KLB - Saturday Morning


Either I'm getting old or my job schedule has really set in. I keep falling asleep at 12 or 1 on Friday night and popping out of bed at 8:00 in the morning. It would be great if this were the middle of spring or fall, but this is winter and it's damn cold out lately and there's not a lot to do. Julie has to get up too, as she has to go in for some meetings today at her job. So, looks like I'll be sitting here using the computer until afternoon.

I had a great week at work. Probably the best week I've ever had. In other words, I had "the passion," as Cathy might say. It's been surprisingly fun teaching phonics and conversation and the kids are making so much progress. Students who knew basically nothing before are now able to recognize sounds and spell words thanks to me skipping the stupid new textbooks and opting to teach mainly phonics. Cathy seems to have calmed down too. A lot of the parents have been calling up or stopping by to tell us how much their kids (mostly the little girls) like the class. Plus I've been giving the kids strategic homework assignments where they have to go home and tell their mothers what they learned today and/or practice a conversation with them. The parent then has to sign their notebooks. Brilliant.

Last night Julie and I couldn't stop laughing as we watched Team America, which I downloaded off E-donkey. Great movie. I had wanted to see it in the theater, but I think because of the N. Korean /Kim Jong-il satire, it won't be released in Korea. I couldn't wait any longer.

The TV-out function on the computer is great. I never could get into movies (besides porn) on the computer before, and forget it when there are two people watching. But what do you do when you want to see something that takes too long to come to Korea (and not all films make it here)? Well, now I simply search for the file, click, wait a few hours (sometimes a few days for something obscure) for the file to complete, then plug the computer into the TV. Presto! DVD quality new releases with Dolby surround sound. Nice!

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - The Corporation




The Corporation. It's a three hour documentary about the darkside of your every day "friendly" corporation. If you haven't seen it, you should. Why? Because you know we live in a world of sickening corporate madnes, where enough is never enough...and you know that's bad, but you're not exactly sure why. Now you will learn why. Hopefully you believe you can make the world a better place by educating yourself, that is if you're not to the point of steely cynicism. I donated a little to their site and to these people and I also bought the book. The money supports independent film making and also various grassroots organizations.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Three for Three


Three days down, three good days. Been a great week so far. The kids were much better today (no snow) and Cathy hasn't bothered me. In fact she's been unusually helpful lately. She put together a nice phonics booklet for the kids, which they do for homework and then we review together.

It's weird that I find myself looking forward to going to work when I had dreaded this schedule so much. I had no idea that I actually like teaching, much less in the morning - something I haven't done in 4 years. Also, I find it even stranger I like these long classes. It takes a long time to teach phonics, and you need to do it every day. Already my students are able to read simple words. Whereas before they all failed the phonics tests, now they pass with flying colors. Today I tested them on vowel sounds. Every kid scored 100. That made me feel good.

After yesterday's scolding, Class C was perfect today. I had them play "charades" using the question "what am I doing?" I can't believe how much they got into that. One kid went a little overboard. He came to the front of the room and squatted like he was taking a dump. "What am I doing?" he grunted. After the laughter died down, I answered "You're losing stars!" And I erased two stars from his team's square on the board - which drew more laughter except, of course, from his teammates. Even though the charade was funny, it's best to cut that behavior off before the other students think it's OK to be crude.

It's such a good feeling to enjoy your job. I never knew that feeling before. That's why, even though I teach the same kids every day for nearly two hours each class, the time flies by. I think all of the experience I've had teaching in Korea has culminated to this point. Finally I can use my experience in an environment that is conducive to teaching/ learning rather than to making money - though there's still a little of that drawback; the kids parents do pay for this program. Even so, I have an opportunity to teach kids English, rather than a desire to hand out word-search puzzles and fantasize about a better life. Plus the money is great.

It occurred to me today that I wish I had this schedule every month for the same pay. If they offered that at this school, I'd take it in a second. Unfortunately, I go back to just 3 hours/day next month for regular pay (which isn't too bad either, but this is a lot better). We'll see. My contract technically expires at the end of February, but my visa, sponsored by the school, runs another 6 months after that. If there are no problems (the English program that was there before us flopped within a month) the school will renew with the agency and I can stay on. I'm not sure if I will, but if the agency offers me a salary instead of an hourly wage, I just may. It's going to be hard to say goodbye to these good kids.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Boring Day Boring Post



Just an average day in Korea. The kids were fun, though a bit noisy today due to the snow falling out the window, but not too bad. One of the little girls' mothers brought me and Cathy a couple of nice sandwhiches from the bakery (they don't have delis in Korea). Another girl's mother wrote us a letter in Korean about how much her daughter enjoys the class. That was cute.

Three of the older boys in class C were kind of annoying today. Again, I think the snow was to blame for the extra excitement. I kept them after school and after a sound scolding (man, I'm old) I made them clean the classroom, sharpen pencils, erase the board, etc. That's a typical punishment in Korea. Tomorrow they should be back to normal.

Back home, I picked up the cables to connect the computer to the TV. To try it out, I watched Farenheit 9-11, which I downloaded off P-P. Amazing quality. Even the surround sound works perfectly. Then I watched the only other thing I have on the computer (until I download more movies) some old episodes of the Smurfs. The quality of those is pretty poor. I'm going to order the first two DVDs (yes, they've already released another one) from Australia tonight, actually. I can't wait any longer. I need to see the Smurfs and I need to see them in style.




[Update]: I just finished talking to my mother. She's a master of making me feel ashamed of myself. Apparently my sister is having a hard time finacially (she's a single mother now with 2 kids - 1 being a baby), and asked me to help her out because she, my sister, is too proud to ask. I would feel stupid ordering Smurf DVDs after hearing that, so I'm sending my sister a few hundred bucks instead and also ordering her a surprise digital camera. This may sound generous, but it's a selfish gift. I'm dying to instantly see pics of the kids.

Julie's about to get home. She just called and said she's starving so I'll order a Dominoes Pizza as a surprise. She loves that pizza! I'm too full from those sandwhiches the student's mother gave me, but maybe I'll eat a piece too. Anyway, see you tomorrow.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Sleepy


Just stopping in to say goodnight. Tomorrow's a new day. I'm looking forward to waking up early (what the hell is happening to me?) and greeting the day, listening to Japanese lessons on the way to work, eating breakfast in Singil Station, etc. I actually enjoy the long commute these days. My first class is full of the cutest little kids. Then I get to eat a nice healthy lunch at a small Korean restaurant nearby while reading the paper. Then it's my favorite class, Class B, full of the cute, energetic little girls who love English (because of me, I'm sure). After that, one more class with the older kids who can understand quite a bit more and therefore are a little more interesting. For example, today we had a conversation about wants vs. needs (they got it backwards - they said they NEED a Playstation 2 and that they only WANT food and shelter). Then it will be back home on the train and more Japanese (been reviewing the past 30 lessons before moving on to lesson 61). Back home, I'll eat a decent little dinner, relax, watch CNN then workout for a while (tomorrow is arm curls). After that it's the computer until Julie gets home.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Barbaric Teacher


I had a pretty good day today. Even though I didn't sleep much, I woke up early and felt fine. I zipped to work and was in a good mood and decided to take a positive approach to Cathy and teaching. Cathy seemed also in a good mood, though she had some things to say about the recent foreigner scandal. (Click the link to read the best and most recent information by the Marmot). Actually, I brought it up. I could almost see her thinking about it. I wanted to clear the air that I am not one of those crazy sex-addicted barbarians the Korean newspapers and netizens have been in an uproar about. She said she was shocked about the matter and "I didn't know about foreigners bad things before I read about that." Hey, come on! We're not all maniacal, sex-crazy freaks (or super lucky bastards, depending on your interpretation) like the guy in this pic:





I did the best I could to explain that not all foreigners are "bad" people (though God knows there are a lot of idiots here). I mean, take me for example. I'm pretty normal. I shave every day and dress decently. I don't have tattoos of Satan or tribal-rings in my nose. She does think I'm a good teacher all in all, despite our difference, because the kids adore me and are really happy, but I bet she's secretly wary of me now. And, just to be on the smart side, I will be keeping a safe physical distance from the children.

With that out of the way, the kids were great, as usual. Our new seating system is working wonders. If any of you teachers want to know a really effective way of managing your class try what we're doing. We have the kids in 4 groups. Each group has low level and high level students in it.

So, there are teams A, B, C, D. Each team gets a square on the whiteboard. When someone in the team does something good, such as answers a question right, or scores high on a test, they get a star (you draw them in the boxes). If they do something bad, such as come to class late, fail a test, or speak Korean, you subtract stars. This system puts effective pressure on the underachievers and/or trouble makers as the teams go crazy for stars. At the end of the day you count the stars for each group. Five (or however many you decided) equals one sticker for each kid in that group. The stickers are nothing more then small colored dots that they put on their sticker scoreboards. See this post. Eventually, when a student gets enough stickers, say thirty, he/she gets a small, inexpensive gift (such as a box of kids pencils or some crayons).

As a result, it's been a lot of fun for me to teach them lately as they are so excited about getting stickers. Also, their behavior is near perfect. Not that they were bad before, but now there is a real consequence to the "minus one point (now star)" routine - they're teammates will get angry and they won't get stickers.

Also, since the new book is terrible and Cathy now agrees, we don't really use it much and have been solely teaching phonics in class A and B and using the handy English Time 3 book in class C (sang a great song today about a kid who won't clean his bedroom). It's easy to make phonics fun for them now in these groups. If the learn the sounds and can read the words, their team gets a lot of stars...so they do they best to learn them and participate.

Well, I was about to go on writing but, I feel the tingle coming on. Within moments I will turn back into being an dirty, crazy, sex-addicted, barbaric foreigner for the rest of the evening. Rarrrrhhhh!

Speaking of that, I wonder if I got so many hits yesterday (nearly 3000) as a result of that scandal. I bet, since I was able to find the majority of the hits were coming from within Korea and a lot of people were searching the archives, that Koreans were checking foreigner blogs to see if they could dig up more fuel for the fire. Either that or people just wanted to see what I thought of the matter. I didn't realize it was such a big deal until the big discussion forum actually banned any threads about the matter and, more importantly, my favorite ajumma in Singil station gave me the cold shoulder today when I bought my usual sandwich.

As far as those checking up on my blog, I bet they were disappointed to see I'm just a (fairly) normal guy living a routine life and not writing about my sexual escapades...the hit count for today has returned to normal and nobody bought my book (maybe I should rename it Island of Foreigners Who Sleep With Korean Girls). All I can say is John was smart and lucky to pull the plug on his site when he did.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Smurfs on the Subway


La la lala la la, la lala la la. The smurfs are riding the train. Don't ask anyone me why. According to the short article, nobody has any idea.

[Update]: According to this page, the Smurfs are riding the subways in an effort to get people to read books during their commute. That is the coolest thing I've ever seen and a great idea. So many people sit on the train for an hour to work and stare into space.

It really is a great chance to read. I used to read the newspaper, but that wasn't very productful, so now I study Japanese on my headphones. It's amazing what you can accomplish with that time. I've done 60, 30 minute lessons in just about a month (sure wish Pimsleur made the series like this for Korean). Sure, some of you may think learning Japanese isn't very useful while living in Korea, but it's something unique and interesting to me - since, unlike Korean, I can actually pronounce it, and it's better than staring at commuters all that time.

written by shawn matthews    -|link

KLB - Quick Stat Report


If anyone is curious about KLB stats:

Day Date PageLoads UniqueVisitors

Sunday 16th January 2005 2,878 2111
Saturday 15th January 2005 1,490 1075
Friday 14th January 2005 1,369 1056
Thursday 13th January 2005 1,512 946
Wednesday 12th January 2005 1,594 999
Tuesday 11th January 2005 1,604 1005
Monday 10th January 2005 1,334 981


Seem to have gotten a lot of hits today, 2,878. Unfortunately, the free service I use for tracking only reports the last 10 referrals, so I'm not sure where everyone's coming from.

The lowest number of hits for 2004 was 553 on Christmas.

written by shawn matthews    -|link