The yellow dust lergy

Hi. At the moment I sound like some hybrid between Elvis and a chipmunk. I have been struggling with a bit of a cold and this has caused my voice to start acting strangely. I have been trying to speak then suddenly stopped, and also have suddenly changed into a high pitched squeal like a small piglet. I think this was caused by the yellow dust I must have inhaled last Saturday when walking about Seoul. It seems that that is when I got sick. It could be from the 32 small germbags in my class too.

I suppose I will never know.


Until next time.

M

A Standard Day

Hi folks.

Today is a pretty standard day. I have has the pleasure of my morning coffee and toast. Now that I have a toaster. yeeaaaah. I have been to school via the subway and short 10 minute walk that is the ritual currently endured by several of the teachers at my school. Luckily for us it was not snowing or even raining. The weather has been very unpredicatable lately and It has caught me out at least once.

I have unlocked the classroom and waited on the 32 small beings to rush to my classroom with cries of "Hi Teacher" and Good Morning", before prompting them to all write the days Homework from the board into their HW diaries.

Then its all about teaching them.

I have been hungry, but now I am not due to the lovely Korean lunch that I have eaten, with my students. I have helped some of them clean up, and helped some to get into their jackets.

I have watched outside the window to see the classes of Middle schoolerstrying to play soccer, and only marginally succedding at it. And I have also watched a blue truck loaded up past the roof driving around the school trying not to lose any of its unorganised load.

Sounds like its all going to plan. At least someone's plan.

Morg

Welcome to our Blog. Hopen this helps you to follow our adventures.

We have settled into our apartment. It is in the north east section of Seoul in a neighbourhood called Chang Dong. we live on the 12th floor of a building called Samsung Chereville officetel. Its pretty good overall, a wee bit small but much much better than some places i have lived, even in NZ haha(Dunedin).

The food we have been eating is mostly korean. We have a rice cooker and this provides a good batch in about 15 minutes with zero effort. The rest is just a few side dishes and of course kimchi. We have been really getting into the korean diet as it is actually easier to buy the ingredients. We can get foreign food and many things are much more readily available than 5 years ago, but its a matter of deciding how madly we need it.

I may buy a few things from time to time but actually enjoy doing things korean at the moment.This included the sauna and jimjilbang (hot sleeping room) We have been out to a few very nice korean restaurants too, and these have surprised me. I have been `to the standard "outback" steakhouse too and this unfortunately did not.



The weather has been absolutely shocking. Take yesterday for example, where it was about 5 degrees in the morning, no too bad with a forecast of 8 and light showers. But it turned out to be heavy snow for about 6 hours. and the yellow poisonous dust from China has been wafting over here too. It is so bad sometimes that we can't let the kids play outside on those days. If you are interested in the air quality of Korea, please check out this site.

http://www.airkorea.or.kr/airkorea/eng/realtime/main.jsp

I have put some pix onto facebook in a folder called KOREA 2010 . (you will have to be my facebook friend to see them)

http://www.facebook.com/OlMorg#!/album.php?aid=194620&id=705355662

The school is pretty good. Its called Maewon elementary school and houses about 500 kids from grades 1-6, and has a separate middle school sections in another building. The kids i have are grade three which means they are about 8-9 years old. I have to teach English (they call it language arts though), Math, History and 1 class of PE to the students every week. I have a Korean co teacher who also has the same students and teaches them a variety of stuff, but in Korean. They are getting a good mix of English and Korean speaking time. MAny of them are very capable and would rival many of my students from OC I think. Maybe it is just that they have had exposure to English since a younger age. hmmmm.



Mimi, is getting busier everyday, looking for work and setting up her stuff. I was already sorted before the flight so have had a less busy time. I do have a bunch of work to do though.

And training.

I have decided to join a dojo that teaches Gongkwon Yusul. check it out on youtube. This is pretty good I think and I shall be trying to go 5 days a week. I will also try to see more of the country than last time on excursions and trips. Most likely i shall join the crew from adventure korea as they have a really good list of trips and have a good reputation.

Thats all for now. Morgan (And Mimi)