November Is Almost Done.........10 Weeks To Go!!!!

See if you can spot the "baby" in the picture above. It is a classic optical illusion, but quite cool.

Well, it is Tuesday and the weekend ahead, I am off with Dave to Ulsan. We are going to Troy's wedding of course, on Sunday. I am looking forward to going really. It is just the four hour bus trip there and the four hours back that sucks!

We are leaving about 6.30pm Saturday and should be back either late Sunday night or early Monday morning. I hope the former rather than the latter.

It will be good to see the gang at "Tombstone," the local foreigner bar and of course "Benchwarmers," which Troy owns. It will be nice to see our friends Tony and Gareth.

I will be staying with Gareth as far as I know..... he never replies to any text messages and hardly ever calls.... that is typical Gareth though. We will have a good chat to catch up on things.... I am sure.

Well, I had my observation yesterday and got the run through about it today. It is quite weird though being observed by someone that has about 4 or 5 years less experience than I teaching. I was quite upbeat about it and of course, Rebecca was not snooty or uppity at all.

She gave me a few "tips" that Avalon thinks can make the classroom flow better....blah blah blah.... complete Avalon bullshit times a hundred.

As I have said before, I know that I am a very good teacher and if I wasn't doing my job properly, would expect some constructive criticism, but this whole observing bullshit is exactly that..... bullshit.

Who do they think they are? They think they are running a professional ship, but the only problem is that the ship only sails one way. They don't care about any of our input and the whole thing is a farce. They don't have any communication between the foreigners and the Koreans and the whole school is run like a grand divide between two colonies...... Koreans on the left and the Foreigners on the right.

If they listened to any ideas we had, I would of course have more respect for them, but as par for the course, they don't.

Don't get me wrong, Rebecca and Wayne, who are really Avalon puppets in reality, have no choice to just do what they are told and then implement it to perfection.

It is much too serious of a school, which I have said a hundred times over and it is getting to feel like a job in North America, which is why I left that continent to find a more self-fulfilling job.

We have the essay back once again. 98 essays to mark again, coming back in dribs and drabs. There are a lot of students absent on the Mon, Tue and Wed classes because they have their big final tests at elementary school.

That will mean that half of them will not be here and their tests will come back over the next week or so and then there will be more excuses to not do them.

If they don't do their essays, we are supposed to give them detention, which I don't do anymore. The poor kids have enough stress without giving them that load of codswallop!!!!!!

So, I have a shitload of essays to mark again and am not in the slightest bit interested in doing them as I just finished doing them twice and then did over a 150 comments.

I am looking forward to the end of the session, which is about Dec 15th, as I know then that there is only a month and a half and I will be out of here.

I will not recommend Avalon to anyone that I know, as this is my 4th school in Korea and although I enjoy the teaching methods at times, it is too stressful for the kids and for the teachers. I cannot even chill with the kids and do some educational games. We have to "get on with it" all the time.

The kids have so many questions and things that they are interested in about our culture, but have no chance to ever ask or develop skills in speaking about them.

The weather here has been great. Warm during the day and a little cool at night. All in all though, it has been wonderful in the afternoon. Not bad for only a month away from Christmas!!!!!!

I threw out some more clothes today. My sister Jackie will be pleased to know that I threw the "Adidas" coat out that she hated so much. I threw out some pants that I don't wear, a few short-sleeved shirts, a few t-shirts and a sweater and two shitty scarves that I have never worn. I plan to throw out some more in the next few weeks too.

I sold my 6 year old stereo to Tony the Mormon, for 30 dollars. It still works like a charm, but I never listened to it as I do most of my listening on the computer now and the sound system on the computer kicks arse. It has a subwoofer on it and two mid-ranges and they blow your arse off......... literally.

I am still persevering at the gym and maintaining a nice healthy weight. I am keeping at it as I know the gains will come soon.

The main staple of my diet these days is "Bibimbap," which is a mixture of bean shoots, cut carrots, minced seaweed, various roots, leafy vegetables and other stuff that I don't know, plus a nice bed of warm boiled rice. Mix loads of hot hot pepper sauce on top of the lot, mix it all in and throw in some steamed chicken and it makes for an awesome, healthy meal.

I usually have that once or twice a day and it has made me more regular..... if you know what I mean from a stool point of view..... and it is really really tasty.

I heard from one of my students that it was Michael Jackson's favourite food when he visited Korea..... shit, I guess I should stop eating it then, don't want to look anything like him..... hehehe.

I am off to the gym tonight to have a nice run and then an even nicer sauna. I am really enjoying the sauna these days. I am still not sleeping worth a shite, but what can I do? I hope that when I come back to Canada, I can sleep a little more than what I am sleeping here. We shall see, anyway.

I am not feeling bad, just sometimes I feel really really weary. I can handle it, but my body just wants to give up or out on me sometimes. I push it past that feeling.... not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it works most of the time.

I got to sleep at 6.30am this morning and woke up at 12 noon..... tough life for some of us isn't it..... I can just hear my Dad now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, enough for now. I have wrote a book already. Now that I have figured out how to post videos from some of the sites that I visit, I hope you will like some of the videos that I put on my blog..... sorry if you don't!!!! I will try not to put anything too offensive to anyone on there.