Wake me up when September ends

This week when by really fast. I really had a good time though. I mainly had upper level classes to teach so that was fun. I and Ms. Knight made a dance club where we taught the Cha Cha slide and the merengue. It was so much fun to see the kids dance so much. There are some picture's I'm uploading from my first day of work. I tried to dress up for it and have continued to do so since. Friday was the only day that I didn't wear a tie. I took two pictures of my homeroom. One was supposed to be a normal picture and the other was supposed to be a funny one. Its kind of funny most people here hold up the peace sign for pictures to be cool. At first I thought, wow, that is really outdated, but I'm getting used to it. People here aren't shy about somethings that people in the US are shy about. They regularlly comment on your physical appearance with no regard for it being personal. There are pluses and negatives to that. So far I've been told that I'm very handsome, very white, and that I look like David Beckham (a famous soccer player [I had no clue who he was until I came here]). During my SMOE (Seoul Metropolitian Office of Education) Orientation we were told that Koreans would also comment if you gain any weight and would say that your face looks swollen if you drank the night before. We joked that other people's face's looked swollen and even told some Koreans that in jest, but they thought we were being serious. On the wall they have pictures of the teachers, their homeroom, their club and what classes they will be teaching. I also took a picture of the dance club I co-taught. It was all girls. That turned out to be a good thing, because I guess guys and girls are hard to get to hold hands for any sort of dance. If you want to see a bunch of random pictures from the week you can go here: or if you want to see some random movies go here . I think there are only four movies from the first week though, the rest are from other sessions.
So everyday the kids write in their journals, the teacher reads it and leaves a response. I had a girl write in her journal that she loved me, gave me her number and told me to call her. I thought it was cute, then began to wonder about loads of students e-mailing me (our e-mail address is listed on the website). The last day I tried to write each of my homeroom students a personal message at the end of their journals. I also gave them two posterboard for them to write a message back to me. I was really impressed with what they produced; I think I'll hang it in my room for the time being (at least until I get some artwork hung up :) ). Everday with my homeroom class I would do a puzzle on the board. Since I had a fairly smart class I tried to challenge them with games. As an example I would spell a message phonetically rather than formally. So rather than Welcome to Game Lab I would write Valkom du Kame Pab and students would have to figure out what I meant. As the week went on I started using pictures along with words. The students gave me a puzzle back which was really clever. It started with a Kiwi then had minus KI. It then had a picture of an arm minus m. Then a picture of glasses minus es. Finally a picture of a tree plus h. So....We are class three. I was so very proud of them :) The next week we will have the other half of the middle school that visited come to us. I was told by my homeroom that they would be very noisy and very active. I think I'll be ready for them. :)
Oh I almost forgot. During the closing ceremony all the kids went around and got signatures from their favorite teachers and took a lot of pictures with them. There were so many requests I really felt like a celebrity. :) It was a cool feeling :)

My Little Minions...ah hahahahaha(evil laugh)

The kids arrived monday. Teaching is going very well. From all the time in orientation, I've really be prepared for the kids. The job I have is pretty fun and I try to enterain myself in a different way in each class. The kids here are all from a middle school and their English levels vary. I was really impressed with my homeroom kids. I showed a very famous picture and one student knew the English word philosophers. Other students knew Socrates, Plato, & Hypocratus. I was impressed and gave out blue stamps. Our reward system here is that of blue stamps and red stamps. When students arrive they get a passport which has a section for stamps in it. At the end of the week the student(s) with the most stamps get a prize. We don't let them know what the prize is, we just let them think 'oh wow' a prize. I've had a lot of fun being creative with my kids. For instance, with my homeroom I started to teach them different greeting styles in Western Culture versus their culture. I also taught them the slang phrase 'What's up dawg?' I was pretty happy to hear them say that in unison. Also lately I've been doing phonetic games with my upper level students to test their English ability to pronounce. So on the board I might have something like this written. Valkom zu da Kudee Na-Art Students must sound this out to realize it means Welcome to the Goody-Mart. The Goody Mart is one station here at the school where students practice learning how to shop. I have been doing something humorous in there to me. One of the vocabulary words for that class is tip. I ask them what it is and then tell them, 'yes, it is extra money you give when a person does a good job. So if Mr. Baker does a good job, you can give him a tip :)' The students are first look bewildered, but then after they realize that I am joking with them laugh. During review I have the list of vocabulary words on the board along with my name (Mr. Baker). I point to the word and have them say it, to make sure their pronunciation is correct. After going through a bunch of random words I go to tip. They all say tip, then I point to my name. They all say Mr. Baker. Then I point back to tip, then back to Mr. Baker. On and on. The students usually start laughing. The second class I am teaching right now is called Games Lab. In it students learn vernacular associated with games. I am teaching them descriptors (describing words) so they can play guess who and pictionary. During pictionary students draw a word on the board while their team guesses what it is. I gave one student the word feet. He drew a food on the board and his team had the hardest time guessing what the word was. Toe, Foot, Leg, Arm, they were trying to say anything. But I was happy that everyone understood feet when I said it.

I have given out some red stamps. I feel bad almost everytime. Though at one time I was laughing. One student bagged another student (hit him in the crouch). I caught him and told him I was going to give him a red stamp. He started crying aloud, no teacher, no no teacher no....It was like he was putting on a performance. It cracked me up. It also made me laugh because I was told that students would become very upset like this when they got red stamps. I talked with one teacher who had taught in the states and she said that the stamp method would not work there. Students in the US would be like, whoop de due, I got a red stamp now what? But here most students don't think or know that the prize is a mug (Shhhhhh) nor think what the real consequences of a red stamp or blue stamp is, so it works great!

Here they come

Tomorrow kids will come to SEEC for my first week of teaching. I am really excited. The orientation went very well; they prepared us aptly, or so we'll find out :) I am teaching Game Lab and Goody Mart. I had to present my practice lesson in front of the other teachers and get feedback on it. I have a few things that I need to change, but for the most part I did pretty well. I never know how it will go until I see the kids actually going through my lesson though. This week I'm along with Diana Knight are in charge of Dodgeball for an indoor activity. That will be awesome. Its a bunch of middle schoolers playing. It'll be a lot of fun. Also we are in charge of a dance club. We are going to be teaching them the meregue and the Cha Cha slide. Two pretty easy dances, or so we hope. We were told to lesson our expectation of the English level of the students, so I'm trying to dumb down everything we can.
This Sunday evening we had a big cookout. A lot of the teachers came together and made several different dishes. I tried my hand along with the help of others at making a dessert. It turned out pretty well. We also had fish and chips, brownies, mac & cheese, some noodle thing (it was great), eggs, and other things I'm sure :) It really felt like a family all getting together for a big meal. Everyone was cooking together, helping to prepare the food, set up for dinner, and clean up afterwards. It was a great feeling of community.
So I recently found out that there may be ballroom dancing in the city where I am located. That is pretty exciting. How could would it be for me to buff up on my dancing skills while I am in Korea, pretty much amazing is what I think. Maybe I could even work out a deal with them to where I could get into events for free, we'll see.
Right behind us is a big mountain. I have really enjoyed going hiking on it. I recently went to the top, but discovered that my battery on my camera was dead, so no pictures sorry. It was really pretty and a really hard hike to get up there at parks. The hike down wasn't much better. There are different paths up so maybe I'll try a different one up sometime to see how it fares, we'll see. Perhaps next weekend I'll get to hang out with my cousin in Seoul. We might be going dancing and/or going to sing Kareokee. I'm quite excited either way.
I've hidden my pink blanket on my bed (Pink isn't the most masculine color, so now I have sky blue, lol) I just have a sheet over it, since I haven't been using it but rather sleeping on top of it. I wonder if I can find a sheet to gov over my curtains as well, that's an interesting Idea, I'll have to look into it.

Starting to Get Settled In

I think that I am feeling at home here at SEEC. It is starting to feel a bit normal or like I'm used to the place or I know a little bit of what to expect. I know that will change when the kids come, so I'll have some new changes again, but I have really gotten to connect with some of my co-workers and enjoy hanging out with them. I took some pictures of the laptop they gave me to use and my hiking expedition.

My School again

So...the video was too large to upload so I am going to try a bunch of pictures and hope that it works this time :) The rest of the photos can be seen on my facebook page :)

My School

So this morning I went around my school for a bit with my video camera. Hopefully its not too dark, if so I'll try to make another video before too long.

Arriving at SEEC

So I arrived at SEEC where I'll be teaching. It is amazing. My next door neighbors are farmers, but the facility itself is wonderful. The room was and still is amazing. I wake up to a wonderful view of the mountains. I have all the things that I could need in a room. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to work here. The people are all so nice and caring. Thank God for this gift


So that's my room; it's really nice. We were given a care package by the other teachers here. They are so sweet. Khia took us to a grocery store so we could buy some basic supplies, the next day (today) we headed to a larger city to buy some bigger room supplies. I made quite the impressive list for the larger shopping expedition. I didn't quite collect everything, but I made some progress. I certainly had trouble finding vanilla, baking powder and baking soda. Everything else was pretty easy to locate. The next time I go shopping I'll look for some measuring items, like cups, teaspoons, and table spoons. We went to a mall that had some beautiful rest areas. On the way I saw some hotels and wondered if they would be good for company to stay in if they visited. I was told no, those are love motels they charge by the hour. lol. Oh so places here called PC Bangs (long 'a' as in father) are really popular. They have a computer with all sorts of video games on them really comfortable chairs and you can play for however long you want. I think its like 1200 won an hour which right now is less than a $1 an hour pretty cheap. I bought a big pillow, its nice to be able to snuggle with something large. I still need to buy a trash can and bags, but am making due with all the bags I have from shopping :) This place is pretty cool and I'm looking forward to orientation tomorrow at 10 am.

Orientation at SMOE

Last week was quite the adventure. I got to meet and go through orientation with all the other public school teachers in Seoul. I had two roommates. One was a political science major, the other was a philosophy major. We had some philosophical discussions. He's really into existentialism and transcentalism (more about about experience cool feelings than understand the world around you).

We started with an introduction of people that were important to the organization SMOE (Seoul Metropolitian Office of Education). We got name tags with either E or S and also the region in which we would be teaching. I got an E for Elementary and HQ. I didn't know what that meant, but wasn't really worried about it.

During orientation our leader Jon Pak said that he wanted to talk to all the people who are headed to Gapyeong. That's where I interviewed for and so I went there. I had already met several people who had also been interviewed for that position at the school. We all went to a room with Jon. He told us that some of us were still going and some of us were not any longer going to be at Gapyeong, but would be at a public school. I was told that I would still be at Gapyeong. Then Jon said that he would give us the option if we wanted to trade placed with one another for a public school position instead of Gapyeong.

When I originally applied I wanted to be in a public school. And I was told that there were no positions left. Now this option was back open. In Gapyeong there was a pay difference. People asked if there would be compensated for the difference and Jon said no. You will get less teaching at a public school.

I stayed after with Jon to ask him how the people were selected and he said that they were selected at random. He said that there was one girl who if he had been able to choose would have been at the top of the list for Gapyeong, but wasn't because of the random selection. I just feel kind of odd. The decision to stay or leave Gapyeong was kind of hurried along. It was like a whole new world had been opened, being closer to many opportunities and events, and having to decided so quickly. I just didn't know. I think that the money was one thing that made me decide to stay in Gapyeong. Being closer to Seoul would mean venturing out more often, having more fun, I'm sure, but also spending more money. So I think I'll be saving more. Plus at Gapyeong they will pay for utilities and give three meals a day to you during the week. One of my purposes was yet to travel the world, but another was to save money. I think, I hope that I shall surely be doing that quite a bit more at Gapyeong than in Seoul.

I was told that it was a little bit of a taxi ride to the nearest train station. That's kind of dissapointing, I thought it would be a little easier to venture into Seoul. But I believe that God has a reason for wherever I go and He is already there at work. I pray that I might find His purpose at Gapyeong. Oh a breakdancing crew came to our orientation and taught us. I guess Korea is the top nation in the world for breakdancing. How cool is that? If I lived in Seoul I could more readily take breakdance lessons, but in Gapyeong I'd save money, hmm we'll see how things go. Maybe next year.

Anywho it was just really shocking to have that choice presented to me again. I just didn't know what to do and I was kind of forced into deciding quickly. I prayed to God and all I got was do what you want to do. And I had no clue what I wanted to do, lol. Isn't that about right, when given a choice I have no clue what I want.

It has been so surprising to me how much religion and philosophy have been topics of conversation for me lately. I had a great talk with my roommate the other night about heaven, hell, salvation, God, and general life philosophy. It was almost as if the gospel naturally (but philosophically) came up. I was quite happy about it and he was intrigued with my take on it, so it proved to be quite interesting. I think that we are now friends or at least good acquaintences.

Also recently I sat down at a lunch table or dinner table I can't remember quite what meal it was. Dinner I'm going to say. Anywho and someone was talking about how those people in religion are stupid because they just accept things on blind faith. They have no evidence for those things, we need to be rational and used reason this person said. I was laughing on the inside when I heard this so I starting talking back with the fellow. It said it seems to me that reason also has blind assumptions that it accepts without evidence. One such thing is that reason actually corresponds to reality. One never questions such an assumption, etc. He was quite taken back by my insult to his argument and the other gentlemen at the table found it quite humorous (this big-shot being shown up very quickly). I really enjoyed myself doing it, perhaps I should of had more of a compassionate feeling realizing that know I was sharing truth with him rather than see you're wrong and not nearly as clever as you thought you were, but I had the latter and still have it to quite an extent. We also talked about the simplicity of assumptions, he stated that math and logic only need a small number of assumptions, I told him that Pantheism only need one assumption which is God. For God is all, there is nothing which is not God. So if simplicity wins the day as far as a case for truth, then Pantheism is true. He took up an objection to this that Pantheism assumes existence which is different than God. I told him that I would grant the assumption, but a pantheist would not for God is existence, there is no existence apart from God. The gentlemen at my table were quite intrigued with this. We also discussed whether truth was relative or absolute, the gentlemen thought it was absolute and I (though I agreed with his position) wanted to test him on his knowledge of it. I told him that seems like such a big claim, how can one know such a thing. He said that its just true, its just assumed to be true by definition. I told him that he was assuming something blindly and that he sounded like a religious fundamentalist who just had blind faith in propositions. I also felt pretty good about that blow. By the end of the conversation I think we were ok and the other gentlemen were quite entertained, lol. I'm not beginning to feel bad about all my pride in the converstaion.

There was also a gentlmen who last night showed us some traditional korean music and dance. It was funny and interesting. We all would shout and move out in interesting ways. Some people even got to dress up in robes and play musical instruments. One gentlemen who breakdances agreed to stay after and practice with me a bit, he showed me some technique on some moves which I think will really help me to improve. We and another guy practiced after lunch.

Anywho the last day or so we have been learning about effective teaching methods and how to plan lessons, and work with your co-teacher. The last evening a partner and I planned a mini lesson for the students. It was on basic body parts and movement. Basically dancing in disguise :) All day today we had to watch people present their lessons to each other. I thought that it was going to be a very very long day, but it turned out to go quite quiclky. For the most part people's lessons were fairly entertaining. Some were very very boring, but you win some and you lose some. Our lesson was the last one to go/be presented. But I think that we were one of the top lessons to present. We really had a lot of fun and so did the students in participating with us. A couple people even told us that they would try to use one of our games in their lesson plans in the future.

So that was basically all day today, evaulating others lessons and then waiting to present out own. The teacher even told us a secret compliment that she didn't tell any of the other presenters while we were having the class do group work. She just gave us a compliment then another compliment, then another compliment. We were very happy. At dinner afterwards, a couple people also gave me a compliment on the lesson. I felt like a great teacher.

Tonight they had two guys come in a teach some people how to breakdance. I was surprised that they did so much teaching. They actually weren't going to put on any kind of show for us, but at the end there was a battle between a couple guys from SMOE (Seoul Metropolitian Office of Education [all teachers inclucing me in Seoul]) and the instructors. I even got in there and did a little something something at the end.

I had fun learning a lot of the technique behind all the moves. I am glad that I was shown the technique so that I can now practice it where I am working. It should be fun to grow in that. I know that I might have time on my hands, if I am out in the boonies, so that might be something i'll do. I am also curious, I think one guy near coming to the same place, might actually know Greek. That would be great to study greek with someone or even Hebrew.

I have had so many different philosophical conversations here. Randomly people are like so you are the guy who studied philosophy huh? And then the conversation goes from there. Its like I'm being put on the spot and so far I'm doing ok, but that's kind of what I like being put on the spot on things I know about and seeing how I can do.

I was eating dinner with some people when I realized that the enviroment I'm in is totally different. Eveyone here just loves to drink, its what they do, they love to get drunk. I don't understand it, but its all around. I was asking one girl what she did in college and she said she got drunk. She worked at a bar and got drunk. I laughed, but on the inside I was like what you didn't have anything better to do. I supposed I shouldn't view myself above her in anyway for making those choices, because I can't be one to judge, but that wasn't my first reaction. It was more of, oh you sinner you. I'm still a work in progress.

I have been quite sick, the worst of it I think has passed or at least I hope; I think my roommates were also sick so that explains it. One roommate who had taught in korea before said that last year he remembered getting sick when he first arrived and get over it. So I'm guessing that its common and I'm also just getting adjusted to the environment as well. Speaking of environment, I have one roommate who smells. I have never had a smelly roommate or well smelly this bad, lol. I just walk into the room sometimes and I am like, ahh, that smells, that smells bad. So I open a window and then it gets nice and chilly. The other day it snowed, so I"m either freezing or around stinkiness in my room, not exactly as place you want to go home to.

Tomorrow I am going to go to observe teachers in a school teaching lessons. This should be very interesting. I hope to learn a lot. Though I've been told that because they know that we are coming the lessons might be rigged a little or already prepracticed to make the school look good. I hope not too much. I would like to get a realistic experience. After observing we are going on a Seoul tour. Oh so here its customary to give your Principle and co-teachers gifts when you first arrive, but yeah I didn't know that. Hopefully I'll have time during the tour of Seoul to find a gift for my co-workers and boss.