The Kids Are Alright

I'm trying to encourage more open discussion in my Morning Kindergarten class these days. This is mainly so that I don't have to bore them for the first hour of their three hour class with flash cards. The other day Pinky put up her hand and said, "Teacher, can you make a bridge?" I said, "Pinky, a bridge? Why? How?"
"Teacher, you *uhhh* cut *uhhh* and *uhhh* tree *uhhh* and making bridge!"
"And where will the bridge go?"
"The bridge and *uhhh* and go in classroom!"
Suddenly, Jack put up his hand, "Teacher, you making Siberian Husky!" (He has two pet dogs.)
"What, a Siberian Husky, how am I going to do that?"
"From wood teacher..."
"Jack, where do you think dogs come from?"
"Making and cutting wood from tree and glue and then Siberian Husky...baby dog!"
"Well, Jack I'll see what I can do?"
Then Ken puts up his hand. He's a little scientist, "Teacher, you making a PERSON?"
I had to laugh, "Ken, a person, from wood?"
"Yes, Teacher, you cutting wood, arm, leg, head, making body and gluing, then..." he cups his hand in a ball and makes a buzzing sound, "...bzzz....bzzz....and person. You making person, me, Jack, Pinky..." Then he names every student in the class. I say, "Ken, you want me to make a person, just like everyone in the class, so that you'll all have friends to play with?" He says, "Yes, and a wood and it's VEEERRRRYY easy!"
"Ken, it's a bit more complicated than that, but I'll do my best; Monday morning I'll bring the clones in."
He seemed to be satisfied with that response, as was everyone in the class and they started playtime discussing what they would do with their clones when they arrived on Monday. Thankfully, the weekend seemed to erase their memory and I haven't heard a thing about it yet.

Cicadas

I had never heard one of these things until I came to Korea. My first real experience was at Tongdosa Temple, near Busan. There must've been thousands of them in the forests there. The noise was like a dentist's drill bit being remixed at a rave, incredible. So loud, I had to cover my ears as I walked past the trees that had to have been particularly infested. Anyways, I had no idea what they looked like, I saw one on the wall of the fifth story of a building in my neighborhood but I couldn't make out many details from the ground.

Just the other day, I cut through an alley behind a restaurant on my lunch break and there before me was a cicada. It stopped me dead in my tracks...imagine, it's one of those things that makes you say "HOLY SHIT! What the fuck is that thing?" under my breath and from five feet away. After the initial shock subsided, I got a little closer. It was like a gigantic fly, with an abdomen maybe 5 cm long and 2 cm thick, and transparent wings, littered with white veins, that stretched twice the length of it's body. It even had a face with gigantic multicolored eyes and it was looking at me. I kicked it! It screeched, did a little dance and flew away. I swear my heart skipped a beat.
BEASTS FROM HELL!

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Wesley Willis left us August 21, 2003...

Straight from the streets of Chicago arose Wesley Willis, the 350 pound paranoid schizophrenic, whose music makes Beck's "surrealistic" prose seem like Madonna during her Lucky Star days. Plagued by "demon voices," Willis armed with his Casio keyboard began to "whip a donkey's ass" while "rocking the nation." With themes ranging from SADDAM HUSSEIN to WHUPPING BATMAN'S ASS, Willis' well of material seems never ending. In this age of violent, hateful lyrics, Willis teaches us not to "bust people in the head," and to "keep your ass out of the metal clink."

Wesley Willis Fiasco!

http://www.cornerstoneras.com/bands/WWF/

Heinz is America's Favourite Ketchup!

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New Template

I'm working on making a new template, bare with me as it changes...

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Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea

Warehouse Anmok Beach Party

Last weekend was the Warehouse Beach Party. It was at Anmok Beach, one I hadn't been to yet, and was taken on a wild ride by my cab driver through downtown before finally arriving around 5pm. The party was already well underway, but the sun was still shining and we weren't banned from swimming yet.
They had set up a tent right down on the beach; Ras, Lee, Ryan and the two girl bartenders were working. I had a few beers, went swimming, hung out...it was nice just being on the beach. They served up free barbecued samgyeopsal. The no name brand gochujang was a bit runny, but damn good anyways, thanks to Melvin for being the official sauce holder for about an hour while searing his arm over the grill.
By that time, I was feeling a bit loopy and suddenly a mother appeared with one of my students, Jason....and his brother and their friend. After some small talk, I was left with Jason chasing me around for the next three hours...me with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other chased him back. He didn't say much, he seemed really excited to see me "in person" outside of the classroom and it was fun seeing him too, he's a good student.
About an hour later, the soldiers came by and shut down the beach. I mean, shut down the best part of the beach, by stringing a rope from one end to the other so we couldn't go down to the water. We now had only a few feet in front of the bar to stand. Then they made us take down the tent, but left the tables. Really a big hassle, but I guess North Korea could attack at any moment. There was about eight soldiers who spent the rest of the night hovering around our part of the beach, AK47's slung over their soldiers making sure we didn't step out of line.
A few ajeoshi's meandered in from the beach and started causing shit. Ras had to put one of them in his place. I don't really know what happened, just that he was trying to fight.
A little bit later, there was a limbo contest. Not entirely fair, as the stick was sitting on crates and moved down about a foot each time. By it's second position, I was out, although most of the girls did really well, especially Nae Kyong, who amazed me with her flexibility. A bunch of drunken Korean guys joined in on the fun, but were being stupid, and started pushing people over as they tried to go under the bar. Anyways, it was tequila shots for everyone afterwards...
The night wound down, the stars came out, it was time to go home...

Ice Skating

This morning I went on field trip to the Ice Rink with my Morning Kindergarten class. I love field trip days because it means I don't really have to teach all morning and can leave all the behavioral problems up to the Korean teachers. We finally managed to get to the rink at about 10:45....45 minutes into my morning which was good...those 45 mins were spent letting the kids have playtime while everyone else got everything ready for the trip.

Now I haven't bee ice skating in about 13 years and then only two times in my life, so I was a bit hesitant. I was really fearing bruises and ice cold hands, maybe losing a finger from an uncoordinated students stray blade. In the end I decided to do it anyways, and let me tell you I amazed myself. I only fell once, and then only because a kid was coming straight for me and couldn't stop. I got the hang of it after about 20 mins, I could turn and stop with no problems, I was even weaving cones they had placed on the ice. Alright!

Of course, there's always one student who's more uncoordinated than all the others (put together). For my class, this is Ken, he's a little scientist, whenever I ask him what he did on the weekend he always responds with "Me reading science books teacher." Ahhh...in my own likeness...Anyways, he must've fallen about a fifty times in a 45 minute period...poor kid, but he always go up with a smile on his face and snot dripping out of his nose...I kept telling him "Ken kohmuri nawa," (Ken, your nose is running!) which he reciprocated by wiping his sleeve across his face...

I should also mention that I'm being paid late again this time. Dammit! I really am not prepared to go through this shit again, she says she'll pay on Friday, so we'll see...

CBC Korea

Rachael is doing a story for CBC Radio St. Johns on her experiences in Korea. Episode 3 is now available online: http://stjohns.cbc.ca/morningshow/realaudio/20040805borlase-esl.ram

You'll need RealPlayer from www.realaudio.com

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Gangneung-si, Gangwon-do, South Korea

Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile. My holidays were good. Busan was nice and hot and my other three days back here in Gangneung were either spent here at the PC Room or lying on the beach.

Speaking of the PC Room, I've been redoing all my photo pages...so check them out if you're interested:
www.thesecondlayer.com/gallery/main.html
It's a helluva lot of work, so please enjoy...I've still got hundreds more to post up and I've used up all my storage quota on this domain. So I just purchased a second domain, using myself as the referral and recieved a bonus 100 megs on each account. I've now gone from 20 megs to 240megs and it's only costing me $45US a year, what a deal!

What's the new domain? Yes, that's an interesting question, I spent about an hour searching every possible domain name that I could ever want and they were all taken...dammit! I turned to my left and saw an ashtray...added the word bible and came up with www.ashtraybible.com
Don't go looking yet though, there's nothing on there...
BTW: That domain name is now for sale...$100US...as I all I really wanted was the bonus storage space I got for referring someone (in this case myself) to the site. Got to pay the bills somehow...

Don't forget the Warehouse Beach Party in 2 hours at Anmok beach!!! I'm ready to tear it up!

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