Captain's Log, Day 43

Okay I don't actually know how many days I've been here but that's gotta be somewhat accurate. I've been writing a lot of fluff posts lately which are mildly entertaining (I hope) but don't really say what's going on with me. So here's the lastest...

Work is pretty routine now. I have classes I like and classes I dislike, same goes for the kids. I find I really like the classes where I have a lot to teach and can use examples, which tend to be the grammar classes. Plus in those classes the kids are older so they are a little easier to handle and fun to be around. The classes that I don't really like are the phonetic classes where all you really do is say the sound or the word and they repeat it. I have two of these classes back to back and they are so repetitive. Plus in these classes the kids are so young and drive me a little bit mental. Literally you can spend a whole class doing 'am' words, ram, ham, dam, etc. and the next class you walk in and write ram on the board and say "okay what's this?" and the kids shout out "A" or "yes" or "blglsjd" and you just want to scream! Fortunately right now I seem to have more of the older kids but rumour has it I might be getting another phonetics class at an even lower level. And if that happens I am just going to start making up my own phonetic sounds, see how fast they learn then! It's funny though in the older classes the girls tend to love me, I said 'shit' by accident in one of my first classes so both the girls and boys thought I was great (they are thirteen, shit is a big deal!), and then they saw my tattoo (which you will not see on Koreans) and one of the girls noticed I have three earring holes in my ears... so all of this adds up to the fact that I am the coolest person they know (not to brag or anything).

I haven't been learning much Korean, okay I haven't been learning any Korean. The phrases I can say are hello/goodbye which I thought was the same word but turns out there is a difference in the start, so for the last six weeks I've been walking out of stores saying "Hello!" when they say good-bye. I know how to say left/right and straight and also the phrase "What are you looking at? Do you want to die?" (kids love it, I haven't said it to them yet but they double over when Lorne says it to them). I think I am gonna try and make an honest effort at it though and one of the Korean teachers is willing to help me with it which is nice.

Weekends are really low key lately, which I like because after a week with the kids it is nice to go out for a drink with the people from work but I like having my alone time after working with the same people all week long. Also I usually take a long walk on Saturdays and explore the city by foot, I must have gone about 20km this past Saturday and am starting to get a fantastic tan. This weekend coming up we are headed to Seoul so I will get a break from being lowkey and also have some new pictures to post.

During the week I don't get up to very much usually just work and the gym, then come home and chat on msn and download episodes of the OC. Lately I have become strangely addicted to a game called Fish Tycoon which is like SimCity but you create a fish shop. So much better than having real fish.

Hmmmmm.... what else? My vacations work out really well for me which is nice being that I had no say in them. I have a 3 or 4 day weekend at least once a month. In October I get a full week because it is Chuchak (sp?) which is the main Korean holiday. (also would be a great time if anyone is planning a visit, hint hint hint) Then at Christmas I have 11 or 12 days, and I'm not 100% positive but I think I will probably come home for it being that I missed it last year and something tells me that Christmas in Korea won't be as fun as Christmas in Oz. Then after Christmas the holidays are fewer and far between but I get five days in May which will be nice being that my contract will just be ending then.

Okay well I think that is about it. Not very exciting and you may now understand a little better why I need to fill my blog with so much fluff. A lot of people also say that they go to comment but have to sign in so they don't, I tried to change this function but I can't seem to find a way around it, if you know how to do it let me know and I will fix it.

Good-bye for now.

Diana