"Thirst was made for water; inquiry for truth" - C.S. Lewis

So I FINALLY finished The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. I say finally not in the sense that this book was lengthy, quite the contrary, it's a really small book. I say finally in the sense that it was difficult to get through so much content. The book works in a series with one of my favorite C.S. Lewis books, The Screwtape Letters. I must say that book wasn't easy to get through either, but when all was said and done I was glad I read it. The Great Divorce talks about arriving to heaven from a bus that's route began in hell. The whole premise reminded me of a dream I had once of the apocalypse. Yes, talk about a vivid dream! Side note: Inception has awoken many dream conversations with those around me. Well in this dream there was everything I would associate with an apocalypse, especially lots of fire and four horsemen. Well in my dream there was something like a bus that was taking people into heaven, hence my interest in this book. (Spoiler alert if you ever planned on reading this book) The guy who is going through this is also in a dream state. He wakes up and that's that. And that's exactly what my dream was for me, just that. Granted I would have never anticipated the parallel between my dream and this book as my dream was quite some years ago. Again, it was a pretty intense read, so intense that I read another book within this book, Maggie Griffin's autobiography, Tip It!. Griffin's book was really light-hearted and it was a perfect combo to have with this book. Both great reads.

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So I went rafting this past weekend...so much fun! It was a great ride for a beginner as white water was involved but not so intense that we couldn't handle it and none of our rafts tipped over. The area is really nice too. I would like to it again, but also as a nature walk as the scenery is just amazing. This is the biggest nature experience I have had in a very long time. Everyone really loved it and I feel great that I was a part of it. That Hantangnan River was a great experience.

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I got my visa for my China trip today!!! That was a highlight of the day. I'm ready to go with this trip. Looking forward to it, just need to finish next week's set of summer camp classes then I'm off (^_^)

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Hello neighbor! So I've failed to mention and have only done so with some people that I have some neighbors down the street who are not Korean, like at all. I've even made up a backstory for them. I won't tell you, it's kind of embarrassing. So I always see them everywhere in and around Songtan. I know they see me too. Well I was picking up dinner today and I ran into them again today in the street, but for some reason I decided to initiate a conversation with them. Well I am super glad I did. They're a family from New York (wife, husband, and daughter) who live here because the dad works as a computer IT/programmer for the Air Base. They were super friendly and we exchanged contact info.

Things are going well here. Month 2 is almost done. It's going by fast.



p.s. my backstory.....way off!

The Nurse in Torrance & The Taxi Driver from the Great North

So I've been feeling out the impression I'm leaving with the other staff at the school. According to the teachers in the English department the other teachers say I have a very happy disposition, a clean demeanor, and that I just seem pleasant. Although I do want to believe that this is in fact true, and HELLO, why wouldn't it be?...the realist in me wants to know if they're just saying this to me so that I feel good about my environment.

Well a test to this theory came by when one of the PE teachers asked me where I was from. I said Los Angeles, and immediately I got some type of reaction, not verbal, but more of a facial gesture. It wasn't bad, in fact it seemed more around the lines of a look of approval and surprise. Well right before I finished my work day Ms. June, another English teacher, walked into my classroom and asked me if I had an appointment after work. I told her I didn't and then she said that the PE teacher would like me to meet with him and his daughter. So I said yes and for some odd reason I pictured the PE teacher bringing over his 2nd grader of a daughter who probably had a question about her own English class.

Needless to say I was way off. It turned out the PE teacher wanted me to join him for dinner along with his daughter, who so happens to be a nurse in Camp Humphrey. We all had dinner at this awesome spicy chicken place here in Songtan with the traditional communal Korean meal set-up. We start talking and in turns out that they have family in LA. When I asked where they said the South Bay, and then when I asked where again (because my interest had extremely peaked at this point) they said Torrance and Redondo Beach. I was on "hold the phone" mode. We then started talking about the South Bay, told them I had worked in Torrance for 4 years, and that conversation went on for eternity...well at least until the end of our meal. I then understood and connected the dots into the reaction I got when I told the PE teacher I was from LA. His daughter, the nurse, told me how she has been to the South Bay many times and how she studied English in Canada. At some point in the middle of all this Torrance-talk I came up in conversation and the PE teacher confirmed everything I had heard about myself from my colleagues in the English department. He said I have a very cheerful disposition and that people see me that way and that I'm very approachable. I must say I was flattered and engaged as this whole "the world is a really small place" thing was still sinking in.


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Well one (of many) things I've come to miss from LA is driving. It's funny how we drive to anything and everywhere, even when it's literally around the corner. Once an Angelino/a gets a driver's license then he/she becomes another notch on the Los Angeles freeway post. Well because I now rely on trains and taxis to get around I must say I have had some experiences, especially with those taxi drivers. I've had the taxi driver who picked me up from out of town and when I told him where I lived it turned out he lives in the building next to mine. I've also had the taxi driver who has wanted the English lessons right then and there in the cab by having me give him the English word for everything he pointed to: nose, shirt, hair, etc. I've even had the taxi driver who took me in as a passenger even though he already had another passenger. He dropped her off and once we took off he said "that's my wife" with a sigh. I only paid my fare of course. But the funniest cab driver is one who picked me up here in Songtan to drive me to the bank. He started speaking in English right off the bat, fluently! He told me how he lived in Canada for years and how his son is a CPA over there. He said he loved it despite the cold weather and how everyone over there is so nice. When he asked and I told him I was from LA he told me he went to Disneyland, but that it was too hot in LA. I guess when it's a pit stop from Canada, it could be seen as hot weather, but it's like 85 degrees here in Korea, so I let that part pass. He was a real nice guy all in all.

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I must say that these experiences have left me feeling that you really don't know who you're talking to, where they've been and what you have in common.

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Change in tone. I'm so excited because I'm going white water rafting in the Hantan river this Saturday with a group of friends, and also I'm going to China in two weeks (Crazy!). Looking forward to these things. :-)

Bagpipes!!!!!

I woke in the morning (not feeling like P. Diddy) and thought I had a full plate ahead of me at work. Thursdays are my busy day as I am scheduled to teach six periods back-to-back-to-back. Well this is my conversation this morning with my main co-teacher:

Mr. Lee: Good morning Oscar

Me: Good morning Mr. Lee...hmmmm....it looks like you have something to tell me. I have all my kids today, right?

Mr. Lee: Well actually I'm going to give you a "vacation" day today because Mr. Yoon (another English teacher at my school) is doing an activity all day with the kids today

Well as you all know I've been teaching sporadically these past three weeks because I went away for a bit, kids had final exams, and then they had mandated standardized tests, etc. Yesterday I had an amazing day as I had all the three periods I was scheduled for. The students loved playing Bumper Bumper and it worked out perfectly as they are ready for summer vacation so the get to play a fun game that works works with their acquired knowledge of the English language. We all benefit from it. This is a game where small groups try to come up with words that match my categories (i.e. an adjective that starts with the letter "ye" or a verb that starts with "ye") and the group with the most points wins. These kids get really competitive and for some odd reason I always have a group of all boys pitted against a group of all girls who are vying for the top spot.

Well I was looking forwards to my fun and games today, but because I got this news from my co-teacher today, I thought "Bagpipes!" I got the expression "bagpipes" from an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where Bob Saget's character, an older Ted Mosby, is telling his kids about some neighbors he had who where fornicating like bunnies but because he was telling his kids this story (and because it's network television), he replaced the verb for F-ing with "bagpiping." I just watched this episode last night so the events of it are still fresh in my mind.

I talked to my co-worker and new friend Lizelle about this time of the year and how it's so laid back. She said she's going to read and catch up on the good ol' "Desperate Housewives" from Wisteria Lane and all the doctors from Seattle Grey's hospital. Sounds like a plan.

Well weekend is almost here, so I guess that's a plus.

Answer key: yellow and yearning

"Grade Me!"........."Let Me Teach!"

Do you remember that episode of The Simpsons where the teachers all go on strike because Bart instigates a conversation between Edna and Skinner? Well in that same episode Lisa is yearning to learn and even bothers Ms. Hoover to try and teach her during the strike. Lisa gets so emotionally overwhelemed by her educational decline that she asked Marge to evaluate her by pleading "Grade me!" and she gets her fix with a huge sigh of relief when Marge scribbled A+ on a sheet of paper. Well at the moment I can relate to this situation Lisa was going through.

Prior to yesterday I hadn't really taught in two weeks. I was finally able to play bumper-bumper with them yesterday and I must say I got that Lisa Simpson high from it. I was finally able to do my job with my intended audience. I had a lot of fun doing it too. I must say that even at Sylvan when I went too long without teaching the kids because I had other duties, there was a part of me that missed it. Well today I had every intention to continue my bumper-bumper marathon, but because my periods are only 35 minutes today, I have put the game on hiatus until tomorrow when they are on regular schedule for their last 3 days of the spring semester. That and a combo of an in-and-out headache have led today to music movie day. This will allow them to listen to English music, which I must say is a great way to learn a language that a lot of people don't realize. Hooks and rhythms really allow one to see just how language can flow as well as improve intonation and vocabulary. I must say that I can attest a lot of my Spanish vocabulary to things like Spanish pop and rock en Español. Not to mention it really helps with idioms. Just to prove myself right I downloaded some KPop songs yesterday from Itunes in hopes to meet my students halfway.

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I found Bandi & Luni's on Sunday, the Canadian-based equivalent of Barnes & Nobles. I bought a C.S. Lewis book I plan to start soon. Got to love Seoul. I uploaded a whole lot of pics on Facebook that include things from this past weekend including hang outs at the Main Gate here in Songtan and some of my Seoul/Itaewon findings.

Breakdown: Mexican food with a Mexican band playing, hopping for pubs and bars around the Main Gate, the bookstore in Seoul, finding a chocolate covered frozen banana that rocked my socks in Itaewon, traditional belfry landmark in Seoul, late night noraebang (aka karaoke), and a pretty neat restaurant in Pyeongtaek that has these holes inside the tables that both light up your drink and keep it at a chilled temperature. These awesome findings happened all in the course of one weekend.

My kids are walking into my class any minute now.... I hope.

"I'm proud of you, Mom. You're like Christopher Columbus. You discovered something millions of people knew about before you." - Lisa Simpson on Marge playing a game on the Internet

Place Title Here

I think the combination of being away, not having students, a YouTube abundance, and Facebook overload has fried what is left of my mushy little brain because I couldn't come up with a heading for this blog.

So I haven't really taught in 2 weeks (I know!). Reminder: I was away from work for 3 days last week because I had the conference for people in my teaching abroad in Korea program. When I came back last Thursday I was told that the English department agreed on letting kids study for finals all periods that day as final exams were going to start the next day. Final exams were held from last Friday until this Wednesday. Flash forward to yesterday when I found out all my kids were transferred to homeroom because finals were over. It's Friday here and it's the same situation, all my kids need to be in their homeroom classes during their English portion of classes until next week when one of my co-workers returns and the ball starts rolling again. So it's two weeks of being alloted much time to complete very little.

That's not to say I haven't accomplished anything in my time without the youngins. Next week is the last week of classes before summer vacation so I know most of these kids have "clocked out" because they've already taken their final exams. Knowing this I've decided to play "Bumper Bumper" with them next week, which is a cool English game lesson I got from my friend Miranda. If you're not in the field of education then I must tell you that teachers can plagarize with the best of them.

I am also storming up ideas with what to do with summer camp, which is a two week summer school type-thing. It's fairly easy because all of the English teachers are working on the same theme, news reporting, so my job is to get them to discuss the journal article for the day and elaborate on any vocab they may not understand.

I better get these kids next week. Having two computers at my desk is driving me nuts. How much YouTube can one person really digest? I've gotten so tired of twiddling my thumbs at work that I've gone to other English classes and participated in the lessons of other teachers. I have to get my education fix from somewhere.

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So I went to Costco the other day in Seodajeon and I must say that it bore 100% ressemblance to the Costcos back home. I'm still working on that awesome bundle of muffins. The only thing I wish they did have would've been Costco pizza. If someone could like freeze dry a couple of slices of Costco cheese pizza and a chicken burrito from Chipotle and send them my way I'd be forever in that person's debt.

Speaking of pizza, I went to Mr. Pizza here in Songtan (not far at all from my place) with my coworkers. These people love going out to eat. It's a pizza joint but it's Korean pizza. I had this seafood deluxe pizza that I must say took a little getting used to but all in all it was pretty good. In an effort to reaquaint myself with the pizza I know and love I made my way to Pizza Hut by my place...and hallelujah it was just like I remember it from back home. A veggie lovers, hold the onions, add the chicken...yes :-)

p.s. I also saw Knight and Day with some of my coworkers, waaaaay better than I had expected.

I'm really excited at the moment because summer vacation is coming up (how perfect was my timing in showing up in S. Korea?) and I'm going white-water rafting in ~2 weeks. Really excited as I've never done it before. It's a two day trip and I'm really looking forward to it.

Maybe heading to Seoul this weekend, don't know yet though, I guess I'll play this weekend by ear and see what others are doing.

Well this was fun folks and it kept me distracted from my student-less work existence. Enjoy your weekends out there!

Red, White and Goo

Happy 4th of July to my friends and family back home! Mine already passed, in fact it's the 5th here. I still love doing that whole "I'm speaking from the future" thing, it's yet to get old. This holiday reminds me of so many things. It reminds me of going to Huntington Beach and enjoying the parade, having a bqq, and that one time I got a parking ticket for being in front of a fire hydrant...good times. Then 4th of July changed in a blink of an eye to the ultimate excuse to head to Las Vegas every year. I remember the first Vegas 4th of July there was when Claude was still bouncing back and forth between LA & Vegas and we made a weekend of it. The first night there was hysterical as we burned down Claude's air mattress (it's not important how) and gouged a huge hole of her carpet. Hunting for an air matress with Yaya while Jaz kept Claude occupied was pretty hysterical, not as hysterical as coming clean about the whole thing the next day over breakfast. Seriously, good times.

The goo portion of the title corresponds to the humidity, which this Angelino is yet to get used to. It rained pretty hard on Friday and it was sprinkling in and out yesterday. Rain is fine, but rain when it's hot causes like this humidity on steroids, super-jumbotron humidity if you will. It's something to really get used to that's going to take some time as I come from the land of the dry (and the home of the brave).

I had a great 4th of July weekend that consisted with hanging out with my coworker's friends for a dinner gathering, going to Seoul on Sunday for a gathering with some awesome new people I've met, and heading to Camp Humphrey, the base in Pyeongtaek, for the actual fourth of July. Friday's gathering was pretty kickback as I hung out with some people I had already met through Lizelle, the middle school teacher at the middle school next to my high school. Great food I might add. Earlier that Friday, because I only had to work a half-day, I took it upon myself to explore around my neighborhood more and came across some pretty awesome establishments. This included a market, a DVD viewing room business, the 25 Mart (a bigger version of Family Mart, which is just like a 7-Eleven), Pizza Hut, and I went to get a latte from the Dunkin' Donuts I've been eyeing for a while, which isn't far from my place. Saturday I headed to Seoul with the other GEPIK teachers I met at the training retreat, Audrey & Miranda, and others including new people I met, Josh (Audrey's husband), Susan, and more I would meet later in the day. It was my first time going on the KTX (fast train) to Seoul...wish there was a station for it in Songtan to be honest. We all headed there for the birthday of a mutual friend the others had, Andy, which was to be initiated in the Itaewon area. Had some Mexican food, hit up and Irish pub, and headed to Monkey Beach, a bar that serves cocktails in buckets and proved that I am less than an adequate pool player. We managed to take the KTX back to Pyeongtaek that very night. Side note: we had eaten and the AK Center mall at the Pyeongtaek station before heading to Seoul, which was nice getting to know as I had never been there before.

Sunday consisted of finding an open base to celebrate 4th of July. I made my way to the Osan air base by my place to figure out if they were open, but they were closed and fireworks could only be viewed from the Main Gate. Last minute Audrey's co-teacher had informed her that Camp Humphrey in Pyeongtaek was going to open for 4th of July with fireworks so we all kind of hauled ass over there. It was pretty neat, even with the humidity there to play its role. Saw fireworks, had a pretty good dinner, got a temp American face tattoo, saw some stage performers, and witnessed some amazing works of fire in the air. Depite there being this hovering cloud that would blanket some of the fireworks, it still looked pretty cool and I must say that the loud roar (my favorite part about fireworks) was unmistakably there. So there you have it, my first holiday in South Korea in a nutshell.

p.s. that "in a nutshell" expression always reminds me of Austin Powers (I forget which one of the movies) where he says "hey look, I'm in a nutshell" while making a reference to that same expression.


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Day 2 of finals, so these kids are nowhere to be seen today other than testing classrooms. They're not even on the same floor as I am. If I see is a student it's because I'm in the other hallways making my way somewhere else or because they want water for the cooler next to my classroom. I'm pretty tired right now and my feet are in some pain, so not having to be standing in front of students and actually teaching is pretty nice on this Monday morning.

I still have to make it a point to find a good bookstore here in S. Korea. I've gotten various recommendations from people, but I've yet to embark on "mission-find-a-book." I always need something to read, just my nature. I have some books in mind so I'm hoping I find them when I go hunting for them. I've only been to one bookstore and it was in Yongsan and their English book section sucked. It was four shelves jammed with books like Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, and Catcher in the Rye. Don't get me wrong, these are great reads, but I have no desire to read things designated to high school curiculums.

On a completely different note (as this blog has an array of topics to cover), I met another cook from that one Mexican restaurant mentioned earlier. He was really nice too and he's from Puebla. He said he saw me on the train the morning I was heading to my GEPIK retreat. Really nice guy, the whole staff is too. I honestly think I've eaten more Mexican food in my month here than I have back home in the last 3 months combined. I do miss Chipotle though with their chubby burritos and fax order forms that would allow you to cut through the line because you ordered ahead.

This blog was a pretty random list, no real deep thoughts these past couple of days I guess. My brain, like the weather, must be goo.