Winter Break!

Hey everyone,

I'm in a little bit of a retrospective mood as I write this latest post. Today was my last day of teaching in 2009; my winter vacation begins bright and early tomorrow morning and I'm really excited for Japan and a little Wolfish family trip. I can't believe I'm basically at the halfway point of my year of teaching, all of the sudden the days have begun to fly by. It's been a tremendous experience so far and I'm definitely glad with the decision I made. That being said, I'm definitely ready for a little break and I'm looking forward to all that Japan has to offer in the week we're there. The last three days of classes have been pretty fun to teach, mostly games, which is easy for both the students and myself. My special class had a lot of fun with Twister and Apples to Apples today. All the teachers and students were definitely excited for the short week because of Christmas. I'm hoping we can still enjoy our usual Christmas tradition of Chinese food and a movie, but substitute Japanese food for the Chinese. Speaking of movies, I saw Avatar last night and thought it was pretty good overall. I knew going into the movie that I really wasn't going for the plot, definitely paid to see the ridiculous over-the-top CGI creations and they didn't disappoint. I had hoped the story would be a little better given that James Cameron spent 9 years on the movie, but overall the movie was enjoyable.

In other news, I finished my workbooks and they'll get printed and binded over winter vacation, which is great, but I'm glad with that project. I'm currently waiting on a last minute load of laundry that I hope dries before the morning. It definitely helps to have heated floors to speed up the process. I may or may not be blogging from Japan, we'll see if anyone brought their computers, I'm leaning towards not bringing mine, but I'll have a notebook to jot down all the important stuff. That's about it from my end, if I don't blog in Japan there should be a new post up on New Year's Eve.

iPod A-Z Song update: "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers

School Field Trip/Snow Jam

Hey everyone, here's a new post that's certified grade-A pleasure reading at its finest.

This past weekend was pretty fantastic to say the least. Friday after school I continued my badminton lessons, which have turned into 45 minutes of working on my footwork on the court, or as I like to refer to it, ballet class. Coming from a tennis background it's hard to imagine that movement on the court would be much different in badminton, but I was surprised by how much it is. I've been trying to master a 7-step sequence, which I can do when I'm not trying to hit the birdie, but still have a lot of trouble doing when actually going through the motions with the birdie in the air. Most of the time I end up falling over myself or have my Korean teacher yelling at me that I'm doing the steps in the wrong order, but I'm definitely enjoying it. It ends up being a pretty decent workout. I even got to bed pretty early by Friday night standards in preparation for my Saturday field trip with my special English class.

Saturday's field trip was pretty awesome to say the least. We started off at the LG Science Hall in Yeouido, an island on the Han River in Seoul. The exhibits were pretty interesting. First, we got a background on LG, including some amazing black and white commercials from the 1960s, before TV was prominent in South Korea. Next, we went to the renewable energies room, complete with solar energy, wind energy, fuel cells, and a model future city. The life science exhibit was next and the kids got a kick out of the child predictor machine. Basically the machine took two images of the students and fused them together to predict what their child would look like. There were dancing robo-dogs as well. We also got to go in a 3-d simulator, have a robot painter paint our pictures and we got some goodies when we left. After the LG Science Hall, we made our way to Bucheon and Aiin's World. Aiin's World is like Mini Israel for those who have been there. It is basically an open space filled with smaller replicas of world famous buildings, castles, etc... We also took in a magic show performed by clowns and another 3-d movie. All in all it was a pretty successful afternoon. Saturday night was spent in Seoul with all the usual fanfare.

On Sunday, a few of us went to Gwanghamum Plaza in downtown Seoul to watch Snow Jam, an aerial ski and snowboard competition. It was really interesting to see how they fit the ramp for the jump onto the plaza. Unfortunately the event planners probably didn't count on warmer weather; it was around 8 degrees Celsius, a little warm for skiing or snowboarding. In addition to the competition they also had a makeshift ice rink set up and a bunny hill run, which looked painful since most of the fake snow had melted away. Earlier in the week, Andrew Gruen, the son of our good family friends, who is also here in Korea, invited me over for a little Hanukkah celebration on Sunday afternoon. So, after Snow Jam, we made our way to Andrew's for some latkes and noodle kugel, which both turned out well. It was a nice gathering and I know we all really appreciated it. We even lit the menorah and sang Maoz Tzur. It was a nice end to the weekend.

Yesterday night I finally tried the Indian restaurant a few blocks away from me with my friend Rebecca and it did not disappoint. Great samosa, curry, tandoori chicken, and naan. No Kahili unfortunately, but maybe I'll find him next time. I am a little jealous that Robyn is done with her first semester of university and got to go to the Vikings game with Dad on Sunday. I'm definitely counting down the days until next Thursday, I'm ready to be on vacation and so far, I've been busy putting the finishing touches on my winter camp schedule and workbooks. I've added some pictures of my school and the field trip. I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet in any posts, but Koreans like to compare foreigners to other celebrities. Throughout the years, there is one celebrity that I'm constantly being compared to, whether its waiters at restaurants or people i meet for the first time they always seem to arrive at the same person. That person is Adam Sandler. Personally I don't see it and neither does anyone that knows me (family, friends, etc...) but it's been fairly consistent and especially here in Korea. A few weekends ago on the way home from Seoul a couple was taking pictures of me on their cell-phone for obvious reasons (Do I really look like him?) Then this past weekend at Andrew's, one of his Korean friends told me I reminded him of Adam Sandler as well. It's happening so much that I've come up with my own phrase for it, "I've been Sandlered." Well, with that, I'll end this post, but expect another post after this weekend or early next week.

iPod A-Z song update: "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles

Is It Really Snowing?

By the title you can safely assume that winter has finally arrived in Korea. Over the weekend there were some light snow flurries and even some reports of people skiing on some wonderful artificial stuff. The past week went by relatively quickly, as most do now; I turned in my winter camp plans, which were approved so now I have to gather all my materials and over the course of the camp, I will put together a workbook in addition to the current workbook I am working on for my special class. Compared to other teachers I know I am doing a lot more work, which will be rewarding in the end, but at the moment is adding a little stress to every day. It's good to know I'll be done with one of the workbooks in two weeks and it's even better to know that means it will be winter vacation! I am counting down the days, as I'm sure Mom, Dad, and Robyn all are, until our trip to Japan. Vacation will be sweet but also short; for the first time in four years I don't have really have a month off in January, but the school semester schedule is a little different here. After my winter English camp finishes at the end of January, school is back on for the first week in February and then it's the end of the semester and the spring semester begins in March. I still haven't been given a clear answer on whether I have to be at school every day in February or if it's another break period for teachers as well.

Last Wednesday my Korean class ended for this semester. Overall it was an enjoyable class. I was able to meet some other English teachers, not surprisingly I was the youngest out of the group (I'm used to this by now). We had a nice end of class potluck and review and it was a good introduction to Korean but I think I will try and study on my own over winter vacation to learn more since the class didn't really focus on conversational vocabulary, but more on culture and vocabulary associated with the theme of each class.

On Thursday I saw Ninja Assassin which was a pretty awesome movie. The main actor is Rain, a Korean pop star (K-pop), basically the equivalent of Justin Timberlake. While I never thought I would get sucked into the world of K-pop it's literally unavoidable when you're here. They play the songs everywhere and everyone from my students to my co-workers loves the music. The movie was more gruesome than I thought it would be, along the lines of Tarantino at times, but it was definitely very enjoyable. Anyways, that's all from my end, I'm currently waiting on my usual Monday load of colors to finish their cycle and praying they dry quickly, which is never the case.

iPod A-Z song update: "My Mirror Speaks" by Death Cab for Cutie

Thanksgiving

Another shorter post, no traveling means less to report on, but still plenty of good stuff to read. While part of the Wolfish-Bick clan were celebrating Thanksgiving in Minneapolis last Thursday, I was patiently waiting for the weekend. Saturday was the day for our Thanksgiving feast. Jessie graciously played hostess in Bucheon (a little over an hour away by subway from Suwon) and dinner was a great success. Once the men arrived in Bucheon, we immediately made our way to the closest HomePlus to pikc up our end of the meal. Like so many grocery stores worldwide, HomePlus has an array of samples as you trek through the aisles, but we were men on a mission and I can personally say that I have never made it through a grocery store that served samples as fast as I did last Saturday while still enjoying some of the tasty and free treats. Right as we entered the store, we made a beeline for the rotisserie and fried chicken that was our substitute for turkey (no one had an oven to cook one in). Next we darted over to the wine section and grabbed two "not-so-great taste wise but great deal" bottles of wine, a Chilean cab sav and I forget what the other one was, but I do remember it earned the distinct nickname, the "Guiness of wines," not for its rich flavor, but for its thick texture. From the wines we made our way to the bread, chips, and canned corn. When we got back to Jessie's, the rest of the meal was almost finished. The meal itself was great! In addition to the chicken and corn, we had stuffing, steamed broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, and cheesecake. Oh, and how could I forget the Monkberry Moon Delight and the Savoy Truffle? Sunday was the usual R & R.

In other news, I can't believe it's already December, 23 days until vacation begins, which I am definitely looking forward to. Good to see the Vikings keep on rolling and congrats to Mr. Joe Mauer on the MVP award, hopefully the Twins can keep him, it'd be a shame to see him go. I have a busy week this week; I'm finishing up my workbook and I also have to organize my Winter English camp plans and submit them. And how could I forget the big concert news: Earth, Wind, and Fire are playing in Seoul, Dec. 18th, Muse are here January 7th and Green Day are here January 16th. Hopefully I can make it to one of them. That's all from this end.

iPod A-Z update: "Monkey Bars" by Jurassic 5