Using the wonderful product Google Earth, I was able to find the city that is my family's namesake. Here is a shot of central and southren Netherlands so you can get a general idea of where Breda is located. 

And here is an overhead shot of the city. Unfortunately Breda is not a big enough city to warrant a high resolution satalite photo, so this is about the closest you can get. 

WHAT THE H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEYSTICKS!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Okay, I woke up this morning to see this headline on the SLAM Sport site:

Sens acquire Heatley

What is going on here? What hope do my Leafs have when their opposition are actually making smart moves?

what a way to wake up.

I hope the rest of you didn't let this news affect you like it did me.

PS. Thanks to Gordon Korman, a great Canadian author, who first made me aware of the expression H-E-Double Hockeysticks.

Quick hits

Ok, This is just a quick list of things that I've noticed walking around Korea:

-All the Cars are either Hyundai's, KIA's or Daewoo's
-One day it struck me... None of the cars are 2 doors. I've look for a week and haven't found a single 2-door hatchback around.
-The drivers are crazy! I've seen on multiple occasions where a driver turns left and goes IN-BETWEEN a car and the curb, going past on the passenger side of the car instead of the driver's side. (They do drive on the same side of the road as us)
-There are many scooters driving around here
-Today I saw the strangest thing though. I saw a man on a pedal bike with a full sized fridge strapped to the back of the bike! I tell you, sometimes it's just not like home.

Teaching in Korea

Well, I was looking over my blog and I realized that I haven't mentioned too much about what I'm doing here teaching wise. Thusly, I've decided to give you a little overview of my school and what I'm doing there.

My school has 8 foreign teachers, 4 of which hail from Chatham Ontario, one comes from St. Louis Missouri, then there's one from England and one from Ireland and then me from Belleville.
Each class we teach we are paired up with a Korean teacher. Us foriegn teachers teach in English (obviously) and then the Korean teachers teach them grammar and help them understand difficult English words by descrbing it to them in Korean. So our classes are split up into 2 40 min sections for the kids... one in English and one in Korean.
A typical work day has me at school at around 11:00 and on MWF I teach straight from 1:00pm to 8:15 pm with no breaks, but you'd be surprised at how fast time flies by.

The class sizes range from 5-12 kids and you teach children from age 6 (Korean age) to 16. For those of you who don't know, Koreans base their age off of their birth year. So since I was born in 1981 I am 24 right now and once January rolls around then I'll be 25.

The lessons I have are all pretty much laid out for me. I have to photocopy some supliments like colouring pages for the younger children, but pretty much it's all laid out for me.

Time right now in Korea is 13hrs ahead of time in Ontario and once daylight savings rolls around, it'll be 14 hrs ahead. Korea doesn't do daylight savings.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures soon. I'll have to go up to Seoul to buy a camera. I brought along one, but I forgot to bring along the hook-up. Also prices are ridicuously cheap here. One of my fellow teachers was up in Seoul a few weeks ago and bought a 7 megapixle camera for just over 200,000 won (about $200 US or $250 cdn)
and had a 1 gig memory stick and an extra battery thrown into the package. I can't wait till I can get up there and check out what electronic goodies they have. Unfortunately I don't get paid until 8 days after the session ends, so I've been pretty much living off of the money I brought along with me.

Well, I hope this gives you a better insight of how life in Korea is going. I'll write more soon.

His Friends Would Follow Him Anywhere, But Only Out of A Morbid Curiosity

One of my friends was inspired by my last post and sent me this wonderful list of remarks that can be used for reports on students, so without further ado, I give you 32 Report Card comments for braindead students. I hope you enjoy.


32 Report Card Comments for Braindead Students:

1. Since our last conference, this student has reached rock bottom and
has started to dig.
2. His friends would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.
3. I would not allow this student to breed.
4. This student is really not so much of a has-been as more of a
definite won't-be.
5. Works well under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.
6. When she opens her mouth, it seems that it is only to change feet.
7. He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.
8. This young lady has delusions of adequacy.
9. He sets low personal standards, and then consistently fails to achieve them.
10. This student is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
11. This student should go far, and the sooner he starts the better.
12. He has a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic ring to hold it together.
13. A gross ignoramus - 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.
14. He doesn't have ulcers, but he is a carrier.
15. I would like to go hunting with him sometime.
16. He's been working with glue too much.
17. He would argue with a sign post.
18. He brings a lot of joy when he leaves the room.
19. When his IQ reaches 50 he should sell.
20. If you see two people talking and one of them looks bored, he's
the other one.
21. A photographic memory, but with the lense cover glued on.
22. Donated his brain to science before he was done using it.
23. The gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train ain't coming.
24. Had two brains, one is lost and the other is out looking for it.
25. If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.
26. If you gave him a penny for his thought, you'd get change.
27. If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.
28. It's hard to believe that he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm and
made it to conception.
29. One neuron short of a snapse.
30. Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, he only gargled.
31. It takes him 1 1/2 hours to watch 60 minutes.
32. His wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.

He Brings a lot of Joy to the Room.... When he leaves

So here I am, about half way through my first teaching session in Korea and I have to start looking towards the end of the month. And that means writing evaluations of students.

So hear I am sitting trying to come up ways to put positive spins on the way that some of my students act. For example:

This one student spends the entire class time shouting and screaming and running around the room. On the evaluation this student is known as Energetic and Enthusiastic.

I have another student who spends most of the period coming up with ways to destroy his work book. He will be referred to as Creative when I come around to writing about him.

For the students who just sit the whole class time saying nothing, they are atttentive and pensive.

And to think I'll have to do this for about 70 students or so. Now I know how my teacher friends feel when report time comes.

Buckle in Leafs fans, it could be a long season

I may be in Korea right now, but it does pain me a lot to see what is happening to the Leafs right now. I have just read that the Leafs signed Eric Lindros to a one year deal. This caps off the moves they made after signing Jason Allison and Jeff O'Neil this summer. Now Jeff O'Neil I don't mind because he's only 29 and still healthy and has been a key part of team Canada, was the Captain of his former team, and has been an All-Star (Although the same things were said about Shane Corson when the Leafs signed him and he was never the type of player they expected him to be), But Jason Allison and Eric Lindros??? Between the two of them, in the last year hockey was played, they played a combined 39 games, all of those games coming from Lindros.

For those of you who do not know me well enough, I do go on a rant like this just about every year (I guess if I keep my expectations down about the Leafs, then they can surprise me) but this year (Barring Lindros and Allison returning to their old form, and Belfour's back lasting the entire season) I am not expecting them to make the playoffs at all. I'll root for the team, I'm not a bandwagon jumper, I stick with my teams through thick and thin... but I'm glad I'm not going to be home this year so that I won't have Eric (my Brother-In-Law) rubbing in my face how good the Oilers will be this year and mocking me about how they will make the play-offs instead of the Leafs, and all that. (I know this is coming because I've been doing the same to him since I found out he was an Oilers fan :) )

But with the way the changes have been made for this year, expect the Leafs to be at the bottom of the Canadian teams and on the outside looking in when playoff time comes.

That's my Leafs rant in preparation for this year. Have fun in Calgary Manuel, the Flames should be a fun team to watch. Eric good luck on the Oilers' season. They made some great moves, and to any Senator's fans, you shouldn't have to worry about the Leafs knocking you out of the play-offs this year (like they have since 1999 :)) since I'm predicting the Leafs won't be anywhere near the play-offs.

And to everyone else, hockey is back! Enjoy the season!

Teaching in Korea

I have successfully completed teaching 2 days here in Korea and I’m beginning to think that I can make it. Our first day of school was on Friday and it was my first day teaching. I came in early to look over the material that I would be teaching and I was a little overwhelmed. The class time is 45 minutes long and this one class that I had, the lesson for the class was one page with maybe 7 lines of conversation. One of the challenges that I heard teachers have is trying to make the lesson last the entire time. It seems that for the last 10 minutes each class you just spend the time playing games with them like eye-spy, or something else like that to pass the time.

Each class that I have the dynamics seem to be a little different, but the kids are a lot of fun. With the younger classes it’s a lot of fun because they are loud and they are full of energy. It’s a little hard to focus their attention on the classwork at times, but they are fun to talk to, even if they’re understanding of English is rudimentary at very best.

The older kids are a lot more quiet and reserved and sometimes it feels like I’m speaking to a class of mutes, but when they do talk it is, well I don’t know, they haven’t really talked much in class yet, getting them to talk is like pulling teeth, but they are a bunch of nice, shy, quiet kids.

I think I’m being accepted though. Today, when I was teaching this one class, a girl from my next class came in and gave me an ice-cream. I think I’ve got myself an admirer ;)

Where are the peanuts…? Right next to the Squid.

So there are two words that I never expected to hear in the same phrase. That just goes to show how different Korea is than Canada. I mean you go to the bar and the waitress places on your table a bowl filled on one side with peanuts and the other side with… fried squid. Seriously! They shred up the squid and then fry them and then eat them like potato chips.

Then the other day I was in a bar and we ordered a plate of chicken nuggets to eat while we drank. So the plate comes with chicken nuggets, fries, and what I believed to be was onion rings. I grab my fork and pick up an onion ring and bit into it. What I encountered was very tough, very chewy and did not taste like an onion ring, nor chicken either. What it ended up being was… Octopus!!! Yes I have now eaten octopus. I must say, it’s not too bad, but nothing too spectacular either. I have heard from one of my co-workers, who married a Korean woman, that once, when they were out on the beach, they came across a woman who was selling live octopi to eat right on the beach. My co-worker’s wife stopped, bought an octopus, the woman chopped it up for her, and then with tendrils still writhing, my friend’s wife just started popping the octopus pieces into her mouth and at it like popcorn.

Another Korean dish, I forget what the Korean name for it is, is silk worm. What they do is they take silk worms that have spun their last string of silk, then cook them up and eat them. The way that my friend explained it to me was that post war Korea was hard up for food and so they looked to all sources for food and when they had killed all the wild-life, they looked to the sea for a food source (this is where they came up with the idea of eating squid, octopi and seaweed amongst other sea life that they ate. Then as people got poorer after the war, not all could afford to go out to sea and catch things, so they looked to insects like the spent silk-worm, which had no other use to them, as food. Apparently they are very rich in protein. Now that Korea has entered a stage of economic wealth there is a little bit of a dichotomy between the older and younger generations. The older people still think that the silk-worm makes a delicious meal, but the younger people now have money to go and buy food that is was not a larva.

But for me I think it’s good to expand my interests a little. I’ve had Kim-chi, which is very spicy fermented cabbage, I’ve had squid (not a fan), octopus (not a fan, way too chewy), fish (you know I’ve never really tried fish much before, but the fish here isn’t too bad. I had it in a potato/fish soup), seaweed (it’s very salty, and otherwise pretty tasteless), and anchovies. I’d like to think I’ll be adventurous with tasting different foods here, but I think I’ll draw the line at eating silk worms.

“Lord Un-Evil My Eyes” and other Christian Hits

Today I went to my first church service in a foreign country. It was a really great experience. They had Chinese, Japanese, Indian and Korean all there at the English church service. The only other Caucasian person at the service other than me was the person who brought me. That’s the way it’s been pretty much the entire time I’ve been in this country, other than when I’ve gone out with all the teachers a the school I’m with.

Anyways, at this service I was at, most people cannot speak English and have a very, very rudimentary understanding of English. The only reason why they come to the service is because that is the only contact that they have with the English language because actual lessons so expensive. As well the people who ran the service didn’t have quite the command of the English language so that produced some gems in the lyrics of the song “The Power of Your Love” where they wrote “Lord un-evil my eyes” instead of “Lord unveil my eyes” It brought a little humour to the service.

My first night out in Korea

So tonight my co-workers decided to go out tonight since it was the last day of class of this session and two of the teachers were going to be leaving. Now since one of the teachers who was leaving was vegetarian, the decision was made to go to a vegetarian restaurant (apparently theses restaurants are few and far between in Korea). My whole body was still trying to adapted to the changes of the time zone and my stomach wasn’t feeling up to eating anything spicy and I was looking to eat until I was full. Only problem was that the food at the restaurant was just mainly spiced grass clippings. I kid you not. Everything at the table looked like grass and tasted like grass with hot spices on it. Not necessarily what my stomach was looking for at the time. When some of the Korean teachers arrived, they talked cooks into getting some boiled chicken to the table. I had a chicken leg and let me tell you, nothing had ever tasted so good!!!!

After the restaurant we went to a so-ju bar. So-ju is to Korea what saki is to Japan or what Vodka is to Russia. It was a great place to sit and talk and get to know my fellow teachers. So-ju tastes pretty good. It doesn’t have much of a bite to it, but the aftertaste leaves a little to be desired. The beer on the other hand cannot hold a candle to any of the beers that I have had before. What they use in their brewing process is formaldehyde, which gives the beer a unique taste that I must say that I’m not too fond of. I cannot wait until I can have a non-Korean beer, but imported beer costs a lot more than the locally brewed stuff.

Well, vacation is coming and I’m looking forward to lying around and recovering from jet lag. I’ll hopefully write some more thoughts while I have time to just veg.

Ruminations on my flight to Korea.

Here I sit flying over Manitoba at an altitude of 9.8km after finishing what passes for a in meal flight on this plane. I thought now would be a great time to recap the beginning of my 1 year mission to boldly go where I have never gone before.

This morning I woke up at 6:30 to give myself ample time to meet the 7:30 airport bus at the bus station. I was a nervous as all get out at the prospect of getting on the bus and heading to the Pearson International Airport. (For those of you who do not know, this is my first major flight and I have never stepped a foot inside an airport before). So I prayed that God would provide people along the way to help me with my travels.

At the Belleville bus station I met Sister Marianna Jung from Madoc. She was taking the bus to the airport to go to Calgary to visit family. We got to talking and I found out that she was from Korea originally and was also going to the same airport terminal that I was. Throughout the bus trip to the airport and at the terminal I was able to talk to her about Korea and travel, and she tried to teach me some Korean words which by this time I have already forgotten them. I had asked for God to bless my travels and he wasted no time at all J.

Our travel route to Korea has taken us up through Ontario, through the tip of Manitoba, over Hudson Bay, up through The Territories, and will continue over the Bering Strait. Actually, I think they were just about to show us where we are right now on our flight path. They just finished showing the in-flight movie, I forget the name of it, but it stars Debra Messing (Grace from Will & Grace) as a woman who hires a male escort to be her date to her sister’s wedding. For those of you who know what movie I’m talking about and haven’t seen it yet, don’t bother. It’s two hours that you will most likely want back. We are… It will have to wait, the cities are written in Korean, but it seems that we are just into the Yukon and heading over to Alaska. Right now it’s 6:40 EST but this whole trip we have been traveling towards the sun’s path so it still seems like mid afternoon to me. I believe that the sun will be up my entire trip. Good thing for window shades. Apparently there is now only 8hrs 50min left in my flight. Wish me luck as I try to sleep some. I should be landing about 3am EST.