Break out the Shovel!

Thursday, November 30, 2006: The first snowfall

Today, we had a sprinkle of the white stuff. Mind you now, it was only a light dusting, which later turned to rain! But the kids were so excited! I had to stop class so they could all gawk out the window at the snow. And they just beamed with delight when we took them outside to enjoy the snow. One little girl's face just lit up! I taught them how to catch snowflakes on their tounge and we had a contest to see how many snowflakes would land on the sleeve of our jackets. Now I am only waiting for the big stuff to come so we can build a snowman!

Radom Pics

At the request of sister, I have added some pics. Ian, feel free to use any of these for your
posting purposes!


A portion of Namdaemun Market

Namedaemun close up

Jocelyne and I at Everland

Insadong is a market normally crowded with shoppers buying Korean souveniers. This snap is of a man playing his little flute with absoltly no one around- a rare sight at Insadong!

Lots of dried seafood. A little fishey if you ask me!

A mirrored reflection of the hotel lounge at Gangnam

Seoul Tower at night

The Can Can

Finally, Saturday class is finshed! Okay, so they were not totally hateful and I had fun learning about the one girl enrolled in the class. But it became a drag when nothing could be done on the weekend because this class is stuck in the middle of the day. And so now my weekends are freed up a little more. I am hoping to a few more weekend trips. And of course, you cannot forget the beer! I have been going into Seoul the past few weekends and meeting heaps of people! I met one guy who makes almost double than me in his salary. I almost dropped my beer!

We have a new teacher coming next month. Yes, another Canadian! I think we are overtaking Korea! Always fun to meet new people and usually I am the one who goes to do the meet and greet with the "newbies"

I am excited about the Christmas concert. But my poor kinders. The Korean teachers now won't let them play at lunch time because they have to memorize their lines! But their dancing is coming along nicely. Everything will fall into place soon enough and they will be the perfect angels that they are!

The Joys of Teaching

Throughout the day, I teach different ages of kids at different levels. And sometimes when your day is just not going right, you can always count on them for a smile.

I was teaching kinder one day while not feeling well and the kids were just not listening or paying attention. So the day wasn't going as planned. And then I look down at one little boy who is mimicking everything I generally say or do with them. He even had my tone down! "Who's speaking Korean?" And then the next little boy does the same thing. Soon, the whole class began to imitate the teacher. They certainly made me forget about my cold!

In my afternoon class of 11 year olds, every Friday I was doing a snack day with them, providing that they were good that week. Then I had an increase of kids in the class and so I told them that it was now too expensive and that I had no money to buy them snacks. I arrive to class one Monay afternoon and one boy asked me if I had any money. I couldn't figure out where he was going with this, so with a puzzled look on my face I asked him why. "Because on Friday I was at EMart and I saw you. Why do you go to EMart if you have no money?" I cracked! Sorry kids, for not spending my grocery money on your snacks!!

It is hard to get my academy kids, aged 16, to talk in class. And so as an ice breaker, whenever they would answer a posing question, I would make the sounds of a buzzer. "Ding ding ding" for a correct answer and a very loud "Arrrrrrg" for a wrong answer. One day, they were very anxious to answer questions and to hear my buzzer sounds. To me, they seemed a little over anxious and so I asked them why. One boy wanted to record my "Arrrgg" and put post it on the internet! And so I confiscated his cell phone until the end of class. Definetly a "Michael thing" to do.

Lovely Fall Weather

Friday night: Drinking for free is definetly fun!! And that's all is needed to say on that topic!

The fall season is a beautiful one in Korea. A friend and I hiked Bulgok Mountain this past weekend. The koreans by now are wearing sweaters and some have mittens and gloves. But I am in my glory wearing a tshirt in what is still considered by me to be warm weather. For me, summer will never go away!

Happy Halloween

Our haunted house was a success! We succeeded in scaring the kids and so many of them came out crying. I thought it was a shame, but the Korean teachers thought it was great!! It means that we had done a job well done they had said. With close to 80 kinder kids to pull through there, I was worn out by the time it was done. But I had so much fun. The kids had an awesome time doing pumkin carvings, making candy baskets, playing pin the nose on the pumkin and getting their face painted. We also had a fashion show of all the costumes. But with all the work and as much fun as it was, I am glad Halloween is over!