The title of this post was going to be "Now is the winter of discontent" but I decided it was too pretentious

I. Am. Bored.

I'm at school, which is usually a place that keeps me pretty busy, but for the 5th day in the past two weeks, students have exams, which means there is no one I can punish for not giving me their undivided attention.  What, then, is a narcissist to do? I know! Write about myself in a blog, and hope other people in other countries will give me their undivided attention.

I jest, I jest. I don't really think I'm a narcissist, but I do see this current state of boredom as an ideal time to catch up the interested on recent action.

Emily and I must teach 'English Camps' and 'Vacation Classes' during the Winter break. This is code for additional classes to allow already studied out students to study more. Our English Camp classes were due yesterday and today, so we have been working hard getting several more lessons ready than is usually required of us. Em completed her work with a flair of efficiency, diligence, and creativity, while I plodded, pilfered and procrastinated my way to the finish.  Although, to be honest, the procrastinating wasn't done nearly as well as my previous high standards demanded. I think I'm out of practice.  I mean, sure, I could kill the odd 10 minutes here and there, but over the long distance, when I have a whole day at my desk bereft of those inconvenient lessons, I can barely think of what to do to fill my time besides work.

We had snow again the other day. I was teaching my single most troublesome class of boys, and I saw the tell-tale flurries out the window.  Let me confide in you, a battle waged itself within me at that moment. On the one hand, here were 40 boys that could riot at the slightest encouragement, snowballing into an eighth grade boys' rebellion, and no doubt, a middle school revolution before the period finished. On the other hand, SNOW! I so badly wanted to tell everyone that it was snowing, that I had seen it first, that this doesn't normally happen and that it is very exciting and look at the size of those snowflakes. But prudence one out. Adulthood one out. And let me tell you, the child within me wept.

Unfortunately, and perhaps, I confess it now, inevitably, five minutes later a student shot up his hand - "Teacher! Snowing!" Those fateful words echo anew in my mind, as if in slow motion.  Students were drawn to the window before the rebellion's instigator had drawn a new breath, no doubt with the intention of uttering more treachery. However, with a whip crack command and a single unyielding finger drawn to my lips, I quelled their coup before they even knew what could have been - "Shh! Don't tell anyone. Close the windows."

In other less dramatic news, we are going to Busan on Friday night to have Christmas with some old friends of Emily's, and newer friends of mine, Scott and Ashleigh.  We are quite pumped. Christmas present purchasing has been a trial, as it costs around $45 to send a box to the US. We are still trying to work out teleportation, but no luck on that front yet. Maybe I should get to working on that instead, or another creative idea to get family members Christmas presents...

Until next time, faithful readers and obligated friends.

Oh, and this was Chris, by the way.

There isn't really a cohesive theme for this post, hence the title.

As Chris mentioned in his last post. We DID have a bit of snow last week. It was beautiful. It made the freezing cold walk to school bearable. Unfortunately, today its raining. It was not beautiful, and the freezing (and now wet) walk to school was almost unbearable. But, we did in fact make it to school. A triumph of the human spirit.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I'm taking a 20 minute walk every morning in below freezing temperatures and part of that walk is next to a field (or a rice-paddy for some of us) where the wind has no barrier other than yours truly (and my very strong and broad-shouldered husband), I bundle up! Hat, big scarf, and mittens. This seems smart, doesn't it? Well, my students think it is a bit silly. They always laugh and say, "Ohh... cold?" or they indicate with sign language how bundled up I am. I usually look at them and ask (in an incredulous tone of voice) "Where is YOUR coat?" Some of the students have on a coat, a few wear mittens and no coat, no one wears a hat. Its not that they aren't cold. They admit that its not just cold, its freezing, and yet they don't do anything about it. Well, the good news is that I am no longer in middle school, so I need to be warm WAY more than I need to be cool. :)

As I read through the above paragraph, I recognize that I DO in fact, sound like an old woman. This is because I am turning into an old woman. Chris wanted to take me out for dinner and bowling on Saturday night. (Isn't he lovely!) Well, it was already dark out, and it was very cold, and wouldn't it be sooo nice to just be warm and cozy inside? We could just rent a movie right? So, that's what we did. We got take-away and watched a movie. Actually, we watched a documentary. I'm contemplating deleting this paragraph, because I definitely sound like I've come to Korea and aged about 45 years. Oh well, I need to be warm WAY more than I need to be cool.

We had a good time at our church yesterday. Singing Christmas carols and we are almost finished with a new-comers class. The past few weeks have been doctrinally focused. We've studied salvation, sanctification and the church. This Sunday was on the different ministries at the Korean church (a 4,000 member church) and our English service (about 100 member service). We are really excited about opportunities to serve and grow in ministry here. We're going to start leading a small group in January and we are talking about some other areas to get involved as well. The church is so interesting because it has such high turn-over. Most people are here for 1 year contracts, and they stay a max of 2 years. So, it takes people about 6 months to get into the groove of a new church and then they think, "I only have 6 months left, I can't really commit to anything..." We really don't want that to be our attitude. God brought us to Korea for a purpose and we want to seize it!

We'll let you know what we end up doing! Feel free to comment on how interesting this post was. It seems that Chris is getting more comments than I am. (And yes, EVERYTHING is a competition!! :)  )

SNOW! and other adventures

Want to know why white people are invariably of greater girth than Koreans?  Koreans give white people food.  Every time we go to the fresh produce market in front of our apartment (it wraps around the junkyard) and buy fruit - or donuts - they throw in a few extra. I want to believe it's because we complete the transaction in Korean, but to be honest, our Korean doesn't warrant an a free mandarin, let alone 3 mandarins and an apple.  I stammer my way through, sometimes panicking and saying something stupid.  Yesterday in the supermarket I waved goodbye to the assistant and said in more fluent than average Korean, "How much is this?"  One time in a taxi I spoke to the taxi driver in Hebrew.  He looked bemused, but I made up for it by overpaying him - again accidentally.

Anyway, SNOW!  We began our jog today, and it just seemed a little too cold.  Em wanted us to turn back because I wasn't wearing enough clothing, but I assured her that I was far too tough for the weather to get the better of me. I lasted maybe another 20 seconds before drops of rain showed me my hubris and we headed home.  After getting changed we went grocery shopping, and when we came out, it was SNOWING!  The closest thing to SNOW I have seen in December was hail on Christmas Eve during an Australian summer storm.  Needless to say I was pretty excited and decided if anything was blog worthy, SNOW was.

How are our seven readers going?  We would love to hear from you.

You need to wipe your face? What, because you did one squat, you fattie?!

There I was.  All set for an Asian cultural experience.  Sumo wrestling with a gen-u-ine Japanese commentary.  The preparations seemed a little elaborate - the salt, the pacing (waddling), the almost tender pre-match chest bump - but I was trying to be gracious.  Em, on the other hand, was a little more blunt in her opinions, hence, this blog's title.  I like the idea of sumo-wrestling - the kid who got picked on in school is now the one everyone else is cheering on.  But having now actually watched it, I'm not such a fan.  One thing that does impress me about sumo wrestlers however, is their ability to put on - and maintain - serious weight in a culture where rice makes up so much of any meal.  I'm not in Japan, but the Korean diet isn't all that different, and I am dropping the kilos.  Still plenty of 'puppy fat' and limited muscle bulk, but I am definitely a lesser man than I was pre-Korea.

Married to a qualified personal trainer is helping, I'm sure.  It's taking all my wiles to ensure we only go running 3 days a week.  In Year 12 my school required that all students run 6km, which I promptly walked  and came 109th out of 120 boys.  Since then I've had the vague aspiration to one day run 6km without stopping.  I told Em this, and my vague aspiration became her focused goal (for me).  I managed it a few times a couple of weeks ago, but since then Em has had a throat infection, which obviously meant I couldn't exercise.  They amped up her antibiotics meds the other day and it is clearing up, but now I have a convenient throat infection of my own.  This one doesn't require medication, but it should keep me from having to run for another day or two yet.

This blogging business is hard!  My life isn't interesting enough to justify three full paragraphs on, and if I write about Em, she will have nothing to write about.  Thus I am signing off.  To our faithful 6 readers, peace out, hombres.

We just finished reading Romans and I went to the doctor.

Although these two tidbits of information may seem completely unrelated, they are in fact both events that have happened in my life in the last 24 hours. Other than that there is absolutely no connection between the two of them.
When we arrived in Korea, we also decided to start reading Romans together. We read through it once without any commentaries or study guides and would talk about it as we went. In some ways it was really great to just read the Bible without having a set agenda of what we were going to talk about, but at the same time, Romans is deep. We ended up deciding that we wanted to read it through again with a Bible study that had a discussion questions and a commentary.

I'm SO glad we did. Cass Monaco, an amazing author of Bible studies, told me that in order to really say that you have studied a book of the Bible you should read it through 50 times. (As in read it straight through.) We definitely came away with a better understanding of the book having studied it twice in a row. I could easily read it a third (fourth and fifth....) time and learn even more.  I think something that impacted me the most was going through my day and having specific verses from Romans pop into my head about situations that I was in. It can be so easy to have a general "Christian" perspective without really having the foundation be the Word of God. I know that I struggle with this at times. I have "the answer" but I'm not really confident I know WHY its the answer or WHERE I could find it. So, I'm thankful to have a little bit stronger foundation from having studied Romans.

For my second, and unrelated, point. I went to the doctor yesterday. I've been "sick" for about 3 weeks. Never sick enough to put in me in bed, but sick enough to be nagging and annoying. But, in the last week it started to get worse. I was coughing ALL over the place and just feeling like I would contaminate all 700+ of my students. SO - yesterday afternoon, with the help of my co-teacher, I ventured into the world of health care in South Korea. You know what? I'm impressed. The whole process took about 30 minutes. We walked from school to a doctors office. I gave them all my information and waited for about 5 minutes. Went into see the doctor. He spoke pretty decent English which was nice. After looking down and swabbing my throat he told me I had a throat infection - so not a cold like I had thought - and he had me breath over a humidifier of sorts for about 2 minutes. I was a little skeptical of it, but it actually really soothed my throat so I went with it.

Then, I got my perscription and went next door to have it filled. Literally took me 30 minutes. AND - cost me a grand total of about $8 USD. CRAZY. The doctors visit was $4 and the medicine for 3 days was $4. Again, the fact that it was so speedy and so cheap made me question the legitimacy of what I was getting myself into, but let me tell you. I'm feeling MUCH better. :) All in all, a very positive experience.

How is the Korean going?

Well, if you are anything like everyone else I know, you are probably wondering if we are learning any Korean. Other than "How are you?"  the most common question I here from friends in Australia and the USA is "Are you learning any Korean?". The answer is both simple and complicated. That is to say, both "yes" and "no." Let me explain.

Yes. We are taking a Korean class every Friday where we have learned the alphabet, learned to read, how to introduce ourselves, order food, make purchases, and count. That's progress, right? And, in as humble a way as possible, you should know that we are at the top of our class as well. Chris and I have both had recent triumphs in using our newly acquired Korean. Chris was able to order several dishes from a restaurant without using hand gestures to show how many of each. He was also able to order politely and in complete sentences! YAY! My experience was similar. I wanted to buy some apples and so I asked how much a bag of apples cost. The man told me that I could get 1 bag for 3,000 won but 2 bags for 5,000. I went with 2 bags. These may seem like small  victories, but I'm excited about them anyway!

No. We've been here for 3 months and our Korean is really quite minimal. Its difficult because nearly everyone we come into contact with (there are definite exceptions) speaks a bit of English, so the NEED for Korean doesn't feel as urgent. Also, English is a bit of a fad here, so most signs have at least some English on them as well as Korean. People also like to practice their English with a real, live, native English speaker On the bus, I've had people purposely sit next to me to talk English. We know people who have been here for over a year that know almost no Korean, and they've got along fine. We really don't want to be here for a year without learning the language, but its definitely possible.

Here are a few phrases you can try out.

Hello : an yeong ha se yo (this is phonetic, not in Korean script, obviously)
How much does it cost?:   ol ma ye yo
Does this bus go to Costco?: Ee bosu Costco kanayo?

Teacher you face is Beckham face same

Well, I'm not an experienced teacher, but I firmly believe the ability to communicate a point is more important than grammar, and I think the title of this post demonstrates that I am kicking goals with my students.  It turns out that Koreans think all Caucasians look the same, so I'm not getting carried away by the comparison.

For a while now, every time Em does something mean I've said, "that's going in the blog!"  It got to the point where I had to put my money where my mouth was and actually write something, but now I can't remember what I was going to write about.  So instead... Let the percussion of my keyboard paint you a word picture of what's going on for us right now:

Here I sit, in an apartment in Korea, typing one handed as I hold a frypan for Em that needs to cool without taking up space on the stove.  The laptop sits on our latest piece of furniture, a desk we spotted in front of some apartments down the street.  We are assuming the Melbourne policy applies, that if furniture isn't bolted down it's fair game.  Em is finishing cooking dinner (don't worry, I helped!), and has just observed that we need a new bottle of soy sauce - how Asian are we!  Somehow we scored a nice two bedroom place that is brand new.

It's a typical day for us, we got up at 6:15am (well the alarm went off then, and Em probably got up then too...), at school by 8:20am, between 4 and 6 classes to teach, some lesson plans to work on, and we were home by 5pm.  On the weekend we catch up with some other people from America or South Africa who are also teaching, or we just spend time together.

Teaching has its challenges, but all in all we are really glad we came.  Standing alone at the front of the class with 42 faces (hopefully) staring in your direction is a little intimidating when you can't think of words they will understand to explain what you mean, but the well behaved girls' classes make up for the sometimes colourful boys' classes.  Our students will study for hours every day, as well as attend after school classes. Despite being 13 year olds, they might not get home until after midnight, which means they are usually too tired in class for much to soak in.

We have a church that is 1 hour 15 min to 1 hour 30 min away, but it's a really nice group of people and we are enjoying being a part of it.

Well, I think I'll conclude.  Next time I'll ensure I have more specific things to talk about.

Peace,

Chris

Are you eating enough???

I think it goes without saying that no matter where you live, food is incredibly important. But, I think it also needs to be said that in Korea, food is MORE important. Koreans love food. They love to make it, eat, it, and share it. They love to make sure that you like your food, that you are eating enough food, and even if you say "Yes, I'm stuffed it was delicious!" they will give you a skeptical look until you heap a bit more on your plate.

Chris and I both eat the school lunch in our teacher's lunch room. Most of the kids eat lunch in their own room - a cart with the hot food on it is delivered to each room and a few students (sometimes with a homeroom teacher) serve the rest of the class. Most meals in Korea, including cafeteria food, consist of about 6 different dishes. Kimchi, of course, and rice are the staples. The other dishes range from a mystery meat sort of stir fry, fried slabs of tofu, dried squid salad, to quail eggs, cabbage salads with spicy dressings, or seaweed (yep, that's all, just seaweed).  Soup - how could I forget? There is always soup. Usually it has an interesting fishy taste. I was recently told that basically all soup broths are made with salted dehydrated sardines. This reminds me. Korea has 2 basic flavors. Fishy and spicy. The fishy is fairly self-explanatory. Many things, I dare say most, have a slight to strong fishy flavor. Fishy is also a common aroma. We have a raw fish restaurant next door to our apartment, so we catch whiffs of this fishy aroma .... frequently.

Back to the food. 2 basic flavors - fishy and spicy. The spicy flavor is a little bit different. There is this red chili paste that they only sell in gallon barrels. (Ok, I'm exaggerating slightly, but seriously, only a little bit.) The chili paste goes in everything. Its not the kind of spicy that sets your mouth on fire with one bite, but it does add a bit of heat to the meal.

We've been doing a bit of eating out to try new foods. I think our favorites so far are dukgalbi, which is spicy fried rice with chicken and seaweed mixed through, and mandu, which are little dumplings with a mystery filling. :) They are yummy, so I don't feel like I need to know what it is.

Although we have eaten out a fair bit, we are cooking most of our meals at home. (And by "we" I basically mean "me," but Chris gives it a go sometimes as well.) I think I should warn you that I will be bragging just a bit about my cooking triumphs. I've been trying to use easily accessible ingredients for our meals here - which means that a bit of creativity is necessary. Its been really fun to think about what I've got at home and then to mix up a concoction, never sure if it will taste ok. Thankfully, I'm married to a very encouraging man  who is also a great sport. He confidently digs right in to whatever ends up on the table. Other than one rice burning mishap, I have to say I've enjoyed many a satisfying victory!


I will share with you my 2 favorites so far.

Beef, mushroom, and lemon stir-fry. (serves 2)
Stir fry beef strips
 1/2 a red onion sliced thin
  1 cup mushrooms (I used some little mushrooms that are cheap here, but I'm sure any would do. If the aren't small, slice them)
  1 red pepper/capsicum sliced thin.
  A lemon
  3 green onions chopped fine
  1 glove garlic crushed
  1 little chunk of ginger diced finely (or grated)
  2 T olive oil (I used grapeseed oil, because that's what we have, but its very similar)
  A splash of rice vinegar
  A splash of sesame oil
  2 T soy sauce.
  Salt to taste

Basically, I put the red onion, garlic and pepper/capsicum in a pan to soften. If you had a zester, you could add the zest of the lemon as well.
In another fry pan, I cooked the beef almost all the way through. I added some salt and the ginger.
(This is a side note, but I read that your stir-fry has better flavor if you cook the meat in a separate pan - it helps the vegetables retain some of their own flavor. Maybe you already knew that. I did not.)
Meanwhile, cook noodles of your choice. We had it with a Korean noodle.
Make a sauce with the soy sauce, vinegar, lemon juice (entire lemon), sesame oil.
Combine the meat, vegetables, and cooked noodles. Pour the sauce over and add green onion.

Pretty easy. It tastes really fresh. We loved it.

Tuna Pasta with Dill and Dijon.

I can tuna.
Penne pasta for 2
1/2 red onion
1 large stalk celery
1 T dill
1 T dijon mustard
2 stalks green onion
2 T olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed



Cook the pasta
Stir-fry red onion and garlic, add celery and dill.
Add tuna (do not drain can)
Add oil and mustard.
I also added a good bit of black pepper here.
Combine tuna mixture with pasta.













  


 

Right at the Rice Paddy, Just Past the Junkyard

Emily: Ok, what should we write about?

Chris: Well, why don't you have a think about it and then call me back over.

Emily: ...but.. this is OUR blog.

Chris: Ok, well I need to change this song so I can think better.

Emily: Fine. What are we going to write about?

Chris: I'm STARVING! I'm going to get something to eat. 

[Emily waits at the computer while Chris rummages in the cupboards and finds a not that great packaged, Korean brownie. Chris downs the brownie in about two bites. He sits down next to Emily.]

Emily: Ok, what are we going to write about.

Chris: Tag me in. 

[They converse and Chris begins to type, "We moved to Korea to avoid having to make a decision about where to live".]

Emily: No don't say that!

Chris: But it's funny.

Emily: I don't care if it's funny, I would like to be taken seriously - by adults.

Chris: But people don't have to take it seriously, they know we are joking.

Emily: I don't think that people will assume from a joke that we actually prayed about this, that we believe it's where God has been leading us and wants to use us, that we want to test out living overseas with a long term perspective, or that we want to save money for more study.

Chris: [Silently concedes.]

Emily: [Listens to the previously chosen song. ] I don't really like this style of music.

Chris: But - do you know who this is?

Emily: It's Bloc Party.

Chris: [Shoulders slumped] Okay.

Emily: Maybe we should say something about our schools?

Chris: Shouldn't we explain the title of the post first?

Emily: [Responds with a healthy dose of sass] Ahh yes.

Chris: We live on the outer edge of a city on the outer edge of a continent that neither of us actually come from.  If you take the freeway north out of Daegu and come into Chilgok, keep heading north, past the old ladies selling some sort of vegetable and a Baskin Robbins, when you hit the rice paddy take a right, go past the junkyard and we are the first apartment building on the right.

Emily: We would just write the address but a) we aren't totally sure what it is and b) neither is anyone else in Korea. 

[Koreans use an address system that no one here seems to understand, so they give directions based on landmarks.]

Emily: Alright, I think I'm done.

Chris: What about our schools.

Emily: Eh, more blog posts to come. If we save it for later, we will get more blog hits.

Chris: Well played.  How should we sign out? Catch you later? Catch you on the flip?

Emily: Ye- no...

Chris: Then how?????

Emily: Just end it. We don't need a salutation.