My new lesson plan is "At a Hair Salon." I am teaching Korean kids about many hair styles including, but not limited to, the mullet. The picture on the left is my teaching aid.
On a more relevant note, my sister Becca is here. The Bean arrived Tuesday night with loads of Patagonia and Annie's Mac&Chz. We are enjoying our time together immensely. 
This is one of my favorite students, Ghost, singing a Christmas carol at our party on Friday.
We had a good time with the kids all day; singing and playing games. Later, we stayed at work and had an adult party until late. I attempted to make eggnog, but it was horrible. Too much whiskey. This worked out well however, since Koreans have an insatiable appetite for horrible alcohol. I thought it was like cracking a raw egg in a highball of whiskey and taking it like a shot. Yuck!
Christmas eve we met Jenny and Nicole in Haewha (Cool student area of Seoul) for a sushi dinner and a night of partying. Highlights included the really cool hat I got from the white elephant gift exchange, the dance club we got into for free, climbing a 30ft metal sculpture at 3am, and street vendor food at the same early hour.
Christmas was a bit of a flop compared to Christmas Eve. The highlight here was playing cards with the cool people from work and talking to family. I love and miss all my family and friends.
For the climbers that read my blog Timmy ONeill interviewing Steve House at the Banff Film Festival 2005 is not to be missed. Steve House spills and shows that he's got game. Funny. Having met both of these guys makes it even more amusing.
Check it out!
Ok, so we have all heard this nursery rhyme:
Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Georgie Porgie ran away
Well, one of the less liked teachers at our school has been doing this with his students for a couple of weeks. It turns out that Georgie translates in Korean as penis and Porgie is basically female pubic hair! So our not so good rhyme gets quite a lot worse:
Cock, Bush, pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls and made them cry
When the boys came out to play,
Cock Bush ran away!
No wonder the kids think this guy is so strange! I don't know why the Korean teachers let him teach this rhyme for WEEKS before pointing this out?
There may have been some issues with this post previously. Sorry to freak you out with random gross poetry. It really is the funniest thing that happened since I have been here.
One of the particularly enjoyable parts of my job is trying to understand what kids are saying. These kids can't make many English sounds, are missing teeth and don't really know the proper pronunciation to begin with. My name for example is pronounced "Kiss" by many students (no th sound in Korean). I can understand this malady because as a kid I said my name "Teef" as in "Teef want a tookie." Bill used to tease me for hours much to my chagrin:
Bill: Is your name Teef?
Keith: No, It's Teef!!!
Repeat many many times....
Anyway, I have had a couple of very similar experiences:
Keith: What is your English name?
Student: Effa.
K: Effa?
S: No, Effa!
K: Ella?
S: No, EFFA!
K: Heffer?
S: EFFA!!!
Rest of class: Her name is EFFA!!!
10 minutes later....
Student points to apple shaped clock....
K: Apple?
S: Big smile giggles nods
K: APPLE!!!! Your name is Apple!
Monster was a real tough one too. The whole staff thought his name was Meusta for the longest time. He is in a class with Ghost and Pink.
Try dropping the zeros on the country and area code to call us.
011 to get out of US. then 82-31-930-8044
I am feeling way better. Work is good and we are going to the DMZ this weekend.
I have been sick. Quite sick actually. This was the third time I have been sick in two months and I am totally tired of feeling ill. This time I went to the doctor after five days of feeling like poo and she game me some antibiotics and snot-coagulants. It turns out that the snot-coagulants combined with the secondary infection already brewing in my sinuses had an adverse affect and created some serious sinus blockage. This culminated in a pounding headache and me passing out in the shower due to the sinus pressure. A trip to the ER and they gave me a CT scan and lots of head X-rays to make sure I didn't have a tumor or aneurysm. I didn't. The highlight was the IV (I was dehydrated) and the morphine. I was feeling much better after a couple of hours and went home. Yesterday the pain was back (morphine wore off) and I missed a third day of work. Today the sinus blockage has cleared and I am feeling much better.
We now have a phone, so feel free to call us. We are GMT+9 which is 17 hours ahead of Pacific Standard and 14 hours ahead of the East coast.
The number:
082-031-930-8044
You should be able to get an international phone card and call for around 9cent a minute, not too bad really and the connections are generally quite good.
