South Korea

I guess it’s training. A local kindergarten teacher came yesterday and today to teach and play games. She’s real good with the kids. But she’s way more exaggerated than I care to get. She’s so so so animated. The kids have a great time. But I’m a bit more reserved. I can have fun with the kids, play with them, sing songs, play games, act up a bit, just a step down from her. I don’t know that anyone is expecting me to mimic this lady’s classroom ways. I still don’t know what’s expected of me. And Sunim was only here one day. Yesterday. He left again this morning. He hasn’t been here much lately.

Anyway, I am getting some ideas by watching this lady. Someone is apparently going to come for a month. Two days a week. Thursdays and Fridays. We have class from 10am until 11:30. Three classes. Thirty minutes each. I haven’t counted but a round guess is there are about 60 kids. A few fewer than I was anticipating.

There are Montessori kindergartens around. I want to go talk with at least one of them to see if they teach English and if so, to see if anyone speaks English. And if so, then I’d like to talk and observe to see what I can learn.

Some kids start at 9am and finish at 2pm while others start at 10am and finish at 3pm. Many of them are around after this time and a few are around before this time. They love to play with me, saying “Hello” a lot, and saying a few words in English. Some of them really like to hang around and spend time with me. In a playful fashion, of course. They love to laugh and play, run and generally goof around.

I’ll get some pictures someday of some of them.

Enough.

I talked with Sunim yesterday about these three things. I told him there is so much recyclable garbage around the temple. So much. I don’t know if he has much of an idea of the extent. I don’t, I’m sure. I’m not sure that anyone knows just how much there is lying here and there, outside as well as in various storage places.

I have a hard time talking with people. Not only is my ability to speak very limited, but when others speak with me, I often get very little or nothing. So I’ve decided to write things and at opportune times I’ll flash the note to someone. Yesterday I felt like I had a good chance to talk with Sunim about the garbage and the recycling. So I showed him my note. I’d written a note saying that I know an old man who accepts recyclables. I’m sure there were mistakes in my use of the language, but Sunmi read it later and told me she can understand.

So I asked Sunim what he thought of my idea. Thumbs down. So I told him there are TVs outside. They’re rusted to hell. He said that I can give away the TVs. We didn’t talk about all the stuff laying around because I can’t communicate those things. Talking with Sunmi last night she said she could probably determine some things that can be gotten rid of. So so much stuff. So, I’ll ask her to follow up on this. If she does, then other people will have to get involved.

I also told him about burning trash. I told him we burn plastic here. Every day. I understand that he’s said we shouldn’t burn the plastic garbage. But people here do anyway. So I asked him how we can stop this. I am not so sure I understood his answer very well. Something like, “We won’t burn it.” But that doesn’t seem to be the sort of answer I want. Anyway, Sunmi and I talked about my conversation (?!) with Sunim and she’s behind me. She said she’d talk with them about it.

I wrote a note for people in the office saying that if they’ll separate the paper from the other garbage then I’ll recycle the paper. Why oh why do we burn paper here? Or plastic? With recycling so very convenient, and a recycling pick-up spot just a couple of minutes walk from here (really, maybe less than two minutes) why pollute the air? The smoke goes up, and the wind always blows it into the garden. That’s the usual wind direction. There is one reason for burning that I can see, and agree with. That’s taking local responsibility for trash. But, ideally, it would make a person generate less garbage, so they have less to burn. It would ideally instill a sense of environmental and local ecological responsibility in a person. I see nothing of the sort here. Plastic plastic plastic. But I do suppose Americans generally are still far more egregious consumers of plastics. The stuff is hideous. It gets into the air and into the soil, then into our food. Who wants to eat and drink stuff associated with petroleum anyway?

Sunmi, I think, is behind me on all these things. And something about my recycling efforts I think generated a little discussion between a couple of the temple supporters last night. So, we’ll see what happens with some people apparently agreeing with me and supporting me.

Enough.

Boy, this was so fast and easy to set up I'm actually a bit skeptical that it'll be that easy to use. I was hoping that I could get email notification that a voicemail has arrived. But I don't see anywhere that this is a service that the company does. So I'll check the voicemail once a week or so to see if anyone has called.

Below I've copied the information from the phone service regarding my voicemail.

Your Account Information

Your Area775 Voice Number: 775-459-8990

Using Your Service
It's really easy...have friends, family, or coworkers reach you by dialing your new phone number. You'll receive incoming calls on your Gizmo project software! [Well, no. I will more than likely NOT have my computer on. So, if you call, and I don't pick up, please leave a voicemail.]

Here's my address here at the temple.

Troy Santos
Jeju City
Hwa Buk 1 dong, 4684
KOREA 690-061

Pretty easy huh?

I thought it would be easy to get a voice mail service with my Gizmo Project phone service. Now I'm not so sure. I get tired of all this computer stuff. And I'm not on my own laptop now. I'll look into it again when I get more time. Might have some time on Saturday. Had lots of time last Saturday. But then again it rained all morning and was overcast the rest of the day so I just sat in the office using my laptop to do some personal things.

I have decided I'd rather go to the US at the end of the month.

If I can get anything specific for anyone, please let me know. I'll do my best.

I haven't heard today from either Sunim or Sunmi and have decided to not go before the end of the month. It's 11:15 am here now. Thursday morning.

I expect to spend no more than two weeks in the US when I go. Mostly everything is up in the air right now. Except that I expect to go sometime after the 24th which is the last day of the festival.

I don't expect to change my mind about when I'll go. Even if Sunim were to ask me to go now, I suppose I'd say no. He might have some really compelling reason but I feel it's better to go after the 24th. I don't like rush visits, or rush anything for that matter.

I've checked the ticket prices for other airports. San Jose and Oakland airports. Also had Sunmi check the Korean website she looked at. They were more expensive.

Anyway, leaving later this month means I get more time to see about the cheapest possible ticket. Unless all prices go up!

I am thinking to stop using this blog and see about a different one. I think Google has something. If so, and if I can use their Skype-like service (if I'm even right that they do indeed have one), and if they have a blog thing and if I use it, then I'll have all these communication things with Google. All in one bag. Might be a better idea.

That's enough for now. There are other things I want to put onto the blog but I will do them another time.

Just to say that things are going well here. Really enjoying the little kids. Just adorable. Cute as hell. Lots of fun.

I get into the garden often. Almost every day to water the plants. And almost every day for vegetables. Had some this morning. There's a wild plant that I love to death. I can eat so much of it. I would like to have a name and some nutritional information. I have met only one other person who also knows that it's edible. And good tasting. I ate a bunch of it about 9 or 10 am this morning. Been getting more vegetables lately than I have had in a long time.

Also recently found out that this garden here is hardly organic. I don't know how extensively the synthetic fertilizers are used, but I've seen it more than a few times. I have also seen organic fertilizers used, so that's good. I've seen bottles of herbicide too.

Sunim wants organic but a lady has determined that we'll use the synthetic fertilizers. She doesn't do much in the garden though so I feel that she's got no business saying we shouldn't do organic farming. And that's what Sunim wants. He's the boss here, isn't he? And she doesn't even eat the food here every day. Why in hell should she be able to make the decision to have synthetic fertilizers applied? I'll see what changes I can make. But I know that trying to change certain things can really make for turbulence. I don't want to cause turbulence but I'm not afraid of a little bit either. The lady who does most of the work in the garden, Kong Yang-ju, apparently "doesn't know". Sunmi told me this. I don't know just what this means, but, well, I want to see what I can do to make a few changes. I've got some ideas up my sleeve that I feel could very well make for smooth changes. Or at least, make the changes happen without so much turbulence.

Enough,
Time for lunch.
Troy.