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Week 26 - Y2 (Aug 27th to Sept 2nd) |
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Sunday Aug 27th,
I was looking at the Korea Times, an English newspaper
online, and I found an article about a dance studio
specifically for foreigners in Seoul, teaching
predominantly salsa classes. I think I'm going to do
it! I have enough free time, it's pretty cheap, and
it'll be a great way to meet even more. people in
Seoul!
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Monday Aug 28th,
Today I started the vocal jazz ensembles at the Iksan
campus-- I was pleasantly surprised, especially in
comparison to last semester-- it looks like there is
hope for a good concert in October after all! |
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Tuesday Aug 29th,
Today was my first day teaching at the JASS hagwon
(Jae's private continuing education school) Teaching
here for me means a few private students and a weekly
masterclass with five students. So I did have to do a
lot of extra work in preparing the curriculum for the
master class, but it turns out that all the students
in that class are really good and really smart, so it
looks like it's going to be a really enjoyable
semester with them! All five of them have studied
jazz piano, so my job automatically will be a lot
easier, as they already understand a lot of jazz
theory.
After teaching, as I was about to leave, one of the
drum teachers, Saoh, stopped me and asked me if I
wanted to have lunch. Turns out that he is going to
be moving to New York next year, and he hardly knows
any English, so he needs my help! Our set up will be
the same as my set up with Yoo Oak-- we will have
lunch once a week so that Saoh will have a chance to
practise with a native English speaker. I won't be
teaching any grammar, just conversational English,
which in the long run, will benefit him much more. In
return, I get a free meal (and hopefully the chance to
pick up some more Korean).
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Wednesday Aug 30th,
Today I had my Seoul students for the first time.
Before class, I was a little concerned about the jazz
choir in Seoul, because my student Eun Mi had told me
that none of the Seoul students wanted to participate
in the jazz choir, because they had all heard that the
Seoul jazz choir was a terrible class to take. Since I
only taught choirs at the Iksan campus last semester,
I wasn't aware that there were any conflicts with the
Seoul choirs (which were directed by other teachers).
But when I got my list of names for the choir, I
realized that they were all the best second year
students, plus one of my favourite first year
students! I was quite impressed-- they managed to
sight read a relatively difficult piece, and they
already have good qualities like pitch and tone
happening. This is going to be a great concert for
this ensemble!
I was also really happy when I got my list of major
lesson students (the ones that I see one on one)--
again all strong students who are mainly interested in
learning jazz.
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Friday Sept 1st,
Tonight I went to a house party close to the Itaewon
district. Megan has a party the first Friday of every
month, and each party has to have a theme, so this one
was "pie". Meaning that all of the food consumed had
to be i pie form. Hmm . . . a difficult task seeing
as most of us don't have ovens! Fortunately Megan
actually does, so there was some real baking
happening.
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Saturday Sept 2nd,
This is Jason's last weekend alone in Pohang, as his
girlfriend Stephanie is flying into Korea on Monday to
come and live with him. So I had to forfeit the salsa
class that I was going to start this weekend and go to
Pohang to see Jason on his last weekend of
"bachelorhood". I took a five hour bus from Seoul,
arriving late afternoon. It turned out to be one of
the most beautiful days I have ever seen in Korea-- it
was actually clear! So we took a long walk through
the hills and around the university campus close to
Jason's apartment. Pohang is essentially run by
Posco, the second biggest steel company in the world.
Therefore Pohang has this weird rich suburban thing
going on, completely unlike anywhere else I've seen in
Korea. It's kind of creepy-- they obviously have too
much money that gets thrown towards ridiculous things,
like gynasiums that are meant to train 7 year old
Olympic athletes, massive digital libraries, so on so
on. Even Jason is ridiculously overpaid for the work
that he does (teaching at a private Posco elementary
school), and he actually has a two bedroom apartment
all to himself. I know entire families who don't have
that much space to themselves.
However only some Posco workers are privy to these
perks-- the line workers (ie the ones who are exposed
to all the chemicals and pollution) live in slums
closer to downtown. Pohang is the ultimate in
capitolism.
When we were walking, we came across a chemical dump,
just slightly off the main road, and that creeped me
out a lot too. Apparently they're pretty lax with
pollution laws . . . Jason and I kept on expecting
some unmarked cars to pull up and take us away and
make us vanish for having seen the chemical pile
(sounds like a plot to a trippy Simpsons episode or
something).
Later that evening, Evan and Ali came down from Daegu,
and we had a great time just hanging (all of us
reunited in the same room for the first time since
November!) Jason had the second season of "Lost" on
his computer, so we went on a binge and managed to
watch 8 episodes in 24 hours (what I can say, it's
addictive!)
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