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.)