Facebook and Caller ID

OK, who around here remembers the late 1980s and early 1990s? Try to take yourselves back...picture it...all of a sudden there was this thing called caller ID. At first, very few people had it. Prior to caller ID, if you wanted to know who was calling you, you answered the phone. In between answering the phone and caller ID there was the whole answering machine call screening interlude (that was something we did before voice mail. You actually heard the message while it was being left! Good times) but soon enough we moved on to a magical device that told you who was calling when the phone rang.

I thought those people who needed to know who was calling them before saying hello were, frankly, a little paranoid. But OK, so, then the next thing happened: people on the other end were outraged! How would kids spend hours prank calling their neighbors, how would adolescents stalk their boyfriends and girlfriends, without anonymity? So they retaliated with a new invention: you could BLOCK your number on caller ID. Ha! thought the newly blocked callers, triumphantly. I shall save my privacy! A little paranoia from the other direction.

Or maybe, those calls would not get through, because the first set of paranoids quickly upped the ante by refusing to accept blocked calls. Maybe you dialed someone's phone number around 1993 and got a message that you could unblock your call for just this number by pressing some button or other. The paranoia was flying fast and furious, now.

And, then, ten years later everyone got a cell phone and checking the identity of callers became so automatic that all that early 90s paranoia became just ancient history for the kids today -- until it got transferred to Facebook.

The Facebook news feed is the new home for paranoia. "Facebook has done it again!" a friend's status will warn you. "Copy and re-post this so you can warn everyone your privacy settings have changed." There are blocking of friends, hiding of posts in news feeds, and the latest bit, an attempt to not be left in the dust by Google+, of deciding post by post whether to share it with everyone or some people or some other people.

Yet, it's Facebook. Facebook! The idea of being paranoid about one's privacy while on Facebook remains a marvel to me. But then again, I clearly don't understand these things, as I never once in my life shelled out one red cent or spent one minute of effort on caller ID, call blocking or not accepting blocked calls.

August! Fly by she must!

There is just so much I've been meaning to say to you, dear blogosphere.

First of all, I am sad to note that the deliciously hot summer seems to want a cooling off period. "Already?!" I cry, indignant. It is still August. It should still by steamy and sunny and hot and summery and there should be none of this layering and shivering that I experienced yesterday. I can't believe how many people whine and moan and complain about the hot Korean summer when it's over so quickly! But then again, people like to complain about all sorts of things in Korea and lump them into this giant mash of I'm-Better-Than-You-Let-Me-Tell-You-What's-Wrong-and-Nonsensical-About-Korea, even when they are things that have nothing to do with Korea, like weather.

Anyway, so yeah. The time is a-flying and we are quickly approaching the end of the second third of our year in Andong. Also, we are in a three-month period where we actually get some holidays and vacations, which makes this time go even faster! We just had a week off in August for our academy's summer vacation, during which we were able to take our favorite little ferry boat over to our favorite neighboring country of Japan and experience all sorts of Japan wonderfulness again. Much swooning! Next up is Chuseok, in September, a thankful harvesty festival that gives us another 5-day weekend and a chance for a slight excursion somewhere. Finally, there will be a 3-day weekend at the beginning of October, and at that time will also be Andong's famous international traditional mask and dance festival, right here in our little city, drawing travelers and culture lovers and dancers and tailgaters from all around the world. Or maybe I should say, we the foreigners will be doing the tailgating, by the riverside. Our personal contribution to Andong's festival week!

I want to give you a play by play of our Japan trip, when time permits, but the short version is that it is amazing (still) and that we climbed Mt. Fuji. Climbing Mt. Fuji is not actually as hard as it sounds. (I knew this already, because I am a savvy traveler, and I have known Fuji things for many years.) While the peak is 3,776 meters, it's not as if you start from 0. You start on the mountainside. And there are so many people who do the climb during the official climbing season, and there are mountain huts where people stay overnight when they climb in time to see the sun rise, and there are people at said huts selling water and other drinks, and the atmosphere at the summit is downright festive, really. Walking around the crater at the top is a bit more wild-like -- we joked that we were on the moon -- but even that walk takes you to a weather station and stuff. You never really feel like you have left civilization. The only thing you really have to worry about is altitude sickness. Well, that and wrecking your knees on the downhill trail. It's a brutal one!

The other accomplishments of our summer? We got in some beach time in Busan, spending a few delightful weekends there. We discovered that our favorite thing to do is go lie on Haeundae beach for the afternoon and then head to the Sajik Stadium in Pusan for a Lotte Giants home baseball game. Although I had been kind of partial to the Samsung Lions, what with them being Daegu's team and having blue for a color and all, it turns out in the end I am a Lotte Giants fan. A good time is had by all at the Korean baseball games. And, like most things around here, it is sweetly affordable for us English teachers. Such a grand life we lead!

The Lotte Giants may even end up in the playoffs, as they have climbed into fourth place in the eight-team Korean baseball league. Meanwhile back at the ranch (the U.S.A.) my Braves are well on their way to securing themselves a playoffs spot, too. Yay!

I will breathlessly rave about Japan as soon as time permits.

Don't even think about switching from iced coffee to hot, people! Summer, summer, summer!

Cheongnyangsan aka Mt. Cheongnyang

This past weekend Brian and I had a mini-excursion to a gorgeous mountain/hiking/Buddhist temple provincial park on the outskirts of Andong, a mountain called Cheongyangsang. We've been meaning to go there to do some hiking for months because we've seen friends' pictures of an awesome sky bridge hundreds of feet in the air that connects two of the peaks. However, on our short excursion this past weekend we didn't have time for the sky bridge hike but instead did a different couple of paths. There are half a dozen or so trails for climbing to this mountain's several peaks, and I do believe we could return there weekly for a few months and manage to have a different experience every time. Some of the trails take longer - we went with a short one due to our bus schedule requirements that day.

Cheongnyangsan is beautiful!! I'm talking stunningly pretty with flat rock peering out from thick green mountainsides, uniquely shaped peaks, and a cute little tourist village with minbaks, markets, restaurants, and so on. Our short hike took us up to Cheongnyangsa (note the lack of final 'n'), which means Cheongnyang temple. Now, I have seen my fair share of Buddhist temples in Korea, and I adore them, but this one was really, really well placed in some spectacularly gorgeous scenery perfectly overlooking the mountain as the late afternoon sunlight dissipated. I am a fan.

I am also a fan of the frog pond at the temple...well, it's not necessarily a frog pond, but it's a little pond in a stone enclosure that sure has frogs in it now. I could have stared at them for hours. There were dozens, and they were black/brown on top, kind of blending with the surroundings, but with orange undersides, and they would flop around in the water every once in a while, turning as if to show off to us their bright bellies. I love frogs.

Cheongnyangsan verdict: highly recommended, particularly Cheongnyangsa.

Afterward, we headed back into downtown Andong and strolled by the park just in time for the evening guards/drums/bell-donging ceremony. I could have stared at that longer too, even though I was being bitten by mosquito monsters, but we were on our way to a delicious dinner at a new-to-us restaurant that served a soup whose name I've forgotten. It's like dongjongjigae - I butchered that, but I do love that soybean-derived soup we get with rice all the time - only with the beans in a more whole form. It's really rice-and-bean-like, which may be why I loved it, although this restaurant also had the best side dishes of any restaurant I've been to in Korea (a statement I don't make lightly!) Brian found the restaurant because he's cool like that; my job is just to eat and then promptly forget the names of things I've eaten.

I suppose that particular mental block of mine could use a bit of examination. Like, some people can't remember dates, or names, or faces - I can't remember food names very well. I don't think it's a Korean thing, even. I am not particularly obsessed with names of foods in the U.S. either. I'm not much for talking about and describing food, although I do like eating it.

This week has been reasonably boring at work. We have two days of testing in our elementary level classes, which should feel like Easy Days at work but instead to me just further emphasized how many middle-school evening classes I have to still teach even on elementary testing days. I'm so looking forward to our new schedule, about four weeks away, although I'm definitely wary in a devil-you-know sense.

Meanwhile, I am entirely fixated on our next adventure, which is barely more than two weeks away: our triumphant return to Japan! Once I get there, I might never leave! (Just kidding, Japanese immigration authorities. Or at any rate, I would obtain legal gainful employment before staying, don't fret.)

Lovely, Dark and Deep

Well, my middle schoolers are back. I guess they couldn't stay away forever, as I had suggested. My Tuesday/Thursday evening middle school class consists of three, sometimes four, remarkably bright eighth graders who look and act to me as if they are more like 15 or 16. They have a good command of English usage, excellent vocabulary, and stellar class behavior. Their reward? Poetry!

'Tis true. Poetry is not dead. Today I needed a lesson plan for them and I decided we would spend the class reading and discussing "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Most people in the U.S. (and the rest of the English-speaking world? do tell!) recognize the last line, "And miles to go before I sleep." They might even know it's repeated, and that it comes from a poem where a speaker and his horse are in the woods. The first line, "Whose woods these are I think I know," is also reasonably well known by English speakers.

So I decided my brilliant Korean middle schoolers could and should handle it. We started class discussing some key vocabulary: snowy, downy, frozen, harness and queer. After having them make sentences with those words, I next practiced the form "Whose ____ this is I think I know. It's [so-and-so]'s" with various objects in the classroom. Then we moved on to plurals, like "Whose pencils these are, I think I know. They're Emily's." So they were prepared to understand the first line.

Man, it is such a great poem. I'm not afraid to say it. Even after reading it many times over the years, I still physically feel the emotional wallop of that last stanza. Luckily, my students know what a symbol is and does. After we read the poem once, we discussed it stanza by stanza. Then I had them read it again, each student reading the whole thing aloud, and after each reading I would ask a different question about it, like "Which words in the poem help you picture the scene?" (frozen, dark, snowy, horse, etc.) or "Why do we say, 'I promise'?" or "What will happen to our speaker next?" We also talked about the man off in the village, and the fact that the speaker is reflecting on what his horse thinks.

After almost an hour, we were ready to move into the all-important reckoning with the repeated "And miles to go before I sleep," to discern why it would be said twice. I love hearing students offer ideas I hadn't thought of. I articulated for them the idea that the first line keeps us in the literal story, but that repetition really makes us veer off into the symbolic, with "sleep" becoming that final sleep.

Naturally, their homework is to write about their reactions to the poem. I think we will write our own poems next week. I had them write weather-related poems when I had most of these same students in an evening class two (academy-)semesters ago. But now we're getting into meaty stuff.

I do have lots of ideas, but if any of you have suggestions for a poem or two that I should teach to my middle schoolers, feel free to comment!

No offense, middle schoolers, but feel free to never come back

The great thing about teaching so many middle school-age evening students this semester is not having to teach them. I think at this point I may have actually had more middle school classes cancelled than not cancelled since this particular 12-week Avalon hagwon semester began.

I previously blogged about my busy(ier) schedule this semester, compared to my first two teaching schedules this year at Andong Avalon. But having so many middle school classes cancelled, I may actually have come out ahead in the deal, even when we had to take on a couple extra classes during our co-worker's brief vacation.

The reason for all these cancellations is basically their semester final exams at regular school -- they spend a few weeks really ramping up their school studying and even when they do come to English academy, it's to work with the Korean-speaking teachers to study for said school exams. So I have been blissfully free - well, comparatively - in the evenings for a couple of weeks. Only a few classes here and there. And I have been loving it! And needing it, since my afternoons are a bit hectic, as are my mornings, my nights, and the space in my brain.

One thing taking up my time, besides reading lots of good stuff, is planning our upcoming summer vacation. I am so excited! We are going to go back to Japan and hit up three or four cities we didn't go to the first time. Yay!

Half and Half

As we approach our halfway point -- I. KNOW! -- it is time to reflect on the first six months of Our Year in Andong, Korea.

I suppose there is an argument to be made that we haven't spent six months here at all, seeing as we spend a good chunk of our weekends galavanting about to other parts of the country. But I do so love to galavant about. At any rate, we are spending the current weekend at home. I'm talking never-left-the-house-or-even-put-in-my-contacts-today at home. That is serious, for me. I actually loathe not leaving the house on a given day and I am kind of creeped out by people who have more than one day every, let's say, year that they don't leave the house. But, I had a lot of things to get done today in the apartment and on the computer, plus the monsoon rainy season has arrived and there's basically a biblical flood outside our window the past three days, so you really don't want to go anywhere unless you have to, and you bring a change of dry clothes.

Speaking of that, I had this handy dandy emergency poncho - and it disintegrated! I bought it several years ago and I've had it with me on my various journeys, especially the Habitat trips to Honduras and Tajikistan, but I never actually ended up using it so it has just sat in the little plastic travel-size bag it came in when I bought it at Target or wherever. Yesterday I got it out of the closet because the aforementioned rain was doing its thing but we totally had to go on an errand and to work, and I couldn't take the poncho out of the plastic bag because it was in tatters! It was made of polyethylene. Wikipedia tells me that it shouldn't dissolve unless it is exposed to UV rays from sunlight (it was in our darkened entryway closet) or maybe if this one Canadian bacteria eats it. I am so confused. What happened to my polyethylene?! So much for having an emergency poncho.

Anyway, back to reflection. For the most part I am satisfied. Our job is very laid back and I love our boss, co-workers, and lack of people breathing down our necks as we carry out our job duties. I like my students and I like the books we use and I love living a three-minute walk from work. I mean, we really have nothing to complain about whatsoever. We are still making our way through trying all the restaurants in our neighborhood, and I seriously have become a frequent EMart customer -- it is so handy having an EMart so close I can see it from our apartment building. Eyeglasses, haircuts, wine, even the occasional Chee-zuh De-luk-suh Pi-ja can all be had a stone's throw away.

It has been fun hanging out in Daegu, taking the Korean class (which has now ended), and occasionally popping into the Commune, my favorite watering hole on the planet. I have enjoyed our weekend sojourns to Seoul and other cities. I was devastated to discover that Mi Casa Loca, the Mexican restaurant in Seoul to which I pilgrimaged once a month during my first Korea tour of duty, apparently closed both its locations, but we ate at On the Border in Seoul on our last trip there. We have enjoyed other weekend trips to Yeongdeok on the east coast, Mokpo on the southwest coast and Jeju Island. We have hiked, attended random festivals, seen a few Buddhist temples, been to at least various norae bangs, hit up an oncheon bath, and otherwise done the basically required awesome things to do in Korea.

As everyone knows, I think, by now, our trip to Japan in February over the Lunar New Year holiday was a mega highlight, and we are planning to go back there for our upcoming summer vacation to see a bunch of cities we didn't see the first time around.

I have been reading but can always read more. My most recent endeavors have been The Aquariums of Pyongyang and my latest prez bio, Franklin Pierce. He was BFFs with Nathaniel Hawthorne and I am really digging learning about U.S. history from 1820-1860. It's fascinating stuff. I think I am in the mood to start reading a bunch of fiction, now, for the summer months. I've been writing a bit but not enough. I recently started a kickboxing class at a gym a few minutes walk from our apartment. It's a great workout and I'm so glad that a friend who also teaches here in Andong told me about it!

I could definitely go without ever drinking Cass beer again, but our local foreigners' favorite bar that we gather in many weekends has some decent imported bottles. I get in feisty political discussions from time to time. We've started having a monthly book swap among the Andong English teachers so we don't have to spend all our money (and room in our suitcase) on books we buy here. There are barbecues and other adventures. It's an OK time in Andong, I must say. I just have had so many other things on my plate - I am never actually looking for things to do. I'm not even going to the movies every week - we've only seen a handful in the theater this year! Super 8, Paul, Source Code, True Grit, The Adjustment Bureau, Morning Glory, Harry Potter 7.1, and maybe another one I'm forgetting.

So Korea is going well! But now that the halfway mark is approaching, it's time to start thinking about what is next! Craziness. Last time I left to Korea, I moved to Long Island and went to Hofstra for law school. I definitely won't be making that mistake again. Actually, we do have several tentative post-Korea plans, which shall not be revealed at this time.

Oh, and my sister is about to have her baby. Like, in the next 48 hours. A fourth nephiece for me, and I won't even meet her (they think it's a her) until 2012.

Well, keep on keepin' on, 2011.

What CAN we say about the military?

I know people who either serve in, have served in, or have family members serving in the military. This means that every time that I, who would like to have an honest conversation, utter or type a word about the role of the military in anything, there is no shortage of people who want to tell me I am "anti-" or "attacking" or "against" the military. I find it so disheartening that people who apparently genuinely applaud freedom, courage, standing up for what is right, and a whole host of other qualities have such a knee-jerk reaction to any comment about the armed forces. There appears to be a resistance to using those noble qualities to speak truth to power if the military is even remotely tangentially involved, let alone if the military is implicated in doing something wrong.

It's highly distressing. I can't think of other parallel situations. People discuss things that are all over the map in terms of topic, level of seriousness vs. frivolity, local vs. global, personal vs. political, etc. But when you say something about the military, you are apparently supposed to refrain from critcism - even when you are crticizing higher-ups who make policy, far from the front lines - or else you are roundy condemned for not supporting the military. Why isn't there any room for debate? Why is everything divided into this "you're-either-with-us-or-against-us" mentality? Why are so many assumptions made about who the speaker is, what s/he does, or what s/he thinks as soon as s/he brings up the military in anything other than the context of "Let's have a parade for heroes."

I find it so, so sad and disheartening.

All hail June!

A new month and a new Avalon semester have dawned. Avalon, the lovely hagwon chain for which I work, splits the year into 12-week semesters, so unlike my previous Korea gig, at this job my schedule changes regularly. At my old job, it worked like this: we stuck with the same kids unless they had to combine a class (usually due to attrition) or they changed things around when a new class of first day "Hello-my-name-is" beginners was added, or unless the kids reached the end of their progression through the 12 levels. At that point, though, some of them would invariably stick around and join a "special class" in the evenings, so the teacher might still have them as students. Here, at this current job, we have much the same drill of youngest kids first, later elementary age in the afternooons, middle school after that, and the most advanced English speakers in evening special classes, but here everyone's schedule changes every 12 weeks. And every class is on the same 12-week schedule, not staggered like at my old job, so here everyone is in oral tests at the same time, and final written tests at the same time, etc.

Anyway, all this is just to say that my schedule changed today and out of my three schedules I have had since working at Avalon, this one is my third best. Yeah. The main thing is that where we all used to have one (and, occasionally, two) free periods during the elementary school onslaught from 4p-7p, now neither Brian nor I has that break. We just teach the 40-minute classes back to back, with 5 minute breaks in between. My prep period is before that, and before that I teach my youngest kids in the "Pre-" class (they are first graders). I start teaching at 2:35pm, whereas in prior semesters I didn't start until 3:15. And, I also have four evening classes instead of three this time around. The evening classes are in longer blocks, and most of them meet twice a week.

No one is really interested in all this minutiae, I'm sure, but it's what my brain apparently wanted to spew forth onto the blog. My first semester here at Avalon was downright leisurely. Now, I still don't think of it as running me as ragged as The Bad Ones (the bad hagwon jobs, of which there are many), but I am just not exactly thrilled about the next 12 weeks. Ah well, in those 12 weeks we have two, count 'em, two three-day weekends, plus we will have a summer vacation of one week, turning the 12 weeks into 13 weeks, if that makes any sense.

Kids are always coming and going from this place, much more often than some other schools. Kids drop out all the time, probably finding cheaper English instruction elsewhere, to be honest. So the numbers are in flux, but we also just had one of our foreign co-teachers, a lass from Scotland, depart at the end of the semester, and we went from four native-English-speaking teachers to three. We probably won't get another one for this semester based on the looks of the schedule.

Let's see, what else is happening? Our boss took us to Munkyeong Saejae this past weekend, which is a mountain hamlet up in the north central hills. The weekend event was the 16th annual Barefoot Festival (exact name translation unknown, but something like that) where people walk barefoot up a mountain trail, or in shoes, whichever suits your fancy. We walked up the trail in shoes and saw mountain streams, stone walls, and the gate that served as a gate between Gyeongsangbuk-do (our province) and Seoul back in the day. There was also a concert and a raffle and we ate and drank. There is generally eating and drinking to be had whenever and wherever in Korea.

June! Summer! I am ready for some excitement! I am not ready for the vast amounts of students who will be keeping me away from said excitement.

A trip to China is the next item on my hoped-for agenda.