One more year...

It's official, I signed a new contract to remain in Korea and teach for one more year. I will be here through February of 2011. As of right now I will not be teaching at the same school next year. While nothing is official, I have been recruited by my old Vice Principal to come teach at his new school which is on Yeong-do Island, about 15 minutes from my current school. The school is called Yeong-do Elementary and is very nice. I am looking forward to a new challenge and getting to know my new students and co-workers. Here is the school's website: http://yeongdo.es.kr/

This website also has some good pictures of the school: http://www.encyber.com/comm/board/bl_view_all.php?idxNo=28767&tid=travelkorea#photo10

I am working on plans to return home for a visit around the 1st of February but nothing has been finalized yet. I will keep everyone posted on the details.

Indonesia!

My winter vacation plans are finally set. I will be spending almost 3 weeks traveling throughout the islands of Indonesia. I am flying into Bali on January 11th and won't return to Korea until January 31st.

I will be island hopping through the Lesser Sunda's which are in Southeast Indonesia.

The first stop is the island of Bali. I have already reserved the lounge chairs closest to the lifeguard shack.

This volcanic lake is on the island of Flores. There are three of these colored lakes right next to each other. Flores is also home to the "Flores Man" which is a species of human that was discovered in 2003, known to be one of the smallest human species.

This is the island of Komodo. Home to the Komodo dragon which is the largest lizard on earth. It only lives on this island and the island of Rinca right next door.

Komodo's can grow to up to 10 feet long and weigh up to 150 pounds. I am planning on spending a few days here walking amongst the dragons and seeing them in their natural environment. They don't typically attack humans but I will definitely use a guide just in case.

These are the Gili Islands. Three, tiny island off the coast of Lombok. They are renowned for their peace and quiet (there are no motorized vehicles allowed), the rasta vibe, the white sand beaches and the fantastic snorkeling and diving.

One of the beaches on Gili. It's gonna be tough to come back to Korea after spending almost a month lounging at places like this!

I feel very blessed to be able to travel to these amazing places and see what life is like in other parts of the world. I look forward to sharing my memories of this adventure with you when I return!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to wish all of my family and friends a very Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are all enjoying some great food, great company and perhaps a little football. I am very thankful to have such amazing family and friends in my life and I feel very blessed in many ways. I hope all of you are well and I look forward to connecting with each of you soon!

Mountain Getaway

I love Busan and living in the city, but I definitely miss the peace and quiet that the mountains provide. Since I hadn't left Busan in a few months, some friends and I decided to spend the weekend in the mountains recharging our batteries. We decided to head to a town called Benegol which is about an hour from Busan by train and bus. My friend Jess researched the area and reserved a pension (rental house) for us to stay in for the weekend. We spent the weekend playing games, laughing, telling stories, lounging, eating and most importantly...relaxing! Two of the people that came are from NC. One of them went to Appalachian and one went to Western. Below are a few highlights of the trip.

The whole gang, minus myself. Carlos, Jess, Jill, Billy and Luna.

Jill, being from LA had never seen a haystack before. She was more than willing to hop on top of this one for a few pictures.

She is also obsessed with apples and eats several everyday but she had never seen an apple growing on a tree. I had never seen someone so happy about picking an apple. The owners of the orchard ended up giving her 5 free apples because she was so excited. It's the little things in life that bring the most joy.

This is the village where our pension was located. Looks a lot like Western NC, huh?

It was a great weekend with great friends. The next time I leave Busan, I will be going to Indonesia for my winter vacation! More on this to come.

Hiking with Co-Workers

Every so often here in Korea, each school's teacher will leave work early and have some sort of outing. It helps keep the morale of the teachers high and gives them a chance to socialize outside of a work setting. Each teacher pays a certain amount of money each semester to cover the costs of the outings which usually include dinner and lots of drinking. This past Friday we all left school at 3pm to go hiking near Dadaepo Beach. Dadaepo is one of my favorite spots in Korea for many reasons and the hiking we did there just added to that list. We hiked about 20 minutes down to small pebble beach and spent an hour chatting, laughing, playing games and skipping rocks.

A lot of trails in Korea aren't very rugged. As you can tell this one is paved. Kind of takes the fun away but most of the avid hikers in Korea are very old so I guess they appreciate it.

This is most of the group on the beach. This was supposed to be a "crazy pose" picture. Looks pretty tame to me.

This is Myungoon's "sexy man" pose. As soon as he did this, Mina ( a female teacher) looked at me and said "Myungoon's sexy is broken." How funny is that!

Mrs. Wie (my co teacher), Me, Mr. Beh, UnJoung, cant remember her name. When I first met Mrs. Wie, I asked her what I should call her. She said you can call me Mrs. Wie. I thought this was strange considering we are basically the same age but I went with it. I told her she can call me Aaron, not Mr. Osteen which would be weird.

Who doesn't love skipping rocks? Myungoon was like the Michael Jordan of rock skipping. His went forever. I challenged him to a skip off and he embarassed me!

This game was pretty simple. Whoever breaks the beer bottle with a rock is the winner. This game was stopped abrubtly when our principal finally arived.

PROTEST!

My school is involved in a David vs. Goliath battle right now with Dong-A University. The university, which is right next to my school is constructing a new building. This ordinarily wouldn't be a big deal, but the new building is going to completely block the sun from hitting most of my school and will block the sun from hitting the 3rd and 5th grade building entirely. Once the building plan was revealed, my school officials and parents started the process of fighting the university. They are filing a lawsuit (on what grounds I'm not sure), they held a huge Q&A with the university officials (I attended and it got really heated), my school has posted signs proclaiming their distaste for the university, and the parents protest with signs outside the building site everyday. The university isn't breaking any laws as far as I know, but the parents are more concerned with how the morale of their children will be affected by studying and playing in the shade all day.

One of the many signs around my school. I am not sure what it says but I know it isn't promoting Dong-A University in any positive manner.

You can see the building site directly behind the 3rd and 5th grade building (the tan building on the right).

The parents were out in full force this morning. There were around 45 of them and this time they wore masks with an "X" on them.

Either the parents don't work or they have very forgiving bosses.

Trash Day at Bumin...

Every Thursday is trash day at my school. Since there are no janitors here, the students are in charge of emptying each classroom's trash and recycling. The same three girls have been taking my trash every Thursday since I got here. The kids are also in charge of cleaning the school and are each given daily chores. I think it's genius. Not only is the government saving money by not hiring full time janitors, but they are teaching the kids responsibility at the same time.

This is Jason. If I had to peg one student to be the next president of Korea, it would be him. I taught his 6th grade class the game "duck duck goose" the other day. Everyone had been the goose except for one girl who none of the kids like. No one would even touch her head as they passed by her. I whispered to Jason that he would be the duck last and that he should pick her. He didn't ask me questions, he just smiled and said OK and when he picked her he made sure to make good contact. It made her day that the most popular kid in school chose her.

These little guys are in 1st grade.

These 6th graders had to sweep the dirt off the pathways around the playground this morning. Check out those brooms they use. I expect Harry Potter and the Wicked Witch of the West to come back for those any day now.

I'm in the news!

Yesterday a few of my students came by my office and told me I was in the newspaper. They opened it up and sure enough there was a picture of me. The article is about my school and I have no idea what it says. Since I am in it I would venture to guess that's it's about our English program. Even though the picture is small, its still pretty cool to be in a Korean newspaper.

These aren't the students who brought me the paper, but they were more than happy to reenact the moment.

Where is Aaron Teacher?

The article. The second part of the title says Bumin Elementary School. That's about all I can understand.

A blown up version just in case anyone doubted me.

HORSE!

A few weeks ago I bought a basketball with the hopes that I would find a court and start playing again. As luck would have it, there are two courts within a 5 minute walk of my apartment. On Sunday, Jill and I decided to go and play a friendly game of HORSE. Has anyone ever wondered why the game is called HORSE and not a word that is slightly more relevant? I guess you could substitute HORSE for any word you wanted to, like CONUNDRUM or SCHENANIGANS. For those of you who are not familiar with this particular game, let me enlighten you. Horse is played with two people. The first person shoots from a location they select on the court. If that person makes the shot, the second person must make the same shot or will inherit an "H". If the first person misses the shot, then the second person gets a chance to take any shot they want. This trend continues until one person spells out HORSE and loses. Since Jill hasn't played basketball in a while, I was a gentleman and altered the rules a tad in order to make it slightly more fair. Our rules were as follows: if her shot touched the rim, it was considered a make. I would then have to make the same shot in order to not collect a letter. If her shot went in, I would have to swish the ball in order not to collect a letter. She was actually a lot better than she gave herself credit for and ended up beating me. There will be a rematch! While we were playing, a few of my students and their Mom walked by the court and gave me a big slice of rice cake she had in her purse. I don't like rice cake, but it's always nice to see how much they appreciate us being here and teaching their kids.

Who's the big winner?

What fun is HORSE without a little creativity? In case you were wondering, I made it.

Fireworks Festival Extravaganza!

What do you get when you combine a million people, great friends, the beach and a 45 minute fireworks show? A phenomenal time, that's what. The annual Gwangali Fireworks festival is the largest fireworks show in Korea. It's 45 minutes of ridiculous fireworks, lasers and lights put to random English songs. Included in the show were; "Heal the World" by Michael Jackson, "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and my personal favorite "Let This Be Our Prayer" by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli. For my money it doesn't get any better than when those two get together on a track (insert sarcasm). We had to arrive about 4 hours before the show started in order to get a good seat on the beach. The whole thing was a logistical nightmare and would not have flied in the US. I was very surprised that no one got trampled in the mass chaos. The show was amazing and was by far the most incredible fireworks display I had ever seen.

The show opened with 2001: A Space Odyssey. I would like to personally thank Jill for her amazing video taking skills. Without her steady hand and masterful technique, this video wouldn't have been possible. Thanks Jill!!

Our group about 3 hours before the show started. I already had to urinate and somehow held it until the show ended almost 4 hours later. Perfect example of perseverance. As a cultural side note, Taylor, the guy right behind me and his girlfriend just to his right are wearing the same sweatshirt. This phenomina is called "couple tees" here in Korea and is commonly practiced amongst young couples.

This picture was also taken about 3 hours before the show. As you can see the beach was already packed and thats only half of the people that actually came. People were getting creative with their seating arrangements. If any amount of sand was visible, the Koreans would try to fit a few people onto it. We had to defend our territory a few times when Koreans would just come and plop down in our area.

Meet my Students...Part 2

It's time to meet some more awesome students from Bumin Elementary. Get excited! I am going to try and interview the next batch of students and film it to post on here. They get pretty shy when the video camera is around so we will see how it goes.

On the left: Nicole (6th grade). On the right: Songleep (6th Grade)

Obviously Nicole is a girl's name in the US but it must not be in Korea. When Ali came to visit, she met Nicole and when I asked what she thought about him, she was surprised he was a boy. He is probably the most masculine 6th grader in my school, and is also the goalkeeper for my school's soccer team, so we have that in common. He comes by my office everyday and we watch soccer videos and chat about how soccer is going for him. Songleep is a poster child for ADHD. He can't sit still for more than 5 seconds. He is a good kid but likes attention and will do whatever it takes to get it.

This is JeeWon. She is in 6th grade. She is one of the more popular 6th grade girls. Songleep has a huge crush on her and they sit together during English class. She claims to have no interest in him, and I believe her. She is also in my pop song class that I teach every Friday after lunch. Her English level is one of the highest at my school.

This little girl comes with a great story. No matter how hard I try, I can never remember her name. I have learned so many names, both English and Korean but hers fails me every time for some reason. During English camp this summer, she got annoyed that I was always asking for her name, so she told me I could call her "no name." I thought that was very clever. But it came with a stipulation. That being, she could call me "no hair." It's worked out so far.

This is Wendy. She is in 6th grade. She has a brother, Teju, who is in 3rd grade. I have been over to their house for dinner twice and absolutely love her parents. They also have a girl from Rwanda living with them that is going to school in Korea. Wendy and her family visited Africa last year and Wendy will be going back for a month this winter. She has a pet hedgehog named, Pizza.

This is Yoobin. He is in 5th grade and is also in my pop song class. I have no idea why he painted cat whiskers on his face that day. He is a very smart kid who speaks English and Chinese very well. He is the only student in the pop song class that sings at the top of his lungs every time. The rest of them are too cool to sing sometimes.

These little guys are in 2nd grade. Once a week, they wait for me outside my office after lunch and we read a book. None of them speak English so they can't understand what I am reading but we act out the scenes and have fun anyways.

Bumin Elementary Broadcasting

When I was in elementary school, Mr. Green got on the PA every morning to do the announcements. We could hear everything he said loud and clear but with no visual. Leave it to the Korean educational system to change that. Here, most schools are equipped with a fully functional broadcasting booth. I have never been on the set of a news station but I can imagine it would look similar to my schools broadcasting set up. Every morning, the school representatives and the principals are broadcast on every TV in the school. I was just informed this week, that in two weeks, it will be my turn to speak to the students through the broadcast. Should be interesting. I don't foresee these being added to the school budget in the US anytime soon.

Is a little peace and quiet too much to ask?

It's a good thing that my workload isn't that big because I would never get anything done. My office/English library is crawling with kids all day. Some of them want to talk to me and are genuinely interested in improving their English ability. However, most of them just use the library as their own personal playground. I love all of my students and I am by far the most lenient teacher in my school, which makes sense for a few obvious reasons. One, I don't speak Korean nearly well enough to control the kids. Two, my relationship with the kids is much more liberal than with their Korean teachers. Lastly, I am new to teaching and haven't figured out where to draw the line between teacher and the fun foreign guy. After 8 months of craziness and no peace and quiet, I have finally taken charge and put an end to the madness. I probably give the kids more credit than they deserve, but I wanted to deliver my message in a personalized way. So, I drafted a giant letter and had my co teacher translate it into Korean so the kids could understand it. I was a little skeptical that it would work but it did the trick. When the kids would read it, they would come up to me and tell me how sorry they were. I no longer have a carnival inside my office but here's a video to give you an idea of what it was like. Keep in mind that this was a rather mild day!

Here's the magic letter. A little guilt trip goes a long way I guess. Click on the picture for a larger version.

Meet My Students...Part 1

Every week or so I am going to feature a few of my students on my blog. They are the reason I get up everyday to do what I do and there is never a dull moment through out the day because of them. When I first got here I thought all the kids looked the same and I worried that I would never be able to tell them apart. As time passed though I started to recognize their differences and watched in amazement as each of their little personalities came out. Each of them are unique and I have developed a bond with so many of them. Since they are my biggest fans over here and keep me smiling throughout the day, I wanted you to meet them. So, here is the first batch of profiles. Keep in mind that I try my best not to chose favorites, but anyone who has taught before knows how difficult that is. I hope you enjoy reading about these little guys as much as I enjoy teaching them.

This is Christina. She is in 3rd grade. She has been going to an English academy since she was 5 so she speaks English very well. We are able to have normal conversations. She is in the group that waits for me outside the cafeteria everyday. 1/4 of the Korean words I have learned, she has taught me. She hates to have her picture taken, and I had to convince her I wouldn't show it to anyone. So, mums the word!

This is SoHyun. She is in 2nd grade. Even though I don't teach 2nd grade, she always comes out to give me a big hug when I walk past her classroom. She is smaller than most of the 1st graders but has a very commanding personality. She isn't at all camera shy.

This is Choi. He is in 3rd grade. He is by far the most talented baseball player in my school. He pitches better and throws harder than every 6th grader. He is a shy kid but isn't afraid to let lose when the camera is around. I posted an edited version of this picture on my Flickr page and it has become quite popular.

This is Karl. He is in 6th grade and is definitely one of my favorites. He is a popular kid with lots of friends and is a pretty good ball player. I like him because he comes in and says hello everyday but he never outstays his welcome. He is one of the few students that can recognize that I am busy and need to be left alone to get my work done without me saying something.

This is Jimmy. He is in 4th grade. He spends the most time with me out of any student. He is quiet, unassuming and is the perfect student. Everyday, he waits for me to finish lunch, then walks with me to my office. He also spends about 2 hours with me after school lets out, just watching whatever I am doing. If I am busy, he will just sit quietly next to me and usually when I am done we will read a book or chat. If I get up to get water, or go somewhere, he goes with me. He is like my little protege. He speaks English very well and we can have fairly normal conversations.

Lunch Time at Bumin Elementary

Lunch time in Korea is slightly different than I experienced growing up. Most of the students here eat in their classrooms at their desks. A few parents rotate coming in to help serve the students their lunch and clean up afterwards. The 3rd and 5th grade building is separate from the main school so those students eat at one of our two cafeterias in the main building. I eat with the 3rd graders everyday which is awesome since they are my favorite. They do everything for me. They get me water, napkins, more rice, whatever I need they love getting it for me. I also have a clan of them that wait for me to finish eating so they can walk with me to my office. Yesterday I took my camera into my favorite 1st grade class during lunch. I apologize for the shaky video but they cling to me like monkeys. Enjoy your first Korean lunch experience.

Day Trip w/ my Teacher Class

This post is about 3 months too late but I am struggling for blogging ideas today (and it's only the first day of my challenge!). Every Tuesday and Thursday I teach my co workers English. So, as a token of their appreciation a few of them took me to lunch on June 23rd ( I told you I am late). We all met at school and drove about 1 1/2 hours north of Busan to the restaurant they had chosen. We ate steamed duck which was cooked in a pumpkin. It was one of the best meals I have had since I've been here. After lunch we drove another hour to the city of Ulsan and had coffee on some cliffs overlooking the Sea of Japan. They speak English pretty well and can understand most of what I say, although sometimes they still nod like they understand even though I'm pretty sure they are really confused.

From left to right: Shining, Ji Young, myself, Mina, Candy. For the record, they asked me to squat down like this so I didn't make them look so short.

Our group minus Ji Young who was taking the picture. You can see the pumpkin filled with duck, delicious.

This is a traditional Korean game. I have no idea what it is called but the idea is to throw the sticks into the big piece of bamboo.

Mina challenged me to a game. It looked really easy since you stand like 3 feet from the bamboo but I assure you it wasn't. I am not afraid to admit that she beat me, but if you look closely at this picture, her foot is clearly over the throwing line. Next time the two of us are around this game, there will be a rematch.

Ji Young made this collage of our outing. The upper left picture is a man smacking some rice with a giant mallet to make rice cake, which just happens to be my least favorite Korean food.