After plenty of issues with Weebly (and hearing that you're having issues too!) we've decided to move to Wordpress.
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*Please excuse the poor formatting.... Weebly is not making us happy. There may be a move over to blogger soon... stay tuned!!*
This is not the first time I've come across this. I've seen it on YouTube - a very passionate version if you have the time to watch it, it's inspiring. There are various versions floating around the internet, many that are uncited. I found out that Taylor Mali wrote this poem. He is a "slam poet" who works as an inspirational speaker.
He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?" He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about teachers: Those who can, do; those who can't, teach. I decide to bite my tongue instead of his and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests that it's also true what they say about lawyers. Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company. "I mean, you¹re a teacher, Taylor," he says. "Be honest. What do you make?" And I wish he hadn't done that (asked me to be honest) because, you see, I have a policy about honesty and ass-kicking: if you ask for it, I have to let you have it. You want to know what I make? I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor and an A- feel like a slap in the face. How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups. No, you may not ask a question. Why won't I let you get a drink of water? Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why. I make parents tremble in fear when I call home: I hope I haven't called at a bad time, I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today. Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?" And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen. I make parents see their children for who they are and what they can be. You want to know what I make? I make kids wonder, I make them question. I make them criticize. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them write, write, write. And then I make them read. I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful over and over and over again until they will never misspell either one of those words again. I make them show all their work in math. And hide it on their final drafts in English. I make them understand that if you got this (brains) then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you by what you make, you give them this (the finger). Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true: I make a goddamn difference! What about you?
I'm kicking it in Seoul instead of in Geumchon, but I can relate to almost every reference they make in this video. This makes me LAUGH OUT LOUD!!!! TOO FUNNY... Enjoy!
A few weeks ago a young man working as an English teacher in Seoul was left badly burnt by a fire that broke out in his apartment. Seventy percent of his body was covered with third degree burns. His girlfriend died in the fire. He died a week later despite the best efforts of the local hospital. Their apartment did not have a smoke alarm or a second fire escape. What makes this story even more sad is that this English teacher did not have medical insurance. He was working part time and thus did not apply for the Korean medical insurance. His hospital bills are upwards of $60,000.
Hearing the tragic story of William Kapoun and his girlfriend has really hit me. This could have been me. It could have been one of my friends. Up until this past Tuesday Jeff and I did not have a smoke detector in our apartment. There are no sprinklers in our ceiling, and there are bars on all our windows. We have one fire escape - the front door. This is the case of many buildings in Seoul (and I would imagine Korea). After the Korean war houses were built quickly in order to accommodate the large number of people without housing. Fire escapes were not really considered. This deep tragedy has caused the foreign community in Seoul to examine their own living situations and to look into getting a smoke alarm and medical insurance. It has also pulled the community together as people have donated thousands of dollars to help Bill's family pay for the hospital bills.
It's hard to lose someone unexpectedly. Especially someone so young, and with so much of their life ahead of them. In his writings Bill said: "I believe hope is a fundamental aspect of humanity; perhaps to lose hope, is to lose ones humanity." How true, yet how difficult for his family and friends to not lose hope in such a difficult situation.
____________________________________
Another story that has crossed my "desk" these days is that of Randy Pausch. My brother-in-law sent Jeff and I a clip from a recent Oprah show that had Randy Paush delivering a bit of his last lecture. Randy is a 46 year old man from the US who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and has a few months to live. He gave his Last Lecture at the university where he teaches. He didn't talk about death, or about his family... he talked about fulfilling his childhood dreams and about the importance of dreaming. His story is so touching - a man, knowing that he is going to die, and yet still trying to live his life to the fullest. He seems to have fire in his belly - something driving him to keep going instead of just giving up. It's really inspirational, I hope that if I were ever in that situation that I would react in the same way.
Yesterday we were the happy recipients of 2 more packages - both of them containing Easter treats. Please note the two yellow cards... both our families found that Easter card and sent it to us... too funny!
P.S. I posted some pictures of my newly decorated classrom under our photos section. Enjoy!
Jeff and I have accepted contracts at an international school in Mongolia (Located between China and Russia)! We’ll be teaching our subject areas – Jeff is teaching math, grades 7 to 10 (ish, we’re still not entirely sure), and I’ll most likely be teaching grade 1. One of the best things about this school is that it teaches the Ontario curriculum! When we get back to Ontario we’ll have had experience working with the curriculum and some of the textbooks – this is pretty cool (and rare)!
We’ve been working with a recruiter since February, applying to jobs and hoping to get ourselves employed by September. Our recruiter suggested that we look at jobs in the Middle East. She said that since we have such little experience that we would likely find jobs there since the international school industry is exploding. She originally suggested Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Later on she informed us that there is too much competition in those areas and that we should look to Kuwait or Qatar since we’ve only been teaching for a year, and because it’s ESL it doesn’t count towards anything! Qatar I was okay with, but Kuwait is just a bit too close to Iraq for me! So we applied, and waited. We emailed and tried to get things moving… but not much came out of that situation. If they had told us straight up that they couldn’t place us I would have been fine, we could have moved on and found our own jobs or anther recruiter. I was a bit disappointed that they seemed to have dumped us!
So, as we were dealing with the recruiter (or lack of recruiter… they were SO attentive in the beginning, but seemed to fall apart after a while…) we talked to people. It ended up that a close family friend’s daughter had just been offered a job at a school in Mongolia. My mom got some basic information from Megan (the daughter) and sent along Megan’s email address too. After a few emails back and forth with Megan we decided to apply to the same school where she had just accepted a job. We applied directly to the school. Our contact was interested in interviewing us, but wanted to make it soon – within the next 24 hours! He had already interviewed some other people who needed to know if they were being offered the job. They had received job offers from a different school and wanted to know if they from the school in Mongolia before they responded to the other job offers. (Does this make sense? It sounds confusing… sorry!)
We ended up having an interview on Tuesday night, we had contacted the school on Sunday. We spoke with the school contact (who is in Ontario) at 9pm (it was 8am for him…) He offered us jobs at the end of the interview. A day later we accepted.
So, we’re off to Mongolia. We’re excited! The only thing I’m not excited about is the fact that Ulaanbaatar (the capital city, where we’ll be living) is the capital city that records the coldest average temperatures in the world. I am going to freeze. I’m hoping there will be lots of yarn so I can knit my self warm! Mongolia will definitely be a change from Seoul. It boasts 2 million people – the whole country! Half the population lives in Ulaanbaatar. Seoul has a population of 14 million... more if you count the city suburbs. It will definitely be a change, but one that I are really looking forward to!
A couple of weeks ago, as we were leaving our apartment to go to work in the morning, we encountered a very pleasant surprise!
Opening our door, we heard a gentle thud and then some quiet scraping as we continued to push. What did someone put in front of our door? And who would have put it there so as to block our door??? To our great pleasure, we discovered that what was "blocking" our door was, in fact, a package from home, left in front of our door by the mailman (or woman!) because the box was too big (much too big) to fit into our tiny little mailbox downstairs!
It was a great way to start the morning, especially since we had, just a few days prior, discussed how it had been a while since we had received any mail. While most of our package was off limits until Easter weekend, we were allowed to break open a few small things to whet our appetite and to decorate our humble abode. They are so cheesy that we'd never think of putting them up back at home, but here, away from home, it somehow felt, not just ok, but rather appropriate.
The next day, we had our friends over and they remarked at how lovely our Easter decorations looked and I'm pretty sure that they weren't being sarcastic... At any rate, Easter has finally arrived and we got to open the rest of our packages. It was like Christmas all over again - tissue paper everywhere!!
So with our chocolate stores replenished and our spirits buoyed, we'd like to wish you all a Happy Easter!!
This past week I've been sick. It's nothing major, just a simple cold that made my nose run and caused me to feel really exhausted. Well, yesterday when I arrived at school my two co-teachers mentioned that I looked exhausted. I said, yes, I was sick. They suggested that I go home early - after lunch (I only teach classes until 12:10 on Wednesdays, then I sit in my office for 4 hours so I wouldn't be missing much). My new co-teacher said that I should take "what is it.. a woman problem..?" that's right, menstruation leave. She was planning on taking it so she could leave early (she wasn't really sick, I think she just needed an excuse...) I was honestly sick, there was no reason why I should claim that it's related to "women's issues" since it's not. I have 15 sick days, and I have yet to take one. I ended up going home, on real sick leave, but I was shocked that I could use my monthly visits as a reason to go home.
My understanding is that South Korean women are entitled to one day of menstruation leave a month. Before 2004 the women were paid for this day. A change in laws now means that not everyone necessarily receives pay for this leave. Catherine Price believes that the right to menstruation leave puts women at a disadvantage. It sends us a step backwards with regards to the rights that women have worked so hard for over the past hundred years. It gives employers reason to hire only men if women are going to be taking a day off each month. There are lots of points of views found in the comment section of Price's article - read them, they're interesting!
On a related note, we went to see the Vagina Monologues last weekend with some of our friends. It was a great show. The show was a bilingual show featuring both Koreans and foreigners.
Let me tell you a bit about the show those who haven't seen the Vagina Monologues. The show was originally a book written by Eve Ensler, a woman who interviewed over 200 women - young and old- on the topic of their vaginas (my dictionary is saying that this is not the correct spelling, and is suggesting vaginae!) Now in its tenth year, the Vagina Monologues focuses on stopping violence against women and children. The money raised from each show goes to support local and not so local organizations. The money from our show went to an organization in Korea that works to help women who have been brought to Korea and trafficked for sex.
The show was about 2 hours long and featured about 12 monologues related to the vagina. Some of the monologues were extremely funny (even Richard, our easily embarrassed friend was laughing out loud!) Other monologues are extremely sad. They deal with women being raped by soldiers in war torn countries, and sexual abuse against children. It's a very interesting show, one I would highly recommend (Jeff came too and he enjoyed it!)
I've spent much of the past two weeks decorating my classroom. I've put up pictures of the weather, designed a cool calendar, and renamed the groups. Our groups used to be called: one, two, three... six. My co-teacher and I decided that something a little more exciting and fun would be a nice change for this new term. So we decided on county names - one country from each continent.
We now have Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, and Uganda. I made signs with names and flags and hung them from the ceiling over each table group.
When I went in to teach my grade fives today I was shocked and dumbfounded to find out that some of them did not want to sit at the Uganda table. They kind of whined and moaned a bit when they were assigned to that group.
After class, my other co-teacher (not the one that made up the group names with me, but the new one... ) said (in her slightly broken English) that maybe the students didn't want to sit at the Uganda table. She seemed to indicate that perhaps we should change the name (at least that's what I was expecting her to say). She said that "maybe students don't like Uganda because it's a black country, it's in Africa". Well... my mouth just dropped. I had nothing to say to her... I was in complete and utter shock. Did she actually just say that?!! I got defensive, and mentioned that I had lived in Uganda for a year, and that it was a great country (I wanted to say that the people were much friendlier than they are in Korea... I was SO MAD!!!) I think she noticed my reaction because she then suggested that we teach the students a bit about Uganda because they don't know anything about it. She said that she couldn't tell the students anything about the country (hence her decision not to call them on their rude remarks and reactions to being seated at the Uganda table...) so I could do that.
Just thinking about the remark and that conversation make my blood boil. The Korean school system doesn't seem to teach multicultural education (I base this partly on the fact that I get pointed at and called foreigner by some of the younger students at the school - how inappropriate!!!) I know that Korea is still a fairly new country in terms of its independence, and that there are not a lot of foreigners here, but I am still shocked by the racism that exists, even in the teaching staff. It makes me so mad.
So, this is just a rant. I don't think that all Koreans are racist, and I am happy that my co-teacher is willing to help me teach the kids about Africa, but I am still in utter shock that this happened....
~Jen
I have to tell you about my new computer (which, incidentally, has STILL not arrived, more than two weeks after ordering!!). Mostly because I'm lazy, I'm going to tell this story in point form.
As a preface (what good story is complete without a preface?), I'd like to point out that yes, we did make it harder than we really needed to, but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun otherwise. Now with that being said, onwards!!!
- old computer died
- cost to replace display = $1000
- cost of new computer = $1100
- cost of new computer that I'd rather have = $1400
- end result = Jeff gets a new computer
- have to call Apple or order online if I want the educational discount
- no time to order a new one while visiting at home in Canada
- plan to buy one in Korea
- problem!!
- can't speak or read Korean to order from Apple Korea
- don't have a Korean credit card to order online
- ah, but there's a solution
- our friend Laina speaks Korean
- our friend Vanessa has a Korean credit card
- here's how it played out
- Laina called Apple Korea when we couldn't figure out something from the online Apple Korea website
- she told the operator my name (since I was the one purchasing it)
- when asked where to send it, Jen gave Laina the address of her school since her co-workers apparently always get personal items shipped to the school and I didn't have my school's address easily at hand
- result = Laina told the operator to address the package to Jen
- when asked about payment, Laina gave the operator Vanessa's credit card
- when asked for an email address, Laina gave her own so that she could read the Korean email
How many foreigners does it take to order a new computer in Korea? Four.
I think we broke the operator's brain.
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