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So..ummm..yeah

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"

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...

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

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

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

23

Last Throes of 22

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

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

All-Inclusive 2-day Ski Trip

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

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

One more post

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

Merry Xmas from Korea

As you can see I had to improvise.

Big First

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?

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

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

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

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

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)

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.)