Midnight Fried Chicken

Not the chicken consumed tonight.

One of the roomies decided to lobby for fried chicken paid for by the communal house fund.  So we had fried chicken at midnight.

Yesterday (Sunday night) some of us went to this cool all-you-can-eat shellfish place.  It was about 14,000 won (about $14) for oysters, clams, crab, scallops, shrimp, and some other shellfish I couldn't name.  It was good... kinda expensive... but tasty.  I don't think something like that would happen in the US... at least not served like that.  We cooked it ourselves on a hibachi-ish grill at the table.  I haven't started throwing up yet so I think I'm safe.

I guess I haven't posted anything terribly relevant to my teaching.  I'll be teaching 5 classes this month.  The planning for each class isn't that bad.  We have a syllabus... Korean TV is distracting and weird... anyway... that outlines the content requirements and we're given a fair amount of freedom when it comes to specifics so it's not terribly difficult to make it work.  As far as planning is concerned I still have a bit of trouble gauging time usage... I tend to either plan too many things or too few but I guess that comes with experience.

Bit of a language warning here... so... Riley don't watch this... or else I'll be a bad uncle.


I bring this up because earlier today I had a class listen to a The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan.  It was interesting... I underestimated the difficulty they would have with it but oh well... live and learn.  One of my students suggested I use an artist they're more familiar with... like Jason Mraz... I'm not sure how I feel like knowing my culture and language being represented by Mraz... at least it isn't Bieber.  Speaking of Bieber... I don't think I've met, face to face, a Canadian until this job... in South Korea... crazy right?


The ages of my students range from someone who I think is in college to a few who are in the 40s-50s range, the largest class is all of three people and my smallest is a one-on-one.  So far the biggest challenge is engaging with students, not so much teaching them vocabulary or grammar.

Some interesting culture notes... Koreans don't really people watch on the subway, they are either doing something with some piece of technology (tablets, iPods, phones, etc.) or just staring at nothing in particular.  I know this because I people watch.  Young Korean men might also carry purses... I guess that's something where the gender divide is pretty irrelevant... which is strange considering how Korea isn't the most progressive of countries when it comes to gender roles.  Manpurses aside, I've noticed young Koreans are very fashionable... think of me at my best dressed... now think of someone even better dressed being a seomwhat regular sight.  I was talking to my roomie/fellow teacher about it and apparently Korean men enjoy a looser dress standard in social settings.  That is to say, you're more likely to find a really casually dressed Korean man than a similarly dressed Korean woman.  Yesterday, the same day as my seafood trip, I went out wearing a blue t-shirt, GMU hoodie (I've been representing the GMU a lot lately), black running pants, and flip flops and nobody seemed to care.  Though I guess wearing flipflops was kind of weird.  I haven't seen a young Korean woman dressed in anything nearly as bizarre or casual as that.  The closest examples still seem to have fairly apparently time put into their appearance.  I suspect this mostly affects the younger generations because I get the feeling older Koreans don't care what anyone thinks.

Anyway, it's 1:00 am... time to sleep.