English Speech contest

Last Friday was the English Speech contest at my school. Here are some videos of the kids that spoke. My favorite was the last one called "I never want to be a mother".

Enjoy

New camera, new post

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, but I figure it's about time I put a new post up here. I just bought a new camera, my old one got lost somewhere and I don't know where it is. This new one is really cool and allows a lot of customization with the pictures on it and it takes some really crisp pictures.

My school is getting ready for an English speaking contest tomorrow so tomorrow I get to sit down and judge about 24 students and listen to them speak in broken English. I think I'll survive, but I'm not holding out for any real good performances. Some of the students did their presentations in class, and I graded them... but some of the bad performers got chosen by the Korean teachers even though there were better students because, according to my Co-teacher, "Their parents say that their English is very good. They should be in the speaking contest." Gotta love the objectiveness that these teachers bring to the school at times. (Yeah, I get jaded by Korean culture at times).

Anyways, here are some pictures that I took with the new camera.

Here's my English classroom

From Pics with my new camera

The board at the front is a 52" TV

Here are some creepy spiders

From Pics with my new camera

These are out everywhere in the fall.

And here are some students with anti-swine flu masks

From Pics with my new camera

From Pics with my new camera

From Pics with my new camera

If you want to see more pictures that I took, you can check them out here

Wonderful lunch times

So, today I was given my lunch today. Yes, in case you are wondering.... that fish was looking straight at me. Gotta love Korea.

The Rainy Season

Sigh. It's the rainy season again in Jeonju.
I take my motorcycle out to meet my friends... and it ends up raining as I'm out. I have to take taxis home and pick the bike up later :(
One time when I was in the taxi to pick up the bike, it went from sunny to torrential rain in 5 minutes. I had to wait 2 hours before I could drive my bike home.

On a lighter side, my school did an English song recital the other day. Here are some videos of the ones that I could record:

With appologies to Cito Gaston

Well, I don't know if you remember from my earlier post, but you can scroll down to when the Jays fired John Gibbons last year and put Cito Gaston back in the position of management I called the Jays management out for a lack of guts. Here they were, a team put together by J.P. Ricciardi. The bright young assistant to the golden boy Billy Beane, the creator of moneyball. If anyone could help us contend against the evils of the behemoths the Red Sox and the Yankees, it was him.

Well his experiment seemed to have faild. He fired scouts and hired analysts. He went from claiming that small market teams could thrive to complaining about payroll difference, then when he got the big money he spent it on $10 million a year on a player like Frank Thomas. Everything was pointing into one direction. J.P. was going to get fired. The Jays owners forced him to bring in Cito and this move was seen as the last step out for Ricciardi. Cito would take over for the final part of the year after Gibbons was fired, and then at the end of the season Ricciardi would be out the door.

... but a funny thing happend on the way to stadium. The Jays started winning.

With John Gibbons starting of the season 35-39 and getting the axe, Cito stepped in and steered the Jays to a 51-37 record. Now this season the Jays are 18-9 bringing Cito's record to 69-46. That's good enough for the best record in baseball since Gaston was hired. It's especially impressive since the Jays pitching staff this year is one injury away from recieving aid from the World Health Organization. After seeing the effectiveness on the Jays that Gaston has, after seeing how the players respond to him and how he know how to manage them, it's amazing to think that he had 11 seasons between Jays jobs where he was out of baseball. I'm sure that teams like the Rangers, Pirates or Nationals would love to have a manager like him. Well their loss is the Jays gain and I guess I have to say, "I'm sorry." I thought that bringing Cito in last year was a stop gap sollution. I thought it was akin to rearanging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Well, here I stand, hat in hand and appologies to Gaston who has the Jays sitting on the top of the American league. I don't know if they will be able to keep this up for the rest of the season, but after seen what he's done with this team I can start to believe that nothing is impossible.

Spring in Korea... and summer and fall and winter and now back to spring

As you can guess by the title of my blog, the weather over here in Korea has been erratic. 2 weeks ago, I could have been walking around in shorts and short sleeves. Spring had been here for nary a week and then, boom! Summer had come. Everyone was enjoying the weather, but dreading what would come in the July if this was the weather already in spring. Then before we knew it, the temperature dropped, once again it was cold and rainy, like fall had descended upon us. On Sunday I heard that one of the ski resorts actually had gotten a little dusting of snow! But now the temperature is back to normal, hovering around 16-20 C and being nice and sunny.

These days now are leading up to an election here in town and the city officials are out in force! Each politician gets a number to represent them on the ballot. So if your 1st on the ballot, your #1. If your 3rd on the ballot, your #3 and so on and so forth. I think there are 8 people running for this office. So, these people these days are riding around on the back of trucks, waving to people as they go, shouting out their election promises as they blare traditional music with lyrics like "#1, #1 yay #1!" or "#3, #3, #3.... #3, #3, #3.... #3 is great" and wonderful songs like that. They have been everywhere the past few days, especially on major intersections, waving to motorists as they go by. Much different then the campaigning back home.

Also, a few weeks ago I went to the zoo with some Korean friends. All week long the zoo was open at night time so that you could go see the cherry blossoms at night. You can check out my picasa web album for some more photos.

From Zoo cherry blossoms

And here's a little Engrish for you, from the Zoo Admission sign. Look for the returning button of change:

From Zoo cherry blossoms

Golf in Korea

Well, I'm back in Korea. I've had a great time since I've come back. I was able to go on a little 3 day vacation with some of the people that go to my church. We went to the 6th largest island in Korea. (Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so I have no pictures of it).
We rented a little condo on the beach. It was a good time that we had there. We played some music with guitars and sang some songs. On the beach, when the tide went out there were walkways that you could use to go visit the small little islands that were around the place. It was great fun, but unfortunately the weather wasn't as warm as it could have been and it was a little cool walking on the beach and out to the islands, thankfully I brought warm clothes. Some of the people that came with didn't fully anticipate the cold weather and didn't get to enjoy the time outside.

Then on this past Friday one of my friends from Canada (originally from Peterborough) who has some contacts with some of the older, richer Koreans, invited me to go golfing with his friends. The golf course is one of the best ones in Jeonju. The Koreans had memberships there that allow them to bring friends into golf on their memberships. Usually the green fees would be $150. My friend Stu and I got to go for only $55. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to go again. They go on weekdays usually, when I work so that doesn't allow me do weekday golfing.

I've got 3 pictures down below of the golfing. Unfortunately it's in Febuary and the grass is dying. It seems like it'd look better in the Summer time.

From Picture

From Picture

From Picture