Aug 2006

HIYA!

Last night I wrote an entry about this sauna. Well, I got something wrong. It's not like Hotel California. it's just that the $5 is good for 24 hours. I checked in at 4:30 pm. About 15 minutes later I was going to go out for some food. But the lady at the reception told me "No." She couldn't explain. And I still don't have any Korean language ability. (Just today bought a book to study the language.)

The deal is that you pay the $5 then do whatever you want at the sauna. But once you leave and come back, you need to pay again. Well, I did leave because the owner of the place was sympathetic and / or wanted a chance to practice some English. In fact there is vegetarian food here. I could have eaten various fresh fruits but no fresh vegetables. A while after our tour last night the owner invited me to a meal at the restaurant at his sauna which he paid for. Cold noodles. Could have had a really popular rice and vegetable dish that is easily made vegetarian. Don't know why everyone thought there wasn't anything vegetarian at this restaurant. I myself didn't know until after going out to the market.

Well today, the owner - his name is Mr. Lee - took me out sightseeing in Seoul. First we walked around for about an hour or more. Had a good veg lunch which he also had vegetarian - bless his heart!! Then he asked if I wanted to go around in his car and I said yeah, why not. So we walked back and got into his wife's car and he drove me around a little. But I've got a cold so we aborted the trip a bit early. Got back at a good time actually. Then went to buy the book, then some vegetables, then back to the sauna, then had some food, and now I'm on the internet.

He's a super friendly guy. Teaching me how to count and being a good persistent teacher with it. I've not been such an able student though. The pronunciation is throwing me off. It sounds some numbers can be pronounced in two or three ways. He doesn't understand enough English for me to be able to communicate this so I'll just be patient until I get it right someday.

Enough.

Troy.

HIYA!

I'm typing this at an internet room at a sauna in Seoul. The camp finished this morning. I left this afternoon one of two buses provided free by the camp with a bunch of kids and several of the teachers.

After arriving in Seoul, Hue, a young Korean man living in England for the past 10 years or so, and I took a taxi together. He went to see his sister and I went to find a sauna. We got off at the same place. Hue helped me get checked in and with a couple of other things.

But what I guess the reception at the sauna didn't tell him is that once you check in, you are not allowed to leave for 24 hours! HOTEL CALIFORNIA is not what i was looking for! The price is low at 5000 won a night. That's about 5 US$. After checking in I wanted to go out to get some food.

But the lady at the reception couldn't explain in English very well. I mean, I understood that I can't leave ... or you could say that since I'd never ever heard of this sort of thing anywhere on the planet, then, you could say that no, I didn't understand. How bizarre. You check in to a place then give up your freedom to come and go. Boy.

Well, the lady at the reception said I could go upstairs and get some food. They've got a restaurant at the sauna. I told her I eat vegetarian and she said, "Oh, okay, you can go." This also felt weird. I was being given permission to leave! Like ... jail, I guess. Or, like what I don't know.

The reception lady was really kind. She called a man over to help me out. He speaks decent English and was super accomodating. I told him I'd like to just get some bananas and some vegetables and I'd be happy. I told him I'd like to go to a market. So we walked to a fresh market on the street. Got a few fruits and a bunch of vegetables. The man turned out to be the owner of the place. He studies English and so does his daughter. He called her up on his cell phone as we walked and after a few minutes asked me to talk with her! Strange, but I was happy to talk with her. We talked for about five minutes while this man and I walked back to the sauna.

Once back, he introduced me to two of his relatives, both of whom speak English well. One of the guys accompanied me to the bath. These are all-nude affairs, where men and women are separated. I was not intimidated or afraid in the least that this guy might try something on me. Saunas are not the place to get some gay action, I'm sure. Unless there are gay saunas, I don't know. Anyway, we sat in the bath for about 10 or 15 minutes, then I told him I wanted to eat. So we went to get dressed in the clothes the sauna provides, then head up to the place to sit and eat.

When we got there the owner had all the food I'd bought waiting for me sliced, peeled, and arranged on three plates. Wow. I ate it all up and it tasted real good. Love those little yellow melons. A lemon, a red pepper, and a big big handful of greens. Nice. All that and 4 bananas for 4 dollars. Cheap.

The three of us sat and talked a while. Then the owner invited me for a tour of the place. Neat. I've never seen one of these saunas where, one, you can't leave once you've checked in!, and two, with a hot dry room, a hot and humid room, an ice room where there is ice formed on the pipes and I don't know how cold the room is but it's cold, and a salt room where the floor, walls, and ceiling are all covered in salt rocks. A guy in this room later told me there are these sorts of saunas all over Korea but I've never known of this. And, he said, Jeju Island, where I'll go teach for a year has them also. Nice.

To make this place livable, there are various things a person can do to spend time, and MONEY. The price to use the basic facilities are cheap - five dollars. But I guess the way the place makes money is by requiring people to stay. And if you're gonna stay 24 hours, you gotta do something. So, you can use the fitness room, the various baths (hot, hot-hot, and cold), read comic books, watch movies, use the PC room for internet and / or computer games, watch TV and chat with people, sleep in various places, and eat. I guess that's all the facilities. I feel that 24 hours is a long time, but this place is busy. People seem to like this deal. But not getting any sunlight for 24 hours isn't my preference. I don't think I'll do one of these HOTEL CALIFORNIA / SPA CALIFORNIA things again.

Got myself a delicious kiwi - grape smoothie without ice a little while ago. $3. Expensive I guess. But I can't yet compare with outside prices. The restaurant isn't expensive.

The owner's relative that I met and talked with was interested in yoga. So I spent about an hour I guess teaching him a very basic yoga sequence - The Sun Salutation. Then the owner arrived and interupted and that was that.

He demonstrated his physical strength (amazing but what's the point, really? There's something cultural going on in that display, I am pretty sure) then invited me to dinner with he and his relative. I didn't want to really but felt obliged. I wasn't hungry as I'd just eaten a nice big meal. But it's not food for most people so who knows what they thought of my food. Anyway, I went and got some cold noodles which were nice. Had a bunch of kimchi which I'm told is vegan in the Seoul area because it's not made with fish sauce. So, I hope to make my own kimchi in the future.

It's 11pm right now. I'd sure like to get to sleep but doubt I'll get any sleep anytime soon.

That's enough of this though.

Love, Troy.

HIYA!

Man, of the 4 camps I've done so far, this one was the mostest toppest. I never did get the respect of all the kids. Some of them, I would say respected me, but maybe 5 of the 10 didn't respect me.

I'm not saying this from a standpoint of a disaffected and emotionally hurt teacher. No. It seems to me super important to have the kids' respect. Without that, what can you do? And I was pretty paralyzed.

There were so many times when the kids weren't cooperating that I'd say to myself, "So what. Let it go. Right? Isn't this my advice to myself and to others all the time? Why should it be so hard to follow now?" But for some reason, nothing would do it. Most of the time anyway, I just wouldn't give in to letting go.

The last week or so was a joke. But enough of that.

I'm sure the work at the private English language school that I'll start working at on or before September 5th won't be anything like what I just went through the past four weeks. Couldn't be. Nobody'd learn anything. It isn't just my performance or technique in class that was lacking. It's mostly the students. Thing is, I couldn't find the way into them; couldn't find a way to motivate them to study, or to listen to me, to pay attention to me, or pretty much anything.

I've talked with the owner of the school and he says the kids are motivated and good students. Of course he's going to say that, right?! But I have had some real open talks - via email - with this man, and I believe 90% of what he says.

I've told him - his name is Mun Song-il - that I'd like to start no sooner than Sept 5th. He only yesterday or the day before said he'd really like it if I could start sooner. Maybe.

I really didn't have any complaints about the school. There were things that I saw that didn't go well, things that I feel ought to change, and I made my opinions heard in a positive way. I never felt like complaining. Several others complained an awful lot. What a pity. Oh well. The Academic Supervisor handled her job as well as I could expect. Did a terrific job in my opinion, considering all that she had to do. Every camp I've done has had lots of disorganization and everything. This one was good in some ways, not so good in other ways. All in all, this was a good one except that the class I had was the class from hell! By the way, in case anyone's interested, this was the KBS SKY English camp.

I'll write more about where I am now in another entry.

Troy.

HIYA!

I've taught at English camps four times, three different camps (I did two summers at the MBC Camp). Three summer, one winter.

They keep you really busy at these camps. We have a 9am meeting with the Academic Director and some of us don't finish work until late at night. After the meeting we have 3 50 minute morning classes. Then lunch. Then a break until 2:30. Then 3 more 50 minute classes until dinner at 5:30. Then at 6:45 we have some sort of evening activity. Either sports or yoga. I do the yoga. I just now thought of it, but I guess if they don't do the sports, they come to me for yoga. I think I'm the only teacher doing anything besides the sports activities. I was doing it every night but got really tired of teaching the kids who won't settle down. So I whittled it down to 3 nights. Much more manageable. After an hour of this I have no more commitments but I do need to make sure that I'm prepared for the next day. So I might have to write up a short story or make a word search puzzle, or both. I often don't finish until about 11pm. Then don't get to bed until midnight or later. Then get up by 7:30. I haven't slept so late every day for a long time. I used to get up with the sun. Now I'm zonked out until quite late in the morning. That's Monday to Friday. We work some weekend days but those are more fun oriented activites with some study.
We don't work every weekend. I was off both days last weekend but I'm working this Saturday the 12th and I'm off the 13th. So there's time to do other things. I might go into Seoul on Sunday.

I myself can't really say that I'm enjoying it. I've got the youngest and the lowest level. Kids aged between about 9 and 11. My kids have the least English capability of all the kids at the camp. I chose this level for two reasons. One, I know it's hard on me. If I don't face the difficulties, how will they ever get easy? Two, I thought that coming up with lesson material would be easy. Easy. I didn't consider how difficult it might be communicating with the kids what I want them to do. Basic basic things. How do you tell a kid to certain things, even using gestures and pointing? Some people are able to do it, and do it well. I have been working on developing this ability. I guess I'm getting better. Can't say for sure.

The thing that really gets to me though is that they have so little motivation to study. They are so happy to just run and jump, and yell, and make commotion. I wrote about this in my last entry so I won't get into it again. Just to add that this is getting to me less and less too. But it's still tiring.

Most teachers at this camp may be American. Or perhaps Australian. Four Aussies came as a group. They've got art and drama backgrounds and this is perfect for the camp. There are five Aussies, so yeah, there must be more Aussies than anyone else. I guess three Americans, two Canadians, one English, one lady from New Zealand I think, and one young Korean guy who's lived in England for more than 10 years so he speaks real good English. Oh, the camp director speaks good English but nowhere near native. Yet she's teaching. Ah, this is only about half. Never mind.

The school gives us guidelines to teach within. The morning classes are pretty much up to us but we've been given workbooks that they want us to use. They want us to go through a lot of it because parents want to see that their kids've done something. So that makes teaching and preparation that much easier because you just follow the book. But still, when kids finish the assignments at different paces, what do you do with kids that finish early? I haven't perfected this one. I pretty much just let them run around. And it's exhausting. I haven't talked with other teachers to get better ideas. I never think of it when I see others. I'm not going to stop typing now to talk with them about this.

The afternoon has much more structure. I do song and dance because I thought it might be good to move my body to some dancing. But it's been really hard. I don't dance. I don't know any dances. And I haven't been spending time looking for dances. I haven't been very good about this part of the day. The songs go much better. We've got simple songs that are easy for kids to sing. We do it listen and repeat to get the words down and listen to the songs and sing them with and without the singing on the tape.

After this we have reading and writing hour. The kids are so low level that nothing I've been able to find seems to fit them. So I've been writing things up. It never goes over very well but I do the best I can. Same with writing time. So tiring.

My roommate is a 28 year old American. He's a good guy. We get along well. Many other teachers use the A/C in their rooms. One reason Brian and I are roommates is because neither of us likes it on. And we don't smoke. I could have chosen the English guy but I'm real glad I didn't. He talks way way way too much. One of the Canadian guys rooms with him. The room is like a walk-in freezer and his Canadian roommate says the English guy can get pretty irritating. The rooms are small but adequate. Bunk beds, two desks with plenty of drawers, a cabinet for clothes, and a window.

I'm the oldest teacher at this camp. I've always been among the oldest but I guess this is the first time I've been the oldest. Maybe the second time. The others are all in their 20's I think. Some are paying off school loans, others are doing other things.

Food is the second biggest challenge, after the unruly, unmotivated kids. Vegetarian isn't so well-known here, it seems. And the cafeteria staff doesn't seem too interested in making anything veg very often. So I often eat something during the meals but I almost always eat much of my own food.

Most of us teachers get along real well. Only the English guy sometimes gets cold treatment from other teachers. But we all have someone here that we get along well with. I can get impatient with him but I let him know when I want him to stop talking. I've been pretty good at being straightforward but not curt or harsh with people.

Enough is enough.

Love, Troy.

HIYA!

Just got a job, and I'm feeling really good about it. The name of the school is Kids English School. The name of the director is Mun. It's on Jeju Island, the island I've been wanting to work on. I will start no earlier than Sept 5th.

Mr. Mun and I have sent about 30 emails back and forth. I told him early on that I am being very careful because of the things I've read about teaching ESL in Korea. Horrifying stories. I told Mr. Mun that I didn't want to have any of that. I made it very clear and told him some of my goals and reasons for doing all that I'm doing. He was understanding and cooperative from the beginning.

A few nights ago I decided that I'd take the job. I asked myself how I felt about taking the job and since I felt fine I decided to just take the job. But, I decided to ask a few questions about the contract before writing to accept the job. So I sent off 3 or 4 questions. Nothing major. Just little questions.

After answering my questions he declined to accept me! I was shocked. So I wrote to him telling him that I was shocked and that I thought it was odd that after all these emails and after telling him why I was so cautious that he'd say no to me.

That's when the shoe seemed to be on the other foot. Before I accepted, he was the one who was saying that he wanted me to work for him. Then after he declined, it was ME saying that I wanted to work for him. This was also odd. But I haven't told him.

Anyway, just earlier today, we both agreed that we are pleased and satisfied with our decisions and that we feel we'll work well together now that we've been open with each other. Yeah, he's been open with me in saying that he has had rotten experiences with foreign teachers. Really some bad ones. I understand him too. I've read lots and lots on the internet and realize there are teachers doing rotten things, just like there are school owners / directors doing rotten things. I told him I understand his position too.

He wrote in his email that he'd never been asked such questions that I asked. I was surprised. I've read on the internet that a person should get these certain things clarified before signing. I didn't ask that many questions and there were plenty of things on that list of things you should clarify that I didn't mention to Mr. Mun. Too many questions, my questions were too picky, or, just what I don't know. But, just the same I feel he is an honest person and will not try to cheat me at all. He has me convinced that he'll be a better-than-decent boss. I really believe him. We talked on the phone once and he has a nice voice. He has written to me saying that he has done this and that for teachers in the past. Of course, none of this is any guarantee. Even now, how do I know that he's not a swindler and big fat thief? I don't. But I am sure. I'm confident. I trust.

The school offers an apartment that is fully furnished and paid for. I pay for utilities. I don't pay rent. This is typical in Korea. I've read that some of the accomodations that schools provide is just better than slum quality. But this place is very very nice. Two bedrooms, one living room, and a kitchen. A bathroom too, of course. It overlooks the ocean and is between the ocean and a beautiful mountain. 15 minute drive from the school. The owners live in the same area as my apt so can drive me back and forth. But buses are convenient and there's a bus stop right in front of the apt. It's a nice quiet place and Mr. Mun is sure I'll be pleased with it.

I'll be teaching kids aged 7 to 17. Monday to Friday 2 to 8 pm. Class size will be around 10 kids. 50 minutes with a 10 minute break. Mr. Mun has written books that I can use. He's had them published by a major publishing company here in Korea. He has lots of experience teaching in public schools but got burned out doing it. Even this line of work - managing and teaching at his own private school - is tiring, he says. He says the kids are motivated.

Teaching at this camp should not be anything like the school. And that's good!! I'll write in the next entry about teaching here the camp.

Lovings (what's that?!),
Troy.