So, what's been going on? It's about halfway through my 2nd week of summer vacation. I get three weeks of paid vacation, which is absolutely amazing. I will miss this next year when I (G-d willing) work in a private academy, but I kind of feel like a spoiled prat getting all the time off in the first place. It's fun to feel guilty!
ahem.
Before my time off, I had two weeks of summer English camp. That was me teaching 4-13 students every morning for 4 hours. Prepping four classes per day for the same group of students takes a long time. Ain't nothing to shake a stick at. All in all, I think it was a pretty good camp. We had some fun activities, the coolest being having the students [ swede ] scenes from [ Twilight ] and [ Karate Kid ]. Some activities were not as successful, but that's kind of the nature of teaching. Things don't work sometimes. Back up plans are recommended, but don't always happen. At any rate, I really enjoyed getting to know the students better and we did a fair amount of reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
And we ate together at Kimbap Nara (kind of like a Korean version of a diner). I gave them a budget for lunch and instead of ordering singles dishes for each of them, they ordered a bunch of giant shared dishes. It was an excellent feast. Korea is a food culture. These people know how to eat. For serious. Have I mentioned the bajillion side dishes that come with meals and are constantly replenished? And that most meals cost around $6-12?
For example, this meal costs $7 per person. This Wendy, Kevin (behind the camera) and me at a [ baekban ] restaurant. The meals here are made up almost entirely of sidedishes... The standard meals has around 5 sidedishes and 3 at the very least.
Vacation so far has been pretty tops. It's included finishing a three page letter to my Oma in German (and I got to use the phrase "as crazy as a bag of weasels" or "als verrückt als eine Tasche von Wieselen") and sending my cover letter and resume all over the place.
Plan is to spend another year working in Korea (as aforementioned), but move to the city of Busan. Busan is the second largest city in Korea. It's on the beach, it's got an epic art museum and has the ferry to Japan. Lacey and I will both be moving there, so finally getting to live in the same city (rather than 3.5 hours apart) will be quite terrific. Korea is ridiculously cheap to live in, so if I'm going to try a big city (and I don't much want to live in Seoul, thankyouverymuch), this is pretty much the best way to try it out.
And also previously mentioned, gonna give the private academy thing a whirl. Yeah, public schools are a pretty cushy gig, but 1. why not try the other system. can't really appreciate either without trying both and 2. as in American public schools, there's a lot that goes on that (seemingly) has nothing to do with the students learning the material. And this can be spirit crushing. Dunno if that situation will be alleviated in my school, but maybe? At any rate, it seems from the people I've been polling the last few months, if you were to draw a line to gauge job satisfaction, public schools guarantee a pretty fat blob of satisfaction in the center of the line (meaning you can be pretty well happy there and even if everyone you work with and your students are dreadful, you'll still be pretty ok). And private academies seem to be pretty much a crapshoot. They can be fiery rings of doom, with boatloads of work, screaming korean moms, sneaky bosses, and not getting paid on time. Or they can great, supportive, engaging places to work (while still sometimes frustrating because all jobs are and teaching is hard at least some of the time). And everything in between. If you've got a good recruiter, you should be able to navigate away from the total crap schools.
That's a lot of text. You've earned yourself a pretty, dear reader.
My contract finishes on August 31st, then I've got 24 hours to get the hell out the country (you can, if so inclined, file for a 2 week extension after your visa expiration in case you've got loose ends to tie up). So, September 1st, I'll fly home and spend about 3 weeks in Erie and Meadville. Then I'll grab a few days in Germany with my Oma before coming back to Korea and moving to Busan for that Job I Hope I Get, Dear G-d.
And vacation has also been full of visits with my favorite people in the province, reading cool things, a bit of writing, and drawing. Quite nice. More drawing needs to happen though. Plan is to pretty much go into hiding and just draw my face off. I've got a wedding gift to finish, Lacey's shirts to finish designing, my slide to storyboard/research, at least the Queen's character sheet to finish [See: The Hazards of Love by the Decemberist ], and possibly a rooster tattoo to doodle.
Next week, plan is to have myself a 24-hour period of silence. Maybe this Sunday. This particular brand of silence means no drawing or reading, either. I think there may be a period of panic. I sure do looove distraction. And talking. I've never done such a thing properly before. Shall be a time.
I saw Toy Story 3 in Korean this past Sunday with Sujin and the kids. I liked the story and even got a few of the jokes. And Pixar's surface textures and physics were absolutely stunning. I was impressed by their felt rendering. Then we went to lunch and Sujin let me pay! That's a difficult thing for an older (than the other person present) Korean to do. We had samgyetang, which is chicken soup made with a whole, tiny chicken, ginseng, dates, and rice.
And THEN! Sujin took us to a traditional Korean clothing store to buy some hanbok as a going away present for me. Oh. Man. It was too much. She gave me a light set for the summer and heavier set for the fall. The light set is a pair of red pants and a rather plain white shirt (it's gorgeous and I will spill kimchi on it. I can't have nice things). The heavier set is green. The pants are pretty much the same as my red ones (and possibly not any heavier) and the shirt is just soooooooo handsome. Love. PICTURES SOON. OR EVER. maybe.
Here's a rough idea of what my pants look like for meow:
Super light. Super comfy. So much win.
I didn't realize she was going to buy both sets... I tried to lie and say that I didn't want the green set as the sleeves were too long, but she could tell I was lying. I lie about as well as Friederich in The Sound of Music (that means NOT WELL). I was also heart-warmed by the exchange (in Korean) that happened when we walked in:
Retail Woman: We don't have finished hanbok in her size.
Sujin: That's ok. She prefers men's clothing.
Eeeeee. So many loves.
Here's are some pictures of Sujin and Hyung-bu (her husband) from the day they whisked me off to play in the splash pool on top of a nearby mountain.
And at home, Tyler turned 14, Noah turned 8, and Ally had her college orientation and graduation party. Holy Life-Moves-On, Batman.
Ah, hello 3am. Well, time to a read a bit more "Making Comics" by McCloud and then crash on the awesome couch that my good friends Stephanie and Sean extended my way. We finished watching "The Cell" (lovely eye candy) almost too late for me to catch a bus home (could have caught it maybe...). Also, saw District 9 the other day. Twas Awesome (though a dash heavy on the allegory).
Oh, also, it's super hot and humid here. I sweat almost constantly. Now the end. byeeee.
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