For all the complaining I've done about Korean winter NOT being cold enough or having enough snow, and for all the complaining Heather has done about it being too cold and having too much snow, I think the following pics might as well be considered a mike drop for me. Well, not literally, Mike wasn't dropped, he's in the pics of the fam. Well, minus the dogs and plus Heather's' parents that is. What a good lookin' bunch, eh? I forget the photographer's name but she was a northern American and obviously she knew what she was doing. Even managed to make ME look good! Check these out:
Now come on! How can anyone NOT love winter? I love that last shot! Me and the Kellster. I can't believe how big he is! He'll be bigger than me soon. The Spiwak/Peet family have sustained me spiritually through my many years in Korea. I love them like my own family. What's not to love? These pics are like model shots for cryin' out loud! I get a bit sweaty-eyed typing this but they're (probably - most likely - almost certainly) leaving the ROK in less than a year. I know I'm gonna miss them, but we've been temporarily separated before. It's been my privilege to share intervals of each of their lives with them. A better fam I have never encountered in my travels. Spin me around in any room of my house and I can't open my eyes without seeing an example of their collective generosity, but at the risk of corndoggin' the crap outta this post, the greatest gift they've given me has been familial forgiveness of drunken (and sober) shenanigans, putting up with my patented negativity, not always pointing out the flaws in my arguments, basically giving my assholery some latitude. Yes, I'm talking about the (gag, cough cough) unconditional love that only the best of friends and family can provide. While many have de-friended me after one such awkward post or message, these guys have weathered an F6 tornado of them. Oofa Madonne we could get into some doozies here! I reckon, and this is after 55 years of reckoning, that if a person has dealt with another person's shit, they're friends. When it is literal, why it's gotta be something more, no? I mean, we could probably go up and down a list of excremental bodily functions here. If I went out of my way to be a dick to this family, they'd forgive me. You know, like the mother of the serial killer. That's the kind of acceptance I feel here. I bet if I approached any member of this family and asked if they knew where a guy could bury some incriminating evidence, they'd give serious thought to becoming accomplices. Anyway, I feel like I wouldn't have survived so long in Korea without them and I love them all.
Now... having said that obvious, but maybe not often enough said thing... I have to recant some of my previous trash-talking to Heather. Although I will never agree with her on cold weather, or even the way to measure how cold that weather is, and even though, the pics have clearly shown that winter RULES... I must admit to empathizing with Heather for a fraction of a second just two days ago. The following is an artist's rendering of an actual event that occurred Thursday morning on the campus of the Hyundai/Kia motors compound where I work. There had been a dusting of snow... FINALLY... and I was cheering the few inches of freshly fallen snow even though it made the commute to the compound a bit longer. I had just had a 5-day weekend for Seollal (Lunar New Year) and had filled my newly purchased cup with Coffee Bean coffee. I buy one or two every day and thought I'd better be environmentally conscious, so I bought a mug. At the big Coffee Bean on the campus (there are at least two) you actually get a discount for using your own cup! So I filled up (at the one where I DIDN'T get a discount) and walked to the building where my morning classes would take place, C 5_10. Just before getting there, this happened:
This is a pic of my actual notes from that day of classes. My first two classes were cancelled due to one student catching cold (so he says) and the other being on a business trip to Osaka. Her I believe. Anyway, it gave me time to kill so I drew the above pic of my epic wipe out. I only spilled a little coffee although the mug came completely out of my hand. I didn't hurt myself or break my hip if you are wondering. Still not that old. But I WAS embarrassed. The area was almost deserted, but there was one car coming down the road behind me so I popped up like a Bozo the Clown punching balloon. I checked as I took the elevator to the 4th floor where my morning classes were and found almost no snow/slush on my pants or jacket. I must have really gotten up fast! But I'm sure the occupants of that car had a good laugh. Later when I was going to lunch at the cafeteria just down the road I saw a dude snow-blowing the sidewalk there. It was dangerously slippery!
So chalk one up for Heather and her hiver hatred. I guess I am not totally right that winter is awesome. And, bless her heart, when I told everybody about the perilous fall I had survived, guess who was the only one to respond. Good old Heather. I love her guts.
I suppose I should end this post before I gush too much and start serenading. I just wanted to put these pics up for posterity.
Before I finish, an update on the job. I was audited today by the head teacher Daniel. He sat in on a class with probably my worst student. In some ways this is bad. But he says that the majority of students are like this dude. I have had only ONE guy like this dude so far. This dude! He didn't do his preparation for the lesson so it was much harder for me to do. And since EVERY other one of my students listened to me in week one when I told them to prep for every lesson, I was not used to teaching this lesson to an unprepared student. Trust ME to get evaluated on the lesson taught to the only unprepared student! But on the other hand, this makes me feel absolutely great about the job I'm doing because Daniel said the majority of most teacher's students are like this. I have just the one. Either they're very good students, they're afraid of me, I'm "lucky?", OR maybe I did a good job prepping my students in the first week and getting them to buy into the 50/50 flipped classroom scheme.
It's incredible that this was the student Daniel chose! He was the one and only guy who did NOT fully commit to the 50/50. He said with his job and his 2 daughters he probably won't have time to prepare. He said that. He was the ONLY one. And sure enough, he's the guy I get evaluated on. I even went to the trouble of sending him a text message the day before class saying, "Okay, we're gonna have the head teacher evaluating the class and this is what I'll be teaching. Okay?" He said, "Check. Gotcha. No prob." Then he comes to class without having read the ONE PARAGRAPH he was responsible for! One paragraph! I should be mad at the guy, but here in Korea, especially around holiday time, and with the way jobs pressure the higher ups, I kinda feel sorry for him. And after all, he WAS honest enough to warn me...
But of all the luck, eh?
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