A Month: The Retrospective

Wow, hard to believe that I've been here for a month, but time is really flying. Figured with a month under my belt I would be able to assess the ins and outs of Korean life. First off, since I spend the majority of my time there, is school. I've already covered at great length the infatuations of my female students, so need to delve further into that. And the pics clearly show how pretty the scenery is around the school so thats a major pro. In general, the kids are great, well behaved and actually pay attention and seem to want to be there, rather than just sleep during class. My largest class I work with is only 25 students, so I've been incredibly blessed to have small, manageable classes where I actually get to know the students. Makes the job alot more fun. School lunch here is incredible. Well, it could be really shitty Korean food, but I wouldn't know the difference as its leagues better than American food. As of yet, I have not actually had the same lunch twice. We even have had churros and curry. And they were pretty damn good. I shit you not. The teachers are terribly friendly and have helped me out a bunch, usually in the form of driving me home, though its not a huge burden, as 3 of the teachers live within 5 min walk from my home. My problems are twofold: the co-teacher and the toilet situation, again. I'm just glad I had prior teaching experience with ESL, since I basically run the show. The easiest way to say it is that my co-teacher is lazy. She never teaches anything that isn't straight from the book and offers nothing to class besides helping to translate English passages to Korean, which I don't feel is terribly crucial to English development. As a result, none of the students can really speak English anywhere near where they could be given the years of English study. She has stopped sitting in on most of my classes, and even threw a class on me 5 minutes before it started, so she could write questions for the mid-term, which I was also conscripted to help write questions for. Really? Honestly, once I get down the students names and can take roll, I might as well take her fucking job. My second qualm yet again deals with the bathroom situation. The teachers bathroom has no toilet paper dispenser and in general, none of the stalls have their own. One has to guesstimate how much tp will be used before the act as the dispenser is located near the sink. That's like asking a scientist to guess what kind of explosion will take place when a volcano blows...you just can't be sure.
As life in general, all is well. My town has everything that I could ask of it: pretty surroundings with accessible nature and quiet relaxing locals, all the amenities of a city, and easy access to differing parts of Korea. There are restaurants aplenty to keep me satisfied for years to come, and it appears that there is a bookstore, and tech/videogame store, so all my needs are satisfied. If Yangpyeong doesn't have it there is always Seoul within relative spitting distance. The bar scene is acceptable by my simple standards, as their are plenty of bars/night clubs for evening activites, though I haven't checked to see if there are any noribongs (Korean kareoke clubs) since I am badly in need of some MJ shrills and screeches. I figure that's where I get all the chicks when they swoon over my mad pipes. All that is lacking at this moment is some actual company. The whole soccer club is full of fun loving folk but they are all older than me and not hanging out/bar going crowd, and I have to really get in touch with the English teachers. One of the other teachers set up a contact list, and I believe they called me last Friday night, but my cell phone is really cheap and it doesn't tell me who called, even when they are calling. It just says number unknown and obviously I can't call them back, even when the number is saved in the phonebook. It's gonna be difficult to find someone near my own age as it appears that everyone is kids and then said kids' parents. I shall endure.
As for the apartment/home life, I've settled quite comfortably into my efficiency. Now that it has cable and internet, I'm set. I spend a lot of time here, so it better be fucking comfy. I've finally gotten used to my rock-hard mattress to the point where I can sleep through the night, and I'm getting acclimated to Korean TV. In general, it kinda sucks as the native programs are no better than Univision or Telemundo: tons of shitty, overacted soap operas and then ridiculous and kinda stupid game shows. They do have the human tetris show which is endless enjoyment, but otherwise that's about it. I spend my time watching the sports stations as they broadcast nearly all the Korean baseball league games (with only 8 teams it isn't hard), many MLB games (usually Clev Indians, as they have a Korean), and a shit ton of English Premiership games (obviously all the Man United games, thanks to Park Ji-Sung, which makes me a happy panda), La Liga games and Serie A games (actually just got done watching the AC Milan vs Inter Milan match and "The Special One" in action...don't expect anyone to know who that is, cept my brother and I doubt he reads my rambliings, he's had to live with this shit way too long). I guess the fact that I can keep up on all the weeks Bolton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion action makes up for the shitty TV. Plus, I've always got crappy American action movies. Yep, that's right. Whenever I wanna watch a Michael Bay flick or Brett Ratner film all I have do is pop on the boob tube. Nice. That's about it over here on the far side of the world. Hope all is well back in the States (well, beside the economic collapse and pending election).