Thursday, February 22, 2007

Graduation Day - Feb 14 2007

I almost forgot to blog about this day! It's the last day of school for the 6th graders. I have a favorite class that I sure will miss once they're gone. They are the loudest class but they are so much fun. It is as well Valentine's day as we know it. Korean's celebrate it differently. Here the girls are supposed to give guys chocolates. On White day which is March 14 boys give girls candy. One of the perks about being a teacher is that u get Chocolates anyway...yummy! lol.. I also got a beautiful surprise. Nem managed to get flowers delivered to my house, but the delivery guy came after I'd left so he called me and ended up delivering it to my school.
The ceremony was boring. During the ceremony, awards are given out. The kids get their certificate of achievement when they return to their homerooms where their parents are there waiting. My teachers tried to warn me about how boring the ceremony was but I wanted to at least experience it. I find the ceremonies here very interesting. Whether it be a wedding, graduation, or opening of a library, it's like people don't realize that they should be quiet. Everybody was talking while the principal was making his speech. Mind you his speech was very long and drawn out. It got so boring that I decided to stand up and take pictures. But the moment I stood up he said in the middle of his sentence Mimi blah blah blah (in Korean). I sat down immediately and everybody around me sort of giggled. Apparently he had just mentioned how I was the new Native English teacher. Very embarrassing.

When it was finally over I made my way back to the English room and tried to enjoy my time there while the halls were crowded with ppl. Some of the parents came in and asked to take a picture of me, which strikes me as funny because I look like them. I had to take pictures with the kids holding their flowers, without their flowers, in the games room, sitting on the teachers desk. LOL.. felt like a model. After the inital awkwardness it got kind of fun. I felt very well received as parents came up to me to tell me how their kids really enjoyed my classes. I had to write my email on the board because several students asked for it so that they could keep in touch with me. I admit my eyes got a bit moist...

Thank god I had chocolates to make me feel better.

Some of my friends here

I was going to write about my Lunar New year but then I ended up writing about some of the friends I've met out here that are not a part of the Canadian Connection group, which I feel has sort of been my family out here.

I believe I mentioned that I've become friends with some guys that are part of the Men's volleyball team.
One of which is Xupa (to be pronounced Shupa. Xupa's real name is Adilson Zambom, he's the assistant coach of the Korean Air (Jumbos) Men's volleyball team. We've became friends and now that he's moved out of Bob's place (Bob plays on that team) and lives in the Inha University dormitory where hes got this sick place. He's got maid service so his place is spotless and he never has to do dishes. He's got a huge kitchen which is what I would love.. or at least just some counter space. He also doesn't have to pay for this place. The company pays for all his shit including his groceries! He also lives very close to me now. He lives with his translator Alex. Alex, Xupa, and Bob (and Gina his wife) are from Brazil. They've been contracted out here to play volleyball with the exception of Alex, hes a translator. Alex is Korean but speaks Portuguese fluently and is trying to learn english so that he can become a pilot, apparently pilots in Korea need to be fluent in 3 languages.

I've been going over to their house fairly often, just to have dinner and relax in front of the tv. I hate the smoke but... I enjoy their company. It's interesting because Xupa's english isn't that great (alex is a little better) but we still manage to communicate. I think I would love to visit Brazil some day soon. I hear that its a very multicultural country and that's one of the main things I miss about Toronto since being here. I miss the diversity. The variety of meals and all the colors of the rainbow. I don't quite how old they are, I'm sure they've told me but I've forgotten because it feels like we're all young at heart. I think that's one of the biggest perks about travelling abroad here. You get to meet ppl from other places in the world. If I could have any job in the world I think I would love to do what Xupa does. He's got one of the most amazing jobs I think. He gets to travel around as a coach and he gets a lot of perks as well. One of the best perks he's gotten so far is 25 round trip tickets to ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!! How cool is that?! and not to mention all the other perks such as free HUGE apartment with a maid service!!!
I love going over cause Xupa makes brazilian food.. YUMMY..and Alex makes good Korean food double yummy!! I have to make a meal for them one day.. lol.. I'm not sure what I want to make. I've been thinking about some variation of Pho. Wish me Luck!!

Sean Law

hey I have a few more blogs saved up on my laptop about thailand but since I'm at work, I'm going to just write about a good friend of mine. Sean Law is an incredible dude! He's saved my ass a number of times and as soon as I post up the blogs about thailand I'm going to post some pictures up as well... I gotta say that if it wasn't for him I'd have lost all my pictures from Thailand. As I was importing the pictures from my camera onto Picasa, picasa froze just as I had clicked safe delete and import. so... all the pictures were lost from the camera and weren't saved onto picasa. Sean being the hero that he is, found a software for me to recover my images... thank god! I was close to tears.. we're talking about 540 pictures and since I was the one that had the camera most of the time someone would've had to pay. Thanks to Sean everybody gets to live and I have my memories safe and intact. This wasn't the only time Sean has helped. He's definitely an admirable kid.
THANKS SEAN!!