Soon to be a millionaire!!!

Annyeong Haseo!

Well another week passed and a few more thoughts to write down.... We are well into September now and I must make comment on how significantly the weather has changed from August. Someone told me that they have very abrupt season changes and I can attest to that. August was humid, somewhat rainy and hot (all day and night). The minute the calendar switched to September though, everything seemed to change. The nights have been cooling off and sometimes so much so that I even need a jacket. The days do not get near as hot and the humidity is not even noticeable most days. It is quite comfortable now. Welcome to Autumn in Seoul!

I have been rollerblading often as of late and managed to make it to Hangang (Han River) Park a couple of times this week. I can get there right from my apartment without any climbs (not too mention that there is not many of those potential disasters known as down slopes). You will all be happy to know that the Koreans have not been able to laugh at the crazy Westerner who tumbled all the way to the Hangang (not yet anyways!) I bladed to the 63 building which is the tallest building in Seoul and back home which is about a 4-5 km journey. All this exercise is not without a purpose---I have to build up my stamina for the Terry Fox Run this Sunday! For some strange reason I have signed up for the 10km run rather than the 5km run/walk. It made sense at the time but now I have started thinking about the inevitability of an old man who really upshows me, laps me 3 times and takes an enormous bite out of my pride :( The Terry Fox Run is one of the biggest Canadian events in Korea and I am really looking forward to participating in this Canuck tradition.

Last but not least I have a few funny things from my students this week. I am sure any teacher can tell stories about funny, yet totally conceivable mistakes that their students make. One that got a laugh out of me was when I was marking a little girls writing and it didn't take me long too notice that her story had become quite X-rated. For the writing was to be about her country, Korea, and the little girl somehow had forgot that 'country' had two vowels and not just one. You can see how this might play out when you say things like how much you "love your country." Another student was to write about Birthdays and he thought a valuable piece of information would be to tell about what he would like for his next birthday. A novel idea, indeed. Unfortunately, this little boy has a habit of getting his d's and his b's mixed up, so when I saw that he made this mistake when writing about how he "hoped he would get a new bike", I knew the story was about to take a real turn.

Maybe I have a twisted sense of humour? Not sure if any other teachers can relate to this but I sometimes get a very "I am alone" sort of feeling, despite being in a classroom filled with children. For starters, I can't have an adult conversation with them and secondly, even if I could they don't speak my language. I guess I deal with it by letting my sense of humour search out things where I can have a good ol' laugh with myself...

Til next time,
CB