while we do not have a place to live yet, we are meeting with our real estate agent Monday morning. We will be working at the Chuung Dahm branch in Pyeongchon, just twenty minutes south of Seoul city limits. Right now, it takes about an hour to get from our hotel to our school, but we should be able to find a house (villa or officetel) within ten minutes of our branch.
Yesterday we visited our branch school, met our branch manager and a couple of head instructors, which did a lot to calm my nerves. It appears we will be in a pretty supportive environment and will get lots of tips and constructive advice about our preparation and delivery of lessons.
Gary and I are spending the afternoon prepping and practicing our classes, so I’ll have to go for now. I just wanted to post a little something so everyone would know we are alive and survived our training (not everyone passed).
Until next time…
