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).