The thing that every blog user says

Josh:
Despite saying there would be more updates now that I have the internet at home, I have neglected my poor blog and readers. Hopefully I can fix that. I realize the internet is full of broken promises and dreams when it comes to blogs, but not mine! I will rise above the stereotype of writing ten entries and then leaving the blog behind! Maybe.

As I reread that paragraph I realize that it sounds like a speech one would make for a campaign which transitions perfectly into my next topic: elections.

Korea just had a big "election" (that was actually going to be the title of this post but I changed it). I put "election" in quotes not because I am trying to demean the election in any way (it was actually a very big and important election) but because the child in me can't help but giggle about the way it was said. Just in case you didn't know, one of the letters that Koreans have trouble with is "L". Instead of making an "L" sound, they tend to make an "R" sound. So if you can imagine an older gentleman saying that Korea is going to have a big "election" (but change the letter), I think all of us would have a little trouble trying to hold in our "tee-hee"s. I was having trouble not laughing to myself with that thought in mind as I typed out "it was actually a very big and important election". Korea had a huge election. Sorry. I'm done. Forgive my immature humor but I can have a few moments, can't I? Also, everyone else we have told this to started laughing too so I take a little comfort in that. Welcome back to our blog!
It really was a mind blowing and gargantuan election.
...
I'm done! I'm done! (tee hee)

When you last joined us, we had just left off at the fantastic weekend that was the flower festival. It was obviously very late by the time we got to bed. At 9AM I wake up to Audrey poking me saying, "I think someone's shouting our names outside." I am still half asleep but I listen and I can hear a voice that is shouting something that sounds like our names. I drag myself out of bed and open the window to find that indeed someone was outside shouting our names. It turns out it was one of my co-teachers with another man and a van waiting. "We've come to take you to my church!" Needless to say, I was rather surprised. I threw on pants and shoes and ran downstairs looking fresh as a rose (my hair tends to look like an anime character's when I first get up) and met them outside:

"So...uh...[as I groggily try to create sentences]...what's up? [one eye still closed]"
"Oh you aren't ready."
"What? You didn't tell me."
"We have come to take you to our church. This is my pastor."
"Oh! Uh..hi! Nice to meet you. Look, uh, I don't think we can make it today."
"Did we surprise you?"
"Yeah, just a little."
"Okay, we'll maybe next time."
"Yeah, sorry. It was nice to meet you. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Okay, bye!"

I appreciate them coming to my house and offering a ride. It was actually a very nice gesture but I was not functioning at that (excuse the ironic statement) ungodly hour. Also keep in mind that I had no warning that this was going to happen. I didn't even get a heads up as to when church started. As I said, I truly appreciate his efforts to include me in Korea but I found this to be a little more than amusing. I went inside, explained to Audrey and we tried to go back to sleep but, alas, after such excitement, we were unable to fall back asleep. We pulled ourselves out of bed and got ready for the day (even if it was unwilling).
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We decided to go out with the group again and we watched Clash of the Titans in the theater near our house. The movie wasn't that good but we learned that in Korea you get to pick out your seat when you buy the ticket. I think that's kind of neat because then you don't have to show up one hour early just to not get stuck craning your neck at an awkward angle. We have never really used them though because the theater is always empty enough for us to not even bother looking for our seats, but the thought is there. The tickets are also only 8,000 won which is significantly cheaper than any movie theater tickets in the America. Because of that, we have already seen a fair amount of American movies that are released in our theater. It's nice to be able to go to the movies without paying out the nose.

On a quick side note, I have been very happy with my students. I can honestly say I haven't had any trouble with any of them (knock wood, of course). The only "problem" was a very shy girl that wouldn't speak. That only lasted a few weeks and now she will speak without any prodding. My students are supposed to be the "rebels" (those who didn't study as hard, a terrible sin indeed) but all of them are fantastic kids. Yes, many do start to nod off during my lessons, but I don't blame them at all. If you had to get up at 5:20AM every morning (including Saturday) and go to school from 6AM until 9PM (with about two to three hours break in between for meals) you would fall asleep also. Honestly, I fell asleep in a few of my classes in high school and I only went to school from 8AM-2:40PM. To fault them for being human would be hypocritical of me. What about talking during class? For the most part, they don't do it. If they do, it's minimal and I can be louder than them any day. I had a moment of true appreciation for them when I became really sick (this was very recent) and I was having trouble talking. I could barely speak at all, much less speak at a loud enough volume to fill a room. At the beginning of class I said, "Hey guys, I'm obviously sick so I can't really speak loudly today, so if you guys can just keep it down a little today that would be awesome." After a little translating by my co-teachers, anytime after that if there was anyone talking while I was speaking I would have half of the class turn around and yell at them, "Quiet!" or "Shut up!" I couldn't help but smile to myself. Many of them also have such large personalities. When I have practical speaking lessons many of them will try to make a funny skit out of the dialogue given to them (which is pretty hard considering it's ordering food, airports, etc). Their humor is fairly good and I really enjoy listening to them each time we practice. I'll end my fawning over my students with one last story. During Sports Day (more on that later) one of my students ended up tripping and losing the game for the rest of his class. When they came back and sat next to me I could tell he felt bad. The other students started teasing him for it (as far as I could tell) and it looked like he was about to cry. I felt so bad and as I was about to say something, one student put his hand on his back and patted it and said something (most likely comforting) and then all the other students joined in and clapped for him. His face changed completely around and he was okay again. You'll have to excuse the "heartwarming tale" but it really made me happy to see kids realize when too far was too far and even fixing it after. I really am proud of all of them.

That tangent about my students was actually suppose to go somewhere else, so you'll have to forgive another paragraph about my students. Originally it was intended for me to share how crazy they are when it comes to games but instead it turned into a hug fest. Who wants that right? We signed up for comedy, baby! And comedy you shall have. I spent one week (before midterms) playing English games with my students because I didn't want them to be too stressed out about their tests and have to worry about learning extra English lessons. I played a game where they create sentences with words and, if correct, they get points or the opportunity to take away all of the other team's points. Let me tell you, they love screwing over the other teams. Whenever that chance would come up, the entire team would jump up to their feet and yell victoriously. The other teams would then start negotiating with them in an attempt to have them not take away all their points. I literally had kids doing formal bows to the other teams (where they get on their knees from a standing position and bow with their heads to the floor) in an attempt to appease them to not take away their points. By the way, there was no prize. The prize was just saying you won and yet they were threatening each other with death if they took away their points. I heard curse words, threats, supplications, bargains and alliances all thrown across the room. At the end of the game the students who won would jump up in the air (because nobody was sitting by the end of the game of course) and cheer loudly. Two seconds later I would hear, "Teacher! Again! One more!" This would never, ever, ever happen in America. I had every single student (in most classes) absolutely enthralled by the game. It was almost as if their life depended on winning. I have seen this behavior in everything involving competition. They absolutely love it and get really into it. It's really funny to see. I did manage to get a video of an entire class when I played the game (so it's 50 minutes long so prepare for a marathon). I'll post it sometime in the near future, but let me say that the class I recorded was unquestionably the calmest class I had. They might have been scared by the camera (who knows?) but imagine that class multiplied by five and you will get a sampling of the other classes.

After that small(ish) side note, I move back to the time line I first started. That week was fairly uneventfully until Wednesday when I was told I get to record my voice with another native teacher. I was told a couple days before so I said "Yes" and (of course) I forgot about it. I had my co-teachers reminding me and I rushed over to the recording studio (in my school, which is awesome) and met the other teacher. She had been here for several years and was very nice. She explained that we were recording dialogue for the audio test that is played over the loud speakers on certain days. Oddly enough, my school just had one of these tests and I was laughing to myself how bad the dialogue was and how unnatural it sounded. It was payback time for those that I laughed at, I suppose. I was told that we had to say everything very slow and over articulate every word in an attempt to make it easier for the kids to understand (which explained a lot of things). We ran over a few of the dialogues, they pointed out where I needed to slow down and we were ready to begin recording. They also gave me one more detail which spiced up the recording session even more: we had to record everything in one shot. That meant that we had to read (slowly, mind you) a ten page paper for the first time and not mess up otherwise we would have to start all over. So we recorded up to about page three and the guy at the mixer board stopped us and we stepped outside to (painfully) listen to ourselves speak. It turns out that the Korean teacher who was reading the questions wasn't articulating enough (ironic right?) so we had to start all over. At this point we both said, "Can't you just pause and record where we left off?" The lady who was reading the Korean spoke to the mixer board operator and said, "No, sorry." At that point both of us looked at each other with looks that said, "How does that make any sense?" It doesn't! It makes zero sense! So we sat back down and messed up one more time until we finally got through the entire thing (not too bad considering I had never read any of it before). Near the end I was starting to repeat, "Don't mess up, don't mess up," to myself because I didn't want to be the guy that made us start all over when we got to page nine out of ten. The other native English speaker had an even worse time because she had a cold and was trying not to cough and still have a clear throat the entire time. It was pointlessly difficult but we still survived. We listened to a sampling of it and I thought, "Great. My robotic voice is going to played over the loudspeakers at some middle school (maybe even my wife's) and the native teacher will laugh at me just as I did." Well, I hope the native teacher then has to record his or her voice and realize that it's not that easy. We all must be humbled in some way, I suppose. I'm waiting for the day when I meet a teacher that says, "Your voice sounds awfully familiar..."

The rest of the week passed by fairly uneventful. On Saturday we went to an all you can eat and met some other foreigners (more people to add to our ever growing group). You pick your meat from a salad bar line up and then you grill it yourself (strange right?). I happened to pick up the last two hamburger patties and greedily ate those while everyone else had tons of beef that wasn't ground up (who wants that, right?). Overall, a fairly fun night.

The next day will require a bit more space so I will start a new entry for that. For now I will leave you with some pictures that I found to be quite amusing. (Note: You can click on any of the pictures to open them in a new window [making them bigger] if you want to experience the full detail and beauty of these shots.)
This was a shirt one of the students at my school was wearing. I honestly had no idea what it was talking about so I took a picture. He seemed to be proud of it.
Yes, they just created their own verb. You'll also notice all the people are white and the girl looks like she had her face pasted on. Hmmm...
The other is a picture from a card advertising a bidet. Yup. They had a line of bidets and due to Mike's love of them, we decided to take a picture of one and ended up finding the enema bidet (AKA the Holy Grail of bidets). "Why would they have a picture of it?" you might say and I say, "Don't ask questions."
I think my favorite part is the line that tells me to be white. Oh boy...

Did you think I was done being immature? Well you were wrong!

Tee-hee.

-Josh