So many stories

. . . . but, we'll have to do them post by post, and probably not finish them today, since I am at the family's house in another part of town.  I am living in a motel for a few days, and there isn't even any internet there.  Tomorrow though, I will move into my apartment at 9:30 am.

 Observation Day
Yesterday, (Tuesday), was observation day for me.  Well, half of it was at least observation day. Every other class I observed one of two teacher, and the other classes I taught, while being observed. Let's just say that all that hard work I put into getting a teaching certificate through a tough online course, will not be used so much this year.  I was totally confused and a little uninformed when I was trying to prepare at first for the classes yesterday. The Korean teacher that helps us plan the days, decided to tell the manager I had a poor attitude, and that I was doing other things instead of planning for the classes. Sadly enough, I was informed by this same lady to take in the observations and after watching them I could plan better.

Today the manager told me how unprofessional I was, though she lets her foreign employees wear t-shirts and shorts to work.  That's one thing I will never do, unless it is at a camp job.  If I'm passionate about something, you bet that I am going to be professional.  One teacher that observed me said that I had no control of the students and that I was not able to keep them quiet.  What the heck lady? That's one thing that my girlfriend really liked about me when we worked together, was how I commanded respect from the students.  Then again when you bring a lot of energy into a classroom, the students need to be loud, and excited (according to my energy levels they should!!).

I am sitting in the house right now, waiting for Little Sis (as I call her), to come home so we can have a family dinner, before my official first day of work tomorrow.  My school is  a good thirty minutes (by subway) from where I used to live in this city. I have already had a wonderful Korean style home cooked meal this morning.  This afternoon I worked out at my old fitness club, where the owner's daughter told me to just come and go as I please without paying.

2011 IAAF World Championships
This week is a very big week for this city.  Daegu is hosting the World Track and Field Championships this year.  Besides the World Cup back in 2002, it's probably the biggest event ever held in this city.  It's great to see all the people here taking in the culture, and supporting their respective countries as well. One of my friends has been an interpreter for the Jamaican track and field team. She said Usain Bolt (World's fastest man, so they say), is a very selfish and arrogant man.  He was even DQ'ed from his event, due to a false start. Another Jamaican ended up winning and Sue said he's a very friendly fellow.

I'll add a few more things sometime tomorrow. I miss my little lady, and my old job a little bit too.  I'll just walk into work tomorrow energized, with a big grin, just raring to go.  As I like to say "kill 'em with kindness". 

One Reason

My hometown is problems with racism -- Certain people wreaking of booze at a gas station on a Sunday morning, praising the LORD with lies about having no gasoline in their vehicles (that don't exist), with kids, and the wife, and an uncle (that all don't exist), begging you for money.  Sure I watched part a movie called The Grace Card yesterday with my boy Jeff and his mom.  Still, I sometimes can't help but develop certain opinions about people after my morning starts like that.  Anyway, I have to quit my bitchin' and get in a first class seat in a few minutes.  The joys of flying so many times in one year with Delta and their friends.  Sky Priority here fools. See ya on the other side of the world. 

Back to that place called Daegu

So my girlfriend doesn't even know that I am getting on a plane tomorrow morning to head back to Korea.  All she knows is that next weekend, she might be seeing me.  Well, I arrive in Seoul on Monday afternoon, and then take a bus to Daegu from the airport.  Tuesday, I have observations (not cool).Wednesday, I have a full day to play, and then Thursday it's back to work again, only to find that Friday means the weekend.  At least I am coming back with a few holidays coming up in the next five weeks.

Anyway, I'll update this a little more in the next 10 hours or so.

Hello from Dallas

Yeah, Summer time has made me a slacker right now.  It's 12:17 am, but I'm rockin' with some CSI NY for now at Grandpa's place.  I've been nervously playing online for the last few hours because I've had some issues with paperwork that controls me getting back to my woman (and getting another job).  Now, I know where the paperwork is headed, so I am much more content.

Now, last week I finished Summer Camp at Hyundai, and I was a little sad to leave. I really bonded well with a bunch of the kids there.  I even owe at least one of them a visit when I return, and I need to respond to an email that one of the girls sent me as well. The email started with "Hi John Teacher, how do you do?". That was from Heather who was definitely my smartest kid for week four.

Grandpa celebrated birthday number 99 this past weekend.  I was pretty excited to come back here and celebrate.  Grandpa has taught me a lot about being a gentleman.  I may not be a great gentleman as he is, but I do my best to at least bring smiles to people's lives daily. I'll leave here tomorrow, and meet up with my dad in Little Rock, and then come back to Memphis for a short time -- hopefully for a short time.  

Family Camp (from Aug 6th and 7th)

just a few pictures from Family Camp with the Young Falcons -- just the elementary ages kids, which was super fun.

                                        Sunday morning -- making breakfast, known as kimbap

                                 Eating a wonderful dinner -- Samgyetang - traditional summer meal

                   The kids were practicing their English and I was guessing the words in Korean

                                          Brother Kim Sang Moon in the orange shirt

                                              Making breakfast once again here

Awesome weekend

Though I was too tired to enjoy part of it on an island that I'd never heard of before last week.  I will fill in the details later, but I haven't checked in on this thing for a while.  Tomorrow starts the last week of camp though.  Annie sort of overcame her fear of deep water as well. We ate one of my favorite Korean dishes, with some octopus thrown in there was well.

A little too tired to type much more, so I'll sign back on later and fill you all on in details soon.

A few pictures from camp (week 2 at least)

                                            Some of my boys doing some work last week

                                           getting ready to shop at the "flea market"

                                             the Korean staff checking things out

                                           Some of my fellow coworkers

                                            A few of the other Koreans that I work with

                                            My beautiful group

Awesome week of camp

This week I had the best class I've ever taught in camp, academy, school, etc. The kids had some amazing manners, some great vocabularies, and wonderful personalities.  They made putting together a five minute movie a piece of cake. Yeah, I know am well-skilled at using Windows Movie Maker (at least on Windows 7).  I was even the first person to finish editing and producing a movie as well.

I'll post some pictures up here of the kids sometime soon, and maybe I can even post the video, but I'm not so sure of that.  I hope everyone is doing well.  Sorry, for not posting so much, but I've almost avoided using the computer except to check messages, and see how bad the stock market is crashing.  Almost time to go out with the ladies -- my other foreign co-workers that is.  I'm the only male out of the eight of us, which is kind of cool.  I do have a girlfriend though, so I'm not so tempted.  We all get along really well, even though our South African girl has to rely on me a little too much to do her video stuff, since she didn't bring her computer with her to camp.

Happy Friday, and fingers crossed the world isn't plunging back into a recession.

A little late on the weekend update

So Miss Annie and I met up on the speed train in Daegu, since she was coming from the other direction.  That way we were able to head to Ulsan together for our a little weekend in my temporary city.  The only problem with taking the high speed train to this city is that you then have to take a bus ride for about 50 minutes to an hour to get to the Hyundai main entrance.  The weather was muggy once we got off the bus and walked into my dorm.  At least we were going to the beach though a little while later.

We took a taxi to the beach, since I thought the area was pretty close by.  It was still close, but a little more expensive than I thought the ride would be; still only about eight bucks.  We went to what's called the Ulsan Sea and Shipbuilding festival.  The skies clouded up, once we arrived at Ilsan Beach (the big beach spot in Ulsan).  The temperature also dropped considerably which was very cool (get it, cool?).  Instead of hang around the festival we went to a park around the coastal mountain range, that was beautiful.  It's actually built in honor of one of the Korean Emperors.  Since there were many clouds and a little rain, you couldn't see much, but rocks and water.

Still we had an enjoyable walk, and even did some rock climbing of our own.  That's something I wouldn't recommend to just anyone, but it made for a good relationship test. We ate some wonderful raw fish after our hike/climb, and then walked around the beach for a little bit.  There was a concert going on, but we didn't take much interest in it.

here are some pictures. I'll post about camp again tomorrow.  I'm not doing too much internet these days, except for some job stuff, or video making (for camp).