The tenth has to be my favorite day of the month; Payday always puts a smile on my face. Well it being Saturday, we got paid yesterday, but you get what I mean. Because I was teaching 6 classes everyday, I accumulated 14 classes of overtime. At $25 a class it was a nice little bonus. I was nice cause even though, I used to have a pretty good amount of money in the bank, I finally sent money back to Canada last week, so my balance has been looking a little low. Also with these trips I keep going on (well actually just two) I've been spending quite a bit, but my plan for the next three months is to sit around and do nothing but eat, sleep, teach, and study.
I'm back in school now (Yonsei Univ., level 4). There are 14 people in my class and at least 10 different countries represented this time: China(3), Japan, Taiwan, France, Denmark, America, Canada (me), Ukraine, Uzbekistan(2), and one other Russian country whose name escapes me right now. It's pretty neat, but I'm sitting on the side with the Russian girls chatting all the time. I think I've seen too many movies with shifty Russians because whenever I hear the language, I think they're up to no good. ;-) I'd like to try talking to the guy from France in French, but as yet I haven't subjected him to it. I still speak French much better than Korean, but these days I feel like my Korean vocabulary may be approaching my French, but it's pretty hard to tell.
So far, things are looking a lot more difficult than previous levels, although that's probably cause the book has no English in it, so I'm getting all explanations in Korean...crappy. I'm not to concerned about passing, cause I don't think I'd go to level 5 anyways, but I'll do my best to get through it. For my optional class, I chose Hanja (Chinese Characters). They aren't widely used in Korea(other than in newspapers), but it'll help with understanding Korean because 70% of Korean words are derived from Chinese. Plus when I go to other Asian countries I'll be able to read some things...like when I was in Japan I could tell which foods were beef. They are pronounced differently, in different languages, but their basic meaning is usually the same. I already know about 70 (simple) characters that I've picked up without really trying, so if I could double that, I'd be happy. I've heard the average Korean can recognize about 500 (but can't necessarily write that many). By comparison, the average Chinese person knows about 5000.
Things at work are good. I've got a decent schedule, I'm off two classes early Monday and Wednesday, but I'm stuck teaching two extra debating classes on Friday night. Finishing at 9:50 sucks, but it's only once a week. At least the kids are higher level, so the debating is somewhat interesting. We have a new teacher, American named Anthony...nice guy.
Last weekend I went to Hong Kong with Jongsoo. I think I'm going to write about the trip separately, but my overall take on Hong Kong is that it's really cool. I'd love to live there. Very convenient to get around and basically everyone speaks English, even the 16 year old working the McDonalds counter knows enough to get by. We flew back in Tuesday, and the plane was scheduled to arrive at 2:25 and I start work at 4pm so I knew it was going to be tough to get there in time, so I had warned the teacher with a break at that time to cover for me in case I didn't. I didn't want to tell the boss because, after giving it some thought, I figured that since it wasn't for sure, there wasn't much point in calling attention to it. Turned out to be a good idea as I did manage to get there before my first class even though I shouldn't have been able to. Everything went right, check out the write up on Hong Kong for more details.
These days, it seems that the place to hang out in Ilsan on Friday nights is a request bar nearby my house. Lots of foreingers hang out there, but it's mostly all English teachers and not the army guys.(If you want to know how exactly to get ther send me an email) It's a request bar, with a good selection of music and a pretty good group of people that hang out there. I was there last night, but having been up since 6am I was too tired to stay out late. The other good thing about it is that I can walk there in about 6 minutes door to door. :-) Another benefit of my new area. ^^
I've found some new restaurants in my area, including a kick-ass place to get Kalguksoo (handmade noodles in a spicy soup, doesn't sound like much but really good). It's really good, but I burned my finger on the pot pretty good and my finger still looks pretty ugly five days later. ?I'll go back again, but this time I won't be grabbing onto the metal pot that's sitting on an open flame. dumb.
I found out that one of my friends from Canada is finally going to visit me in the summer, and my sister and her friend are thinking of coming out in the fall. It's about time someone came out to visit me. I've got a lot of cool stuff that I want to share with people, but no one ever comes. I suppose with the ticket price being upwards of $2000 I dont really blame people.
I'm starving right now so I should be running along. Keep in touch all. I found a number where you can call me for $1 for twenty minutes from Canada, so if you want to give me a shout send me an email and I'll send you my new number.
