Jasmine's New Jacket

Thanksgiving

Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, mac & cheese, bread, wine, cake...and best of all...not having to excuse myself from the table from listening to my family bash "liberal left wing" politics. A good Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all y'all, I miss you. Oh, and HOOK EM.

The Drugs Don't Work. (They Just Make It Worse...)

I've been bad about posting the past few weeks...I've been pretty sick. A death cough (aka bronchitis?) and a sinus infection. Doesn't help that daily temperatures are hovering around 28F. Apparently Koreans don't believe in anti-biotics. After being told on two separate occasions by the same ENT "it is not very serious I think," receiving pills that do absolutely NOTHING, and scaring most of my students into believing I have Swine flu; I went to a Oriental Medicine doctor.

Apparently Oriental medicine is actually more like magic or something because the "doctor" (with the Rolex), put his middle and index finger on my wrist, took my pulse, gave me 18 bags of herbs and told me to mix them with hot water three times a day and I would be cured. I feel Billy Crystal is about to jump out any moment with a fake nose.

"Goodbye Annie and Brandon...See You Tomorrow!"

Annie and Brandon are leaving and we are all really bummed. All of the staff went out for a pretty great Goodbye Dinner....which resulted in a pretty drunken Goodbye Party at Metropolis. We are gonna miss you, but you'll be back. They always come back, muahahaha.


Annie, Clara and Brandon


Clark and Kelvin do the "Love Shot."


Clara gifts Annie and Brandon with "couples" pens.


Now I get to be the second best dart player at CDI. When Clark leaves, I'm number one baby.


The "men" of Junggye branch, hah. Love you boys.


Andy was feeling eeextra generous with the Jack Daniels last night....

25%

It's hard to believe I have been in Korea for three months already. It's flown by, but when I look back on all that has happened, it seems like its been ages. Here are some photos from the last day of Fall Semester and some of my favorite kids who I probably won't have anymore.


Lacy (a very very good girrrl) with Michael, Tom and Hance looking on


Anna Banana and Hangman


Anna, Jessica, Hyo-ree, Ben, Billy and Chris

Thin Cigs or The Night Jon Dressed Up

Please please please please come back :(

Hell In A Bucket

She's here!! Roommates for a week, yes!

Dark Was The Night

first flurry from my window.

Seedbed

The youngest students who are least familiar with English at my hagwon are in the "Seedbed" level. When I walked into school 5 weeks ago and was told I would be teaching a Seedbed class beginning that day, I started to cringe. Not that I don't love little kids, but the idea of starting phonetics with 5 and 6-year-olds after I have been teaching kids who read, comprehend, think objectively and have conversations with me, well, this was going to be a challenge.

I received four new students. Julia, Tad, Ted and Zion. So, not only could they barely read/speak English, but they didn't understand the rules (No Korean!, No Food!, No Hitting!, etc) and I couldn't very well explain them. Julia, Ted and Zion had at least some basic understanding of the ABC's and even knew some of the sounds those letters made. Tad was another story. Couldn't understand a thing.

To paint a bit of a picture of how my Tuesdays and Thursdays look with this motley crew: Zion has these outrageously stinky farts (he bombs the class no fewer than 3 times a day), Julia whines, eats the whole time and acts bored, Ted has a lisp and cries/curses me every time he gets a bad grade and is usually hitting someone, and Tad (who's name we recently changed to "T-Rex"), well he is the reason for this post.

Last week we were working on the sounds the letter "c" makes: soft "s" (as in "city") or hard "k" (as in "cat"). I gave them a list of words and had them separate them based on what sound they made: "Cycle, cease, cell, circle go in column A. Camel, cry, camp, call go in column B." But when it came to the word "cent" T-Rex unknowingly thought it was a hard "c" and shouted "CUNT!" I couldn't help cracking up for the rest of the class. How can you stay mad at that?

Aftermath.

No, not a swastika. Don't think there are too many Nazis in South Korea. Symbol for a Buddhist temple.


The People's Champ.

Gecko's + Bedlam

Saturday made for one of the strangest nights in a while. Gay bar fight and a mugging. Things got weird.

Cyclops

Pirates of the Han River

We ventured on a "Han River Cruise" on Saturday. I think we were anticipating something a bit more exciting but hey, I guess we shouldn't have expected much more to look at than apartment buildings and bridges. But we DID get to go on a Pirates of the Caribbean boat...ha.



So many hilarious things I could say about this. Guess I'll have to keep it PG and not aRRRRRRRR.

Seanalicious came to haang.

So Futuristic.... (뚝섬유원지역 aka Ttukseom Resort)

At Ttukseom Resort stop (on the Han River) they are building some crazy alien spaceship train tunnel. That's not the technical term (I don't think) but it sure had me singing F>I>G>U>R>I>N>E.

할로윈 (Halloween)

My favorite day of the year. I found $80 on the ground of a club. I had a net of +$5 on the night but that's because I am a very generous drunk :)


Robert Downey Jr. incarnate.

I was Skeleton Boy (inspired by this Friendly Fires video). Needless to say, I got some funny stares in the subway.

Uncle Tom's Cabin or something....We were the only ones there at first...

Shark's got my conjoined twin fetus!

so Downey.

...and then it got crowded.


I made him come and he had so much fun (I think).

Jane's Groove.

My Frenchman, Antoine.

I was totally photo-stalking this guy. Couldn't just go and talk to him. That's not creepy or anything...

I met this guy a month ago at Culture Exchange and can't for the life of me remember his name.

My good fortune landed us at a bomb hof.

Lunch: 닭갈비 (Dak Galbi) and Train Station

so yum.


like I said, lunch.

곱은옥 폭포 (Gogok Falls)

Clark and I are starting a Sign Translation business. I'm the founder, he is the CEO.

I want.


wishing rocks.