Trivia Night

Saturday, September 20, 2008

This is a caterpillar that I found in the tree. He was really hard to see, but we brought him home for his own photoshoot. He was gross and scary. I poked him, with a chopstick, but only for photography purposes.





A waterdrop inside an empty flower spot.












Bushels
















waterdrops on a sunflower











A budding sunflower









This is a rose right outside our apartment in the rain yesterday. I am so happy with the way this one turned out.





Last night was our monthly Trivia Night with the EPIK teachers. It was a lot of fun, but for the first time, Kyle and I were some of the most senior people there!!! I think 90% of the people there were new and it was great to meet some new people. There was two people who have only been here for 3 weeks, so Matt isn't even the newest newbie!

I met a girl named Natalie who we somehow discovered we did the same major at college. Not many colleges have an Intercultural Studies BA and I asked her previously to this where she was from (Vancouver). So, I asked her which school she went to and she told me one in Abbotsford and I told her me and Kyle and Matt went to Providence College and then we found out that she went to a Christian college in Abbotsford and our schools are like brother sister schools with lots of transfers between them. It was nice to meet her.

Also met a new guy from Ohio who is really nice and easy to carry on a conversation with. We saved seats for Amy and Heath last night as well and kinda had a 6 person team going on (it wa two teams of three with Natalie and Matt combined with the two couples, but we shared some answers). Amy, Matt and myself were a team and we were one of the winning teams. We could have done the questions, but we gave it up to another team. We didn't want to put in the effort. They asked a tie breaking questions between us and them that was "What is heavy fowards and not backwards?" we said the word "heavy" but the other team got it by saying "ton". We argued we wouldn't have guessed that because we spell "ton" as "tonne" so they were going to give it to us, but we said no.

We went out taking pictures during the day yesterday in the rain. We were going to head out to Ganhyun but after waiting for 30 minutes for the bus, Matt climbed in and asked "ganhyun"and the bus driver just stared at him, so he asked again, and the bus driver got really mad and waved his hand in Matt's face and kinda rose his voice and motioned for us to get off and then he closed the door and drove off. He didn't even tell us yes or no. Luckily it happened though because it started to pour right after that and kept up most of the day.

That's about it for now. Hope everyone is doing well and hope you enjoy the new pics!

Ganhyun

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

This is our friend the giant green Praying Mantis. He was after Kyle's fingers in this picture so we couldn't get that great of a pic. Whenever I would finally get ready, Kyle would have to drop him because he was too close.









This is Ganhyun. We went there on Monday and we amazed at how nice it was and how few people were there. A shot down the right hand side the area we swam in. We took a $16 cab ride there from Wonju. About a 20min ride.





This is the spot that we swam at. Well, Matt swam and we didn't because we didn't wear our swimsuits.... my toe was also kinda a concern.







Another shot of the bridges at the entrance

Stock Photography

Sunday, September 14, 2008

A dying sunflower outside the Catholic Church by our house.














A beetle that I have termed the "Cow Beetle" for obvious reasons, sitting on a leaf.








A Banana spider on a stick










A Dragonfly on a Astilbe











A rose close to our house, right outside of "Buy the Way" market














This is a red pepper from our fridge that I decided to take a picture of. I think it turned out really well actually.





Hey Everyone...

Lately, Kyle and I have been talking about trying to sell some of our photos. It has been more of Kyle's idea than mine, but what the heck, why not try. There is no harm in trying. So, we have signed up for a couple stock photography sites in order to try and sell them. We are making our profile and uploading the photos currently. I will post the link to the site when I get it. No pressure to buy anything, but just incase you like any of our photos that much!!! They usually range from $9-$15. Nothing extravagant.

Today I think we are going to head out to Yonsei University since we heard the campus is really beautiful. We are going to try and take some more pictures out there. In the meantime, we haven't been up to much lately. This is a long weekend here in Korea, Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving), so we have today off as well. Thank goodness for four day weeks. Yesterday we went to Wonju Jungbu Presbyterian Church and then came home and made smoothies, I took a nap while the boys went out to play badminton and then Kyle and I just spent the night together doing stuff we like to do. It was really nice. I couldn't go and play badminton with the boys because earlier this week when I was walking home from downtown at about 8:00pm, the street light went out. Now, for some reason in Korea they have random square bricks sticking out of the sidewalk about 5 or 6 inches. Well, the street light went out as I was passing by and I didn't see this brick and I hit my toe on it. It hurt. I yelled. I didn't know how bad it was till I looked down and then quickly flagged a cab ride home. I pretty much tore a huge, deep flap, off of the top of my toe and it was bleeding really badly. Since, I have had to clean it a lot, keep it in gauze and pop a few puss pockets (sorry for the grossness) but I think it is healing alright now. Not much pain anymore, a little pressure, but I don't see anymore infection.

I was able to get peroxide for it at the pharmacy by typing the word into my phone's translator. Yay for phones.

Anyways, its about 9:48am right now on Monday and Kyle is still sleeping and I am here clacking away on the keyboard in the room... so I will go before he wakes up. Hope you enjoyed the pics.

Presbyterian Church

Saturday, September 13, 2008

In 10 minutes we are leaving to go to Church. I am not too terribly excited about this because the service will be all in Korean and I just don't want to be stared at. I can put up with it in public places, but at Church I just don't want to be the Wageu and have everyone look. Right now, I just don't want to go, but I am forcing myself to go. It's a Presbyterian church and one of Kyle's students invited us.... so I guess I will let you know how it goes.

I will also add more pictures later today.


UPDATE:

We are back from Church. Besides the initial awkwardness of feeling like we were imposing and not welcome since it is Chuseok and a few random stares it was alright. Wish we could have understood the sermon, but all in all it was pretty good. When we first went in the church an English woman was flagged over and she said "why are you here?" and we were nervous about gracing them with our presence. But, she didn't mean it in the bad "what were you thinking" way, but they just don't know exactly how to say things politely in English when it is their second language. They use the words they know and it can come off as harsh. We searched the Chuch for Young-In (Kyle's student) and later found her outside with the help of a member of the church.

We sat and listened to the sermon. Sang a few hymns. We have been welcomed back next week to meet the minister who speaks English and the woman who initially helped us is extremely friendly. We are going to try and find an English Church, but will go there probably in the meantime.

New Macro Lens Pics by ME!!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

This is Kyle's school. It is very big and looks very professional. My school is about 4x smaller than this one.
This picture is taken with the wide angle and so is the next but after that it is all macro.


This is my school. Matt took this picture because I was teaching my Adult Class. You can see (from the right back) Judy, Kate and Gabrielle. Very small compared to Kyle's school.


My second favourite picture of the day. The white translucent spider on this flower is amazing. This photo and the next have not been edited at all.






My favourite picture of the day with some backlit and overlapping leaves.






A flower that looks like a star. I think this flower is stunning when you see it in person. So much detail. A bit of colouring editing done here.







A beautiful lotus flower by city hall here in Wonju. No editing done here.







Some bamboo that has been tied to a newly planted tree to keep it from falling. Just changed to black and white



A locust. I think the pupils on this thing are really creepy. You can see one in this picture. Look at the detail that the macro lens can get in the skin or whatever you call it on a locust. No editing done.


A weird thing that grows on trees here. I made sure there was nothing to compare to its size, so that it looks huge. The actually size is about the same as a quarter. A bit of colour editing done.







A pretty daisy. No editing done.







These are leaves on a Poinsettia and it reminded me of my Mom. This one is for you Mom because I know how much you like these at Christmas time. No editing done.

The Advantages vs. Disadvantages

Saturday, September 6, 2008

I saw that Matt had blogged about our interesting conversations with our advanced classes, so I am feeling as though I should as well. I originally meant to do so, but for some reason I got sidetracked and forgot to write about it, definitely did not forget about the "it" itself though.

Last week Matt and had our advanced class split into two classes. I am now teaching the girls and two boys and Matt has a couple boys from the original class and a couple that moved up from another one. We are both at the same spot in the textbook and ended up having the same conversation with our students.

We were teaching them how to use "used to" and the textbook put it in the context of getting married. For example, "Tino used to eat out for dinner, but now he eats at home". So, the questions in the textbook were as follows: What do you think the wife's role should be in marriage, what do you think the husband's role should be, what are the advantages of being married, what are the disadvantages of being married, etc.

To the first question, my girls answered, "the wife should do the laundry and cook and clean and have baby boys. They should try not to have girls because they are not as good as boys." This was heart breaking to me. I wanted to scream. One of the girls in my class actually told me that when her father found out that her mother was having a baby girl, he stayed at home in bed and slept when she was giving birth. He didn't care. I told them about the story of how happy my Dad was when I was born and how he drove 2 hours just to be there with my Mom. The girls wished that they had a Dad like mine who cared about them. They said that to me. They also said they wished they had been born in Canada so that they felt like they had more value and were not just a burden to give away when the age of marriage comes along.

The second question, the boys answered along with the girls and they all said "work, bring money, eat and sleep". This is not uncommon or out of the norm from boys at home though. It bothered me a little that the girls said the men do not have to do any cleaning or cooking. I tried to understand the cultural difference, but it was hard that day.

The third question there was only two answers, the girls said "get to be together, not lonely". The boys said "you get food made for you, your laundry is done and the house is clean all the time." Although this was a bit bothersome, it was the fourth question that really got to me.

"What are the disadvantages of being married?" The girls said that the husband drinks too much and works too much. He doesn't come home enough. And the most shocking of all, the husband hits us (as they make punching movements in the air). I was shocked. I had heard of this in Korea and that it is not illegal to hit your wife and I have heard my share of heated arguments from my window of the surrounding couples, but to hear it from all the girls in my class that they are expecting to be hit by their husbands is absolutely disturbing. Yet they all look forward to being married?? I told them that if my husband ever hit me he would be out in a second and they were shocked that I said that. I told them I would not stand for it, not that Kyle would ever do that or even think about it, and he would be gone. the discussion went on for about another 20 minutes, but this is about all that is was; me talking to the girls about how things are in my country and how sad it is that they are expecting to be beaten by their future husbands. The boys had nothing more to say other than, "yeah, hit wife." Korea has come a long way in the past years in terms of their culture and they are one of the most technologically advanced countries, but hearing this, I know they still have so much further to go.

When the class was over, I came home and I told Kyle about it and he was as shocked as I was and mentioned that he had heard it, but not so bluntly, from some of his students before as well. Later on, Matt called and brought up how his day went while on the phone with Kyle and it turns out that Matt's conversation had gone the exact same way as mine. We were both in utter disbelief. It was definitely not a coincidence that both classes had the same answers....

The next day, Kyle brought it up with one of his Korean co-workers that our students had said these things and she was astonished. She said that she had never heard that from a child in her lifetime of being a teacher. I don't know why she hadn't heard it, maybe it is that the children are afraid to talk to someone from their own culture about it and they see refuge and safety talking to us about it and not being judged for saying it, but it can't be a coincidence that three of us have had the same or similar conversations with the same outcomes.

1-B Class "I Like to...."

I taught my 1-B class how to talk about things that they like and don't like. When we finished the speaking part of the lesson, I had them draw pictures of their likes. This picture is by Jenny.





This picture is by my student Sara. It says "I like to swim"







This is by my student Anna. It says "I like to paint"

Again... new lens and Namdaemun

Today we went to Seoul to go to Costco and of course we went to Namdaemun again. Kyle and I ended up buying me a macro lens for the camera. I am so excited to get out and try it tomorrow. Namdaemun was crazy busy again, but next time I will try and take pictures so you can fully understand the extent of the busy-ness.

We saw something really sad today though while we were there. Last time, we saw a man with no legs pulling himself around on the ground with a rollie-thing and a stereo in front of him playing music. He didn't seem to be asking for money or anything. Today, we saw the same guy (he has something like inner tubes around where his legs are supposed to be) and we saw another guy just the same. He was a little worse though having problems with one of his arms. Then our hearts broke. We saw a guy pulling himself along the ground with nothing. He could not move really and he was pulling his crutches beind him. He had a peice of plastic on the ground for his face so it would not get scraped and cut, but it wasn't really doing the job very well. Everyone who spoke his language was just standing there staring at him. The guy had nothing and even his bandages were being pulled off by the dragging. It was the saddest thing I have seen in a long time. He dragged himself through a puddle even. If there was anything we could have done for him we would have, but we don't speak the language and we can't call and ambulance to help because we don't know how to tell them where in Namdaemun we are, if they even speak English. The image of this man has been burned into my mind and I can't stop thinking about how sad it was and how I wish I could have done something.

We met up with friends today as well. We did our regular go to Seoul and have McDick's breakfast and then Jennell (a friend from Prov) came to meet us and then we went to Namdaemun. From there, once we finished, we met up with Alicia and Erik (more friends from Prov... newly engaged since they got back from their holidays in Kenya) and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. The food was sooooooo good. The salsa tasted the same as Cafe Mexico in Victoria, but the quality of the food was amazing. This was also the first day in over 4 months that I have had a cocktail, so I made sure to order a large raspberry belini. The guacamole was phenomenal at this place as well. You get unlimited chips and salsa too.

After we said bye to them, Alicia and I have planned to get together for a shopping trip soon, we headed to Costco and met up with Krista (another Prov friend). The five of us (Kyle, Me, Matt, Jennell and Krista) did the Costco thing, I got my Dill Pickles (thank goodness) and we said our byes and headed home. They are going to come and visit us some weekend soon. I am excited about that.

Tomorrow we are going to a Festival here in town with a band and music. It should be a lot of fun and I will post pictures. Until then, good night or good morning, whichever it is, we miss you all.

Monkey Teacher

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Today is over. Thank goodness. Yeah, I guess that sums it up right there. I guess you would like to know though. It was really just one class that did me in. It happened to be the second one of the day out of 8, but nonetheless. I walked in and they were rowdy (which is definitely not uncommon around ELC or by the sounds of it, really any hakwon). I asked them to sit down and take out their textbooks, they did so with a bit of pushing on my part. Then it began....

"Teacher.... dark circles" as they all point and laugh at my eyes.
"Teacher two dark circles"
"Teacher... arms are hairy like a monkey" as they all laugh and take turns petting me.

Meanwhile.. I am trying to get them to turn to page 16 in their textbooks and it is not working at all. They just keep laughing and finding other things to talk about or point out.

"Teacher... hair on your face like a monkey" I guess the blonde fine hair that everyone has on their face is not known here. They thought that was funny.

"Teacher... fingers are wrinkly like monkey" I guess because I have big hand for some reason they look not normal to them and they called it wrinkly and monkey like. They had a good time with that one for sure.

I was in a bad mood after that. The rest of the day wasn't so bad, but I definitely was annoyed from that class. I didn't take it out on any other class, but I just couldn't shake the feeling of being made fun of for the same things that I was made fun of for in highschool by small Korean children who barely speak my own language. Gah.

Kyle is sick right now. He is achy all over. I wish I could make him feel better. But, working with the kids has gotten him sick again and it just has to run its course.

Also, this week, my school did a bunch of rearranging of kids and now I am much happier with the sizes of my classes and the fact that most kids are on the same learning level. Thank goodness for that with my 1-A class. The new ones still go on big tangents of Korean while talking to me and haven't figured out I don't understand them. I usually just assume what they are saying (and really, I am right actually about 95% of the time because of the context in which they are speaking and the tone) and I go out on a whim and say "yes" or "no". The Korean teachers get a kick out of it since they don't understand why I am right so many times and I don't speak Korean.

Anyways, just wanted to get that out there and blog again. I am happy I am picking back up on this blog thing and getting it going again. We miss you all very much and cannot wait to come home and see everyone again!!!