"When are you going back to Korea?"

That is the question people have been asking me for the past 3 1/2 months. And for the past 3 1/2 months my answer has usually been, "soon."

Most people who I talk to on a regular basis and know nothing about teaching English there probably now think getting a job in Korea is really difficult. Finding just any job is easy. Finding a good job can be difficult. Or if you are like me it can be really difficult if you are both very picky about the job and don't put much effort into finding one.

So the reason I am still here is I just haven't tried very hard to find a job. I'm trying, but what I mean is, I think for as picky about jobs as I have been I have not been trying hard enough. If I had lower standards, I could have had a job by now, I have turned down several job offers for various reasons. I don't mean low standards, just lower.

Some people may be interested to know salary was not one of the things I was being so picky about. Most schools have offered about the same pay. The biggest things I was looking at were location, location, location, working hours, and the age group I would teach.

But now it's August and I am really starting to feel restless about getting back. So I have to relax my standards a little and start putting more effort in to the job hunt.

no new job

Last week I got the document I had been waiting for, and sent everything to Korea. The documents would be arriving yesterday, so I was expecting an email telling me the next step. Instead I got an email telling me that the school couldn't wait for me and they hired some one else. So now I am back to fucking square one, looking for a job.

new job?

I've been in the US since April 23, but I really haven't done anything constructive so far. I have been exercising, I have done some metal work, but I haven't finished anything, and I just got back from a one week trip to San Diego. I really don't know what I have been doing the rest of the time I've been here.

I guess I have found a new job in Korea, but I am a little worried about it working out. I was hired, and I emailed them the signed contract and a copy of my passport info page, now I am supposed to send the rest of the documents by Fed Ex to Korea, but I am still waiting to receive one of the things I need from the US government. I told my recruiter from the start that I was still waiting on one document, now the school keeps asking him when I will get it. The document should be here any day now but I'm not sure how long the school will wait for me.

Korea 2010-2011 review

I did my one year abroad, like I always wanted to do. It doesn't feel like it was one year, but I guess it was. One year was nothing. It was too short. I keep saying how I can't believe the year went so fast because that's how I really feel. I've been in the US almost 3 weeks now and I still can't believe I was in Korea a whole year.

So I will do a second year. I would have preferred it be 2 years at the same school, but that wasn't possible. I'm a little worried the next year won't be as good. Either get a bad school or bad location, or something will be bad. My last year wasn't perfect, but it exceeded my expectations in most ways.

It's hard for me to say exactly what it was that made my year there so good. I wanted to experience a new culture and I feel that I did. It's not like being on vacation for a year, cause I had to work, but living in another country made daily life much more interesting than when I am living in the US. What I really wonder about is how long living in Korea will stay interesting?

My students were not too difficult to deal with, except for a few of them and my co teachers were usually helpful.

The only occasional problem at my school was lack of communication. Not knowing what was going on, what I am supposed to do or what was expected of me.

There were a few things about my time in Korea that were a disappointment, but they were all my own fault...

-I didn't put enough effort into learning Korean. Trying to do it on my own just didn't work, I'm not motivated or disciplined enough. I think I have to take a class if I want to learn it. I studied somewhat mostly just vocabulary. I kept procrastinating with starting to study seriously, and before I knew it the year was over and I hadn't done much at all.

-I put of weight cause I didn't exercise enough and ate too much junk food. I ate so much junk food cause there isn't much Korean food I like.

-I didn't really do any jewelry work. I brought tools to carve wax, but I didn't do much work.

-I wish I would have taken one more international trip to Japan or Hong Kong. I mostly wasted my summer vacation.

-I didn't travel much in Korea. I only took two trips to Busan, and stopped in Daegu on the way to Busan one time. Actually I don't really care that I didn't travel much, I just feel kind of like I should have since I had the opportunity.

There were only a few things I didn't like that were out of my control:

-My city was pretty small and far from Seoul. By the end of the year I was really getting sick of having to take the train to Seoul to meet friends or for shopping.

-My apartment didn't have AC. It's too humid in summer in Korea not to have AC.

The good things were far more significant than the couple bad things and the disappointments I had with myself. The negative things are just easier to pick out. Overall it was a great experience. I just wish I had done it 10 years ago.

Last post from Korea

This will be my last post from Korea (but not the last post in this blog), I'll fly back to Chicago this afternoon. The year went really fast. I had a good experience here. I'm happy to be going back to the US, I just wish I had another job lined up in Korea. I won't be coming back till I find one. I am hoping that will be in June.

PC bang

My internet was turned off the other day, so lately I have been going to an internet cafe, or PC bang (bang means room in Korean). They are everywhere in Korea. Theres so many of them I don't know how they all stay in business. They only charge around $1 an hour. These places are mostly for playing computer games, so I guess people come here for hours and hours to play games. One person I know that used to play games a lot said she once played for about 50 hours straight. When I would ask my students about what they do in their free time one of the most common answers, from both boys and girls, is "play computer games".

I've only been to a few PC bangs. They are ok, except they stink from all the people smoking, and its always too dark.

office depot

Last week I noticed an Office Depot right by my apartment. I don't know if its new or if I just never noticed it before. There have been several times I have needed to go there.

last day of school

Today is my last day of school. I'm just cleaning out my desk and trying to get a few last things straightened out.

Friday was my last day teaching. After school I went out to dinner with the other English teachers. I spent the weekend packing my stuff. When I came here I brought the maximum allowed by the airline. Since I have been here a year and accumulated more stuff I don't have room for it all now. So I will go over the 50lb weight limit with my bags and pay the overweight baggage fee. I also threw out a lot of stuff, gave some things to my friend to hold till I come back to Korea, and will mail a box or two home.

fights

I had to break up a fight between two girls at the start of second period today. When I came in the classroom the boys told me there was a fight. I couldn't see it cause the girls were all huddled in the corner around the two that were fighting. I'm not sure how long it had been going on. After I got through some of the spectators I couldn't even tell what was going on since it was just a mess of black hair. It seemed the two fighters and the one or two people trying to separate them were all pulling each others hair. Both fighters left crying.

This was the second fight I have broken up since I came here. The first one was between two boys, I came in the classroom and stopped them just as it was getting started. They had just started pushing each other and one punch was thrown before I yelled at them and they stopped.

Another time I interrupted either the start of a fight or bullying. I came in the room and heard a slap, but didn't see what happened. One boy was staring aggressively towards another boy who seemed to want to leave. Everyone just kind of acted like nothing was happening when I came in the room.

I am surprised I haven't seem more fights here. I wouldn't mind seeing more fights, but I suppose I must stop them instead of watching.

cheetos

I was at 7-11 today and saw these "European burger flavor" Cheetos. Not even normal European burger flavor Cheetos, but "Cheetos Bike". I guess cause they are wheel shaped. Why they needed to make them wheel shaped, I have no idea. I bought them cause I wanted to know what a European burger tasted like. They were not bad. I am not much of a fan of Cheetos but they were better than normal cheese flavor Cheetos.

Speaking of Cheetos, in the US Cheetos are all about cheese, but in Korea they don't even sell cheese flavored Cheetos.

1 month left

It's March 18th, my contract ends in one month, April 18. I can't believe its over already. The year was good and it went so fast. I never had time go by faster than this past year.

This weekend I have to get a ticket for my flight home (school pays for it). and do some other things to get ready to leave. I still dont have any real plan for what happens after April 18. I want to work here one more year, but I don't have a job yet.

quetions my students have asked during the first class

During my first class I show a Powerpoint presentation to introduce myself. I tell them things like my name, hometown, hobbies, age, favorite food, and previous career. At first I felt very awkward standing in front of the class making them listen to me talk about myself, but they are actually very interested. After that I ask the students if they have any questions for me. A lot of them are not able to ask their questions in English so the Korean teacher will help them or sometimes let them ask in Korean and translate.

These are the common questions and my answers, nothing unusual:
Are you married? (this and the next one are always asked right away.) -No
Do you have a gf? -No
Where do you live? -Geumchon, near Daeha Mart
How tall are you? -173cm
How much do you weigh? -A lot
How long have you been in korea? -Since April 2010
Do you like korean music? / Who is your favorite Korean singer? -I don't listen to it. I don't like pop music and it seems that's the only Korean music I hear.
What kind of music do you like? -Rock n roll and heavy metal.
What tv shows do you like? -I watch The Simpsons a lot.
Do you watch Korean tv shows? -No. Why not? -I cannot understand Korean, so it's boring.
Where have you been in korea? -Cheongju, Busan, Daegu.
Why did you want to leave the US? (Sounded like the kid thought I wouldn't be returning) -I Wanted to try living in a foreign country for a while.
Why did you choose Korea? I have known a lot of Koreans in the US and I have visited Korea twice before and liked it.
Do you speak Korean? -Only a little.
They want to hear me speak Korean. -I say 안녕하세요. 저는 존 라이언 입니다. 만나서반갑습니다. They laugh and act impressed.

Less common/odd questions:
Who takes care of your parents? -My parents are not so old that they need someone to take care of them.
What kind of things do you buy? I didn't know what he meant, so I said I like to buy electronics and digital cameras.
Do you smoke? (surprised I have not heard this more) -No. I hate smoking.
Do you like soju? (surprised I have not heard this one more too) -Yes, sometimes.
Do you want to marry a korean girl? -I don't know. Maybe.
Who looks the smartest in the class? I picked 3 that looked smart.
Who is the most handsome guy? I picked a guy.
Is north face popular in the US? -Yes.
Can teenagers buy guns in the US? -No, You have to be 21 in most states to buy guns.
Do you own any guns? -Yes, five. Four handguns and one shotgun.
Are you rich? -What do you think?
Do you have a six pack? -What does it look like?
Do you know dokdo? -Yes. (I don't give any opinion of it)
Do you know capoeira? ("Know" as in, can I do it? Or as in, am I aware of it?) I said I know what it is.

Some other questions I would get asked when I first started at my school were like, my co teacher would tell me one of the students saw me walking the other day... he wants to know where you were going. Or a student saw me at the grocery store, he wants to know what I was buying. Usually with those questions I cannot even remember where I was going or what I was buying.

Most of my students don't care about my class or about learning English, but they are curious about me.

school finally started

School finally started yesterday after several weeks of sitting at my desk doing nothing. I don't mind sitting at my desk all day, but lately I had been doing nothing. In the past I have been more productive during my free time, studying Korean, or sorting my photos, or something. The past couple weeks I have just been wasting time online.

So far the new 1st year students seem better at English than the old 1st year students. I have only taught six classes, but the two low level classes I have taught were much better than the low level classes last year.

I don't really care about teaching high level or low level, I just like teaching the classes where the students don't hate the class. Usually it's the high level classes where the students have a better attitude, but some of my lower level classes last year were fun.

an update

School started Monday and will go till next week Tuesday (2/15), then the students will be on vacation again for about 2 weeks before the new school year starts. I have no idea why we have this week and a half of school this month. The students don't want to be here, and in most of my classes the teachers have just shown movies.

I'm still going through all my photos from my trip, but I'm not working very hard at it. I'm still looking for a job too, but not working very hard at that either. I'm not doing much lately. I just don't feel like doing anything.

I can't believe I have been here almost 10 months. I don't know where the time went. Only 2 more months till I'm finished.

Back from my trip

I got back from my 3 week trip to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia yesterday afternoon. I'm at work today, but I have the rest of the week off because its a holiday.

I had wanted to keep updating my blog while I was on my trip, but I didn't feel like it. I'll write about the trip later. I have several thousand photos to go through first.

Golden Buddha at Wat Traimit

Today I went to Wat Traimit to see this statue. It's the largest cast gold statue in the world. I think I read it was an 80 or 90% gold alloy. It was cast in something like 10 parts, in the 13th century. It's almost 10 feet high and weighs over 5 tons.

I'm in Thailand now

I got to Bangkok late last night. I will write more after I go through all the photos I took today.

New bag: Aeronaut

At some point in the last several years I became very interested in bags. Not ugly designer bags, but functional bags and luggage.

I am going on a trip next week, so I thought it would be a good time to get a new bag. I got a Tom Bihn Aeronaut, which is made in Seattle, Washington. The bag has a shoulder strap, and also backpack straps that can be put away when they are not being used. I won't be taking anything that doesn't fit in this bag, including the small back pack I will use when I am out sightseeing. I tried packing it, and there is plenty of room, including my small backpack and the jacket I will wear to the airport, which I won't need once I get to Bangkok.

The packed bag weighs about 20 lbs. I really wish I could bring less stuff. I'm going to go through what I plan to bring and see if there's anything else I can leave out. I'm not taking many clothes, its just the weight of all this random stuff that adds up. The two heaviest things are my netbook (3.2 lbs), Nikon D90 DSLR + 18-200mm lens + flash (total wt. about 3.4 lbs).

I won't be able to carry it on the plane, I'll have to check it because Air China has a ridiculous 11 lb weight limit for carry on bags.