I've got Seoul but I'm not a Soldier

2008-02-26T06:20:00.004+09:00

My New Blog

Just click it..

So..ummm..yeah

2008-02-26T04:18:00.002+09:00

I thought this blog at least deserved a closing post.
At this point in time, I have finally been released from the land of Gimchi
To wrap up, I had a nice early flight out on the Friday morning, leaving behind an apartment quite full with trash and a helluva lot of food, which I'm hoping the BC crew managed to raid before Mr Kwon.
Oona, Johnny, Stella and I spent an amazing week in Thailand, actually more accurately we spent a week in the islands, I saw absolutely none of actual Thailand. But Koh Phangan/Koh Tao are absolute paradise, it was amazing weather, the food was great, it was all relatively cheap and I managed to scrape up an Advanced Open Water/Nitrox diving course.
So that was amazing, but after some Kerfuffle, I finally had to head back to NZ.
That was two weeks ago now. And I have done nothing since.
It has been a tumultuous two weeks, because I have had to rethink my entire life plan, the funny thing is, now at the end, it is exactly where it was before I started reconsidering myself.
Ahh, what a life.
Now for Med School.

"Brad Teacher No Go New Zealand"

2008-01-29T00:16:00.000+09:00

The most heart-wrenching 6 words coming out of Kate's mouth (she's the picture to the right) coupled with a running jump slash hug.
So it turns out the news of my departure didn't actually go over their heads.
This morning, first thing as I walk in the door, Kathy hands me a piece of paper with the words 'Brad Teacher email'. Two minutes later I get the same request from Ann on a blank piece of paper. And then half an hour Kate does the jump slash hug.
My girls are really gonna miss me.
Later on, I asked Kate if she wanted to come back to NZ with me, she then explained in her English that when she gets bigger she is going to come to my house. Kathy wants to come too.

As much as I can't wait to get the fuck out of here, there are a few kids I'm gonna really really miss. And it's gonna be so sad, they're like my own at this point, surrogate little cousins, i guess.
It's good to know they're gonna remember me, at least for a little while...

2008-01-27T11:30:00.001+09:00

So I'm all ready to go, my house is half packed two boxes of stuff has been sent home, I'm pretty sure my final pay is in my account and I have travel arrangements all the way to Koh Phangan.
I have four days of work left, it's absolutely fantastic.
I've been telling my kids, and I've been gettting a lot of cheering, goddammit.
Told my kindy, I don't think they understood, they probably won't even notice a new teacher.
I've had a great week actually, I've got afternoon kindy last period everyday and it is usually incredibly painful but I've been going downstairs and playing with toy trains (to clarify, I'm playing with the trains, my trains.) instead of teaching them, well technically they're probably learning better by playing in English than studying at the age of 5.

We went on a pretty awesome field trip on Friday with the kindy kids to the Civil Safety place, lots of fun stuff for kids to do, it was great for me when I'm standing in a room with two guides 5 other teachers and 50 kids and I'm the only on who can't understand a word of what he's saying.
Here's them learning what to do in an earthquake (the whole room is shaking).

Here they are in a wind tunnel experiencing 30m/sec (?) winds.
It was hilarious, mainly cos I was standing there and a bit of drool flew out of my mouth and the rest of the teachers are laughing their asses off.

This one was pretty cool they had to use fire extinguishers (actually water hoses) to put out a fire on a big screen.
The teachers went first and we couldn't put out the fire, a couple of the groups of kids did though. Grr.
There was also a VR rollercoaster ride though I didn't understand where it fitted into the safety idea, and an awesome little assault type course, covered in smoke.
Overall the most reasonable and fun experience the kids have had.

So here's the final line-up of Winnies-D sans Julia but she hasn't really fully integrated anyway.

Had a pretty hard-out week, too much drinking again. Went out in Cheonho for the last time on Friday night, went to Starbucks (not in any way affiliated with the coffee, surprisingly).

We were drinking 13 dollar jugs of beer, 2 liters a go. It got messy when someone had the great idea to play Never have I ever (We sucked way too much at bottles and kegs).
Managed to polish off 7 of them by the end.

Went to Yongsan yesterday to pick up a DS card for Lachlan, was a great trip managed to play with my new lens (Oh yeah I got a telephoto lens for my camera from Oona for my birthday, it's great fun).
Here's a picture taken from the stoop of the old BK. OK well that doesn't mean anything to non-Seoulites, but Sam will understand.

Last night we went to the Casino, pretty much to eat and drink for free :)
I walked in with thirty bucks in my wallet, spent the twenty I wanted to, then just before we left, the evil spirit told me to just put one more bet down, bet your last ten, you don't need taxi or booze money. Turned it into thirty and walked out even. Stoked.
Then went to a bar to watch some live music, first up was this three piece Korean band playing indie rock, they opened with a song in which the chorus was 뉴지랜드요, 뉴지랜드요 screamed out. This translates to New Zealand yo, New Zealand yo. Fucking amazing, I wish I could have understood more, but even my Korean friends couldn't understand the singers.

I think that might actually be everything... yip.
Adieu, 5 more days til Thailand

Brad

Slowly getting there

2008-01-17T11:40:00.001+09:00

Not long to go, am slowly chugging through the things I need to do.
So it was my birthday a week ago, was good, thanks to all those who dropped me a line (I'm looking at you Cameron, I still haven't heard anything from you.)
I finally got my written acceptance to Med School, allays my last fears.
Had a nice dinner on my birthday, and on the Saturday went all out, an all you can eat and drink restaurant (beer, wine, spirits...Only in Korea) with everybody I know in Korea, sadly we all fitted at one table, albeit a giant 20 pax one. I got way too drunk and had to be dragged home by my all too fantastic girlfriend (Sorry again). I remember most of the night, eating way too much, going to a bar to see Nick's band playing, being given Nunchaku by Seongbe, then going to a Norebang, feeling ill, throwing up and then poking my head into every room trying to find which one was ours.
Strangely I felt pretty good the next morning.

As I said my to-do list is steadily getting longer but luckily I'm crossing things off about as fast as I'm putting them on. My flights home are fine, still working on intra-Thailand travel.
Just got another box of stuff to send, my bags gonna be empty at this rate.

On the vein of organizing travel, I did something yesterday which made me realize I'm turning into my Mom. I was on the Thai Air site trying to book a flight back to Bangkok from Koh Samui, and for some reason there was a super-deal if I wanted to take a 6am flight on the 9th (it was like half price) so I started booking it and filled in all the details but when I finalized it, it said that there was an error so try again. So I did, and the flight had sold out, my fucking luck, thats obviously why the ticketing didn't work. However, I found the contact email and sent them a story about how I was booking a flight and their server malfunctioned and I lost my awesome price. Mentioning how it shouldn't cost me 60bucks extra because of a mistake on their end (utter bull) I politely asked if they could offer it to me at the original discounted price anyway.
Hi Mom.
Anyway, he emailed me and turns out it was just a temporary problem, and there were actually still seats left. But by then I had decided to take the train.

Counting Down

2008-01-15T08:56:00.000+09:00

13 more work days to go,
Yesterday I purchased my flight home, looks like I'll be landing in good ole NZ at 1320 on the 10th of February

2008-01-09T00:00:00.001+09:00

Last Throes of 22

2008-01-08T22:36:00.000+09:00

As I sit here, drinking a Kahlua-spiked smoothie and watching American Gladiators I reflect on my last year and realize I don't have too much to show for it. I've made some amazing friends, had some really fun times but have come out the other end at least 3 years older, tireder and with a realization that some people don't deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt, did I mention with a touch more cynicism.
It is my first birthday away from home, however it's also my first birthday in a relationship.
Anyways, half an hour to go in Korea. (I'm already 23 in NZ)
And I will leave you with a picture of the bathroom of the bar I spent my New Years in.
It doesn't quite do it justice as there was in fact more around the corner.

One Week

2008-01-02T21:12:00.000+09:00

I'm getting old, turning 23 in a week.
21 work days left

All-Inclusive 2-day Ski Trip

2007-12-30T15:48:00.000+09:00

Does not include second day lift pass or rental. First day skiing actually only 2.00-4.30

Does not include food of any kind

Accommodation consists of a small patch of hard wood floor, no bedding provided, your floor is actually the floor of the room where the all night party will be held.
10-15 people in a small room: 20+ in a big room

Staff will be completely uninformed about what's happening, and the boss, the only one who does know what's going on, will be unreachable at all times, even by the other staff. If you do manage to get hold of him, he will brush you off and then avoid you from then on.

Party consists of free booze, and three of the participants are also DJs. No band.

Includes 12 hours a day of downtime in a variety of situations.

You will not be informed of any of this until you ask and ask and ask to find out.
_______________________________________________________

Now compare this with the actual release
Compared with:
PRE-NEW YEARS SKI PARTY
in Gang-chon resort, Gangwon-do
2007, Dec 29 ~ 2007, Dec 30

Schedule

2007, Dec,29(sat)

10am – departure (Hamilton hotel In Itaewon)

11:30am - arrive the pension nearby Gangchon resort

12pm - lunch

1pm - rent ski gear and change clothes

2pm ~6pm - ski

7pm - back to the pension for Pre- New years ski party (Bends and DJs for all night)

11pm - BAND performance

Following the band performance
Dj VENUS with MC Jaedai will perform until the wee hours

2007,Dec,30(sun)
all free time for ski
7pm - back to Seoul

Lift pass ticket

Daytime Ticket will be provided

-Included
Transportation, all ski and snow board gear, (Clean and comfortable ski suits and snow board suits are available) lift pass ticket (daytime ticket ), hotel (5people for 1room , 10people for big size 1room), New year party cover charge, free bears and drinks for 2hours (from 9pm~11pm)

So I went snowboarding yesterday, this was quite hilariously mishapped.
After being brushed off time and time again about finding us somewhere else to sleep and finding out the second days skiing was not covered, we managed to track down the boss (at this point all but two of the staff had gone home, they had been told they'd be back home by 6pm, and started complaining about 7.30pm)
We finally convinced him to give us twenty bucks back and take us to the nearest train station in time for the last train at 9.40.
He then broke down and started blaming absolutely everything and anything, then managed to delay the driver, and kept walking away. Finally we got driven to the station at just after 9.30 at which point the driver parked about 1km from the station and said that way, we managed to follow the road and luckily the 9.40 train was actually 10.00.

The morning was no bad, with us wandering around at the slopes for an hour and a half trying to find where our rental gear had been dropped off and trying to find somewhere to put our stuff, and also lacking in our ski passes, that ran from 12.30-4.30 which we finally got just before 2. We'd been there since just after 12.

This company, Ztravelbug Korea if anyone is wondering, made Boston Campus look organized.
Which is saying a lot.
The couple of hours of boarding was good, there were pretty reasonable lines, and it was hilarious boarding on a hill that has just had a few trails of snow thrown on it around the trees and grass.
Sadly there were no jumps for even the most imaginative person, but it was nice to feel like I was one of the best snowboarders on a mountain.

I will be going back in the next couple of weeks, but just a day trip and without the tour group. Get three times the slope time.

Marry Christmas from NABI: The Funny Shopping Mall

2007-12-24T15:34:00.000+09:00

Sometimes you just wonder why they don't find someone to proofread something thats gonna be turned into a 50ft billboard

One more post

2007-12-23T13:35:00.000+09:00

As of yesterday evening, I have been accepted into Med School, Yay.
Not 100% sure yet because the letter hasn't arrived, but the website has updated and given me the option to accept or decline the offer of entrance. I think I know the correct answer but did they have to give me another multiple choice question :P
So, that big "What are you gonna do if you don't get in?" question has been nullified, thankfully, because I sure as hell didn't have any idea.

So next year look out for me in the Big Smoke
In related news at the moment it looks like I will be arriving home at 13.20 on the 10th of February (hopefully, I'm on a waiting list, otherwise it'll be 3 days later), so you can start organizing the parade.

Merry Xmas

2007-12-23T13:29:00.001+09:00

Merry Xmas from Korea

As you can see I had to improvise.

Big First

2007-12-23T13:19:00.000+09:00

On Friday night I saw my first dead body. Heading back from Hog: The New Zealand Bar and Hof we were walking pas the end of the main street, and amongst a small crowd of people on the ground half sidewalk half road was what looked like a body. There were a couple of cop cars and an ambulance. On closer inspection we could see two legs, someone had courteously thrown some newspapers over the top half of her body, though we could still see a pool of body. We were wondering if she was OK, then the paramedics came over and just draped this blanket thing over the whole body and we realized she was not gonna be getting up. Her feet were on teh pavement, so kinda ruled out her being hit by a car, so we deduced that she must have tripped and fell and had the worst luck in the world.

What's wrong with this picture?

2007-12-21T19:30:00.000+09:00

This is a page out of one of our kindergarten books.
These things are pretty fucking rife with mistakes, absolutely ridiculous ones, but I think this one takes the cake, it's a little subtler than spelling snow wrong, but really anyone who's studied English for more than 2 weeks should probably have been able to do a better job

Korea's new President

2007-12-20T08:59:00.000+09:00

If only Aunt Helen would start brandishing samurai swords maybe we can do great things.
In related news on Sunday (before the election) I was on the other side of Seoul at my Korean language exchange and on the way in we passed this big intersection (6ish lanes) and on the opposite corner there was a troupe of 30 odd identically dressed dancers dancing to promote the candidate, it was absolutely amazing, and I'm ashamed I don't have proof.
Thing was, on the way out on another corner of the same intersection were another troupe (this time in blue, the first one's were in Orange) doing another dance to another song. At this time we were with a couple of Koreans and asked them what was going on. I asked whether they get paid or are they volunteers. Their answer was that they're volunteers but if their candidate wins they get lots of money. Awesome.

And on a final note, I have to say it's weird a week before Xmas and I have no Xmas shopping to do, I usually haven't started yet.

Wait, one more final note, I need help with my poll. (Copy-Pasted from iamaelephant)

Ok so I have a week off next week, my best mate here is in the US, my girlfriend is working it, and there are daily highs of 0 degrees so I needed something creative to do.
I have decided to watch the entire back catalogue of the Bond movies, but I've come to a dilemma which I think can be solved by a good old fashioned poll.
Should I watch them chronologically in Movie release date or by book order?
Book order, would be awesome storywise but one of my mates reckoned this would be overshadowed by the loss of continuity of the social aspects around the films.

Whaddya think?

Book order or Movie order

All is well.

I'm Back

2007-12-12T11:56:00.000+09:00

In Korea that is, after a whirlwind trip to NZ.
Flew home Friday night, uneventfully, had a chilled out sunny Saturday at home it was fantastic, followed by a pathetic night out in Tauranga, that place hasn't changed an iota since i left which isn't a good thing.
Sunday was great, had a full Christmas lunch with my family, ate myself into a stupor, and even got a haircut. Then drove to Auckland.
Monday had the interview, which I think went pretty well, I dunno, I think I made a reasonable impression, they asked some pretty probing questions and some quite open-ended ones.
I'm pretty sure I didn't come off as a fool, but I think I was using way too many unnecessary big words.
On the day I had a letter from my primary school, I was trying to apply for Rural Origin Preferential entry, however this was supposed to be done at the time of the original application so I was way, way too late. However they took my extenuating circumstances (being on the other side of the world) and today said I'm allowed to apply. However for the Rural Origin applicants, the interview has an extra interviewer and more questions and so forth, so luckily they're letting me make up the missing part over the phone sometime in the next week. Not quite sure what more they need to know, but I guess they want to ascertain that there's a reasonable chance of me moving back rural when I'm a doctor.
Spent the rest of the day doing a bit of shopping and chilling out, went and saw Dave, Erina and Ash for an hour, got some rest.
My flight back on Tuesday was amazing, hilariously so.
I got seated next to this Korean girl. She was siting there fiddling there playing with her seatbelt, then started playing with tray table and the switch holding it in, I'm obviously amused by this and she turns and asks me what this thing's for.
So I explain that it's a table for putting your food and drinks on, when they serve us food
That we get lunch and dinner on the flight, and she was surprised and said but I don't have any money, so I explain that they come with the flight.
Anyway, this 'Korean' girl is actually an 18yo NZer, she's spent her entire life in NZ and knows absolutely nothing about Korea, she didn't really pack any warm clothes, can't imagine it being colder than Auckland in Winter. So I explained a few Korean etiquettes, yes i do love the irony and she asked some questions. At one point she asked if there was internet in Korea, that was amazing. This girl wasn't stupid, just lacked a lot of knowledge. And I don't mean just about Korea, because it turns out she knew nothing about NZ either, she lived in Auckland and didn't know where Tauranga was, or Taupo, or Rotorua, and she reckoned she could probably find Wellington on a map. She also hadn't even heard of Rangitoto or Waiheke.( The islands in Auckland harbour)
In fact she had never taken a car ride for more than an hour in her life. She reckoned she'd barely ever left Howick and the suburb on either side.
It was fantastic because as I said before she was quite intelligent, you could tell, but she just didn't know much about places, or airplanes.
All in all, an enjoyable flight
I wrote this yesterday and forgot where I was going with it, probably some hilarious punchline but sadly no

Interview

2007-12-04T08:29:00.000+09:00

I just got my interview invitation, so looks like I'm flying back home this weekend. Woot Woot.
Looks like I have scored myself the very first interview, 9.30 Monday morning not sure if thats a good thing or not.
But hey at least I know.

Caught Red-Handed

2007-11-23T11:33:00.000+09:00

I had a hilarious experience with one of my kindy kids yesterday.
I have a system in my classroom where, if the kids do well they get a star on the board and for every three stars they get a sticker on a wallchart thingy and for every 20 stickers they get a prize.
It's been going for a month now and my top students have just started getting their first prize, they absolutely love it and are constantly counting there stickers and working out how many more they need.
I came in after lunch and my Korean counterpart tells me Roger has got 21stickers and needs his prize.
However I had remember counting about 18 the day before for him and he hadn't got anymore from me, or from her.
And also none of the kids would have got to 21 before realizing they had got 20.
So after a couple of minutes of umm what do we do, I confronted him, a 5 year old boisterous little boy, whose answer to Brad teacher's question "Did you take stickers out of my drawer and put them on the chart was a completely uncharacteristic complete silence, he looked like he was going to wet himself.
Eventually after my counterpart had to ask him in Korean, we got hm to take 3 stickers off.
It was hilarious... for me.
I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened more often, actually it probably has, just not so conspicuously.
Nice Try

Things I've learned babysitting small children (updated)

2007-11-23T11:30:00.000+09:00

1. Don't EVER give a high five within half a metre of your crotch, it's gonna end in tears.
2. Drilling into children that in America the high five is the standard hello/goodbye greeting makes life so much easier.
3. A bear hug turned tickle can fix anything, if not, the kid sucks anyway.

NEW 4. A class of 11 5 year olds can clean a room in no time flat (I'm thinking a field trip to Brad teacher's apartment is in order.)

2007-11-19T21:55:00.000+09:00

It's fucking Christmas outside, pretty damn intense.
My bike has been at work for the last week cos I've been lazy and it's too cold, so I decided I'd finally get it home today and leave it here.
So I went to Kung Fu and twenty minutes before it finished, it starts snowing, really snowing outside.
I got destroyed on the bike home, but I'm good now.
It's too cold here, but at least i can enjoy the snow for a day
It's actually kinda creepy, cos as I was leavig work today, I was in the elevator with one of the Korean teachers Kylie, and she straight out said, the first snow is going to be tonight.
Not I think, just it is. Koreans are pretty certain about their weather here.

Also I went to the DMZ on Saturday but that's tomorrows post

It's Snowing

2007-11-19T21:26:00.000+09:00

More to follow after I shower

A sad day

2007-11-12T22:06:00.000+09:00

Went to Kung Fu tonight, was a bit of an experience.
Walked up to the place and got harassed by Korean school girls.
"Hello" "Hello"
"Hi" "Hi"
"Handsome boy"
Anyway, that's nothing that new.
It was funny, however, 5 minutes later when they walked into my dojo.
Turns out a couple of them train there. Luckily they got bored pretty quickly.
I'm in a new training centre at the moment, a Hapkido place and it's been awhile since people have been so fascinated by my skin colour.
Anyway to the sad story, as I've already alluded to.
The Kung Fu gym is no, found out last Thursday the master lost a legal battle with the landlord and must be out by this Thursday.
It's a sad day, so for a little while we're training at the Hapkido gym next door, just keeping out of the classes' way.
The master is looking for a new one.
Went to see the master at the old gym today after training. It was kinda depressing, boxes everywhere, and instead of an eclectic playlist of 60's pop, 90's pop and Korean rock, there are these absolutely painfully sad Korean ballads, and the master is just plain in the dumps.
He gave me a training uniform and a pair of his old training gloves as a gift.
It was not a fun experience to see him like that, but I'm sure he'll find a new place soon

Happy Pepero Day everyone

2007-11-11T12:35:00.000+09:00

Happy 빼빼로 데이
I officially have less than 3 months left.
I am also officially hungover as fuck.
Went out to Hongdae, the student area of town, actually just full of foreigners
Got quite drunk, and went to a hookah bar, was fantastic, not so much now though.

Ouch

2007-11-07T19:33:00.000+09:00

Here's my story in MSN form, just for a change

Me: hi
Carloona: hi brad!
Me: you wouldn't believe my evening
Carloona: try me anyway
Me: Well, i finished work, and me Dave and Birgie went to Costco
Carloona: ok, so far believable
Me: so we get there and Dave decides to chill on the first floor looking at a new camera, and I wait with him
Me: anyway this has nothing to do with the story, Birgitta goes home
Carloona: still believable
Me: me and dave finish shopping have some dinner and head to the subway unnecessary overladen
Carloona: don't tell me you guys left your stuff on the subway
Me: so we're standing there and I check my pockets and wonder where my entire paycheck in cash is
Carloona: oh god
Me: after a frantic tearing through my stuff I realize it ain't anywhere there
Carloona: oh my god
Me: so I just leave everythin strewn next to the train with Dave and start sprinting, up outta there, outta the subway and off down the street, scanning and running.
Me: Eventually I realise I don't recognise anything so I assume I went the wrong way so I cross the street and start running back in the other direction
Me: then I spot Costco, I had run right past and then kept going about twice the distance again
Me: I dash across the 6 lane road
Me: and run into Costco
Me: the front gate is chained up and the staff are cleaning up
Carloona: and did you find it?
Carloona: aaaaaaaaaaaah
Me: Im looking at the bottoms of all the trolleys, and I run into the bathroom, not anywhere there
Me: so i run to the front desk and ask "English?"
Me: and she replies "Englishee"
Carloona: good enough
Me: apparently she doesn't she grabs the nearest guy, he speaks about the same English as my Winnies class
Me: I'm like I was just shopping here, I had a white Shittibank envelope with a lot of money in it
Me: and he looks at me half blankly and grabs the phone and starts calling around
Carloona: oh god
Me: about 4 or 5 calls later he passes me the phome
Me: and a guy says hi, I explain whats happened and he's like okay, put me back on with my staff member
Me: so I do, they talk for thirty seconds
Me: and he gets out from behind his desk, I'm like what
Me: and he says something something elevator, and I have no idea so I follow him
Me: We go to the goods elevator which subsequently takes the longest 20 sec of my life to drop one floor
Me: He waves and yells at some guy and we go into the office where some guy is crawled under the desk reaching into their safe,
Carloona: ....!
Me: part 2 will cost you 39.95
Me: plus gst
Carloona: gst?
Me: silly americans
Carloona: phft.
Me: anyway, he comes out with my envelope and I almost kiss him, they ask for the normal, my name number and how much is in there
Me: fucken stoked
Carloona: jesus fucking christ brad.
Me: 1.7m won
Carloona: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
Carloona: tell me please you'll never be that BONEHEADED again
Me: pretty intense huh
Carloona: yah. and I wasn't even there

2007-11-06T00:55:00.000+09:00

I just had the most intense experience of my trip, details will follow, but lets say I came so close to losing 1.7million won (about $NZ2600)

Halloween

2007-10-30T20:37:00.000+09:00

Woohoo Halloween tomorrow,
Have been amping all my kids for a couple of weeks now, Boston Campus generally puts on a good halloween.
The formula goes, get the kids upstairs, watch a scary movie,
The teachers go downstairs into their classrooms and wait, then the kids come down and get the Bejesus scared out of them, then there's a room to room Trick or treat.
This is all followed up by a trip downstairs to play some games with candy prizes,
And finally the Haunted House, which most of the kids refuse to enter.

However, this year, management decided instead of having fun the kids must jump in a bus for an hour to go to another business owned by the same Umbrella company ( a Health Spa) and spend an hour posing for photos to advertise the spa (in their costumes) without any semblance of fun. Then an hour back, then late lunch and home.

Sounds like a fair trade.
Motherfuckers

However we have managed to convince them to let us build a haunted house anyway,
So we spent an hour and a half after work getting it sorted, should be fun.
Too bad they will hafta be rushed through.

In other news the biggest pain in my Kindergarten class, Jina, is outta here

Korea in two words

2007-10-29T21:51:00.000+09:00

I was in the One Time (cornerstore) next to work today at lunchtime buying an icecream and a Korean guy walked in and summed up Korea in two words.

소주 있어요?
Soju isseoyo?
Do you have soju?

Is Brad teacher an alien? How do you know?

2007-10-23T17:40:00.000+09:00

I think Bread teacher is alien. Because he speak English very well and look like alien. And I think Bread teacher is alien.

I know brad teachers eye’s blue and teachers hairs are yellow and He speak English very well

He speak Korean not very well

Yes it is.

Because he is speaking English and he have long nose. And eyes are blue and he have yellow hair.

Brad Teacher is alien.

Because frist east people’s hair color is almost black and eye is brown.

but west people’s hair is not black and eye is not brown

I know Brad teacher is alien because he look like alien big nose and he speak English

he has blond hair. he write English

I think that brad teacher is a alien. .Because, he is a amarican person. And also he is so funny. And I do not like amarican people.

because Brad teacher said not Korean. and said English. and he’s face was not same to Korea people’s face. and I think Brad teacher was know a Korea speak but. not well. veryvery small Korea speak. Because brad teacher said don’t said Korea. to we speak Korean. but he don’t say Korea speak.

These are pretty reasonable level kids.

Sadly I found out today that Chris told them the contextual meaning of Alien and thats why I'm not green and scaly... Boring

Where for art thou life?

2007-10-23T17:30:00.000+09:00

I've been up to a bit lately, seen the sights, only one more to go, the DMZ, the trip is booked for mid November nice and cold.

I've finally applied for Medicine in Auckland next year, two weeks to spare.
Let's all cross our fingers.
I then tried to apply for Otago just in case, but looks liek I'm two weeks late.
Made me realise all my eggs are inthe one basket. So I've spent the day looking into Aussie universities and realizing alot of them have already closed applications too.
A couple close this Friday so I got to get into that. Another couple need a different but similar test to the UMAT, one closed yesterday.
Ahh last minute epiphanies suck when there's deadlines.
Though I have found out most Aussie med degrees are only five years, and a couple have 4 year Grad programs, why the fuck have I not looked until now, that's right, I'm a serial procrastinator.
University of NSW and Monash are all thats left and I think they need GAMSAT

I'm actually seriously considering looking into Canadian Unis next.

2007-10-13T11:06:00.000+09:00

Firstly, Ouch Sam, Ouch.

Anyway here's your update:
I had a shitty week,
Janet's got a new face
and I really neeed to get round to sending off my application for med school

Done

2007-10-01T08:55:00.000+09:00

I just read through my last few posts and have realised maybe I don't suck at writing, well they held my attention at least.

Anyway I have now booked and paid for a flight home from the 7th December -11 December to attend an interview, 1.3mKRW later.
Now to apply for Med School and request the Monday 10th interview.
Also I have found out that Otago doesn't require an interview for Graduate Entry, so it'd be silly not to apply, but I really don't wanna live down there, I think.
Well time for work, it's gonna be a hard two days until the public holiday on Wednesday

2007-09-27T22:35:00.000+09:00

Who wants to see a ridiculously large photo from Suwon fortress
Or a more reasonable one

P.s. Those are links

2007-09-19T23:15:00.000+09:00

Update

2007-09-07T09:00:00.000+09:00

OK, new diagnosis, I have damaged a posterior tibial nerve branch on the inside of my left ankle, I will "probably" recover but it will take at least a month, No running, no kung fu, if i bike i have to do it slowly, FUCK

From the mood of my last few posts, you might think I am in a slump.
But au contraire, I've been in high spirits, turns out real problems don't annoy me, just imaginary ones

:Update: I forgot the worst part of all, I have to wear shoes (If you really know me, you will understand)

I'm putting $20 on N.K attacking before I leave

2007-09-03T21:21:00.000+09:00

I have had the most ridiculously unlucky (bad) week and a half, it can't be coincidence, I think a higher power is trying to get me out of this godforsaken country ASAP.
Sunday 26: Had my first skateboarding spill, quite a nice one in fact, Still got a nice big bruise on my hip, couldn't sleep on my side til Friday, I also got a couple of other bangs and two very sore palms.

Wednesday 29: Came off my bike, leaving some nice open wounds and loss of feeling in three toes, which as of today (Monday) i have still not recovered.
: Got someone in to fix my AC which was leaking ridiculously, came home, my gas was off (coincidentally, as of today, it leaks more than it did before.

Sunday 2: I went to Agpujeong and spent 3 hours wandering around in light rain trying to find a specific pancake house.
Eventually gave up, due to complete frustration at myself and Korea in general. I'm a guy I'm supposed to be the navigator, but I failed in my duties.
Got home decided to make pancakes and managed to get the cocoa bag caught in the cupboard door, went absolutely everywhere, I realised some went in the washing machine just in time.
Oona also whilst in my apt stood on her glasses.
Today, Monday 3: Got to school, my 9 student Winnies D which I'd finally got just right (as in on Friday, my classroom was finally fully-stocked and looking pretty, and the kids and me finally had a great dynamic) has grown to 12, don't get me wrong these kids aren't bad, but you trying to keep track of 12 kids at once, eyes on them, ears on them, giving each the right amount of attention/affection. Again don't get me wrong I wasn't perfect, but there was some love and respect in my classroom. I had trained up my brain to count to nine nice and easily.
I just don't think I can stretch to 12, particularly in affections, I've had my kids for 6 months now, my originals are gonna be losing out and the new ones just arent gonna get the attention they need. All in all I don't want 12, I was happy with 9 (which was the largest kindy class anyway). Lets see how it goes.
Anyway, shitty day at work.
Came home broke another glass (that's three in 2 weeks) and realized maybe the FSM is trying to tell me something.
Or I've just had an incredibly bad week and just need to vent/whinge

Hilarious

2007-08-31T07:54:00.000+09:00

So I had a pretty interesting day on Wednesday, I suppose I should really use the word horrible, but it really wasn't.
So it started with undoubtedly the biggest event.
I'll start by mentioning that on Monday I noticed the handlebar on my bike was a little loose (This can't be going somewhere good, I hear you say) but didn't have an Allen key so I left it.
Anyway Wednesday morning, biking to work I see a workmate walking along so I decided to pull up and say Hi. So I jump up the curb (not the full curb, just the lowered driveway entranec curb)
However the wheel didn't follow the handlebar, so I went flying ass over tit. She turns around to see me sprawled on the ground with the wheels of my bike still spinning. Now I wasn't going slow, I've decided biking to work in Seoul is an extreme sport and treat it that way.
So I end up fucked up on the ground, I've badly grazed my left knee, my right ankle, my elbow, cut up a finger, grazed my back and put a nice gash next to my left big toe.
Back home, this wouldn't really be too much of a problem I gave it a couple of minutes of rocking back and forth in the foetal position then started hobbling to school.
However, in Seoul, even the smallest cut is bad luck because of the ridiculous amount of bacteria everywhere. But a little anti bacterial cream and it's all fine.
However a couple of hours later I was getting a little scared because I still couldnt feel three of my toes.
After 5 toeless hours I decided to give Mom an email, got home after work, gave her a call and she is frantically telling me to go to a doctor, it could be spinal damage, hmm, maybe tomorrow.
By this point, I had realized I had come home to a hot water-less house, the guy who fixed my AirCon must hav left it off.
And I'd had 3 confrontations with my boss in one day (Quite a feat)
Which were actually kinda fun ( I have absolutely zero respect for her as a boss, she's a good teacher but she has serious management problems)
The first one she pulled me in to complain about me. Basically she was annoyed because I didn't care that she was angry at me. That and I was taking my time getting back to her about the new kindy homework, which I am totally against and keep trying to tell her so. So that actually worked I managed to get her alone to get my point across.
However, she came out with "If I was in a good mood, I'd happily take this into consideration and try and to work it out, however I'm stressed at the moment so I can't be bothered and you should just do what I say" and when I answer with Well thats not really my problem at all is it, that's your problem (As I said no respect for her managerial responsibilities) she just tells me that yes it is. So I stop, there's only so much talking to a brick wall I can do in one day
The next one is simply because I was a couple of minutes late to a new afternoon class (not even my fault, elevators are a bitch) So she yells at me, and I yell back that I'm here as fast as possible (I admit I didn't need to yell) then she comes in and tell me I shouldn't make scenes, because the parents were there, I guess her yelling at me is not a scene but me responding is? Where's your staff trust.
And the last one, was completely unprovoked on my part, I just rang up to see if there was a secret switch for the hot water somewhere and she got a little pissy.
On her behalf though, she is under a lot of stress lately.
Anyway, so Wednesday, missing three toes, went out for Dinner, mates 35th bday, and we got him, wait for it, 36 bottles of soju, 36 fucking bottles (his Korean age).
Good times.
Luckily Oona came up for that so I had someone to watch out in case I woke up paralysed (thanks Mom)
Luckily I woke up fine, went to the doctor, after two hours, a couple of X-rays a shot of antibiotics? two different clinics and $6 later I was properly bandaged, had some good practice at saying I don't speak Korean and some other basic Korean, like I don't know and my cellphone number, and had finally been told I had no serious injuries just a vicious compression injury and the feeling in your foot should come back in 4-5 days. Hilarious, so I get to be two-toed for a week, luckily its the big toe and little toe that I can feel, so I can walk, the other three are unnecessary anyway.
And now, Friday morning I am about to head to work and hour early so I can get my injuries rebandaged.
As I said, interesting, you'd think a serious bike crash, 3 separate confrontations, and no hot water when you have vicious wounds would be horrible, but myeh.
On another note, this morning marks two weeks without booze, I have to say it's actually been kinda nice, I've started dreaming again for one thing.
And on that note , I'm outta here

It's been long enough, huh?

2007-08-28T00:01:00.000+09:00

So who wants to hear about what I've been up to?
Didn't think so, but here we go anyway.
So what have I been up to?
I bought a bike a week ago been biking to work all last work, it's a nice ride, too bad the 15min ride to work soaks my shirt and clogs my lungs.
Been trying to sort out next year, not going so well, looks like Im flying back in December for an interview, the week before my xmas break grrr.
Gonna be the most expensive thing I"ve ever done, could fly NZ to UK for the same price, it's a full months salary if i get t soon, more if I wait, kinda cuts into my earnings, considering my UMAT test cost just under a month's and I've squandered most of the rest I've made on booze, BBQ and toys.
On a brighter note I m currently on day 11 of sobriety, my personal 4 year record, and has been since about day 8.
Thought I'd give it a try, I said two weeks, lets see how it goes.

Went to the pool with my babies last Friday was great fun, a hundred odd kids all fully decked out in goggles swim cap and float ring, and even still less than half of my kids even jumped in the water.
I've decided when i have kids they are learning to swim before they can walk.
The day was topped off by watching Atticus attempting to throw a piece of food into his mouth, and repeatedly hitting himself in the nose, picking it up and repeating, with the hugest grin on his face.
However this was possibly outshone by Roger when he picked up a towel draped it on his head and said "Brad teacher, my girl, my girl"
A cross-dresser in the making

That's all for now, time for bed

2007-08-17T09:02:00.000+09:00

So, I got told my Korean was good yesterday by the taxi driver - He was wrong.
I jumped in the taxi and had this conversation.
Translated for your convenience (and cause otherwise I'd be here for ages)
Me: Hi, take me to Sacred Heart Hospital please
Me: Gangdong Sacred Heart Hospital (This is where I live)
Driver: Your Korean is very good
Me: Yes, Yes, No, Wha?? (obviously not)
Driver: (In English): You Korean language is good
Me: (laughing) No

We then had a few snippets of very broken English conversation.

From this I have taken that I have my directions home grammatically and pronunciatically (just made that word up) almost perfect.
And my Korean is greatly lacking, and I am a lazy fuck for not learning more

This followed by a fun drunken conversation later in the night, us three boys and a Korean couple, the woman spoke very good English and her boyfriend very basic English.
At one point, the guy decides he wants to join the conversation, so he asks so who speaks Korean here.
Ah none of us, and the woman is like what, really? you guys suck, well maybe not the last part but it was implied

However this week marks the start of my concerted effort to actually start learning some Korena, lets hope it sticks

A taste of home 2

2007-08-11T19:41:00.000+09:00

The wide selection of NZ beers available in Korea.
The NZ list was second in length on this menu only to Germany, beating out even Korea

2007-08-09T08:14:00.000+09:00

6 Months.. and a day

2007-08-08T23:27:00.000+09:00

Woot 6 months now, 6 to go
Ok that is all for now
Oh and I'll eventually get around to posting about my trip
Almost 2 weeks in Singapore and Indonesia

2007-07-21T17:25:00.001+09:00

Thank you. www.weather.com

I'm sorry but when did Metric become the non-English option for measurement.
Not imperial but English; now lets also ponder that of the 3 countries in the world that still use imperial, only 2 of them speak English, they should at least change it to (English & Burmese) | Metric
I understand listing the languages of the metric-using countries on the other side, would take up most of the page.
So how about just going back to Imperial|Metric, but that I guess promotes the United States as an Imperialistic country.
How about C/F?

Boryeong

2007-07-15T19:22:00.000+09:00

So I went to the Boryeong Mud Festival on Saturday, hilarious.
Spent a day at the beach, played in the mud, got nicely dirty.
There must have been an absolutely ridiculous party there last night but I piked, myeh.
It was a bit of a mission to get there, all my fault, I organized the way there and we ended up in Daejeon instead Daecheon, I always thought they were interchangeable, though we did ride the KTX, 300km/h, fucking crazy fast.
So yeah spent a day on the beach, got a little sunburnt, covered myself in Boryeong mud (it gives you magical powers)
It was so relaxing and I so needed it, we all did.
Tomorrow morning we're taking the kids to a pool, gotta see if I can keep a couple of them from drowning.

Anyway Birgitta, me and Johhny covered in mud :P

The recording wall

2007-07-11T22:25:00.000+09:00

This is one of the most amazing examples of Konglish I've come across, this is on a loaf of bread from the biggest bakery chain in Seoul.

"It kneads a dough with the boiling water
high temperature and hour from low
temperature and maturing 56 a natural
taste deeply and it saves with chewy it is
soft there is the recording wall hun-
dred which it will chew it does and a
possibility of feeling simultaneously
with the bread, the flavor taster there is
a possibility and seeing it is a bread."

2007-07-11T22:13:00.000+09:00

And for some more unnecessary photos from Cheonho , just down the road where I spend most of my Friday /Sat nites.
Firstly, the NABI Funny Shopping Mall
I wish I'd got a different shot because this is actually a ten story building, not a little outta the way place or anything.
On the doors if you look close enough they have the brilliant slogan
'Welcome to the Party World, NABI'

And now, just for Hamish, an unfortunately named clothing store, who in their right names calls a fashion store 'dirty' anything

777

2007-07-07T14:33:00.000+09:00

Today is 7/07/07, 5 months at this job, crazy, 7 to go.
Well actually now it isnt anymore whoops. Well it was a lucky day apparently.
So whats been happening with me, huh.
Well I'm off to Singapore for my UMAT test in two weeks, scary, then I might go spend a few days lying on a beach in Malaysia or something, and at this moment it may even be with Mom and Dad.
Work's still going well, it's PTM at the moment so I get to meet all my kindy kids parents, they all seem pretty reasonable, but I guess if they weren't I'd probably heard more from them before now. And also Charlie, the slow one, is taking a month off and may not come back, so I the rest of the kids are now getting a fair share of my time...ish.
I started sword training in Kung Fu this week :D, it's so much fun and also one hell of a workout.
I swear my life is more interesting than this, myeh
Outta here

Oh yeah going to the Mud Festival next weekend, it's Korea's answer to La Tomatina apparently

Nitoo

2007-06-30T16:15:00.000+09:00

Last night we had a boys night, Me, Johnny, Sam, Dave and Jarod.
It was great fun, we went out for Galbi, then played some pool, then decided we were gonna go to a nightclub, or try.
Well Sam wasn't up for it, so four went looking, and here is where I really should put in the details of Korean nightclubs, but I can't be fucked, so if you haven't been to Korea you don't understand.
We're doing the Cheonho gauntlet and start asking prices, and Sam was bargaining crazy
After a few minutes, some secret signal between the Nightclub guys and no-one talked to us anymore, we ended up going to the most advertised place there Bobos 9 and it was hilarious, I'm not sure if it was fun in the proper way, but I enjoyed making a fool of myself and scaring the locals. There was even a girl who studies at the DnA in Christchurch so I tried to have the NZ chat, but no go, we were that scary, no-one who comes from or has ever spent time in NZ is not glad to see a fellow one, apart from this girl.
So anyway, extreme drunkeness ensued.

Oh and this is a gem of a nightclub business card that was handed to us

N.b. The Korean just reads "Interface" the name of the nightclub

Lazy Fucks

2007-06-26T21:40:00.000+09:00

No not me, but I'm beginning to get frustrated with one or two floor elevator users particularly when your not carrying a thing.
I just caught the elevator up, so waiting, the elevator comes up from B1, a guy gets off, Grrr, 1 floor.
Then just to exacerbate, a woman gets on and gets off at 2.
Christ, there are stairs right there you fat fuck.
And on a completely unrelated note,

How to roll your R's

Racism on a stick

2007-06-24T20:22:00.000+09:00

2007-06-20T21:11:00.000+09:00

It's Wednesday, woop 2 days to go in the week, and what a week, actually no strike that.
Though I have had a couple of fun experiences, firstly on Sunday night I saw my first Korean guy, white girl couple. They don't actually exist so I'm gonna assume he was Korean American, particularly since she was a Paris Hilton look-alike (not as in attractive, as in blond, seemed a little ditsy and was in jail for DUI, well maybe not hte last one.)
You outside Korea may not understand the brevity of the situation, literally every second guy in Korea has a gf, actually probably more than that, and I've even seen two Korean guy/white guy couples (homosexuality isn't particularly well accepted here) but never before a Korean guy/White girl.
In other news Dan and Katie have officially left Korea, the end of an era.
Oh and I've got a cellphone, for free, woot,
And apparently you guys aren't worth anything, see proceeding post.
There's something else important, but fucked if I can remember it.
Ooh actually there is another thing, not that interesting but recent, during Kung Fu tonight, during jump roundhouse type kicks I kicked the guy next to me in the kidneys, fuck, I wish I could have apologized, I think I might go learn the Korean word for I apologize now.
Oh.. and I smell

For Lease: My NZ friends

2007-06-16T18:14:00.000+09:00

I've decided that since I'm out of the country, my friends are in lack of me, and they are being greatly underutilized on my part, so I thought, they're great people I'm sure they must be worth something.
I am offering them for a lease period of no more than 7 months, at which point you must leave them and let them spend the next month organising my return party.
They are from various parts of the country but to make full use of them I would suggest being in either Tauranga or Christchurch, or possibly Auckland.
They are all separately house-trained but put them in groups of 5 or more and this house-training is often disregarded, resulting in drunk pets, empty bottles and personal injury.
They possess a wide variety of skills ranging from the ability to consume alcohol in vast quantities in short periods of time to basic ninjitsu skills and everything in between.
Price: Offers
Period: ASAP - 6 Jan 2008
So there you have it, feel free to post any questions
Genuine offers only, please contact me on this blog.
Thanks,
Brad

EDIT: This package now includes occasional sexual favours. Thanks Kim

It's been a while

2007-06-15T07:48:00.000+09:00

I haven't updated this in quite a while, it's not like nothing's been happening, it's actually more that I haven't had time, though I really can't see how that's possible, anyway.

Where to start, well Oona officially leaves the country in half an hour, Dan and Katie leave in 12.
Things are gonna be strange without them, they've really become an integral part of my life, hmmm these things happen though.
So 3 foreign teachers plus Yoon-Hee (nee Tina) have left and 3 have replaced them,
And it looks like everything will be dandy
Though thanks to this deficit of 1 teacher I no longer get breaks Tues/Thurs pm, I'll be having a chat with Janet, hurry her along in finding another Korean teacher, though I don't think she'll need it cos currently she's teaching most of the spare classes.

I got a new kindy kid, Kathy (sadly already named) who can be a bit argumentative at times, but seems like a good kid, she fits in well with the class.

Saw Marc and his gf in the weekend, they were up for the weekend, got to catch up, we actually went to a bar made outta ice it was great, did a virtual Gahn Bae for Albie, I'm not sure if the pic has been emailed yet though, they were up with a dozen other teachers from Busan. They were actually with this girl from Otes, I can't remember her name anymore but I'm sure my Mom knows hers (it's really a given)

Kung Fu next weekend should be interesting, just me and Yeoul, I'm pretty sure I'll keep it up.
Well I've definintely missed important things and I've managed to make it sound uninteresting, I think I'll go back to updating every couple of days if I can.

Hwah

4 months And Counting

2007-06-07T22:12:00.000+09:00

Well 4 months have passed in Korea, and you know what, its flown.
Next week Dan Oona and Katie leave ;( sad days, it's gonna be so different.
Two newbies arrived yesterday, lets see how they fare.
Well no news except that so buhbye

2007-06-06T23:50:00.000+09:00

Well I've had a awesome couple of days, I definitely think having today off work was a big part of it.
Today I bought a PSP, oh yeah. Was a time-consuming process but hey it was pay-day yesterday.
On a completely unrelated note, I had a couple fo amazing days at Kung Fu, Monday I finished my first proper staff form, it's not much, but it's aweseom, and I also started onto the 6th part of Tantoi.
However, the major highlight of the last few days, nay couple of weeks, yesterday I succeeded in my first Kip-up. (Lying on your back and jumping to your feet)
It was the most amazing feeling.
Wow, what a happy post, well there you go, focus on the good. :)

The Departed

2007-05-31T15:52:00.000+09:00

Ohk so I watched The Departed last night, ridiculously rave reviews and everything, I was doing other things at the same time so I didn't pay full attention (good ole tv out), but I thought it was pretty good, but I should probably watch it again.
I just have one niggle
Where the fuck did Mark Wahlberg go for the last third of the movie?
It seems like he would have made a lot of difference to the outcomes
Such an important character, but he kinda just disappeared, I wikipedia'd it and worked out that he'd been put on paid leave, but that's a pretty pathetic excuse, everyone knows that cops on leave work even harder than before, not just disappear completely
WTF?
I'm currently downloading the original to see if they have a better excuse.

Yes you are in the Right Place

2007-05-28T20:15:00.000+09:00

Ok, so I've completely changed the look of my blog, I'm sick of having small pics so this was the best bet, it looks nothing like its original form, but I like white on black better.
Also note the gigantic font, awesomo.
And to my extended family, I have added a link to Tyler's blog. Check it out send him some love.

2007-05-25T20:16:00.000+09:00

Take the poll

Free Poll by Blog Flux

Happy Birthday Buddha

2007-05-24T20:43:00.000+09:00

Well for all you non-buddhists out there, you know who you are, you might be surprised to know it is Buddha's birthday.
Do you wanna know how I know, it's a public holiday in Korea, hell yeah, day off.
What self-improving feats have I accomplished today I hear you ask, well I'm glad you asked.
I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2, and drank a third of a bottle of rum.
Then went and watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3, yeah.
And that is all.

2007-05-20T19:20:00.000+09:00

My Korean-English phrase book, has the word for lesbian club, and "is it legal" but not the word for lettuce.
WTF?

2007-05-20T14:39:00.001+09:00

$30US for an iPod dock, I think not

2007-05-20T14:12:00.001+09:00

This morning, I decided to myself I wanted an dock, so I had a look on the computer, 30+ bucks, crazy, luckily the 3rd post down on google was a flickr site of a guy who built his own.
So half an hour, a stick of blu-tak, and a cardboard box later, voila, yeah.

I am better than my kids

2007-05-17T21:14:00.000+09:00

I have made an amazing discovery this week, I dominate my kindy kids at Paper/Scissors/Rock.
Some people may think it's cheating or just plain mean, but I have worked out how to beat my kids 90% of the time.
It involves the simple trick of waiting half a second more to giving your choice, they are completely oblivious.
Oh yeah, I rule

Write something new you lazy bum

2007-05-16T22:30:00.000+09:00

Due mainly to Hamish's inspiring comment "write something new you lazy bum",
I thought maybe it's about time to write something new,
I'm sorry the posts have been dying down, but I don't really have time during the week, I get home after half 9 and I'm usually pretty dead, the weekends I don't have any excuse as you can see from the 4 nothing posts i made on Saturday.
Anyway, so my weekend, was the very definition of uneventful, I went out to an Irish bar, drank some beer and played some beer on Sat nite, and that was the sum total of my travels outside my room.
However this week has been good, it was teacher's day yesterday, got a random assortment of presents, and for the first time in my life I can actually I was happier to get the cards than the presents (from my kindy kids mainly.)
My gifts were quite varying, I got a couple of very obvious pass-the-present-on's such as some sun protecting lotion(sunscreen) and the amazing Slim Leg Lotion awesome.
Got a couple of flowers, some nice chocolates, some homemade soap, a few sets of socks, a couple of shirts, piece of jewellery that is best described as a nurses watch, a clock set in a key on a chain, in gold. And a Polo Black gift pack, nice.
But as I said the notes were the best, Kate's Dad sent me a note asking me to take good care of her girl, in such a nice way. Ann wrote her own card 산생님 알라뷰 - Sansaengnim(teacher)
al la byu (Simply I love you in Hangul, they don't have the 'I' sound or 'b')
It's awesome, it also helps that she is my favorite, I'm wondering what my chances of being able to steal her is. Hmm :P
Also got an awesoem card from the next level up "Dear Brad teacher teacher, thanks for your teaching", yeah, hmm maybe I can do a bit better.
And I got a nice selection of grateful thank yous and I love you's. Yay appreciation.
I renewed my Kung Fu for another month yesterday, so I'm officially in, really enjoying it most of the time, bought soe training bandages yesterday and today I gave the punching bag a bit of a run for it's money. It resulted in me trying out Dan's Jou for the first time, it's a herbal medicine that prevents bruising, my hands are nice and stained yellow now, yeah.
Ho-k so thats it for me right now
Hope everyone's well, feel free to gimme an email or jump on MSN or skype if you wanna chat sometime
Bye

Ohk One more photo

2007-05-12T14:15:00.000+09:00

And no this has not been photoshopped... sorry
This has not been modified using Adobe® Photoshop® software
Edit: Apparently, the beard means I'm married hmmm.
I'm bored

My Babies

2007-05-12T14:04:00.000+09:00

The Winnies D Crew: Atticus, Ann, Charlie, Kate, Shaun, Rufus, Roger, Briar and Jina

A photo

2007-05-12T13:12:00.000+09:00

The master gave us some photos on Thursday, the other two are on Picasa (Just click the photo), but this one is of us at his place, Me, Oona, Dan, The Master and his son

I R Hangover

2007-05-12T09:11:00.000+09:00

Oww

My weekend part Deux

2007-05-10T08:51:00.000+09:00

Well this is gonna be quick I thought I shud give a quick background to the photos if you wanna know.
So we went to the park saw the giant buddha, saw the cool temple, then took a cable car up to a really famous rock. It was the location where hundreds of years ago a Korean king and two strongmen built a castle overnight and then defended against the invading Mongols, its pretty crazy and quite dodgy, 4 of us climbed to the top of the rock (crawled) was an awesoem view.
That night we went to Sokcho the neighbouring coastal city, ate some shellfish, it was really good considering I didnt think i liked shellfish.
Then we got drunk back at our place, as you do, and the next morning we went back to Sokcho(thats where the bus station is) had some fried fish and then went and lay on a beach, Yeoeul went for a walk came back with a piece of a seaweed, said it was edible so I tried some, the photos on another camera, I'll get it, it wasn't an unpleasant experience, btu not in any way spectacular.
Then we came home and watched Spiderman 3 at the cinema, awesome.

Oh and btw Monteith and Gertrude are now Monty and Gertie, Monty because the "th" is almost impossible for Koreans to pronounce they don't have a v or f sound they use p/b
And Gertrude beacuse firstly Gertrude is mean, and she couldnt even remotely say the name.
Well time for work
Cya

You can find anything on youtube these days

2007-05-08T09:12:00.000+09:00

One more thing

2007-05-07T23:53:00.000+09:00

So I know I said I was going to bed but one ohk 2 more things firstly

R.I.P. my first proper beard

And secondly a shout out to my 2 newest students Monteith and Gertrude.
Oh yeah, I rule, I just hope the names stick.

Sorakseon

2007-05-07T22:27:00.000+09:00

I made it back from a great weekend, way outta the city it was fantastic.
Friday was Children's Day so I gave the kids a pretty easy day, gave them some candy, be the great teacher that I am.
For all you non-teacher's out there, the measure of how good a teacher you are rests solely in how often you give your kids food.
For my last class, me and Dan were feeling mischievous so we made the king of all wordsearches, a 40x40 grid of letters with about 20 words in it most notably pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism and floccinaucinihilipilification(had to check this one for speliling. We had to put it on B4 paper with the word list on a separate piece. And on tp of this we made 4 different versions so the kids couldn.t work together. Oh Yeah. It kinda backfired, it was way too hard, myeh.
Oh and I finally got a group photo of my little kiddies
From left: Atticus, Kate, Charlie, Briar, Shaun, Ann, Rufus, Roger, Jina

Anyway, after work, me, Oona, Dan, Katie, Yeoeul(from Kung Fu) and Johnny went straight to the bus terminal
After 2 1/2 of waiting, 3 1/2 hour bus and a 15min taxi we made to a little place known as Sorakseon, at this point it was 1.30 in the morning and everything was closed, however, as we were getting out of a taxi a drunk guy starts talking to us and convincing us to stay a the place he just stumbled out of, after a few minutes of discussion we got ourselves a room 50 bucks a night and the 6 of us could all fit. Oh yeah.
We then decided to go try and find some food, luckily we found a Chicken place open, the service was hilariously terrible, We ordered a 2liter pitcher of beer, tey brought us a litreglass which is unsurprisingly difficult to pour out of, so Dan called over and asked them to change it, so they brought a 2 liter pitcher, but swore we ordered the one litre the first time and after a lot of arguing we gave up, it was ridiculous, in Seoul it wouldn't have been a problem
Johnny with the gigantic glass and me pouting with the mini one.
Surprisingly enough we weren't the only ones there, a couple with there infant were also there
This doesn't seem to be a big thing in Korea, going out at 2,3,4 in the morning take your kid

1:42am
Afterwards the women was outside with the kid who was crying, she couldn't stop the kid crying and didn't know why he was. Hmmm.
The next day we went to Sorakseon National Park, the reason we came. It's a gigantic area, it was awesome, we didn't even come close to leaving the beaten path, but they had a giant Buddha (I've never really seen one before) and a cool Buddhist temple. Got plenty of cool photos of the place.
And now time for bed T.B.Cont.

Sorakseon et al.

3 Months

2007-05-07T22:26:00.000+09:00

I've been here for three months today crazy.
I'm working on a post about my weekend, it's hopefully gonna have a few pictures in it, which takes a while.

Me

2007-05-01T21:56:00.000+09:00

So I'm sitting here in my boxers, just got back from Kung Fu made myself a sandwich and I'm waiting for the new Heroes to download, thought I'd write down the interesting points of my life at this very moment.
Firstly, the one kid in my kindergarten class who hadn't grown on me in the slightest, Charl hee lee, has moved to another Kindergarten. Anyone who says life doesn't always work itself for me can eat me, fate loves me.
Other work related stuff, the new guy's moving in 7 floors down today, he brought his PS2 with GP2 and the guitar controller with him. Woot Woot, hmmm I wonder if it's chipped I would love to play FFXII. But it would just result in me losing 3weeks of my life. ( I guess that isn't work-related really is it.)
Teacher's Day is coming up in 3 or 4 weeks, it sounds awesome, your kids get you ridiculous presents, like hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, oh yeah, I hope I do well.
It's Children's Day on Saturday and they wouldn't be getting anything but I think a pre-emptive presents of cookies or something would go down awesomely. Yay greed.
I'm off to the mountains/coast this weekend, a big group of us are going should be great fun.
Also I put up some photos from the weekend, there's not much substance to them but they're there, and they're reasonably pretty

Well thats all I can think of for now.

Oh and I've decided to start growing a mane

I'm In

2007-04-28T18:39:00.000+09:00

Well I just applied to sit my Med School entrance test (UMAT) in Singapore in July, so now it's on, I'm going to med school.
Wow.
N.B. Mom and Dad can you please pay my credit card bill please, add it to the tab :)

July 25th in Singapore, and my holidays start that weekend, so I ain't going back before the break, thinking about spending a week in Thailand, do some diving, do some surfing, oh yeah.
If anybody has any knowledge of that part of the world, I'm open to ideas.
And in other news I found hash browns today, woot.

Joost

2007-04-27T08:08:00.001+09:00

Anybody want a Joost beta invite, they just gave me three

Life ...

2007-04-25T23:52:00.000+09:00

Edit: Chris has made a point here with the "weekends?" phrase, whilst my weekends aren't covered here, they generally get their own post, or I don't do anything at all.

Well I thought I'd write a post about how life's been going in general lately, this ain't gonna take long.
WORK
Work's still going along fine, the teaching's good most of the time, the marking's alright but some of the stupid vocab lists and the monthly reports are painful.
We had our first kindergarten videos this week, so there's two 15 min videos on a website somewhere of me 'teachin my kids'.
I really hope they don't keep up the monthly thing, cos its stressful for the kids, and stressful for us, unnecessarily, i think I might just not prepare from now on.
My kids are maturing, in other words a serious divide is forming, I have Atticus at one end and Charlie at the other. Atticus knows all the alphabet, can name a lot of things, can do single digit addition, can recognise the occasional word and can remember something the next day. Charlie still doesn't understand the concept of coloring, can't repeat more than a 2 word phrase and is slowly learning the hard way not to climb up slides.
I say this but my kids are all still pretty aware, some of the kindergarten kids, are still learning what their hands are for.
The rest of the kids are various levels in between, not really sure where, cos i still don't have enough resources to check the non-trouble makers.
OTHER
I'm still doing Kung fu, its really hard to make myself go after work, so tired, but its usually worth it. Yesterday we did some sparring, so I actually should be able to hold my own in an even fight now, which is a step.
Today was awesome, I finally got to touch a weapon, getting to play with a staff, just the real basics but great fun. Luckily the ridiculous amounts of time I've spent playing with "staff" 's (staves?) translated slightly, yeah.

We got a new teacher yesterdya, another Dave, he's taking over Nick. He's a Canadian and he's a giant, but he seems like he's gonna fit in well.

If you wanna know anything more, jump on msn or gimme an email.

Night All

Out of Seoul

2007-04-24T22:59:00.000+09:00

On Sunday, I got out of Seoul for the first time since I've been here, me, Dan and Oona went out to our masters place to talk some English with his kid and eat a ridiculously sized homecooked Korean meal. So I've put a coupla photos, they're nothing too special, there's a couple I like.

Randomly the place he lived was an old Korean village thingee but across the road was a country club, these two photos show opposite sides of the river.

One of the mountains, sadly it ws overcast and I haven't quite worked out Lightroom properly, though it caught quite a cool shot

And this photo is nothing special but it just came out really well, showing off my camera yeah, you probably wanna look at a larger version.

Click here to see the full album

Photos

2007-04-21T13:58:00.000+09:00

I've just uploaded some photos i took last weekend at Olympic park.
Seoul is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in the world during spring, th eblossoms really liven it up, these are all taken of the same area but hey.

http://picasaweb.google.com/beeerad/OlympicPark

The last few polls

2007-04-18T23:08:00.000+09:00

So I'm sick of these polls so they're being added as a blog post, they always be here if you wanna see them later but they'll slowly sink away into oblivion. Mwhaha
For a recap, I am holding up one finger (apparently)
The thumb is the favorite finger and noone likes there middle fingers or pinkys.
And finally, the poll which i am not in any way happy with, the Giant Chicken would win, I now pose an actual test, someone find all those creatures and put them in a room. Cmon, for me...

&amp;lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll-9909.html"&gt;Take the poll&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/"&gt;Free Poll by Blog Flux&lt;/a&gt;

&amp;lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll-9471.html"&gt;Take the poll&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/"&gt;Free Poll by Blog Flux&lt;/a&gt;
&amp;lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/poll-9262.html"&gt;Take the poll&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;a href="http://polls.blogflux.com/"&gt;Free Poll by Blog Flux&lt;/a&gt;

2007-04-17T23:51:00.000+09:00

Yes I am still alive, I present me, Brad, in all my glory, look I still have an emanating glow.
This photo also serves to support one of the very few things I have to say today, that being, that I have now been called a lion by several people including one of my co-teachers, Yeah, lion.

Umm, went to Kung Fu again today, I only went twice last week (now a total of three times), I missed Thursday last week and yesterday, not my fault, at all, Thursday master was drunk so Dan didn't wanna go, and yesterday both Dan and Oona piked, Grrr, myeh my cupboards needed restocking anyway.
I started learning my first proper form today, the first stage of "Tanteo" or something like that, in fact I don't think it's anything like that but hey. And I'm also now most of the way through 5 stances fist, now just to spend 20 years perfecting it.

Well time for me to hit the sack,
Keep it real

My New Axe

2007-04-15T01:04:00.000+09:00

Ok so I bought a guitar today finally, and here it is, absolutely nothing special, it sounds pretty reasonable, plays pretty well, oh and it has a built in tuner neat.

The well respected Linus Music brand

However the place where I got it from was awesome, the entire second floor of a huge builing, just smaller than a city block, on the outside it is this incredibly boring unadvertised place, but inside is just crazy amounts of any music gear you could want.

My heavy metal experience

2007-04-13T08:54:00.000+09:00

Now this is barely even a cultural difference but I almost laughed.
I was teaching my last class yesterday, it consists of two teens, and one of them wasn'y there, so it was just two of us, and this class is a whole lot longer than it needs to be, so I've always got like 15 odd minutes at the end where I'm just supposed to chat with them in English.
So i ask him what kinda music he listens to, and he says "heavy metal". So I grab a piece of paper and explain I'm trying to find some Korean heavy metal for a friend back home, and can he name me some Korean heavy metal bands. Sadly he says there aren't really any, he listens to English heavy metal, damn, well I'll keep trying. Now being an ex-metal lover (I had a phase) I thought maybe I can have a chat to him about it so I ask him what kinda bands does he like.
Answer: Linkin Park, well there goes that out the window, on pressuring he also mentions Bon Jovi, he explains that his parents hate him listening to this heavy metal.
Roooaaarrrr!!!

Happy Birthday Albie

2007-04-10T22:39:00.000+09:00

Firstly happy birthday Albie, hope you have an awesome 21st.
before anyone else bitches that I dont mention theirs- Suck it.
Actually happy bday Lachlan for 3 days ago, and happy bday Tyler 3 days pre-emptively, done.

Today I started learning Kung Fu {insert random voiceover comment here}
I said I'd give it a try and if I liked it, I'd give it a month, I liked it, so I'll give it a month, now to get my shoes back from the gym, oh an I get to buy Kung fu pants awesome.
This however means that no-one will hear from me in the evenings during the week at all really anymore, I'm on MSN during my breaks randomly these days tho

Now on yet another completely unrelated topic, Katie was having a conversation with her kids about swearing and they could think of 12 korean swear words, collectively we could only think of 7 in English, now this is without any composite swear words. How can Korean have more swear words? What did we miss?
Shit
Fuck
Ass
Cunt
Bloody
Bastard
Damn

edit:
Crap
Bitch
(Cheers, Cam and whoever JC is)

Ok so we did have those ones, remember I wrote this at midight, but English is still short

Oh BTW not safe for small children, myeh too late now
Ta

It's my quarter birthday

2007-04-09T23:41:00.000+09:00

Woop

R.I.P Nail Clippers

2007-04-08T17:20:00.000+09:00

You may think from the title that I'm just bored and writing a post for no reason, well you're wrong I'm taking a moment to recall the heart-warming story of a young pair of nail clippers long journey home. From me rescuing it from a little shop on Santorini, one of the Greek Islands, to its travels through most of Western Europe, then NZ, it's finally been laid to rest in it's country of birth the Republic of Korea.

You will be missed

Day of the Dark Horse

2007-04-06T16:06:00.000+09:00

Edit:Actually posted 6/4/07 but pre-dated so it is hidden as people were being fuckwits
Re-edit: Now with picture

Today is only halfway through, actually mostly, but hey, and it's definitely been a day of surprise... in my kids, sorry nothing really that interesting to you guys but I gotta record this for myself.
Today I noticed one of my Kindy kids for the first time, not literally, but you know that kid who sits there, keeps to themselves, does their work,doesn't annoy anyone,does what they're told, that was her, good old Briar.
I think she's actually been a little bit scared of me, well anyway today I took the kids up to the playground in the middle of the morning, (I had no control all morning) and for the first time Briar came up to me for attention, she wanted me to play with her. I guess I had semi-unconsciously written her off. But then I realised, this kid is great, she is a good student, and now she's interacting with me. After this newfound recognition that she was in fact human, back in the class,
I had a look at her work and she's one of the brighter kids, I was stoked, I have found another good kid, my class is slowly but surely dividing itself in my mind. What was really awesome was then after Kindy, I found a little parcel that she'd given me this morning, I'd completely forgotten about it. (It's not like I get lots of presents or anything, I've only had one other, which was a piece of homemade walnut caramel cake from Roger, it was awesome).
It was wrapped in a little piece of green paper, so I unwrapped it and there's a little self made envelope, with a little sticker of the NZ flag on it, I was stoked, so I open it up and inside is a piece of paper that she's written on herself in perfect spelling(I'm assuming the parent wrote it out first) but also, we're only up to J in the alphabet and all her letters are drawn right and there's only one eraser mark.

Brad tea
cher (a smiling face with the label Brad)
Howareyou?
Briarlike icecr
eam Thankyou
verymuch
I Love you
Brad

Wow, this beats the cake, this is great, I'm going to treasure this
I'm gonna try and find a scanner or otherwise upload it, but still as I said before this is more for me than for you.
Also I'm not sure if there's a photo of Briar on Picasa, I know I have one at home but I don't think I uploaded it, I'll put it up and update the post when I get home.
You probably don't understand the amount of torment these kids put me through, this made my week to see one kid who can write and has wanted to write me a letter, to get some kind of recognition for your hard work from 5yo Non-English speakers is a big ask I know but she did it.

Also, the 'I love you' my kids have learnt last night, cos they didn't know it yesterday but today, in the elevator up to the playground, three of my girls told me "I love you Brad teacher"

Now for dark horse number two, Lucienne in my KG1A class (first year of school, 3/4th year of English) she's new to the class, most of the class has stayed together from last year, but she came up from the class down with 4 others (2 of whom don't belong) so she's taken a while to adjust. But today I gave the class a dictation test (as I do every day, they study a whole lot of sentences overnight and I read them a few of them and they write them down) and this is by far the hardest test I've given them, and she makes one mistake, she missed an 'a' in one of the sentences. This dictation was hard, I doubt anyone of you could get it all right.

And that is all.
Cheers

Nacho's vs Fruit Salad

2007-04-05T22:54:00.000+09:00

Though I have to say I'm getting used to the random incredibly strange attempts to imitate Western food here, the "Mexican nachos" we just had were awesome.
I am so disappointed I didn't have my camera on me, so sorry no photo,
Anyway the nachos come out.
Nacho chips - good
2 types of cheese sauce- good
Jalapenos- Good
Cherry tomatoes-good
Salsa-Good
Pineapple(from fruit salad)-Umm sure why not
That unnameable white fruit from fruit salad-Ummm
But the Piece de resistance definitely went to the huge mound of whipped cream on top of everything, we had to doubletake, yip that is in fact whipped cream.
They've definitely seen a picture of nachos, gone hmm ooh it has a white cream on top, that must be whipped cream, gotta love imitation

My Day

2007-04-05T19:33:00.000+09:00

What a day, the job's actually becoming enjoyable, I hope I'm not jinxing it, but Janet is no longer irrational, the afternoon kids are controllable and my kindy kids are.. just.. dunno, I'll get there, they give me plenty to laugh about. And I guess that my las class of the day the kids didn't turn up, fuck yeah
Today just after lunch I was trying to explain to my Kindy about family, so i got them to draw their families, not an easy task, but hilarious. Bear in mind when reading that I'd drawn up my family in stickish figures and explained Mother, Father, Bradteacher, brother, brother, brother, Family 1,2,3,4,5,6. And we've covered it several times in the last few weeks, so they know what it is.
Now Rufus is reasonably smart, I explain it to the class wander for 30 sec, come see Rufus, he's drawing a dinosaur, hmmm, luckily after one try he scribbles four humanesque figures.
Hmm a dinosaur i the family awesome.

Now there's Charlie, he's right next to me so he gets the best explanation, draw mother, draw father, draw charlie, come back 2 min later. He says"Tank" and he's drawn a tank, good Charlie but it's supposed to be your family, Ok, so he can be a little hard to explain to, so I turn the paper over write Charlie and indicate draw yourself, then I wrote father, mother. Go help another kid, he comes up to me a couple of minutes later, "Tank", and yes he's drawn me another tank. Take him back give him another piece of paper, draw Charlie, draw mother, draw father. Then I took the pencil drew a circle, say Charlie's happy, and I drew some eyes and mouth, happy Charlie, now you finish charlie. Come back again and guess what "tank." Hmmm so i turn that over and draw three figures, so you colour them in. Come back again, and the three figures are part of, you guessed it, a tank. Move on.

Fastforward to the end of the colouring, I'm going round getting them to explain, it goes "(insert students name), mother, father, sister/brother" I get to Charl Hee Lee,
Ok so who's this, "Father" and this "mother", this "brother", ok so who's this "father"....ummm
So who's this (point to "Father"), "Father" and this "other father", and I have to stifle a laugh, awesome.
Though I hafta say, Ann's was the best
"Mother, Ann, Snowman"

And done

Harrro

2007-04-04T16:11:00.000+09:00

Hey guys, I'm on an hour break in the middle of my afternoon, pretty unnecessary, myeh can't complain. I need a break.
I finally got sick, painfully sick, I lasted a lot longer than I expected, 2 whole months.
Last night was one of the most painful in my life, after a super electrolyte boost this morning I was feeling earthly again, but I think I'm about to get it again, hmmm, all I really need is one good day of bed rest, however I think it might be 2 or 3 bad days cos you can't really get time off here without getting your head ripped off.
On a brighter note, Payday tomorrow, I'm pretty set on buying a guitar this weekend so that money will come in rather useful. N.b. to my creditors(mom & Dad) don't worry you'll get your money eventually.
I tried actual lychees yesterday(i think) we were at a buffet for lunch, and I decieded I'd try that crazy looking thing, I'm pretty sure it was lychee after peeling it, weird.
No new pictures due to my collapsing as soon as I got home last night. If I'm feeling alive tonight, I 'm gonna go to my roof and take a couple of snaps, man my camera is awesome. If Ben is out there somewhere can you tell me what model your bro's camera is, Cheers
Well anyway I think it's nap time, I'm gonna try this pzizz thing it sounds awesome

브래드

Photos

2007-04-02T23:39:00.000+09:00

I took 250 odd photos today, here's a couple of reasonable ones.
My kids at the Playground - for details and more pictures click them and you will be magically transported to my Picasa site.

From My Winnies

So Bright and Shiny

2007-03-31T20:21:00.000+09:00

I have just added a photo section (look on the right hand side) currently I have two albums, neither of which really have any photos in them, I have two photos that were on my computer and a couple of the practice shots I've been taking.

Oh and by the way, I did get meself a shiny new camera, they didn't have the one I wanted but gave me an awesome deal on the next one up, oh yeah.

Nikon D70(n.b. this is not my photo, i stole it)

Actual Update

2007-03-31T09:03:00.000+09:00

Hey guys its been like over a week since I've actually posted anything substantial on this so I thought I'd post some actual information.
So in no particular order here is what I've been up to for the last week.

Last Sunday we went out to Insildong(sp?) for a wander, there's like a street/marketty thingy, apparently its got some awesome pottery and stuff, so wandered round, they had an awesoem stall, a guy was selling (possible faux) antiques and he had 3 sets of hookblade, think Kabal out of MK, type things, man if i was able to get some of those out, they looked cool.
After about an hour, we got disturbed by my first Korean protest, urprisingly enough over the Free Trade Agreement thing. So many people just walking, in case you didnt know Seoul (particularly the uni students) has some retty intense protests quite often, sometimes even developing into rioting.
We watched them for a while, until Dan just suddenly was like Ok guys, I think we should leave and quickly. Turns out he spotted a couple of anti-USA plaques in the midst, and just in case, we kinda just slipped away.(Nothing was going to happen but it's better to be safe)

The rest of my week was pretty much just work, I watched a weird movie, Pan's Labyrinth, it was good, you guys should give it a go sometime. And I also finally watched The Godfather properly for the first time.

Work was pretty standard, it was pretty heavy though, this week was report cards, so we had to work through all our breaks. Grrr

We got a new teacher on Friday, David, a Liverpudlian, he taught here last year and he's back for 6 months, seems like an awesome guy, got drunk with him last night, good old fridays. Galbi and Beer, and a couple of LIT's ahh the life.

Along with the new teacher came a complete new schedule, and I'm back to 6:30/6:45 finishes woot, and I don't have any low level afternoon classes anymore, which has its pros and cons, but generally its good to be able to talk to the students.

Well it's now 1pm on a Saturday, and I've done nothing all day, this post has taken like 2hours to write. In a couple of hours I'm off to buy a spanking new camera, a digital SLR, I'm looking at the Nikon 350D, possibly the Canon D50, the general 700k won, about NZ$1,000. Oh yeah, a fancy new toy.
Along with this I'll start posting some photos, might give this Picasa a go, I wonder how well it integrates, so far I've been a little underwhelmed with the extent that Google has intertwined their applications, considering I use pretty much all of them now, it's a little annoying.

Well anyway thats all for now
Bye All.

They Finally Did It

2007-03-30T00:14:00.000+09:00

I always said that if Christianity came up with solid proof, I'd revert back
And it looks like they've done it using .....
...Hmm I wonder if anybody notices, if you do please,
You guessed it,
.. message me don't tell anyone else, I might start
Peanut Butter putting more interesting details in like this

*Insert Sarcasm Here*

Good Night

2007-03-27T23:47:00.000+09:00

Hey guys, just about to go to bed
I'm still going great here, just posted another poll, I don't actually know what I'd choose, you may notice I have incorporated the carryover champions, I know it's a little early for semi-finals, but I'm just seeing how it goes.
As of now I have 999 page views I wonder who's gonna be lucky 1000
And no more Google views, a good thing really, the whole world doesn't need to know my life.
Night All

Update: For all you n00bz, page views are not the same thing as hits, it counts every page that people look at, rather than just counting each visit.
And congratulations Hamish on being visitor #666

Today is Sunday

2007-03-25T14:07:00.000+09:00

Woot, I managed a day without my computer, was not really worth it though, I meant to buy speakers the day before but the shop didnt have any that I wanted so my day without a computer was a day without music, it was still good, spent an hour and a half cleaning, watched some ice hockey on the tremendous heap of propaganda that is the Armed Forces Network, and read the book Absurdistan in one go (just over 6 hours 350 odd pages) it was pretty good, nothing special but it won prizes and stuff, who knows.

I'm trying to think of another poll but I'm drawing a complete blank, so it's coming, eventually

Oh and I've realised I've gotta catch up with some of you properly, so I'll try and send some emails this week, if you don't get an email, you're either in Chch and I have constant contact with you or I'm still getting round to it so be patient.

I'm gonna buy a new camera next weekend so I'll start posting photos a lot more often after that, maybe even try and work out Flickr, who knows.

International Shutdown Day

2007-03-23T22:45:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow is International Shutdown Day, no using computers for 24 hours, I'm in, I'm a big fan of anythig that resembles a cult, (hence the smoothness of my pc-mac transition) so no updates.
So I thought I'd finsih my work week now with a casual post in a semi-druken state.
At this point I have come to the realisation nothing happened today, it was a good week end, the kids were reasonable, I had at least one kid crying in most of my classes today, I forgive Jina cos her Grandad died last week, and she missed her Mom, but Charl Hee Lee is just a fucking pussy.
As for non-kindergarten kids crying, grow some freaking balls.
Oh man I saw a delivery guy for Pizza Cat pizza twenty minutes ago, awesome

Insert title here

2007-03-23T08:28:00.000+09:00

Hey Guys, its been a few days without posting now, thought I'd catch up.
Firstly, yesterday was one of the best days I've had at Boston Campus ,and I can pretty accurately pinpoint why. If you've been reading recently, you will have heard of my monster child Jade, well yesterday morning just before lunch my Korean co-teacher comes in and starts gathering up his books, and I sure as hell go ad help her, we may not be able to converse particularly well, but I liked where this was going.
So anyway his mother has pulled him out, I think the fact that he's spent most of the last few days in solitary and yesterday he hit one of the other kids did it.
I will clarify that Boston Campus under no circumstance will kick someone out, soit was the mothers choice.
Subsequently it was my Korean teachers duty to try and talk her out of it, but I very much doubt her heart was in it.
After he left I saw her physically change, she'd been looking strung out but it just lifted and she looked like she might enjo her job again.
It was heaven, the rest of the class is by no means perfect, there are still two troublemakers, but at least they feel bad when i tell them off.
The final piece of yesterday was my super-late class (early-teens), who would not stop talking, do not do their homework, and were impossible to control.
I walk in and they actually quieten down and look at me, and they'd done their hw
This was evident in Vocabulary test I gave them, on Tuesday i gave them six of the ten words they were supposed to study for homework, 2 ppl got one right and the rest none, out of 12.
yesterday they got 4,5,6 right.
Ahhh kids that listen.

Other random crap:
I was really impressed last night walking along, I saw a patrol of 5/6 cops walking along the street (I haven't seen a cop further than 15m from a police station the whole time i've been here), ahh normal cop behaviour, then they all turn into a restaurant.
Hmmm maybe not.

Korea is super-anti drugs, particularly marijuana.
If you ever go to the hospital for anything, they take a blood sample and among the normal tests, they do a drug test on it. If they find anything, you're charged with possession.
That's right folks, marijuana in your system is possession, so you may have been in Amsterdam 3 weeks ago, and if you come to Korea, you're in possession of drugs.

And I'll leave you with a comment from Janet yesterday:
Whilst telling me that a few of the kids in one of my classes were complaining
(I took over from a teacher who alot of his students described as their best teacher ever, he lectured, not my style, but Koreans love it)
Anyway, i was saying that two weeks into the term I had just learnt their names, ( I have probavly 60 odd kids, a large portion of whom i dont knwo their names, I'm taking it one class at a time)

Janet: But I thought all white people were really good at remembering names

Postscript: This post has been brought to you, in a particularly hungover state so please excuse any blatant discontinuities or lack of content.

New Poll

2007-03-19T22:27:00.000+09:00

Leonardo:
(31%)
Michelangelo:
(46%)
Donatello:
(8%)
Raphael:
(8%)
I don't really know much about famous artists:
(8%)

And the winner is: Michelangelo, I guess carving a 17ft naked man is appealing to a wide range of people.

Hotdogs

2007-03-18T15:56:00.000+09:00

http://break.com/watch/250676/Hotdogs_for_Homophobes/

Ok I saw this and it made me think of Scott,
So someone make sure Scotty sees it
You'll understand at about 1:18