Year's End

The Korean school year runs from March through December so the year just ended and Winter Break is now beginning, interrupted by some Winter Camp teaching with a brief return for two weeks in February. So I thought I would do a brief introductory goodbye to the school year.

In one of the two schools where I teach, English phrases with their Korean translations are displayed throughout the building. As I walk up the stairs I get to see these in the following order:









I don't have the heart to say anything.

Ending this year we got to sing the following Chuck Berry style twist (or should I say tuh-wee-suh-tuh) in the 5th grade lessons to teach the phrases "Can you join us?" and "Oh sorry, I must __" (Jinho and Nami are recurring characters in the textbooks and CD-rom):

Come on everybody, let's make a snowman...Oh Yeah!

Can you join us? Can you, can you join us?
Can you join us? Can you join us Jinho?
Oh, sure, sure, sure!

How about you?
Can you join us Nami?
hmm, hmm
Oh sorry, I must go home. [doodle-dee-doop! Dah!]

The students and I rocked out with some insane air guitar. It got really rowdy and the next door neighbors almost called the cops resulting in my deportation. Whoa!

Here's one of those wild 5th grade classes-




In the picture above you'll see the resident teacher of this class. She looks very kindly, however she's actually teaching the kids to play poker (see the cards!) and hustling them out of their money. Hey, they have to learn someday.




Until next post, peace out.

Internet access is had!

In my next few to several entries I am going to try to make up for my egregious lack of posts with lots and lots o' pictures.

But for now, I will ask you one question: What's up with this lil' fella?

After asking one local about this possible mascot that I saw around Unnam, he looked at me in confusion. After trying to describe what a 'mascot' was and asking him if Unnam Dong had one, I drew a picture for him and he excitedly shouts, "Massacoahti! Massacoati!"

Just as I was feeling some relief I realized, with the help of a fellow foreigner, that he was simply saying 'mascot' in Konglish and had no inside knowledge to offer.

This alone has caused its own episode of culture shock, I hope I can overcome so as to deliver promised blog entries.

We shall see.