태진 is leaving to study Aeronautical Engineering. He’d told me before this is what he really wanted to do so obviously I’m really pleased for him but it just sucks because we’re really good friends ): Work just won’t be the same after he leaves. I’ve got until the end of the month to figure out how I’m going to stop myself from dying of boredom…

*insert sadface here*

I don’t know about you, but I tell the time to the nearest five minutes. Korean school children do not >> Here is a typical conversation during class:

Student A “Alex, what time is it?”
Me “It’s 11:05.”
Student B “No it’s not. It’s 11:04.”
Me *resists urge to beat students senseless* “…Turn to page 47 please.”

I swear, I come so close to throttling some of them. At first I thought it was some sort of joke but they are deadly serious that I was that one minute out and it seems to get right under their skin. Maybe I should do it more often :P

. AT SCHOOL
School was busy but awesome yesterday :D All the students knew it was my birthday and they all said, “Happy Birthday, Alex!” when they came in. Some of them even gave me presents which you can see in the picture below ^^

And yes, that is Stand Up o_O My students are freaking awesome :D Credit for that purchase goes to Jennifer and I have to say I was totally amazed. You will also note the little chocolate cake given to me by Alice :D I haven’t eaten it yet but I’ll probably tuck into it tonight, after the concert. She was so sweet about giving it to me yesterday, it made me ‘blee’ a little XD The little flower was from Christine and William. There was a can of coffee too but I drank that at work ^^” You can see who gave me the Vitamin-C tablet in the video :P Oh, there was also a big, white chocolate cake from Max which we ate at the first bar and 태진 형 said he’d take me to the cinema next month when he has some money XD

I will definitely be saying some big thank you’s on Monday and better yet, there are still some presents to come :D

. AFTER SCHOOL
School was great, but it really kicked off afterwards. I’m going to blitz through the venues and then pick up on the best bits in the next paragraph.

01 Local restaurant for dinner [joined by Mr. Lee's wife, Sunny/Susan leave]
02 Small bar/club for beer and cake [joined by maths teacher's husband]
03 Smaller bar for soju and drinking games
04 Club for more drinks

Dinner was nice and I ate my fair share of the meat :D It was a shame that Susan and Sunny had to leave but I didn’t really imagine them staying. We moved on to the first club and started the drinking. I also got to eat some of my cake but not much because Mr. Lee told me I had to go and give some slices to the other people in the club XD 태진 형 was with me so it wasn’t so bad but damn, it was embarrassing. Oh, and that was after I had to stand up while they put on some special birthday light show and played this annoying birthday song XD

We took some pictures and a video so you guys could finally see who I work with :) There aren’t many pictures but I think the video is more than enough.

The drinking games involved the usual mixing of drinks and then mixing of anything and everything on the table. This included some of the liquids contained in the snacks we had. I did my share but Mr.Lee kept drinking mine for me so I didn’t get drunk XD When we left the second bar, I could feel myself being a little ’soft around the edges’ but I was still OK. Mr.Lee was definitely drunk, as was 태진 by the end but not to quite the same extent. Max and the rest were just a little sociable.

The best present was definitely getting closer to all the teachers and enjoying their company. I have some new phone numbers to call and it was great to come together as a team after a rough Summer. Mr.Lee said some really nice things to me before and after he was drunk which meant a lot and the other teachers said they had really enjoyed working with me and were only sorry they hadn’t spoken to me more ^^”

Got home at about 3am, grabbed a shower and went to bed ^^

As always, you can see all the media in the gallery :)

I haven’t posted anything about what happened during my day for quite some time so I thought I’d write about some of the little things that happened today. Nothing crazy exciting but little bits of goodness to make it worthwhile. And in chronological order, we begin.

First thing I did today, or forgot to do was my ‘Day in the life of’ post >> It was lunch time when I realised that I’d forgotten to do it yet again. I’ve been trying to do it for about a week now and every day I get to lunch time and realise that I’ve forgotten. I promised Tali that I would just now on MSN so I’m hoping that will force me to remember tomorrow.

Work for the most part was pretty standard until dinner time. Well, I say “dinner” but all that we had was some cake that one of the student’s mothers had brought in. The cake was great but it wasn’t what we needed at that time and so we were all a little hungry afterwards >> You think it would end there but no. James ordered me some food that I ate during a five minute break :D Unfortunately, because I had to eat it so quickly, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I might have and I ended up giving myself slight indigestion DX

Don’t be fooled by the above ‘Love Letter’. They were definitely taking the St. Michael out of me but in a funny way. I accepted it and gave them some candy to shut them up :P

In the same class there was a period of sheer embarrassed agony for me. We had a some time at the end of the lesson and so we played Pictionary. Yuri drew what was supposed to be something in reference to a new drama but to me looked like something very different. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one that thought so which turned out to be my downfall. One of the other girls beckoned her over and whispered in her ear. I have no idea what was said, but by the laughing and her reaction, I guessed it was the same thing I thought it was. I swear I didn’t move my mouth that much but Yuri picked up on it and asked me if I knew what it was. My silence only served to prove that I did and that of course just sent them into peels of laughter D;

Last but not least was my most advanced class but out of a normal class of seven, only two showed up because of the exam preparation. They are both very intelligent but quite quiet when I’m teaching. Anyway, I needn’t have worried because we had a good lesson with no awkward silences and we actually talked a lot which was nice :)

And one more time, I will DEFINITELY take the photos tomorrow…*hides*

For those of you who would like to experience every little bit of Korean randomness with me, here is my first walk from the new apartment to the academy. It’s not very long and the cameraman should probably be fired but hopefully it’ll give you an idea of the new area I live in :)

Just to confirm, the blog title is entirely random because I couldn’t think of a more descriptive one. It would be more random in the purse sense of the word if it didn’t contain my Default Random Word: GIRAFFE but never mind ^________^

I started off my day by smashing my left foot against the corner of the bathroom door. I hobbled into the bedroom and just lay on the end of the bed cradling my foot for about 10 minutes D: It didn’t swell and hasn’t really bruised either but I know I hit it because it hurts like buggery. It still hurts and I think it’s going to be painful for the next few days but it does mean I can wear the shoes :D

My youngest class of rapscallions had a a new addition this morning. She doesn’t yet have an English name but she is officially taking over as the cutest thing that I teach. She’s got brains to go with the cute as well which can only be a good thing for me as her teacher. An example of her being wiser than her years was when one of the older kids was giving her a hard time and she turned, looked him up and down once, turned and flicked her hair at him in that way that only Korean girls know how. Brilliant.

Just before lunch all the teachers were called into the office and the Mr. Lee told us all that we were expected to come in on Saturday for a Spring Clean of the entire academy. I already had plans but it was one of those Asian situations where when the boss says “Jump.”, I say, “How high?”. I don’t really mind too much but I was looking forward to meeting a new person and watching the new Indiana Jones movie. I’m not really sure what level of cleaning will be done but the Boss has mentioned that all the floors and desks will need cleaning along with all the rubbish being thrown out. He says two to three hours should be enough but I’m skeptical given the amount of work that needs done.

Oh, and in case you needed more proof that I am one of the best English teachers in the world ever, I gave my 빅뱅 IS GREAT Concert DVD to one of my students to borrow. We had discussed it on Wednesday last week and gain on Friday but I honestly don’t think she expected me to actually bring it. She bleeeeeeee’d all over the place and had a massive grin on her face for the entirety of our lesson ^^

It’s been a while since I actually talked about what was going on here in Korea rather than just media updates. I don’t usually like throwing so many different topics into one post but I don’t have enough to write multiples entries so my friend the bullet point list will lend a hand again.

. talk

• I get the feeling that things are changing quite a bit in the school at the moment. With James arriving to take on a teaching and management role which basically has him liaising with the other teachers and the change of staff, it’s all feeling a bit odd. I was just getting used to the place the way it was and now it’s all up in the air again.
• On a slightly lighter note, one of the new teachers actually speaks some pretty good English :D His name is 천진 and he started speaking to me at dinner yesterday. He asked my name and how long I’d been here. It was so nice to meet a guy closer to my age that speaks some English.
• On a slightly random note, one of the younger male teachers has been telling the older students that I have a girlfriend o_O I wish he’d introduce her to me because I’d love to meet her.

. play

• Injections are not fun and I’m more aware of that now than I was before coming here >> I had to have the first of three Hepatitis B shots yesterday. I am to go back in a month for another and then a month after that for the last. I went there by myself too which didn’t make it any better.

. love

• I’ve been meeting with a lot of friends over the past few weeks which has been great. Tomorrow morning I’ll be meeting Ashley and two of her friends for a day in 서울, shopping for bits and pieces. I’m definitely looking forward to it but despite having met before I do feel as if this is our first proper meeting and I’m a little nervous ^^”
• I’ve probably mentioned this before but I love my phone and I love using it so much more than I have in England. I actually want to talk to people and text them and I enjoy having the phone with me ^^ I never quite went for that whole texting all the time but now I think I’m making my way over that side XD

Well strictly speaking that’s a lie. It’s Children’s Day on Monday but seeing as it’s a National Holiday, we won’t see them so Mr. Lee [I finally found out the Boss' name] went and bought small gifts for everyone. They were only small but the younger kids loved it ^__^ They also set up the big screen in one of the classrooms and watched some anime and films. The last time I went in they were watching Macross and seemed to be enjoying it. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay and watch >>

     

It was a glorious day today so I thought I’d share the view from my window. Some people might say it’s not much to look at but I really enjoy living where I do. I’m sure when there’s a typhoon and the weather is miserable I’ll think about it differently, but while the sun is shining it feels really nice :)

As you can see in the last picture, driving in Korea can be a bit dangerous. Everyone seems to be in a hurry to get somewhere and I’m not really sure how some of their driving laws work. Even if the light is green, do not hang about.

I’m going to hit you with a list of what happened today, colour coordinated to show GOOD and BAD because everyone likes the lists.