I gots the internets

woooo! The technician who installed it warned me "I speak no Enlgishy."

(Koreans add the "Y" sound to a lot of English words, it's good fun.)

So, it's totally unethical for teachers to put pictures of their co-teachers or students onto the infermationsuperhighway.

But the interweb is a vast hole and I'm working with the assumption that no one will ever stumble upon this blog besides the few STL friends who read it.

I'm not telling anyone else.

This is the bike that I bought. Not too bad (but not good)

I was talked out of buying a street bike

and after a week of riding on the janky streets of Seoul

I'm glad I took the advice.

Yea.

Hel

mets

are

good.

I had a great bike ride along the Han River with some other teachers. The Han is a big ass river that cuts through the center of Seoul.

After we finished the trip we met up with other teachers, had a picnic and played a sport which is like volleyball but you kick the ball with your feet.

A few teachers gave me an invitation to climb a mountain, which turned out to be huge. I haven't really done this kind of thing before and it was a bit scary. There were a lot of points where I realize "If I slip here I will fall down the side of this mountain--and then, of course,

I will die. I better not slip."

We were really

high up,

eating fruit.

This cat is cool.

He invited me to his friends wedding.

I'm not sure why

but hell yea,

I'm going.

Mr. So.

A badass English

teacher.

Given his English is not that good,

But he is great.

I

was

so

close

to falling to my death.

I am beginning to appreciate

the odd English signs.

Everywhere are sign with
weird grammar and word usage.

You know what they are saying

but it sounds very strange.

Step into "The English Zone"

We have English News

(what an ugly sign, I shouldn't have let the students color it)

I am trying to cover up the oppressive beige walls with some student "art".

Hanging crap on the walls is the best part of being a teacher.

Here are a few students from the extra curricular classes.

The guy on the left is one of my "Jason" student.

This was the kid with the crazy bleeding nose.

This kid on the left, below, is hilarious. His voice hasn't changed yet, it's very high pitched and soft.

His name was Rich but he keeps changing it to "Die" even though I keep telling him no.

A lot of the "art", especially from boys, is hilariously bad. Actually the funniest ones are not here. I had to take them down due to their creepiness and use of fake blood.

Many students love to fight. I guess that's middle school everywhere in the world.

Koreans are very shy about certain things. My students hate to speak in front of the class, which is problematic when you're teaching conversational English.

I was taking student photos for a project (not for this blog) and most girls wholeheartedly refused.

This was the best present ever.

Her: "We-DING, I made this for you."

Me: "Wow, thanks."

Her: "Also I have 'Dark Night' on flashdrive. For you"

My desk.

My lovely wall decorations.

The school just got a massive grant to build a new English classroom for next semester. It will be my future classroom so this is great news for me. State of the art. I'm going to request marble flooring and a Smell-O-Vision machine.

One of my favorite student's name is the Korean word for "The Bible"

A very strange thing to name your kid.

"Hey The Bible come over here."

He is a great kid, though.

This is damn long already.

Next week I'll put up some pics of my flat and life in Seoul.

Cheers.