Welcome to Staypuff.net, home of me, David, a twenty-something year old Australian bloke living and working in South Korea. I'm originally from Perth Western Australia, but decided my life needed sea change and moved to Korea, where I have been since the end of 2004. Have a look around the site, and please feel free to comment on any of the posts (constructively please). alternatively you can email me at: dehere(at)iinet.net.au
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Its a small price to pay to keep the morons under control.
Staypuff.net - Following the life of a Perth lad in KoreaThe Life & Times of an Australian in Korea
Gone to Taiwan, back in a week or so.
Friday, July 25th, 2008
I told you this week would go quickly, and it has. Like Aaron, this will be my last post for a week and a bit as I head off to Taiwan for some R&R. I’ve got out the stuff I want to pack and I have to confess, its a little more than I expected it to be. I’m sure when I get all of it in my backpack it’ll be fine and just my head playing tricks on me now. I always worry just before traveling in regards to packing, but in the end its all for nothing. *rushes to get passport*
I called Aaron last night for a last minute check of all our stuff. I had completely forgotten about getting a re-entry visa at the airport, so I’m happy I adjusted my plans to allow for more time while I’m there. I’ll probably arrive at the airport an hour or so after Aaron, so at very least we can catch up on some of the gossip while we wait for the flight.
I’m also glad to be getting away from work a week. I think everyone at the hagwon has been waiting for these holidays to come and I can’t help but feel more then a few people’s fuses have been quite short (and understandably too). I’ve tried not to think too much about it, the upcoming holiday, while at work and have instead been concentrating on making sure my classes continue to be enjoyable for the students. As of next month, most of my students will change, and I hope they can remember their fun they had in my class.
I don’t often have parties with my classes as some of the other teachers do, but yesterday was the exception for one of them. You may recall a couple of months ago I was worried about teaching a class with only one students who doesn’t speak much English. Well that one student has quickly turned into one of my favourite students and has been joined by 4 other, equally nice, students. While I have only taught them for a couple of months, we have gelled amazingly well and I wanted to give them a fun day before they get a new teacher next month.
Sometimes kids really surprise me, and to see 5 elementary school students sharing snacks and pouring each other drinks, including myself, (they all bought something) as well as playing the game without any tears, was fantastic. I think the new teacher gets them next, so I hope he/she has as much satisfaction teaching them as I have. I’ll be sad to not be their teacher anymore.
Whatever you are doing for your summer holidays this week, I hope you have fun. See you in 10 days!
So the trip is in a couple of days now and I’ve only really now started to think about what I need to take and how I’m going to get myself to the airport on time. My plane takes off at 1 in the afternoon, so I need to get myself there at least 2 hours before taking off. Don’t ask me why I have to be there so early, I just have this huge fear of missing flights and I figure if I give myself at least 2 hours of breathing space, I should be ok in the event of being held up.
Em told me last night that the travel agent down the road from us sells tickets for the high speed train, the KTX, which I’ll be taking on Saturday morning. I thought I had my times and route sorted out, but upon rethinking my plans at 2 am this morning, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend, I jumped on the computer and tried to figure out different ways of getting to the airport.;
In the end it was quite simple, catch a quicker train, an hour earlier.
So I’ll be heading out at 4:30 Saturday morning, hopefully finding a taxi, and then catching a 6:07 LTX train to Seoul. It should get me there before 8, leaving me 5 hours to get to the airport from Seoul train station. If that isn’t enough time, then I don’t know what will be.
My girlfriend also expressed how sad she would be to see me go for a week and started crying. I was a little taken back by that, but she explained further that it would be the first time she’s ever had to live alone. The last, and only time, I had stayed away for a night was when I went to Andong to catch up with Aaron, and she told me how frightened she was by herself.
In all the excitement of going to Taiwan, I didn’t take the time think about how much this would mean to Em. I felt bad and extremely ashamed of myself for being selfish enough to not see the bigger picture. I told Em that if she didn’t want me to go, I wouldn’t. She insisted that I should, and that she would be ok, but the first few nights would be difficult for her. I imagine this is one of those things where she just has to be strong and get through it by herself.
I told her she can call her friends, or any of my friends, if she did get scared (not that I need to tell her that). I also will give her Jay’s cell number and she can call me any time. Perhaps I’ll even rent a cell in Taiwan?
Personally speaking, I think she’ll be ok. She’s an amazing person who has managed to become a very independent young woman in the past couple of years.
And besides, the rabbit can pester someone else for a week.
This afternoon I interviewed another person for a teaching position at the academy. Predictably it was another woman (hagwon’s don’t employ many male Korean teacher’s, and I personally just think it’s so they can keep the middle school boys coming back night after night) who seemed a lot shyer than the last woman I interviewed (did I post about this?). She was very softly spoken and seemed a little too surprised to see a foreigner working in an English academy.
I have a sheet with a series of questions that can be asked. I usually pick out the same 3 or 4, but every now and then, and I think for my own amusement, I throw in one of my own. Nothing difficult, just something to see how they can react to something out of the ordinary.
Anyway, this interview wasn’t going that well and she was having a hard time answering very simple questions. She really lost it when I asked her the question, "What are your strengths and weaknesses as a person". Her answer was:
"My weakness as a person is being a women."
I was caught completely off-guard, and the head-teacher who was with me, seemed a little surprised herself. I asked her to explain this, and she went on to say that as a women she can’t get a job in her field (she has an engineering degree of some sort). Seriously, I could have slapped her for saying something so ridiculous, and I think she knew it wasn’t a great answer either.
That said, I push it aside and asked her what her strengths were. Trying to back step, she said it was being a women too;
"I think my strength is being a women, because I can get other jobs men can’t".
I think she was referring to being a singing room girl or street vendor cook. My silence was probably a little prolonged at this point and once again I asked if she could explain.
She couldn’t.
For an engineering graduate, she didn’t seem all that confident in herself and her skills. I realize Korea is a little behind most developed nations in terms of women’s rights and perceived talents, but to have that attitude I found so sad. For a young woman to think that, saddened me, and surprisingly the head-teacher too ,when we spoke about it later.
And here I was thinking it was easy to get English teachers in Daegu!
I received an SMS from one of the Korean teachers today saying there will be photo’s taken in my class. I assumed it meant that someone was going to come and take photos of my students to be used in an academy publication. I sent an SMS trying to clarify the message and to see whether or not I had to dress up too. The reply was that I’d be having my photo taken teaching the kids.
With that being the case, I’ll make the assumption that the SMS message was originally designed for me to make sure I was a little more presentable than usual. A shirt, pants, perhaps tie and jacket? I’m not sure. I’ll take a them anyway, you know, just in case,
I’m assuming it also means I can’t be seen shouting at my kids or making then stand up behind their chair with their hands up when they’re talking?
Last night, after watching a couple of episodes of Pushing Daisies, a bag of soon to be too old apples, and my girlfriend’s persistent asking me to do so, I made an apple pie. I’m not great at cooking pie’s, or anything involving pastry for that matter, but I’m not terrible either. When Em went off to work last night, I figured it would be a nice surprise if she came home to an apartment smelling like nice, warm, apple pie.
As I mentioned, pastry isn’t one of my strength’s in the kitchen, and last night was no different. I got everything together ok, but it was a loose puff pastry and despite not being dry, it fell apart relatively easy. I suppose being puff pastry that’s how it’s suppose to be. I didn’t layer and roll the puff pastry either, like I should have, simply because I could be fussed.
In apples are fairly straight forward to cook. My recipe doesn’t ask to add cinnamon, but I usually do, but forgot to this time. It’s not a huge difference, but certainly a noticeable one. Anyway, as you can see by the result on your right, it didn’t turn out half bad. When Em came home from work, we had a late night dessert that tasted absolutely brilliant!
Also yesterday we did a little bit of shopping in Emart (where I bought my togs). I came across some nice little stickers that I could use on my keyboard seeing as the current letters were starting to fade. Actually, and probably not all that predictably, Em chose them out for me and this morning I spent a few minutes adding the stickers to my keyboard. The letters on them are considerably smaller than previously, and the Korean character are almost un-seeable ensuring an even slower state of Korean typing that I’m accustomed to.
Well, it looks ok, certainly a lot more colourful than it was before.
One more week to the big holiday. I think this week will go extremely quickly as I still haven’t even given too much thought about what I’m going to pack. You know me, I’m a last minute packers, but I’ve gotten it down to an art form now.
Also, this week is the last week till we start the new class schedule. Most of my students will change teachers and i’ll have a whole bunch of students, most of which, I’ve never taught before. It’s a little bit daunting for all included.
The books are also looking rather interesting as I’ll be doing some activity ones that I have never done before. They seem like a lot of hard work for the teachers, but I’m sure the kids will love watching me make sandwiches and reconstructing the solar system with marbles.
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Its a small price to pay to keep the morons under control.
