Yesterday was the last day of one of my favorite classes.  As a going away present, the 5th grade students performed the whole routine to “Nobody” by the Korean pop stars, Wonder Girls. It should have been videoed. It was awesome. Afterward we had my favorite meal of all time. Pizza. And it was pizza from my favorite Korean pizza chain, Dasarang. The students then gave me some going away gifts along with cards. One of the students had this to say.

To teacher Matt
Hello: Teacher?
I am ******** in the 5th grade. Are you okay about Korea temperature? Teaching. Thanks for teaching us. So, I prepared gifts and snaks for you. And you are very kind. You are from America but you are very good to us. Thank you.
Bye~!
2008,12,26
Your student *******.

It was very cute. What caught my attention was the last part. “You are from American but you are very good to us.” Wow! I don’t want to look too far into that, but I am a little surprised. To be very good and American, as two conflicting ideas, took me back a bit. Now I am a little more curious about the image of the USA to the students.  “What do you think about the USA or Americans?” or “How do you feel about the USA?” Next semester I will pose this question to the students.

Is it a coincidence that we’re discussing illness and pain in class right now? -my third cold and now a backache?

I woke up with a slight pain in my shoulder. It was nothing to be concerned about. That was, until the elementary kids began attacking me and landing on my back. After that,  i was concerned. I couldn’t get my head out of a 45 degree angle without sharp pain.  One of the teachers suggested that i see a doctor, a doctor that she really likes. I totally agreed especially since she gestured to what looked like an injection of pain medicine into my upper back. That’s not what she meant.

Acupuncture. OK. That was fine. I like to try new stuff.  My pain was bearable enough that i could experiment. Then came the suction cups.

Cupping. This was new for me too. OK. “Sure, I’ll try that too”. Then came the blood letting. “What? People still do this?” My mind wandered and I remembered my visit to the Mutter museum of outdated and disturbing  medicinal methods, that along with preserved abnormal human specimens were these blood letting devices. This didn’t exactly create the  necessary relaxing thoughts to ease any back tension. But, the bloodletting didn’t hurt, so i didn’t object. I was told at this stage I could have some hot burning incense stuff on my body. I declined only because I saw this stuff on Korean TV. I didn’t want to scar my body and the thought of burning flesh didn’t jive with me at the moment either. Maybe another time I said.  I had one last thing, than.

Massage. This was something i was familiar with. I was wrong. It was a massage machine with electrode hookups. OK. I’ll try that. It didn’t hurt, in fact it was kind of a nice combo. The result? After two hours of therapy, i had a hiccied and pricked back, two holes in my left hand and three in my left foot, and down $5. Everything else was the same. Perhaps I had even more pain. It was a nice try anyway, but when i got home i went straight for the Advil.  I can now get my head to 75 degrees.

Despite the lack of snow and ticket buying havoc, I had a nice weekend at Muju Resort with my friends. Hey, I snowboarded in Korea!!

I should have taken a picture of the lift and rental options displayed at the purchasing counter. There were way too many combos in my opinion. 3 Minutes or less should be all it takes to make the transaction, but there were a few issues. I had the option of renting equipment by the hour. “Hmmmm….do i want my board and boots between 12:30 and 4:30, 6:30 and 10:00, 10-12, 8:30 12:30, or really early morning, or a combo of these, and wait…what about the two day rental packages? And…and…and the lift ticket?” It’s the same deal. If the tickets and rental were cheap than i wouldn’t have really cared, but they were freakishly expensive. I, as well as my friends wanted to make the best choice. If not we could have easily lost 50 bucks. Unfortunately, upon arriving to the ticket counter,  we didn’t  know exactly what we wanted.  We also hit the language barrier trying to communicate with the counter peeps. A three minute transaction turned into an half an hour event. But we had our a tickets, boards, and skis at the end of it and we were happy.

Now, for the second part of this post. I have my third cold in the last 3 months. This might be a record. I will to verify this with my mom. I suspect it’s because I am around hundreds of elementary students and exposed to copious viruses. Perhaps it’s the some Korean strains my body just can’t handle. I am suspicious of this because these colds are a little different than the ones I’m used to.  It’s like a cold in the US, except the sore throat and runny nose and amped up while the coughing is reduced. Hmmm… I think I will might need to wear one of the these fun Korean masks for the rest of the school year.

I thought I should dedicate a post to this subject. I hope to add more to this later. Here are some books that I have found very helpful.

Elementary Korean, King and Yeon - This book has been the most helpful book so far. The first two chapters are much like a phrase book and in my opinion,  can be skipped. Korean grammar begins in the third chapter. It’s been great after that.

The Memory Book by Harry Lorayne- Mnemonic devices provide an excellent way to memorize foreign words. Using some of his ideas you can create your own system to help distinguish between words that sound so similar to the English ear. Memorize 20 Korean words in one study.

How to Learn any Language by Barry Farber - This book is a motivator for language learning combined with helpful tips. You just have to get passed the kick-ass military tone/language by the author. The “multi-track attack”, as lame as it sounds, is a excellent way to accelerate learning (or in Barry Farber type words: Kick in the barrack walls and invade General Language’s quarters”).

Korean by Lonely Planet - It’s an excellent phrase book for use here in Korea. As a way to simply study Korean, it’s great too.

Well, almost jacked my ride.  I was in the store for 15 minutes. He (I have a good idea who the jacker is. ) managed to expose the cheapness of the lock. At this point, some wire cutters would be all it takes.  Now i have to buy a new lock. Damn…

I found these icons the other day on JeonjuHub.com  done by designer, Liu Young. She was born in China and raised in Germany. Some argue these are China meets Germany icons. I don’t know, I guess they could be. They’re stereotypes anyway and simplifications of diverse groups. I thought they were clever and interesting. They made me think about my experiences in different countries. I’ll let you guess what color represents what.

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Way of Life

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Queue When Waiting

Sundays on the Road

Party

In the Restaurant

Traveling

Handling of Problems

Three Meals a Day

Transportation

Elderly in Day to Day Life

Moods & Weather

The Boss

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