Update

Let me first apologize for my lack of blogs the past few weeks.  I am alive and well here in Korea.  During the past month I have become very comfortable with my life here as everyday activities have become much easier as I've adjusted to my new surroundings.  I will be taking my vacation in August and have after much deliberation, I have decided to spend 10 days island hopping in the Philippines.  Most of my friends are going to be backpacking in China or Japan, but I felt like 10 days in paradise lounging on white sand beaches would suit me just fine.  I will be spending 5 days in Bohol Island, more specifically Panglao Island, and 5 days in Boracay.   I have much to catch everyone up on so I will attempt to do that in this blog.

About two weeks ago we had "Teacher's Day" here in Korea. It is customary for students to bring their teachers gifts on that day. I received everything from balloons and candy to cards and incense. The cards are hilarious and I applaud their attempts at English but I couldn't help but get a good laugh from them. Most of the kids spelled my name wrong, which is okay since they don't pronounce my name correctly due to the lack of "R" sound in the Korean language. My personal favorite is the last one which is from a 6th grade girl, who asked what my blood type was, and also stated that she wonders about my body. Not quite sure where she is going with that. Some of them were written in Korean, but I will include some of my personal favorites of the English variety for your reading pleasure. Sorry some of them are sideways!

Every foreign English teacher has to have an "open class" each semester. This means that our principal, vice principal, head of faculty, Korean teachers from my school and other schools are all welcome to come view my class and I get evaluated by my administration. The Korean English teachers also have to have an open class so my co-teacher and I decided to combine ours and just have one big open class. For the past month my co-teacher has been preparing our lesson and for the most part had been a nervous wreck leading up to the actual class. She prepared all the activities, briefed the class we would be teaching and wrote a script for both of us to follow. Last Wednesday was the big day and I will just say that it couldn't have gone any better. In total, there were around 30 guests, included among them was the Head of English education for the Busan Office of Education. She gave me glowing reviews and asked if I would be willing to be featured on some upcoming English education CD's. A co-worker that was present took some pictures and I also have a video of it which is the most boring 40 minutes ever captured.

Last week I invited a couple of my 6th grade students to meet on Sunday at my school and play baseball. When I showed up I was met by 30 of my students with their bats and gloves in hand ready to play. Thankfully I had anticipated the turnout and brought enough snacks, drinks and watermelon for everyone. I split everyone into two teams and they played a 7 inning game while I umpired. A few of the boys were actually quite good. After we finished the game we sat down and enjoyed watermelon and other snacks. When I arrived at school on Monday I was bombarded with other kids that want to join the baseball group so it looks like this might turn into a regular deal.

Some of the baseball clan and I. The kid in the orange shirt and black hat is named Top, he is in 6th grade and is a very talented pitcher. The kid under my left arm is a phenomenal swimmer and is currently ranked in the top 10 swimmers in his age group in Korea.

Volleyball Update

Yesterday marked the start of the annual Busan Teachers Volleyball Tournament.  This tournament as I have been told numerous times over the past few weeks is a really big deal and is taken very seriously.  I have also been told numerous times that I am our school's only hope to win the championship this year.  At our staff meeting this past Monday, our Vice Principal was talking and the only word I could understand was "Eran" which is how they pronounce my name so I knew he was talking about me.  After he was done, the entire staff looked at me and starting clapping.  After some translation from my co-teacher, I learned he was telling everyone he was supremely confident in my ability to lead the team to the city championship and that he would be disappointed if that didn't happen.  Fast forward to Wednesday.  Our first match was against a school whose name I can't pronounce and which is about 2 times larger than my school (my school has 600 students and is big for my area).  Right before we left for the game, my co-teacher comes in my office to wish me luck and tells me that the rest of the teachers are going to watch and cheer us on.  As I walked into the other school's gym, I was shocked at what I saw.  The men's team were all under 40 years old (we have 4 over 50), had 4 players that were over 6' and one of them was at least 6'6". Considering I am by far our tallest player (and youngest), I knew it would be a long day.    Before the match started I was given a little brown bottle by one of the women teachers and was told it would help with my stamina.  It tasted like diesel fuel and I saw no increase in stamina.  The very first play I spiked the ball over their tallest player (thankfully he was only a body and couldn't jump very high) and the place erupted in celebration.  The very next play I blocked the same guys spike attempt for a point.  More celebration.  This trend continued throughout the first game and much to my surprise we won.  The second game started the same, with our team winning the first few points.  After a timeout, the other team smartened up and started to spike the ball on the opposite side of the court from me which was disastrous for our team.  We lost the second and third game, thus losing the match.  I was so disappointed that we didn't win, and even though I accounted for 90% of our points, I couldn't help but feel that I had let them down.  After the game, both the men's and women's teams went out to dinner.  We ate "seumgupsal" which is thinly sliced pork neck that is marinated with garlic.  This was significant since it was the first outing I was allowed to attend since my first week here.  Our next game is on May 20th, hopefully with a different result.

Field Day!

Last Friday was field day at my school. They call it "Undonghey" here and it translates to sports day. The entire week leading up to field day was filled with hours of practice with each grade. You would have thought they were training for the Olympics. All of the teachers (aside from me) were very busy all week and very much stressed out. Since I never have a clue what is going on until the last minute I really didn't know what to expect. I was expecting something close to what I had experienced in school with kids running around crazy and jumping from game to game with no sense of order and no mandatory participation required. What I witnessed was vastly different. Each grade was dressed in a different outfit, there was an opening ceremony complete with a flag ceremony, singing of the national anthem and a torch relay. Each grade had a different set of games that they participated in and the entire grade was involved. The games were not ordinary games that we would see in the states, aside from the sprints and relay races so I won't try to explain them (hopefully the pictures will help). Also each grade performed a dance along with a musical selection. The biggest surprise to me was that field day was open to parents and the community. There were at least 400 parents and people from the community that attended and along with the 600 students made quite a crowd. There were even vendors selling balloons and food. During breaks, there were relay races and games for the parents and grandparents which were hilarious. I did my best to stay as hidden as I could so I didn't get roped into humiliating myself but my plan was spoiled when the entire crowd started chanting my name in unison. I was a little confused at first but one of the teachers who speaks english ran over to me and told me that I was supposed to run around the track with one of the 6th grade students. I handed my camera to a co worker and took off with the girl around the track as the crowd cheered and screamed "Aaron teacher, Aaron teacher." After we crossed the finish line another student grabbed my hand and we took off around the track again. This would have gone on a while had the teachers not told the 6th graders to choose other teachers to run with so I could rest. Our vice principal who is in his 60's ran and ended up pulling a hamstring in the process and the principal also ran. After all the classes had competed and danced, there was a closing ceremony and a special teacher lunch. The "special lunch" consisted of cow lung, blood sausage, kimbap (a type of sushi), sashimi (raw fish sliced very thinly), and beer. Yes, Koreans drink beer at school, but only on special occasions. It was an interesting day to say the least. I took over 200 photos during field day but I chose a few of my favorites to post below. If you want to view more you need to click on the "photobucket" link at the top of my blog.