Mailing Address

This is my mailing address, just in case anyone wants to send me care packages, love letters etc...

Median Offistel Room # 1005

380-15, DeokCheon-Dong

Buk-Gu, Busan South Korea

I'm still alive...

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  Still no internet at my apartment and no sign of that happening anytime soon.  Short version is I need paperwork from my school so I can get my alien registration card.  My school doesn't have the paperwork yet.

Enough of that, things are going pretty well here.  I just finished my first full week of teaching.  The kids are pretty good, for the most part they pay attention and listen to me.  I have a Korean teacher in the room with me, so they do most of the disciplining, which is nice, I just have to focus on teaching.  Corporal punishment was made illegal a few years ago in Korea, but it still happens, so that may be part of the good behavior.  I witnessed it first hand the other day.  One of the other male teachers had three students lined up in the hall after class, in the push-up position.  He then proceeded to give them each three whacks on the butt with a wood stick, roughly the size of a ruler (a little longer and a little thicker).  The students just took their lashings and went on their merry way.  I was told that the students respect the teachers more, and understand that they are being hit for their own good...

I hear lots of broken English from students and staff.  The female students' favorite saying is "Hello, I love you!"  I hear that multiple times a day.  I am getting settle-in a bit.  I have obtained many essentials for my apartment, a 22" LCD monitor and computer speakers.  I am lacking many other things that some may call essential, but as far as I am concerned my place is livable now.  I have been exploring the city after school lately, partly because I have been meeting people to buy things from and partly just to explore.

I posted more pics.  They are a pub crawl hosted by the EPIK class that arrived in Busan last September, photos of exploring and some other random stuff.

Two of my friends got some pretty bad food poisoning and I guess a lot of foreigners have been getting sick lately.  So far I have been able to miss it, but I am not looking forward to when it does catch up with me, and I'm assuming it will...

I promise posts will become more regular once I get internet at my apartment!  Until then I hope everything is going well for everyone!  Feel free to shoot me emails or messages of facebook.  I also have AIM kparatumich

My apartment

I like my new place.  It's pretty large, considering it is a studio.  It's about 3x the size of Cliff's an Laura's apartments (more on that later).  Like I said, it is a studio, the main room is pretty large, maybe 10x20, just a guess.  I also have a small kitchen and a bathroom.  The bathroom is pretty interesting.  There is not a separate shower, the shower head just hangs on the wall and there is a drain on the ground.  It's a great space saving design and it works just fine, you just have to be careful because your bathroom floor stays wet for awhile.

I live on the 10th floor so I have a pretty cool view.  Cliff and Laura live about three blocks away.  I can see their building from my window.

Blogger is not being very user friendly right now and I don't feel like fixing the problems with the pics right now.  So from top to bottom...

Top: My camera zoomed in on Cliff and Laura's building, the one with the red rail around the roof.

The view from my apartment.

Bad pic of the bathroom.  You can see the shower head on the wall on the right side.

My kitchen/brew house.  I have a two burner gas range, under it is my washer (no dryer), the metal thing above the sink is my fridge or freezer (it can only be one at a time).

Half of my main room (my bed, desk, TV)  There was a leak in my room before I moved in so there is still a hole in the ceiling, which they are allegedly fixing.  Once they fix that I will be able to move some furniture so my bed won't be in the middle of the floor.

Hooray for School!

Yes, hooray for school!  School gives me the power of the internet, in English!!  It's quite amazing how much my quality of life is affected without the internet.  Not that things were bad, but once I got the internet back on my own computer things were just so much better.  Not going to lie, you can call me a big nerd or whatever you please and I will gladly accept it, I miss my iPhone already and not having internet at my apartment yet doesn't help.  

Enough of my griping, things are going great so far.  I'm having fun, no major problems yet.  School is pretty hectic for the Korean teachers.  This is the first week of class this year, so they are all trying to figure out their schedules and whatnot.  As a result, I don't have any classes to teach this week.  It's allowed me plenty of time to do some reading on teaching ESL and get my first few lessons planned.  They don't have my schedule done yet, so I can't do too much specific planning, but I have been developing some fun activities for the kids.  I am teaching at a middle school (equivalent of 7th, 8th and 9th grade in the US).  I will be working with the 3rd grade middle schooler for sure, and then it sounds like I will be working with either the 1st or 2nd grade students this semester and the other next semester.  

The bus to school is nice.  The stop is right across the street from my apartment building and is only about 8 minutes to school.  There is also a stop right in front of my school, quite convenient.  Some of my friends have to walk 20-30 minutes from the closest bus or subway stop, including one up to the top of a mountain (probably a great view though).  

I made the decision last night that I am going to be brewing over here.  There is absolutely no good beer in this country.  There are 4 or 5 generic varieties and then the imports consist of Heineken and Guinness, I settled for the Guinness last night.  I will be on the prowl this weekend to find some fermenting vessels.  I am going to be doing small batches, about 1.5 gallons and once I get rolling will be brewing once a week (should keep the stock of beer pretty nice).  Sorry, it's a pretty scattered post, but it's been awhile since I posted.  More to come momentarily...

New country - the internet = not super awesome

So I finally just got the internet to work on my computer at school.  Things have been a bit crazy in Busan so far.  My apartment is nice, it's pretty large, I have a good view and great access to a subway and bus stop.  I made the great mistake of leaving my power cord to my computer at home today, so my computer is about to die.  I don't have internet at my apartment yet, so I will have to wait until tomorrow at school to publish a decent post.  I promise I will get pics and more info up tomorrow, but like I said my computer is about to die.