the secret to being a good teacher:

I think it's just as important to know now what you knew then.

so many people forget the things that made them great when they were young. theyre too busy thinking about all of things they didnt know then that tey ignore the things they did know.



some of my students are really competitive.
"i dont know if its a fruit or a vegetable. but you put it in-
"YOUR MOUTH."

I Walk Like I Know What I'm Doing and I Like Where I'm Going.

And there you have it, Ladies and Gents, 6 months in Korea. I have reached the halfway mark and am still employed and loving it. Amazing.

Let's see. In six months, how have I changed?

`I listen a lot more now.
`I speak slowly and clearly.
`Crazy doesn't bother me.
`Spiders don't bother me.
`Everything is funny.
`I use question marks at inappropriate times?
`I'm 11 kilos lighter.
`I eat fish. And all manner of things with tentacles.
`I cook every day. Sometimes it's even edible.
`I have added 'Teacher' to my first name.
`Narky's not so bad.
`I can find my own sales.
`I stopped getting yelled at.

Life is good. It's not really half done. I'm definitely staying.

Predictions for July:
1.) My roommate finally shows up.
2.) Hong Kong is awesome.
3.) ivleague teaches my classes while I'm gone and finds a way to throw me under the bus.
4.) My turn never really comes back around cause they'll be too busy breaking in that new girl.
5.) They start getting on me to sign another contract.



Oh Lord. Six Months... The things I have learned since I got here on New Year's... incredible.

There's a monster thunderstorm going down right now. Like 3 seconds between light and sound. It's midnight on our way into July. This is gonna be a good month. It's a sign.

Nope. Not Pub Talk.

We actually did it. We hopped a morning bus headed for Seoul after a night of partying. The bus seats were so uncomfortable, it's a wonder anyone could ever sleep in one. Or so the boys say. I slept the whole way. It was wonderful. I have a gift.

We couldn't check into our hostel until 3pm so we had to find something to occupy the rest of our morning. Greek lunch was the answer. First order of business was hopping the metro out to the hostel to drop off some stuff and then moving onto Itaewon for some excellent gyros. Not quite up to snuff, but not bad for being made outside of Cyprus.

The first thing California did was get himself stuck in the Metro doors. He was the last one on and I turned around to see him standing with his back to the door. They had caught him in between his back and his bag and he was just standing there. I guess he still hadn't recovered. "I can't even touch this right now." He seemed totally resigned to just wait until the metro got to the next stop to free himself. I took one look at the situation and laughed my face off. It beat Angela's hand in the elevator by a long shot. New Guy was just staring as if that would help. Not that I was any better. My laughter was filling up the whole car and Cali was still standing there stuck, like this is the fate of the rest of my day. Stuck in the metro door.

Lucky for him, metros don't take off if the doors aren't closed properly. It was just the kind of pick me up I needed. Good morning.

Unfortunately New Guy's girls weren't in town, but I'm hoping that our demonstration of "just go" was enough motivation. Maybe he saw that it can be done. Going to Seoul is easy.

After Greek, we headed hostel ways to nap it off and woke up just in time for Korea's World Cup Game. Their final one this year, sadly. World Cup fun is over here. But watching it at the Mexican place was pretty awesome. The best part of going to Seoul is eating all of the food you can't get in Gwangju.

The ride back to the hostel was mostly uneventful, but near the end, I noticed the guys in the other car swatting mosquitos. The boys and I were chuckling at such foolishness, when I happened to look up and see that the ceiling of our car was covered. Cali didn't take his eyes off the ceiling for the rest of the ride. He started scratching as if they were biting him. Which made several other people in the car scratch as well. The power of suggestion: crossing barriers both cultural and lingual.

Even though I had slept away the afternoon, I fell into bed and passed right out once we got to the Guest House. And yes, I did manage to sleep through the night. I told you. I have a gift.

"This Sounds Like Pub Talk."

I met up with Boys' Team for a most excellent night of friday celebrating that included chicken, beer, belligerent drunks (not us), and fries and finished off with an early morning trip to Seoul.

After spending a few weeks trying to find some Korean friends for New Guy (he doesn't have any yet (and he whines about it)) we learned tonight that New Guy met a few people at a bar a few weeks ago who wanted to be friends and introduce him to a few of their lady friends. Only problem? Those ladies all live in Seoul. Of course they do. Nothing's that easy.

So while listening to him lament the tragedy that is his loveless life due to geographical differences, I suddenly saw the light. I guess California saw it, too, cause fortunately for me, he spoke up first.

C: "We'll go to Seoul."
N: "We should."
E: "I'm going to Seoul in the morning."
C: "When did you plan that?"
E: "Two seconds ago when you said we should do it."
N: "Yeah, go to Seoul and meet up with girls!"
E: "Why not? We'll be there anyway."
C: "So we're going to Seoul?"
E: "Yup. When do you guys want to leave?"
N: "I dunno... This sounds an awful lot like pub talk..."
E: "Course it does. We're in a pub. Let's do it."
C: "Finish this pitcher then- what?- meet up in an hour?"


I went home to shower and pack and then it was off to Seoul. It was 7am and I slept the whole bus ride. It was great.

It's so rare that friday celebrations lead to saturday morning adventures as excellent as this one. Pub talk? We'll see.

That's Just How We Red Teddy Bears Do.

This week my Red Teddy Bears have been defying authority and showing up to class with mismatched socks. It started out with just one, but now it's all three. They were so excited that first day when they pointed to my socks and said "Teacher! Socks no match." Well. I had to put a stop to that.

"No. Say, 'Teacher, your socks don't match.'"

Now they are wearing their socks the same way and buying matching pencil cases. Matching to me, that is. I have a green one that says "Are you smiling?" and now they each have one, too, in different colors. They're dressing like me, talking like me and now shopping like me. This is gonna be one mad crazy school in a few months. Someone should turn these kids loose in America.

I feel like this could go either way at this point. The true test of my job security, if you will. If they have no problem with me, they'll think it's cute and talk about it and giggle amongst themselves. If they're looking for a reason to fire me, then this is it.

Either way, it was worth it to walk into my class and hear my Red Teddy Bears say, "Teacher, look! Our socks don't match! We are the same."

Some Assembly Required.

Crap. And a screwdriver??

I bought a fan at E-Mart today, because I have found the end of my heat tolerance. I was so excited to get it home that I didn't even care that Shadow bought the same exact fan two weeks earlier for 10$ cheaper.

I got it home and cracked open the box. Man... That's a lot of pieces... and a lot of screws. It's okay. There are instructions. How hard can it be?

Oh yeeeah. They're in Korean. That makes sense.

Whatever. This is no time to start reading directions anyways.






Success. I played around with some of the knobs and dials since there appeared to be way too many turning pieces on this guy and discovered that my fan has a timer. How's that for energy conservation? I can never forget to turn it off. Well, I guess I can. But it won't matter.

I Don't Know if I Ever Mentioned the Boys and Their "Nanny Cam."

I'm willing to admit that my paranoia might have gotten a little out of hand back in January. That's not to say that there weren't cameras in Ruby's place- cause there definitely were- and I still believe we were videotaped during those two weeks. But I don't think that Jenn or I realized how our nanny cam situation might affect the boys. The boys thought they had one, too.

Miami had just come out of his room one day and happened to look up at the ceiling. In the corner he saw a black wire sticking out of the ceiling so- being shorter than most- he climbed up on a chair to investigate. He suspected he was looking right at a camera tube; just the kind that thieves use when breaking into safes.

He set to work slowly pulling it out of the hole in the ceiling where he had found it all while yelling for California to help him out. They needed a plan to get rid of this thing. 'How ridiculous is this family?!'

In the end, they had ripped it most of the way out of the ceiling before one of them happened to lean against one of the light switches on the wall. Turns out they were halfway through ripping out their ceiling lights.

Jenn and I should really be careful. We have a gift. I think we'd be real good at gathering mobs and inciting riots.

Great responsibility and all that...