School Festival & Fall Conference!

This past weekend was the 2011 Fulbright Korea ETA Fall Conference in Gyeongju! It was great to see everybody again but first, I have to start with the major event on Tuesday the 18th.

Class Observation
So on Tuesday, I held an open class with one of my co-teachers. It was really fun because we had an excellently planned lesson! My co-teacher created a lesson plan that worked with material covered in the book supplemented by a great art lesson! I always find some way to plug in my seemingly-useless-at-the-time art history class.

I think ~10 people came in to observe the class, including members of the educational board, middle school administrators, and middle and high school English teachers. For some reason, a foreigner English teacher friend of mine also came. He had no idea why he was there.

The class behaved extremely well, probably because the principal and vice principal of my school were also observing. It was a great lesson to have. I think they also took video footage of the class which I'll look for later. It can be on of my 'teaching samples" hahaha.

School Festival
A day for the students to come to school and not be IN school. I think every student had a blast. They played field games (1st grade vs. 2nd grade), made and sold food stuffs, had a mini concert and much much more. It was great to see cross class friendships and some friendly competition between the grades. There were some HILARIOUS performances by students. There was also a girl whom I've never heard before because she is too timid to speak in my English class. Obviously, she has a great voice.

This is a good part about the Korean education system, that really lets kids be kids. The majority of the students had no worries. All fun and games. A lot of "skinship". Don't worry, I took photos.

Unfortunately for the third grades, they had to study for their exam all day. That really really sucks. A lot ducked out for a bit to come and enjoy the festivities. However, no events were really planned for them.

Also, I sang a song in front of the school, but I do not really care to elaborate :)

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Skinship baby

Some bros boycotted the festival and decided to catch lizards instead

This dude had some sort of gambling fundraising going on

Preparing food to sell!

A blood test booth... who would ever pay to do this?

Skinship 2

Skinship 3

Skinship 4

Skinship 5 (one guy is gently holding his friend)

Fall Conference
Hurrah for a 4-day educational getaway! This was an awesome time to visit one of the last legs of my Korean Grand Tour, Gyeongju. It was the capital of the old Silla Dynasty. A lot of kings were buried along with their extravagant tombs. They are these HUGE mounds. Tempting to climb, but I am not a child anymore.

We all had time to enjoy the city, share our 2 months of teaching/surviving. It was great to see everybody again. We went to Noraebang almost every night too! It is amazing how our friendships just took off again once we saw each other. It was really fun :)

Of course we met a lot of embassy staff and had teaching workshops. It was a grand experience!

Album cover - courtesy of CH

The observatory of ancient days. They didn't really need to look up very high. Or they used to be very, very short... - courtesy of JM

I am ruining this great photo - courtesy of CH

Party bus to Gyeongju

Epic mountain entrance

Some of the bros

Beautiful trees changing colors!

Popular temple to visit this time of year...

Rock towers!

My rock tower

Just me at the observatron...

Burial mounds

Again, going at it with some chicks... This one is a princess

Walkway to the old kings tomb, with friends!

King's tomb... they didnt allow photos from the inside :(

BIFF, Jinju, School Update, Life Updates

BIFF - Busan International Film Festival
~ 30 ETAs invaded Busan for the extended weekend due to high school exams. We found a great motel to stay at that was clean and cheap. The rooms were also quite spacious for ~30,000W a night. Location... secret! I don't want that place to sell out the next time I go to Busan. We had to stand in line early in the morning to get tickets, but a lot of the shows were well worth it. I even got to see some actors and directors, but nobody really famous. I wish I could have stayed for the closing ceremony, but I had school. I also found out many movies at film festivals are incredibly depressing. Even the 'comedy' I watched had somebody die. Here is a review of all the movies I was able to watch.

1. Melancholia - One of the more famous films. I believe it was sold out. It was more of a sci-fi thriller than I expected and I didn't know what to make of it first. It started to grow on me though after I finished the movie. Also, I don't understand why Kirsten Dunst won an award for her role when she was severely outplayed by her co-star Charlotte Gainsbourg. Just sayin.
2. Death is My Profession - This was a Persian film about the futility of man's struggle in the face of unforgiving nature and circumstance. Isn't this called naturalism? I can't even remember my literally movements. It was okay, just depressing...
3. Tree of Life - The other famous Western movie that was showing. It was a bit ridiculous at times (dinosaurs, random montages of space/nature), but I thought the exploratory story line was good. Brad did a really good job in his role as the father. I guess I could relate a bit better to the film because I was also a teenage boy not too long ago in a world that seems so different from the one I live in now.
4. A Cube of Sugar - The comedy, another Persian film. This was a different representation of society from the other Persian movie. This one had an iPhone in it. It really focused on the family and some tensions that cross all lines in Iranian society.
5. Return to Burma - This was a documentary-esque narrative that describes a man coming back from Taiwan to Burma after working in construction. It really shows the disparity of wages and living between different countries. The people were poor and lived hard lives. I can't say that it had a positive message. The director and the main actor came out after the film ended and shared some of their thoughts about the film.

I wanted to watch a few hours, but things don't always work out the way we plan. I ended up having a really good time though. I even got to go ice skating between films.

The next Yuna Kim.

We also went to an interesting sashimi restaurant where we selected the fish we wanted from a tank, then put them in a bucket. We then took the bucket up a few floors and they prepared it for us. It was... interesting haha.

It was A and L's birthday, so we also had dinner and drinks. We also went out dancing, which was very fun. Busan is a city for young people! We had the beach, some small fireworks. I even got to eat some Jok Bal :)

--- Side note ---

Never go ice skating in Korea without bringing like 5 socks. They don't have any padding on the shoes. I think all of us foreigners got blisters. Also, you must wear gloves and a helmet. We looked silly, but I had fun nonetheless.

A, D and I waiting in line for tickets.

Line part 1

Line part 2

Line part 3

Line part 4

Line part 5

Seafood restaurant

Outside

Beach 1

Beach 2

Beach 3

Our food part 1

Our food part 2

Jinju

We took a momentary respite from all the Busan'ing and took a bus to the Jinju Lantern Festival. There were lots of lanterns to look at. We mostly went to sit on a veranda and hang out with drunk babies. As we sat on one of those raised verandas, some babies came up to us and hung out with us. It was a good time. We also saw some Native Americans (or Samoans) who were selling CD's very successfully.

I wish I could have cultured myself from this festival a bit more, but I really needed the rest and relaxation. It was a really good time to hang out.

(Just for future reference, I have a direct bus to Jinju from Gochang. Didn't know that, but now I do)

The festival during the day. Not as cool.

A view of more lanterns from the veranda

M and her HOT DATE

Spinning America lantern

That's more like it

A line to pay to cross a bridge in the middle of the lanterns. I didn't.

Lanterns that people set along the river.

J and his Naju Mascot

Apparently several Korean cities installed this to monitor nuclear fallout from Japan. A constant reminder I guess...

More lanterns in the river. I'm sure it was cooler on opening day.

This kind of reminded me of Christmas light shows we have in the States.

Dragons!

Foodstand of rolling meat. It was okay I guess.

Wish lanterns that people got to make and hang up. It was nice to see SOOO many of them.

Some famous general. Wasn't the great general Yi though.

Navajos?

The bridge from the other side. I guess it was nice and you could take some nice pictures.

RAGE

RAGE in context. He is repelling Japanese invaders with rocks. They have guns.

Japanese soldier getting PWNED by a Pikeman.

This bro was shot. In the head. I don't know why this guy on the ground was necessary, but he was there.

The Korea Tiger

J and M along the shore. I think this is a good picture.

One for the parents!

Awkward lean...

Creepy

Not as creepy, but Pikachu used Double-Team. Evasion was up.

School
So this week was fun... A few things happened which might be easier to read in bullet points.

• A few of our third year students will be going out and about the world to interview for different universities. On Wednesday and Thursday I tried to help them prepare... in Korean... Three of them went to Seoul. Hopefully they did well. I think preparing for an interview at least once makes a HUGE difference in their actual performance.
• I will be observed, recorded, and evaluated (?) on Tuesday. Hopefully it goes well. Apparently there is a prize if I do particularly well. I will let you all know how that goes haha.
• I have been asked to participate in tug-of-war at my school festival starting this Thursday. I have also been asked to sing a song for my school this Thursday. Yikes!

Life

I went to a flower festival with my grandma, my uncle, and my aunt. I also gave her some monetary allowance. It was nice to spend some time with her again. She had some struggles climbing up the hills to look at the flowers.

However, this also led me to my crisis moment. After lunch, I had to go #2. I ran to find the nearest toilet. It was a portapotty. A DIRTY, oriental squatting portapotty. There was no toilet paper. I don't even know how to use it. I couldn't look at it without wanting to throw up. At that moment, I wanted American and I wanted American NOW. I had to run for like another 15 minutes to find another toilet that was moderately acceptable. A moment of homesickness.

Overall another great week. I can tell I am getting lazy and not exercising as much, but I promised to pick it up soon!

Till next time,

- Anthony