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Week 11 - Y2 (May 14th to May 20th) |
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Sunday May 14th, Waking up and surveying the damage in the apartment
from last night was a scary scary sight. If my
friends ever messed up my apartment like that . . .
there would be hell to pay.
In any case, today was much nicer weather-wise than
yesterday, and our crew had thinned to only people we
knew and liked, so we had some breakfast and headed
over to the beach. Because it's early in the season,
it wasn't even very crowded, but it was gorgeous!
Then on the train home, I sat beside a Korean girl
from Daejeon. Her English wasn't particularly good,
but better than my Korean, and we ended up exchanging
numbers. Daejeon is about an hour away from Seoul,
but I think I'll be able to help her with her English
(her boyfriend is studying in Toronto, and she'll be
visiting soon), and she can help me with my Korean.
So at least the weekend ended well. But I'm really
tired of meeting the same ridiculous foreigners over
and over again. I'm starting to get jaded, lump
foreigners altogether, which isn't exactly fair of me,
but I'm sick of meeting people! Every time I do, I
feel incredibly lucky that I've managed to make such
good friends in Daegu, but I really wish that I could
move them all to Seoul!
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Monday May 15th, Today is Teacher's Day in Korea! That means that
students often buy little tokens of appreciation, or
little presents for their teachers. Last year, in
Daegu, it was Sue's rule that we were not allowed to
keep these gifts (which I thought was a terrible rule;
it's so rude to hand back someone's gift, after
they've gone to such effort). But now I can keep all
my gifts!
Today I received some great aloe face cream from the
Face Shop, and some gorgeous silver earrings.
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Thursday May 18th, All 50 of my students were late for their 3 o'clock
improv lecture. I knew something was up . . .
At about 3:10, they all came in in a single file line,
singing a song in Korean, carrying a huge cake with
candles, and a big basket of roses, orchids,
carnations and baby's breath. Turns out that this was
my big (slightly belated) Teacher's Day surprise from
all of my students on the Jeonju campus! They really
thought of everything--juice and pop, cups, plates and
chopsticks, a knife for the cake, extra snacks for the
people who didn't get to eat the cake . . . Hanging
from the basket of flowers was a ribbon that said
"Luxury Vocal" and "We Love Kari". Then on top of all
of this, they handed me a $150 gift certificate to
Lotte Department Store! (kind of like the Holt Renfrew
or Bloomingdales of Korea) I almost cried. They were
supposed to start their final exam tests today, but
after that, how could I make them do any work?
Instead, we had a party. I let them ask me all kinds
of questions (most of them have never been taught by a
foreigner before, and so they have a natural curiosity
about my life). One kind of funny question-- back on
the MT trip, when Kenji and I were "touring" the
student rooms, one of them asked if we were dating (to
them, they think, two Canadians, there must be
something going on). Kenji and I laughed and made a
joke that we were brother and sister (which is of
course ludicrous, seeing as he's half-Japanese!). But
they're so gullible, they actually believed it!
Finally, about a month later, we killed the rumour.
So now they're asking if we're dating again!
It will be difficult to catch up with the exams, but
it was so worth it to have a good time with my
students. I didn't realize how much they appreciated
my teaching until today.
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Friday May 19th, Today I went to the National Museum of Contemporary
Art. Unfortunately for me, the museum is in the
middle of nowhere, not even technically in Seoul. I
took the subway there, and I was walking along some
secluded road, following the signs, when a man driving
a truck offered me a ride up the street. Since it was
really hot out, and I really had no idea where I was,
I took up his kind offer (I know my mother is freaking
out while she's reading this, but it's Korea, ie the
safest country in the world, and it was broad
daylight, plus his van was marked "Seoul Land", which
is an amusement park that is situated right beside the
museum, so I knew I was pretty safe). Once I finally
arrived at the museum, I realized why he had offered
me the ride-- it would have taken me at least two
hours to walk the way I was going, and all uphill too!
Why would anyone build a museum so far away? When I
left, I realized that there was a free shuttle bus
that you can take from the subway station . . .
figures.
The art gallery was huge, and quite impressive. Most
of the work was by Korean artists. Notably, there was
a special exhibit honoring the work of Paik Nam-June,
a famous Korean video artist who recently died.
There's one huge art installation that can't be
missed: a huge pagoda made of flickering tv screens
entitled "The More the Better". I am making a mental
note to do some research on Korean art.
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Saturday May 20th, I now have a private voice student on
Saturday afternoon, set up for me by Oak Young, who is
the music history professor at PaekChe. This is going
to be kind of a pain in the ass, because I've been
travelling a lot on weekends, and I won't be able to
now (for instance, I was invited to a rooftop barbecue
in Daegu this weekend, and next weekend, I promised
Jason I would go to Pohang, but I probably won't be
able to do either now). However, if I can't go
anywhere on the weekends for awhile, I won't spend as
much money, plus I couldn't very well turn Oak Young
down, seeing as he's my colleage. The student turned
out to be not very good-- I've got a lot of work to do
with her! Oak Young is most concerned about her vocal
technique, and the bulk of our lessons will be spent
on that. But all things said and done, it will be
nice to have that extra $200 a month, just from
teaching for an extra hour each week.
My friend Miranda was in Seoul tonight, visiting from
Ulsan, but I wasn't feeling very well, and was
definitly not in the mood for a big night out, so I
opted to have a cozy night at home instead.
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