Two posts in one day?! Inconceivable!
Ok, here's another vid I did of our trip to Mudfest in Boreyoung last month. We had a fantastic time!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Video! Swimming with Sand Tiger Sharks!
I have been an absolutely terrible blogger. Completely fell off the wagon. I suppose partly its just that Korea has stopped feeling like a foreign place; now it's just the place where I live. So things in daily life don't seem as remarkable as they once did and its hard to believe anyone would still want to hear about it. But that being said, the last four months have definitely NOT been boring. There's always so much to do and see. So I'm going to post a few videos and photos to get caught up as best as I can. In just 7 weeks my Korean adventure will be over and I'll be returning to Canada, looking for my next one. I've really started to play with windows movie maker lately, I've been enjoying it alot! Here's my first attempt at syncing up music with video and photos, and lucky for you its of my "Shark Dive" experience at Busan Aquarium that I went to in mid-May of this year. We had a great time. I shot all the videos/photos myself. Quite exciting to be that close to the sharks!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Very Bad Blogger! March and April Update.
Oh I started off the year with so many good intentions for this blog. But any of you who know me, know I am a terrible procrastinator. In fact, as I write this entry I'm procrastinating planning a lesson for a class I have in two hours. You're Welcome.
(Note to reader: I will continue to blog about my trip to Malaysia, but not today)
I returned safe and sound from Malaysia and was back at work on the 16th of February, teaching an advanced English class. It was a like every ESL teacher's dream. I had about 12 students, all high level english speakers, all very keen. I taught them about formal academic debate, argument structure and making objective, logical statements. (Believe me, we had some interesting discussions about the topic "Couples should live together before they get married" - quite a different perspective from the one that's in North America right now) At the end of the two weeks we held a formal debate where I divided the students into two teams and randomly assigned them to the negative or affirmative side of the topic "Children with Mental Disabilities should be Fully Integrated into the School System". It felt so strange to give them their assignments for research and have them take off with it, no help needed from me! I was very proud at the end of it. It was also a rare pleasure to get to learn all of my students names.
The regular school year got into swing in March, with lots of changes underway. There was the usual circus of losing 1/3 of the teaching staff to mandatory reassignment and gain that many new teachers as well. In Korea, teachers must change school every 4 years to ensure that remote schools are staffed as equally well as schools in larger cities. Sounds great in theory, but it's a logistical nightmare: many families wind up with a mom or dad who lives in one city during the work week and travels home on the weekends. If both parents are teachers, often the children live with their grandparents. So we had lots of good-bye dinners and then lots of "welcome" dinners. My supervisor, Son Hwa-Ja, was reassigned, but thankfully another teacher I already know and who has excellent English was promoted to fill Hwa-Ja's place: Choi Young-Ju. Choi Hyun is still my main co-teacher, but she's a bit absent-minded and her English isn't great, so it's nice to have another person to go when there are questions or problems.
On top of the staff change up, I was ousted from my beautiful "English Zone" classroom which I had enjoyed so much last year. Mr. Jo, our progressive vice-pricipal, signed our school up for a pilot project introducing a western class schedule to Korean High Schools. The goal is to make the education more student-centered (as it is in the west), where students choose their schedule to fit what they want to study or pursue for a career, rather than the current Eastern teacher-based philosophy. Part of the change involves having teachers stay in one room and the students travel to different rooms based on the subject. Ironically, this changed occured for every Korean teacher, but went in reverse for me. The Korean English teachers now have their own homerooms, (including the English Zone, which is now Mr. Lee's Homeroom) and I travel from English classroom to English classroom depending on the class, carrying all my lesson supplies and handouts with me. Until the projectors were installed and working, I also had to recreate my powerpoint presentations on large poster paper and magnet them to the chalk boards!
As an incentive to schools to take on the new system, the government also gave approx. $2 000 000 in funding to schools for renovations and upgrades. Awesome stuff, except that our renovations weren't finished on time, so for the first two weeks of school I had no office or desk to work at. I usually sat in an empty teacher's conference room, freezing my butt off. (BTW, March was unseasonably cold for Korea this year, we had snow on March 10th and temperatures frequently dipped below freezing at night. Now you may think, "Why Lisa, aren't you a tough Canadian girl? A few degrees below zero is nothing!" but you would be an ignorant Canadian who takes your insulated/CLOSED doors and windows and effeciant furnace for granted)The lack of desk also meant I had to carry all of my materials with me everywhere, as I had no where to store them. So I brought a backpack to school everyday full of my resources. Thankfully, soon a desk was provided for me. Unfortunately, my office is a completely different building from all my classes, so I'm still lugging alot of stuff around with me during the day.
Oh well, having adjusted to all the changes now, the semester seems to be going just fine. It's hard to believe I'm already on to the 7th week. April 1st was the beginning of my last 6 months in Korea, time sure is flying. Lots of fun stuff has been going on socially, but in an effort to keep these entries short and more readable, I leave it here. I tell you about my rocking social life, and more about Malaysia, soon. Honest!
(Note to reader: I will continue to blog about my trip to Malaysia, but not today)
I returned safe and sound from Malaysia and was back at work on the 16th of February, teaching an advanced English class. It was a like every ESL teacher's dream. I had about 12 students, all high level english speakers, all very keen. I taught them about formal academic debate, argument structure and making objective, logical statements. (Believe me, we had some interesting discussions about the topic "Couples should live together before they get married" - quite a different perspective from the one that's in North America right now) At the end of the two weeks we held a formal debate where I divided the students into two teams and randomly assigned them to the negative or affirmative side of the topic "Children with Mental Disabilities should be Fully Integrated into the School System". It felt so strange to give them their assignments for research and have them take off with it, no help needed from me! I was very proud at the end of it. It was also a rare pleasure to get to learn all of my students names.
The regular school year got into swing in March, with lots of changes underway. There was the usual circus of losing 1/3 of the teaching staff to mandatory reassignment and gain that many new teachers as well. In Korea, teachers must change school every 4 years to ensure that remote schools are staffed as equally well as schools in larger cities. Sounds great in theory, but it's a logistical nightmare: many families wind up with a mom or dad who lives in one city during the work week and travels home on the weekends. If both parents are teachers, often the children live with their grandparents. So we had lots of good-bye dinners and then lots of "welcome" dinners. My supervisor, Son Hwa-Ja, was reassigned, but thankfully another teacher I already know and who has excellent English was promoted to fill Hwa-Ja's place: Choi Young-Ju. Choi Hyun is still my main co-teacher, but she's a bit absent-minded and her English isn't great, so it's nice to have another person to go when there are questions or problems.
On top of the staff change up, I was ousted from my beautiful "English Zone" classroom which I had enjoyed so much last year. Mr. Jo, our progressive vice-pricipal, signed our school up for a pilot project introducing a western class schedule to Korean High Schools. The goal is to make the education more student-centered (as it is in the west), where students choose their schedule to fit what they want to study or pursue for a career, rather than the current Eastern teacher-based philosophy. Part of the change involves having teachers stay in one room and the students travel to different rooms based on the subject. Ironically, this changed occured for every Korean teacher, but went in reverse for me. The Korean English teachers now have their own homerooms, (including the English Zone, which is now Mr. Lee's Homeroom) and I travel from English classroom to English classroom depending on the class, carrying all my lesson supplies and handouts with me. Until the projectors were installed and working, I also had to recreate my powerpoint presentations on large poster paper and magnet them to the chalk boards!
As an incentive to schools to take on the new system, the government also gave approx. $2 000 000 in funding to schools for renovations and upgrades. Awesome stuff, except that our renovations weren't finished on time, so for the first two weeks of school I had no office or desk to work at. I usually sat in an empty teacher's conference room, freezing my butt off. (BTW, March was unseasonably cold for Korea this year, we had snow on March 10th and temperatures frequently dipped below freezing at night. Now you may think, "Why Lisa, aren't you a tough Canadian girl? A few degrees below zero is nothing!" but you would be an ignorant Canadian who takes your insulated/CLOSED doors and windows and effeciant furnace for granted)The lack of desk also meant I had to carry all of my materials with me everywhere, as I had no where to store them. So I brought a backpack to school everyday full of my resources. Thankfully, soon a desk was provided for me. Unfortunately, my office is a completely different building from all my classes, so I'm still lugging alot of stuff around with me during the day.
Oh well, having adjusted to all the changes now, the semester seems to be going just fine. It's hard to believe I'm already on to the 7th week. April 1st was the beginning of my last 6 months in Korea, time sure is flying. Lots of fun stuff has been going on socially, but in an effort to keep these entries short and more readable, I leave it here. I tell you about my rocking social life, and more about Malaysia, soon. Honest!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Rickety Train Ride to White Water Rafting Site
AA, SB and I on our way to the white water rafting site on the Padas river in Sabah Borneo January 2010. The river is muddy and swollen from the rains the day before. As the train ride continued, the river became choppier and choppier...
Monday, March 1, 2010
Bursting with Pride for my Country!
It's a well known fact that Lisa does not do early morning wake-ups cheerfully. Whenever possible, she does not do them AT ALL. But this morning was different. This morning Lisa felt excitement akin to the anticipation a 6-year old feels on Christmas Eve, as the alarm clock began clanging away at 4:45AM. Today, the Canadian Men's Olympic Hockey Team was facing off against the USA in the gold medal match. To be more specific, facing the US team again, after losing once already and fighting hard to make it back into the final game. And I was determined to watch, cringe and cheer with everyone else back home, regardless of whether or not the sun was up. So donning my Canada hoodie (which I bought in a moment of "I'm already homesick" at Pearson airport before returning to South Korea) over my pj's I headed to AA's apartment to watch the historic game. And, well, you know how it ends.
Is it just me, or was there something about these Olympic games that felt almost magical? Even from way over in South Korea, I could feel the buzz, feel the momentum building through out the last two weeks. Not just around the hockey teams, but all the games' events. Our nation was knitting together much closer than our geography would seem to allow. Unable to watch most of the events live to do the time change and Korea's Sports News channels insistence on replaying their speed skating and figure skating triumphs ad nauseum, I had to follow most of the excitement through internet reports from CBC and various status updates on Facebook. Even so, I definitely caught Olympic fever, the Canadian strain, and it's major symptoms: glowing heart, American-like Patriotism (the kind where you really do feel your country is better than everybody else's) and homesickness.
I found myself saying on more than one occasion, "How on earth did I manage to NOT be in Canada when we are hosting the Olympics?" as if those all the very rational and responsible reasons I came back to Korea for a second tour of duty no longer mattered. Talking with friends and family back home, you could hear the excitement and pride in their voices as we discussed our skyrocketing, record-breaking gold medal count and the big opportunities ahead to claim more hardware. Growing up, I remember always feeling alittle sad that our country's medal count usually kept us in the top 20, but not often in the top ten. It was often argued that for our small population size and the low amount of investment/sponsorship our athletes were recieving, any stop at the podium was a big victory. And now, finally, thanks to the "Own the Podium" iniative, our athletes finally got to really shine and on home turf too!
The Men's Gold Medal Victory match was the only portion of the games that I watched live, thanks to an online feed from an Australian sports channel. I'll have to satisfy myself with pictures of the opening and closing ceremonies, and perhaps, in a few months when the networks ease up on the copyright infringment, watch a few of the highlights on Youtube. Even so, in my tiny apartment in South Korea, I feel hugely, proudly Canadian and I'm celebrating with you all in spirit. See you in 7 months Canada!
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