The boss's daughters

. . . . . I'd have a really easy job if it weren't for those two girls.  I've never met two girls that could be so rude before.  That big reason I loathe teaching them is because they make life hell for the others that have to take classes with them.  What really sucks, is that they can hardly understand what I'm telling them, when they are causing hell in my class.  Usually another student has to translate for them.  It's kind of hard for them to talk behind my back in Korean, when I can understand what they are saying also.

Anyway, tomorrow is Friday, so it's all good for now!!

Teacher, my friend say this is Vitamin

. . . . and what was it??  So, Calvin (a smart kid who is obsessed with himself), pulls this little thing out of his coat pocket that is wrapped in plastic.  He says he has to give it to his friend tomorrow at school, who told him it was some vitamins.  Well, my jaw dropped when I realized what it was. . .. . a condom -- none of the boys in the class had any idea what it was -- these kids would be either middle school or high school freshman in the states.  I just cracked up that they didn't know what this thing was. So, without the one girl in the class looking I wrote a three letter word on a piece of paper and showed it to them -- then they realized what the little rubber thing in plastic wrapping was for, well two of them did I think.

That was my class for the day, and after testing the previous four classes, I needed something to laugh about like that.

Almost Wednesday again

So today I got to test out my younger kids.  I gave all of my elementary age (the ones on Tuesdays at least,) students speaking tests today.  It turns out that the highest level group out of all those kids, is better at speaking than any of the middle school students that I teach.  I was really stoked about the scores that these kids attained.  The little ones didn't do so well, but they still tried hard, and I enjoyed the little tests that I gave them as well.  Tomorrow, I get to do the same thing again, just with other groups of kids.

Another month in this little place is almost in the books.

Enjoy a few pictures -- I haven't been taking many lately.

                                            One of the students took this, I just edited it.

                        The place where I work out in the mornings, known as Gongju Health Land

                                              Edited pictures taken from the bus

                                                 My arch nemesis this Spring

Happy Easter

Though I'm not in church on this Easter Sunday, I still wish everyone a Happy Easter, from over here in Gongju. This was maybe the laziest day I've had in a long time, but that's because I spent my Saturday night at the bus station in Seoul.  I missed my bus home by about 15 minutes last night, because I thought there was a later one, but I was wrong.

I still had a fun day in Seoul though.  I lost my temper for a little bit playing basketball with some Koreans.  I met up with a good friend of mine Sang Hyeon, who I haven't seen in over a year.  He's working in Seoul now making videos for a company that does weddings and special events.  Steve (student from LA), came and meet me on the courts as well. We played for about three hours before I went to Itaewon and met my friend Holly, and her boyfriend Amael, who is from France.  He's been to quite a few different countries, so talking to him is really interesting.  He's a really good guy as well.  We ate at an Austrian restaurant, which was really good, and then had a few drinks at some bar I had never seen before.  The name of the bar was Yuki's Irish Bar.  It was nice, but I wish we had left a few minutes earlier, so I could get to bus station and actually made it home last night, instead of early this morning.  At least I got to sleep during the day today.

I finally got my cousin Joe on Skype, and was able to talk to my best friend Jeff on it as well.  So that was kind of a success.  They were both up between the hours of 3 and 4 am, which was a little odd.  Anyway, it's the last week of April, and the last week of my 20s.

Hope everyone has a good Easter, no matter where you are.

Happy Good Friday

It's cooled off again here -- like 40s and 50s for the weekend, maybe a peek of sunshine.  I've worked myself out a little too hard for being first week back at the gym -- just not hitting the weights as heavily as usual though.

Anyway, I'm off to sleep after watching a great movie from 2003 -- Secondhand Lions.  Hoping to go to Seoul tomorrow and play some basketball. Then meet a friend of mine and her boyfriend for dinner as well.

What a week or day. . . .

So the bossman was alerted last weekend or Monday, that we could possibility get into some trouble, due to my "work status", here in Korea.  So, I "thought" I had all of my documents in hand ready, in case I needed to start my visa process here in Korea anytime soon.  Well, even though I had requested a seal, and signature on my FBI Background check (for apostille), it wasn't the correct thing.  So tomorrow I have to go to Daejeon, which isn't but thirty minutes away from here and haul on over to the Fed Ex office to send this background check to Washington D.C., and then have it sent back to me here in 'ole Gongju.

Anyway, happy hump day everyone.

Weekend in the 'gu!!

. . . .. That's Daegu for those of you who may be wondering.  I finished a pretty decent work week (due to giving tests in a few different classes), by receiving a revised schedule for the next six weeks.  The schedule is gonna be really rough on Mondays and Tuesdays, but softens up by the time Thursday and Friday come around.  I've just about put in 40 hours every week to begin with though.  Usually that consists of 5-6 hours of actual class time, then an hour or more of prep time, and the rest is time used for cleaning, and Johnny's own free time to plan life or study Korean, or read a book.  That reminds me, I need to get moving on my next Ken Follett book, "World Without End".  I may save that for some flights that I'll be taking come June. . . . that's all you will know for now about that part of my future.

Now my weekend was highly active, as it should have been since I was back in my "Korean hometown", with good folks all around.  Apparently Friday night was a big travel night in Korea though, because the speed train was sold out for almost two hours, and so I was stuck taking a slow train (50 minutes more), to Daegu, from Daejeon (another big city in Korea).  I did arrive at the house about 11:45, and Eun Byeol was studying for her mid-terms which start this week.  Mid-terms are a big deal for the college kids here.  I popped open my Korean book for an hour or so, which she was studying, and played on the computer as well.  This kid is pretty focused when it comes to her studies, but she still gets out and enjoys being around her friends as well -- heck, she even calls me Big Brother!!

Saturday morning I was actually allowed to come to the breakfast table a little later than usual (maybe 5 minutes).  I had my usual breakfast with the father and grandmother, and some fruit to close things out.   I spend almost an hour just cleansing at the bathhouse.  Some old man decided to converse with me in Korean for a while, which was cool with me.  The old men are always surprised that a man who is almost 30, and supposedly "handsome or good lookin'", is still not married.  I just laugh, and think "life happens".  When I finally got the courage to get out in the world and do something with my day, I went to the Nike store, just to see what kind of shoes they had around.  It really didn't matter, because they didn't have anything in my size at all.

I met up with Sue (Su-hye is how her Korean name is pronounced), one of the girls that lives in the neighborhood, and we went downtown for the afternoon.  Sue was convinced that we would find a shoe store that carried my size in something decent, but that was an unsuccessful mission.  I did buy two polo shirts at a store called Who.A.U.  Their shirts are a little under-sized, but I do like the colors they have.  Most importantly, the shirts were only fifteen bucks a pop.  We ate some Korean style chicken with noodles, walked around a little bit more, and then sat in a coffee shop and people watched for a little bit.  Turns out the  North Face store had some famous actor there signing autographs, so we just watch the crowd go nuts as we sat in the coffee shop.   Sue, being the Korean girl that she is, took countless random photos throughout the day as well.  Koreans love taking photos, and I mean they LOVE taking photos.  We eventually met up with some of her friends who wanted to meet me for some reason.  One was a girl who was super excited to meet me, which I thought was kind of funny, considering her boyfriend is in the Army right now.  We conversed mostly in Korean for a little bit, since her English isn't too good.

I got lucky enough to depart from that group about 7, or so.  That meant that I could do something I haven't done in a while -- hang out with the English Club folks.  English Club is a Korean club, where people discuss random topics in English to help better their fluency of the language.  There are a few foreigners there from time to time as well.  My favorite Richard, an older fella' from the U.K. was there last night. It's just a good group of folks, to spend your Saturday night with.

I'll update you about Sunday later, because it'd be cool to have some of the pics from the baseball game that I  attended with my good friend Greer (who works near Daegu, and graduated from the same high school as I).

I am not a babysitter!!!

There is nothing like teaching kids that should not even be in a class learning English on a daily basis.  I teach some boys that have just about not attention span whatsoever, or else just some bad ADD.  One of them is definitely much younger than the other (he naps quite often), and another boy, he's just to be the center of attention every day.

So I give this kid a stamp (in the form of an X for being bad).  Some of the other boys pick on him for getting it, and he goes NUTS!!! He would not sit in his chair no matter how many times, I told him to sit.  I had to block him from going up to these other boys and beating them on the head.  Finally I just picked up the little SH*% (excuse my language, because I don't post stuff like this at all) and took him out in the lobby and let the Koreans deal with him.  Then of course he came back, pulled some little balloon thing out of his bag, and kept blowing it up as big as it could get.  If I tried to take it he squealed like a pig going to slaughter.  Anyway, somehow I was able to get two or three of the boys and my almost-perfect girls to pay attention towards the end.

It also didn't help that our copy machine was out of commission today, because I would have had a cool body part worksheet for the little SH*% to do, which he excels at, but I was having to use an alternative plan, which went almost nowhere.  Anyway, I got to have a break after that class, and then my next class was amazing.  One of the girls told me about how when I first started teaching at this academy she didn't really care for me much (with the good 'ole thumbs down gesture), and then she proceeded to tell me how much she enjoys my class.  I was shocked, but it definitely made me feel better about my job.  If I could lose that two hours of teaching that lowest level class I would definitely feel younger again!!  Anyway, I'm headed back to the gym next week so all is good regardless.

Hope your hump day as been as adventurous as this one.

Shouldn't have eaten that Snicker's bar . . . .

or had that Vitamin C drink at almost midnight -- my body was needing something after my little run around the area near the hour of 11 at night.  It's now 3:30 am, and I'm kind of awake to say the least.  At least my day was a good one today.  One kid promised to be a better student and she even excelled on her speaking test.  My little ones were extremely good, then again they're getting bribed with stickers, so they definitely like that idea.  Other than that, things are going well -- I even ordered some more protein stuff, so I can get back to the gym for the next six weeks.  That way I'm not making myself run everyday, and I can hit the weights before work, and then sleep well at night.

Anyway, I'm gonna try and lay down.

got the FBI check finally

now on to finding a camp job, and possibly another job back in Daegu close to where all of my friends are!!

I don't even drink. . . .

and I am worn out from the weekend.  At least I'm not so sore now.  Even my arms were hurting today from that basketball that I played on Saturday. I seriously hope to fall asleep really soon.  It's nice that even the boss man noticed I was tired, when he asked "are you tired"?.  He and his wife decided I need to have a private class one time a week with each of his kids.  Well, the oldest daughter is just a brat, who has no manners whatsoever. The younger daughter isn't so bad at times, but still doesn't care to listen to me very much.  Their son isn't too bad, he's just not all that bright.  I wouldn't claim that the girls are very smart either though.

At least their father is a nice man though.  Work has gotten interesting.  I've been bribing the little ones with stickers so they'll behave much better, and it's paying off really well.  I watched Beth, a kid that can hardly sit still, yank a boy by the hair and put him in tears today, which was kind of shocking to see in a way.  I didn't want to discipline her at all just out of shock from seeing her do such a thing.

Yesterday, I did something I probably shouldn't have done.  I ran for 75 minutes.  Sure, it wasn't a bad idea, but the fact that I played so much basketball (which I hardly ever do) the day before for four hours, definitely didn't make the run much easier.  I did discover Gonju Health Land today though.  That's where the main bathhouse, spa, sauna, and health club are in the area.  It was pretty nice, and it was the first time I had paid money to use a bathhouse in a long time.  I lost a few pounds just sweating the 185 degree sauna.

I have decided I am going to test out my Korean skills literally.  There's a basic aptitude test in July, and then maybe early next year, I'll test out to see just how proficient I am.  I seemed to be able to answer questions on both the low level test, and the high level test with ease today.  I'll have to put in some hours, but I'm pretty confident that I can get a pretty good score on the first test.

                                 The two in the front are actually sitting still for a few minutes (rare)

                                              Three of the best girls I've ever taught

                                              someone spelled my name wrong in Korean!!

                                              Beth darting out the door, but Isabelle is all about a photo op.
As for now, I'm gonna depart, and fall asleep.  I'll leave some pictures of the little ones.

I need to post something

here's the deal, my feet are killing me.  I went to Seoul, thinking I was going to meet a friend from Daegu, but she's sick, so I went to this park in Seoul, thinking the cherry blossom festival was going on, but it's delayed for a  few more days.  So instead I played some basketball, and some more -- almost four hours with.  I met a cool kid from LA -- He's a Korean American who is a student at Seoul National University.  It was nice to play American style ball though for a little bit.

I did make it to Shoestring Travel Agency before all the ballin' began, which is an awesome place near one of the favorite foreigner hangouts in Seoul.  After dropping by there and buying Lonely Planet's Best in Travel 2011, I managed to locate a Subway for lunch as well.

Anyway, I'm worn out, and I should get some sleep for now.  I need to post a few pics of my students, which I will try to do in the next day or so.  Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

The kids are gettin' to me

 . . . but I managed to survive the hardest group at the start of the day.  My little ones were super tough as usual, but my two best girls moved up front, which was awesome.  Then I used stickers as bait to get some of my boys to do their work.  There is one little boy has no sense of obedience whatsoever.  So, I had to have one of my Korean co-workers explain to him that he cannot just walk out of the room at any given moment.

The kid also tries to bully the other students are cause them to lose their focus on the task at hand.  He decided he was going to put one boy's shoe on the window sill.  Of course this is my youngest boy, little Mike, as I like to call him.

The classes I had after that weren't so bad, until my last group.  It seems the oldest and the youngest groups are the toughest ones to teach.  The oldest ones are just tired of sitting in classes all day and listening to teachers talk, so they just decide to be flat out rude whenever they want.  It all came crashing down though once teacher yelled loudly, "BE QUIET".  You know you make your mark on kids when all the sudden they are scared!!

Oh well, two more days until the weekend. I am hoping to head to Seoul and visit some friends that I knew from my days in Daegu.  Tomorrow I do have to go to the bank and get some money wired back home to pay my credit card bill.  The exchange rate is rockin' at about a three year low, which is really sweet right now.

Korean Car Sales in America

click on this to read more

Happy April

Hello there.  So, I haven't been writing too much lately.  There's not a lot to be writing about, but I do have a few things I can share with you.

• I got paid a day early, and didn't even have to wait for the weekend to be over to get my money.  Honestly, I wasn't too worried, but my employer asked me as I was walking out the door Friday night, if his wife had paid me, and I was a little surprised to say the least.  It was nice to know I had that money there, when I saw my Shinhan Bank ATMs in Seoul yesterday though.
• I had an awesome time hiking at Mt. Gyeryongsan, known as the chicken dragon mountain, because of the ridges I believe.  I went on my own, but made friends with a few foreign folks before the uphill climb began.  They looked like they were planning on having a picnic with all the wine and snacks they brought. I had a cup of Chilean wine, then started my way up the mountain.  It was an interesting group to talk with though.  One lady was from Austin, and the others were either from the UK, or South Africa.  They were quite the animated group.  
• I made friends with two Korean guys who work with Samsung's R&D division in the Gumi area (where I believe my voice was used for a tourist promotion).  We did most of the five hour hike together.  They knew more English than I did Korean, and we took turns leading up to the different peaks.  It was one of the more dangerous hikes that I've ever been on, considering all the slippery rock I came in contact with.  A few times I had to almost crawl around some spaces, since I don't walk around with one of those fancy hiking sticks like the Koreans do.  My new friends even dropped me off at the bus station in Daejon, so I could get a bus ticket back to Gongju. 
• I was so tired and hungry (along with still having a cold), that I went to the pizza place, came home and just about swallowed the whole thing.  The pizza crust was made with some kind of green tea dough, which was good, I guess. With the help of my cold medicine, I managed to fall asleep pretty easily.  
• Yesterday, I was to meet a friend from Daegu in Seoul, but I got stood up.  I still went into the city anyway.  Of course the cold medicine knocked me out on the bus ride, and I've never been able to fall asleep on bus rides (at least lately).  I went to Kyobo bookstore to pick up the sequel to The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and walked around some of the tourist areas as well.  I went to a bookstore that all the foreigners frequent known as What the Book?, but their prices are a little bit higher than the regular bookstores in Korea.  Anyway, it's now time for the first full week of April, and the weather is finally warming up.  

Enjoy a few pictures as well.

Think Different

Eric Church - She loves me like Jesus

This guy is very under appreciated for the music he writes and sings. I love it when the guy filming says "it's a bad-ass song"

Last month in the 20s

I'm probably not going to do much in regards to this being my last month before I turn 30.  All I plan to do is get my butt up and get back to being a little more active.  That means exercising almost every day, hiking at least one day on the weekend, and doing my job a little better as well.  Today was a great day to kick things off though.  I was acting like my old self as a teacher.  I picked the kids up and swung them around, and played with them and was just having an all around good time.  I did have to play "angry teacher" for a few minutes throughout the afternoon and evening.  Anyway, I plan on going hiking tomorrow afternoon at a national park that's nearby my area.

Have a good weekend everyone!