Oh eff...

The amount of times I hear the f-bomb dropped on a daily basis makes me feel like I work in a inner city school. I hardly curse, for me to hear that word and other words associated, makes me feel very angry and uncomfortable...but it's also kind of funny. It's funny because I know the Korean equivilant and sometimes will tell them what the f-bomb means. Their faces get read and they get very embarrassed and apologetic right away. The other thing is imagining what their parents would do if they heard them.

It's kind of refreshing in a twisted way. The naivete of the kids here on certain subjects is nice to have.

I have more but I'm going to eat dinner first. I think I'll post our Seoul trip in Ten pin, then just do a link on here if you're interested.

I'm busy and lazy

Okay, so there are a lot of new things I need to let everyone in on, but I was feeling under the weather last week. And haven't been in the writing mood for a little bit. I have just been pondering things over and keeping stuff inside. Ridiculous moments have been happening and making us wonder what really is the fate of our generation. Sorry it's been a bit but look forward to some long and insightful (if not a bit long drawn, although, I feel I'm actually really good with punctuation and grammar) sentiments.

School time, later.

Tummy Woes

So I had another tummy problem this week. Went to the cool Korean doctor who fixed me up with some medicine and I've felt pretty good since then.

I've just been thinking about stuff so until I feel I have my thoughts sorted out I'm going to refrain from letting it all out on the net. It's coming close to my end date, six more weeks! I can't believe it's so soon. A lot of my good friends are leaving soon too. Anyway, enough of the wishy washiness. I gotta pack for some Seoul searching.




p.s. if you understood the joke you can still be my friend.

Ides of March and Cheezburgers!

So bad things happened on March 15th. Just to name drop, Ceaser... but today, there will be none of that. Plus, nothing really happened lately. Okay, actually I have a great video of my friend's birthday but it isn't uploaded yet. So, lets just have some fun with LolCats! If you don't know LolCats are from this website I can has cheezburger. Its just random pictures of cats with captions in relaly bad grammar. It's the perfect time waster, and it makes you giggle a whole bunch!

Take it as you might

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't. ~Blaise Pascal

A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul. ~Author Unknown

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. ~Martin Luther King Jr.


* I don't buy the idea that there is no God. How can you explain natural beauty as just chemical reactions and science?"

I was confirmed about a year ago by the Catholic Church. It was a especially trying time this year due to the fact it was the first year, in probably five that I didn't go to an Ash Wednesday service. I'm not a super Catholic and would never feign to be. But, due to certain life events (the death of two friends and two grandfathers I was very close to, and small epiphanies along the way) I have come to appreciate faith. Coincidentally going to a Baptist affiliated college was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I didn't particularly enjoy going to Baptist services. I felt a lot of times there was a rift between those who were "Bible beaters" trying to beat God into you, those who didn't practice a religion, and those who said they were religious yet partook in underage drinking, sex and other things not very Christian like. Hypocrisy is easily most evident when studying those who label themselves as devout, practicing Christianity...Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and other religions of those radical enough to persecute those who are non religious are just as bad.

I believe that faith is something that can't be visibly shown, nor should you singing songs at the top of your lungs and going to religious student groups make you any more devout than the person who prays quietly in their room.

I do feel that school at Wingate helped me to feel it was OK to be religious. I honestly admire those who are true to their religion. Those who do not make others feel bad that they don't practice or are not as devout. It takes a lot of courage. A lot of my teachers may not have been religious, or maybe they were and I didn't know. Whatever the case I feel that having religion as a small part of my formal education gave my schooling a special feeling. I felt the teachers knew they had a purpose, they weren't just doing this for the money or prestige. There was a mission to give their knowledge to those willing to take the challenge. Part of that challenge is discovering who you are. Knowing yourself. Hopefully I can explain this better one day in the future.


Without faith I don't think that I'd have done half of the things I have done or hope to accomplish. I want to have a nice nest egg but (much to my parent's chagrin) money for me isn't everything. Basically I want to help people. You can't take money with you when you die, You don't really even take memories. But if you leave people with a legacy, then you truly have succeeded.
























Why would God have created mankind if he were only to focus on himself? Helping others, giving of yourself, it's the only way to make you feel whole.

To Be

Today in class we were talking about the present tense. I was having a hard time because it seems the previous teachers neglected to actually teach them this concept and thus, they had no idea what I was talking about. It was more upsetting because these kids are in middle school and have studied English since they were in 3rd grade.

I tried to get them to form a sentence with Be. Very simple, "I am happy, I am sad, I am a student" type sentences. I think it was more difficult for them because in the Korean language you don't use grammar that way. It's a Subject Object Verb set up; this is in conflict with the Subject Verb Object of English. So saying "I am happy," is "I happy am," in Korean. Yoda talk if you may. This concept on present tense was very hard for this particular class to comprehend and I wasn't sure if it was a culture thing (seeing I had been teaching a lot of grammar this past week, where I don't think you get as much out of it when it's taught in a different language, because concepts are lost in translation) or this class was particularly slow.

I want to go with the later of my two options seeing that I have students also in middle school picking up present tense very quickly. And so as a teacher I feel sort of like I'm failing them, even though technically it's the Korean teacher failing to explain English concepts to them, so that when they have class with me they remember the lesson from the Korean teacher.

It's also very interesting how we attach very significant meaning to such a small set of words. I am, you are, he she it is, we are, you are (pl) they are. So many different combinations can come out of these words it's endless. We can say how we are feeling, how old we are, if we've found that special someone. Present tense is really amazing in its simplicity, and how we can take a complex idea and whittle it down to the most simple sentence.

Also interesting is how we put ourselves in boxes and define ourselves with such simplicity. "I am a doctor, I am a student," We (especially those in our twenties and especially Americans) love to label ourselves. It's as if having something interesting on the end of "I am" will show how well you're doing for yourself. That you're going places and living the "American Dream." Yes, if you can't contract what you're doing into condensed phrases people will get bored and not listen to you. But, on the other hand I feel that if you're really doing something worthwhile, and you really feel it defines the "I am" question one shouldn't be able to sum it up in one sentence.

We're so lucky in the English language to have hundreds of thousands of words to use. They describe how we feel, what we're doing and why we think a certain way, native speakers most certainly take this vocabulary for granted. Most people who have English as a second language say that they have so much more freedom to express how they feel because of all the words they can use.

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them.

Hamlet. Act III, scene i

If you don't know, I absolutely love Renaissance theater. And so it's only fitting to end with an excerpt from the famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy. If you want to read the entire monologue go for it. It's a beautiful soliloquy and an amazing show of how exquisite the English language can be. Starting at "To be."

49 days...oh yea and Evan gets to buy me candy

So the posters keep popping up around school. It's also getting a bit odd because there's this guy just smiling at me all the time. I also learned that if I buy $5.50 worth of stuff at Dunkin I too can have a poster!

Beyond the posters keeping me entertained, I have started taking an online TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course. So far I haven't learned anything new since being in the classroom. I guess these 10 or 11 months have taught me the ins and outs of EFL (or ESL or whatever you want to call it) classroom teaching. Because I've taken several foreign languages and advanced English classes I already knew a lot of grammar terminology, which has also presented itself in the book. The course has been pretty good giving a few new ideas here and there. However, some ideas such as group work (at least in Korea) are ideas founded by those not in the classroom: Korean students don't like to make mistakes, so unless they are very comfortable they wont speak up in class and definitely wont do group work. It's also they'll just speak in their native tongue...

I already have finished two of the modules and am on the third. My next step is taking a midterm. I'm not too sure what it involved but I'm sure I'll do well seeing I have experience and retain information well, so I wont be studying completely new stuff. I'm excited about completing the course. This means that I can teach basically anywhere once I get it. Most countries require you have a degree and TEFL to teach. So now if I want to go to Japan or Europe or South America I can. I can also ask for more money and benefits.

Also if you didn't know...(which I didn't and I live here) March 14th is White day. Now, as funny as that sounds from a country that is obsessed with all things western. It has nothing to do with race or culture, well ook consumer culture, yes. It started in Japan, because it's traditional that women give men chocolate on Valentine's Day in Japan and Korea. So because of this, the candy industry thought, "Why isn't there a day men can give women candy, then it's Valentine sales all over again!" So one month after Valentine's Day is White Day.

Lucky me, oh that's also why there are posters at Dunkin.