Hi. It's been almost a month since my last post; time has grown wings. I imagined a clock sprouting wings and terrorizing a bunch of people by reminding them that it simply won't stand still.
What I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry for the delay in posting. I have to admit, my blog note-keeping has been less than exemplary. Nevertheless, I have still been writing sporadically - especially when something memorable happens - so you'll get a condensed version of the month's most exciting events. It's like when you're reading a book or watching a movie: you didn't pay the price of admission to watch Iron Man trim his beard. Unless you were hoping to see that... Be forewarned, there will be no beard trimming in this blog. Okay. Let's get started. The week of Nov 11-17 was unfortunately unusually uneventful. I taught children, spent time with friends and co-workers, and went to dance class. Nov 19 was the three-month-iversary of my existence in Korea. I watched the Cowboy Bebop episode called "Hard Luck Woman", so my evening was similar to Auri's third day in The Slow Regard of Silent Things. On that day, I also learned that the Korean word for apple is the same word as apology. So when someone with a terrible sense of humour has done something that warrants an apology, they'll give an apple to whomever they wronged. But according to Talk to Me In Korean, it's a rather silly thing to do. Which means it's how I'll be apologizing to everyone from now on. I've found that giving/receiving food or sharing a meal with someone has special significance here. The kids at work give the teachers little candies when they're happy. Even the adults do it occasionally. I've started carrying around an orange in my backpack so that I can give it to someone if they're nice or if they need food. I think it's an endearing cultural quirk. On the bus ride home on Nov 20, the young man sitting beside me was listening to Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen songs so loudly that I could distinctly hear which songs were playing... through his earbuds. His poor eardrums. I would never have guessed that he'd listen to those artists based purely on the way he looks, though. It reminded me to always open and read a book before judging its contents. That's how the idiom goes, right? Nov 22 was the first day of Korean lessons with Joe! He's an excellent language teacher. He's patient and always waits a long time for me to figure out how to say something. We went to a coffee shop called A Twosome Place. To be honest, I don't fully understand why it's named that. Is it because it's wholesome? Or maybe there always has to be an even number of people in the building? Regardless, it was really nice to be given "homework" for Korean instead of just teaching myself. I'm excited for our future classes. Sun Nov 25 was another morning Korean lesson with Joe and a cup of joe. We went to Suyu and wandered around a bit before settling into a small cafe. We wrote about feet and I learned a foot idiom: if you say someone has wide feet, it means they know many people. Listened to Electric Light Orchestra on the train, notably their song "Bluebird", then went swing dancing at a new bar called Fiesta. I met more people there! The three that I connected best with were 호석 (Hosok), El, and a young man who was born in the same year as me and also has a degree in microbiology and also is named Optimus Prime. Going out for drinks with them was the most immersive and authentic Korean experience I've had so far. There were no other foreigners, and everyone was drinking soju and beer and eating traditional Korean food. There was samgyeopsal, tteokbokki, raw oyster, spicy noodle soup. I had some difficulty picking up the rice tubes in the tteokbokki... Also... I broke a glass trying to make "Korean style" somek, which is a combination of soju and beer that is mixed by banging two chopsticks together in the glass. The week of Nov 26-30 was the last week I'd have with this batch of kids. During that week, I had many phone calls to make. We are required to make a phone call to each of our students so they can practice speaking English over the phone. For the beginner-level students, we usually ask them to read a passage from the story books that we do in class so it's structured and not stressful for them. But for the higher-level students, we can have an almost-normal conversation with them about almost anything. The trick is trying to pick something that they'll actually want to talk about. On Tuesday, I called one of my students (we'll call him KM) and we talked about traveling and what he thought of Avalon/LangCon. Funnily enough, he accused me of not bringing the class enough snacks. By coincidence, Friday was the unofficial "snack day" at our campus; the foreign teachers typically bring snacks for all their classes on the last day to make it more enjoyable and memorable for the students. But when I told KM this, he said he wouldn't be there on Friday! Wednesday was his last day. So on Wednesday after class, I asked him to wait outside the staff room and I came back out with a chocolate bar for him. He said thanks and bowed. On Friday, I found out that I'll be teaching older kids next semester, which I am terribly excited about. I connected better with the older kids than the younger ones, so I'm excited to see what happens. That's it for now, but I have a feeling that the post for December is going to be long. Maybe even very long. Many things have happened already and still more are brewing... The most highly anticipated of which is the reunion of A^2 in a couple of weeks. Talk to (at?) you later, fellow humans. Please feel free to message me anytime. I'd prefer a dialogue over this seeming-monologue any day.
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AuthorAshley is a Canadian teaching English in South Korea. Although between the Korean, swing dancing, and general life skills, she's probably learning more than she's teaching. Archives
June 2019
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