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.