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.