I got a new job! I've accepted a position in the English education department at a teachers' university. Starting in August, I will be living in Gwangju, a city in the southwest corner of the mainland, teaching budding elementary school teachers. There's another university nearby that offers Korean language lessons (my main motivation for leaving ( Read more... )

Excerpt from a text message conversation with Bonggi #3 ( Read more... )

My laptop is now adorned by seventeen Keroro stickers plus two anime figures I don't recognize, courtesy of a particularly sneaky first-grade student. I am officially the envy of all my students (one of whom actually stole two of my stickers yesterday!). ^^

While playing "Two Truths and a Lie" with class 1-4:

Student:
1. I have been to busan.
2. I am god.
3. My cell phone color is black.

Via Cyworld, from a former student newly of legal drinking age who just finished his first week of universityMe: Did you have a good weekend? What did you do ( Read more... )

My students have taken it upon themselves to decorate my computer. In two classes, while my back was turned, Keroro stickers suddenly materialized. (The stickers are currently a fad here, though the cartoon has been around for a while. It’s known as SGT. FROG in the U.S., I believe.) First, there was one. In the next class, one became six. I’ve ( Read more... )

Woo-hoo! Problems resolved. (Some of them, anyway.) As Einstein once said, “Impossible is nothing ( Read more... )

The boys seemed happy to see me today, and they actually spoke English to me-voluntarily! I was especially surprised by a friendly greeting from our school rock band's guitarist, since I had (maybe) embarrassed him a week ago. The school rock band had a concert, and one of the other teachers was kind enough to tell me about it. Toward the end of ( Read more... )

Wow, it’s been a long time since I last posted! It feels a little ridiculous to be posting a summary of the past few months, but it would feel far more absurd just to jump in with a story about my day, so.... In brief, since I last posted, I ( Read more... )

You know, for a self-proclaimed misanthropic hermit-wannabe, I’m surprisingly attached to my friends. It never ceases to amaze me how friends can make up for a terrible week ( Read more... )

Despite much frustration, I emerged victorious from my most recent trip to Seoul. The frustrations included spending about forty-five minutes explaining first to DHL and then to the post office that I needed a self-addressed, stamped envelope so my passport could be returned to me by the Bangladesh embassy after my visa was processed. ( Short version: I have my visa! Long version: under the cut )