Final Kids Camp of 2007...and BFA Pete departs. Shame.

December 19th will forever be an important date in the history of the place where I work (the name of which I will not mention in order to protect the people who work there...and myself.) This was the day BFA Pete left. Did he go quietly? Not a chance. It seems he has never been told that it's not a good idea to burn your bridges. If he had built say, 10 bridges, he burned all of them. He also destroyed the bridges that had not even started to be made yet.
The day before he left, he declared to the management that he was not going to pay his bills for his final month, and had a blazing row about it with the Korean supervisors. As no deposit had been taken, this was a problem. So the deputy head of the school and a supervisor snuck out and went to BFA Pete's apartment. They then let themselves in with a duplicate key...and took his luggage. I haven't found out yet what BFA Pete's reaction to this was...but I guess he exploded. Anyway, it seems he changed his mind and paid his bills. He left the next day, but will return to Korea to blunder his way through another year teaching at another poor place, before being asked to move on again no doubt. He will be sorely missed here. The two best memories I have of him are when he told a group of students that he doesn't have an accent, and the time he corrected a Korean students Korean. I did get a Christmas card from him, which was nice. But he didn't say goodbye. I'm not sure if he liked me much, but I did manage to not have a row with him during the time I was here. However, I did lose it in the very last week, when I shouted at him in front of all the students and teachers cause he wouldn't shut up. I was trying to explain something to the kids who had all stopped talking when I asked them to. He looked stunned that I had shouted at him, but did shut up. He is just a big softie really, as well as a complete buffoon. He got away with a lot during his time here, mainly because the Koreans respect their elders - even idiots, they respect higher rank...which BFA Pete is not, but because he is a native speaker he is considered an 'expert', and also he is a man of the cloth and claims to have some high position in the church. Many Koreans are obsessed with Christianity in a kind of 'we believe in God, but don't ask us why cause we are not quite sure' type way. Oh, and he is American. Americans are loved and hated in about equal measure here it seems. Mike, now my 2nd best friend in Korea, is American...but he one of the good ones. Sometimes.

For some unbelievable reason, Crazy Korean/American did not leave with him. Apparently the reason she has been kept is because she 'has made an effort to get along with the people she works with'. She was warned some time ago because the Korean management noticed she was a useless teacher and said bad things about everyone. Now they think she is a useless teacher, but doesn't say as many bad things as before. Well, not when they are in earshot anyway. And that was enough for them. But the SIGNS!! The signs she put up all around the building show she is useless and unfriendly. I don't think anyone else notices them. When I mentioned the signs to Ellena recently she didn't even realize there was anything wrong with them. When I pointed out the mistakes, she said 'Oh, it doesn't matter'.
I said to her 'But we gotta teach Inglish more gooder, ain't we...don't ya fink?' She said 'Yes'.

Gerald, Ellena's boyfriend has also left and returned to his homeland. His contract expired and he didn't want to stay. He was alright, but can be summed up by the word 'blah'. Ellena will follow him in 6 weeks time, and it seems there is already a race on among the male population of this city to see if she will remain faithful. At Gerald's leaving party, when he left the room, all the males drew lots to see who would test Ellena first. BF13 (Paul) got number 1, and I got number 3. Ellena was in the room at the time, and it was all done in good humour. She is from Canada, however.






The final middle school group of the year were just about the best. Really nice people...always smiling and eager to chat. I was going to have a photo with a couple of students to begin with, but then a few more joined in. Unfortunately so did Crazy Korean/American, who couldn't stand being left out. That's her in the pink jacket on the far right with the really shiny head. Click the photo and it gets bigger...but I must warn you, so does Crazy Korean/American.



One final message left on my board.
I got along really well with almost all of the students this week.












Geralds replacement arrived at the place I work just a few days ago. I will change his name to protect his identity, as I sometimes do on here. So Kwistofer has arrived. He was an obvious choice to work here, and I have seen his CV. His main qualification is as a tennis coach. He has a lot of experience as a leader and teacher...mainly of tennis. He has represented his country at tennis, and can speak fluent Polish...as well as English. Tennis does dominate the CV somewhat, and must have impressed the management here, who like the occasional knock around. He does have an online teaching qualification, and taught for one year in Korea previously. Bizarrely, a good mate of mine taught at the same place as Kwis did, and knows him. I found this out after Kwis had been offered the job. My mate's reaction was 'You what?! My God...I can't believe he has come back to Korea!' Good choice, Korean management. You've done it again. Well done.

The Demise of SpongeBob

In this picture, SpongeBob is turned upon by his good friend the Star. Star picks up SpongeBob and throws him to heaven. Good Star.

These pictures show what happened to SpongeBob when he drank some poison, and when he had and accident with a sword and a long nail.

An artist at work.

It's a big task getting the masterpiece finished before hometime, so everyone mucks in.

This is a drawing of a dragon that was left on my whiteboard by a talented student from the previous week. When a new group of students arrived the following Monday, I told them that I had drawn it. They were impressed. Except for one student who I thought seemed quite shy and quiet. He waited for the class to fall silent before saying one word, loud and clear...'LIAR'. It was the first word he had spoken. The class laughed at his comment, then they laughed at me. Just for a moment, I hated that kid. We had never met before, but he knew me so well. Spooky.

Seoul Trips & Daejeon

For 2 weekends in a row I managed to escape from Gongju on a bus that went to Seoul. Some other people came with me too. I was glad to go there, as I could continue my research into Korean alcoholic beverages.
There was a wider range of beverages on offer in Seoul, and although the effect on the body was very similar to that which I experienced in Gongju, the cost of the research was much higher. Not to worry, as I have been putting aside part of my salary to fund this investigation. However, I was disappointed to find that the morning after the research, I had a bad taste in my mouth and a feeling of sickness in my stomach, and my head was also unwell. Once again it seemed some of the beverages I had consumed had 'gone off', and should never have been sold to me in the first place. It was fortunate for the venues that sold me the drinks that I couldn't remember where I had been. I also couldn't remember which beverages I had tried, which was annoying as I will have to start the Seoul Research Program again. I guess after drinking the bad beer it made me forget. I wasn't sure either about how I got back to the place I was staying, and worse still, I had no idea where I was anyway.

As it turned out, I was not far from where I wanted to be...which was near a vegetarian restaurant where I was to meet Mike and his girlfriend, JiYoung, who are friends of my best friend in Korea, Paul. It was only the third time I had met Mike, and the second time I had met JiYoung. Nevertheless, this was still enough for both of them to easily climb above Paul in my best friends ranking list, with Mike taking top spot. In fact the more people I meet, the further down the list Paul will fall, unless he finishes with his girlfriend and agrees to help me with my research project.

The following weekend was very interesting also. After a stop over in Seoul which was fairly similar to the previous experience, myself and best friends 1 and 3 (Mike and Paul) went to Daejeon, a city not far from Gongju. Here, we were to go to a birthday party of someone who was friends with BF1 and BF3, but whom I had never met. Indeed I wasn't invited, but went anyway as I only had 3 friends, as BF1 and BF3 kept reminding me. Soon after arriving and talking to the new people, Paul had slipped down to BF8. Later, in a bar, I met another good person, and Paul was BF9. He doesn't know this, but I will tell him soon. The bar gave me two new beverages to research. The first was a drink called 'Long Island Ice Tea', which I thought sounded refreshing. It was. Several hours later after thorough research had been carried out, I overheard someone order something called a 'Ling Ryeland Mice Pee' which sounded disgusting to me, but looked somewhat similar to the previous drink, so I had that too. It got a good mark. By the end of the evening I had lots of friends better than Paul (BF12), and had also been invited to the wedding of Paul's friends in Daejeon, Danny(BF4) and Mi Na(BF5), which he didn't seem to like. He can no longer say I have only 3 friends. I now have 12. That's not too bad, as I have only been in Korea for 6 months. That's an average of 2 friends each month, although 9 of them did appear only a few days ago. Escaping from Gongju has proven to be a good idea. I will try to do it more often.

How to teach II...

How to teach...

Messages

Every Friday the kids leave messages for me on my whiteboard. It proves to me that I have done a good job, and they are sad to say goodbye. Most of the messages are nice, and I rarely write them myself.



It's always nice to hear that people think I am 27. These kids are the best 12-15 year olds from the area, so are intelligent enough to guess someones age. My girlfriend does appear to look quite young, but she is in fact 25. I don't think I have met her yet.


As I said, the students that come here are the most intelligent in the area, and are honest.


Except this one. I'm not sure who wrote it. Must have been a joke, or Paul (BF12) came down from upstairs and wrote it.

Later, I was happy to find that the message had been replaced by a picture, although the person who drew it should give up trying to be an artist. Must have been the same person who left the note before.

New Signs courtesy of Crazy K/A

Ok...the grammar is wrong, but why is 'UP' in capital letters?? Is this word more important than 'clean'? It has three '!!!'. I guess it must be.


A friendly notice to all the teachers here. Click on it and it gets bigger.


NO!

Food or Drinks!

Two sentences, but no sense. Fantastic!



Another classic.
Great entertainment.
Thanks.

November

The weather has suddenly turned to 'really freezing cold'. There was no warning...it just happened, and now it will probably be this way until February. It has already snowed twice, but not enough to make snowballs to throw at any of the foreign teachers here.

There have been 4 more kids camps, and the final 'Travelling Freaky Show' for 2007 has taken place. With 3 of the 5 foreign teachers coming to the end of their contracts, their enthusiasm for teaching appears to be even lower than before. I had my suspicions about this during the various times we have chatted this month. These were the comments that I picked out:

Ellena: 'I'm really winding down now. I just can't be bothered anymore.'
Gerrard: 'I don't care. What are they going to do, fire me?'
BFA Pete: 'You know...my motivation has gone down 50%, and the other 50% doesn't care.' (I heard this repeated to more than one teacher. I think he thinks he is being funny.)

My own motivation, however, seems to be rising day by day...as the time the above 3 people will leave draws ever nearer. Only problem is, Crazy Korean/American will still be here. The more I think about it, the more amazed I am about that. So I try not to think about it.

This week, when the new group of students arrived they were split into 3 groups of 12, as usual, and I was lucky enough to have Crazy Korean/American as my partner for the introductions. The kids were from elementary schools, and were very shy and nervous (as they always are for the first few hours of arriving here). When we met the first group, Crazy K/A picked out a shy looking boy and asked him the following question:
'What country are you from?'
The boy didn't reply, and looked pretty confused. So Crazy K/A said:
'WHAT COUNTRY ARE YOU FROM??!'
The boy still said nothing, and looked very uncomfortable. Crazy K/A then said to all the other students:
'He doesn't know what country he is from!! Can someone tell him what country he is from?'
...to which one student replied 'Korea'.
Crazy K/A - 'Very good! Yes...You are from KOREA'. The kid was now completely embarrassed. So was I.

The poor kid was right not to answer. If you go to France and ask a Frenchman what country he is from, he would just stare at you too, cause it's a dumb question. Why does she ask this? She follows this dumb question up with the following...(I know it off by heart as I've heard it so many times):

'I'm from Korea too! I was born in Korea, but when I was 2 my family moved to LA, and I grew up in Hollywood'. This is said with a tone of voice that suggests she believes she is better than all Koreans, because she went to America and 'grew up in Hollywood'! I really want to ask her 'So what the hell are you doing here??'

Another student also became her victim when he said 'What?' to a question Crazy K/A asked him. For the next 2 minutes Crazy K/A went on and on about how rude it is to say 'What?', and that they should say 'Excuse me?' instead. The poor kids are then afraid to speak. She really thinks she is a teacher. I can imagine another sign going up this week. It will read something like this:

DON'T!!! SAY what it is RUDE!!
SAY! EXCUSE! ME!!!
...and don't! take THE markers!
RED STickER. DON't!!
What?

I might make the sign myself and give it to her as a gift. She would be very happy. So I won't.


SPONGEBOB
This is a cartoon character from America (I think). The first I heard of it was when I was in Singapore, and there was an advert on TV for 'SpongeBob Square Pants Live on Stage'. There was a man dressed up as 'SpongeBob Square Pants' prancing around on stage. I know it's for kids, but it was ridiculous nonetheless. So when I arrived here and started teaching, I was sad to find that Crazy K/A always tells the students that she loves SpongeBob. She tells them this during the introductions soon after they arrive. The kids seem to know this character, and also like it. So my mission each week has been to turn them all against SpongeBob. At the start it's pretty hard, as I can't control my feelings about it, and when the kids ask me why I don't like it, I tell them it's because it's just a sponge with a stupid face on it, before miming an action of me tearing it in half and stamping on it (i.e. killing it). However, as the week goes on, more and more students come over to my side. I am getting quite a collection of pictures where SpongeBob has had some terrible accident with a knife, or his friend (which is a Star) has turned against him and killed him. It's amazing what kids can think of if you allow them to use their imaginations. By Friday I have got a large number of kids yelling out that they hate SpongeBob. I feel a real sense of achievement at that time.


One other amazing thing happened during one of the kids camps. Well, not so amazing, more bewildering. When the kids were in the auditorium for the skit performances, a group of them was trying to teach me how to greet someone in Korean. BFA Pete was just infront of us, and he heard them doing this. Guess what he did next?? He stood up, turned around, and said 'No No No No No!' and then corrected their Korean. These were Korean kids, being corrected by a 63 year old American who knows about 10 words in Korean. He told them they were wrong, and told them what they should say. He then sat down, looking very proud of himself. The kids looked pretty surprised, and waited until he had sat down before they laughed...which was too polite of them I think. They then explained to me in a lower voice that Pete was talking a complete load of bollo*&$.