Japan

I can't say enough nice things about Japan, I'm extremely glad I was able to visit. The food is amazing and the people are friendly and warm. There is an abundance of cultural diversity in Japan that is much more apparent than in Korea. Korea's culture can seem monolithic in comparison; and Koreans can sometimes be more xenophobic. But in Korea's defense, it's a much smaller country than Japan; but for how big Seoul is I thought it might be more international than what it really is. While I do enjoy Korean food, I prefer Japanese food. One of the major reasons why is because Korean cuisine mostly revolves around the red pepper, while the Japanese cuisine has a wider range of taste, in my opinion, and usually has a sweet/bitter taste that I find pleasant to the palate. Korea is a nation which has been strongly influenced by both Japan and China, and now that I've been to Japan, I have a better understanding on how the country has influenced Korea.

Three or four days is not enough to experience Japanese culture. So I hope that I'll be able to come back again some day. The cultural diversity here makes an American feel a little more comfortable and relaxed. Also, I just felt less 'foreign' here, which was also comforting. The fashion here is much more radical than in Korea, which was fun to see. And I have to say I'm a fan of Japanese Arcades, it was a great throw back to see so many awesome video game arcades.

Almost all of my friends and family assumed that I would be going to Tokyo, but I went to Osaka instead. I chose Osaka for a few important reasons. I felt that it would be a bit quieter and easier to get around in than Tokyo, but still have plenty to do and see. I think my assumptions were correct, because I really have enjoyed Osaka and my hotel was across the street from the testing center. Also there are many other small cities near by which are easy to get to by train and visit. I visited Kyoto, only 30 minutes away by train, which has many temples, shrines, and other classic examples of Japanese architecture through out the city. I would love to visit Tokyo someday, but for this trip Osaka just made more sense, Tokyo might have distracted me from my test.

The GRE went well. Although, it was a bit of a challenge to fly into a country that I had never been to before and take a test like that with in 24 hours after arriving.

I now am looking forward to completing and turning in my application for grad school; the program is for a Masters in Film/Video production. A chemistry professor who had a PhD once told me, the more your educated, the more you discover how little you know. And that's true with me; now that I've graduated college I want to go back to learn more, because I realized that an undergrad just scratches the surface.

Sheep and Backbones

The picture at the top is from a cafe that kept a couple of sheep in front of the shop. If there was one thing I was not expecting to see in the middle of the city, it was sheep.

The second picture is of a traditional Korean dish, backbone stew. I'm not a real big fan of this one, although it did taste pretty good. It reminded of some type of dish that would be served in Star Wars, I know that's a bit immature of me to say. Some friends confirmed with me that I ate meat before ordering, I guess next time I should answer more specifically. One of my friends did point out that they thought it was cool that Koreans tend almost the entire animal, while in America we only have a relatively few cuts from our meat. I agreed with my friend, but pointed out that backbone meat is probably to be found in a hot dog. Backbone stew is usually considered a dish that elders enjoy more than the contemporary youth of Korea. On one hand I really wanted to enjoy the backbone stew, but I felt a bit too unfamiliar with the dish to be able to jump right in and think it was the best stew ever. All my friends who really enjoyed it were Korean American, so I'm assuming they've either had it before or at least had some familiarity with the dish.

I have everything booked for my trip regarding the GRE. Only having one month of studying is not an incredible amount of time to study compared to some people, but I hope I'll do well enough on the test. I'm looking forward to seeing Japan, although it would have been nice to be able to visit with out worrying about a test. It will be nice to have something to look forward to if I get accepted into the graduate program, and if I don't get accepted at least I'll have a larger vocabulary from the studying. My two favorite words that I've learned so far are 'circumlocution' and 'ineffable'.

I've found a few good burrito places to help with my craving of American food. I eat Korean food about six days a week, two/three times a day, so it's always nice to find a good burrito on the weekends. In America we take the variety of food we eat for granted. Although Seoul has many international restaurants, there are none in my direct vicinity, as I'm more in a traditional area of Seoul.

GRE, Japan, and the nearing end of Winter

I'm in the process of applying to a graduate program back in the States, which I'll talk more about if I get accepted. Although I am very excited about the possibility about being accepted. To complete my application I will have to fly to Japan to take the GRE, as the GRE is only offered in Korea twice a year, but in Japan you can take it almost any day of the year. So I've been spending my free time figuring out where I'm going to take the test, how I'm going to get there, where I'm going to stay, and studying for it. I went ahead and scheduled the test for later this month. I'll be back at work for the next two weeks, but then I'll have some down time again where I'll be able to fly over for a day or two to take the test.

This winter has been as cold as I thought it would be, but these last couple days have been really nice, as it has been above freezing. Spring should be beautiful once it comes.
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The top picture is of coals that are used to cook your meat at your table during a Korean style BBQ. The second picture is of a snowy night.
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Since I have been stuyding for the GRE I have not yet had the time to make any developments to my website, but I'll keep you posted once I put something up. What I'll probably do is at first put up a basic site, and build it up through out the year.

English Winter Camp

This is the first grade class. I feel like I taught them the most out of all my classes.

This is my third/fourth grade class, they were the best behaved.

The second grader who was the overall champ of English. He read "Are you My Mother?" faster than I did when I was in second grade. He also completed the workbook I made in the first two days.

Another 2nd grade class, you can see the book I compiled/made being held up by one of the students.

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So Winter Camp ended up being a good experience, initially it was a bit stressful lesson planning for ages I have not yet taught, but I surprised myself with making lesson plans that ended up being great for the kids levels. I tried to vary each lesson so that people of different levels would gain something from it; but all my first graders were at about the same level, thus making teaching them the easiest.

Teaching English camp was completely different than teaching during the regular semester because I was able to teach the same kids every day and see instant results. When teaching during the regular school year I teach over 300 hundred kids that I only see once a week, thus making it hard to know how much they are learning and what level they are really on.

During the last week with my third and fourth grade class we made a quick movie. The children really impressed me with how much they were able to get done in such a short amount of time. Sense writing the scripts were very hard for the children, that ended up taking most of the time, thus we were only left with 20 minutes of actually shooting time. So for the Summer English Camp, I think I'll give making a movie a full week so that we can have a bigger production. I made copies of the movie on CD for everyone in the class; so that they can look back at this video years after. I was really impressed by the script the girls wrote, it had a complete narative arch to the story. The boys script had some English mistakes in it, but I was not overly concerned about correcting what they wrote. The point of the exercise was to show that they could synthesize English sentences on their own well enough to convey a meaning.


Now that Winter Camp is finished I will have a couple weeks to rest, travel, study, work on personal projects, etc. I will have a completely custom website up in early February; I'll post the link here when it is up.

Just a couple of monks

The other weekend I went out to Insadong; which is a fun area in Seoul to explore. Lots of art exhibits, cafes, and interesting shops are in the area. It always surprises me though how much little importance tea actually has in Korea. The most common form of tea here is corn tea; which I have grown to like, but kind of tastes what it sounds like. But there are plenty of cafes to find that have great green tea, etc; but it can be difficult to find a varity of tea in a regular grocery store or food market.

The middle picture is of a cafe in Insadong that had the interior of an airliner mixed with a rock garden. It was an interesting one to say the least; as it was -5 C outside, my friends and I felt very warm and cozy in our flight chairs while drinking some tea. I'm usually the one who is always saying "lets find somewhere warm guys; it's kind of freezing outside"; but being from Georgia I wouldn't have it any other way. Even my friends from LA seem to take the cold better than I.... Maybe it was because I was born in hot and humid Florida.... When it gets humid in the summer I'll feel at home.

Winter camp is going well, I'll share some pictures and video next week of it. I was worried about teaching the young ones; but they are extremely cute and good at participating. Lots of classic songs such as "Old MacDonald" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and other English games. Since it is a camp I try to make it as fun as possible while still educational. I made workbooks so that the students have the opportunity to learn how to read and write the alphabet as well as words. The children learn very quickly at such a young age, after the second day everyone could write the alphabet and tell me the sound that a letter makes. And my second graders want to watch this of this old Sesame Street 1-20 video over and over again; that I end up using it as a reward system at the end of class or before class starts.

Photography

During this break I have been able to spend some more time with photography. Another native English teacher I've met here does some modeling, and so we joined forces to do a quick photo shoot one day. I've been studying some basic lighting techniques, so it was fun to be able to implement some of them. Through out my college career I was able to learn some lighting in film and theatre classes, along with my internship; but this was the first time, other than a short film I did, where I was able to put my knowledge to the test. I find it fun to compare the lighting in the photo above with Leonardo's Mona Lisa. It's amazing how lighting has been used much the same way through out the centuries.

To see the rest of the set you can visit my new flicker account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbswigart/



I will be starting work again on Monday for three weeks for the winter English camp. Will keep you updated on how that goes. I'll be teaching younger children than I was previously; so I'm not sure what to expect. But I'm sure they will be full of excitement and I'll have a lot of fun with them.

Winter Holiday

This child gets himself 'pretend' stuck in his coat almost every lesson. He's pretty awesome.

This class is one of the best at English. Some of the 3rd graders are extremely intelligent.

Christmas is a National Public Korean Holiday; and thus there have been many decorations around the city. The class rooms have slight decorations to them that make it feel a bit festive. From the adult perspective Christmas in Korea is looked at as more of a couple and friend holiday than a family holiday. Koreans will spend a lot of time with their significant other or friends rather than travel long distances to be with their families. (They have other family centric holidays for that.)

I'll be spending my Christmas with other English teachers. Should be a great time!