Yesterday was Trisha’s last day. Eric made sure to tell each of us personally through his broken English that Trisha left because she wanted to pursue her master’s degree, and she couldn’t do both at the same time. I was tempted to retort with, “Oh, so we’re a school that doesn’t value education.”Despite all the crap she pulled on everyone, Trisha’s move to quit in order to pursue her degree made Brant respect her more.
So now we’re without someone to head the kindergarten. They’ve been interviewing candidates. Liz said that Eric brought her in to talk to one of the top contenders, and she could barely speak English. I’m thinking, “That’s exactly what we need, another person in charge of the English curriculum who can’t speak English.”
Add that to the non-native speakers teaching spelling and grammar and the science teacher (me) who failed science twice in college.
As long as they don’t get rid of Yu Jeong at the front desk, we’ll stay together. That woman holds the place together and is more valuable than anyone in management.
Dude, kalbi barbecue. Brant brought it to my attention. He said this morning that he saw something pleasantly suspicious off the square, next to where we usually eat samgyapsal. I walked by there after work, and I was ecstatic. In Korean, it said “fresh kalbi barbecue,” and there was a man in the window basting racks of ribs. Brant and I are thinking of trying it out tomorrow. That would be heaven if we had American-style ribs to add to the wonderful foods we have already in the square: samgyapsal (sweet unsalted bacon), Korean chitlins, kamja tang (pork and sweet potato soup), marinated kalbi. Some new fish restaurant seems to be opening up in that area too. Don’t know what kind of fish restaurant, whether it’s sushi or something else. Can you believe there are restaurants here that only specialize in tuna sashimi?? I’ve yet to go to one since they’re expensive, but wouldn’t that be heaven?
Something is annoying me that shouldn’t annoy me. The mother of the nerdy new girl in my kindergarten class complained about, get this, my artistic style in some of the materials that I made for the students. I had been making little phonics cards by hand for the kids. Each card has points, which they can use to play games with, like Yu-gi-oh or Magic the Gathering. But in the beginning, I didn’t have time to make them on a computer, so I had to make them by hand. So this mother sends this one card back with her daughter’s status report saying something to the effect of, “This doesn’t look like a cow.”
Well, excuse me, but all the other kids saw it was a cow, lady. Forgive me if I didn’t have a picture of you for a better reference.
We’re doing our quarterly kindergarten report cards now. They’re a pain. Still can’t figure out what the difference is between “Listening” and “Comprehension” on the report cards. Nonetheless, I put comments beside each one. One of the categories is “Speaking.”
“Nick is a good speaker. He speaks a lot. It would be nice if he spoke in English once in a while.”
Yes, I really wrote that.
My care package from the States has been sent off. I hope it gets here soon. I just ran out of my emergency stick of anti-perspirant. And even worse, I’ve run out of my chili powder and cumin. On the bright side, the chili powder and cumin were used to make a large batch of fajita meat that’ll last a long time.
I’ve gotten more of my new games to work. And just when I was getting into them, Glen came by last night to take them home to burn them. He’ll bring them back tomorrow night, but I’m already suffering from withdrawals. I picked some darn good games, I must say. The main ones I’m playing right now are “No One Lives Forever”, “Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne”, and “The Longest Journey.”
Each one of them is great not only because of their gameplay, it’s because of the great stories they tell.
I ran into Rick, the suave bartender at Magic Castle, while walking around Handaeap after work. Oh no, I’m starting to get recognized on the street.
Autumn is starting to approach already. I’m not used to it coming this early. But the weather has gotten much more pleasant. I can turn off my air conditioner occasionally.