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Week 39 (Nov 20th to Nov 26th) |
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Monday Nov 21st , Our new teachers are here, finally. They are a couple from Ontario, both went to school at Lakehead University, and they know one of Evan's best friend's Sean. Their names are Lindsey and Ryan. So far so good-- they must be exhausted, seeing as they just flew in on Sunday night. Plus they didn't have the liberty of observing classes or training. They were just thrown right into a full teaching schedule. When I started, I still had no idea what was going on after 2 whole days of observation. I didn't understand the schedule, the teaching system, people forgot to tell me really really significant details ALL THE TIME . .. But so far Ryan and Lindsey seem to be hanging in there really well. Lindsey has a lot of teaching experience, so she definitly hit the ground running, and Ryan is keeping up pretty well too. They both seem really nice, and while no one could replace Jason and Evan as friends, I think I'll probably spend a lot of time with them! |
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Wednesday Nov 23rd,Today was Lindsey's birthday-- can you imagine being in Korea for three days and celebrating your birthday? I was really tired from staying out way too late after funk band practise on Tuesday, plus I had to go to another rehearsal tonight, but I felt so bad that they didn't know anyone yet, and they didn't know their way around. So I took Ryan and Lindsey downtown to Bennigan's for a Western-style dinner (Lindsey is easing into Korean food). I was kind of stressed, because I had to go back to Chilgok to sleep, just for a little bit, and then I thought I would have to turn right around and go back downtown for practise, but I got a great text message from my bass player saying that I could take the night off, and that they were going to have a sectional instead! I was thrilled . .. |
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Friday Nov 25th,This is Lindsey and Ryan's first weekend here, and I felt really bad, because I have a gig in Gumi (small city north of Daegu) on Saturday, so I couldn't really show them around too much. So I took them to Beer Palace tonight (in Chilgok) for an early outing. Sylvia and Carey came as well . . . have I mentioned that Sylvia and Carey are engaged? They will both be going to America in March for one year, and they will probably get married before they go. Sylvia's parents are furious that she is marrying a foreigner, and thus forced her to quit her job at Wonderland. So she has been teaching at a haegwon in Seoul for the past two months, and she and Carey only get to see each other on weekends. Sylvia is much feistier than most Korean girls, so she is going to go against her parents' wishes and continue to see Carey, and continue to plan on getting married within the next couple of months. |
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Saturday Nov 26th,This morning, Carey, LIndsey, Ryan and I all had to go to immigration to get our degrees verified. Because there has been such a problem with foreigners entering Korea with fake degrees, they are really cracking down, and every foreigner has to get his or her degree verified before the end of November. As for me, I'm bitter that I've had to give three Saturdays in a row to my haegwon. I'm so sick of working my ass of for Wonderland, making crappy pay, and never getting so much as a thank you. Anyway, it didn't take as long as any of us thought, so Carey and I took Ryan and Lindsey downtown to really show them around. Lindsey enjoys shopping just as much as I do, so I'm happy to have a new shopping partner! We managed to find a bunch of earrings for $1, so both of us were really happy. Then I took them out for their first real Korean lunch: kimbap (kind of like sushi, except everything is cooked), tteokbogi (rice noodles in really spicy sauce) and mandu (fried dumplings with vegetables). Then I had to book it back to Chilgok to get everything in order to go to Gumi! The funk band was set to play a gig at a restaurant called the Waegook Cook. (Waegook is a term used for foreigners, it can be used in a derogatory way occasionally). As per usual, we weren't getting paid, but we were to get free dinner, free drinks and free motel rooms. So we were all pretty pumped to play a full-length show. It turned out as great as it sounded: the food was great, the service was superb (they really took care of us, they were so attentive!), and the crowd was falling all over us! I think that smaller cities are way more appreciative of live music, just because they never really get to hear it. There were some songs that were really sloppy on our part, but it almost didn't matter, because the vibe was so good and happy that no one cared. We ended up playing for three hours straight, and hanging out for a whole lot longer than that! |
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