I have some more shards of wisdom from my students. Because I teach the same lessons over and over again, some of them are just different answers to the questions that I ask over and over again. It breaks the monotony a little bit and makes my lessons that much more fun. Enjoy!!!




He is swimming in deep water. What must he do?
Student: He must drown!

***

Me: He is playing soccer on the road. What must he do?
Student 1: He must play baseball!
Student 2: He must play basketball!
Student 3: He must play badminton!
Student 4: He must play rugby!
Student 4 again: He must play curling!
Me: On the road?
Students: *Nod collectively*

***

Me: What questions use open?
Student 1: Can you open your mouth?
Student 2: Can you open your brain?
Student 3: Can you open my clothes? *Mimes ripping her shirt open*

Me: What questions use help?
Student 3: Can you help open my clothes? *Mimes ripping her shirt open*

Me: What other questions can you use?
Student 4: Can you love me?
Student 5: Can you kill me?
Student 6: Can you bury me?

***

Me: What is a metaphor for angry?
Student 1: My mom!
Student 2: Music teacher!
Student 3: You! (After I had sent a student out for swearing.)

Me: What is a metaphor for stubborn?
Student 4: A teenager!

Me: What is a metaphor for thin?
Student 5: A chopstick!
Student 6: A paper!
Student 7: A pizza!
Me: Huh?
Student 7: A thin pizza.
Me: *Shrugs and writes it on the board*
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Student: Teacher! Your hair! Cut!
Me: Yes, I cut my hair.
Student: You look like Christine Stewart.
Me: *Thinks for a minute who Christine Stewart is and then realises she means Kristen Stewart from Twilight. In high pitched voice of disbelief* Really?!
Students around student: *Nod in unison*

Apparently my haircut is approved of.

***

Me: *Pointing to a picture of a boy running across the street at a red light* What is happening in the picture.
Student: The boy dies.

LATER

Practicing sentences to say over the phone
Me: What can you say instead of: "I'm sorry. She's not at home."
Student 1: She's not here.
Student 2: She's at a club.
Student 3: She's dead.

***

Me: *Pointing at a picture of two children throwing bottles at monkeys* What are they doing?
Student: They are drunk!

***

Favourite student: *Calling me over to his desk* Teacher, when was Grant back to South Africa?
Me: Two months ago!
Favourite student: Wow. When will he come back Korea?
Me: He isn't coming back.
Favourite student: *Look of confusion*
Me: I am going back to South Africa.
Favourite student: *Look of confusion replaced with look of horror* When?
Me: In four months.
Favourite student: *Cue mini-tantrum involving arms thrown up in the air and head slammed on desk.*

***

Favourite student: You remember summer class?
Me: Yes.
Favourite student: Same in Winter?
Me: Maybe
Favourite student: YES! *Cue mini jump and elbow thrust followed by an "assa" (meaning awesome) as he walks down the corridor*

Yes. The last two did actually happen, yes they were the same student, and yes this student was the one who approached me on my way to Chungdae on the weekend and stared at me in disbelief. (Check the last wisdom post for this account)
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I have been in Korea for 8 months! It became official today, even though this is what I have been telling people for the last three weeks or so. Eight months, and I still hear the same question over and over again when speaking to friends and family back home or people who are new to the country. In the first months that I was here, it was a bit of a tender subject - I was still acclimatising to the country and finding my feet. But by now, I have formulated the perfect answer.

"I love the country! I hate the job."

I am not made to be a teacher. I do not know what on earth made me think that I was made to be one, or even that I would be a good one. I do not like standing up in front of 35 students and talking for 45 minutes at a time. I learned last week that I don't standing up on a stage in front of 1300 students and singing for five minutes either, crushing my dreams of becoming a singer much like an egg falling off a 30-storey building - It was shattered. I have never been one who was good at orals and standing up in front of my peers to speak, and what possessed me to volunteer to stand up in front of classes of people who don't know me from a bar of soap and essentially do the same thing only for a longer period of time, I don't think I will ever figure out. But whatever the reason, I don't think that I could handle it for another year. So while all of my friends are currently going through life-defining crises of the "to stay or not to stay" variety, my decision was made within the first few months of being here.

But then there are days like today when I can't help but feel a sense of pride in myself and my students, the sense of pride that can only come from having invested time and patience and having those efforts rewarded.

This morning I met my newest co-teacher. Since Alice left earlier in the year, two substitute teachers have taken her place, each staying for around two months. Today her final replacement arrived. I had a class with Hyo-mi this morning and I was a little nervous about it, the same way that I always am when someone new comes in and supervises my classes. I feel like I am going to fail miserably, am not going to meet their expectations and the class is just going to be an utter mess. The class itself went by with few hitches, though it was the low level class and most of them were completely unresponsive. It certainly could have been worse. I was still surprised though when Hyo-mi approached me after the class and told me what a good job she thought I had done, how well I had handled the kids, how good I was at explaining things to them in a simple, easy to understand manner and how beautiful my handwriting is. I stared at her for a little while, absolutely gobsmacked and not knowing how to respond, but pulled myself together for a brief thank you, my cheeks burning, and rushed off to lunch. It was a small ego boost, and I was grateful for it.

I expected that to be my highlight of the day - being told that I am good at what I do always makes me feel a bit better about doing it. Then I had my last class of the day. I love all of my girls classes, but I am not ashamed to admit that I have some favorites, and class 2-10 is so full of life and joy that I can't help but love them. Sure, sometimes the life and joy overflows to leave me dealing with bundles of excess energy that won't be quiet and won't sit still, but I still think that this kind of class is better than those that sit quietly, absorbing every word I say without so much as a smile. As I walked into the class, the chorus of my song started and it took a couple of minutes to calm them down and get the lesson started. One of the best things about this kind of class is that they are usually filled with imagination, which is useful when you are doing a class on metaphors - the ones that they come up with are just far more fun than the normal responses. Who wouldn't want to hear "She is my music teacher" or "She is my mother" to describe someone who is angry instead of "She is a volcano". Sure, the English in the last example is the best, but the other two make for far more amusement. The class went by in a rush of laughter and shouting and fun, and at the end of it, I left with a smile on my face with the "Lala la-la-la-la" chorus fading behind me. Then I heard one of the students calling me, and I stopped and waited for her and her friend to catch up. In their hands they were grasping the worksheet that I had handed out in class. On the back of one of the pages was a drawing of me (quite a likeness, actually) with big red rosey cheeks, and this message written underneath:

"Dear Lala teacher
We are class 2-10. We draw picture of you. We are sorry, we have many pens. We love you.
PS. We are proud you are our teacher."

I should have been annoyed that instead of listening to my lesson and actually paying attention, they were drawing a picture, but I couldn't bring myself to be annoyed. Instead a warm, fuzzy feeling spread through me and I very nearly asked if I could keep it despite it being on the back of the worksheet that they would need for their homework. This was certainly the highlight of my day.

So, while I will still say that I hate the job when asked about it, I have realised that there are some good aspects to teaching, and that it isn't all bad. It's not enough to get me to want to renew, but it does make me feel a little better about staying here for the next four months.
Since buying my camera, I have started to read a lot of photography blogs. Mostly I read them to learn about techniques and new products, but often I just glance over the text and focus on the pretty pictures instead. Over the last few weeks, a lot of these pretty pictures have involved hot air balloons. I believe that there was some big convention or festival in the states and tons of people gathered to watch hundreds of hot air balloons hover over the cities. Of course, with their bright colours and blue skies, it was the perfect opportunity for amazing photos to be taken. So, when I heard that there was going to be a hot air balloon festival in Daejeon, a short 45 minute bus ride from where I stay, I decided then and there that I had to go.

I don't think that I have mentioned it in this blog before, but I really don't like Daejeon. I haven't been there all that often, so I will admit that my opinion on the city isn't particularly well founded, but after the first time I went there I described it to my friends and family in an e-mail as being "hell on earth" (fair enough, I was referring more to Costco than the city), and this time didn't do anything to improve on that impression. Once again, it wasn't really the city that disappointed, but the circumstances, and I feel a little bad that Daejeon always has to take a bad rap for the bad times that I end up having there. Perhaps I need to set aside a weekend to go to Daejeon and actually do something enjoyable, but that will be a story for another time if it ends up happening.

I arrived in Daejeon after a shorter than usual bus trip and my spirits were high. I was going to a hot air balloon festival! My camera was burning a hole in my bag. I quickly grabbed up my cellphone and tried to call the friend that I was supposed to be meeting. I had sent him a message on leaving Cheongju, and was hoping that he would be just about ready to go.
But alas, no answer.
Hmmm... Maybe he was in the bathroom or something. I quickly typed up a message saying that I was there and as I clicked the send button, my phone buzzed with excitement. New Message.

"ey sorry turns out change of plan, in jochiwon with lady friend"

Now I don't know where Jochiwon is, but it sure as hell isn't Daejeon! I stared at the screen for a good couple of seconds before reality dawned on me. I was in Daejeon, on my own, not knowing where I was going and I had just been stood up. I had been relying on this friend, who was supposed to be spending the night near the festival grounds having gone to the rock concert the night before, to tell me where to go and I found myself stranded. I quickly tried to phone everyone I knew, trying to find out how to get to the balloon festival. After about five tries, I managed to get hold of someone who knew what was happening, and I was sent Korean instructions to give to the taxi driver. I clambered into a taxi, my good mood severely depleted, and made my way to the festival.

As we approached the festival grounds, my mood lifted ever so slightly as I saw some balloons hovering in the air and some hanggliders floating about. But, as we came to the festival itself, this initial lift in my mood gave in to gravity and came crashing to the ground once more. There wasn't a single Westerner. I stood out like a sore thumb. I made my way into the Deli Tour Show in the building opposite the fair ground and wandered through it, feeling a bit like a lost puppy. The large quantities of alcohol and food couldn't entice me though and I covered all of the stores in a matter of minutes. Reeling slightly from the feeling of disappointment, I made my way back outside and across the road to the balloons. I watched as Koreans queued for "rides" in the colourful monstrosities, but I wasn't interested in spending five minutes going up in a balloon tethered to the ground when all I wanted to do was fly away from here and from my disappointment. I watched as children were given the opportunity on the ground to pull on the ring and release the fire that would force the balloon into the air. I wandered between happy families, cutesy couples and squealing children, snapped a couple of photos and quickly made my way out of there.

I arrived back home at least five hours earlier than I had planned and immediately plugged the camera into the computer. I wanted the day to have been worthwhile in one respect even if it was a disappointment in so many others. The photos weren't what I had wanted or expected. They were either under- or over-exposed, my bad mood having led to impatience and laziness. The colours were dull. The smoggy, misty weather hadn't helped my efforts, and I knew that I shouldn't be too hard on myself, but I couldn't help it. I managed to salvage a few and find one for my photo of the day, but I wasn't impressed. The photos that I had been trying to emulate mocked me from their spots in the blogosphere.

All in all, despite the disappointment, a lesson can be learned from my trip to Daejeon. First of all, don't let my mood affect my photography (possibly the topics and subjects, but not the quality). And second, don't make plans with Ben.
I have been in Korea for seven and a half months now, and being here has definitely changed me. One of the most obvious changes that my family keeps noting is how much weight I have lost (of course this would be one of the first things that my mom notices).

In the first two months that I was here, I lost 10kg. I couldn't understand where it went. I wasn't eating particularly healthily, living off pizza, fried chicken and the occasional Indian. Mom insists that it was the exercise that I was getting walking to school everyday and the occasional hikes that I was going on, but I felt like that wasn't enough to affect me the way that it had. I was happy that I had lost the weight, but I didn't want to gain it back, and when I weighed myself a short while before Grant left, I realised that it wasn't going to stay off forever.

What could I do?

Should I join the gym?
After hearing about the Korean gyms from friends of mine and what sounded like horror stories of no airconditioning in the middle of summer (when the humidity was a killer) and owners phoning you up to ask you why you hadn't been there in a day, this wasn't something that I was too keen to do. Also, I didn't have anyone to go with! I am the kind of person who needs motivation, and self-motivation isn't usually enough to kick my ass into gear. I need someone phoning me up or knocking on my door (a friend rather than the gym owner) to tell me I need to get my ass to gym! But all of my friends either went to gyms that were too far away or else went at times that I couldn't go. Gym, for me, was out of the question.



Then, on the drunken night that followed Grant's departure, I met Cara. Cara lived in Yongam-dong, my area, and told me about a Taekwondo class that she took with her friends. Taekwondo, I thought to myself. This could be the answer! And so, a couple of weeks later, I started the classes. Four nervous girls, all first timers, and two experienced ones faced the master on that first night and the training began with a day of stretching and exercises as we molded our muscles into the shape that they would need to be. The first night was tough, and we all left the studio drenched in sweat, but that was only the beginning. The master never goes easy on us and insists that it's only going to get harder the longer we stay. Yet, none of us want to leave. Every night I walk the twenty minutes to meet Jess and Adriana (the seventh member to join our group) and another twenty minutes to the studio, and every night I come home feeling stiff, exhausted, but a lot more confident and energetic than ever before. Monday was the first test of our skills, and I passed earning my yellow belt, an achievement that I feel ridiculously proud of.


I am only in Korea for four more months, but I am hoping to get at least two more belts before I leave, leaving the country as a blue belt. I am finding myself wondering already how much it's going to cost back home and how quickly I will be able to advance to my black belt. I am ready to start my training.
I have been doing a lot of contemplating recently. I have been looking at my life and re-evaluating it. I have been thinking of home and the things that I have to look forward to, and while these are numerous (as Grant keeps pointing out), there are also a lot of things that are scaring me about the years ahead. One of these things is my friendships.

When I was in high school, I had a really close-knit group of friends. We weren't the popular kids, we weren't the nerds, we were somewhere in between, and we were happy that way. We would sit in a classroom during breaks and just chat, catch up, waste time and revel in each others company. When high school ended, we all went our separate ways, some going further than others and heading towards Israel, some staying right where they were in Cape Town and me moving to Grahamstown. But despite our distance, we still kept close, getting together at the end of the year in Cape Town once more and, without any awkwardness or hesitation, picking up where we had left off. But, as the years passed, we grew further apart, and while I still consider these people as some of my best friends, we are not nearly as close as we used to be. Rachel is married, David engaged, Gina living in Johannesburg, Natasha and Richard studying hard at university, Alain doing what I am but in Taiwan and Hayley as dedicated to her work as ever. Being here I feel so disconnected from all of them, and the distance hasn't done me good. There have been unforgivable fights and broken ties, and, aside from the occasional facebook message, I haven't properly spoken to any of them in months. I am not blaming them, I am right up there in the blame department, but there is a sense that all of my friendships are falling apart.

It isn't just the old school-day friendships that are in jeopardy either. I am feeling completely disconnected from a lot of the university friends that I was close to, only speaking to two of them on a fairly regular basis (love you Robyn and Amy!). I lost most of my first year university friends long ago because of a split in the group that I was never a part of and could never understand, and lost a number of others along the way for various reasons, and the weight of these lost friendships has been a weight on my heart recently. I keep wondering what if, and the outcomes seem to hurt more than the reality at times.

One of the biggest problems that I had when I got to Korea was with friendships. Sure, I was meeting a whole bunch of people right from the start, but my friendships with them were nothing compared to the ones that I had back home. Even though I knew a lot of people, for the first six months here, when something was wrong, I felt that I didn't have anyone to turn to. There were people that I spoke to on a daily basis, but I kept feeling like I couldn't open up to them, that if they saw me at my lowest point, nothing would be the same again. But, after six months, I eventually found someone that I could talk to about anything, that I wanted to talk to about anything and everything. I finally found someone that I could rely on and who could rely on me. It was a great feeling, the kind that made the time that was left feel a lot shorter. And then I made a mistake, and could feel it starting to slip away. It was a small knock, something that will probably be forgotten in a couple of weeks, but it was enough to remind me of all the friendships that I have lost over the years and the sudden realisation that I have been taking my friendships for granted.

One of the main problems that I have been having with my friendships over the years is that I can't keep my mouth shut. It is a persistent problem that I have had since I was very young, and one that I think is hereditary and causes endless fights between my father and I. One of my friends recently described it as my need to always be right, but I don't think that's quite it, though it is halfway there. I don't always have to be right, but I do always have to have my opinion heard. I can admit that my opinion isn't always right, but it is mine, and I think that the need to express it is going to come in very handy when I one day have my own newspaper or magazine column (dreaming, I know.) But it doesn't really help my friendships. And so, I have made a resolve to try and keep my mouth shut from now on. I am going to try and keep my opinion to myself unless explicitly asked not to, and while I know that this is going to be a struggle for me, I do think that it will be for the best.

So, before I finish off, I just want to say sorry to the people that I have hurt through the voicing of my opinion over the last few months. These are far from the only people I have hurt, but they are the ones that I feel have been affected the most. David, Alain, Patrick and Jessica (who hasn't been on the receiving end of the opinions, but has had all too many voiced to her), I love you guys and I hope that you can forgive me.