Korean Men

Anybody that has lived in Korea knows that I could conclude this blog with one word, BEAUTIFUL.
Up until probably the day that I left San Diego to move here I was still torn on whether Korea was really the country that I wanted to teach in. I was debating between Thailand and Korea for months on end but the moment I was set to board my plane in San Francisco on a direct flight to Seoul I knew I had made the right decision because standing at the gates checking tickets was the most attractive man I had ever seen, (He has been trumped quite a few times since I have been here). He was none other than of Korean decent and the beginning of my slight obsession.

I have a natural attraction to Asian men. I am not sure exactly why, it could be because I grew up in a community highly concentrated with Asians or maybe I was influenced by all of the Asian cartoons and Asian martial arts movies I watched as a child but something has drawn me to favor them over other races. And upon moving here, Korean men have quickly ascended to the top as my specific flavor of choice.

In my eyes Korean men have the advantage over other Asian races for  3 reasons. 
1- they are on average, taller.
2-they have AMAZING hair (if i have a Korean baby that child will be blessed)
3- and many of them have thick thighs (this is the icing on the cake).

Sometimes when I am out I feel as if I am dreaming. Everywhere I turn I am surrounded by  K-POP star look-a-likes (photo examples are the end of the blog). Not only are they endowed with flawless faces and messy but yet some how perfectly styled hair, Korean men have impeccable style. From the tailored business suit wearing men who go against the traditional black shiny shoes and wear matte brown to the "I just threw this together but somehow STILL look runway ready" to the "I wear bright colored Nikes with every outfit and yet STILL make it fashionable" or whatever their style may be, someway or another they always look good. I am constantly getting caught by my friends eye raping every Korean male in my vicinity or getting left behind because I was distracted by a man who we had just walked passed. But even after all the admiration I have yet and probably will never make a move.

If somebody was asked to describe me, the last word out of their mouth would be shy. Before coming to Korea I had not been shy a single day in my life, especially when it came to men. That was easy, being turned down did not frighten me, I knew it wouldn't kill me so I didn't fear it. But here in Korea, I still know it won't kill me but I am complete incapable of functioning. Around Korean men I am like a school girl, the simplest things out of their mouths make me blush furiously. I don't care if it is just our waiter taking an order or somebody ringing me up at the convenience store, my brain goes to mush. Maybe its the perfect swoop in their hair or the disappearing eyes when they smile or the fact that they may or may not speak English,  whatever it is something there intimidates me.

So here I am living in my ideal world, in my ideal situation (surrounded by men who I am attracted to) unable to gather enough guts to do anything.

#CHEERS2BEINGCHICKENSHIT
 


PS: after a little liquid courage I was finally able to make a move ^^

What the h**l did I just eat?

Yesterday was a day I will never forget, ever.

It started out as any other normal night, 2 friends of mine (and Englishman and a South African) and I decided to grab dinner and drinks. Somehow or another one of the two gentlemen brilliantly (this is complete sarcasm) suggests that we "try something new." We headed in a direction that we have not ventured before to discover a new restaurant and came upon 2 neighboring places. One was a typical Galbi place that only had one table seated and the other was another meat (unknown to us at the time what kind of meat) restaurant that was quite busy. My English friend made the ultimate decision that it was in our best interest to eat at the more popular place, his first bad decision of the night and my South African friend and I willingly agreed, our first bad decision of the night.

Walking through the restaurant all of the tables are eating and enjoying the same unidentified dish. None of us have any idea what it is that they are eating but this doesn't stop us from allowing ourselves to be seated. The EM (Englishman) and myself were left to decide what to order, the SA (South African) left briefly and before he left he said (this is not a direct quote) "Go ahead and order, just no seafood" his second bad decision.

I read Hangeul (Korean) at about the same rate a Kindergartner does, as I am attempting to read the menu on the wall a lady comes over to take our order. She starts speaking in Korean, I assume giving us dinner choices. I was in over my head, I did not catch a single word she was saying so I let the EM deal with it, my second bad decision. The entire time she was speaking when she would pause the EM was reply with "ye" (means yes in Korean) so I assumed he knew what the heck was going on. Finally our order was complete and she left.

Me: "Did you understand all of that?"
EM: "Nope"
Me: "Do you know what you just ordered?"
EM: "Nope, but I am positive it wasn't seafood."

The SA returned and our adventure began.

First came the Soju and beer which were the only two things that would be served to us that we were familiar with. Two completely fine and consumable things.

Then, came the side dishes, our first clue that we had made a terrible dinner choice. The normal side of lettuce, dipping sauces and kimchi were served but then there was this plate of ....stuff. On the plate two different things were served. The first was what looked like snake skin. It was silvery/grey scaly strips of something. Next to it is what I would guess as some type of raw organ, maybe a heart or a chopped up liver. We all looked at each other asking one another if we knew what either of them were, none of us did, but we decided to give it a go anyways. When in Korea, why not does as the Koreans do right? I myself could only work up the guts to try the snake skin look alike, it was chewy and tasted what I imagine earth tastes like. The SA tasted the raw organ and I would bet quite a lot of money that he won't be eating it again.(Later he decided that it tasted better than our main course)

Our main dish came out and was set upon the grill in the center of the table. On it was onions, sweet potato slices and this unidentified meat. We all sat there trying to figure out what exactly it was as it cooked between us. The lady working would come by and flip our meat since none of us made the attempt to even touch it. Finally she gave us the go to eat it. All of us gathered the courage to try it.

Imagine eating the chewiest bubble gum, stuffed with chunky mashed potatoes. That was its consistency.

The flavor... I can't describe. It was, strange for a lack of a better word. For me, at first it was tasteless but as I continued to chew this thick, bland, moldy flavor coated my taste buds.. No matter the size of the gulp of soju/beer I couldn't get it out of my mouth.

We all were pretty horrified. We were fine with eating the onions and the sweet potatoes but after eating one piece of the meat like concoction each and realizing that it was disgusting we still had an ENTIRE grill filled with it.

The SA gf happens to be Korean and she informed us that it tasted good when crispy. This gave us some hope. We all used our chopsticks to hold down pieces of this meat to get them as crispy as possible with out burning them and then gave it another go...

Still disgusting.

We all picked at the vegetables a bit longer before deciding that we needed to finish our drinks and find real food. We left our table, grill still hardly touched and went to cash out. Food in Korea is very inexpensive, well most food. For our dinner if I had to guess the price BEFORE we paid, I would have guessed around 32,000 KRW, boy was i wrong. I handed over my debit card to pay (dinner wasn't on me they paid me their parts) and went to sign... 49,000 KRW. 49,000 KRW for some unidentifiable meat that we didn't even eat. We basically just paid to eat onions..  the most expensive damn onions I have ever eaten.

We eventually figured out that we had dined at an entrails restaurant. I told my COTeachers and other Co Workers about my experience and they all laughed hysterically at our surprise and reaction. I suppose this is something us westerners just do not understand.


#CHEERS2TRYINGEVERYTHINGONCE




Photos of the Meal:

Main Course

Side Dishes

I don't ever use people's names.. that is why I distinguished my two friends by their countries of origin.

loooking for sunshinee!

You always hear that places with sunshine and warm weather breed happier people, I never understood why or how the weather could effect somebody's happiness. I have always believed that happiness is something that is on the inside, you're happy because you decide to be happy and whether or not somebody or something can tamper this is decided by you.

And then the temperature dropped.

I didn't realize that I was depressed until yesterday. (I only call it depressed for a lack of a better term. In no way do I want to cause harm to myself, hate my life (I LOVE MY LIFE) or anything to the extreme like that.) Right now I find complete satisfaction in spending my nights alone, lying on my heated floors watching Breaking Bad. That big ball of sunshine that I usually infuse a room with (ball of sunshine = over the top personality) has sizzled out. Interacting with people has become a chore. The thought of going out exhausts me. I used to be this big social butterfly, according to my dad  I "couldn't miss any event," which was true. Being among people is my calling, getting out, socializing, dressing up, making friends, all of those are things that I LOVE to do. But lately the furthest I make it is the gym (NOTHING, not even a Zombie apocalypse, will ever get in the way of this), where after I immediately go home and continue to submerge myself in the life of a high school chem teacher gone king pin drug lord.

And with temperature drops the amount of clothes I wear has gone up.

I am not known for being modest when it comes to dressing. I always keep it classy  but I workout to maintain my body so of course I wore and will always wear clothes that flaunt this. Living in a year round summer made it easy to do this.. shorts, skirts, tank tops and the occasional cute jacket when needed. But today and for the rest of the winter I will be the big, tall, round, red headed American in the purple winter coat. And even after I shed the winter coat I am beginning to layer so much under my regular clothes I look like I could possibly be with child, smuggling two thanksgiving hams in my jeans and at the same time making serious attempts to compete with Nicky Minaj in a "who has the biggest rump" competition.

All in all, as the temperature continues to drop so does the space on my hard drive. After I finish Breaking Bad I have a list a mile long of other shows I am planning on consuming and I am open for any suggestions:) !

CHEERS2FINDINGMYINNERSHINEAGAIN

Kid's say the darnedest things...

A typical cliche blog about the sh*t my students have said to me.

6:
Student: "Kala Teacha I buy you candy."
Me: "Thank you! Where is it?"
Student: "I ate it."

5:
I went to school with mis matching socks.
Student: "Kala Teacher you're a fashion terrorist!"

4:
After showing my class a picture of LeBron James
Student: "Your brother?"
Me: "No"
Student: "Yes, you have same skin."
Me: "All black people are not related"
Student: "Yes huh! You have same dad."

3:
After showing a picture of Chris Paul wearing a baseball hat
Me: "What is he wearing?"
Student: "A black face."

2:
Student: "Why do you have spots?"
Me: "They are freckles and I was born this way."
Student: "No, spots, like dog."

1:
Student: "Teacher, perm-a?"
Me: "No, natural"
Student (under his breath as he walks away): "Liar."

teaching my students the cha-cha slide...

Where is The Bookstore? was the title of last week's lesson in our textbook. The focus of this lesson was teaching the students how to give and understand directions.  We (my CO and I) always introduce a new song with each lesson, something that relates in someway or another. Obviously, since I was teaching directions the no brainer song to include was DJ Casper's The Cha Cha Slide.

Coincidentally, last week our school had class productions. Each homeroom class put together some type of performance to present to parents, faculty and other classes. My co-teacher decided that we too should put something together for the 5th grade production. Because we are  specialty subject teachers we do not have a homeroom class, instead we teach every 5th grade homeroom class English 2/3 periods a week. In order for us to put something together we had to use the ENTIRE 5th grade class, which is roughly about 180 students.

We decided to go with a song and dance performance. My CO organized our performance in 3 segments; the first, a select group of students danced on stage to the song "Can you join us" while the rest of the students in the audience would sing. Then we would have the entire 5th grade class dance the cha-cha slide in the audience, followed by the entire 5th grade class singing the "I can" song.

Organizing what we were going to do was easy enough, teaching the students the dances (mainly the Cha-Cha Slide)  was another story.

While the cha-cha slide is an easy dance to learn and do, it isn't easy to do well. It requires rhythm, hip motion and for a lack of a better word, swag. You can't teach these things, they are like natural instincts. All dogs can swim, well certain races naturally have the ability to dance well. I personally wouldn't vouch and say that Korean was one of these races.

So teaching my students the cha-cha slide was an adventure. At first, the only students who would actually even attempt to do the dance were  the goofy boys who pretty much just made a mockery of it the entire time. The rest of the students would cling to their chairs as if they were clinging on for life or death, but we didn't give up.  I would literally  tear my students from their chairs and  force them to dance. As the week progressed more students began to willingly participate. It eventually got to the point where I had students asking me to let them practice in my classroom during lunch time.

When my students first started to learn the dance  they looked like a bunch of cardboard cut-outs. Stiff, boring, no flavor or attitude. Teaching the steps to the cha-cha was easy, but getting them to sway their hips and move their arms while doing it was not. Because I speak no Korean (beyond being polite and important terms to shop with) explaining to my students how to groove and feel the music was difficult. I would have to move their hips and arms for them (in a totally appropriate manner!) and demonstrate myself. . We might have danced the cha-cha slide well over 100 times.

But come D-Day they got it! My CO and I danced on the stage as our mass of students did the dance in the audience and our performance was AWESOME. The parents LOVED it and the Principal was extremely impressed that we got the ENTIRE 5th grade class to do something as a group with out having any form of destruction occur. Both the Principal and Vice at lunch expressed how much they enjoyed our performance in their best English, I received many emails from other teachers telling me how great of a job we did and the students we so proud of themselves. And even after all the reluctance that my students felt towards the dance in the beginning, the day after the production my students begged  me to allow them to do it one last time.

I do not yet have the video of the actual performance but for now I have a few videos from lunch time practices. Enjoy :)

Can You Join Us Song

Cha-Cha Slide

#CHEERS2MYSTUDENTSFORBEINGAWESOME

Teaching Pet Peeves

While I do enjoy teaching as a now job, there are a few things that I have encountered that really irk me.


#1 Finding a decent side of your chalk that will actually make a legible mark on the chalk board. I can't stand being in the middle of a lesson and trying to write something on the board and having the chalk produce some scrawny dashed line that nobody can read, it kills that moment of emphasis and it isn't ever a quick fix, usually I must rotate and try the chalk multiple times before I can find the good side and by that time the moment is gone.

#2 Chalk boards in general. After 6 periods of using the chalk board my hands  look ashy and my clothes look like I rolled around in a pile of dust.

#3 Having 15 different white board markers and NONE of them work. I swear there must be a school boogey man who spends all night wasting the ink in my markers. It is sad that when I find a working marker I feel the same excitement a child does on Christmas.

#4 Those moments when you are in the middle of punishing or scolding a student and they say something that makes you want to laugh.

Example: One of my students was extra talkative in class.

His first inturruption I just caught his eye and gave him the shhhhh sign

His second inturruption I said " _____ stop speaking in Korean and listen please."

His thrid inturruption I said loudly "_____ didn't I ask you to stop talking?!?"

His response, "Yes but I speak-y in ENGLISH! You say Korean tee-cha."

I had to keep a straight face, if I would have laughed all my credibility would have went down the drain. 

#5 Copies. I might single handedly be responsible for  deforestation in Korea. Somewhere between figuring out how many copies of papers I will need for my classes and the actual copying of them I end up with a stack of extras comprable to the thickness of a textbook. There are only so many "arts and crafts" components I can throw in my lessons to cover this up...obviously I wasn't a math major.

#6 Teaching in slippers. Here in Korea you do not wear your outside shoes inside of most places including here at school so teachers and students alike wear inside shoes usually some form of slippers. I wear a pair of knock off Adidas pre-game slippers, the ones with the one thick strap across the top of your foot. The slippers bother me  for two reasons. The first because I find myself somehow managing to kick them off of my foot as I walk. A few times I have even managed to accidentally launch my slippers at my students, which they find absolutely hilarious and I find frightening because I am afraid one day I am going to take a student's eye out with it (There might or might not have been a few times I have hit or almost hit a student and wasn't entirely apologetic about it). The second reason they bother me is because they make it very hard to take any male at work seriously. The male teachers here come to school dressed in full on business suits and give up their shiny dress shoes at the door for slide on slippers. It is impossible not to chuckle the first few times you see a man in a suit with slippers...and for me it is impossible not to chuckle EVERY single time I see this. When ever I am around the Principal, Vice Principal or any of the male teachers I am usually suppressing a giggle while attempting to keep my professional disposition present, not easy at all.

#7 (this is a LOVE/HATE relationship) Candy. Imagine a crack addict being stripped of his pipe. Candy to my students is like crack to a crack addict. If I mention giving candy for anything such as participation all of a sudden EVERYBODY knows the answer. If it is for the winning team in one of the class games you would think we were in game 7 of the NBA playoffs with a rivalry as deep as the Celtics and Lakers. My students get cut throat. Today's game required one person from each team to run to the board to read a sentence that they then had to run back and  dictate to their team. During one of the sprints to the front the littlest girl in the 6th grade (by littlest I mean shortest and thinnest) chucked a fellow classmate into the desks just to beat him to the front of the room. Candy changes students, before today she was always timid and shy but at the mention of candy she became this vicious little fighter ready to kill anybody that tried to get in her way of winning.

#8 Gangnam style. You think this has nothing to do with teaching, but it does. If another student shouts "Heyyyyy Sexy Lady!!" At me in the hallway as I walk by I just might lose my marbles. I feel like I am back at home where the only pick up line guys seem to know is "Hey Ma." Redundancy is annoying in any country at any age. I just might hold a class period on HOW to talk to women in ways that are affective because it seems like men all over the world are pretty damn clueless.

#CHEERS2MYFIRST9TO5

Cold Weather.

 Warning this is a rant from a girl who has "I grew up in Paradise" problems.

Let me start this off by saying I was born and raised in Paradise aka. San Diego, CA.

When I first was deciding on where I wanted to be located in Korea I requested a city that had a temperate climate and my recruiter (I am sure laughed at me also)  informed me that just does not exist in Korea. For the first time in my life I am experiencing these things called seasons.

Back home, we think we have seasons. Summer hovers around 80 and 90 degrees and then drops to 50 (if it is really cold) but on average it is mid 60s in the Winter. Even so, at home we all bitch and complain about the weather, "it's soo hot today" or "it's too cold." For San Diegans it's always too something, anything that is not within 5 degrees of 80 is too something.  People laugh and joke about how we are sissys when it comes to weather well it is TRUE! It isn't our fault we live (in my case liveD) in Paradise.

Right now it is October and about 60 degrees on average daily here in Korea which apparently is "nothing" as everybody keeps telling me as they laugh at how cold I claim to already be. The coldest month, so I have heard, is January. That is 3 months away...I have no idea what to expect, but I am terrified.

Everyone around me has been extremely nice. I am constantly being given advice on how to prepare and live through the winter. Some people honestly worry about me and other find my ignorance amusing, all still providing me with survival tips. But even with all of this winter advice, friends and family, I do not think I am going to survive.

Back home when the temperature drops too low for our liking  we bust out our trendy scarves, boots, coats and call ourselves "bundling up." My San Diego "winter coat" is lined with Leopard print silk. I may not be an expert on extreme temperatures but I do not think silk is on the list for best cold weather material. I own beenies and scarves, all of them quite fashionable and can spruce up any look but here scarves and beenies are not a fashion statement, they are a means to survival. The days of dressing up my shorts with a cute beenie or a scarf are over. Now I will wrap my neck like a burrito to fend off the piercing wind and top it with my Michelin Man Coat (I did get a very cute color so all fashion is not lost). And yes, it is complete with the fur. 


(Fact: Korea is the most fashionable country in the world and without a doubt I am sure that Koreans find and do succeed in being fashionable during the winter and I am just a big sissy from San Diego who likes to complain)


Speaking to people from colder parts of the world I am constantly hearing that they couldn't imagine not having a cold Christmas. They like being able to cozy up by the fire and ...? So far that is the only reason I have heard from people who actually desire a cold Christmas. The fire is fine and dandy but what about after Christmas? It is still cold, Christmas is over, you have to go back to work, you can no longer cozy up by your fire, so now what do you have? Nothing but cold weather. Those of you who can't imagine anything BUT a cold Christmas just haven't experienced a warm one. It is amazing, we may not have a fire but I don't think that can be considered missing much.Winter sports? We have them AND we wear sleeve-less tops while doing them. Beat that.

Luckily, I have been given a slew of advice from cold weather veterans that I am going to include in case anybody else is as clueless as I am.

1. Layer, Layer, Layer. Buy: Long underwear, a "proper" winter coat, thick gloves, thick scarves and warm socks.
2. Keep your chest, wrists and neck warm.
3. Set your timer for your heating
4. Blow dry your hair before going outside
5. Layer, Layer, Layer (this is the most popular piece of advice I have been given)
6. Get from point A to point B as quickly as possible
7. Buy a personal space heater or have a cuddle buddy. *Preferable a Jacob vs Edward (Twilight reference).
8. Blow warm air under your covers with a blow dryer before getting in bed
9. Take warm coffee in a mug to work
10. Stay inside.

So, in my preparation to survive and taking from all of the advice I have received I figured I MUST do 3 things.

1. I must lose inches but gain body fat. Why must I lose inches? Well all this talk of wearing long underwear under my pants isn't going to happen unless I do so. The only thing fitting in my pants is myself.  I can barely put them on when I have lotion on and somehow I am supposed to put an EXTRA layer of cloth under? Not happening. Why must I fatten up? Fat is suppose to keep you warm, bears fatten up before winter, animals that live in the North Pole have very high body fat, larger people tend to get warmer quicker ext... well at a whopping 19percent body fat (thank you Korean food I am incredibly fit) my fat (or lack there of) won't be keeping me warm. Joke is on me, for once being fit is working against me.
2. I must give up my social life outside of my apartment walls.  One reason, heated flooring. Why should I leave the warmth of my floors for the outside world? The farthest I see myself traveling is next door, sorry neighbor you're stuck with me all winter.
3. I must find and download many seasons of many shows because I will be racking up my viewing hours. (Suggestions are welcome)

There is a positive to me experiencing my first winter, I finally get to put my Roca Wear puffy jacket circa 90's and early 00's rap music videos to use :). It even becomes a vest!

#CHEERS2SURVIVING.

**Despite what it sounds like, I very much love Korea and yes I have exaggerated a lot in this blog.