::A Geek in Korea::

As my wife was out walking Yoshi one day when I was busy, she met a foreigner with two dogs out for a walk. We are always looking for information about our dog, so she struck a conversation up with him. It turned out he was looking to move into our apartment and was out looking at locations near the park we use to walk our dog. They talked for around twenty minutes and set up a "play date" for Yoshi with one of his dogs today.

We gave him a call, and he brought over a cute Pekingese dog. He was full of lots of information about pet care, and knew Daejeon very well. He’s lived here longer than I have, and was actually in Korea teaching English pre-1997 Financial Crisis! He teaches at a respectable college near by and seems to enjoy his life in Korea very much. Turns out that the two dogs my wife had seen, and the dog he brought over were only half of his "pack". He had six dogs total, and had two cats as well. 8 pets all in a smaller apartment than we live in now. Wow!

With his extended paid vacations he had the time to look after that many pets. We’ve got our hands full watching our single pet with our schedules. He explained how he managed to keep stumbling onto more pets that needed care, or got pets given to him as gifts. Sometimes seeing a sick dog can be rather heartbreaking once you are a pet owner. We have a struggle walking by the pet store every time we go shopping. If a certain rationality about our situation and allergies didn’t keep us in check, we’d probably be living in a zoo.

His biggest concern when considering his move was if pets were allowed in the building. We filled him in on the current on and off again battles with the enforcement of pet rules in our apartment complex. If he moved into our building, there might be a rallied effort to push for a pet ban since he’d be walking all of his dogs nearby in the park. He’s stated that in his current apartment everyone knows, but no one complains. He’s befriended his neighbors, so perhaps that’s the key. He’s also got a collar that uses scent to prevent dog barking, so all his dogs are well mannered and behaved.

It was nice to have someone over that could teach us about our dog, and also knew about the city. We’ll be taking up some of his training tips and recommendations about local hospitals. If we ever want another dog, we’ll also know where to go first.

I created a worksheet to study the "be" verb, using it in a pattern repeatedly to form proper sentences to practice. The patterns were supposed to show how many sentences were easy to create just by swapping different words.

To make a question:
"Be Verb" + Pronoun + Adjective + Question Mark.
Example: Is he tired?

For a positive declarative sentence:
Yes + Comma + Pronoun + "Be Verb" + Adjective + Period.
Example: Yes, He is tired.

For a negative declarative sentence:
No, + Comma + Pronoun + "Be Verb" with Not contraction + Adjective + Period.
Example: No, he isn’t tired.

I created examples following the rules above. Instead of using the word type terms, I would substitute them with words the students should know from their books. I wrote out examples for sentence that use "Is" and "Are", and made a list of different pronouns and how the Be verb changes in each sentence. I gave them enough information that all they had to do was simply swap words. I gave them a word bank for each sentence in the same order each time. In other words, if the students knew how to make a three word sentence with the Be verb properly, they couldn’t get this wrong if they followed my patterns.

I gave this to a class that had done these sorts of questions in class. We had been talking about careers. The sentences, "He is a firefighter", or "He is brave" were something all the students had practiced. We did these in class together. They were repeating after me, and they should have listened to the tape, and read the book five or more times before they had come to class for this lesson. The students only had minor problems forming correct sentences when I was having them repeat after me. Proof enough that they could do my worksheet, or so I thought.

I handed out my papers, then started writing the examples on the board. The students had to look at the sentence, then decode the next sentence in the same manner. No spelling required. I wrote down the first four answers on the page as people worked, that way slower students might be able to catch onto the pattern as we worked through it, instead of having to do it on their own. After the forth problem, the pattern of pronouns intentionally repeated, so they had already written their own examples once. After that I refused to simply tell them answers and would only point them to the previous example that best fit the sentence they were working on.

One of my worst students stopped working after the first problem. He had his "Disk Read Error: Abort Retry Fail. File not found. Try again?" face on. I had told them that it was homework, and since I had written four of the answers on the board, it would be wise to keep working, because it was less to do at home. I would go around the class, helping students, and every time he was rebooting his brain, dead stare, no idea what was going on. I kept telling him, "Hey, the answers are on the board, I can’t do anything more to help you other than writing it on your paper for you."

Another student happened to lock up on one of the "do it yourself" questions. He wanted to know the sentence order. Since it was the same as every other question, I told him to look at previous answers. When I found that other students couldn’t help him, I pitied him enough to tell him the answer. All he had to do was pick up his pencil and write it down as I said it. I repeated the answer seven times in total as I walked around class, stopping at him to repeat the answer, then move on.  He wouldn’t lift his own pencil and write. He gave me a look like he expected me to do his work for him.

That sort of thing drives me nuts. I have thirteen students in this class, and I want to keep all of them working. I can’t spend my time on two really slow students when everyone needs my help. I wrote them off and focused on the people that were actually going to have a chance to complete the lesson, albeit with mistakes. I hoped to catch a good students mistake rather than tell a bad student what to write.

After class, I took my two students with boot failure brains to the teachers office and explained that they were taking up too much of my time in class, and that they needed to do their work when it was written on the board for them. My director took them to a spare classroom, made fresh copied, and told them to start over, this time with no help from me. In an hour, when the next bus was scheduled to leave, they could go. One student got 90% of the paper done, and one 40% finished.

I told the Korean teachers, "Students can’t form three word sentences with the Be verb. What’s going on?!"

The head teacher seemed to think that they didn’t understand how changing the position of the Be verb in the sentence created questions, thus they didn’t understand my pattern sentence structure. Since we had done this in multiple classes, in multiple lessons, and I’m not even the students grammar teacher, I doubted this was true. I had explicitly written this out and diagrammed a sentences, spoken examples, and done everything I could to show this being true. Besides, if students have been studying here multiple years, and can’t make a three word sentence, what the hell were they learning in the Korean teacher’s grammar classes?

It seems that while in a spoken environment they can parrot back what they need to to survive, they don’t actually retain much information at all. The parents of some of the students will get calls home. I was really shocked at how poorly most of my students did. With mid-term tests being next week, I don’t expect a favorable outcome.

Clubhouse games, known in other parts of the world as 42 All-time Classics, is a game that came out of no where to be something I’d recommend to anyone with a Nintendo DS. It is a collection of board games, card games, and variety games (42 in all) most of which can be played online versus opponents around the world via WIFI or played between people on different DS with local sharing. Not only is playing a board game online cool, the ability to communicate with friends via a white board drawing applications (Color Pictochat!) is awesome.

Right now, I’m working through "Stamp mode" which is simply a introduction to all the games. You can play versus AI opponents of various difficulties to learn the basics, then jump online to challenge people. Right now, I’m excited by the possibility to learn the Japanese equivalent of hwatu, sometimes known as Gostop by Koreans. In Japan it is called, "Hanafuda" or "Koi-Koi". I want to learn how to play when it wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg first before I play with relatives for fun.

I’ve played a lot of the games already, but have never been taught Backgammon or Bridge in any form. My parents didn’t know how to play them, or never played them with us. The rules are explained, and since legal play is enforced by the machine, I can learn what to do so that if I wanted to play them on my own, I could. Since learning new games is a hobby of mine, being able to grasp a game I’ve heard of but never played would be interesting.  Shogi, on the other hand, looks down right intimidating and I don’t know anything about it other than it is "Japanese Chess".

About the current game selection, the only games I seem missing that I would really like to have are cribbage and Go (badduk). Cribbage is one of my favorite card games ever, and while I have a Go board, I don’t know how to play well enough to do anything other than waste people’s time. Since Go players on television (That’s right, there is a dedicated Go channel, with live televised matches all the time) are so serious, I’d be afraid to learn by challenging an old man on the street. Perhaps this comic could help?

While there are a few games I’ll need to learn, and a few more games I’d like to add, there are certainly enough things to do and play to keep people busy either online or off in this budget priced title. If you have even a causal interest in playing a good number of board games with a touch screen, I’d highly recommend this title.

My new coworker has a year of Korean teaching experience already under his belt. In an odd "The world is smaller than you think it is" twist, it turns out that when I had to look for work a few months ago when my last school decided to stop paying taxes, I actually got in touch with him when he was working at his last job. He was pulling double shifts and needed a new teacher to work at his school so that he could resume a normal schedule. We had only talked on the phone, and I didn’t take the job, but as he described the details over dinner last week, I recognized the situation immediately. We could have been coworkers before, and now we work together. How odd.

He’s still a nice, kind, child loving teacher. When students arrive, he goes out and greets them. He finds his favorite students and plays with them. He tosses students in the air and gives them hugs.

I remember that time, back when I couldn’t understand a word my students were saying. Back when I tried to compensate for my lack of understanding with friendliness and fun that didn’t fit with my role as teacher. A few years ago, I used to be "that guy". The "fun" teacher, but not anymore.

I had a spectacularly bad day at work. The "lucky there were no scissors present" sort of day that comes with large classrooms full of sarcastic, rude students. Not fun. I’ve got the largest classes I’ve ever taught, and they are growing dramatically. I’ve added new students in every class in the past week. There are now enough students in class that it’s getting nearly impossible for one on one interaction. Their behavior isn’t good enough to allow for group work or greater freedom for my students. Worst of all, their testing, results, and general ability hasn’t shown significant improvement on most tests. The bad students continue to fail, and the good continue to pull their weight.

I was furious today. Every single student that misbehaved thought that this was the time to test me in any petty manner they could. If it wasn’t for my experience teaching and knowing where my limit was, I probably was dangerously close to doing something rash. It’s not good for me to return home worried and stressed from work. If I can’t put my day behind me, it builds like steam until I need to vent. With so few social and pragmatic ways to let  go of my stress, each day this week had been progressively worse.

Strangely, when I was less antagonistic and less of a teacher, I was much more stressed out day to day. It’s rare that I let things on the job bother me, but something got under my skin today and I’m still bothered by it.

I must admit, I have a horrible time waiting for packages of any kind. My wife, after dealing with her case of identity fraud, ordered several items online that we had been needing. I was to receive a memory card, and Yoshi would get some snacks at a cheaper price than the store, and a name collar. She ordered all the items on a shopping spree from the home at G-market on Sunday morning.

For the past two days I waited impatiently. We could only pay for the items to be shipped yesterday with a bank transfer, so they didn’t leave Seoul until then. Three separate ship dates were confirmed once we paid, but we didn’t know exactly when. We had left instructions to deliver the packages with the security guard if we weren’t home. All we had to do was wait.

The suspense was killing me, and I decided to get out of the house. Staying at home and watching the time slip away was getting to me. I wanted my new memory card to arrive early so I would have some time to use it before I went to work. I took the dog out for an extended walk around the park just in case I might run into a delivery man on my way in, or see some sign of our package being delivered. Perhaps the security guard would hand me a package as I walked by his little office.

My hopes were dashed when I returned to the apartment. No notes on the door or elevator telling of a package waiting for me anywhere. I sat down and prepared myself for another lost day. Suddenly, the phone rang!

I handed the phone over to my wife. I could hear the words, "delivery,  outside, come up, we’re home" and some other details. Had my packaged finally arrived?

Sensing my hopefulness, my wife causally mentioned, "Oh, that was the delivery man. Yoshi’s snacks have arrived." CRAP! The dog doesn’t even appreciate the fact we got snacks for him, let alone care the package arrived first! What terrible luck! My hopes were dashed. Only ten minutes before I needed to go to work, and my package was no where in sight! I went outside to get into the taxi, resigned to another day of waiting.

Just then as my wife and I were about to get into the taxi, we spotted the delivery service that was supposed to be dropping off my memory card today. Could it be? The driver was not in the cab, and the truck was parked haphazardly in the parking lot. We ran to the back of the truck to see if we could get our package early. Indeed we could! Success! We grabbed the package and darted off for the taxi.

I couldn’t play with my new toy during work, but at least the anticipation was now over.

In my first class, I had a new student. He had a rather peculiar name I had never encountered before. I asked him his name and information for filling out the attendance sheet. I got that typical thousand yard stare when people expecting me to speak English are surprised to hear my Korean. I’m not exactly a fluent speaker, but most of my students are fairly forgiving.

This student turned to his neighbor and said, "His pronunciation is so strange!" as if I wasn’t even there.

I got a "Oh-no-you-didn’t!" look on my face, and switched from Korean to English when dealing with him from that point on.

All that was going through my mind was, "Don’t like how I talk? Tough. Use your English vocabulary to solve your problems. Last time I help you by speaking Korean on the first day to make you more comfortable."

I was fairly indignant to have to listen to such criticism said in front of me, as if I wouldn’t understand it. Perhaps he thought that if my pronunciation was that bad, I might not know what he was saying. Except I did, and his neighbor knew it. My other students didn’t chime in to agree with the new student. In fact, they sort of flinched and expected me to bring the pain.

It’s a double standard that I can grade their English pronunciation while messing up Korean words all the time. That’s part of my job, and most students are lucky I even make the effort to try to understand them. Most foreign teachers I’ve met can only go to restaurants with pictures. The majority never bother to learn to read Korean. I think that complaining that I don’t have perfect Korean grammar is a little unfair. He’s lucky I even care enough to try.

I’m actively studying, working to improve myself, and that’s all I ask of my students as well. The simple fact that I caught him in his bad mouthing means he probably needs to revise his thinking of me in the first place. I’d like to improve, but there really is no point to worrying about the criticisms students launch at me. I have a limited interaction with adults, so I’ll have a stunted pronunciation as long as I teach children. I’ve been told my pronunciation is child like, but that’s where I spend my time, so it’s not easy to change.

For the record, the kid’s English was only average for his age from what I heard today. I think he shouldn’t be throwing stones.

My wife has now officially gotten aboard the "Online Shopping" experience. She spent the entire day yesterday looking for deals. I needed to get a new memory card, so she spent time looking for the cheapest items with the best service and features. She went to Auction.co.kr for the first time, which happens to be the largest site of it’s kind in Korea. It’s the standard for auction sites in Korea, and was purchased by the American giant eBay a few years ago. The problem was that when she went to create an Identity on the site for the first time, it said that she had already been a member for four years.

She didn’t start shopping online until last month or so, and didn’t even have a debt card four years ago. There is no way she could have been the person that had signed up for an online auction site. There is no way she could have paid for anything she bought. She did a search to find out who was registered using her Korean identity number. It turns out, it was an old Ex-boyfriend of hers. She recognized his email address. He had signed up using her personal information months after they had broken up.

She gave him a call and chewed him a new ear. Whatever he had done using her personal information, he claimed he didn’t remember. She said she was going to call the Cyber Police if he didn’t immediately delete the account. The Cyber Police are a group of police officers dedicated to fighting online crime and identity theft in Korea that track down scam artists and crooks.

The Korean Identity number, which is a unique number given to Korean people like the American Social Security number, is used by most websites as a personal identification to prove who you are. While having a way to positively identify someone online is a good idea for commerce and accountability, it has it’s downsides. Once a website has been compromised, or someone gets hold of your information, it’s much too simple to sign up and abuse such a system.

While her ex-boyfriend might have simply forgotten that he had signed up with her details sometime in the past, we don’t know if there was any malicious intent behind his actions. He claimed that if anything bad came from the result of using her name long ago, he would take full responsibility. He has since deleted the account.

Luckily for us it was someone we could directly contact and deal with, instead of a stranger that we wouldn’t be able to track down and could abuse the situation. Considering the amount of time I spend online, it’s a scary proposition to think of all the potentially abusable personal information floating around at people’s disposal. Having to deal with a privacy issue first hand is frightening and maddening.

There is an overly friendly perpetually drunk man that happens to live on the twelfth floor of our apartment building. I first encountered him alone a few weeks ago. He was getting into the elevator. He was red faced and obviously drunk. I was standing to the side of the elevator trying not to be overpowered by the garlic laced breath, and was getting a contact buzz from the alcohol escaping from his pores. Someone was running to the elevator, so being polite, I held the door.

In the extra time it took for the person to run into the elevator, the man discovered I was a foreigner. In awe, he sort of poked me in the shoulder and asked me in a slurred Korean, "Where are YOU from? Can you speak Korean?" sort of thing. I sighed, resigned to my fate to have to chat with a drunk for ten stories as the elevator slowly rose to my floor. The man started rambling about something. I nodded along, agreed at a few things he said, but didn’t really get much of his topic. I bolted for the door as soon as possible when it opened on my floor, saying goodbye and jamming the key into the lock as fast as possible.

A week ago, my wife and I happened to get trapped on the elevator with him again. He was drunk, again, in the middle afternoon with a friend. They both lived in the building, and my elevator friend was telling his drunk companion about how well I could speak Korean. I just nodded and hoped my wife would bail me out or translate some of the stuff he was saying. She just played like she didn’t know me and left me to deal with the drunk guys. Since she didn’t know how he might react to her saying something on my behalf, and we only had a few stories to go up, I didn’t care too much. I think she was enjoying what he was saying about me to this other drunk man.

Today, I happened to be getting on the elevator as he was leaving, likely to go to a bar and drink. He shouted, "Hello!" in Korean at me, and I replied with a cordial "See you later". He’s the only person that talks to me in the elevator. Everyone else just pretends not to notice me, or to look at Yoshi like he’s going to devour them. I wish he would knock off all the poking however. It’s creepy enough to ride up with a drunk guy talking to you, but poking me in the shoulder makes me extra uncomfortable.