I look just like Julia Roberts

On Thursday I went with Jen to a temple near our school to help her teach some of the nuns and some refugees from North Korea English. We had been connected with the temple through this amazing woman, Judy, who owns a great restaurant above our work. She lives with the nuns at the temple which is also a place that some North Koreans come to when they first get into the country. It is a pretty amazing opportunity for us to work with people that we would have no other way of having a relationship with.
The temple is beautiful and so quiet compared with the rest of the city. I didn't have the chance to really look around but there was a huge garden on one side where they grow all of their vegetables and which also serves as a community garden for people in the area. There is the main temple where people can come and pray whenever and then the houses where the nuns live and study.
The class was with two nuns and two North Korean women who were about 25. Both of the North Koreans are unique in that they made it out of North Korea without being forced into a marriage. Typically single women end up in a marriage in China (they can't go directly to South Korea) because they cannot support themselves alone. I am not sure how long the two of them had been in South Korea but it seems that it has probably been a while because they both seemed very happy and open, there was lots of laughing at their efforts to speak English. At this point all of their English levels are very low and we will mostly just be trying to teach them vocabulary and some simple grammar but they have been learning very quickly so hopefully we will be able to communicate with them more.
Jen is pretty good at Korean (after 5 years here) which seems to be a big help in teaching them, I think it will be a struggle if I go alone to communicate with them and the other nuns.
The class is only an hour and then we are given lunch with some of the nuns. They are all so nice and welcoming. My favorite was this very old nun (I guess she is the oldest at the temple) who seems to be done with silly pleasantries and small talk. She just kind of sat around at lunch looking bored. When one of the other nuns took a picture of her with Jen, Jen was smiling and posing and the other woman just looked bored and not at the camera. Somehow she all of this while still seeming to be a wonderfully kind person. It was just as if she had lived a very full life and understood how inconsequential all of our behavior and conversations were. The one thing that did get her excited was this app on one of the woman's smartphones of a animated cat that would repeat things you said in a cute cat voice or you could punch it on different parts of its body for different reactions. This game kept her entertained for way too long.
I am definitely excited for the opportunity to get to know both the nuns and the North Koreans better and hopefully help them with their English but I am a little nervous about going on my own with my total lack of Korean. Though I think I will like spending time with the nuns as they are very complimentary, one of them told me I looked like Julia Roberts which mostly just indicates that she has never seen a picture of Julia Roberts.

This was the only photo I took on a recent weekend in Daegu. I love how eggs look and I don't know how they can have this huge stack of them on the street without people breaking them.

Phone Photos

This is pretty much the funniest Korean I have encountered while here, pretty lazy student though.

Our friends just got this adorable puppy

Angry Birds is very popular here at the moment and most of the kids have some sort of Angry Birds clothing but this is by far the best that I have seen.

We are now halfway through the term and it has gone by very quickly. I got lucky with my classes this term which makes everything a lot easier. Unfortunately everything else at work seems to be falling apart. Our Branch Manager is extremely pregnant and will be leaving at the end of a month and the woman that is replacing her has not exactly won me over. The first email message that we received from her reminded us to "obey all commands of our head instructor and branch manager". Probably a lot got lost in the translation but still not great. In addition the one amazing Korea teacher that was very helpful and attentive had to leave to take care of her mother and it seems her replacement does not speak English. Its a pretty big bummer not to have any good Korean teachers because they are the only ones that seem to have any discipline power over the students. So without her we pretty much don't have any way of really punishing students that continually misbehave. It is pretty clear that the students are aware that we (the foreigners) are very limited in what we can do in terms of punishment and some of them can be totally out of control and rude.
On top of all the staff changes we will be moving buildings at the end of the month. It seems that the new building will be much nicer and hopefully we will have bigger classrooms as mine is tiny right now. The only bummer is that it is a little bit further away and a bit of a walk from the subway. Hopefully that switch will go somewhat smoothly.
The Busan Film Festival is currently going on but figuring out how to get tickets and what to see was way to confusing so instead I am going out to dinner with some friends and then we are going to go to the casino (it will be my first time). Gambling (along with all other fun activities) is against the law for Koreans but foreigners are allowed (I wish they had these kinds of rules for other things). Anyway, should be interesting! Speaking of breaking the law, the big drama for all the middle school girls is the one of the members of Big Bang one of the most popular boy bands here (thing 'NSYNC in their hayday) got caught with a joint. My students said that his story was that a fan gave it to him and he thought it was a cigarette. When I told them that that was obviously a lie and he probably smokes weed they looked at me with shock and confusion.

Fall

So last week it was in the 90s and now it is in the 60s and 50s. Apparently it is now fall. Almost done with the first month of the term. Classes are going well, I like my students and the classes I am teaching this term a lot more than last term which is nice. Everything else is pretty much the same as always, no new excitement. I did have an extremely vivid dream last night of being in a restaurant in New York eating an amazing meal with my lovely aunt Sue which tells me several things: first, I have awesome dreams about food, second I clearly miss New York and Sue and should probably get back for some delicious food.
Yesterday one of my students informed me that he had a sore throat. When I asked him what he would like to do about it he simply replied, "I will endure". Wise words, especially because I woke up this morning with a horrible sore throat. I guess I will just have to endure.

Panda

So I had a real creative idea for this post involving lots of photos but due to my not having every photo ever taken of me on my computer and facebook changing for the worse it is going to be less creative. Less photos, more words, and as an avid blog reader I know no one likes reading so I'm sorry that I wont be able to illustrate this moving story with images but since I'm only related to/friends with highly literate people (so the only people that read this) you guys shouldn't have too much of a problem.
So for those of you who are not familiar with my traveling/teaching partner Danielle we studies abroad together in Australia and our friendship was pretty much based on going to concerts and whatnot. Australia had a number of musical highlights that bonded our friendship (this is where I would have including pictures to capture our budding friendship and the concerts that we attending). Anyway, this continued all across American including stops in Austin, TX, Palms Springs, CA and Sheldon, VT. Now that we are in Korea the key to our friendship (concerts) has pretty much been stolen from us because Koreans seem to be deaf and listen to K-Pop. So far we have attended a whopping two concerts while here, my new six month low. Luckily our friendship has been able to survive and shockingly even grow without this integral aspect.
Last night we attended the second of our two concerts- Gold Panda. And it was a pretty fucking sweet show. Now I realize that someone starving would argue that any food was the best they have ever had as someone that once used to attend quite a few concerts in a six month period I feel that I can separate my music starvation from my critical judgement of a musical event. Anyway, the show was awesome, even the opener was awesome. Just one guy (British apparently), kinda mellow ravey, electronic- so all you old folks would probably hate it. It was great to see some good live music. One benefit of living in a place devoid of cool music is that when it does appear people get extremely excited (like me) making the show even better- nothing worse than a lame audience (I must say I found the DC audience for Yeasayer the most uptight of any I have been part of, probably cause everyone wants a government job where they will potentially be drug tested and so don't ever have any fun unlike Burlington where they don't let you in if you look too straight). Anyway, great night and it rained all day today (shocker) which was actually perfect because I was hungover and all I wanted to do was watch TV, a task I definitely achieved, finished Breaking Bad, got caught up on Project Runway, Jersey Shore and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills along with watching Midnight in Paris and its only 8:43! What a busy day!

Seoul! (Lots of potential puns that I will resist from writing)

So Seoul was amazing, pretty much sensory overload, except that unlike Busan it does not smell horrible everywhere. We arrived Friday night and walked around Hongdae and went out for a bit. Saturday we visited Changdeok Palace which was pretty awesome. We went on what turned out to be a 1 hour and 45 min hiking tour of the grounds in Korean but it was nice to see some nature and get a little culture in. We then had the most amazing lunch in Insadong. Dumpling soup from this family owned restaurant and it was by far the best Korean food that I have had. In addition to our dumpling soup we had an awesome Kimchi pancake and some Malki, rice wine. After getting completely stuff we briefly walked around Insadong which is a pretty arty area, lots of galleries with traditional Korean art and shops to buy ceramics and whatnot. Dinner was Spanish tapas, another great meal before going out. We didn't make it out very long as we were pretty exhausted from all our culture that day. Sunday morning/noon we had lunch at a Turkish restaurant that was surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning, must have been the church crowd. Then we spent the rest of the day doing some shopping and walking around. Once we couldn't walk any more and just wanted to lie down in the street from exhaustion we headed back to Seoul station and got on a train for Busan. Quite a successful trip, I can't wait to go back!

Yum

Almost forgot to capture out amazing meal

Turkish amazingness

Perfect footwear for a hike

Some Cuties

One of the cutest little girls ever. She is in second grade and insanely smart.

Twins! They did not want to have their photo taken

Another one of my favorite students. His name is Miles and he has the most severe case of ADD I have ever witnessed. He is hysterical.

The two Jenny's who have only now become friends. They are both super young, brilliant and adorable and they hold hands everywhere they go. I have to really resist squeezing them whenever I see them.

Another Inspirational Article About Korea

New York Times article on marines in Korea
Shit like this really bothers me about Korea. I think it is an continuation of the abuse that all of our student face at school from their teachers and at home from their fathers. When discussing what kids in elementary school didn't like about their parents one little girl that barely speaks, always looks terrified and apparently wet herself from nerves in one class said that she doesn't like it when her dad hits her. I can only imagine that if this poor girl wasn't beaten by her father she might be a little more inclined to make friends and be outgoing in class. As it is she perpetually looks terrified. I once hit the desk of a student that kept falling asleep in class and the look of fear in his eyes when he jumped awake totally caught me off guard. It would never occur to me that a teacher would ever hit me, and I could never hit a student, but to him it seemed natural that I would be planning on hitting him for sleeping rather than just trying to wake him up.
Also, every student tells me how summer is the worst time of year because rather than getting time off to relax their schedules become even harder. One of my middle school students spends Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at academies or traveling between them from 9 in the morning until 10 at night. I can't even imagine how much that would suck. When I told them that the most homework I ever had over the summer was summer reading in high school I'm pretty sure they wanted to punch me. But they seem so used to it that they never really complain or anything. Needless to say, every day that I spend teaching Korean kids makes me even more thankful that I grew up in America. Our education may a shadow of what they receive but unlike them I was able to have a childhood and a few life experiences under my belt by the time I was 18, something that I would not say of a single one of my students.
In other news we had one day of sun on Saturday so I finally got to go to the beach! It was a great day/night of hanging out, swimming, eating and drinking (so all of my favorite activities). Back to working 10 hour days but at least I got one day of fun in. It poured rain today but hopefully the weekend will be nice.