It's Been A While

It's been a long time since i last blogged. No, my sleeping habits haven't improved at all. The last couple weeks have been quite busy and on top of that i've been ill. I'm still attempting to shake the remnants of this cold, well over a week since it began. The last few weeks we've been spent preparing tests, marking test, marking book reports, preparing report cards, and teaching classes. Now that that's all finished i have to make my syllabi for October and also have a few classes left to write this week. It's been one thing after another. The kids' test scores improved quite a bit, so it looks like we should still be here for a while. I'm hoping once October begins things will slow down a bit. Haven't taken any good pictures lately. Hopefully we'll get out for a bit tomorrow today if it's not raining again.

-insomniac out.

Unnatural Angles

Win had lived long enough to bury a number of his colleagues, none of them, as far as she knew, felled by anything more sinister than stress and overwork, and perhaps by a species of depression engendered by too long and too closely observing the human soul from certain predictable but basically unnatural angles.

-William Gibson
Pattern Recognition

Is it just me, or is that a hell of a lot of peppers? Practically every day we pass a parking spot full of peppers being dried. Usually there aren't quite this many. We took this on a walk to the park on Sunday.
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A shot of some one of the demonstrations from the festival.
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Last weekend we saw a guy driving around downtown with his dog on a scooter. We followed him here and managed to get this pic. It turned out he lead us to a festival that we had no idea was going on. It was called the Gamyeong Festival. We went in and watched demonstrations with swords and bows. It was a nice little surprise. From what i can make of the signs around town it looks like quite a bit is happening in the next month. There's the Wonju Tattoo, an international marching band festival, and the local paper festival will be happening near the end of the month.

Doggy update: I caved last week, and gave into C's pleading to go get the dog. On Wednesday Robert phoned the pound to see if he was still there. C was ecstatic when he told her he was and that he would drive us down to get him Thursday before class. That night i even let C pick out a few treats at the supermarket for him. When we went to pick him up the next day we were informed someone had picked him and two other dogs to take home the previous evening. Let the sorrow begin. i knew i shouldn't have let C get her hopes up.
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Hyundai's current slogan is Drive You Way. I don't think there's anywhere in the world that takes that more to heart than in Korea. Every time i step into a vehicle in this country i fear for my life. Seriously. Last weekend we decided to take a taxi to E-Mart to pick up some things. I should have taken the drivers license plate so we could avoid ever getting in a car with him again. Within the first minute or so of him speeding off with us unrestrained inside, i began question our decision to leave the house at all. Seatbelts seem to be optional, and if you're sitting in the backseat they're not required. I'm pretty sure i haven't been in a vehicle that has an airbag yet. Koreans also aren't the best drivers in the world. You can see them doing 100-point turns everywhere you go. We even saw one guy at a red light do one the other night. Space is limited in Korea so people are always trying to squeeze their cars where ever they can, including the sidewalk, which we see all the time by our apartment. We even had one pass us on the sidewalk in Seoul as we walked back to the subway from the War Memorial Museum. Last week one guy was trying to get his truck into a spot behind the school, when he drove into the back of Robert's car as he watched from the computer room. I bought an international driver's license before we left, but i'm not sure i'm brave enough to use it. I thought the farmer's at home were bad drivers.

Maybe this is why i can't sleep at night.

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It ain't over 'til it's over. It's just as i thought. Right after C gave up the mutt to the dog handler she decided she pretty much can't live without the dog. In spite of her pleading, i'm holding out until after the long weekend. By that time if the original owners haven't picked him up, we will take him. C has been trying to bribe me to go get him before someone else does, but i think it would be best if he went back if he has a family already.

Is it wrong to feel good when you make a child cry? I've done it the last two days in a row, and i keep getting a strange feeling of satisfaction when it happens. On Friday a kid was throwing eraser bit a girl in the next row. I told him to stop if he didn't i'd be taking him outside and he just smiled at me. Not even a minute later he did it again. When he refused to move i started to physically remove him, then i decided i wasn't fighting him. I grabbed his book, bag, and eraser and placed them outside the class. For some reason the feeling of being singled out and unable to participate got him really worked up and he cried a bit while i ignored him. I felt better. I have to start making examples of kids, because i'm tired of them thinking they can get away with everything all the time. The kid i made cry today was being really loud in a large class in a small room. I decided to remind him in front of the class of his 3/10 score on a quiz they had on Friday. One of the other kids made a comment in Korean and he shut up pretty quickly. After class i tried to talk to him and tell him he is smart and can do better when a Korean teacher walked in. She started talking to him and he started to cry a bit when he told her of the other kids making fun of him. I think the shaming thing will be an effective tool to use on some of the unruly classes.
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Yeah... That Sounds About Right

Since the strike at the CBC started, news from home only comes in small drops. There's never much news in Regina in the first place, but it's rarely mentioned in national news. I found this story while scanning FARK quite amusing. I had forgotten how people at home can even match Korea in the crazy department sometimes.

The hurricane that hit New Orleans has dominated the media lately and a few things have struck me. I read a quote recently from a spokesman for the city of Biloxi, Mississippi in which he said, "It was like our tsunami." What? Did i read that correctly? I just don't get how you compare the two. It just doesn't compute. The sudden loss of hundreds of thousands of lives compared to a few thousand who either weren't able to, or just refused to get out of the way of something they knew was coming. I've also read about how the true human spirit comes out of some people in a disaster. Maybe i am a little cynical. Just my point of view.

In personal news, the dog is gone. We decided to let the pound take it. Not sure if we could really bring it back to Canada and wouldn't have anywhere to leave it here when we go back. Traveling while we're here would be a bitch as well. We're hoping it has a family that will look for him. He was well behaved and was trained to go to the bathroom. I'm really surprised C didn't break out in tears when the guy came to get him. She did come close a few times, but managed to keep the flood gates closed. We might try to go to the pound in a few weeks to see if he's gone, if we can get a favour.

-insomniac out.

I must be out of my friggin' mind. This thing showed up outside work today to the delight of fifty screaming children. Then it decided to run into the academy and straight into C's classroom. Unfortunately she was the first one to the little mutt and she picked him up and put him outside. Robert ended up tying him to a tree to keep him from exploring further. He asked us if we wanted to take him because otherwise he would be going to the pound where he might be destroyed. At our brief meal C and i discussed the issue and we came to the conclusion that taking it wouldn't be in our best interests. Walking back to the academy we made the mistake of looking in its direction. I knew C didn't want to risk it being destroyed, so i told her maybe we could take it for the night and decided what to do from there. As Robert was dialing the pound i told him we had decided to take him on a trial basis. After we finished and while C was attempting to bath the thing, i headed out for supplies. I don't think it had eaten in a while and finished all the food and water we put out for it. It woke C at about one this morning ripping up paper C had laid in the bathroom for it. I got up after i had a dream C was having an asthma attack and she wasn't in bed. We were both up for a while when the thing took a poop the size of his head by the front door. This after we had take him out 20 minutes earlier when we thought he had to go. Now the two of them are back asleep and i'm wide awake yet again. I don't know what the hell we're going to do with it while we're at work.
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