jet lag (aka winter break, phase 1)

the first 1/3 of my winter break is now over. tomorrow i will head to seoul and then i'll be off to Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Kuala Lumpur, and Bali for 2 weeks! it's gonna be soo hot! which sounds exciting at first, but honestly, after being in korea for the last few months, i think i'm gonna melt haha. (as i write, jinju is 23 degrees while seoul is a straight 0...).

but anyway, here are some highlights from phase 1 of my winter break:

-prepared the most xmas presents in my life! (and these aren't even all of them!) i wrote merry christmas in korean on those pastry things to give to the teachers i like but am not close enough with to give a bigger gift.

-spent christmas eve at Club NB with 2PM who, of course, encored with heartbeat (the last clip in my school festival video).

-went to the war memorial where a portrait of the great battle of jinju exists
-finally took a pic with my ad, which can be seen throughout seoul
-went to Urbana in St. Louis. which was amazing! my main reason for going was to try and figure out the next steps in life and some options definitely arose so that was sweet.

-being at urbana also meant getting to kick it with kyle, emily, and damata. not to mention also getting to be in chris harry's bible study with hundreds of other people. and sharing a room with kenny wong and jon liu.

-spent new years eve worshiping with 17,000 people at urbana

-hit up the gateway arch in STL

-shot a shotgun though i failed to hit anything, which was a little bruising to my ego, i'm not gonna lie. i'm usually pretty good at shooting games. ahh well..

-went home to LA, which meant going to the beach! twice! (pics taken from tiff) where some of the boys (anton "studied," though he made up the exercise by running to the factories or wherever he went, crazy kid) participated in the great Manhattan Beach Triathlon, which consisted of push-ups (winner: me), sprinting (winner: tay), and yoga (winner: yang). yang came in last in both push-ups and the sprint, yet outlasted everyone at yoga by like 10 min lol

seriously... how is this possible in january? i love this place

-then kate and her host-bro came out to LA (after they spent a week in jeff city, missouri). took them to Venice Beach, Beverly Hills, K-Town, and Disneyland. and, maybe more importantly, took um to eat In-n-Out, K-BBQ LA style (with beef and rice paper), and Hawaiian BBQ (Shakas).

these two are so weird. there's no question they're related.

it is a small world after all... smaller than you think, yet somehow bigger at the same time...

-lastly, here's a pic of the cherry of a car that i'm borrowing for the year... ballin!


out: the reason i am calling this phase of my winter break, jet lag is because my sleeping patterns have been soo jacked these last three weeks. my first week in the US, at urbana, i woke up at 7am the first morning, then 3am, 3am, 4am, and then i didn't go to sleep until 4am. and then these last few days back in Korea, i've woken up at 6:30, 7, 4:30. it is now 3am and i'm supposed to wake up in 5 hours to catch a 4-hour bus ride up to seoul. i'm surprised i'm not dead yet.

it's a new year! which means it's time to try to accomplish our goals in life again! and to maybe not give up this time.. man, there is so much to work on!

can you feel my heartbeat?!

here's a video of some of the highlights from my school's end-of-the-year festival, which included basketball and soccer competitions, a korean bbq party, fun (questionable) science experiments/demonstrations, student performances, fireworks, and an astronomy show!

happy holidays!! wherever in the world you may be!



my kids are great

joy

what brings joy?

maybe we can start with what takes joy away. my joy is killed when... i get hungry, it's raining, it's cold, i'm tired, i'm busy, i show up at school and find out that my classes have been cancelled, i'm on the bus and my butt begins to hurt and i'm only halfway to my destination, i miss the bus that i was supposed to have caught, i want to play guitar but it's too late so i don't want to disturb people, i run out of clean clothes, we have only vegetables for dinner or when my hostmom isn't home and my hostdad just gives me soup, somebody cuts me off while i'm driving, i begin to miss the people that were important in my life, i want something that i cannot have.

in light of all these joy killers, most of which i endure on a weekly, if not daily, basis, what is it, then, that brings me joy?

well, before i turn to that, maybe i should answer this first: do the antitheses of joy killers actually bring joy? in other words, does being full bring me joy? maybe. but there certainly is that fine line where i'm happy to be eating good food to where i want to die because i've now eaten too much. sun and warm weather? well, it depends if i am getting to enjoy it or not. being inside all day kind of negates that one. when i'm awake and my schedule is completely free? depends on how i choose to spend with my day i guess. people who cut me off certainly displeases me, but was there any joy there to begin with? am i actually joyful as i drive?

i could probably go on and break down the rest as well, but i think the point is beginning to become clear: the things that take away our joy (and there are many) aren't even necessarily correlated with bringing us joy. in other words, while these joy killers may explain our lack of joy, they do not explain when we do have joy.

now, what is it that can bring joy? one answer, and i have to thank my students for this, is relationships. yesterday, as i rolled into school, i was thinking about my lesson (on whose line is it anyway?) and how much fun i thought i was going to have with my kids. this led me to think about my kids and how joyful they can be. most of them are smiling whenever i see them and class is almost always a fun time. but as all of us know, being in school wasn't always the happiest times of our lives. with assignments and tests and the pressure to excel/succeed, how could anybody find joy in such a context?

so then, what? why are these kids so happy? i think it is because they truly enjoy their time with each other. my classes are so close with each other. closer then i remember being with my classmates in high school. party of this camaraderie is certainly built through the fact that they don't rotate classes, and are with the same 20 or so students all day, every day. anyway, i think there are few things in life that can bring as much joy as good relationships. we all want people to enjoy life together with. we desire people in our lives who truly know and understand us. who even love us in spite of the fact that they know and understand who we really are. and you know this too. just think back to some of your happiest memories and i'm sure you will be able to identify the people present who made those moments so meaningful.

to know and to be known. that is what brings joy.

i had one of my kids take pictures on "debate day." in all these pictures, you see the kids being with each other and being happy (well, aside from the first one where he's all by himself). i'm tempted to take all the credit and say it's because i'm such an awesome teacher and that my lesson was just that amazing, but honestly, even if my lesson was the greatest ever, if the kids didn't enjoy each other's company, do you think we could have had fun with it? can you imagine what it would have been like if the kids didn't like talking to each other?

all right, now to let the pictures do the talking...

superheroes puppet show!

it's finally here! enjoy...

now for some more classroom funnies:

one of my students is sitting there for awhile, then all of a sudden goes, "Oh, teacher! It's too easy!" I go over to look at his paper and all that's there is the name of his superhero: "Invisible Man."

one of my girls is telling me about her superhero, "Studyman:" "He is very handsome... he helps me with my homework... no one else can see him..."

me: so basically... you created an imaginary boyfriend?

girl: "yes."

one of my boys created "Gasman," who is elevated because he is farting: "By Newton's second law, he moves very fast."

in my interview class, we were talking about current issues. the students are trying to explain why it's so difficult to combat environmental issues: "If the government enforces environmental regulations, the companies will go..." they couldn't think of the word. i'm thinking to myself, there really only is one word - bankrupt - that could fit here. so they start looking in their dictionaries and the word they come up with "dishonor." "If the government enforces environmental regulations, the companies will go dishonor!" i respond, Dishonor?! the kids realize what they just said and start cracking up. eventually somebody says "bankrupt" and the rest all go, "OHHHH!!!"

same class, "The influenza vaccine has side effects. 60 people got sick. 1 person died."

me: is this the same vaccine that you took? (they had gotten vaccinated at school like 2 weeks ago; i remember, cause i tried to get one too, but was told that these were only for teenagers. apparently i might have been better for me to not have gotten it...)

"Yes."

me: ... good luck...

from my debates lesson:

Korean vs. American: Argue for why a korean/an american person would be better to marry.

korean side: "For koreans to marry americans will have many problems. with a korean person, we have the same diet. koreans like eating garlic, but americans hate garlic smell. so they will fighting."

american side: "Americans have blue and big eyes, blonde hair, s-line body, pretty muscle sometimes, white skin, and big house," "americans have a lot of money... oh just give me a little bit of money!" "if we marry an american, we can live in other places, for example, america."

there's always at least two ways to interpret everything:

many koreans think that american society is unsafe because all americans have guns so we're constantly killing each other. but, one student rebutted this point: "Americans have guns so they can protect themselves, so American society is safe." i'm not sure that's true, but interesting...

and lastly, and probably the best teaching moment so far, my interview class comes in and demands, "Teacher, we want to free talk." amused, but game, i ask, what would you like to talk about. "The flu!" "Debate, debate!" you want to have a debate on the swine flu? what about it? "How serious is it..." thinking to myself, hmm, this isn't half bad. okay, why don't you take 15 minutes to prepare. "We only need 5. we are science high school students." ... seriously. who is the teacher here?!

after the debate, i ask my kids, What should you do to stay healthy? So that you don't catch the flu? there answers: wash your hands. don't go outside. sleep. exercise. and of course, eat kimchi!

i'm going going back back to cali cali (and missouri..)

GUESS WHO'S COMING HOME DURING WINTER BREAK?!

after hitting up Urbana in St. Louis and kicking it a little in Missouri, i'll be home in LA from Jan 2-9. holla at yo boy, yo! and see you in the new year! (aka the year of lebron..) yeeahh boy!

LA to do list:

1. curry fries

2. hawaiian bbq

3. ramen (the real, legit japanese kind)

4. real pizza

5. thai food

6. in-n-out

7. banana pancakes/waffles

8. hash browns/tater tots

9. ribs

10. non-korean chinese food

hmm... i probably should've titled this my "to eat list"

are you trying to bullfight me?

let's get ready to rumble! the national bullfighting tournament was on saturday. it was so ridiculous! here's a clip if you don't know what bullfighting would look like:

the bulls waiting their turn outside. they look so peaceful... except for the one standing up who looked like he wanted to eat us.

a when bulls become apathetic and lose interest with one another, the trainers essentially pull them together in such a way that i'm sure they become intimidated by each other and begin to fight again

all the bulls had their names written on their backs. the bad boy on the left had a dragon!

the baby bull that was up for the raffle!

we were praying for baby bull to just knock over all those people..

the winner of the baby bull.. not us. sucks. dunno what we would've done with a baby bull anyway though. actually, yes i do. we would have bartered up and eventually ended up with a wii or something. anyway, we also left early, so it was possible that our tickets were winners later. we like to think so. we gave our raffle tickets to a mother and her son who had shared their oranges with us. that'd be sweet if the kid won a bicycle. or that bag of rice...

i was wearing my best rodeo outfit in case my number was called and i had to go throw down.

at the jinyang lake. it was so gorgeous. hard to believe it's already november. we were so lucky to get such good weather. could you imagine the bulls fighting in rain? that would suck. could you imagine me being outside in the rain? naw man. we would've been indoors all weekend.

beautiful.

as much as i clown on my city, jinju's definitely got some sweet spots.

goodnight, fair city.

the korea herald

i meant to do this like a month ago, but apparently i completely forgot all about it.

when i left cheongju the first time i visited, corneli's host-dad bought me an english korean newspaper.

i skimmed through most of it, so here is a little taste of what's going on in korea (on September 29 at least, lol):

Seoul Signals No Changes in N.K. Policy

"Foreign Ministry officials yesterday indicated that there would be no changes to Seoul's North Korea policies demanding "irrevocable" denuclearization measures from Pyongyang in return for extensive economic and social aid."

N.K. Constitution Empowers Kim

"North Korea's revised constitution states that chairman of its National Defense Commission, a post held by Kim Jon-il since 1997, is the country's "supreme leader," in an apparent bid to give greater authority to Kim."

Families Bid Farewell After Brief Reunions

"Ninety-seven South Koreans and their 233 relatives from the North said painful goodbyes, with no guarantee of whether they would be able to meet again."

"Chung Dae-choon, the oldest South Korean to take part in this year's reunion at the age of 95, kept repeating "this is the last," as he held his son Wanshik's shaking hands before sending him away."

Number of Elementary School Students Hits Low

"The number of elementary school students in Korea has dropped to its lowest level, reflecting the country's dwindling birth rate"

More Elderly Suffer Abuse

"This year alone, a total of 29,969 cases of such abuse were reported as of August."

"Considering most victims hesitate to report their family members, the actual number of abuse could be larger."

No More Suicidal Bridges Over Han River, Says Seoul

"Seoul City has decided to keep a watching eye on major bridges over the Han River for potential suicide attempts."

"The 13 billion won ($10.8 million) project involves detailed guidelines on the prevention, urgent responses and post-factum measures following a suicide attempt."

1,033 reported suicide attempts from 2007 to July of 2009.

Yo, for real. That's absurd. Spending $10 million to keep people from killing themselves? Why don't you take that money and put it towards the poor who are doing everything they can to stay alive and are still dying! As you can probably tell, i was very angered by this article.

Police Breathalyzer Tests Unreliable

"Breath tests administered by police at road checkpoints have been found to be unreliable, with results of breath and blood alcohol tests not matching in nearly 98 out of every 100 cases, a police report showed yesterday."

And that's where i got tired of reading.. korean news is depressing as hell, damn.