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Week 25 - Y2 (Aug 20th to Aug 26th) |
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Monday Aug 21st,
I went in to work today, thinking that I'd be teaching
today at the Seoul campus. Turns out that they
haven't even completed the schedule yet . . . and
classes are supposed to start TODAY! Typical . . .
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Tuesday Aug 22nd,
Today I went down to the Iksan campus only to discover
that they've changed around my teaching days, and
didn't bother to tell me. So isntead, I'll be
teaching Monday and Thursday at Iksan, and Wednesday
at Seoul. To make sure that the day wasn't a total
loss for me, the office workers rescheduled my Monday
students to today. I've got some new students, which
is a good thing, because they're better students! I
have two girls in particular who are absolutely
brilliant-- very talented, and very dedicated, so I'm
really excited about what this semester will bring for
them. I'm also a little disappointed that I've lost
some of my favourite students (Eun Mi actually cried
when she found out that she wasn't going to be my
student anymore!), but I know that I'll still be
seeing them for improv class.
On another note, I rode the bus with Kenji today and
guess what? He's getting married! The wedding will
be in October, a nice simple ceremony. |
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Wednesday Aug 23rd,
I went into the Seoul campus again today, once again
thinking that I'd be teaching-- but guess what? The
Seoul schedule still isn't finished! Wow . . .
However, Jae was there, so we talked some planning
details for the semester. I'm teaching all of the
jazz choir stuff now, as there is a big student
concert in October that the choir is preparing for. I
guess he doesn't really trust the other voice teachers
to do it . . .
Also, Jae has asked me to teach one day at the JASS
hagwon (private continuing education school for jazz
studies). While it's still Jae's school, this is
actually like having a private, so I get paid on the
side for it, but have to be somewhat secretive about
it, as with my visa, I'm not really allowed to teach
anywhere else but PaekChe. Jae has also hired me for
some gigs, which is pretty cool. I've decided to
actively pursue getting gigs now, despite the visa
problems. After all, as long as I'm careful, the
likelihood of getting caught is pretty slim . . .
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Thursday Aug 24th,
Had my first improv classes of the semester today.
Because the second year students have extra courses
now, they won't be taking the improv class anymore,
which means that the number of students per class has
dropped from 50 to 30! Thank god!
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Saturday Aug 26th,
I was preparing for a quiet weekend in Seoul, but
while I was browsing the used bookstore in Itaewon
this afternoon, my friend Barry from Daegu called me,
and said that he was on his way to Seoul to check out
our friend Matt's gig at a club in Hongdae (the club
district in Seoul). Since I hadn't heard Matt's band
before, I said yes. Turned out that the club next
door to the club Matt was playing at was owned by a
friend of Barry's! (Barry is half-Korean,
half-American, and basically grew up in Korea on an
American army base) Matt's band sounded great, and we
got a lot of free drinks from Barry's friend, who also
coincidentally developed a little crush on me, and
gave me a beautiful shell bracelet as a token of his
affection (I didn't know whether to accept it or not
But Barry said no worries, no ulterior motives, just
kindness. I also met a lot of foreigners in Seoul,
including one former Daegu girl by the name of Jenny,
who is also good friends with Charlotte. After the
show, we found this great bar in Hongdae which had
beds and cushions for the patrons to sit on (remember
that episode of "Sex and the City"? Like that) They
brought drinks and food on low trays that they put in
the middle of the bed for us. There was also a
shallow pool on the first floor where we could dip our
feet. In the winter, it's a hot tub! This is so one
of those only in Korea kind of places!
After that, we went to Bricks, which I had been to
before, but what I didn't know was that they had
hookahs where you could smoke flavoured tobaccoo.
While I'm not a fan of tobacco generally, this was
surprisingly good. Of oourse the big joke was that
with a Korean accent, "hookah" and "hooker" sound
exactly same (Please pass the "hooker", "Can you turn
the "hooker" for me?)
Now this took us to about 5:30 in the morning,
conveniently also the time that the subway opens.
However, by this point, we had decided that we were
starving for a big North American style breakfast, and
since Barry has an administrative military job, he
signed us onto the American base in Seoul for a buffet
breakfast!
It's like a completely different world in there,
totally just like being in the US. You could almost
forget you're in Korea. In fact, they didn't even
give won as change, now I've got a bunch of American
bills that I don't really know what to do with! It's
easy to understand why American GIs are so oblivious
to Korean culture-- they have absolutely no exposure
to it whatsoever! It's weird to think that they're
halfway around the world living in a "little America".
Not that I'm complaining at this point-- after all I
got a damn good breakfast out of it!
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