Today I had my first piano lesson.

I went from school (my hours are different this week; I'm working 9am - 12.30.... no school lunch :() straight to the piano lady's house. It was slightly like an interrogation. She sat me down.

"Why do you want to learn the piano?"

Then her neighbour came in to see what I was like. Her neighbour's English was really good so we could talk really well and afterwards I think they decided I wasn't a bad foreigner and she began teaching me.

When we phoned her yesterday to arrange it, we decided that the lessons would be best from 6pm - 7pm, then 2 hours later she phoned back to tell me that her husband wasn't happy with the arrangement and it would have to be earlier.

The white people they have met or have heard of before did wonders to damage the image of foreigners.

It was a beautiful moment when I began playing though as I forgot how great it is to learn something physical. These last 3 years of reading books have worn down my interest in learning and today, I believe it has been re-ignited.

As this week is a school vacation, over 4 lessons I taught (collectively) maybe 10 students!! We began playing a Spongebob Squarepants boardgame which was too complicated to explain so we made our own rules up. Also we played my new game of 'How long can you stand on one leg for, whilst pulling a stupid face without laughing' which went down a treat. THEN the troublesome fifth graders were demanding 'Simon Says' which they normally hate. Seems that being in school during vacation results in thier wanting more fun, no matter how small it is.

This morning I'm sat in me room with the heating on, me double doors BOTH closed, wearing a hoody, two pairs of socks, a jacket and me hood up and its still cold. The wind is so desperate to get into my room this morning... I think it really wants to be my friend.
The sea is in turmoil with waves jumping over the harbour wall and the seagulls are having difficulty trying to fly anywhere; at the moment they are just hovvering around the place looking like they are in control, but I know they're not.

Today all of my lessons have been cancelled (WooHoo!!) but I've still gotta go into school. I promised all the kids a party today so I think they are going to hunt me down and eat me alive in school today when it occurs to them that no English = no party.

Tonight is going to be something quite special. We're going out in the city and with our boss. Also, one of the teachers from school has asked me to phone her when I get in because her and her sister want to go drinking aswell. On top of this it's Christmas Eve. I cannot wait.

Then tomorrow we have Christmas day in Hallim and we have maybe 5 other people coming to join us from other places so it should be a proper good day. AND the Aussie who is leaving is being replaced by a chap called Ben who has been living on the mainland for the past 6 months. May not seem that interesting but he is a top chap. We got to know him in orientation and he came to visit us for one weekend and managed to fall in love with Jeju in two days and asked to be transferred. Gotta trust those feelings eh?

At Winter Camp, for sports day, I told my Mentor Teacher about British Bull Dogs. She was delighted and wants to use it with 120 kids. I've began grooming them and yesterday we played it for the first time and it was AMAZING!! One girl dropped out from exhaustion and then two other kids were chasin each other around the playground because one of em pulled the others hair tooo tooo hard but they LOVED it!! Those kids are gonna win on the day we play it.

After I wrote this I popped out for 5 mins to get some milk wearing all me jackets and hat and my hands and face were numb and my face was wet from secret tears!! All this cold and no snow.

View from the Orum :)

So it didn't upload....

Save this blog being pointless and videoless today I found out that I am in South Korea for another 6 months.

CONTRACT EXTENSION YES PLEASE!!!

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooray!

Yesterday was perfect in almost every way. Myself, Dahee and Laurence decided to climb an Orum (its pretty much a mini volcano) as the weather was incredible.

The wind here is really strong and it occurs almost everyday and living on the west coast doesn't help us much. I think we have a reputation for getting the worst of it. Some days I'll have my bike on the lowest gear riding into the wind and it feels as though I'm on the highest gear. You should thank yourself I have not been blown over to Japan yet and writing all about Japan!!

SO yesterday there was no wind. No wind at all. There was not a cloud in the sky an the sun was making it warm enough for t-shirt weather (almost... but you'd need to keep moving) and we had the best company. All of these factors put together create the most perfect...

DAY OF FUN.

So we got lunch in town and were hurried out of the restaurant as soon as we finished so others could sit down (which apparently is really rude here but with the sun shining as much as it was, it was no factor in our day at all), got Laurences coat fixed for maybe one pound and then almost found me a piano teacher but she wasn't in and so departed for our journey to the top of a volcano.

The Orum in on the way to my school so we decided to try and find a new path as one of the roads is quite fast and and not so scenic so we found ourselves in what I believe, to be the most rural area of South Korea I had yet seen. There were no houses, only stone walls, trees, a few horses and us. Ah! It was so serene. The sun was shining on all the dead vegetation (as its post-autumn here now) releasing abundances of bronze and golden colours and a silence only to be challenged by the wierd noises that horses make or us walking around.

These scenes were regular up until we hit the main road to to Orum. We were the only people on the Orum (which, considering the weather and Korean's love of walking, was quite rare) and had a race to the top (which almost killed me.... and Laurence won) and then climbed down into the crater, which resembled more of a quarry in regards to its steepness. I got maybe 20 meters away from the centre but returned back to the top as there is a lot of recent activity in the soil there; bits of earth are falling down into the volcano. We walked around and circular pieces of grass had just disappeared downwards to create random holes. These holes got the better of me as I didn't want to fall into the centre of the earth from Jeju Island and so escalated back up again. I think the volcano is just really old and the old lava tubes and tunnels inside it are collapsing. There were two places where it would seem that a whole tunnel had collapsed as there would just be a huge ditch.

SO THEN our plan was to return home and watch Toy Story 3 after the sun had set, but I had a phone call to go over to the other side of the island (Hamdog) to play with rockets. We all went there and almost died 10 times over as the chaps had some paper planes are were making them fly by attaching fireworks to them. Thier intentions were sound as they really were experimenting however in reality some planes would fly, and others would crash and explode sending fireworks in every direction causing everyone to run away. Two planes got burnt up and a wealth of knowledge was gained.

Today the weather is almost identical, although the wind is back and I can spend my morning writing about what I did yesterday, such is my life :D.

If you were to ask me 'Are you a busy person?' I wold almost definitely say yes, but if you were to ask 'What do you do that keeps you so busy?' I would not be able to answer you in any definitive way. I wouldn't even be able to say that what I do is productive. If I were to take myself back to Friday then I could say:

I rode my bike, I got stared at by the old ladies, I had a really good day in school (they had a festival), I came back to town, I met up with Laurence and Paul and ate out, I tried talking to a few locals, we came back home, I watched a video on a Japanese teacher who had a very different approach to teaching, we went into town and saw a few friends and the day had already ended!

Simple eh? I'm beginning to believe that's why life is so good out here; the pure simplicity of it. If I were to leave this island now, I'd be dreaming about it for the rest of my life.

YESTERDAY in Grade 4 a new child came into my room with a timid look on his face; his friends were looking at him as though to say 'don't worry' but they were all wearing small smiles on thier faces as though something was going to happen.... what exactly I do not know.

'HELLO! Whats your name?'

'My name is Kim Sun Hyun'

'Kim Sun Hyun?'

'No, Kim Sun H-Y-U-N'

'Yes - Kim Sun H-Y-U-N'

'NO! Kim Sun H----Y----U----N'

'Yes! Kim Sun H----Y----U----N'

'NO! NO! NO!'

Five minutes later he proudly proclaimed his new self-titled name to me.

Grade 4 now has a new student called Anchovie.

Believe me when I say that I gave him no inspiration for this name. I had a new student in Grade 5 last week and he couldn't think of a name so I helped him and we settled on Jake. That is my inspiration on names.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgrrQwLdME8

Today is not the nicest of days, its sort of cold, but not really cold because its totally over cast. One of those days when you really would not be able to tell the time if you were to look at the sky. Although all is not lost as I have my slipper socks on... try and battle that oh over cast day!!

Also there was about 26 people over this weekend from the mainland so we all went out last night and I managed to wake up at 12 today. Not best impressed but have I got essay to write? NO! Have I got presentations to do? NO! Have I got to go and do some volunteering at the opposite end of some estate? NO! I don't think I'll ever forget how easy and free time is on Jeju island. Best job ever.

In the place we went to last night they made you pay to sit down on a table, and then the dance floor would be playing music for maybe 20 minutes and then EVERYONE had to sit down for 10 minutes whilst something happened. Everytime. The word I heard the most last night was 'Wow'. As there was a big group of us and maybe half of us were white, the Korean chaps could not believe their eyes... 'WOW'. Every 5 minutes. WOW!

On Friday we were doing clothing and I made a stencil of Barak Obama and got the kids to dress him as a sort of test. I had four cups and in each cup was written a type of clothing: feet, legs, torso and head (hats). So the kids picked out a piece of paper and had to cut out the clothes and dress Obama. So after that lesson the Grade fours came in and saw pretty Obamas.

'Teacher! Teacher! Today Obama??'

I told em no and we was gonna have a competition between boys and girls to make the best Mrs. Santa Claus and best Mr. Santa Claus.

'Obama Teacher!! Obama??'

We made a compromise that they could stick Obamas face on Santa Claus so hence, Mrs. Obama Claus is next to thier Christmas tree. The boys didn't do so well on that one and still have to stick Mr. Obama Claus together.

Also the kids are going nuts for paper chains. On Friday Grades 1 and 2 had the choice to make a really cool angel, or more hands for the Christmas tree or paper chains. ALL of them went for the paper chains. I actually have a paper chain room now and have hard patches on my hands from where I've used the scissors to cut up hundreds of pieces of paper for the chains. Next week is going to be such a let down for them now as NO PAPER CHAINS.

If nothing else, they have learnt to say 'paper please' now instead of 'Jonge juice say yo!' (check this out; Hangul version is 종이주세요 :D:D:D)

Maybe if they become an artist in Britain then my teaching has done them some use.

"Paper please!"

Also check this out for good learning:

토요일 에 마라도 갔어요. 매우 아름 다웠어요. 나는 차를 운전했어요. 매우천천히갔어요. 나는많은 강아지를 봤어요.

Phonic translation is:

Toe yo il eh Marado kas oh yo. Mair ooo ah rum da owa so yo. Na nuhn cha rull un jon hes seo yo. Mair oo chun chun he gat seo yo. Na nuhn manh un gang a ji rull bohat seo yo.

And then English is: On Saturday I went to Marado. It was very beautiful. I drove a car. It was very slow. I saw many dogs.

They call me Mr. Cultural

I hope I cannot be guilty of taking my job too seriously HOWEVER recently I've been noticing the kids behaviour in lessons at school and I've come to the conclusion that students are mirrors of thier teachers. I say this on a surface level but as time progresses it seems to go a lot deeper.

So on the surface there have been a couple of days when I've gone into school hung-over and I'll teach the kids the lesson I've put together and teach it as though they are just learners and I'm just a teacher. Simple as.

Unfortunately my hang-over is more than evident in thier attitudes. This is divided into the Hang-over Headache, the Hang-over Bad-temper and the Hang-over Life-is-a-Burden attitude.

Headache; they are the kids who refuse to do anything because I haven't presented the lesson to them in an energetic and interested manner and so they do not want to do anything.

Then the Bad-Temper hang-over children will fight with each other because I cannot be bothered to stop them arguing and consequently they get in bad moods because I am angry at them and they are angry at each other.

Finally the Life-is-a-burden hang-over attitude when the English language doesn't matter, 'Why should I learn this subject? I hate it and I think it's crap' and it doesn't make sense to them as there is no fun or passion.

I do not exaggerate in these attitudes; the kids do NOT want to learn if they know they are learning and they have to sit down and understand. I don't blame them; how can you explain to a 7year-old child that this language will boost thier chances of a better life and future when the most important part of thier day (and life) is returning to the big hole they are digging in the sand behing the climbing frame?

So going back to the mirror idea I've also noticed that inspiration and challenges fall into this catergory aswell. Now, I can hear a few thoughts thinking 'Yes Simon, you are taking this way too seriously', but how can you inspire an individual if you are not inspired yourself??

It's like trying to describe what a strawberry tastes like to a friend HOWEVER you have never tried a strawberry yourself, you have only read about what a strawberry tastes like, but you tell them that you HAVE tried it. Without having tried it yourself, you lack the conviction in your words and hollow words are seen easily.

Your friend may believe you, but the skepticism is there and skepticism means that they are not fully involved with what you are saying and for this; they look upon strawberries in a duller light compared to someone who has had strawberries described to them by someone who has eaten a strawberry.

You do not just do strawberries an injustice, you do your friend an injustice aswell. If you are to tell them about strawberries then they deserve to know the full force and beauty of that sweet and shining red fruit!


Secondly, with reference to challenging the kids, it is sort of the same with the strawberries. I'd find it slightly hypocritical to tell the kids 'yes it's hard, but you can do it! Just try' if I was never challenged myself. Now, I have an example.

Where I park my bike in Hallim there is a raised pavement. On the drop side of the pavement there is a cabbage field maybe 6ft down. Running alongside the pavement is a small 2ft wall which has the width of a curb. Not being a fan of heights I walk along the pavement HOWEVER one day I decided to balance on top of the wall and walk the whole 20meters that it stretched. The blood went to my head, I felt a little dizzy and it took me maybe 10minutes to do it but I did it. The feeling after was incredible. I went to school that day with an attitude to knock down mountains and I remember that day being a seriously good day (and not just because I walked on a wall), but because the kids were on my side.

You may think that it is just a good mood being reflected in the kids but a good mood is wayyyyy too simple an explanation.

Also you may be thinking 'you've got too much time to think Simon' but the only reason I've noticed this is because of the different types of lessons I have. It's impossible to ignore how the kids can be so receptive to one day, and so brutal to another. It really is down to you. To bring that quote back,

'The greatest dances are not judged by their techniques, but by their passion.'

Unfortunately, I write all of this down as though I know, but I still don't understand it myself as everyday still is, an endless journey up the mountain of learning.