Louise's Seoul

Yet again it has taken me a number of weeks to post another entry. It’s not that I am short of something to say, but that I am too lazy to get on the bus to the nearest non-minging PC-bang. There is one on the second floor of the same building of my flat, but it is dirty, smelly and I cannot bear to touch the keyboard for fear of getting assorted sticky-stuff on my fingers. I don’t understand what is wrong with the management of that place- the majority PC bangs are clean and well-run. Even the namja-chingu (boyfriend) cannot bear to go down there (and men can in general cope with grime better than women).

A couple of weeks ago I bought a laptop which I am overjoyed with. Or, to be more specific, namja-chingu contributed \200,000 as a Christmas present, and I paid the other \500,000. A great weight off his mind as it is one less present he has to think about, especially as it is our anniversary a few days before Christmas.

Anyway my laptop is an Apera with a 12.1” wide screen and fairly light weight at 1.8kg; these factors along with the price are the most important to me, as I wanted one that is easy to carry. It is only 1.4GHz but this is respectable given the price, and has a CD-R/RW+DVD+ROM. Naturally the namja-chingu bent over backwards to help me with a sense of pride that HIS girlfriend is buying a laptop (even though numerous girlfriends buy laptops). Also this is more or less his field, so I could trust his advice, though incidentally I would regard anyone’s advice, especially a man’s advice as valuable, as when it comes to computers I am a complete airhead).

After buying the laptop, we set about trying to get internet connection, but not service will accept a 2 month connection without imposing a ridiculous fee (I will move out of here end of Feb next year). Thus I have no choice but to continue using PC bangs, but as I mentioned before the one downstairs is filthy.

Back to the other events in my life, the hagwon is experiencing an almost complete overhaul in staffing. Tim and Mike are leaving, the two supervisors got fired, and another Korean teacher upped-sticks and left without notice. As well as replacing the two supervisors, boss also pulled a new manager out of his rear-end (some random bloke who came out of nowhere, without any announcement of finding someone for this position and interviews thereof) who was then made vice-principal two weeks later. Following this, the SLP management now have got new, swanky comfortable office chairs, while we lowly teachers still have the cheap, that-will-do, I-made-it-myself-using-loo-roll-and-sticky-back-plastic type office chairs. The amusement never ends in this place.

On the up side, next week Father Christmas will be visiting SLP (probably the new vice-principal) and giving out presents to the kindys. Last week they wrote letters to Santa (in English) about what they want for Christmas. The letters are then sent the parents, and the parents then give the presents to ‘Santa’ on the sly a week before his ‘visit’. At least half of my class want a puppy or a kitten, so I am interested in how this is going to turn out. Still, it’s not as bad as Mike’s brood: most of them want a beetle…yes, the actual insect.

This week Songsu and I will celebrate our 1st year anniversary, and next Saturday we will be on an aeroplane to Manchester. Songsu will have the full Lamb Family Christmas Experience, and hopefully the meeting-the family-thing will go well, the only hiccups being the ones from my throat as a result of alcohol consumption.
I feel that this year has been quite an achievement. All of my students have shown a dramatic improvement in their English, especially the kindergarteners. We have moved from: “ Teacher…!!! Daniel *Korean something something something* wwwaaaaaaa!!!! (tears fall), to “Teacher, Sam is pushing!” (slightly disgruntled expression). However mistakes are still made of course, especially by elementary school students, to the foreign teacher’s amusement.

In summary of this week (and this year):

Kiddie comment of the week:
“Teacher!!! Chris is trash can!!” (Translation: Chris is playing with the trashcan).

Written work of the week:
“I rode a Viking”. (Translation: I rode a Viking boat…unfortunately written by a teenage girl).

Test answer of the year:
Where does a police officer work?
= A police officer works in a police restaurant.

So true.

posted by Louise @ 3:48 pm