Two Weeks Notice

I'm going to bump my previously scheduled Seoul post to bring you the latest news from my job. 

The first I heard of the fate of my school was from B, my coworker, "you know the school is closing right." Me: "uh, no." B: "yeah, like next month. D just told me." 

D spoke to us together a few minutes later. He told us first off that there's this meeting on Wednesday. Yeah fine but tell me about my job I thought. It was like playing twenty questions. Not that he didn't want to tell us what was happening; more he just didn't think it was very important and he answered everything in a very casual off-handed sort of way. When is the school closing? At the end of the month. What happens to me in December? Nothing. No classes. Will I be paid? Yes. Will I have an apt? Yes. Will I have a job in January? Yes.

So that is all the information I have for now. It sounds pretty freaking amazing. I am trying to remain calm and not plan an amazing trip to Japan in my head before anything is certain...

 

Couple Culture

When I was in Seoul last we visited Seoul Tower. It was predictably a good spot to take in the view of the ~20 million+ city. I hadn't expected to find thousands of "couple love locks" hooked onto the chain link fence that was keeping us from falling down the mountainside. I came across this article about the phenomenon at the Korean Times website. The experience, for me, encapsulated the rampant couple culture here in Korea otherwise most notably present in the Sunday couples outfits.

ahhh shiver

I learned in my first month as a teacher in Korea that the word "shiver" is Korean for sh*t. It came up in the predictably entertaining situation in which newbie Julia Teacher tried to teach "to shiver" as a spelling word. Needless to say that got many laughs from the kids who were all much too eager to repeat the spelling words that week.

Well a long time seems to have passed since then. I have just come from my worst class of the week. Thankfully it is only once a week. It's three hours with 5 thirteen year old tyrants. I don't know how they do it but they manage to maintain a constant muttering of ahh...shiver....ahhh...shiver for three solid hours! Seriously why don't they get tired? Oh and they were none to pleased to discover I was completely ignorant of Pepero Day (Pepero is a chocolate covered stick shaped cookie. 11/11 apparently looks like Peperos and that's a good enough reason to make it a day) Well I didn't know about it so I didn't buy any. It's a side effect of being the only teacher at school. Ahh shiver is right.

In brighter news I got paid today and only a day late.

What's happening at KORUS?

On Monday this week I had a particularly tiny first class. I figured it was a city wide picnic day or some such thing for that age group. When the same kids didn't show up on Wednesday I started to think something might be amiss. However I was rather occupied nursing a particularly unfortunate post birthday hangover to be too much bothered. So it was only today that I finally gathered my thoughts and pressed my VP about what was going on with my High B class. He told me that in fact 7 kids dropped my class en mass. Kind of a big deal in a class that was originally 9 students. Also doesn't do much to bolster this teacher's confidence. Though I had had that class for four months already. I really don't know what's happening to my school.

Look who's old

Well I thought I just turned 23 but apparently in Korea I'm 25. That international date line gets more mysterious every day.

Pottery

I've been itching to do some pottery. It's not always very easy to find specific things like pottery classes here as using the Internet is completely useless and the phone is a ridiculous option. Usually you need to rely on Korean friends or acquaintances for such purposes. So I turned to my bosses. I was quite excited when my VP Eric wound up hooking me up with a workshop with a famous Busan ceramic artist this past weekend.

As with Canadian potters I have visited this Korean artist has set up shop on the outskirts of Busan in a very interesting house surrounded by beautiful countryside. Eric drove J and me out to Gijang and acted as translator for us all afternoon. It was yet another example of the extreme generosity of Korean people towards us foreigners. We had a spiffy afternoon making a coil pot, having a try at the wheel and laughing with out fellow potters. (Laughing works well when nobody knows what each other is saying).

A Very Hangul Halloween

Halloween in Korea was pretty interesting. I spent the better part of my Thursday hunting all over town for a costume and decorations. As it happens there's a Halloween store in Seomyeon its stock entirely imported from Canada and the US. But seeing the price of a tissue paper pumpkin (10,000 won) I bailed and headed to the ever reliable Megamart. There I found black and orange construction paper and orange and purple balloons. The costume situation was comical. I found some cute kiddie costumes mixed in with car seat covers in the bug section. (Yeah the bug section was a new discovery for me at MM but why not?). I finally opted to make my own costume at home and settled on the classic black cat thinking my kids would appreciate it. It worked out well because it turned out B had dressed up as Batman.

I heard a rumor MegaMart had a table of scream masks which may be responsible for its popularity.