Seoul long! (say it fast)

This is it. I'm sitting in a PC Bang because my internet is diconnected and I have no longer have a cell phone. I fly out in 12 hours. It feels pretty strange because on one hand I'm going home, but on the other hand I'm kinda leaving home. 2 years is long enough to feel very settled in a place, or so I've come to realize. I keep having these weird feelings every time I do something for the last time. Like this is really the last time I'll be at Nowon High School? This is the last time I'll have an awkward conversation with my principal? This is really the last time I'll eat at Kimbap Heaven? This is the last time I...OK, I think you get the idea.

It's been a wild ride. When I graduated school, I'd only left Canada for the States and Cuba. Now I've been in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Oh and South Korea for two year. It's pretty wild to come from a town of like 80 people to doing something like this. Definitely opened the old eyeballs a lil bit.

I also realized coming over here has led me to do some pretty random stuff. Here's a quick recap of some of the highlights:

Bungee jumped for 25 bucks...seems sketchier in retrospect, but it was safer than the cost would have you think...

Got a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do...trained with 10 year olds regularly.

Spent two and a half weeks alone in Thailand...also seems sketchier in restrospect...

Did a temple stay in Korea, but the monk was Russian...

Partied in animal onesies...

Climbed my first mountain with Korean coworkers who spoke little English...it was an overnight trip...

I could go on and on. Too many crazy memories. I've spent the last few weeks reliving them as I say goodbye to people I'm leaving behind here, and it's made me realize how truly amazing this experience has been. Now it's time to move on, but I definitely don't regret anything about coming to teach in Seoul. Canada, here I come.

Thanks to everybody who's ever read this blog or made a comment, and especially to those who STILL do for whatever reason.

School's Out Forever

Today was my last day of school in Seoul...EVER. I know what you're thinking - I'll miss it and hate trying to find a good job in Canada and come running back. Well your wrong, whoever you are!

I had a two year cap in mind when I first got here, and that time has run out. Time to move on. This week was summer camp. The theme of the camp was creating a blog, oddly enough. It was a pretty good time, but a little boring. In the end the blog turned out pretty cool. The students each had to contribute an article, make a video, and help come up with the format/title for the blog. Have a gander (the videos are a little painful, but they didn't have much time).

Anyway, the last day was pretty cool. The kids surprised the hell out of me this morning. The second grade students got there at 7am and decorated the class with balloons, and they even bought a cake. A bunch of them gave me presents and cards. One of my favourite students made me a photo album of different students and teachers and things around the school. It almost brought a tear to my eye. In fact, I might have a good cry about it after I finish this post.

I know it's a pretty big deal that I'm leaving Korea after two years here, but I really don't feel much of anything about it. That seems to happen with every big event in my life. I expect it to be such a big deal but then when it happens nothing really hits me. After I'm gone for a while it'll sink in how wild this whole experience has been.

This is my penultimate post.

Winding Down

I officially have less than a month to go in Korea. Today was my last day of regular classes. The atmosphere is pretty weird this week. All of my students know I'm leaving now, and that this week might be the last week they see me. Most of them keep asking "why?", and telling me not to go. Some of them are sincere, and some of them are just trying to get a laugh out of their friends. Others seem less concerned with me leaving and more concerned with who the knew foreign teacher will be.

I have no idea who will replace me, but I keep messing with the kids. I tell the boys classes a beautiful, young, blonde, Australian woman will be replacing me. The girls think a tall, blonde, English bloke will be arriving in September. By the end of my descriptions the classes are usually giving a standing ovation to the fictional new teacher. It doesn't take much for them to get over the concept of me leaving...

I'll really miss the school. I love all (by that I mean most) of my students, and even the ones that are a nightmare to teach make me laugh all the time. I've had so many great memories here. Two years is a substantial amount of time. Some of my students who had just started high school will be graduating the semester after I leave, and I've literally taught every single student at my school. It's crazy to think about.

I'm also going to miss all of the staff at the school. They've all been great to me. They always look out for me and try to make me feel included, even though many of them are terrified of speaking English, and feel awkward around whities like me. I've done my best to try to learn Korean and adapt to the culture, but I know without their patience and kindness this could have been a nightmare. Instead it was generally awesome.

Most of the people at school have been asking me what I'm going to do when I go back. So far all I know is that I'll be living in Toronto and working for a year. Then I'm going back to school.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what I want to do. Anyone still reading, I'd love you to help me out.

Should I:

a) Go the distance and become an English professor, and write a brilliant thesis about the relationship between (insert interesting literature here) and (insert something interesting here).

b) Go to law school and become a successful defense attorney, only to burn out and hit the bottle due to the moral dilemmas and stress I'll face on a daily basis.

c) Become a gym teacher and play sports all day.

d) Become a writer and live in poverty until I either get lucky or end up on the streets.

e) Turn to a life of crime, hit rock bottom, be rescued by Dog the Bounty Hunter and become a skullet sporting member of his bad ass team.

Feel free to vote in the comments section below...

The Janitor

Oddly enough, students in Korea do most of the cleaning at school. They sweep and mop the classrooms and offices, take out the garbage, and so on. Sure, their idea of mopping is pushing the dirt around with a dirty old mop soaked in soapless water, but they're still learning. Although we have our students doing such a stellar job of tidying up around here, we also have a janitor.

The janitor at my school is an adjumma. An adjumma is a word Koreans use for older women. At the risk of overgeneralizing, there are two types of adjummas. One type will give you a big smile when you walk into the restaurant where she works, or motion for you to sit down when a seat becomes available on the subway, or speak slowly for you in Korean because she knows you're struggling to understand her. The other kind will glare at you in disgust when you walk into the restaurant where she works, or go out of her way to body check you on the subway, or yell at you really fast in Korean when you can't understand what she's trying to say to you. The problem is both types of adjummas will have identical perms and wear the same brightly coloured clothing, so it is impossible to tell them apart until it's too late.

Thankfully, the janitor at my school is a kindly little adjumma. She is honestly about 4 foot 5, with the classic adjumma perm. She doesn't speak English, and has never uttered so much as a "hi". Our interaction is strictly in Korean.

As a result, she's really seen me grow during my time here. She helped teach me to stop nodding awkwardly and mumbling to her when we passed, and now I bow deeply to her and say "annyang haseyo" confidently every time.

Then there was the time I walked into the bathroom and a toilet had flooded shit all over the floor. She looked like she was about to throw up, and said to me in Korean that it was "dirty". I answered "yes". It was a big moment for me. Another time, she asked "is there toilet paper in there?", and not only did I understand her Korean but answered in a full sentence!

The reason I'm posting about her today is that I've noticed that literally every time I have used the washroom in the past two years here, she has either been in the washroom, entering the washroom, or leaving the washroom. I've never been to the washroom without encountering her. This old woman knows exactly how many times I've used the washroom since I started working at this school. I've peed in front of this woman on a daily basis for two years. I feel like nobody in Korea knows me the way this lady knows me. At first it freaked me out, but now I just accept that I'm going to have to see her whenever I "gotta go".

The really weird part is it doesn't even seem to matter if I switch it up and use a different washroom somewhere far from my office. She just happens to be there that time too. Maybe her job is just to clean the washrooms again and again until the day ends. I don't know, but I just had to get this off my chest.

Tae Kwon Do: The Final Chapter

I've been told I shouldn't let my Korea blog die such an inglorious death. Never fear! I have a few more posts up my sleeve before I officially shut this baby down for good.

So for the past year and a bit I've been taking Tae Kwon Do here in Seoul. I've written about my class here and here in the past. Yesterday I finally had my black belt test.

For the past few months, I've really been training hard. Master So and I even made a training montage set to "Eye of the Tiger", but I'm saving that for film so I can't share it here. I can tell you that I had to complete challenges like sleeping through the night standing on one foot, fighting six ninjas while blindfolded, and climbing up mountains while walking on my hands. By that I mean I learned basic kicks, and mastered the 8 forms you need to learn for the test, and practiced sparring almost exclusively against small children and females.

I was more than ready for the test. In fact, I was ready and scheduled to be tested a month ago, but chose to go get my ass kicked in my ball hockey playoffs that week instead. I'm here to tell you that when you are the only white person in a gym full of hundreds of Koreans, preparation suddenly means nothing. By the time I was supposed to do my test I was a full-blown Nervous Nellie. I was sure my mind would go blank and I would forget everything I was supposed to be doing. It's weird having like 200 plus Korean parents watch you do a test in their native martial art. Not to mention the judges in front of me, the advanced black belts behind me, and the dozens of Masters standing around the gym.

I persevered though. I may have been shaking, and my form may have been a little awkward thanks to my nerves, but I got through it all without any mistakes. It helped that this one advanced guy who was about to be tested kept giving me a thumbs up after each part of the test.

The only brutal part of the test was the sparring. My Master told me not to hold back. He gave me the green light to go 100% against my opponent. Then we get there and discover my opponent is the only other person being tested in my group: a female university student. So naturally, I went out there and beat the crap right out of that poor girl.

Just kidding. About 70 people in that gym reminded me to go easy on her, as if I planned on going for the K.O.. She was pretty scared leading up to it and kept saying "slow, please...very, very please!!!" Then we start sparring and she just annihilates me while I try to kick at her without hurting her.

You can watch the carnage here (a sneak peek of the upcoming made for television film):



Despite the crushing defeat in sparring, my Master assured me I passed the test. I'll get my belt sent to me in Canada in 3 months (I leave here August 13th). After 3-5 days a week of Tae Kwon Do for over a year, and over $1000 in Tae Kwon Do fees invested, I can say I stuck with it and got a black belt. I'm normally quite a quitter (see: this blog), but I showed I'm capable of committing to a goal and reaching it. The physical benefits, cultural experiences, and funny times I got out of TKD made it all worth it. I don't want to pump my own tires here, but I feel pretty damn good about myself right now.

Ad Posters

I had my students make ad posters last week. They worked in groups. Each group was in charge of one part of the poster (company name, slogan, product, and logo). They each started with a blank poster and did their job, and then rotated the posters 3 more times until their were 4 complete posters in the end. Some of the posters were good, but I've chosen to share the ones that made me laugh instead.

This one seems harmless but it's a reference to a form of bullying where cool send nerds on bread runs. The rest are self-explanatory. There were some good posters, but half of them either tried to make fun of their classmates, draw genitals, or make reference to some inside joke that I would inevitably figure out before the end of class. Oh high school kids.

Back to School

Ok, so I've grown tired of telling my Vietnam stories. I'm ready to get back to the good stuff. Teaching in Korea. What's new at Nowon High School? Plenty.

First off, I won an award. That's right. SMOE recognized my dedication to teaching with a certificate that says I'm awesome. I don't know why I got it. It came with a 4 gig USB. Apparently about 50 teachers got this award. I heard that my principal put in a call to get me the award. My principal has never seen me teach, and he can't speak English. He is fantastic though, because he always makes a show of saying hi to me in the hall. All Korean teachers and students in sight always laugh when he does this. What a guy. Anyway, I have him to thank for getting me my first teaching award, even though I almost definitely do not deserve one.

Next up is a story about one of my favourite students: Simpson. Simpson is called Simpson because he looks like a character from the Simpsons. Not a particular character. He just generally looks like a Simpson character. This kid lived in the U.S., so he understands everything I'm saying. He can't really speak all that well, but he loves to joke around and so I think he's a gem. The other day I asked the class what being positive means. Simpson pointed at his friend beside him and said "even though my mind is my friend ugry, I say "ohhh vely handsome!!!". The whole class lost it, including me. I love Simpson.

In other news, I showed students a picture of the moment where the Korean women's speed skating team was disqualified for bumping a Chinese skater. That got a "fucking Chinese..." from one bitter student. I opted to laugh rather than get upset. He's a good kid most of the time. Besides, hating on other Asian countries is just normal here.

Finally, I thought I was being a good teacher this year when I brought in a map of the world that has pictures of every countries flag on it. I put this map up at the back. Instead of being a good globally minded gesture, it has brought me under great scrutiny at school. You see, the map calls the body of water to the East of Korea the "Sea of Japan". Every student that looks at this map criticizes me because they think it should say "The East Sea". The "Sea of Japan" name apparently became common only after Japan occupied Korea, so Koreans vehemently argue that the name should be changed to "The East Sea". Unfortunately, every other country in the world is used to calling it the "Sea of Japan" now. Anyway, one disgruntled student wrote "The East Sea" in Korean on my map. I guess I'll be leaving that behind when I go.