Annoyed but found a resolution

I finally declared that it is impossible for me to be sharing the office with the Principal, Vice-principal and the all the odd ins and outs. I have all the extra noise that I don't want to hear. So I said find me a space or I'll file an official complaint and request for a transfer and I meant it. At first the VP said, there's nothing she could do. I found the Science teacher had an empty desk and he hardly has classes in the afternoon. So I said it would be better if I can move my computer to that classroom and use the "public" computer during my classroom hours. So it seems that's acceptable for her as well.

Korea is a strange place for me and people act very strangely indeed. I am sometimes afraid that I'm becoming one of them. However, I don't have that feeling of being chased anymore here. So I find calmness and strangeness in one. I must be close to some kind of truth. I heard that the guardians of the gates to the truth were confusion and paradox.

I'm re-reading the Pilgrimmage by Paulo Cohelho. It brings me memories from my own walk through the mountains of Spain. I miss the smell, the pain, the joy and surprises still.

Signs of attitute change

Some of my students are starting to show some real good signs of progress. They are shy in the regular class where brilliant, privately educated kids call out answers. But in their smaller supplementary class, they participate actively with strong confident voice.

I see some of them really are concentrating better and started write down words in their notebook, where as before, they would disturb the neibours and cause frawns.

I'm optimistic.

A letter to a friend - edited version

I try to be a creative teacher. So I go from teaching Doctor Seuss to Word power with Greek and Latin roots. So far I manage to have fun so I suspect some of my students are having fun.
I remember the old days when the teacher wasn't having fun I certainly wasn't having fun.

I made the kids pay the equivalent of 10 cents each time they don't greet me or my co-teacher with Good morning/Good afternoon. So even what they say is wrong -- like saying "Good evening", they do greet me more often in English than before. As they say, money talks.
No, I'm not going to be rich from it, so far I haven't collected any money but enjoying the side-effects of the money talk.

I help out at the budding Landmark in Seoul on Mondays and Thursdays. Wednesday and Saturdays I do my ballet class in this very ritzy part of town.

Last weekend, I was out with my Canadian friend who is teaching English in further suburbia. So we did the touristy things. We had dinner at a restaurant on top of a tower on top of a mountain. The view was great and the dinner was spectacular. After that we went to see a movie - it was raining so we picked one that started 5 minutes ago. Turned out to be "Lars and the real girl". It was surprisingly quite good. I really did not expect much at the beginning - given it's about Lars' relationship with this silicon woman named Bianca. Then we went to this 24 hour Sauna to warm up the chills. Their water was from the natural hot springs with sulfur and my skin felt like a baby's bottom when I came out of the shower in the morning.

Just finished a book called "The attack". It's about suicide bombers in Palestine. I never thought I'd understand them but this was a very powerful book and I have a whole new perspective on them. It was hard to put down. I put up my condo for sale in Montreal and I will move mom here. For one thing, the winter is shorter here. And given I get an apartment, I just need to pay the utilities. I uploaded some pics in the facebook. I like it cos it lets me keep track of people in my life and what they're up to.

All in all, I'm doing well I think . I do complain that all the girls here are so skinny and cute I feel old, fat and frumpy. I wear ex-large and sometimes I have to buy men's clothes. I can wait to go to Jackpot in Montreal. MJ will come to visit in April. I'm looking forward to it.

Gee weez, I just wrote a novel. Hope you have a sunshiny day and Happy Easter!

It's been a long time

This site is blocked at work and updating facebook makes me lazy in updating this one. I am selling my place in Canada and moving a lot of stuff to Korea. I just know it's the right thing to do but not very comforting cos I don't feel as though there are people who can help me. But I know that's a lie. Most of my friends are ready and willing to do whatever's needed. Silly me, I thought maybe my unemployed uncle #3 would be willing to help me out for the price of free trip to Canada but he seems at most reluctant. He pisses me off but I was forewarned. My aunt calls the 3 uncles the courageous in front of a meal - but very little else - people.

I want my clothes, shoes pictures. At least it seems that there have been 3 visits for the property already.

Visiting Daegu and Busan

Thanks to a friend, I was able to visit 2 major cities in Korea - Daegu and Busan. Daegu has a population of about 2 million and Busan with the population about 3.6 million people. So Daegu is about the size of Montreal and Busan is the size of Toronto. Seoul is the mega city with 15 million people. So it was so much easier to get around in Daegu. But it lacked a charm of its own. Busan was lovely with beautiful beaches and fabulous seafood. Mom wants to settle in Busan. Busan subway announces in 4 languages - Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese.

I have to say Busan had a real sight, smell, sound and taste of its own.

Dreams

It's funny how someone can show up in a dream and makes you happy just for that. This young man used to occupy my thoughts a long time ago and he shows up in my dreams once in a while. Why do I still dream about him is a complete mystery.

It is the first day of my vacation and there's 10 cm of snow out there. I'm going to look for some travel deals and see what I can get.

Horoscope

This horoscope prediction from the Facebook seemed to fit like a glove today.
Pisces HoroscopeView: Daily Love Karma
Sunnie,You may have an incredibly good financial or investment idea today. You have seen the need to dramatically transform the way you share resources with others. You may find that an insight or intuitive impression leads to a new expert or acquaintance who could help you make more money.

So I made some arrangements to meet an investment advisor and I feel confident. He seems like a reliable pleasant fellow. I'm so lucky in many ways.

The weather has been kinda chilly and feel my stomach is not very cooperative. Today is last day of camp and 2 weeks of vacation is coming up. Yeah.

Hair cut and investment ideas

I got myself a new haircut and a new cell phone. I feel almost like the person I was in Montreal. I've been feeling frumpy and old and with the new ballet class, I just got a boost in self image.

I finally got around to seeing some of my mother's friends. One of them is really concerned about my old age - even more so than my own mother. She's giving me all kinds of ideas about investment.

I am going to find out starting tomorrow what kind of options I have. But I intend to sell the condo in Montreal. I think all will work out for the best.

Making a difference?

I met one of the parents today. She told me her son, who never showed interest in English now says he's enjoying it. I think it has to do with introducing games - UNO. Simple card game that I forced them to say the color and the value each time they had to put the card down - forced him to participate. I got the idea from one of the very young teachers from the teachers' conference in September. He's slower than others and not very good at remembering. I'm happy to hear that he's enjoying English classes. I hope he will continue.

Busy holiday season

I've been busy - shopping, cleaning etc. I was wisked off to Everland with 1000 other Native English teachers in Kyunggi province. It was fun and walked around a lot. Everland is an attemp to recreate Disneyland in Korea with unrecognizable characters, full of clichés.

My school forbade this site so I'm leaving a short note.

Sleepless in Anyang

I've been catching up on sleep since the weekend. Last weekend was the first Introduction Leaders program in Seoul. Landmark Forum leader Poorani came to town and on her week off a month - she decided to cause the transformation of Korea. It's been an awesome weekend. They took off like a rocket with an introduction that was scheduled 2 hours in preparation. They had 6 guests and 3 registered. Koreans seem to have an aversion to freedom. Maybe it's a side effect of many years of uncertainty, threats and unpredictable changes. They try so hard to be perfect and the perfection is just the bare minimum acceptable stage. So finding freedom, self-expression and standing up for oneself are hardly practiced by the citizens. Since I'm the only graduate of the program, I'm supporting the program by supporting Hyunsu. Hyunsu is the lady who took on transforming Korea. A mother of 4 who is beautiful and vibrant. She leads all the introductions, seminars and translates all the programs.

The Landmark Forum gives a glimmer and a break open to a new possibility of being and is truly remarkable how it works.

I'm jealous how it took off in Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore. There's a definite intention to have a center in Seoul next year.

On an different subject. I got myself a roll-away piano for Christmas. It's a size of a book and not heavy at all. I downloaded "The first noel" sheet music and realized it's easier to follow my ear than the music sheet. I'm gonna surprise auntie with it.

Recurring dream

I had this dream - which was a continuation from the dream from last Thursday - that the family was finally able to reclaim the things we left at some inn as a hostage. They included furniture, pictures, shoes and mom got some beautiful sweaters back. I got some funky shoes back too. We got there just in time. If we were just a bit late, all of our things would have been auctioned off.

Last time the dream ended when I wondered what were the things we left behind. This may come from the times when my parents were running from debtors and we lived from hotel to hotel but we could not pay so we left everything and ran off at night. So I always wondered when my possession would end.

I felt good about these dreams.

It's snowing!

I heard a loud thunder and lightening, then saw the snow. The principal is going around forbidding everyone not to turn the heat on in the afternoon because - the temperature rises to above zero. So the kids and teachers are all wearing coats in the classroom. I don't know why they don't use the coal heater. I hope at least there will be a long winter vacation.

I had the teacher come to control the class for the 6th graders. They are trying to be cool and troublesome.

My stomach ache yesterday really was quite something. I thought I was going to faint. I am amazed that I feel fine today.

I am studying grammar and realize that I never learnt that stuff!. It turns out that during the time I was being educated, they underplayed the grammar. It probably is due to the fact also, that I went to French high school. Anyways, I'm glad to be learning it -- better late than never.

Having a different cold

I got a flu shot for about 25 bucks. But I guess it's no good for common colds. I think I'm getting a new different kind of cold on top of the one that's going away in andante. I still kinda sound funky. I have this guy who's pretending to be a brit via skype but I can tell that he's from an arab country. His English is awful and he gave me his only son's name. Except that he forgot that he told me one name last week and he gave another one this time. He says he lives in London but in his profile, it says Liverpool. Why does he go through all that hoola-hoop I wonder. So far I was amused by the maskerade. I told him he "sounds" more like an arab guy. I'm beginning to develop an "already always listening" about the arab guys.

Having a cold

It is warmer here than in Canada - however, there hasn't been any heat for the last 2 weeks where the temperature was hovering around 4-10 degrees so it felt as though I was in the fridge all day. Well so with all my turtle necks (I never wear them in Canada until the temperature goes down to about 20 below), I got a cold. My voice is funky and I cannot seem to be as effectively nasty to quiet down the kids.

I have fun with some of them and must admit they are growing on me. For example this girl Kate, she always begs me for English tests. She goes through them like pop corns. She makes funny duck noise. I thinks she's a very bright kid.

There's also this kid who comes to school from an orphanage. Well his parents left him there when they got a divorce. It seems that they re-married and stop coming to visit him. Yet, he's bright and upbeat. He doesn't seem to grow as fast as others. I gave him an alphabet book to encourage him to learn it. I think it may have worked.

World is going the right way

I have been feeling outside the loop, not making a headway, feeling guilty, etc... about making this world a better place. It seems however, that there are leaps and bounds :
For example, the Microcredt movement - Alliance of Students Against Poverty - http://www.asap2025.org/. This fundraising mechanism aims to have 2 million people give $1 a day till 2025 to fund micro finance organizations and then in turn eradicate poverty by 2025.

The one laptop per child has started to produce so it is now (as of November 2007) available to buy by the general public at $400 a piece - one will go to you (or your child) and another will go to another poor child in a poor country.

So I just gathered evidence towards my promise - without actually doing much. Loving it.

Uncle#2 post Landmark Forum

My uncle before the Landmark Forum: would drink periodically. Sometimes until he's in a stupor and will have a reall downer moments for several days. It drove everyone absolutely crazy, especially my 96 year old grandmother who still feels guilty sending him to his uncle to be his son - a common custom in Korea at the time.

My uncle after the Landmark Forum: Still drinks periodically, but manages to be pleasant drunk. He still blames his mom but doesn't seem to harbor that dark resentment/blame towards her anymore. His mood is light and seems more receptive to suggestions - especially that makes hime work around the house. He also seems to enjoy participating with the seminar.

In one word: transformation - ok it did not fix him completely in 3 days as I hoped. But it's impressive so far.


At work, it's getting chilly and the school hasn't started heating yet. So it feels like I'm in a fridge all day. There was a 6 year old hiding out in the bathroom because he missed the bus to go to the day care and could not go back home. He didn't have his mom's phone number but said his sister comes to this school. He didn't remember what grade he was in. Finally the school administrator found the sister's name and called the mother to come and pick him up. It was an event ful day on Thursday.

I don't know why the kids insist on screaming their head off. Especially 1st and 4th graders. For the 4th grader, I kept talking quieter and quieter and that drove them absoloutely nuts.

More people in the Facebook

I am so happy 2 more friends decided to join the Facebook. It is so easy to keep track of birthdays, share favorite movies, music and etc. Today I dressed up and put on more make up to take pictures. It is provided by the school for the graduation album for the 6th graders. It was fun to see all the dressed up teachers. I understood why people dressed up and put on make up. The kids just stared at my face for a long time, followed me around - those kids who never before paid attention to me- especially little boys. I had to laugh.

Drama

The Landmark Forum started with 45 people. It took a lot to make that happen and I was excited to see my uncle and my co-teacher in it. There were some uninvited dramas but so far it is a breakthrough for human beings for all. I am so proud of all the participants.

www.landmarkeducation.com

Life is amazing.

Got some shopping done

I found a nice store - was a bit on the expensive side but Thank goodness because, if it wasn't for the sweater I got yesterday, I would be freezing to death right now. Since there's no heat yet at school, It feels quite chilly in the corridors where all the windows are still wide open.

I now have a 4th grader who's kind of following me everywhere. She's cute. What a smart cookie. Some first graders are funny too.

The trick to have the kids who are trouble makers kiss the wall for a while seems to work. I like it because it's cruel but not violent. I don't need to be super angry or loud to control the classroom.

I got a lead from Janet about a job where they're looking for someone who speaks English and French. I'll check it out.