More Orts (morsels)

No disrespect to my country, or to my family, but I have converted to the Korean way

......of making grilled cheese sandwiches. It's so much better. You have a block of butter, and you don't have to scrape off the rock hard butter and try and force it onto the unwilling, donor slice - ripping gaping holes in the bread. You simple open the top of the block, wipe it around the hot frying pan and then fire the bread/cheese onto the pan. Ends up the same I promise. Faster and Easier. I don't know if they make grilled cheese sandwiches here per se, but they have what basically amounts to a glorified grilled cheese restuarant chain (Isac Toast....their motto? "the happiness together" catchy, no?) So good and so cheap. For $1  (85 cents at the current exchange) for can get egg "toast-uh"  (think egg mcmuffin crossed with grilled cheese) or if you're feeling rich, you can spend $2.50 on the deluxe beef patty/sproats etc egg toast. Hmmmm.

We have voted, and the english word that we hear most here is "crazy". I use it at least 50 times a day. All the kids know that word and love it....if you say it, it sends them into fits of delirium....I think because the Korean equivalent is stronger, they think they're saying a bad word....and the teachers don't seem to care (cause it's not a bad word) so they go to town. 

Don't know if you caught my pouting facebook status, but they added another hour to my workday which sucks. They told us on Friday, surprise, you have a new class starting Monday...surprise, it's adults, surprise it's the bosses son and all his friends (no pressure!). We were assured it would only last two months until March (you figure out the math on that one). 

Actually the class is fine, it's like 10 some-odd 18/19yr old boys who just need conversation practice. So we think of topics to talk about and talk. Not hard. They're quite enjoyable actually. But the surprise factor was lame, and no one wants to do more work for the same money do they? (especially when that same money is like 30% less in CDN than it was in the summer) 

What else? I went on my first Korean date yesterday. There's a coffee shop that I went to with friends and a cute girl works there.  I go there to study Korean with friends sometimes, and now I go to study one Korean. JK. Anyway, she helps me with Korean and I help her with English, and yesterday we went out for the first time outside of the cafe. Saw the movie "Australia"... Her name is 예나 (Yaena) and she's really sweet. But it's really not much of a story at this point and she's going to the Phillipines for two months next week so yea. 

If you haven't picked it up subliminally, I like here now - my school and bosses are excellent, which is a common sore spot for foreign teachers - between a few friends here and some more in Seoul (from Prov and from Church), I'm not feeling as isolated as I was. We go to Seoul pretty much every weekend, and it's good. I could probably go every weekend for the rest of the year and not see everything there is to see. The kids don't bug me anymore really, and I like most of them. Studying, or watching the Canucks, and the gym keeps most of my mornings occupied. I haven't ventured out with my camera for a while....since it started being really cold my motivation has been sapped severely - though my lens wishlist continues to grow and there's an exciting new camera offering from Olympus in January. I will accept donations at my Canadian address :) 

That's all for now....

~ Matt