Lego Star Wars Movie!

Literally right from the Star Wars: Homing Beacon to you! More info here.

And of course this post gets dedicated to JB & Lyle, fellow Star Wars fans, Lego lovers, and members of the tribe!

UPDATE: (Oct. 2005): Links to the actual movie here!

Nice Little Odds 'n' Ends

Cherry Blossoms at Sungkyunkwan

I went with Hee Jung, my likeable language partner and friend, and her best friend to Sungkyunkwan University today. I enjoyed the company of both young ladies. I also enjoyed the campus, which was lovely, situated on the slope of a large hill. It is only a 20 minute walk from my apartment to the campus. I will be returning there for more photographs (unfortunately, my camera batteries died after only a few pictures) in the very near future. This university, which dates to the Middle Ages (!), fascinates me! I hope that next time I can go in the historical section. Here are two more photographs.


A Modern Building on Campus


Historical Wall at the Campus

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Today I got an email, out of the blue, from one of my former students, the gifted boy from my winter vacation class with whom I went to Gyeongbokgung Palace back in January. It was good to hear from him.
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The little girl who cried yesterday was happy again today, which made me relieved. The class was better behaved today, which was good. The girl gave me this delightful paper rose!


Paper Rose
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In the last entry, I happened to mention the supper Ian and I had tonight. I keep forgetting to take a picture of something that has always fascinated me here: the presence of a large pair of scissors at the dinner table! These scissors are used for cutting the meat. This is very strange to Western people, I think. I still find it kind of funny! I have to say, however, that it is practical, and unlike the presence of TP in the food vendors' tent kitchen eateries, I don't mind this addition to the supper table!


Ian with the Scissors
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Finally, Chea Young was very concerned when she saw my heating bill the other day. She persuaded me to turn off the little switch on my wall which controls the heat for the water. This should reduce my heating bills somewhat. Now that the weather is warmer, I don't have the floor heating on anymore, which will save me around 50,000 Won at least!

Two Little Subway Stories

Yesterday evening I was on my way home from work when #1 subway train I was on stopped in Jongno-sam-ga. The doors opened, as usual, and then a man's voice came over the loudspeakers with a message about Jongno-o-ga, the next stop. People began looking anxious, and quite a few got on their cell phones. After about five minutes, maybe 30 people got off. Quite a few stayed on, however. Then there was some shouting, and a few uniformed police officers (as opposed to subway personnel), were looking down the tunnel. I was in the first car, and so I could follow their gaze. I saw a bright white light facing in our direction. After a couple of minutes I got off, walked up to Changdeokgung, and caught a taxi from there to my home area in Hyehwa. I mentioned this to my language partner this afternoon, and Hee Jung told me that she heard there was a fire at Jongno-o-ga.

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Ian and I went to Krispy Kreme after eating our usual Friday night taeji-kalbi supper. I bought one dozen original glazed donuts there. It was about 11pm when I was on the platform in Sinchon waiting for the train. I happened to look up after a few minutes, and saw a beautiful woman laughing at me on the opposite platform! It was a friendly laugh--she was holding the same bag with the same big box of Krispy Kreme donuts! Also amusing was the fact that we were both in black from head to toe (right now many Korean women are dressing in bright colors). She was my age. I swear that if it weren't for Chea Young I would have crossed the platform and asked her out, which would have led our being posterchildren for interracial romance at Krispy Kreme! ;-) Well, that's the flight of fancy for the day.

Little Difficulties on the Job

Well, today was another day on the job. My 3pm class was ok, but a bit rowdy. My 4pm class was very rowdy, and several students decided to say they didn't bring their workbooks in an effort to evade a homework check. When it became apparent that they were going to have to do double the work, suddenly they produced their workbooks! I was annoyed with that. That class likes to play many little tricks. They're all a bit amusing, but in the context of the general noise level in that class it made for an irritated teacher today. I kept those students late, lectured them just a bit, and made them apologize. One student became quite upset after she left the classroom, which bothered me. Was I too strict? On the other hand, if I'm not strict enough, then I get a perpetually rowdy class, like my 5pm class way back in my first term. On the other hand, I hate being strict, and I think I'm much easier going than most of the teachers. The only thing I can say is that the student who was quite upset was once before very upset over her own mischief (or perhaps over the fact that she got a firm scolding) on another occasion that didn't involve me at all.
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I had an unusual problem develop over the last two days in my adult class of elementary teachers. Two days ago, one woman, who has the thickest accent of any of my ET's, this term or last term, was having trouble with a typical Korean problem. She was adding "ee" to words like "bridge." When I corrected her, she was able to say the word correctly. But when using the word in a sentence, she added "ee" again as if she totally forgot! This in itself is unremarkable (and I'm sure I'd do the same thing if I was in her shoes), and after about five times I decided she wasn't going to get it at that time, so I moved on.

At the end of class, her seatmate, whose English is much better than hers, approached me and said that "X" was very stressed, and that I shouldn't expect her to change her pronunciation so quickly (it's been six weeks). This surprised me as she didn't look stressed. Furthermore, I constantly tell my students that it's ok to make mistakes; in fact, it's the only way we learn. Finally, many of my adult students want me to correct all their mistakes (which is impossible)! I asked my boss what I should do about this, and he was quite understanding, and gave me some advice, as well as some handouts on this exact pronunciation problem for Korean speakers.

It's a difficult line to balance. On the one hand, if I speak two words of Korean, I am instantly told "your Korean is very good!" In other words, it's expected that I will say the same about their English, so I do. But what about when a person's English is actually terrible? She is taking the course because she is teaching English to school children. She should show a willingness to improve her terrible pronunciation, for their sakes if not for her own. Otherwise, there's no point in being in an English conversation course. Today I didn't correct her pronunciation much because of this, but I passed out a page handout on getting rid of the extra syllable that Koreans like to attach to English words.

If there is just one pronunciation problem, or even two, most English speakers will be able to make the mental adjustments. But when you have the whole range of typical Korean problems, communication is very difficult (and in fact, in the greater Vancouver area, where I'm from, it was the Koreans who were the most difficult to understand out of all the many immigrant groups).

I hate being critical, and I don't want my students (children or adults) to be worried about making mistakes. To show that I make mistakes too, I told a humorous anecdote about the time in Mexico when I tried to say "I'm hot," and ended out saying "I'm in heat" instead(!). I had to explain that idiom, and the students then laughed! I also told them about my Spanish 12 teacher's mistake with a local dialect in which "el pelo," rather unusually, means "pubic hair." Anyway, she asked for a brush so she could brush her pelo! (Great--another one for the Googlers) The adult students laughed at that, too!

Then the students wanted to talk about how much money and time they put into English study, while at the same time being aware of their own shortcomings in that language (and the fact that often Chinese people (their example), speak better English than Koreans do). Again, I want to encourage them, while helping them to move forward. And the English ability, such as it is, of most of them really should be recognized positively. Anyway, improving their English is more difficult for this class as a group than for my last group of elementary school teachers, who were (on average) younger and more linguistically agile (and two levels up in the American Headway series).

To top it off, during partner work the two students I mentioned didn't do a conversation assignment, and were unwilling to do the little dialogue for the class like the others. The one student may have found it too boring (she's in the top three in the class), but the other student found it too difficult. Instead they were discussing, apparently, the future of the two characters in the conversation! It's precisely this sort of "I'll ignore the program" that is getting some of these students in trouble! They're attempting conversations that are over their heads, leaving the foundation in ruins.

Fortunately, some of the students have improved a lot, and others have at least improved a little. It's good when they catch their own simple mistakes ("she" vs. "he"; "is" vs. "was" etc.), instead of me.

Odds 'n' Ends

While on the subway this morning I noticed, as I do on other mornings, the older men and women cleaning the newspapers from the shelves above the seats. They go very quickly, and carry bags (sometimes on carts), which are extremely large and very heavy. There are a lot of free papers in Seoul; in the morning rush, nearly everyone has one, so there are a lot of papers to clean up.
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It was pouring rain the other day, which got me thinking about the entrepreneurial spirit of Seoul. When it pours, you can usually find an adjumma or halmoni selling umbrellas by any subway station. This would never happen in Canada, where the police would send the would-be merchant packing. I personally think it's more civiilized here; one of those umbrellas sold by an ajumma saved my bacon once!
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My tinnitis, which has been much better than it was in Canada, where I had to work in front of that g*ddamned awful stereo at McD's, has lately been absolutely horrible and screechingly loud. Maybe it's because when I'm with Chea Young I often forget to turn my hearing aids off in the subway stations.
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For some reason, one of my posts is #2 for a Google image search for "Mort Marat"--in my post I didn't forget the "de." Why me? It's interesting that I get one hit for that every day. I was also #1 or 2 the other day for "loose ends"--why? With all the loose ends in the world, why was I #1? Anyway, I'm not complaining, just wondering!
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Lately I've been asking questions about getting a job in a university here. I hope something works out. My director very kindly gave me until June to give him a definite yes or no on my continued employment at my hogwon, which is an excellent place, except for the sub-par pay. That last is an issue with me, as I hope to settle down here soon, and I need to repay my debts more quickly.
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Does anybody know a way to take a picture from a PDF file and convert it into JPEG format? I've tried everything I could, and finally the only thing that worked was a screenshot clipped by Hello, and sent to Blogger. I saved it as a draft. What it is is top secret for now!
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It's ridiculous that the disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law, formerly Archbishop of Boston, was given a lead role in the funeral of the late Pope. Disgusting!
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That's a bad note to end a post on, but at least it has nothing to do with South Korea.

A Walk with Chea Young in Yoido Park

PICTORIAL UPDATE BELOW, 10:26pm, April 18th, 2005.

A Walk with Chea Young in Yoido Park

I spent a happy weekend with Chea Young. On Saturday, we hung out at my apartment because of the rain. On Sunday, however, the weather cleared up and we went to Yoido Park, where the National Assembly is located. We couldn't go through the gates, because we came after closing time, but I did get a picture:


The National Assembly

Soon the cherry blossoms will be in bloom. There were many people in the evening, including this little tyke, who looked up at me and posed for the camera!


Whose little boy are you? ;-)

For the first time, Chea Young let me take several pictures of her. She smiled beautifully for all of them! At some point in the future perhaps I can post them.
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UPDATE

Chea Young and I recently went back to Yoido Park and the National Assembly again. Here is a monumental statue recalling several great works of art. Unfortunately, the lampost marred the picture. The best angles were not available to me, as a wide space was roped off around the statue. There is one at each end of the front of the building. One can see in the statues that the country's history was formed in turmoil and bloody struggle for independence. I should mention, however, that there were some recent statues behind the main building that to me appeared playful and highly whimsical.


Marred by the lampost

A statue with an upraised dove stands on a self-described fountain in the front grounds, which are spacious and quite pleasing to the eye.


Statue and Fountain

I rather like the library building. Sometimes concrete ends out doing the job admirably. I wonder what it's like inside.


Library of the National Assembly