Incheon Wins

Jeong Mi and I went to the Incheon United game against Daejon last night. It was quite cold and not many fans showed up. But we had a really good time. Incheon won 3-0 and they dominated play for the whole game.

Jeong Mi had gone to a World Cup game when it was in Korea/Japan in 2002. But she hadn't yet gone to a professional game. This wasn't a K-League game, but the Rush Cash Cup. So we'll have to get her to another game soon. Regardless of it being too cold to drink, we had a blast.

As always, check out the pics.

Soccer, Bad Movie and Faulty First Impression

Let's get this out of the way right now: I was clearly tricked by the initial impression I got from the vice principal. Like clockwork, she has already loaded more work onto Geoff, Ridia and me. She's making Geoff and me do an extra class on Wednesday, when we had our only break of the day.

Fortunately, she is paying us OT for it, because it puts us an hour over our limit. But I prefer the rest/prep time. This semester doesn't leave us a lot of room for prep time, and I liked having that extra hour on Wednesday. Instead, I'll be babysitting 20 first and second graders for an hour. What a shocker.

On a brighter note, it's been an entertaining week outside of work. Now that the weather is warming up, it's easier to get outside and do stuff, rather than just sitting in a bar playing darts.

Jeong Mi and I caught 'Black Swan" at the neighborhood theater last night. Jeong Mi really enjoyed it. Besides some of the sex scenes, I didn't really find anything appealing about the movie. Not my type of flick. But it's good that Jeong Mi liked it. I know she'd prefer to go to more movies, but I don't like just sitting there for two hours. I need something more social.

And that's why last Saturday was nice. Pel, Popper, Tim Woo Min, Woo Min's girl and I went to the Incheon United soccer team's home opener against Jeju United. We loaded up on beer and enjoyed the beautiful weather. The game was nothing special. It ended 0-0. But we had a really nice time. The weather was warm and the beer flowed freely. It was a really fun day.

Hopefully I'll be hitting two more soccer games this week, as well as a preseason baseball game with Barry in Seoul. We'll follow SK as they take on Doosan. It's going to be a fun week outside of work.

Check out our soccer pics here and expect more soon.

Also on a good note is that both of my discussion groups went well. The guys all came prepared and we had a nice discussion. Everyone followed pretty well, and we're all learning. So we're meeting again this Thursday.  Jeong Mi and I worked on our discussion when we met Alex and Pel for dinner. So they peppered her with some questions, as well. She did a good job, and we're meeting again Wednesday. As long as everyone keeps working hard, the group should continue to go well.

Warm weather is arriving, and I need to simply keep my thoughts outside of the office. That's how I can keep sane here.

Study Group, New Principal, VP and Semester

As always, the beginning of a new semester means a lot of preparation work. But this time around is a little bit different, which means we're even busier.

Our new principal and vice principal have arrived at Hambak. We had a staff dinner last Friday to greet them along with the many new teachers. Teachers in Korean public schools have to rotate every four years, so each new year brings a lot of new faces.

Some of the new teachers are pretty cool. I had nice conversations with a few of them, including one unfortunate chick who is basically a freshman teacher, but was given the terrible responsibility of homeroom teacher for a first grade class. Nightmare for her.

The new principal was very nice, even letting me take the welcome shots in place of Ridia and our new assistant, Hye Yun. The former principal and vp were not big on letting that happen. There's actually a word in Korean for taking a shot in place of someone. Yes, it's that serious. I don't remember the word, because I only hear it when I'm tagging in for someone.

The new vice principal was really cool. We got to know her a bit better than the principal. I sat next to her for about an hour, just chatting and drinking. It's always a hesitant time when new administration comes. We never know if they're going to want to change things, and the English center is always a prime target for an administrator looking to make his or mark on a school.

Our outgoing principal left us with the terrible gift of switching around our whole afternoon class. The changes include decent things like adding students from the other schools that come for morning classes, and bad things like stretching all afternoon classes to 50 minutes. Forty minutes was almost ideal. Fifty minutes stretches things quite a bit.

So things are up, but I'm sure we'll be fine. As long as Ridia is in charge, I'm confident.

On a personal note, my friends and I started a Korean study/discussion group. I've never studied with fellow foreigners before. I just worked on my own, and of course with my Korean friends (especially my lovely lady, Jeong Mi).

The group includes Pel, Popper and Onson. Onson has the most studying experience, while Pel has been hitting the books a lot within recent months. Popper has been in Korea the longest out of any of us, and while he lacks any formal studying, he has a strong base of vocabulary and phrases.

The group works as a discussion group. We pick a topic and, on our own, have to fill out at least one page of our notebooks with vocabulary, phrases and anything else that might be pertinent to the topics. Then, we meet a week later and have a discussion all in Korean for 30 minutes. After the time is up, we share our notebooks with each other, and ask any questions we might have in English. I am moderating the group as far as keeping the discussion going and asking questions when necessary.

We had our first discussion last night, and the topic was food and restaurants. We had plenty of stuff to fill the 30 minutes. It went really well. I only had to remind Popper a couple times that even asking questions in English is not allowed during the 30 minute time period. Questions have to be saved for afterward.

Everyone showed up on time with their notebooks filled. I'm pretty excited to see how quickly we'll advance our speaking skills. It's definitely going to be beneficial for all of us. Just sharing our ideas and hearing different voices will help us. Also, when Jeong Mi is around, it's really nice. I think she enjoyed sitting in. She got to see exactly how my study group with her will run. We'll have our first English discussion on Wednesday.

So there it is. It's a new semester and big things are happening. Spring is here and it's time for soccer and baseball games. All is well.

K-Blogger Added -- Check the Blogroll!

Just a quick update on the blog:

I added a K-Blogger I recently started following. The blog is 'New Yorker in Seoul.' Not only do I really enjoy her perspective on Korea and Korean culture, but she speaks Korean. That's something even many of the well-established bloggers lack.

I think speaking Korean gives a person a more in-depth perspective on the country and culture, especially if you have regular discussions with your Korean friends or family. While it won't give you any more info on the big picture things, just hearing how a Korean describes a cultural topic or current gives you a little peak inside their wacky heads.

So check out the left side of the page where my blogroll is located. Give my new blogging buddy a read.

Principal's Retirement

On Tuesday, all the teachers gathered at a restaurant a short bus trip away from the school to celebrate and congratulate our principal on his retirement.

I have generally only good feelings associated with the principal. In my time here, he's treated the native speakers well and has taken care of us to the extent that an administrator can or does. Realistically, Ridia is the one taking care of us, but he gives his approval, and that's more than a lot of my friends can say.

He did some strange things during the last few months of his time here that give us a lesser opinion of him. He made our secretaries do a lot of his personal work, such as sending out his daughter's wedding invitations or helping to put together a CD of him playing harmonica. The thing that really bugs me is he made our afternoon classes all 50 minutes. We had the luxury of 40 minute classes before, which is an ideal time for keeping students' attention and getting things done. I'm not looking forward to an extra 10 minutes each class.

Other than those weird things, he seemed like a good dude. I have no real complaints about him that shouldn't more realistically be directed at the bureaucracy of schools and the department of education.

So we celebrated his time with us and told him good luck in the future. We even topped off dinner with a little noraebang trip. I put my noraebang skills on display for the teachers once again and had a really good time.

Anyway, thank you to Principal Kim for everything. I hope your harmonica career takes off!

Check out more pics here!

Skiing

Jjong and Popper had extra tickets to go skiing and generously invited Jeong Mi and me. It was not only my first trip to a ski resort in South Korea, but my first EVER trip to a ski resort.

We headed out on Saturday to Jisan Ski Resort for a 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. super ski fun time. The place is about 45 minutes to an hour from Incheon, so it's not a bad trip at all.

We got there and rented all our gear. For 32,000 won, they deck you out in snow suit, skiis/boards, gloves, goggles and whatever else you might need. I got the manliest gear they had.

After we got our equipment, we headed to the mountain. It's a fairly small resort with 7 different courses of varying degrees of difficulty. The best one -- and the one I wiped out on -- is basically just a straight down drop. It hit some ice on it and it was hello snow buffet to my mouth.

Jeong Mi had a rough time on the snowboard, so I think she'll change it up next time, but she's gone skiing before and wanted to try something new.

It was another great new experience for me here in Korea. Big thanks to Popper and Jjong for inviting us along. It was awesome.

Check out all the pics here!

One-year Anniversary

Valentine's Day was our one-year anniversary together. We just went out for some galbi and kept things really low-key. It was nice, however, because our rings were finished and we picked them up that day.

As you can see, the rings are really simple. They're white gold bands, with a little message engraved on the inside. Also, yes, they do match.

Check out a few more pics of the evening here.