The Alembyc

Spring 09 Picture Update - just checking in

2009-06-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

Basically this is so you know we haven't fallen off the other side of the planet, and to let you catch up with the Kitkat so you're not totally shocked at how tall and lovely (prejudiced much?) she has grown since you saw her last....

Easter Sunday and a fresh start...

2009-04-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

'Fireproof' and 'The Love Dare'. Either you've watched the movie, cried, resolved to make a difference in your marriage, and, probably, bought the book...or you have no idea what I'm talking about. For the latter reader, go over to http://bhpublishinggroup.com/lovedare/ and find out. The book (and movie in which it stars) offers forty days of ways to change yourself and your marriage with faith-based, Christ-based challenges to alter your behaviour, and to make love a choice rather than a fickle feeling. Thousands of couples, supposedly, have already been enriched by, blessed by, or turned their marriages around because of this book, even those separated or on the brink of divorce. For the former reader, let me just say that I bought 'The Love Dare', it came in last weekend, and I chose to start it today.

Except that I have already 'done' many of the 'dares' or marriage challenges over far more than the last forty days. In fact, it was at the end of last year that I came to the realization that my marriage was in emotional tatters and as a first step chose to silence my negative, critical tongue - a choice that happens to be Day One of the Love Dare, a book I didn't know existed at the time. Oh yes, it takes two to build a marriage as well as to tear it down, but the only person's actions I can change are my own, so let's start there, shall we? Scanning through the journal entries (over at http://lovedare.bhpublishinggroup.com) which many brave men and women taking this challenge have made public, I see that my problems and my reactions are far from unique... but also that the suggestions and dares the book offers are equally so.

Since confessing myself before the Lord, counsellors, and my husband those five months ago, I have done a number of these actions spontaneously for my husband, whether the requirement to ask what he would change about my behaviour, the random considerate present, the listening ear, the affectionate touch, the gift of time, the focusing on his good qualities.... the walls are as thick and icy as ever.

Friends and family, I know you are already praying for us, over here across the seas. Let me ask specifically for these needs: - keep my heart soft towards him and my tongue bridled - soften his heart towards me and our daughter - reinstill joy and remove depression - help him learn to trust and to offer forgiveness(...perhaps someday to ask mine in turn?) I can do nothing to change or help him, no matter how many books I read or actions I do; only God can restore and enrich our damaged relationship.

Pray for all three of us! We love and miss you...

the Bard

Some Pictures, Being Worth a few Thousand Words, for your Delectation

2009-03-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

More pictures, huh? Well, it seems that I haven't cleared out my cell phone's cache for a good long time, so perhaps I'd better choose a few favorites from the last massive download and post them here for your enjoyment.

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Katherine with our old-fashioned watering can, in our garden. Just after we planted our lettuce, spring onions, spinach, and acorn squash, we had a cold snap. I think the germinating lettuce has bitten the biscuit, but the tougher spinach survived - there are little sprouts poking through the soil already.

Homeschooling: A picnic in 'the quarry' - we had our lunch outdoors during a geology lesson, discovering quartz and mica among other 'treasures'.

Kath posing in front of one of her favorite paintings at the Klimt exhibition we were lucky enough to catch in Seoul this spring. We created a great lapbook on Klimt later, with our favorite selections and plenty of gold accents... visit Lapbook Lessons, here, to see it: http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=27cmhh10i5j63

Il-Sun and Choon-Dae took us to an excellent Chinese restaurant for Bryan's birthday last December; here he is being served with the piece-de-resistance, a whole octopus all to himself. He was kind enough to let Kath and me nibble a couple of tentacles, though!

Homeschooling sometimes involves chocolate pudding.

Last autumn one of Il-Sun's dogs had puppies. Here's Katherine, with a priceless expression on her face, part delight and part apprehension. (Just last week the same dog had another litter - Kath was far more confident showing them off to our friends this time, snuggling them blissfully under her chin, and then nonchalantly handing them back into their nest...)

A Digital Scrapbook Page Celebrating Sisters

2009-03-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

...specifically celebrating my relationship with MY special sister, who takes time she probably doesn't have to dig through my library, buy me S&V popcorn shake, pick up dollar store craft stuff, pack the Cheez Whiz so it doesn't break, and then send it all halfway around the world... this one is for you, Liese! XXXOOO

Comprehensive Curriculum for Homeschool

2009-03-17T03:06:00.001-07:00

COMPREHENSIVE CURRICULUM UNITS

for the Alembyc Academy

designed by and copyrighted to Judy Alkema, 2009,

as a cyclical and holistic program of homestudy

for her daughter Katherine

ART
1. Fine Art
  1. Appreciating/Perception – exposure to wide variety of artists, styles, and cultures
  2. Reacting – responding to various forms of art intuitively / emotionally
  3. Critiquing – responding to various forms of art analytically / logically
  4. Creating – making original art in a variety of media and styles
2. Applied Art
  1. Art Elements
    1. Line – thick, thin, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curved, zigzag
    2. Shape - geometric, organic
    3. Color
      - Gamut – range, harmonies, restrictions
      - Properties: hue, value, intensity
      - Color schemes: monochromatic, analogous, complementary, warm/cool
      - additive/subtractive, reflective/transmitted
    4. Texture - soft, rough, smooth, gritty
    5. Space - real/implied, positive/negative
    6. Form - 3-D shapes creating depth
  2. Principles of Design
    1. Balance – symmetry, asymmetry, formal, informal
    2. Variety – difference in uses of elements
    3. Harmony – repetition of elements
    4. Emphasis – creating a focal point
    5. Proportion – relationship of elements to each other
    6. Pattern – repetition of elements to create a surface effect
    7. Rhythm – repetition of elements to create movement or activity
    8. Unity – a cohesive oneness or consistency in the finished piece
    9. Contrast – elements standing out against each other
3. Art Appreciation & History
  1. Painters
    1. da Vinci
    2. Van Gogh
    3. Matisse
    4. Renoir
    5. Monet
    6. Klimt (on exhibition now in Seoul!)
    7. Rembrandt
    8. Picasso
    9. Modigliani / Rubens / El Greco / Holbein / Bruegel as resources warrant
  2. Sculptors
    1. Praxiteles
    2. Michelangelo
    3. Degas
    4. Henry Moore
    5. Alexander Calder
    6. Isamu Noguchi
    7. Rodin
  3. Photographers
    1. Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre – father of photography
    2. Ansel Adams – landscapes
    3. Alfred Eisenstaedt - photojournalism
    4. Richard Avedon – portraits (American)
    5. Yousuf Karsh – portraits (Canadian)
    6. Eastman & Kodak
    7. Digital
  4. Other Media
    1. Pottery / Ceramics
    2. Metalwork
    3. Mosaics, Inlay, Geometric Designs
    4. Collage and Paperwork
ETHICS (vid pg 1751 in the NIV Serendipity Bible for events and verses)
1. Faith
  1. Ministries of Jesus
  2. Miracles of Jesus
  3. Experiences of Jesus
  4. Lessons of Jesus
  5. Parables of Jesus
  6. Healings of Jesus
2. Religion
  1. Christianity
  2. Buddhism (Chinese, Tibetan)
  3. Islam
  4. Hinduism
  5. Animism/Shamanism/Anthropomorphism
    1. Korean Muism
    2. Japanese Shinto
    3. African
    4. Australian Dreamtime
    5. Native North American
    6. Native South American
  6. Ancient Religions & Mythologies
    1. Sumerian
    2. Egyptian
    3. Greek
    4. Roman
    5. Norse
    6. Celtic
    7. Aztec
  7. Paganism & Wicca
3. Morality
  1. The Golden Rule – examine its history throughout cultures
  2. Love is the greatest of these
  3. The Fruit of the Spirit
    1. Love
    2. Joy
    3. Peace
    4. Patience
    5. Kindness
    6. Goodness
    7. Faithfulness
    8. Gentleness
    9. Self-control
  4. The Ten Commandments
    1. the shalt-nots
    2. the shalts
4. Manners
  1. All arising from the Golden Rule
  2. JOY
    1. Jesus
    2. Others
    3. Yourself
  3. Chivalry
  4. Do's and Don'ts of a Princess
  5. Cross-cultural Rules and Codes
HISTORY – (vid. Susan Wise Bauer's The Story of the World, three volumes)

n.b.-A, B, C concurrently presented, with alternatives and suppositions as necessary
1. Prehistoric
  1. 'Evolutionary Theory'
  2. Dinosaurs – main types and aprox. 'epochs'
  3. 'Stone Age'
  4. Bronze Age
  5. Iron Age
2. Biblical History
  1. Creation – the Seven Days
  2. Creation & Fall / Adamic
  3. Noah & the Flood
  4. Abraham & His Sons (Gen 12 – 50's patriarchal socio-cultural milieu fits well within the context of the Middle Bronze Age – c. 1950 – 1550 B.C., according to the NIV Serendipity Bible)
  5. Jacob the Trickster & Sons
  6. Joseph, Steward of Egypt
  7. Moses & the Exodus (possibly 1300 – 1250 B.C.)
  8. The Ten Commandments and the Tabernacle
  9. The Promised Land & Jericho – Joshua (c 1250 B.C.)
  10. The Time of the Judges: Deborah, Gideon, Samson, Ruth ( c. 1000 – 700 B.C.), Samuel
  11. David: Shepherd, Warrior, King (1050 B.C. Saul annointed - )
  12. Solomon the Wise & the Temple ( - 930 B.C. Solomon's death)
  13. Prophets: Elijah & Elisha ( 700 – 560 B.C.?)
  14. The Fall of Jerusalem, the Exile, & the Rebuilding – Ezra & Nehemiah (586 - 432 B.C.)
  15. Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, and Darius (605 – 530 B.C.)
  16. Esther & Xerxes (486-465 B.C.)
  17. The Maccabees & Herod ( 167 – 20 B.C.)
  18. The Birth of Jesus (0 – actually probably 3 or 4 B.C.)
  19. Jesus's Ministry
  20. Jesus's Parables
  21. The Passion Week
  22. Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost
  23. The Early Church – Peter, John, Philip
  24. Saul Becomes Paul
  25. Paul's Missionary Journeys
  26. The Revelation of John & the Holy City
3. Timeline
  1. Ancient History
    1. Ancient Egyptian
    2. Ancient Greek / Roman
    3. Dark Ages
    4. Celtic
    5. Norse
  2. Asian History
    1. Chinese
    2. Japanese
    3. Korean
  3. Medieval
  4. Renaissance
  5. Elizabethan / Shakespearean
  6. Age of Reason / Enlightenment
  7. Age of Exploration
  8. The Romantics
  9. The Americas
  10. Industrialization
  11. Colonialism
  12. The Pioneers
  13. War and Conflict
    1. WWI
    2. WWII
    3. The Korean War
    4. The Cold War
  14. Post-Modernism
  15. The Age of Information
HOMESKILLS
1. Planning & Organization
  1. Break it Down – eat the elephant one bite at a time
  2. A Place for Everything - and everything in its place
    1. put items where they are used
    2. group items ergonomically
    3. one step to put something away / 'touch it once'
    4. put it back when you're done with it
  3. Work before Play – 'debrief' /unpack as soon as you get home
  4. Tidy Daily – keep on top of the 'mess'
  5. Sorting – the four essential categories
    1. Keep
    2. Store
    3. Recycle
    4. Toss
  6. Control Clutter
  7. Periodically Take Stock / Purge
  8. Emergencies and Survivalism
    1. Kits/ packs for various needs
      - entertainment knapsack
      - car breakdown
      - stuck overnight away from home
      - loss of power
    2. Vital documents – keep secure and accessible
    3. Ready money or negotiable items
2. Cleanliness
  1. Laundry – sorting, washing, storing
    1. Sort and wash by colour: Lights, Darks, Brights
    2. Store by kind: shirts, pants, skirts, etc.
    3. Store by season: warm weather / cold weather
  2. Sewing – buttons, hems, darning, making over
  3. Dishes – choosing, washing, storing
    1. types of dishware & cutlery
    2. clear, scrape, stack, wash, rinse, dry
    3. racks, stacks, hooks, shelving, etc.
  4. Cleaning – the specific needs of the various living/working areas
    1. Living area
    2. Kitchen/Dining
    3. Bath
    4. Bedrooms
    5. Exteriors
  5. Monthly / Seasonal / Yearly Tasks – basic home maintenance
  6. Ecological Impact & Responsibilities
    1. Cleansers
      - Commercial Cleansers – ingredients, effects, eventual results
      - Soda & Vinegar– ingredients, effects, eventual results
      - Bleach, Hydrogen Peroxide, Ammonia
      - Shampoo, Dish Soap, Detergent – the pros and cons
      - Elbow Grease and other old-fashioned remedies
    2. Lighting
    3. Materials to be cleaned
    4. Materials to clean with
    5. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – as essential here as elsewhere
3. Home Décor & Design
  1. Form Follows Function
  2. “Have nothing you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” - Ruskin
  3. Colour Theory & Pyschology of Colour
  4. Flow & Balance
  5. Atmosphere / 'Feng Shui' / home spirit
  6. Historical Styles and Modes
    1. Medieval
      - Early / Low
      - Late / High
    2. Gothic
      - Tudor
      - Elizabethan
      - Jacobean
    3. Renaissance
    4. Baroque & Rococo
    5. Colonial
    6. Regency
    7. Georgian
    8. Victorian
    9. Arts & Crafts / Aesthetics / Morris
    10. Art Nouveau
    11. Art Deco
    12. 'Modern'
4. Money & Budgeting
  1. Give / Save / Spend formula
    1. Give – 10 % tithing, plus gifts, presents, special ministries
    2. Save – put money away for future needs
    3. Spend – record and budget what you buy
  2. Budgeting – categories and determining percentages
  3. Bills & 'Credit'
  4. Principles of Banking, Accounting, Interest
5. Nutrition & Cooking
  1. Food Pyramid
  2. Menus & Planning – balance, economy, health, appreciation & enjoyment
  3. Contrast – texture, colour, taste – appeal to senses, importance of presentation
  4. Shopping – freshness, local, seasonal, thrift, labels, nutrient content, etc.
  5. Preparing
    1. utensils, tools & small appliances
    2. preparation skills and associated verbs (bake, chop, stir, grill, season, etc.)
    3. cooking theory – basic (al)chemical reactions
    4. hygiene, storage, sanitation
  6. Serving – a point, plating, garnishes, table settings, decor
  7. Preserving & Storing
6. Gardening, Plants & Herbs
  1. Food Plants – Fruits & Vegetables
  2. Herbs & Spices
  3. Flowers
  4. Houseplants
  5. General Gardening, Planning & Plant Interactions
LANGUAGE
1. Linguistics – developing facility with language
2. Second Languages – Korean, Chinese, Latin, Spanish
MATH
1. Arithmetic / Operations
  1. Addition
  2. Subtraction
  3. Multiplication
  4. Division
  5. Decimals
2. Number Theory
  1. Counting, Place Value, Fractions and Graphs
  2. Probability & Statistics
3. Measurement
  1. Money
  2. Time
  3. Dimensions
  4. Weight and Volume
4. Geometry
  1. Lines
  2. Angles
  3. Dimensions x, y, z
  4. 2-D & 3-D shapes
  5. Equations & Rules
5. Variables & Pre-Algebra
MUSIC (vid Music Education in the Christian Home, by Mary Ann Froehlich)
1. Instrumental Performance
  1. Keyboard (piano, electronic, melodeon, etc.)
  2. Wind (recorder, bamboo flute, ocarina)
  3. Percussion (drum, castanets, Korean instruments)
2. Vocal Performance
  1. Listen, Memorize, Sing Melodies
  2. Listen, Memorize, Sing Harmonies
  3. Improvise and Play
3. Appreciation & History
  1. Western Music
    1. Medieval
      - Gregorian Chant
      - Trouvere Songs
      - Madrigals
    2. Renaissance
      - Dufay & des Pres
      - John Dowland
      - Thomas Tallis
    3. Baroque
      - Buxtehude
      - Purcell
      - Vivaldi
      - Bach
      - Handel
      - Pachebel
    4. Classic
      - Haydn
      - Mozart
      - Beethoven
    5. Romantic
      - Schubert
      - Schumann
      - Brahms
    6. Operas
      - Verdi, Bizet, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Grieg
    7. Post-Romantic
      - Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff
    8. 20^th Century
      - Prokofiev, Holst, Britten, Gershwin, Copland, Stravinsky
  2. Other Cultures & Styles
    1. Asian
    2. Indian
    3. African
    4. Australian
    5. Native North American
    6. Native South American
4. Theory & Sightreading
  1. Rhythm
  2. Do-Re-Mi
  3. Keyboard Octave
  4. Clef & Musical Notation
  5. Sightreading
5. Dance
  1. Creative Movement & Improvisation
  2. Learned Patterns, Steps and Styles
    1. Waltz
    2. Hip-hop
    3. Swing
    4. Ballet
    5. and so on!
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
1. Health
  1. Maintaining Health
  2. Care during Illness
  3. First Aid for Injury
2. Anatomy & Physiology
  1. Skeletal System
  2. Organs & Gastrointestinal System
  3. Muscular System
  4. Nervous System
  5. Circulatory / Respiratory System
  6. Functions of the various systems
3. Sexuality
  1. Reproductive systems
  2. Functions and cycles thereof
    1. Menses / Courses
    2. Intercourse
    3. Contraception / Conception
    4. Pregnancy
    5. Birth
  3. Psychology / Human Sexuality
  4. Morality, Relationships, and Family Values
4. Athletics (to be expanded)
  1. Solo Sports
  2. Team Sports
  3. Martial Arts
  4. Exercise & Fitness
READING
1. Comprehension
  1. Decoding – Phonics
  2. Dolch Sight Words
  3. Roots, Suffixes, Prefixes, Common Endings
  4. Contractions
  5. =>
2. Vocabulary
  1. Build new words in context
  2. Record, repeat, and practice new vocabulary
  3. Link to etymology – Latinate, AS, OE, etc.
  4. Create neural net of language
  5. Emphasise precision and accuracy in use of language
3. Literature
  1. Read & Appreciate – anything and everything, as and when able to process!
  2. Memorize & Recite
  3. Analyze / Techniques
    1. The 5 Ws
    2. Plot, Characters, Setting
    3. Comprehension
    4. antonyms, synonyms, homophones and homographs
    5. Story Development
    6. Narrative P.O.V.
    7. Conflict & Resolution
    8. Theme and Main Ideas
    9. idioms, analogies, literal, figurative
  4. Create & Enjoy (see Writing)
4. Poetry
  1. Listen & Appreciate
    1. Types - ballads, sonnets, lyric poems, limericks, haiku, etc.
    2. Styles – romantic, humorous, satirical, elegaic, declamatory, etc.
  2. Memorize & Recite – see above!
  3. Analyze / Techniques
    1. rhyme
    2. rhythm
    3. scansion
    4. alliteration
    5. simile / metaphor
    6. onomatopoeia
    7. personification / anthropomorphisation
  4. Create & Enjoy (see Writing)
5. Drama
  1. Watch & Appreciate
    1. Movies, Theatre, Musicals, Opera
    2. Presentations, Orators, Politicians, etc.
    3. Puppetry, Shadow Plays, Mask Drama, other cultural traditions
  2. Improvise / Summarize
  3. Analyze / Techniques
    1. Types: tragedy, comedy, farce, etc.
    2. Techniques: satire, soliloquy, aside, stage direction, and other conventions
  4. Create & Perform
    1. Short Plays
    2. Improv
    3. Reports & Presentations
    4. Teaching Information
    5. Recounting / Retelling a Narrative
6. Non-Fiction (see History, Society, Science, etc)
  1. Histories
  2. Biographies & Autobiographies
  3. Science
  4. Social Science
  5. News - online, magazine, newspaper
7. Analytics & Metacognition
  1. Study Skills – various techniques (SQ3R, 4R, etc.)
  2. Organize Information - overviews, outlines, summaries, and precis
  3. Identify sources of information and their reliability
    1. Print: dictionary, thesaurus, atlas, almanac, encyclopedia
    2. Transient Print: newspapers, magazines
    3. Electronic Media: search engines and their interaction with the Net
  4. Critical Thinking
    1. analyze information for P.O.V. , bias, depth, opinion, fallacies & worldview
    2. examine advertising, posters, other forms of propaganda & manipulation
  5. Giving & Receiving Critique, Editing, & Revision
SCIENCE
1. Life Sciences
  1. Biology
  2. Botany
  3. Zoology
2. Physical Sciences
  1. States of matter
  2. Electricity
  3. Magnetism
  4. Chemistry
  5. Physics
  6. Thermodynamics
  7. Laws
3. Earth/Space Sciences
  1. Astronomy
  2. Geology
  3. Weather
SOCIETY
1. Sociology
2. Anthropology
3. Geography
  1. Continents
  2. Countries
  3. Cities
WRITING
1. Creative Writing
  1. Stories
  2. Poems
  3. Dramas
  4. Letters (personal correspondence)
  5. Journals
  6. Psalms, Praise & Prayers
  7. Freeform (developing style and 'voice')
  8. Emails, IM, & Chat (casual contemporary)
2. Task Writing
  1. Vocabulary Words & Definitions
  2. Paragraph Summaries
  3. Minibooks / Lapbooks
  4. Reports
  5. News Articles
  6. Essays
  7. Letters (business correspondence)
  8. Notetaking (dictation, summary, lectures, choose salient points, etc.)
3. Spelling & Vocabulary
4. Grammar
  1. Parts of Speech - Nouns, verbs, adjectives
  2. Past Tense – Regular and Irregular
  3. Future, Conditional, Predictions
  4. Capitalization
  5. Punctuation
  6. Sentence Types
    1. Declarative
    2. Interrogative
    3. Imperative
    4. Exclamatory
  7. More Parts of Speech – Adverbs, articles, conjunctions, interjections, pronouns
5. Penmanship
  1. Printing – Zaner-Bloser letterforms
  2. Cursive – shape, size, slant, spacing
  3. Calligraphic – learn and recognize various historical/cultural letterforms
  4. Fonts – recognize and name some of the most significant/popular typefaces
6. Keyboarding
  1. Typing skills
  2. Wordprocessing commands and functions
  3. General computer terminology and iconography

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

This curriculum was designed and developed by Judy Alkema, with thanks to:

“Home Learning Year by Year – how to design a homeschool curriculum from preschool through high school”, Rebecca Rupp, 2000, Three Rivers Press

“Music Education in the Christian Home”, Dr. Mary Ann Froehlich, 1990, Wolgemuth & Hyatt

The Serendipity Bible, NIV 10^th Anniversary Edition, 1996, Zondervan Publishing

Tapestry of Grace, Supplementary Links for History, at www.tapestryofgrace.com

World Timelines, at http://www.fincher.org/History/WorldAD.shtml

Teaching Homeskills, at http://intentionalparents.com

Inspirations drawn from Charlotte Mason, John Holt's unschooling concepts, my mother Laura Miller, the Trivium and Quadrivium, the 'holistic' concept, the Reformed Christian worldview, and more...

NOTA BENE: You MAY NOT republish, repost, or publicize this curriculum without full credit to Judy Alkema as given above. You MAY NOT alter, change, or omit any part of this curriculum if you do republish or repost it. You MAY print and use this curriculum for your own private homeschooling use if you contact Judy Alkema by posting a response to this post or by emailing her at masterbard (at) poetic (dot) com and notifying her.

The Bard Quits.. Becomes Unpaid Teacher

2009-03-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

KATHERINE MAKES KIMCHI AT YUCHIWAN

A long time between posts, as usual! Here we are in 2009 already.

What with work, final exams, vacation, dying computers, and a new job, somehow there never seems to be enough time to write things down. So, just for the record, because it's not as if friends and family don't keep in touch with us other ways (well, if I updated this more regularly, I'm sure they'd check it more often? Right? Right.), I should make a few notes and post a few pictures.

I have gracefully informed Myongji that I will no longer be working for them; it was both flattering and satisfying to receive a visit from my (no longer) boss, who asked a variety of questions and made a variety of offers all revolving around attempting to keep me on...

At this point I'm 'employed' by my darling daughter, Katherine Joy. We've spent most of winter vacation designing an ambitious and comprehensive curriculum for our extremely exclusive homeschool: the Alembyc Academy, if it please you, with an enrollment of one... However, if I were able to accept other students legally, I'd be making more than I did at MJU! Perhaps it will be a possibility in the future for me to own/run my own hogwan - not at present, though.

See the next post for the in-depth (12 MS Word pages) curriculum, if you're interested in our plan of study, and feel free to point out any errors or obvious omissions. It's a five-year plan of study, but we'll see if we get through it sooner or more leisurely, so I'm not including a lot of 'detail' at this level of depth. We'll return to it in five years (or so) and take it down another level of complexity, with concepts that are appropriate for her age and understanding.

I'm also quite informally helping out a Korean church on Sundays, teaching three classes of children from 1 to 4 in the afternoon - fun, even though I've only just started! They've given me my own office-cum-classroom, with a desk and computer, bulletin board and whiteboard, sofa, and a bigscreen TV! Mind you, we all sit on the heated ondol flooring to study together, in good Korean style - which suits my style of teaching to a T. More updates there as events warrant...

Bry has swapped our car (a whitish, more or less, Leganza sedan which I quite liked chauffeuring about) for a truck I have nicknamed "The Beast" (a big white Musso, with 4-wheel drive, a Mercedes engine, and a clutch...). Which means that I can not, once again, drive anywhere. At least until I learn, from scratch, how to run a stick shift. One more level of tension to add onto the various changes, responsibilities, and burdens for the year 2009. It's a very macho vehicle, right down to the leather-wrapped steering wheel, the custom sound system, and the back large enough to hold all the camping gear we don't have. Mind you, I'm very much looking forwards to the weather being warm enough to go camping... so perhaps I'll be slowly less antagonistic to "The Beast" if it takes me places - preferably with Bryan driving. At this point I stall the confounded fewmet just getting from stand-still into first, so there is no fondness there at all.

Bryan is studying Korean quite assiduously on his own, with various books designed for Korean elementary students, Korean buddies, and a couple of our co-workers who also want to try to improve their skills in hangul. Kath and I see a lot less of him, partly because we don't work in the same office any longer, as we have for a lot of our married life, and partly because he's got a lot of classes this semester. As does everyone else, because MJU was unable (due to unrealistic expectations and inadequate benefits) to replace me, and because they didn't bother to replace the last two teachers who left, either! So - plenty of stress for the team at this point, which almost makes me feel guilty. We'll see how they're holding up around midterms.

Kath is her usual joyful, sensitive, observant, articulate, creative self, only more so. How can she keep getting more fun and interesting all the time? Once I learn to pace her and myself and relax a bit, we're going to enjoy this holistic learning together even more: right now I'm far too goal-focused and academically-tainted...yet we still have marvelous days!

She knows all the planets of our solar systems, their names and places in order from the sun, and the duties of the Greco-Roman deities which those names represent...identifies Van Gogh, Monet, and Klimt art on sight by style... can find Casseopia and Orion and the Dipper in the night sky....has about sixty or seventy sight words and can sound out most three and four letter words not on her sight list...can speak Korean like a native child...is memorizing the 10 Commandments and quotes the Golden Rule... creates imaginative dramas with her plastic dinosaurs, using their correct scientific names....asks to use the Cuisinaire rods to practice math concepts on her own...walks a three-hour nature hike cheerfully....is sensitive to and protective of others' feelings and emotions...spontaneously makes collages, stampings, recycled art, comic book pages, and other artworks on her own...learns and recites poetry...bargains at the local market and makes change... what a privilege it is to spend time with her, to guide that inquisitive mind and discipline that cheerful heart!

OK, it's nearly midnight, and I still haven't added the promised pictures, so enough writing for now. A couple of photos to be going on with, and then next time I'll put more in, plus the curriculum.

KATHERINE IN HANBOK FOR CHUSOK (Korean Thanksgiving)

KATH'S FIFTH BIRTHDAY PARTY (Princess Theme)

MY SPARKLY MOPPET (the eyeliner and rouge is faux but the lashes are real!)

Kyongju Vacation - Summer 2008 Photo Collage

2008-08-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

Some collages for those of you who want more pictures! Sorry about the poor quality - they are jpegs of jpegs from my cellphone onboard digital camera - but hopefully you can get an idea of some of the locations and expressions....

Read the previous post for the blog/scrapbook journal and information to put these photos in context!

Family Vacation: Kyongju, Summer 2008

2008-08-12T09:22:00.000-07:00

KATHERINE’S KYONGJU SCRAPBOOK Summer 2008

Tuesday, August 5

We left our house at about 11. We stopped for lunch at a rest area and then another break at about three o’clock.

Kyongju at 5! We decided that there would be lots of places to stay near the bus terminal. Most were ‘love hotels’ – too tacky or too expensive! We found the Hanjin Hostel on the fourth try. Mr. Kwon was very friendly.

Dinner at “6Shi” near the hostel: Mom had twegi kalbi, Dad had duenjang, and Katherine had gyeran-bap! Then we went back to our hostel and rested.

Wednesday, August 6

The next morning Daddy and Katherine went for a walk and had a snack at Paris Baguette. Mom woke up around 9 and we drove to McDonald’s for breakfast. Then we headed out for a drive.

We went to the Korean Folkcraft Village and wandered around looking at the ceramics. Katherine found a broken pottery bird. We bought an amethyst necklace for Nana and a sword for Katherine!

Here is Katherine, Warrior Princess… isn't that an intimidating scowl?

Daddy can read Korean very well now; he found a sundubu restaurant for lunch. The walls were yellow and brown clay, with big wooden beams and tree trunks. Katherine and Mommy shared the side dishes and some very good haemul pajeon.

We kept on driving because we wanted to look around “KyonguLand”. There was a lovely waterfall and pond with fish. Katherine fed the fish but then she fell into the pond and got soaked! So we went back to Hanjin Hostel to change and have an afternoon rest.

After a break at our hostel, we went out again to the Kyongju Museum. It was hot, so we tried to stay inside.

First, Mom told Katherine the story of the Emi-leh Bell. It was sad but interesting. We saw the apsaras (angel-fairies) on the outside of the bell. Then we looked at the tomb guardians. They are twelve different animals from the Korean/Chinese Zodiac. Mommy is a Rooster and Daddy and Katherine are both Monkeys!

We went into the main hall and saw lots of things from Anapchi Pond. There was a big, heavy boat that the Korean princesses used. There were lots of roof tiles. Katherine liked the dragon head because it looked like Mushu. Mommy liked the golden jewelry. We looked at some ceramics and drank lots of water. Then we visited the Shilla golden crown.

Katherine ‘wearing’ the Shilla crown

For supper we were going to eat at the Duck/Chicken (samgyetang) restaurant on Mr. Kwon’s map, but Katherine ran out the front door of the hostel and almost got hit by a car. We were all a little shaken and Mom lost her appetite. The samgyetang restaurant wouldn’t serve just one person, so we had a light dinner of apple pies from Paris Baguette instead.

Thursday, August 7

Daddy and Katherine got up early, went for a walk and had cookies for breakfast. Mom was up by 8 and made herself and Katherine some bacon and tomato sandwiches up on the roof with her little camp stove. We packed everything up and said goodbye to Mr. Kwon. He wrote Mom’s favorite Korean shijo poem by Hwang Jini in Chinese calligraphy; Mom says that will be her souvenir from the trip.

We went back to the museum from 11 to 12 for Katherine’s ‘children’s art class’. Mom and Katherine put together a Chamsongdae observatory puzzle – twice – saw how the Korean kings’ tombs were built, made some tomb guardian rubbings and created our very own monster face roof tile! We had fun.

We stopped for a short time at Anapji; it was even hotter than yesterday. Mom took some pictures of the lotus blossoms and the orange flowers in the surrounding fields. We pretended to be Korean princesses, sailing our boat on the pond, catching fish, and playing with the deer. We did see a real heron standing in the pond!

Time to say goodbye to Kyongju! We didn’t see the real Chamsongdae on the way out – next time…

Highway 45 took us between two national parks. Daddy chose Worak-san because of the beautiful waterfall marked on the map. We found a ranger stop with a swing, some great mountains and valleys, a tumbling river full of round stones, and some little restaurants and minbak.

‘Let’s stop and paddle,’ said Mom, so we did. Daddy watched Katherine play in the water while Mom collected some decorative rocks. It was cool and restful. We decided that it was time to get back on the road and had a lovely drive through the rest of the park – but we never did find that waterfall.

Let’s go home! Back to Yongin, on the highway. Mom and Katherine fell asleep for a while but they woke up in time for a quick bite of fast food.

We unpacked and put everything away, because that’s what you have to do first when you get home! It was good to be back in our own house, and our own beds.

(Some photo collages in the next post, for those of you who want more pictures! Love, Judy)

A Few Pictures / A Child's Wisdom

2008-07-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

If you wonder why she is so foreshortened in the above shots, it's because *I* didn't take them. The camera was in the hands of our Korean office assistant, the oft-afore referenced 'Beautiful Jisu', who is just short of six feet. It didn't occur to her to crouch down to get a few eye-level pictures. Nonetheless, that Kath-charm comes through... She was able to score quite a few more toasted marshmallows, bits of hot dog, and s'mores than she really should have!

Another photo-collage - K at Everland last month. We put these together afterwards and print them out for her scrapbook, which is her on-going art project to learn some basic principles of design. Mostly she enjoys embellishing with stickers - which excess of tastefulness many an older scrapbooker has fallen into - but she's learning other techniques and concepts as well!

On one of the rides, flashing a somewhat nervous grin but determined to enjoy herself anyhow.

Katherine’s Bedtime Musings, July 13, 2008

(after being tucked in bed and given her goodnight kiss, begins to talk to herself. I quickly open up Word and begin to transcribe her original and unedited musings…)

We should do this every day:

Eat one candy a day -
Don’t eat six candies or seven candies.
Take care of others...
Help others.
Brush your teeth.
Take care of puppies
Do what others say….
Do what your mom and dad say.
Play - by yourself.
Do good things.

One more thing that’s special. God loves us!

(continuing to muse, beginning to repeat herself)

Don’t do bad things.
Don’t steal something from others.
Obey. Write that one down. Obey.
Love others!

(puts her head down on her pillow peacefully, still repeating her credos to herself)

Wisdom of a Four-year-old

2008-07-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

Katherine’s Bedtime Musings, July 13, 2008

(after being tucked in bed and given her goodnight kiss, begins to talk to herself. I quickly open up Word and begin to transcribe her musings… they are given here as she said them, without editing or editorial prompts)

We should do this every day:

Eat one candy a day

Don’t eat six candies or seven candies.

Take care of others

Help others.

Brush your teeth.

Take care of puppies

Do what others say….

Do what your mom and dad say.

Play - by yourself.

Do good things.

One more thing that’s special. God loves us!

(continuing to muse, beginning to repeat herself)

Don’t do bad things.

Don’t steal something from others.

Obey. Write that one down. Obey.

Love others!

(puts her head down on her pillow peacefully, still repeating her credos to herself)

Jejudo Vacation: Part Two

2007-07-16T06:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Up early, leisurely morning with Katherine, nibbled breakfast, did some studying from her preschool and kindergarten textbooks till Bry awoke. The view out our kitchen window overlooks a peaceful field of Korean white radishes, and straw-hatted aunties crouching in the rows harvesting.

Time for some kid-centred entertainment! Our plan for the morning, to visit ‘Dinoville’ about a block down the highway from our villa, falls through as we realize that it is still very much ‘under construction’… Worth the stop however to get a photo of a kilted dinosaur!

Quick stop at the Boat Terminal on the docks to get time of ferry departure – 8:20 in the morning or 5:00 in the afternoon. Guess we’ll be getting up early, then…

Attempt at Jeju Folk Museum equally a failure – a sign across the gates informs us it’s closed from June 25 – 28! We stop at the small but carefully detailed Jeju National Museum instead. Lovely architecture integrating traditional and modern, indoor and out – and we appreciate the air- conditioning… A nine-foot-across model of the island sits in the main lobby, under a stained-glass dome depicting the same, with Hallasan the focal point of both. Displays are neat and modern, unfortunately signed in Korean only. Dioramas, models, artifacts, tools, art and photos are nicely mixed to give a sense of the island’s drama and its history, from its use by the Mongols as an open-air horse stable centuries ago to its contemporary incarnation as a semi-tropical honeymoon destination.

The giftshop is far too tempting with its rows of English books and reproductions, but our selective browsing yields a beautiful grey silk tie patterned with fishing boats for Bry, and orange chocolates for ‘pasalubong’ (that wonderful Filipino word for ‘stuff you have to bring back from vacation for all the friends and family who didn’t get to go…’)

Rework plans yet again. Beach is out of question as we are all three sunburned and tender. Recourse to much-folded map yields new plan: Jungmun Resort area in Sogwipo – and getting there half the fun using the highway round the other side of Halla-san.

Green, misty, romantic road winding between lushly-green semi-jungle foliage: thuja occidentalis, Japanese cedar, short-needle pine, wild hydrangeas, shrub bamboo, ferns, and more. The road opens up into equally green horse pastures framed with the inescapable black-rock walls. We stop to socialize with one herd, undoubtedly descendants of the Mongolian ponies; I lure a sturdy mare over with lip ‘prrrrrts’ and grass for Katherine’s benefit. Much enjoyed by everyone, including the local tourists who want to take Kath’s picture on their cell phones…

Lunch at a deserted restaurant just inside the Jungmun area specializing in the Jejudo ‘black pork’. After a bit of discussion about exactly how much meat they would be willing to provide us, and for how much, we arrive at an amicable solution and are served. We share excellent (thin, not greasy, full of tender seafood) haemul pajeon (seafood & green onion crepe), kongi bap (steamed rice) with sang-chu (loose leaf lettuce) and the famous black pork, grilled like samgyopsal but much tastier. Plus all the side dishes (mashed chilled potato with dok-style crumbs on top!) , it comes to ee-man-won – twenty bucks for a fabulous local feed.

Sound Museum – Bry naps in car while Kath and Mom swelter their way through a confusing but delightful collage of a museum which pays homage to Bell and Edison, stops briefly to flirt with seashells and fetal development, displays hundreds of ethnic instruments, has interactive electronic music, and features Nipper as ‘His Master’s Voice’ throughout. There are plenty of musical instruments laid out on the top floor which can simply be picked up and experimented with, from shakers and sticks to an electric organ and a full drum set! Katherine particularly loves the step-on-the-keys piano and Judy bewails having to leave in time to catch the Dolphin Show at the Pacific Aquarium next door…

Aquarium: Performance has three parts, unfortunately beginning with the Monkey Show, which I would have chosen to avoid otherwise. Disgusted by reluctant macaques in kitchy outfits dragging their upright bodies through the paces a flat-faced ‘trainer’ orders. An alert eye can easily distinguish aggressive snarls or open-mouth ‘fear’ hisses in response to a threatening command, or to the human hands literally dragging monkey limbs into artificial poses (the ‘situps’ were quite nauseating to watch…) I observe no positive reinforcement such as treats; rather quite the reverse - cuffing and clapping near the face or foot in order to elicit desired behavior. At one point the smallest macaque which often has its back to the crowd – cowering? – completely refuses to stand and ‘take its bow’ and the ‘trainer’ literally kicks it around with a quick swipe of his boot while dragging one of its arms upright. Only a couple of routines which take advantage of natural monkey agility and ability (as the Everland zoo, for example, has incorporated) are demonstrated, and the rest are designed to play to an animal-ignorant crowd that prefers slapstick mimicry.

Thankfully the Sealion Show which follows hard on the heels of the all-too-happy-to-leave monkeys is a definite level up. The pretty girl who trots out with a fish-bits reinforcing bucket strapped into the small of her back is clearly fond of her charges, stroking down their sleek backs and heads to encourage their posing on their platforms, and the routines are in general ones which show off the marvelous musculature of seal necks and bodies: ball catching/balancing/tossing, jumping, and diving.

The Dolphin Show is the third part, and the best, for not only have the trainers wisely chosen to use minimal props and mummery to exhibit their animals’ skills, the dolphins themselves seem to enjoy the play. None of us have ever been so close to a living sea creature, and the powerful sleek bodies shooting by under the water are awe-inspiring. They ‘tail-walk’, lifting almost two-thirds of themselves into the air, roll, backstroke, leap in marvelous arcs both forward and backward, and slap huge beachballs with an effortless stroke of their tails. I am taken completely aback when the four dolphins ‘hover’ at the edge of the water and break into ‘song’ – vocalizing with long squeaks, moans, and chortles. In some way this touches me even more than the delight in their physical beauty.

We loiter on the grounds after the performance, enjoying the clifftop view over the black rocks and rolling surf below. A few brave swimmers are playing in the shallows, but the wind is up and the waves high – though not quite high enough for the two wet-suited surfers who are waiting for more spectacular curls. We are all enthralled by the big-eyed, silvery-coated harbour seal pup who bobs upright in his enclosure, looking as innocent as a cradleboarded babe. Huge lashes, sleek spotted fur, and an adorable short muzzle topped with nostrils that flare open and closed as easily as one might blink … combined with an elegance that few baby things possess…. it is no wonder we linger flirting with him for a while.

Fortunately for this baby, his fur is not in danger, and he seems to enjoy his fellow inmates – penguins. He dashes happily round the pool after the five Adelies, who one and all indignantly exit after too close a nip at their hind ends. “It’s always fun,” they seems to be saying as they stand on the edge preening ruffled feathers and squacking back and forth, ‘till someone loses a flipper!” Personally, I enjoy watching the penguins transform from graceful, if rather portly, torpedoes in the water, to waddling, comical Chaplins on land, but could wish they had been a bit more sporting for the suddenly crest-fallen pup’s sake.

The whole Jungmun area has a strangely deserted feel – not that it is dilapidated, but it seems to have been built for a much larger venue, and the few tourists moving through the summer humidity make it look more loomingly empty rather than grand. We had all three floors of the Sound Museum, for example, completely to ourselves, the restaurant ditto, and Pacifica only the front third of the seats full. Ah, well, never complain about having more room than you need; far too often the reverse is true.

Home on the already-familiar 1135, and the villa to welcome us in air-conditioned comfort! A quiet pick-up dinner of odds and ends, left-over chicken-kass, and bread & jam suits us all after a fun but tiring day. Made arrangements with Ajusshi re key and leaving tomorrow. Had a good time studying and reading with Katherine before her bedtime. Catch up with journaling and so to bed.

The traveler in a lone bed cannot sleep in peace –

The frosty moon often peeps through his curtain with looks so pale.

Kim Sakkhat, ‘Nan-gu’, 1802 – 1864

Friday, June 29, 2007

Up revoltingly early, thanks to our little animated alarm clock, who crawls in between us at six in the morning. Ah well, this time we appreciate it. Breakfast at six-thirty, an efficient pack-up and sweep of the villa, drop the key in the mailbox for the security guard, load the car in the drizzling rain – and we pull out just as it begins to pour. An almost solid wall of water all the way into Jeju City, complete with lightning and thunder. Thankfully it lightens as we drive the car onto the waiting ferry, buy our tickets, and shuttle over to the passenger terminal. Laden with blanket, pillow, computer, and BCB (Big Colourful Bag, full of stuff to keep Kath happy en route), we stagger through the gates and onboard.

The crew remembers us and greets us with grins. We settle into a corner of the carpeted ‘cabin’ and claim it with our bags and blanket. Katherine and Judy stay above-decks to bid farewell to Jejudo while Bry falls asleep. She is finally lured back down with chocolate mushroom cookies and settles into playing with her new box of animals, while Judy catches up on journaling and Herbarium entries.

As passengers with a car on board, we are invited with the blare of the ferry horn and the intercom about fifteen minutes before docking in Wando to line up and wait below-decks in our cars. The huge rusty space is dank, with sunlight – finally - filtering in rays through the gaps above us. Eventually the sailors work their way down the line, kicking the triangular wooden chocks away from tires and unhooking the chains from the undercarriages, and we’re all free to creep off over the rebarred metal drawbridge onto the dock.

We haven’t planned where to stop for the night, assuming we’ll just see how far we can get before tiring of driving. Kwangju, a rather pedestrian city, does not tempt us again, but there are plenty of other towns on the way up the peninsula. The weather has cleared, and we’re well on our way through the small roads up onto the mainland from Wando – with one unscheduled screeching halt to pick up a beach shovel from Katherine’s Pooh set that somehow ‘fell’ out the window – before we need to halt for a leg-stretch and bathroom break at a large rest area.

Back in the car, listening to tunes and checking the map periodically. Judy says rather wistfully that while the food has generally been good over the past week, she really hopes they can fit in one last ‘indulgence’ on their vacation – a Western meal. Bryan gives her a sharp look and enquires if the Outback in Suwon would suit her, to which the response is an enthusiastic affirmative. “Very well,” states the intrepid driver, ‘how about eating there tonight?”

After having convinced his wife that he is neither mad nor jesting, he proceeds to eat up the miles northward to just that end. We cover most of the peninsula in about eight hours of driving, and at about six o’clock in the evening are sitting down to a feast of BBQ Ribs with salad and baked potato, Alice Springs Chicken with Outback fries, and – of course – chocolate milk for Katherine, who has been absolutely angelic on the grueling drive. It doesn’t, despite expectations, keep her awake, and Bry must carry her out of the restaurant with small head drooping on his shoulder when we are ready to leave. Hwy 42, our faithful old friend, takes us into Yongin and home.

My wandering heart is like a reed leaf

floating in the sea of mist

In the eve I bid farewell everywhere.

Kim Sakkhat, ‘Nan-gu’, 1802 – 1864

Jejudo Vacation - Part One

2007-07-12T04:54:00.001-07:00

JEJUDO VACATION - June 2007

Finally - but better late than never - here is our joint account of our week in Jeju Island, the semi-tropical honeymooner's paradise off the southern coast of Korea. I imagine it's a rather different experience without a child clutching your hands, but we wouldn't know - so enjoy it through parental eyes! Warning: The first part was written by one of us and the second part by the other. It will doubtless be obvious which was which as you begin reading...

The photos aren't the best I've ever taken, as I had to do without either film or digital camera; we bought two disposable cameras which had to last the trip out. For the scrapbook I've supplemented with some rather nice postcards and those handy brochures.

Anyhow, here we go...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday, June 24

Went to church, returned home for final packing. Left at approx. 2:30, bought lunch at McD’s and ate in the car. Hwys 50, 1, 25 to Kwangju. Stopped at service center, bought DVDs at local pirate stall, Katherine played on giant bronze chipmunk.

Kwangju: deduced food and lodging near bus terminal, deduction correct. Found kimbap place and ate udong and tangsooyuk. Was directed to love hotel nearby, rooms with giant round beds, recreationally firm mattress.

Monday June 25

Breakfast in room, Judy bought supplies at local Family Mart (also toothbrushes). Left at about 9:00, found highway 13 and headed south. Very misty day. Stopped at service center where Katherine was devoured by an ajumma who directed us to have at least two more children. Presumably on grounds that they would all be as gorgeous. Chindos barking, tourist office with maps.

Worked our way to Wando on Hwys 2, 13, 2 again, 13 again. B jogged to bank. We were paid! Money isiyo! Went to harbor and found that we needed to pay more than expected. Bought Binch cookies and ate them. Went back and forth between car and passenger terminals a few times to ensure passage for all of us.

Disappointing lunch of samgyupsal with an ajumma who was overly helpful and wouldn’t go away. Katherine was overfed on cookies and didn’t eat. PC-Bang (Internet café) to kill time before ferry left : B played World of Warcraft, Judy did some writing/editing for the Santharian Dream and assisted Katherine with her FisherPrice online games.

Got on the ferryboat, large rooms with nothing in them. Katherine, overstimulated, played with children and spilled juice. Got into Jeju and found a taxi to guide us to villa.

(Editor's note: This last dry statement leaves a good many details out, such as the fact that the 'guiding' had to be accomplished with phone calls back and forth from a non-English speaking taxi lout to a non-English speaking security guard at the villa, neither of whom seemed able to understand what the other was conveying despite speaking a common language... the cost of the taxi out there... the drama of seeing Jeju for the first time... the excitement of being shown round the four-bedroom villa with its palm trees and lava rock drive... the rough 'supper' of jam and bread.... the exhausted collapse on clean sheets that night after unpacking and settling Katherine to sleep... but you'll just have to read the scrapbook later!)

Tuesday June 26, 2007

Rose early and ate a nice breakfast of eggs and toast. Got in the car and headed to Sagwipo over the mountain. Swerved to avoid local horses cantering across roadway. Stopped at 1100 High Ground to buy snacks. Also bought a new hat for B and a new dress for K because they looked so darn good. Dyed with green persimmon juice, cloth turns rich brown colour (The hat also looks good on K, but there is no justice in the world. The dress would look awful on B.)

Headed down the mountain and into town. Found an information stop with great maps and lousy ice cream.

Teddy Bear museum was great fun for all. See postcards. Lunch at EMart, tangsooyuk and haemul sundubu. Shopping, bought K a Pooh beach set.

Back home and nap time for all.

At 5, headed out to Shore Road: black rocks, lava spilling into sea, green vegetation, more of the walls. Found a beach and played together. Headed into Jeju City for supper. Sadly, the best we could find was Lotteria, which says something about either Jeju or us, I suppose. Headed home and arrived at 9. Note: Weather was sunny in the morning and cloudy by evening.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Morning: Miniature Village – pleasantly surprised at quality of displays. See brochure…

To the beach again! Rented a tube – Kath loved running across the tidal sands – and built a sandcastle with her new Pooh beach toys. Got sunburnt.

Into Jeju again, determined to find something better for supper. Parked downtown at Underground Arcade and did some eyeshopping, then a faux-Japanese ‘kass’ restaurant. Chicken-kass, fish-kass, and donk-kass – better than Lotteburgers…

Avoided a filmcrew setting up on the way out…

(Part Two coming later! Watch this space!)

Mosquitoes and a Monday Morning

2007-06-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Nappun mogi! (Bad mosquitoes!)

We are finished our exams, finished our marking, finished our grading, and today begins our vacation- by now into the best part of the Korean summer: pre-rainy season. The trees are in full leaf, the rice crop is up about a foot and richly green, the skies are blue and the sun is hot.

Alas, this is also prime mogi season, and Katherine's rest has been disturbed many nights now by itching welts, usually on her legs. Which, of course, means that Mommy's rest is also disturbed as a sniffling child comes traipsing into the bedroom at two am to get some anti-itch ointment rolled on... We have had our share of bites, but they seem to find her much more delectable, and of course when she scratches she winds up with scabs all over her slim little legs.

I finally in desperation bought a mosquito net - not one of the full-sized ones designed for a Western bed, though those are in much evidence in the stores of late - this looks rather like a rectangular umbrella made of mesh, if you can imagine that. There is of course no handle, but where the ferrule would be on top is a little plastic spike with two inset tabs that let you collapse the thing or lock it into place. The four ribs form interlocking arches and the whole net then is designed to be placed over a sleeping baby's floor mat or mattress. It fits beautifully over her little pallet behind the couch (though if she stretches out she is in danger of slipping a limb or two out the edges) and has already saved us both several nights' rest.

This morning, however, a particularly pesty mogi came reconnoitering around our pillows and woke me with its drone at four in the morning. I could neither eliminate it nor go back to sleep, so finally I got up. Dim pink light was already filtering in the windows, and the pre-dawn air looked so inviting, I threw on some clothing and wandered out.

Four-thirty to five-thirty strolling on a Korean mountainside, as the sun rises over the blue hills in the distance... everything looking crisply new and ready for the day, unsmudged by heat or the wear of others' eyes. The pond opposite the dormitories is dappled with little fish rising to break their fast on the surface insects, the splashes audible between the trills and twitters of birdsong everywhere.

I see and/or hear a whole array of arialists up early: an owl's hooting recedes sleepily into the forest as the cuckoos take over the main theme. Gachi (Korean magpies) interject cheeky solos, flapping back and forth across the landscape in their jaunty black and white. Might those bright yellow birds at the edge of the trees, looking like dandelions on grass, be orioles? There is a lovely burbling of melody from somewhere.... and then a woodpecker cuts in with percussion. I stand very still and spot him drumming his way up a tree only a few yards away. A bat swoops over the pond and is gone. Higher on the mountain, pheasants are chatting in staccato phrases, going about their early-morning affairs.

Myongji is perched on the edge of a circular range, so I can look out across the valley where Yongin lies still mostly asleep below, and to the deep pink just turning to gold beyond the azure peaks of the Korean hills. And there, poised at their edge like a diva in orange satin, is the sun.

I sit for a while as she rises, the birds' orchestra the only accompaniment to her debut. A sense of peace that readies me for the day slowly seeps in along with the sunlight, unshowered and unbreakfasted as I am.

On the way home I compose a song, with the incessant cuckoos' cheerful assistance. The pines sough as the morning breeze picks up, and a few perambulators from Aelfenheim (the seniors' community that looms over our little guesthouse now) are taking the air as well. We exchange greetings with the sly delight of those sharing the uncommon virtue of early rising as our paths cross.

It is not yet seven here, and I've already had a wonderful start to my vacation. Hmmm... perhaps I should thank that Monday morning mosquito...

Gratitude and Appreciation Seriously Overdue

2007-05-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

As a result of some hints, pleas, and outright begging from this side of the ocean, some wonderful people on the other side of the ocean spent time, effort, and money to put together care packages for us. You'd think that living in a highly technologically-advanced first-world democracy would mean you could get pretty much anything you want, wouldn't you? I suppose it depends on your 'wants'...

In this case, if we wanted a cell phone with email, camera, social scheduler, built-in translator, games, and Swiss Army Knife, we could get it... but Ruffles potato chips, (in Sour Cream and Onion, natch) available at any North American convenience store, are out of the question. Likewise, if we would like reams of handmade paper, fantastic stickers, paints, and stationery for ridiculously low amounts of cash, we are in the right country.... but your basic jar of Cheez Whiz does not exist. At least, not legally - and we haven't yet gotten around to exploring the black market this semester...

Sooooo.... as I was saying, some really thoughtful and considerate people packed up some things for us, and this thank-you is long overdue.

Audrey: The chips were consumed over a delayed-gratification period of two weeks (and yes, I even licked the bag when it was completely empty...) - incredibly yummy! I'm hoarding what must be the most expensive jar of Cheez Whiz ever eaten, and scraping it mingily across my bread to make the taste go as far as possible. The magazines were an unlooked-for and completely delightful surprise - thanks so much for picking two such perfect matches for my passions! I've pored over them repeatedly and have now tucked them away to 'rediscover' in a month or so... all in all, a wonderful box. Please do apply to Dad for reimbursement from our account for shipping - and that goes for all of you who send things we've asked for!

Mom (Miller) sent not one but two fat mailing envelopes with some books and flashcards - old favorites and a new resource - for Katherine. She was very thankful to have more reading material, especially some familiar books! And I am going to save the resource manual for summer perusal - mmmmm.....

Apparently there is still a big treat for our little girl as a subscription is on the way. I'll post regarding that when it arrives.

Oh, and the mermaid was a big hit! I hadn't expected a full-size, neon-haired, tail-flicking one, but when she tumbled out of the package Katherine immediately seized upon her and dubbed her (what else....) 'Ariel'. She has joined the other bathtoys in the overflowing basket at the end of the tub and has most recently acquired a five-inch dolphin that sprays water from its mouth as her latest 'pet'!

Am I missing anyone/anything? It's difficult to think straight when one's semicircular canals are oozing, so do forgive me if that's the case. My meds also seem to make me either sleepy or hyper (you decide which this is) so I have to balance that when I'm teaching as well. Thank goodness tomorrow is a Korean holiday (and I can go back to the doctor!)

If any of you want anything that this country can provide, please let us know. (and yes, Liese, I have my eye on a wonderful apothecary chest for you, just as soon as we can afford it. My friend Il Sun knows the owner of Kojeon - and now so do I! More on that later....)

Love and thankfulness to all at 'home',
Judy

Ruptured Eardrum - Not Due to Loud Music

2007-05-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

Update:

Kath (who was suffering from tonsilitis two weeks ago, for those of you who might not have known) is well and happily running around as per normal. Yay! Good to have our joyful little girl back.

I, on the other hand, am rather badly...

For the past two weeks I've had a cold. Last week that became a throat infection. Four days ago that moved up into the middle ear and became a severe ear infection. I drove myself to the emergency room of the local hospital, Davos, at four-thirty in the morning to be seen by a doctor and get antibiotics. The doctor on duty looked like a yakuza tough trying to disguise himself in medical greens, and his attitude bore it out: not only were his arms and face pimply with sores beween the rough black hairs sprouting everywhere, his fingers were crusty with some sort of scaling, and a permanent scowl had etched horizontal grooves in his forehead. He handled the otoscope as if he were trying to see straight through to the other side of my head, snapped a prescription at the nurse, and stamped away. I can't excuse him on grounds of overwork, either, as the place was clearly not busy (and never has been on the various occasions I have been there).

Two days later (Sunday morning) I woke up with a bloody discharge from the ear. Bry was at church in Seoul (and unreachable, as we don't yet have a cell phone). So I had to take myself and my just-awakened child back to the emergency room, via a long hike down to the front gate and a taxi. I found in the process that not only did my ear throb, but that I was completely deaf on that side, nauseous and very dizzy (difficult to walk in a straight line).

Davos Hospital refused to see me as soon as I mentioned the bleeding. You would've thought it was one of the symptoms of the Plague. 'No, no, we don't treat that here, go away'.. in Korean, 'go to Suwon. Not here...'. Suwon is the next major town, about forty minutes by bus. I explained that my husband was in Seoul with the car and I had my child with me and no one else to care for her... didn't make a difference, they wouldn't even let a doctor take a look at me. I asked for the name of a hospital in Suwon so that I could get a taxi once I was there, and the front desk intern scrawled it on a piece of paper and thrust it across the desk - literally as quickly as possible, without meeting my eyes.

So I walked three wobbly blocks to the bus terminal, bought two tickets, and sat for an hour on a rickety local bus with Katherine. I had no idea where in the large metropolis of Suwon the hospital might be, but taxis are inexpensive, so I planned to get off at the terminus and enquire at that point. As we reached the outskirts of the town I pulled out the paper and sat trying to decipher the characters; I had just painfully sounded out 'Ah-joo Dae...' when the bus loudspeaker announced "Ajou Daehakyo! This stop, Ajou University!".

I scrambled Katherine and myself off the bus. A passerby confirmed that there was a large hospital associated with the university, and it took only a minute to flag a taxi and wave the paper at him. Five minutes later we were dropped off at the main doors of Ajou Daehakyo Pyongwon - Ajou University Hospital.

In contrast to Davos's dingy four stories squeezed between an office building and a series of stores, Ajou Hospital is light, bright, and gentle. The staff, despite it being a Sunday and most areas shut down, guided me to the emergency room (mostly filled with parents clutching sick children) and assured me that they would be able to take care of me.

I spent the next five hours there - with Katherine - waiting, filling in my personal data to be admitted for treatment, waiting, being seen by one of the many doctors on ER duty, waiting for his diagnosis, being sent down the hall for a CAT scan of my head, waiting for the results of the scan, being taken in a wheelchair up to the Otology Department, waiting for the specialist, being examined by the specialist (a little camera on a probe was one of his many tools) and consulting with the specialist.

It devolved that I had a throat infection still in full swing, a serious middle ear infection which had caused my eardrum to rupture (hence the blood and fluid discharge), AND one of my interior sinuses almost completely closed up with a third infection. My otologist shook his head over the contusions in the ear canal - caused by the rough otoscope work of the ER doctor back at Davos Hospital but assured me they were the least of his concerns. Apparently while children's eardrums sometimes tear due to the pressure of infection, it's not at all common in adults. He spent a good half-hour going over my scan with me, asked intelligent questions in good English, and finally prescribed a completely different set of antibiotics and made an appointment for me to return on Thursday.

Everyone with whom I came in contact at Ajou (despite it being a Sunday, a busy ER full of wailing, feverish, cranky children, etc.) was courteous, made an effort to communicate and to reassure me, and had patience with Katherine tagging along for everything. I can't say how much I appreciate that - nor how much I appreciate Katherine. She had no breakfast (by her own choice, but still....), no toys or books with her (since we'd only planned to be at the Davos ER, not all day in another town), and no real idea of why we had to be sitting in a very boring, noisy environment for hours on end. She behaved like a pint-size angel rather than a typical three-year old: she played contentedly with a plastic bag I shaped into a rabbit, cuddled, did Rock/Paper/Scissors (in Korean, charming the nearby parents), drew in the little notebook from my purse, and generally kept me company as sweetly as anyone could ask for.

We had some orange juice from the pop machine around one, and another can around four just before we left. I had no appetite despite having only a slice of toast that morning, and Katherine eats like a bird, so I usually let her tell me if she's hungry. As we finally walked out into the afternoon sun, she said wistfully, "I'd like a hamburger, Mama..." I swept her up and hugged her. "And you SHALL have a hamburger, my darling," I said, "you were wonderful today. If that's all you want, we will get it for you..."

I won't bother detailing how I phoned Bryan from the bus terminal in Suwon, feeling too weak and weary to jolt home via public transit again - how Katherine fell asleep in my arms while we waited the hour and a half for him to get to us - how he finally got us to McDonald's and our darling got her long-awaited hamburger - or how I made a game attempt to teach classes yesterday despite my near-total deafness - or how the medication has the side effects of causing complete loss of appetite.

Suffice it to say that I am not at all well and would love to have about a week in bed with some hot drinks and my computer. Alas, we have only three more teaching sessions with our students and we really can't afford to miss any classes at this late date. Let's hope the eardrum heals swiftly, that the antibiotics do what they are supposed to do and control the various infections, and that I don't collapse in class tomorrow. Your sympathy and prayers will be appreciated!

Exam Funnies...

2007-04-30T00:44:00.000-07:00

Such as they are - and a limited crop at this semester's midterms - I offer up some 'exam funnies' for your delectation. You probably need to know that we were dealing with the topics of 'introductions', 'hobbies', 'descriptions & adjectives' and 'personality' - apart from that, most of the sentences will speak (albeit in a mangled manner) for themselves...

One student wrote, hopefully,
'I want to be familiar with you..."
Dream on, kid.

Another, drowsing then realizing his tactlessness:
"Lesson is very sleeping
but english conversation very fun
and english teacher eyebrows very interesting!"
(I should explain that I usually draw a little curlique of eyeliner from one eye or brow as a quirky personal statement. My kids often comment on it and enjoy it.)

Several introduced their families, doubtless not as strange as made out to be here:
"I have a father, mother, and little bother". Yeah, join the club!
"My family is father, mother, old sister, and me..." Poor girl, nineteen and on the shelf already.
"My family is six: Dad, Mom, older sister, younger brother, my puppy Azi and me." (Note that the puppy gets billing before its owner - but wait! She goes on:) "We all go to church together on Sundays..." I could not resist writing on her paper, "What, even the puppy?"

Others made more personal confessions:
"When I smile, my mouse seems like Jim Carry's mouse..."
"I have thin ears. This means I lack backbone."
"My bloodtype is A, so I am introvert." (What, a young vampire in the making?)

This student announces: "I am painful whenever I attend school." Probably true.
Another, simply: "Chocolate is my necessaries." We can all identify!
Even more simply: "I'm short".

I love this sweet characterization: "My boyfriend is homely but amiable..."

Some got carried away:
"She has very attractive leops and noses..." (alien girlfriend!)
"She has brown shoulderless hair" (ouch)

And finally, I feel for the sister:

"I usually surfing internet in the evenings and talking about roommate's sister...."

A Day in the Life of Bryan

2007-04-27T05:47:00.000-07:00

In response to the fast-growing number of pernicious rumors flying about as to my current location and status, I am pleased to present, in multi-media no less, proof positive that I am alive, well, and enjoying life at Myongji University.

Easy to write, you might think to yourself. How do we know that this isn’t really Judy masquerading as her husband, or a very lucky monkey pressing a random concatenation of keys?

Skeptics all! I shall take you through one of my days to prove to you that I am not—repeat not—in some sort of captivity to vile aliens. Quite the reverse! I am a certified card-carrying alien myself, and some of my students could well be complaining that they are in captivity to me, at least for 50 minutes of the day. More on that later.

This being Thursday, Judy starts teaching at 9AM, so we are able to leave together, riding off in our new white Leganza (Note: not an alien spacecraft!) and weaving between moving obstacles—wait, those are students!—before dropping Judy off at the building where we teach,
Hambokgwan. Then Katherine and I drive down to the university entrance where her bus stop is located. This morning we have enough time to indulge in our favorite pastime, buying and drinking a small carton of chocolate milk while waiting for the bus. We talk about the different traffic and buildings that we see before her bus zooms up and whisks her away.

I drive back into the university and park within walking distance of the afore-mentioned Hambokgwan. I have over an hour before my first class, so I stop in at the E-Café to say hi to Jinhee. The E-Café is like a student lounge; it has internet-access computers, a big wall-mount video screen with movies often going, comfortable chairs, a few round tables, and some newspapers and magazines, all carefully tended by Jinhee, who works for our department by running the place. The only rule is that students must use English while they are in this room, and they do. There are a few classes run in this room, one of them by Judy, offered free of charge to the students in order to give them some extra chances to practice their English. As this is midterm season, most of these voluntary classes are quite short of students, who are belatedly realizing that they are indeed going to be held accountable for the knowledge they have been offered.

I help a student with a grammar-based question, chat with Jinhee for a few moments, and then head down to our office. Jisu, one of our office assistants, is there and I chat with her for a while (this would be the Darling Jisu whom Judy has mentioned before.) Then I settle down with my textbook to plan the lesson I will teach to four classes today and another four tomorrow. While the material is the same, the classes are all very different: my first class today is made up of students who work hard but have no sense of humor, the second has a rowdy element who need to be monitored carefully, the third is a wonderful bunch who are quite self-directed, and the fourth love to talk in Korean but need to be encouraged to use English for the activities.

At eleven o’clock I stride into the classroom, setting my books down on the desk and walking up onto the teaching platform, about four inches high and made of a wood on which my shoes make a most satisfactory attention-getting sound. I greet the students while holding a small paper cup of coffee, my favorite baek-oship-won coffee (150 won, worth about 15 cents Canadian). I regale them with the tale of how I bought this coffee and then challenge them to tell the other students at their tables of four what, when and where they last bought something. While they are doing this, which gets them started using English, I take attendance.

Our next activity is a pronunciation session. Today we are focusing on the sound V, which does not exist in the Korean language. Students need to be taught to bite down (very slightly) on their lower lip, and then we practice with some common words. Once they have made the words accurately, we put those words into sentences. Some students are already looking at me expectantly, knowing what I’m going to do next. So as not to disappoint them, I walk up to the chalkboard and write a sentence for them to read.

For the TH sound, I wrote, “The thin thing is over there with those other things.” When we studied F, it was, “Farmer Fred fell four floors but felt fine.” The lesson on R/L featured, “Red lions roar really loudly.” The trick, of course, is to use the sound we are practicing as often as possible. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of a good way to use the V sound in a really concentrated manner, so I’ve compromised with “I think that red violins are really very wonderful,” which uses all four of the sounds in a short space.

I do one such pronunciation seminar for each of the six units we cover each semester, focusing on sounds that English uses but Korean does not. Some of the students know how to make these sounds, others do not, but all of them need practice, and my job is to create an environment where such practice is possible and, as much as possible, enjoyable for the students.

I get the students started on the next task, a talking activity in which they need to discuss hypothetical situations such as “What would you do if you found a lot of money?” or “What would you do if you saw another student cheating on a test?” The skill focus of this unit is giving advice and suggestions, so I put up some example sentences on the chalkboard: “I’d keep the money.” “I’d tell the teacher.” Then, as the students start to talk, I begin to walk. Table by table, I stop and listen and correct and encourage. The single most frustrating part of this job is that I cannot make students learn; they need to do the work themselves.

No two days are ever the same, and this week—being a midterm week—is a challenge. In my first class I have a student who needs to leave after 10 minutes because he is sick, and another who walks in at 11:25, literally halfway through our 50-minute session. After my second, I have two students appealing a mark I gave them in the midterm tests of last week. In my third, a student is about to fall asleep, and I need to allow him to head to the washroom to splash some water on his face.

Lunch! I’ve included a photo of the midday meal offered by our cafeteria. Soup is a staple and so is the rice. Today we have beef for our protein (as opposed to fish, boiled eggs or tofu) and the vegetables have not been soaked in the fiery red pepper paste called gochu-jang.

I have four classes throughout the day and an office hour to keep as well. Usually I have students coming in for mandatory teacher chats, but I didn’t even try to get them organized for this week since my students are in midterm mode. I’ll get them started again next week. As a result, my office hour is unusually quiet and I can get some relaxation in during this time.

5PM is our normal quitting time, but today we have a teachers’ meeting. I have to zip out halfway through to pick up Katherine at her bus stop again, and I get back just as the meeting is wrapping up. I have, however, arranged for this beforehand, so there is no difficulty. As a bonus, I’m able to get all the teachers together for a group shot, no mean feat in and of itself.Left to right are Katherine (not a teacher!), Mirim, Bryan, Jules (standing), Devon (sitting), Pam, Andrew, Matthew (with the tie) and Grace. Judy took the picture for us, which is why she's not in the photo. But then again, you believe SHE hasn't been kidnapped by aliens...

The teachers all head their separate ways; Judy and Katherine and I have some supper at the teacher cafeteria. On the way home, we pick up our laundry from the student dormitory. We do have a washing machine and a drying rack available to us, but with three of us we prefer to pay about $15 a week to have our clothes washed, dried and folded for us. We’re home by 6:30, and now we can relax for the evening. As Judy may have mentioned, we have our boxes, and our little apartment feels like more of a home to all of us. Katherine sings the songs she has been learning at her kindergarten, and Judy reads some of her magazines. The sun is setting on another beautiful day.

(Cue theme music from The Twilight Zone.)

Or…..this has all been an elaborate hoax, filmed with stunt doubles, and I really am being held prisoner in a vat of noxious Jell-O somewhere in orbit around Plenoxia III. Choose for yourself….

Customs, Communication, and Carrying Boxes

2007-04-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

So I am all hyper and excited because I HAVE MY BOXES! Expect plenty of footnotes aka bracketed clarifications (like this) in this entry...

We have been 'negotiating' with Mr. Chang of Molax Shipping for the last two weeks via email and phone. He originally sent us an email saying our sixteen boxes from Canada had arrived (but not where) and we owed money on them (but not how much). In the course of determining this so-crucial information we exchanged various emails, phone calls, proxy phone calls (where we give up on communicating in poor Korean (on my side) and poor English (on his) and ask for the phone to be passed to 'my assistant'. Darling Jisu (no, that's not her name, despite the fact that I append the epithet to every mention of her. Her NAME is Jisu, and she sweetly and cheerfully takes care of all kinds of requests from the eight foreign teachers ranging from 2000 photocopies to translating artsy poetry) was a huge help in that last case.

Upon determining that we owed about two hundred in port fees, gasoline, transport from Pusan to Shingal (a suburb of Yongin!), and various administrative expenses, we were able to send Molax their money by direct deposit, fax the deposit slip Proof of Payment, get back a receipt by fast courier, and take that receipt into Shingal Customs... all on the same day! The Customs Office, amazingly, is about thirty minutes from our place, and we were able to contract (in poor Korean on my side and even less English on theirs) the warehouse roughneck ajusshis (uncles) to forklift our pallet onto a little blue pickup truck and bounce their way back to Myongji with us.

I got to ride with the truck driver, who was somewhat apprehensive about merely following a foreigner in his white Leganza, until I assured him that my husband had been a bus driver back in Canada. Interestingly enough, this produced a much greater impression than my prior announcement that we were English professors - usually the cue for an awed look and the typical breath-suck of respect that such educational status brings! He got us and our boxes home safely and then carted them inside as well (all part of the service, ma'am...)

Of course, I had to open just a few right then and there, and thanks to my meticulous packing list chose the most IMPORTANT ones... like #9, with the SHEETS! Yay, real sheets and pillowcases, at last! And my knife block! (I've been cutting oranges, dicing tomatoes, bisecting bagels, and spreading butter with the same little paring knife for two months now...) And Katherine's books! She's so happy....

(dances around living room singing) I have my boxes, I have my boxes, I have my things....

Lest I seem incredibly shallow, please note that we've been living in a a very 'improv' sort of way for the last, oh, six months or so. Being able to settle in and have a few of the most important tools, craft supplies, household goods, and basic means of living is a very necessary security. And then there's the higher level (on Maslow's pyramid) of sensual and spiritual satisfaction; having my artworks and precious souvenirs and memories around me!

I HAVE MY BOXES!

ElectroJude... Aprez-ortho & Aprez-therapy...

2007-04-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: following entry contains serious silliness, two strangely coloured pictures, depressing dental details, and still 'no comment' from Bryan. On the plus side, it's more information about your TMJs than you'll hopefully ever need, and calorie-free. Dig in!

I am shocked - shocked, I tell you! - at the accusation of 'mundane' in the comments on the last entry. Certainly it's not an adjective that's ever been applied to me prior to this - but then again, I should be thankful my dear friend Ken didn't capitalize it.... (in-joke for the Harry Potter fans out there...)

Despite the striking resemblance, the picture to the left is NOT me, but rather Harry himself, as depicted by Daniel Radcliffe in one of the movie teasers. Me being shocked - literally - is below.

Having belaboured the pun (yeah, yeah, it's another in-joke. This one you'll get later if you have the patience to read on) long enough, let me explain - and, hopefully, justify my earlier mundane recountings of a very unmundane week. ..

I believe I mentioned that I've been attending the dentist's office on a regular basis, namely, on every day off I've had so far this month? He and I have been dealing not only with my much-neglected molars (yes, the Drama of a Root Canal, in four acts so far. I'll spare you the cast listings and the critics' reviews and simply say that at least it cost less to stage it over here in Korea - about one-tenth of what it might have in North America.) but also with my equally neglected TMJs. That's 'tempo-mandibular joints', for those of you not up on your jock terminology, and 'the little ball-and-socket affairs that hold your jaw onto your skull' for those of you who've forgotten your Grade 13 anatomy classes.

Place your fingertips gently on either side of your head, just in front of your ears and a bit back from your cheekbones. Now open your mouth slowly. Feel those bumps push your fingers out? It is to be hoped that they don't, as mine do, seize up like a cranky tractor stuck in a wheel rut about halfway through and then jolt over the rut or spasm sideways... no, apparently they should move with all the grace and ease of one of Reg's miniature engines, smoothly up and down. Oh yes, please feel free to close your mouth again. And appreciate the marvelous design of your jaws as you do.

Anyhow, my rusty TMJs, after being subjected to forcible and intensive effort keeping my jaws open for my won-jang-nim (Honourable Dentist) seventy-five minutes at a time, usually throw a hissy fit and refuse to close properly again. Which means that upon attempting to rise gracefully from the dental chair and thank the considerate staff, I drool incoherently from a dropped jaw and gesture spasmodically at my non-functioning face. My Korean is bad enough without the additional handicap of not being able to touch my back teeth together...

After three separate sessions of emergency jaw massage, my dentist shakes his head. 'Ju-Dee', he says seriously, his eyes blinking through his round wire glasses just over his mask, 'I suggest orthotic therapy.' While I try to process this, wiggling my aching jaws and keeping my tongue away from the bad tooth, he continues. 'I must continue with orthodontic treatment of the first carious premolar. But we cannot facilitate the treatment today. Your tempo-mandibular disorder requires orthotic therapy."

(Note: He always talks like this. Translation: "This tooth has a huge cavity and you're going to need a root canal, but you can't keep your mouth open long enough without discomfort." I rather enjoy the formal language - how often do you get to use 'carious' in normal conversation? - but he's fortunate that I'm a student of arcane words and an amateur latinist! Mind you, I'm fortunate that he rather enjoys explaining what he's doing in minute detail, complete with sketches, X-rays of the tooth in question, and sound effects. I realize it's rather strange to be so fond of someone who causes you so much pain, both in the short and long term, but he really is a sweetheart and we never have difficulty communicating - something to be thankful for in this country. The other day I rushed in with an emergency toothache on the 'carious molar' which has been under treatment and he took twenty minutes, two x-rays, and a discussion session and then refused to charge me anything! I got the ladies at the front desk to accept samchonwon - three bucks - for the x-ray film and then went out and bought the whole office a bag of fresh fruit...)

So I take the address and phone number he gives me and trot off to my office, where Jisu, one of our darling assistants, not only calls up the 'orthotics office' and makes me an appointment, but draws a little map to show us exactly where it is, just down the street. Bryan drops me off that evening and takes Katherine to E-Mart while I'm having my 'therapy session'...

Well! The place looks more like a spa waiting room than a clinic for injured athletes (apparently it caters to a lot of Myongji students and their sports-related ailments), but the head honcho, Dr. Kim, has a nice lot of reassuring skeletal models sitting about his office and can speak about as much English as I can Korean, so we work things out. He is not quite sure how to react to my gentle teasing at first, but gets his own back later (see below). After feeling the rusty clicks of my limping TMJs and asking a few bilingual questions, (yes, I'm a teacher, no, I don't chew gum, I sing on a regular basis, it's been over ten years since my last chiropractic venture, etc. etc.) he informs me that the problem is due to 'overuse'. Straightfaced, I look him in the eye and ask: "Must I diet? Stop eating?" He blinks at me for a second and one can almost see the gears processing, so I go on: "Should I stop talking?" I flutter my lashes innocently, press my lips together, make a 'cut' motion with my hand across my throat, and allow a grin to spread. He gets it. One can see him getting the joke, as his professional stern face, set with the concentration of language issues and the weariness of a long day, begins to melt into an actual smile.

He prescribes some medication, still smiling, and decides to send me for X-rays (real ones, not these wimpy little dental Polaroids) and what he describes as 'electro-therapy'....

I am not reassured when I step into the X-ray room, a dimly-lit box with huge brown files all along one wall, a looming Frankensteinian table, and a metal rack poised against one wall. A giant lens droops from the ceiling on a morbidly white-enameled arm, like a depressed droid from the Star Wars universe. However, the technician who waves me over to the rack and positions my head against it with huge, gentle fingers, is considerably easier on the eyes, being about six foot three with football shoulders and a classically-hewn Korean face (dark brows on a strong forehead, forty-five degree-angle jaw one could crack walnuts on, sculpted lips... yes, well, there wasn't much else in the room to peruse!). He is, ironically, painfully afraid that I might speak to him in English, and gestures all of his instructions to 'turn', 'open my mouth', 'close it', and 'hold still'.

(Another side note: this, too, is still typical. We have seen a pair of young policemen, working in convoy, turn and trot smartly off down the street with veritably panicked faces when a female waegukin (foreigner, foreign) tourist approached them pleadingly with a map, and ourselves have reduced muscular cadets and notable student athletes to quiver-lipped incoherence. Who knew language could be this terrifying?)

After Dr. Kim studies my rather artistic headshots, he sends me up to the fourth floor, clutching a little slip of paper to say I've paid for the undernoted treatments and would the techie please hook me up?

This room really does look like a spa, with heated couches in individual cubicles, soft music playing, low lighting, and a pleasantly non-aggressive floral scent. I'm given no time to savour any of this, however, as a very efficient and iron-fingered young woman whisks me onto one of the couches, probes my jaw, and attaches small octopodal suction cups with tiny electrode fangs inside each one. She lays a white cotton washcloth over my eyes, turns a heat lamp on the lower part of my face, and then turns on the electrotherapy machine. It feels rather like someone poking or tapping insistently on one's cheek with a small dental tool; a throbbing, slightly burning sensation focused quite precisely in one spot - or rather, several spots. The rhythm becomes predictable, like Morse: dash - dash - dash - dash - dash - a tiny pause - then dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot, like a manic miniaturized woodpecker. My fillings begin to tingle and the skin of my cheeks have defined circles that feel like the beginnings of a sunburn, around each of the octopus suckers. However, the couch is not just warm, it's luxuriously hot, and the 'dashes' are rather lulling in their repetition. I have just begun to relax when the machine beeps peremptorily and the throbbing tingle ceases.

My washcloth is whisked away and I am informed by a pleasant tenor voice, 'Laser therapy.' It must be my day for eye candy; the laser technician, while neither as tall or as broad-shouldered as the shy X-ray wrangler, is also a well-sculpted young male. My appreciation is strictly aesthetic, and I am rapidly distracted by the Vaderesque black lens he is pointing at the side of my face. He assures me that this will not hurt and is perfectly safe - at least, so I interpret his tone and body language - but directs me not to look at it. Just to make sure, he sets the cloth back over my eyes. Shucks.

He's right, it doesn't hurt. Nonetheless, after another twenty minutes of this 'light' treatment, I'm a bit light-headed. Between the X-rays, the electrodes, and the laser, I wonder if my head will glow in the dark as I emerge onto the street? Dr Kim comes down to the pharmacy on the first floor (yes, the whole building is a clinic!) to make sure I've picked up my prescription, and feels comfortable enough to tease me about its cost (a whole three dollars, but for a second I believe his claim that it's thirty...). We part smiling, with an agreement that I will come in tomorrow for a second treatment.

I don't glow. At least, not exteriorly. But I'm rested, and relaxed, and my jaws now open another extra inch before that rusty gear decides to seize up with its characteristic click to which I've grown so accustomed. And my tooth has finally stopped hurting, for the first time pretty much all month. Perhaps it's just healing up from the last root extraction, or perhaps the therapy helped in some way as well, but I'm definitely feeling better.

Now, perhaps I can face those two hundred exam papers that need to be collated, marked and recorded this weekend, with equal bravery!

A visit to the dentist - pretty mundane? I guess mundanity is what one makes of it. More on that topic later, as it's one-thirty in the morning here and I must 'to bed' ... love, all!

Update - Monday, April 16 - Exams!

2007-04-15T20:33:00.000-07:00

Just a very quick note in between classes: this is Midterms Week for the English Pod! It's a rainy cold Monday (unfairly, after a beautiful warm and sunny weekend) and our students are, understandably, surly.

We are doing Listening Exams for the first half of the week and Speaking Exams the second. This involves us talking nonstop for Monday and Wednesday (Tuesday being our day off, and filled - no pun intended - with dentist appointments for both of us), and listening to our paired-off students hesitatingly slog through a three-minute 'conversation' in English for Thursday and Friday. Then our weekend will be pretty much solid with - oh joy, oh bliss - marking those exams, recording the marks, and sorting out the classes.

However, I shall be sure to take a brief break to record the 'best' answers for posterity - namely the student howlers that every teacher hopes to find glimmering in the dreck of mangled verbiage, trodden grammar, and mutilated fragments of the glorious English language. Watch this space for such gems as 'my little bother' ... and more!

It was wonderful to get so many comments on the last post (obviously you want MORE PICTURES....) and to see old friends catching up with our mundane doings. You are indeed missed - and when things settle down (rolls eyes) I promise a longer entry. I have also twisted Bryan's arm repeatedly to make his contribution here, but so far nuthin' doin'... I may have to threaten him with cashiering his chocolate milk consumption, or garnishing his paycheck!

Much love, must run and give another exam yet,
Judy

Market Day - At the Shijang with Judy

2007-04-10T00:20:00.000-07:00

It was market day in Yongin - all the adjummas come in with their fresh goods. A bundle of spring onions here, a bowl of harvested barley,there, a gaggle of caged ducklings, bound plants, new vegetables, twisted grass ropes, farm tools, puppies, cut flowers, foot socks, notebooks, bamboo matting...

Above left you see a typical alleyway in the market, where the adjummas have laid out their bits of cardboard or plastic to sit on and spread their wares around them. Above right is a popular snack - boiled bondeggi, or silkworm larvae. They smell like ancient socks, in case you were wondering - musty, cheesy, and crunchy all at the same time.

Left: A traditional hand grindstone. The barley (in this case) is dropped handful by handful into the hole at the top and the wheel rotated by means of the wooden handle jutting up. The ground meal sifts slowly from the sides into the large bowl where the mill is sitting.

Above right: fresh vegetables, or 'namul'. They can be bought in bulk for very good prices here!
Left: a typical kimchi stall, with about thirty or so types of pickled spicy material. I say 'material' because it's just as likely to be pickled crabs or miniature anchovies as it is any sort of vegetable, leaf or root.

Below right: The fishmonger's. Lots to choose from, and all nice and fresh. In some cases, still squirming or flapping in its buckets!

To the left: Obligatory picture of Katherine. I call it "Katherella" (as she's holding a traditional Korean broom and staring wistfully out over the edge of the rocks....)

Enjoy your 'walk' through Yongin's market!

Ya Want More Pictures?

2007-04-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

Ok, ok. No text, just pictures. Well, perhaps just a few explanatory titles if they aren't already self-evident, which really good pictures should be, but of course these aren't because they were taken in haste with a little digital camera under mostly low-light conditions with a fast-moving model (I wonder who that might be?) in almost all cases, so I expect that the titles will be helpful as long as they aren't all as long as this self-referential run-on sentence has turned out to be...

Katherine and Choon-so hamming it up with purple carnations. Too much cuteness!

Kath solo hamming. Almost too much cuteness, especially considering the soft-focus (not a deliberate effect, trust me...) She gets her daily dose of compliments whenever we take her out in public, and they are always the same: "Oooooooh! In-yo... nomu kiawayo....noon arumdawayo....noon-sup yeppoyo!" Which loosely translated means: "Awwwwww! She's a doll....so cute.... what beautiful eyes.... such lovely eyelashes!" Honestly, it never varies.

Antidote to all that cuteness. An artsy self-portrait (taken in the women's washroom, if you must know....) Actually it's rather flattering and you can tell I've dropped five pounds already.

Oh look! A picture with Bryan in it! Here's Kath refusing to give me a kiss after disembarking from her nice yellow daycare shuttlebus. Ah well, it was a great pose and really captures the typical apres-daycare routine....

Wow - a picture WITHOUT Katherine in it! I call it "Classic Band-Aid Solution"... and no, that is NOT our car. Ironically enough, I caught this snap in the parking lot of the Driver's Training Centre...

Tomatoes & 'Red Days'

2007-04-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

While I know that the tomato is technically a fruit, and the small ones ARE called 'cherry' tomatoes, I will never get used to seeing them served as a dessert here.

In the ready-to-eat section at E-Mart, right next to the green salads, they have stocked fruit salads: one little compartment of sliced strawberries, one of grapes, and one of cherry tomatoes. Then there's the mixed fruit salads, which contain any fruit you care to name, plus cherry tomatoes floating around whole in the medley. Mind you, they are very attractive, with their bright red colour and smooth skins - all the appeal of a berry but less costly AND less squishy. One can see a certain rationale behind this.

Today at the teacher's cafeteria they were being offered in small bowls (exactly five to a bowl, counted out meticulously), for 'afters'. Sometimes we get peaches (five segments), pears (ditto), or the little yoghurt drinks (looking like expensive face washes in their little bumpy bottles with the peel-off caps, but today it was tomatoes. I saw a couple of sidelong glances when I hacked each of mine in half with the soup spoon (it was that or chopsticks. Western implements are provided on the blue-moon occasions when 'Western food' is offered at the caf...) and sprinkled salt on them...

By way of interest, I'll give our menus for today and tomorrow, as they are quite typical. Our lovely assistants (Jay-son in our office, Ji-su next door) take turns translating them for the benefit of the few of us who don't read hangeul as fluently (and who wouldn't know what 'Tong-Dae-Mae U-Dang' was even if we did. 'Hot Spicy Frozen Pollack Soup', apparently. Never mind...) It's given exactly as they typed it up for us, so enjoy!

Thursday, April 5

Lunch:
spinach bean-paste pot soup
cereal (rice)
seasoned & simmered chicken
seasoned miyoek seaweed & lemon
beans cooked in soy sauce
kimchi
a currant tomato

Supper:
stir-fried rice and haeisu sauce
clear noodle soup
vegetable, sweet-and-sour pork
roast bun (dumpling)
seasoned pickled radish

Looks good, doesn't it? I was particularly happy to see that nothing was described as 'spicy' today; when a Korean takes the trouble to make a note of it, that generally isn't a good indication for wimpy Northern European palates like mine. (Ok, so the Dutch get excited when they put too much nutmeg on their boiled green beans. So what? Some of us actually are FOND of our tastebuds...) However, I should have taken warning from the 'seasoned', as the primary seasoning which this cafeteria employs, despite their rich Korean culinary heritage, is gochujang.

(For the uninitiated among you, gochujang is red pepper paste, used liberally throughout the country but especially at the Myongji Teacher's Cafeteria in Yongin...) It gets rather disheartening when one stares down at the row of warming pans in the cafeteria to see a solid line of red: the main dish of chicken, pork, 'beef stew', or fish has been soaked in a red pepper sauce - the green vegetables have been shaken with red pepper flakes till they are coated (including, on more than one occasion, the fresh salads and lettuce leaves) - the side dishes are usually kimchi and chigae made with gochujang - and the soup is solidly red with the same substance.

On 'red days' I usually get a bun and a carton of milk at the students' variety store. Ah well, at least I'm losing weight at a consistent rate! I call it "The Gochujang Diet" - simply don't eat anything with red pepper paste in it. However, I have to say that the 'beans cooked in soy sauce' were delicious, and I'm looking forward to the tangsu-yok (sweet-n-sour-pork), which is always good, for supper tonight...

How to Make Gas Station Attendants Laugh

2007-04-02T00:32:00.000-07:00

April 1st: "How to Make Gas Station Attendants Laugh"

- Drive a Hyundai Presto (This is a make of car that has been virtually obsolete in Korea for the last fifteen years. When we used to pull up to the pumps - or worse yet, to a mechanic for some further thing that had gone wrong with the rattletrap - they used to come out and crowd round us and say things like "My GRANDfather used to drive a Presto!" and "Hey, Kyong-bo, get a load of THIS old wreck!" and similar cracks) which is missing its front grille, back bumper, and one side light. This will ensure general hiliarity among the gas pump boys.

- Drive a white Leganza which you have only owned for one week and of which you don't know the location of any of the controls. Flick the right-turn signal on when you meant to activate the windshield wipers. Turn on the rear defrost when you wanted the air conditioner. And, best of all, when asked by the polite young man to 'open your gas tank' (yes, it's got its own little automatic spring switch inside the car!), pull the trunk release lever. Twice.

Trust me, they will fall about giggling. And keep giggling as they take your money, hand you your change, and toss the little courtesy tissue pack through the passenger side window.

------------------------------------------------------------------

On the whole, the Leganza is much more comfortable and equipped with far more amenities than the Presto ever was. Power windows (and an auto driver's side lock so that Katherine can't roll her window down and hang her de-footed socks out of it - or at least not more than once....) are a nice touch. Lots of leg room, believe it or not of such a small car, is another. There is a temperature control system which delivers air to you not in the fixed Western increments of 'Icy Navy', 'Cool Blue', 'Lukewarm Pink' and 'Roaster Red', but by means of digital arrows in .5 of a degree! If you simply must have your car's internal environment at twenty-two AND A HALF degrees, this will make you happy. ( Mom Alkema? Are you jealous yet?) The back seat has a funky little pull-down arm divider which pops open to reveal a nice space for Katherine to put her toys AND a cup rest. The trunk is spacious and came with a set of bagged chains (for those icy Korean winters - not! Koreans are paranoid about snow and put their macho hardware on at the slightest hint of a flake...)

I think my favorite touch, however, is the button marked, ominously, 'Security', with its little red light built in. It's right next to the four-way flasher button, the defrost button, and the 'mysterious symbol' button - and it doesn't DO anything. The light doesn't turn on and the button doesn't depress... which of course means that in dreadful traffic I can stab it repeatedly while chanting "Photon torpedoes away, Captain!" Very satisfying - every car should have one!

Daycare - with pictures!

2007-03-27T06:25:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, March 27 - our regular day off

Apologies to Bennigan's and their club sandwich. I wound up as sick as Bry yesterday and last night. Fortunately (more or less) I spent most of my evening and night being ill, so I didn't have to cancel classes...and I had today to recuperate (more or less). But I'll spare you the details of my miseries; we have pictures to peruse!

We got Kath off to daycare as usual and then ran a number of errands in town during the morning, enjoying our 'new' car and the new freedom it's giving us. Around quarter to twelve we stopped in at the daycare to see the director and drop off our payment for the month. She was quite gracious about allowing us to be 'late' with it next month as well (they prefer to be paid at the beginning of the month rather than at the end, understandably) and was happy to let us sign Katherine up for special supplementary classes that will run for the next two months as well. For an additional hundred thousand won she'll be getting Logic, Art, Math, Music, and Science during the afternoons (that includes the 'textbook' and other supplies, apparently, as well). We hope she'll enjoy it all!

We were able to watch her through the classroom door for several minutes undetected before we stopped in at the director's office, and it was delightful to see her in her environment, interacting with the teacher and with the other children. Her 'songsaengnim' (teacher) noticed us and slipped out to welcome us in, but we indicated that we'd see the director first. What struck me was that while we were talking, Katherine (along with all the other children) looked up and noticed us at the door, and while she smiled happily in recognition, she showed no indication of getting up, running to us, or in any way being discontent with what she was currently doing (studying the names of shapes with the 'English teacher', as it happened!)

After our visit with the director we were invited to come in and see the class settling down to lunch. The songsaengnim moved gracefully around the room with a pot of rice, filling up the little cups in the presented lunch trays, and the children sat happily eating and chattering. Our sweet daughter ran over to us with a big smile, dispensed several hugs, and then resumed her seat with her classmates, picking up her miniature fork. Her friend Choon-so greeted us with equal enthusiasm and had to be asked several times, patiently, to "Anju-seyo!" - please sit down- and go back to her lunch. Katherine, who won't touch rice at home, daintily began to nibble on her rice, a forkful at a time, interspersed with ladylike sips of the clear beef broth - "soup with nothing in it", as she likes to order whenever we eat out. We sat on the floor and looked round, and the director gave us permission to take photos. And, for your enjoyment, here they are!

The corner of the classroom, where they are just sitting down to lunch

Katherine with her lunch tray. She has beef broth, rice, a scrap of pickled vegetable, and a half-a-savory-pancake. Note the adorable rabbit-eared 'joined chopsticks' to her left.

And finally, here she is at the end of the day, with her friend Choon-so, outside the Honeybee Restaurant at Myongji Ipgu, which Choon-so's grandparents own and operate. Aren't they an adorable pair?

Oh, by the way - the other errand we had to run, after we left Katherine happily eating, was to go out to the Yongin Department of Motor Vehicles and exchange our car's license plates. The ones we had actually belong to the used-car lot, and one of the gentlemen from the lot drove down to Yongin today to meet Bry and give him his new, legal plates. There was a bit of a mixup (we wound up waiting at the wrong office) but we did eventually get the new plates - AND Bry got his Korean driver's license, which was due to expire this May, extended for the next two years... without PAYING anything for the privilege! And we met some interesting people, so there's yet again a silver lining to our various clouds.

We hope you appreciated this illustrated installment of "Leaves from the Land of Morning Calm"! If you want more pictures, make sure to leave comments.... :)

xxoo,

Judy

A Monday Vignette: Bubbles

2007-03-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

It isn't a great way to wake up - the light too bright, the shoulder being shaken, the insistent little voice next to my ear in counterpoint with my husband's: "Judy, it's time to get up... "/ "Mama, I'm hungry, make me breakfust!" / "Judy? Judy, wake up..." "I wanna egg! I wan' toast with Cheez Whiz!" The above is generally a signal that I've overslept, which in itself means I didn't get enough sleep during the night.

However - I have a Monday morning nine o'clock class, so I drag myself up and into the shower. The breakfast I throw together for myself and Katherine doesn't sit well on my stomach for some reason. Bry is still not feeling well from his bout with stomach flu and decides to call in sick. And there's a note on our front door from our next-door neighbour, a MJU professor, coolly asking us to 'take in our clothes hanger' out of the 'public space' while acknowledging the fact that we are 'with child' - presumably the logic here is that we can be assumed to need more space. Nonetheless she seems to feel that having to look at our three coats hanging neatly on a foot-wide, meter-and-a-half-tall hatstand (next to our door and not impeding traffic in any way) is detrimental to her well-being in the morning.

Classes, despite this unpromising beginning, go well. We're starting Unit Three (already? The midterm exam is only a couple of weeks away!) and studying Adverbs of Frequency (which are much easier to master than their name would imply). Red, Purple, Blue, and Green class all dutifully hand in their homework, and most of it is of pretty high quality, from a superficial examination.

I stroll back down the hall from a quick visit to the water fountain between my Blue (1 - 2 pm) and my Green (2 - 3) class, and pass the cleaning adjummas. Usually this trio of diminutive, hunched 'aunties' in grey uniform blouses and baggy grey/blue pants scuttle cheerfully from room to room, sweeping, wiping, dumping garbage, and looking busy. At the moment all three of them are sitting on the floor against the second-floor balcony rail with a long piece of bubblewrap over their legs like a futuristic shawl. And they are all happily popping the bubbles.

I stop. I stand in front of them, causing a temporary rift and redirection in the stream of students around me. I slowly start to grin as they look up at me: three wrinkled faces on perma-bend, wattled necks - three pairs of calloused, swollen-knuckled, hard-working hands - three pairs of short legs tucked comfortably into a half-lotus - all sitting there popping bubblewrap like three-year olds. I hunker down in front of them and they grin back. And the four of us pop bubbles together, in a stolen, theraputic, tranquil moment of satisfaction.

Pop.
Pop pop pop.
POP!

You try it.

Tiny Collision, Taking Car, Tossing Cookies - March 26

2007-03-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

The words 'peaceful' and 'weekend' never seem to come into conjunction in our personal experience, and the last two days ran true to form.

Saturday was payday; flush with cash, energy and optimism, we went into Seoul with Katherine and had a fabulous time running round Gosok Bus Terminal. Katherine added another English-language kid's video to her scanty collection (she's currently attempting to memorize 'The Aristocats') and enjoyed picking out a couple of children's books. Along with sundry snacks, chocolate milks, getting to pet the rabbit in the pet section, and lots of Mom-n-Dad time, it made for a great day for her, though a busy one. She and Bryan both fell soundly asleep in the bus on the way home - until we came to an unscheduled and abrupt stop just a few hundred meters before the Yongin exit.

Some little Hyundai had either changed lanes at the last moment or decided to brake sharply - in any event, our bus wasn't quite able to stop fast enough and tapped the car's back end. It wasn't much of a jolt for us, but it must have shaken up the Hyundai's passengers. We weren't able to see much, but it appeared that no one was hurt; there was plenty of handwaving, name cards being exchanged, and cellphone transactions. At one point about halfway through the discussion the passenger just ahead of us, a well-groomed man in an immaculate business suit, pricked up his ears and jogged off the bus to join the exchange - apparently welcomed! Bry and I speculated that he was an accident lawyer... but in any case it was eventually resolved and we were able to proceed. For once the rigid schedule of the highway buses was disrupted (we've seen a driver close his doors almost in an adjumma's face as she came panting up, and pull away from the loading platform because she would have made him thirty seconds behind the hour...) so our schedule was also off by about half-an-hour.

We got our bread for the week at Paris Baguette and then headed up to E-Mart for a big grocery load - so wonderful not to have to skimp and skim but to have some things on hand! As I don't yet have a pantry - we need to buy a shelving system, probably just a bookcase or two, for the kitchen closet - I'm not 'stocking up', but it's nice to have a can of tuna, some mayo and ketchup, some snacks, and so on actually in the house. Katherine wasn't left out here either; she got to watch the fish with Mommy and then pick out a mini toilet seat! (I'm not kidding - she's anxious about sitting on the big toilet because her little bum tends to fall through. This cute padded seat is designed to sit over the adult one and comes on and off easily.) We found a throw blanket in a quiet beige plaid for the amazing price of 5000 won and picked it up to cover the strange assortment of cushions and upholstery on the scavenged armchair.

Sunday... well, Kath woke up with a croupy cough, a grouchy expression, and purple circles under her eyes. "I think she needs a rest, Bry," I pointed out, "some unscheduled time." Bry wanted to go to church, naturally, so I volunteered to stay home with her - fortunately, because my mother phoned and we were able to have a lovely long chat. Not to mention that we got the video system on Skype (though not the sound) running and Mom was able to see me, Katherine, and our apartment via our little laptop's built-in webcam - fun for all of us. Alas, I couldn't hear her due to technical difficulties, but we just stayed on the phone to remedy that. Hopefully she'll be able to get her microphone settings corrected and we'll be able to avoid the long-distance charges between Canada and Korea from now on! Katherine sang the little song she's been learning at daycare: "Sarang-e, sarang-e...." (which means "I love you") and mugged happily for the camera, while I got to show off my decor and my new lamp (see last blogpost).

We had a lovely long leisurely day together until Bryan got home - with a bad case of stomach upset and a new car.

Oh, did I mention that he phoned to warn me that he'd gone to Bennigan's for lunch with our good friend Chung-Soo and that they were going to a used car lot afterwards? So he got home around six, parked our new (ok, old, but you know what I mean - new to us) Daewoo Leganza behind the apartment, staggered into our place and spent the next four hours in close communion with the bathroom. I only got to see it - the car, that is - this morning.

It's white with grey upholstery, a four-door sedan with a nice big trunk, automatic, 69 thou k, 1998 Leganza by the Korean auto manufacturer Daewoo. We paid 4 million but insurance and transfer fees brought that up to about 5.5 - less than six thousand Canadian. More details later, as I have to go to lunch.

Bry, by the way, spent most of the night purging his system and wasn't well enough to go into classes this morning. However, we expect that he'll sleep off most of the weakness and nausea today and be fine tomorrow (which is our day off anyhow). Spare a prayer on behalf of what we suspect is simple but nasty food poisoning (drat that club sandwich at Bennigans!) and I'll keep you updated!

Love from Judy,
see you tomorrow
xxxooo

Enlightened... Judy Makes a Lamp

2007-03-21T19:41:00.000-07:00

Remember a few blog entries back I was listing things I'd like in a care package, and whimsically included 'a lamp'? Well, the price of lamps everywhere seems consistently high. But as our livingroom has all the warm and cheery atmosphere of a dental waiting room at the moment, I have taken steps to remedy that without dropping fifty bucks on a fixture - I've made my own.

While at the big stationery store in the basement of Gosok Bus Terminal the other week, I happened to spot a string of LED mini-lights in the hobbyist section, right next to the flocked trees, train gravel, and log cabin dioramas. The box was 12 thousand for a string of fifty white mini-lights, with funky rectangular slabs of bulbs about the size of Katherine's thumbnail. 'I can do something with those,' I thought, and scooped them up.

Back in Yongin I found some marvelous hanji (handmade mulberry paper. It will feature prominently in these discourses, so remember the word!) in a coarse brown fiber - very strong, textural, see-through, and flexible. If you remember my 'jusi' (banana fiber) baseball cap from the Philippines, that's what this hanji looked like. I bought two sheets: one to lay artistically across the mundane coffee table, and one to make into my lamp.

Then I spent an hour or so outside our house picking out long straight sticks from the bushpile on the hillside and cutting them roughly to size. I selected eight short sticks, about eight or nine inches each and about the thickness of my index finger. It took longer to find the four straight uprights which needed to be just over two feet. I took them all inside and while the glue gun was heating up, I formed a box frame held together temporarily with twist ties. A dab of glue to secure the round sticks against each other, and then a good tight binding with brown sisal twine (that great rough string you use to hold up peavines in the spring, or wrap presents with), letting the cut ends hang down about an inch or two - very artsy and rustic, what with the bark on and all...

The frame looked very much like an old-fashioned box kite on end, with a square base against which the bottoms of the uprights were tucked securely, and a square top with the ends of the uprights protruding about an inch or so. The next and simplest step was to wrap the sheet of hanji around the rectangular body, allowing the base and top to show at both ends.

Then I took one more stick, about ten inches long with a nice bark pattern, and put it directly across the top, centered, gluing and binding it with the sisal again, exactly like a handle. I took the string of lights out and wrapped it in foot-and-a-half-long loops (to fit within the shade of the hanji). Gathering the loops all together at the top (LEDs don't emit any heat to speak of) with another piece of sisal, I tied the bundle to the handle stick in the centre, letting it all hang freely and centred within the square of the lamp. The bottom of the loops were about two inches from the floor.

I let the control box (yeah, since the lightstring was designed as for advertising or Christmas display, it came with a little green box near its plug end which allows it to flicker in eight different settings or pulses) sit freely just outside the frame and plugged the whole thing into a socket behind our newly-scavenged armchair.

It looks great! The roughly textured, see-though hanji sets off the bark and sisal, the lights pulse slowly (on setting number four, that is), and it's illumination and sculpture all in one. Once I dig out the digital camera, I'll take and post a picture so you can see it in situ. Which reminds me that I need to take and post a lot of pictures - particularly Katherine!

Must go eat now as my office hour is over and my lunch hour has begun. Enjoy whatever meal you are going to sit down to!

love,
Judy

Fresher than Fresh Air - March 20

2007-03-20T01:10:00.000-07:00

It was a productive 'day off' today! (WARNING: 'Fresher than Fresh Air - AKA Bryan and Judy's Day Off' contains blow-by-blow mundane descriptions of travel, administrative details, and taxi air fresheners. Feel free to wait for the next blog entry unless you are desperate to keep up with our saga!)

We got an early start with Katherine safely and cheerfully off to daycare at about 9:05 this morning; once she was on her shuttlebus we kept on walking down the hill to one of the main drags through Yongin, Hwy 42. Many of the inter-town busses run along either 42 or 45 (the other main street), so if you know which number goes where - and where they stop - you can get around quite efficiently. We hopped the 6000 to Suwon and spent the next fifty minutes staring out the windows at the ever-increasing conglomerations of Lego-like apartment high-rises which are cutting into the rice paddies and soft contours of the Korean hills.

At Suwon Station we grabbed a cab and waved our passport receipt under the placid cabbie's nose (as we weren't sure how to say "Suwon Immigration Office" in Korean). He nodded cheerfully and shot out into the six lanes of teeming traffic spinning off the roundabout, wisely demurring right-of-way to a bullying bus but insouciantly cutting off fellow taxis and shouldering past smaller cars, to successfully be ejected into a roadway 270 degrees from his original direction. Bry and I visually confirmed it to be the right road, and settled back into our seats (though one can't exactly say we 'relaxed'). Our cabbie dropped us, flashers blinking as he slid into a stop reserved for the bus barrelling in behind him, directly in front of the Immigration Office. We hastily thrust our fee at him and scrambled out of the taxi as the bus blatted its horn in indignation.

Pickup was a considerably simpler, quieter, and less crowded affair than application had been: three minutes wait while a clerk wandered over to the counter where we were waiting, a wave of our passport receipt, and a trade-in for two passports and two precious Alien Registration Cards - our primary identification documents while residing in Korea! We were able to spend the remainder of the morning (about eighty minutes) browsing through the giant E-Mart just down the street from the Immigration Office before heading back to Suwon Station for the anticipated lunch at the Outback.

(I picked up an adorable fuzzy quilt with little bears on it for Katherine's 'bed', some hooks for the kitchen, a spatula, a nice wooden dishrack for only four thousand won, and a few other basics to make the house more livable....if you really want to know! And we had the chicken fingers and salad with Outback bread and a baked potato on the side. Those baked potatoes are worth fifty minutes on the bus alone: the skin earthy and salty, the flesh soft and slightly flaky, the toppings real butter and real sour cream.... I never leave so much as a flake on my plate!)

Bryan had cracked a molar a few months ago - split it completely in half in his gum - and, horrific as that sounds, had been claiming that it wasn't causing him pain - but last night it decided to call in its debts. On close observation it was clear that one side of his face was noticably swollen, and I insisted that we get back to Yongin in time to see a dentist - preferably our 'old dentist' who might still have our records. So.... across the street (six lanes of traffic) via the pedestrian bridge, find the good old 6000 bus, and another hour back home.

"Our" dentists still had their clinic on Main Street - I mean Hwy 42 - and the bus let us off almost in front of their door. Although it seemed that none of the people we remembered were still there, they did still have Bry's records, and were happy to take him in and start treatment on the spot. I did a bit of browsing at the stationery store while he had his X-rays done, then headed back to the university while they put him in the chair for nerve extraction. Yet another taxi. Here I must digress and explain the title of this entry - the inspiration for sitting down to describe our day in such excruciating detail.

Korean taxi drivers, like public transit specialists everywhere, attempt to personalize their relatively impersonal automotive space in very similar ways. While not a patch on the glamour of taxis in Bangkok or Manila, Korean taxis have their own charm - a sort of homely, plaintive feel. One can always tell when one is being conveyed about by a Catholic 'kisanim' (literally, 'Mr. Driver', or 'Driver-sir') as there is usually a rosary draped artistically over the rearview mirror, a Madonna image embedded in 'crystal', or a devotional card taped up. The Buddhist drivers tend towards plastic lotus flowers on the dashboard or monk bracelets in heavy brown wood beads hanging off the mirror. Of course, there are always the secular tokens: the picture of the kids, the hands-free cellphone accessories, the mini-TV, the mini GPS screen, and the air fresheners.

The air fresheners are more than a token in some taxis, between the aroma of the driver's kimchi lunch, the cigarette he had while waiting in line at the taxi stand, and the lingering scents of the last passenger's hair cream, jasmine soap, or burping child. And they are invariably less than discreet. In fact, most look as though they were designed by Barbie and filled by Dr. Frankenstein: bulbous clear globes with ornately metallic caps shaped like cute animals/ dumplings / apples / crowns / cartoon characters, sloshing with scarlet-red, bile-green, or pinesol-yellow fluids. The aromas are equally unsubtle, ranging from 'Freshly Plasticized Strawberry' through 'Slaughtered Pine Forest' and 'Really Lemony Lemon'. But hey, it beats second-hand kimchi and cigarette smoke any day.

Bryan and I met back up at the office, from which he departed to pick up Katherine and eat supper with four of the other teachers at the Honeybee at Myongji Ipgu (see earlier blognotes) while I stayed at the office computer to get a few things organized and write this blog entry! His face feels a bit better already and we hear from Dev that we actually have a health and dental plan that may cover much of the costs for us!

We also got our bank accounts set up just in time for payday next week, and I found a pediatric clinic that will accept Katherine should she fall ill enough to require it, so it was a pretty good day for getting things accomplished, all the way around.

And now I'm signing off, in hopes you were at least marginally entertained and informed. If not, at least my typing speed is getting back up to spec....

Love you, miss you, and hoping to hear from you / see some comments,
Judy

Of Saturday, Shopping, and Supper

2007-03-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a satisfying Saturday, a balance of busy business and peaceful recreation, just as a weekend should have.

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Katherine wakes me at seven, which is an excellent time to wake if one has been an early-to-bedder; it is light outside and one feels rested, but not so late that the morning feels wasted should one have things to do. She is snuggly - a nice change from her independent stand-offishness of late - and full of enthusiasm for the day ahead. Her eyes sparkling, she plants many energetic kisses on me with her soft moist mouth and demands tribute in tickles.

"You're not going to daycare today, darling," I murmur to her as she settles down enough to listen, "today is Saturday and you can spend all day with Mama and Daddy. And we're invited to supper with Auntie Mir..." At which she regains enough energy to bounce up and announce that she wants her breakfast.

We duly break our fast together before waking Bryan up, have our various showers, get dressed, and are ready to walk out the door at quarter to nine, into a cool and cloudless spring morning. As always, Katherine's patient trek all the way down the hill to Myongji Ip-gu (the main gates, about a fifteen-minute hike for her little legs) is rewarded with a mini chocolate milk from the Family Mart there. The lady behind the counter knows us all by now and is delighted when Katherine goes confidently over to the dairy case, selects her ‘choco uyu’, and brings it up to the counter with her ‘obegwon’ coin (about fifty cents) in hand.

Our bus driver, on the other hand, doesn’t even glance at us when we board our randomly-selected 5000 bus at the stop just outside Myongji Ip-gu. It is traditional that the many busses which use MJU’s huge parking lots as a end-of-line rest area and turn-around point don’t charge students for a lift into town (usually just to the Bus Terminal which is about five minutes away by wheel), and we instructors have been graciously included in this tradition. However, this ‘kisanim’ (‘honourable driver’) , despite his age-crinkled brow, seems unfamiliar with the exemption, tapping the fare box with peremptory meaning and grimly-compressed mouth. Then again, as he had been tossing back a packet of Korean medicinal granules – a foul-tasting brownish concoction usually prescribed for any common grippe, ague, or headache - just seconds before we boarded, the brow-crinkling and mouth-compression may have had strictly physical significance…

He lets us, and the other three passengers, all students, off ungraciously just before the terminal, at the main junction in town. I have in mind a number of acquisitions, and I suggest a plan of action for the morning which Bryan accepts nonchalantly. Our first stop is the new Paris Baguette (a bakery chain which makes, among other things, loaves of some of the more passable bread in the country – made with wheat flour and unadulterated with the sweetish corn flavour that many other Korean breads possess, a flavour that only intensifies with toasting, alas!) at the east end of town.

We pass a pet store, some of its stock on display out on the sidewalk, and Katherine is enchanted when the rabbits sniff hopefully at her knuckles through the bars of their cage. She prefers the bright sparkle of the fish, though, having fallen in love with the children’s story “A Fish Out of Water” and been promised an ‘Oscar’ goldfish of her very own at some later date. She looks up at me impishly and paraphrases: “I’ll on’y feed him a liddle. So much an’ no more!” I grin back, in shared recognition; what a treat it is to have already, with my three-year old daughter, that mutual pleasure of a familiar book!

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At the bakery we buy them out of our preferred bread, and head back towards the centre of town, wary as always of the various pedestrian hazards. There are various stumps of concrete serving as parking bollards, rough ends of wires, spikes of rebar, belaying cables, oddly-spaced poles, head-high awnings. There are puddles of invariably orangish-red vomit (stained with the all-purpose ‘gochujang’, red pepper paste/sauce) from over-indulgence in the hofs and bars and norae-bangs (singing rooms or karaoke bars) the night before. Vendors’ displays crowd the space in front of their stores. Piles of cardboard, neatly flattened and tied, sit beside the bagged trash of those same stores. Sullen small trucks, reckless motor scooters, jaunty Kias and Hyundais, bullying buses, all surge along feet away from the edge of the sidewalk. Then there is the condition of the sidewalk itself – usually a blend of erratically buckled interlocking brick and odd strata of concrete, poured by municipality, store owner, street maintenance and helpful pothole vigilante alike without reference to code or zoning. We proceed in our usual fashion: Bryan saunters along watching traffic with one eye and Katherine with the other, Kath alternately lags to investigate something of interest or darts to catch up with the preferred-parent-of-the-minute (Bryan), while I hover like an anxious cat at her shoulder, one paw extended lest she suddenly dart into one of the many hazards aforementioned.

Such strolling, along with a bit of eye-shopping - as Koreans call browsing - combined with the discovery of a new large video rental place where we’re able to set up an account, takes us happily to an early lunch at the single representative of evil Western fast-food in town – McDonalds. Well, authentic evil Western fast-food, that is. There are an unfortunate number of ‘burger stalls’ and Lotterias selling horrible patties (which, I might add, would be lucky to contain anything as healthy as dog food, let alone dog, despite the frequent assertions by disgusted foreigners to the contrary…) and equally horrible fries composed of sweet potato, chipped parsnip, or other less identifiable tubers.

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If I may digress for a moment, this type of ‘cuisine’ is known as “Fusion”, a word which upon encountering anywhere in this country one would be well-advised to avoid diligently. Korean food, love or hate gochujang, is delicious, balanced, and healthy, while Western food, say what you may about the ever-increasing serving sizes (and ignoring the many passing fads such as carb-counting) has the vast culinary traditions of both North America and Europe behind much of it to produce such amazing genres as Italian pasta, French desserts, Southern comfort food, Danish smorgasbord, and so on.

However, as with many cultural fusions, the mixture of the two produces an unfortunate intensification of the worst, not the best, qualities of both. For example: “Donkass”, which is as vulgar-tasting as it sounds, is a pressed-pork piece (I cannot in all conscience describe it more fairly) covered with a thick coating of dried breadcrumbs and deepfried, then served with a sauce composed mainly of third-grade ketchup and hardened sugar. ‘Salad’ at such places is usually finely-chopped green cabbage with shards of purple cabbage, some mugwort or other medicinal herb, stirred through with a dollop of no-name mayonnaise imitation, while their idea of sausage cannot be adequately envisioned in a family-friendly blog …

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That aside, we enjoy our fat-laden treat of hamburger and fries, while Katherine makes tentative friends at the miniature ‘Play Place’ beside us, and wash it down with (so far) guiltless water. The young mother three tables down, whose little girl has been casting wistful glances at the tube slide, sends down a yoghurt drink (which thankfully Katherine has learned to appreciate) with admiring glances at our daughter’s eyelashes. A group of middleschool girls, in maroon unifrocks, delays our exit with similar flattery, practicing their limited English between giggles. If only our college-level students were so uninhibited with the few words and phrases they know, how much actual communication could they not achieve, Bryan and I wonder to each other as we hurry towards the taxi stand.

The early promise of a beautiful day has turned threatening; grayish-blue clouds glower in the west, and above us a high overcast hides the sun. We can afford to smirk, though, for we have gotten a taxi and are hieing our way to the local bastion of culture and readily-available comestibles – E-Mart!

Two large floors of shopping (one groceries, one household goods) plus two floors of parking above that – seems an odd system, but it’s quite workable, connected with two sets of escalators. The first set is outside the cash registers (so one can enter on any floor and depart again with the single item one has needed) while the second is internal (so that one can shop moving freely between floors, and exit once to pay for everything all together). There are lockers large and small for outside packages and bags, nice big grocery carts (and even a few ‘car-style’ carts to entertain toddlers), a packing area well-provided with boxes, twine, and yellow ‘E-Mart’ blazoned tape, a little seating area, a small food court, and even a tiny pet section. Mind you, it doesn’t have a photography studio, a music store, and a short-term daycare like the E-Mart in Suwon, but one can’t demand everything of such a small town as Yongin!

At the end of almost every aisle stands a uniformed clerk with his or her samples of goods, and one could skip lunch and merely browse the offered samples (as Katherine proceeds to do, having left most of her hamburger untouched.) She tries bites of ‘pulgogi’ barbequed beef and bacon, cereal and ‘mandu’ dumplings, cream-filled bread and soy milk. We love the variety of products on the shelves, and do a quick grocery run, but we have a couple of items specifically in mind, and we find them successfully.

Katherine is now the proud owner of a nice set of sneakers which fit her far better than the little slip-ons she must wear at daycare – a necessity given all the walking we have to do together. And we have a fold-up stroller, which will make life easier for everyone (see reason above), especially at five in the afternoon coming home from daycare with a tired child up a steep hill.

Outside E-mart, with a giant bag of bread, two hefty bags of groceries, some bottled water, a packaged stroller, and Katherine, we wait in vain for a passing taxi. The road is busy, and one does not usually have to spend more than five minutes before one rushes by, but this afternoon we wait for ten with no luck. Finally one pulls up but as we are second in line, we are still waiting. As I sit down again with Katherine on my lap, a glistening silver truck pulls up to the stand, the smoked windows roll down, and two familiar faces look out – Chang-so and her mother!

The owner of the Honeybee restaurant (at Myongji Ip-gu, where we often eat), whom we call affectionately “Halmoni” (Grandmother) is driving her brand-new purchase, and her daughter and granddaughter (Chang-so, Katherine’s daycare buddy) are in the front seat with her. “Where are you going?” they ask, and when we gesture up the hill towards Myongji, in the opposite direction from their truck’s nose, they cheerfully wave us into the backseat. Groceries, stroller, water and all, we pile in and Halmoni does an insouciant U-turn in the face of oncoming traffic.

The truck’s back seats still have plastic over them, the arm rests slick with protective tape, the scent of ‘new car’ spicy in our tired noses. All too quickly we are up the hill, pulling into the Faculty Guesthouse’s little parking lot, unloading our booty, effusing our thanks. Halmoni and her family wave our gratitude away cheerfully, Katherine and Chung-so exchange kisses, and we part with smiles.

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I put Katherine down for a nap while I unpack and put things away. Bry must head down to the office so he can use the computer and printer there: yesterday he bumped into an old friend of ours, an erst-while MJU chaplain and current pastor in Suwon, and was invited not only to come to church tomorrow in Suwon, but to preach! So, at Pastor Im’s insistence, we shall be sitting through a Korean church service (though the sermon will at least be half in English. The pastor will translate Bryan’s fifteen-minute message line by line into Hangeul for the benefit of his flock…) rather than with our old acquaintances in Seoul Union Church with whom we were joyfully reunited last Sunday. Ah well, it’s never boring around here!

The peace and quiet lasts till about four, long enough for me to devour a few more of Mir’s books – she has a fairly extensive English library which she’s been lending me a bag at a time – and then do a bit of unstressed tidying up. It is actually a lot easier to keep a small place picked up, IF you do it as you go along and have everyone’s cooperation. I’ve been a bit of a tyrant about it in these first few weeks, but I do want to establish good habits right off the bat: so – Bry hangs his own coat up, Kath picks up her animals when she’s moving to another activity, and so on. I have managed to scavenge an armchair (that’s a story in its own right) AND a discarded but intact-as-to-its-upholstery ottoman, and have made a couple of bright collages for the walls, so the place is looking better every day.

Kath gets to watch her DVD from the rental place (102 Dalmations) on Mama’s new computer after she wakes up, Bry returns safely with message to hand, and we go on up to Mir’s apartment more than ready for food!

And such food it is: she has prepared a lavish Korea feast which must have cost her dear in both time and won, from the opening traditional seaweed and miso soup to the finishing ‘Bae’ pearapple and non-traditional cheesecake. Katherine shows off her chopstick skills with her new ‘children’s chopsticks’, an adorable contraption which looks like a drawing compass with pads, loops, and knobs on, and actually eats bits of the marvelous meal.

Besides the soup and dessert, there are marinated black beans, scallion pancakes, dried seaweed sheets, fresh hot and sticky rice, shredded salt-n-sugar ‘kim’, carrot and celery sticks, barbecued ribs! perilla leaves, gochujang, soy sauce… and even a costly imported Miller Genuine Draft for Bryan (because Korean men like beer with their meal, and Mir is nothing if not perceptive). It is completely delectable, and she encourages us to take seconds and thirds (though since everything is on the table at the same time, the Western idea of a course does not truly apply and one merely keeps eating and refilling the plate until satiated) before putting out the cheesecake and bae slices.

I heartily wish I were not so groggy from an interrupted night, early morning, long day walking, and somnolence-inducing vast meal; I must beg off almost immediately after we finish, and since that is also just past eight in the evening that is also Katherine’s bedtime. She needs it, as she’s gone from lovably cuddling on her favorite ‘Imo’s’ (auntie’s) lap to playing ‘seafood’ (opening her mouth to display chewed but unswallowed morsels, alas!) She is rendered respectable and says her farewells affectionately and audibly before we stumble down the stairs with her and put her down on her quilts with goodnight smooches.

Well, from kisses to kisses: it hasn’t been that bad a day, has it? In fact, the best adjective I could choose to sum up this Saturday would have to be…. “satisfying”. So on that, eminently satisfying note, – to bed!

Care Packages; or; 'Hey Mom, Send Money!"

2007-03-12T19:05:00.000-07:00

Really. Due to a strange concatenation of circumstances - not that there are ever any other kind of concatenations - we are won-less. Despite having money in two North American banks, literal hundreds in traveller's cheques, and our first paystub coming in fifteen days, we cannot buy groceries today.

Under normal conditions, one requires no more than a presigned traveller's cheque and a passport, correct? Not at the bank on campus. No, no: 'if you do not have an account with us we cannot possibly give you so much money...'. "But it's a TRAVELLER'S cheque!" I protest to no avail, "it is the SAME as money!". They refuse to believe this, insularly insecure. 'You must set up an account,' they keep repeating, 'before we can give you money.'

In tones of frustrated patience I explain the following: I need an Alien Resident Card to set up an account - correct? Correct, they assure me. I continue: My Alien Resident Card is currently being processed in Suwon, about a 40 minute bus ride from Yongin. They nod. I do not, I point out with teeth politely clenched, at the moment have even enough money to buy a bus ticket to GET to Suwon to pick up that card. They look at my twice-signed traveller's cheque and confer for a while. Then they make me a counter-offer, beaming benevolently. They will LEND me ninety thousand won - roughly the amount of the hundred US dollars to which the cheque should entitle me. When I get my card I will come back and set up an account with them, yes? And THEN I can cash the cheque. And THEN I can PAY THEM BACK their ninety thousand won loan!

Alas, this sucessfully-concluded transaction took place about ten days ago, so that ninety has been spent. Our Alien Cards will be ready for pick-up on the fifteenth - two days from now. But none of the bank machines on campus, for some reason, are willing to let us access our Canadian accounts (which was our mainstay while shopping in Seoul last weekend! And by the way, we have our own computer now... more on that later...), even with the hefty surcharge - the administration seems to have removed all the Cirrus-capable machines. The upshot is that I don't have three bucks to pay for lunch at the cafeteria today, let alone go grocery shopping (much needed eggs, milk, bread, etc.) and far less run into Seoul for some few creature comforts for the house. Did I mention we are still sleeping on T-shirt pillowcases? And Katherine's daycare wants me to take my turn at sending in 'parched beans' and 'immature anchovies' (as translated by our ever-helpful Korean assistant Jisu) for a 'morning snack' for the students...

Oh, and today was our day off, but we're stranded on campus - no bus or taxi funds. Thankfully Bry paid for the laundry on Friday when he dropped it off, so we will have clean clothes today when he picks them up on his way home from the student laundromat - washed, dried, and folded neatly in a big blue plastic bag. And there was enough food in the house for a healthy breakfast for us all and a packed lunch for Katherine.

Anyhow, enough whining - our fellow teachers won't let us starve. I'm sure Dev or one of the others will spot us a short-term loan, but I'm just very tired of having to ask - yet again. Let's change the subject!

Sooooooooooooooooo - if someone wanted to send us a care package, say of things that weren't readily available here, and was interested in knowing just what items we'd have on our wish list... here's the list:

1 plastic shower curtain (Dollarama) - off-white, aqua, or white, in that order of preference.
1 large-size jar of Cheez Whiz - the one I brought is about half-gone despite hoarding.
Several bags of Ruffles potato chips - Sour Cream and Onion for me, Regular for Bry. If you poke a little hole with a pin, squeeze out excess air, and tape the hole up with scotch tape, you can pack two in the space of one. And they make great padding, even if the chips crush down.
1 large bottle of tar shampoo (in the brown plastic bottle, available at the pharmacy. Double-wrapped because it reeks and a leak would be disastrous! It's expensive but lasts Bry about six months...)
A lamp. No, just kidding. I do long for Canadian Tire, where I could just buy all the pieces and make my own lighting fixture for about ten dollars. Here the cheapest, flimsiest little bedside lamp with a ruffly shade and impractically tiny stem costs thirty thousand won - while something like a standing sconce would be over a hundred thousand (about ninety to a hundred dollars)
Home and decor magazines - something to read in English! Bry treated me to an imported decorator mag at the bookstore in Suwon the other day and it was 12 thousand won... (looks guilty)

Interestingly enough, some of the things I thought wouldn't be available, ARE now. Spices, for example. Cinnamon and garlic powder! Deodorant. Broccoli. Salads! Real lettuce and mache salads, not just chopped cabbage. Ready-to-go food like fried chicken, dumplings, spaghetti. Most of this is due to the new presence of a big shopping chain called E-Mart - which actually bought out Wal-Mart in Korea - now with stores throughout the country. Our E-Mart is walking distance, about five hundred meters from the Myongji front gates, so that is a real treat.

Now, if only I could go grocery shopping.....

Detention Block H, Cell 9128

2007-03-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

We love our classes, but we hate our classroom.

It's a 'neutral' (read 'bland') off-off-white that I suspect the painters put on with a broom - after stirring with a scorched walking stick in an unwashed porridge pot. One wall is taken up by the immense black chalkboard (all right, points for drama) and another by a row of dust-grimed, uninspired sliding windows (but the view is out over the mountains - if only we could see them...). The back wall is completely without interest from corner to corner, the floor is poured concrete, and the wooden dais which runs the length of the chalkboard to give the professors some added height/status echoes like a Greek theatre's thunderbox with the lightest footfall. The only furnishings are eight industrial tables (steel legs, pale greyish-brown fake ashwood top) with four chairs each, a rickety wooden podium which reaches almost to my chin (and would conceal some of the Korean female professors entirely), and a teacher's desk huddling meekly in the corner behind the door. Drab, and an uninspiring environment for intellectual stimulation!

Bry and I are sharing a classroom (and an office, and a schedule. That ensures that we get the same day off... obviously a priority...) turn and turn about. The theory goes as follows: I teach two classes in a row, then he teaches his two while I have one office hour and one lunch hour. Then I'm back in the classroom while he has lunch and office, then I head back home while he teaches his final two, then walks down and picks up Katherine from the daycare shuttlebus at 5:15.

Note that I said theory. In practise, things are rather different. My lovely six-hour 'morning schedule' which was supposed to allow me to get home at three-thirty, tidy, recreate, fix supper, and smile at my dear ones coming through the door at five-thirty has been completely changed. I have an extra class (more on that later) and the regular conversation classes have been moved around so that two days a week I start at 10 and go till 5. Yup, so much for a morning schedule!

As it's working out, we all get up at six-thirty or so and shower, dress, eat breakfast. Then we both walk Katherine down to the shuttlebus which arrives at 9:05 (or on a day when I have a nine o'clock class Bry does it on his own) and then head to the office together. I do assorted maintenance, email, organizing, and paper shuffling when I'm not actually teaching... and then there's the whole free supper thing.

If you are a teacher at MJU, you pay 3500 won (about three or four bucks) for a lunch at the Faculty Cafeteria, but you are entitled to a free supper from 5 - 6. It's usually rice, soup, a couple of spicy vegetables, and fish or other strange protein. So, in the interests of saving both time and money, we have been eating at the cafeteria for our suppers - and there's little point in me walking back to the house for an hour or so then coming back for supper, so I stick around. That means another hour or so hanging out in the office, doing more papershuffling or surfing the net. When Bry finishes his last class, we pick up Katherine together from the shuttlebus stop and haul our tired bodies back up the very long, steep hill from the Myongji gates to the campus centre, then across the campus to the cafeteria.

Katherine thinks it looks like a shark or a tiger, and it is indeed a sleek and attractive piece of modern architecture - alas, the only such on campus. Most of the other buildings are concrete clad in unappealing stucco or off-coloured subway tiles. Case in point - our building, Hanbogwan. Nausea Green ceramic and Fainting Beige Mud stucco covers the exterior. Inside it's grey, off-white, and off-pale-yellow. The design is less than optimal, being a box inside a box-like stucco hole. I'm not kidding: two floors are technically below-ground, getting their sunshine filtered down a 'light well', a sort of moat surrounding three sides. The other side of the building, the back as it happens, overlooks the sloping hillside and actually has a large balcony where students sit, study (and smoke) in sunny weather.

Our office, which we have nicknamed the dungeon, is on the second floor (that's still one floor below ground) on the front side, so our nice big windows look directly into a streaky stucco wall about two meters away! The eight-foot ceilings would relieve some of the oppressive atmosphere, except that the entire room is a puce and grey box: fake travertine pebble floor straight out of a sixties shopping mall, pimply puce walls (that vomitous 'soft' stucco texture that gets sprayed over concrete block to disguise the seams), and three dogfish-grey-blue cubicle dividers. The desks are industrial grey and the office-style chairs are black.... the whole lit with three sets of double fluorescent tubes without light panels over them. All in all, an artistic nightmare and psychologically stultifying even for the less sensitive among us.

However, lest you begin to worry about future work-related traumas, let me assure you that the chairs are at least quite comfortable, the desks are large with a nice set of drawers on one side and a bookcase unit on top, and there are two internet-connected computers with a printer and an English MS Office suite installed. Also, since I have never been one to suffer my environment for long, it already looks a bit better: four foamboard 'bulletin boards' have now been installed over each teacher's desk in warm colours, a soft brown scarf lines the broad marble windowsill, and the bleak 'view' is in part disguised by a beautiful old broken Korean hourglass drum (carved wood) full of dried 'weeds' with dramatic shapes and textures. I've also made several desk organizers out of various snackboxes and scavenged cardboard, covered with paper and broad black tape to disguise the ill-assorted colours and fonts, so my desk is tidy and efficient.

And, most importantly, the office may be drab (though not for long), but our compatriots are not. We're enjoying getting to know everyone, and to pick up our friendship with Dev where we left off. A number of cafeteria meals together, conversations over the shared office hours, and going shopping inevitably starts the bonding process! I promise to let you know about our fellow teachers next time.

Love and hugs,
Judy

Katherine the Trooper

2007-03-06T19:18:00.000-08:00

March 7, 2007

Katherine has been completely amazing through all the various hassles and stresses we've been undergoing in the last week. She's trudged along on her little legs without complaint, uphill (literally) and down, through bitterly cold weather, with her new best friend 'Backpack' on her shoulders; waited for half-an-hour for her shuttlebus to show up, hopped on said bus with her new classmates without tears; gotten through an eight-hour day of shopping and traveling around Seoul; eaten seaweed, fish, beefknuckle, and other strange broths quite cheerfully; trusted assorted strangers with whom Mommy and Daddy have decided to leave her; put up with head-petting, cheek-pinching, and numerous other types of fawning from the adjummas and adjusshis on a daily basis - apparently the eyelashes are a big hit. She keeps getting 'arumdawayo!' (beautiful) and 'kyowaaaaayo!' (so cute) and 'in-yo!' (like a doll) as a steady diet of compliments.

I must say, she's behaved angelically through it all. A few tears here and there, sure, and perhaps just a bit more whining when she wants something - but for a three-year old in a strange country where none of her language ability does her any good, sans most of her toys, all of her books, videos, furniture, and other familiar things, in a new tiny house, her first daycare (in a strange environment, culture, and language), she has shown remarkable flexibility and even grace. We are frequently amazed at the understanding and perception her comments show, and how maturely she expresses herself.

In the morning she hugs me tightly and says, "I don't want to go to daycare, Mama - I want to go to the office with you. Can I come to the classroom?" Note: she understands that we both have to teach, and she refrains from saying that she doesn't like daycare, which she does. But she misses the intensive time that she has had with both parents since she was born. .. At five-fifteen she springs off the little shuttlebus full of energy and bright-eyed, telling us she had fun.

Yesterday she got off with her new friend Choon-so, the three-year old (well, ok, in Korea apparently both Katherine and Choon-so are actually FIVE years old, but anyhow...) whose grandparents run the Honeybee Shik-dang (restaurant) at the Myongji gates. Bryan and I often go there for dinner and Bry has his favorite dosot pibimbap (rice and veggies in a scorchingly hot dish, with an egg cracked on top and some red pepper paste). Choon-so's mom (who with her husband also works at the Honeybee) and I were waiting together, and after lots of hugs and kisses we were all swept into the restaurant together. I assumed we'd just warm up (it is SO cold here this week!) but before I knew it the two girls were sitting at a table together and Halmoni (Choon-so's grandmother) had whisked two little dishes of food in front of them. Child-size servings of hot rice, some fish broth, some hot fried tubu (tofu) and a fried egg each! It was delightful to see the two rosy little faces tucking into it together.

I picked up a little box of bee-shaped pushpins at the market to say 'thanks' but I think I'll need to come up with something fancier, because the Honeybee folk have been marvelous so far.

This morning, for example. It was NOT a good morning. Katherine came home with a four-page 'newsletter' in her bag yesterday which I stuck in my purse to have our office assistant help me with (because of course it was all in Korean). We left the house together, Kath and I, at eight, in a cold wind, and trotted fairly briskly down the hill to catch the shuttlebus (which has been coming at 8:20 - 8:30 am). We sat by the bus stop for thirty minutes in the increasingly bitter cold, and at quarter to nine, in a panic, I ran up with her to the Honeybee (about thirty feet from the bus stop). Choon-so's dad was 'on duty' and welcomed us to sit down in the warmth. I explained, nearly in tears, and in mixed Korean and English, that I had to teach at nine and was afraid Katherine had missed the shuttlebus.

He picked up the phone, dialed the daycare, and informed me gently that the shuttlebus time had been changed and that from now on it would come at nine. "But I have to be in the classroom at nine," I nearly wailed, looking between my chilled child and the clock. He indicated that he would be happy to take her down ten minutes from now and that I should go. Katherine, not oblivious to this exchange, flung herself into my arms in tears - understandably. Here was her dear mother abandoning her to a stranger, instead of her comparatively familiar shuttlebus driver and teacher.... and why couldn't she come to the office with me, please Mama?

I had a brainwave: pulling my business card from my purse, I got him to phone our apartment. In a few quick words I explained to Bryan and asked him to stay on the phone with Katherine so I could make my escape without hysteria (on whose part I did not specify). He cheerfully talked, sang, and told her a story until it was time for the bus to come, and Choon-so's dad patiently took the phone away and let Bry know he was walking her out. When we called the daycare later to check up on some other information, she was apparently just fine - so most of the trauma was on our part!

I came panting and frazzled into my office at two minutes to nine, threw on makeup, grabbed my books, took a deep breath and marched outwardly serenely into my classroom.... only to belatedly realize that on Monday my schedule (like everyone else's this week) had been changed around and I didn't start teaching till eleven.

I am ashamed to say that I said several unladylike words under my breath at this point and, I suspect, swore. It's all rather unclear. Anyhow, it did all get sorted out, I did get to all my classes, the newsletter got translated (I have to buy a birthday gift under 2000 won - two bucks - for two of Katherine's classmates who are having a birthday this month! And we have to bring in 'beans and dried anchovies' - presumably for a class snack! - on the fifteenth.... Don't you love this country?), and I've finally printed out my FINAL REVISED ULTIMATE SCHEDULE which should be valid for the rest of the semester.

Must go, have a class in five minutes. Love you all!

Don't forget, you CAN post comments. Just type in nonsense in the verification bar and keep submitting it and refreshing until the picture shows up!

Judy

Leaf 1, Chapter 3, Volume 7 (March 1, 2007)

2007-02-28T17:36:00.002-08:00

LEAVES FROM THE LAND OF MORNING CALM: Leaf 1, Chapter 3, Volume 7
"Aaaaaaand.... we're here!"

We landed safely in Korea around eight in the evening. Singapore Air does its best to make a very long confinement in small quarters as pleasant as possible: between the twenty or so movies, various TV shows, video games, language learning programs, and other fare available instantly and individually on one's own personal seatback screen, or the ample and TASTY food, the many drink runs, the little snacks (fresh fruit, icecream sandwiches, Mars bars, peanuts, tuna buns, etc.) and amenities packages with socks and toothbrush, hot washcloths, an activity pack for Katherine (not to mention stewardesses who remembered her name and greeted her on every trip down the aisle) .... we were taken care of quite thoroughly. However, it was a long run, and we were pretty tired. Judy managed to forget her coat on the airplane, but the half-hour it took for it to be retrieved and sent up to the Singapore Air office was filled with picking up our many bags and hitting a real washroom.

We bought Katherine her last Mcburger for a while and stole her fries while waiting for the Yongin bus. Another forty minutes of travel, but in seats so generous that Kath and Judy both fell asleep until pulling into Yongin... just as the bus terminal was closing at ten-thirty at night. Bryan nobly slugged bag after bag through the terminal, then found a pay phone AND Dev's number.... and lo, our Head Teacher was awake and had our apartment keys! Commandeering two taxis to get us and our luggage up to the Faculty Guest House was thankfully not difficult, though our kisa-nim shook their heads over the amount of bags.

Home sweet... er... empty home. Glad though we were to see the bed, only a quilt and two pillows (caseless) bedecked it. The immaculate fridge was guiltless of even water (though a lingering kimchi smell spoke to its prior occupants) and the cupboards empty of cutlery and dishes. An octet of bamboo chopsticks lurked shyly in the top drawer, takeout hangul emblazoned across their paper wrappers. Our daughter, pint-sized trouper though she had been for the last forty hours, was beginning to fray at the edges - both hyper and hungry, her body confused by jetlag and enforced inactivity.

Dev took Bry in his car down to the little mart at the main gates and picked up some very basic supplies to get us through till morning, while Judy unpacked. In that female passion to stamp her environment as home, she went through every bag: the clothing into the huge empty closets (no hangers, she noted in passing), the few texts and papers on the coffee table's subshelf, Bry's laptop on the computer desk (hey, we have a computer desk!), the shoes on the hallway/landing outside the door, and even a few decorative touches (she'd packed a couple of square cloths and handkerchiefs - one on the coffee table, one on top of the microwave, a batik over the scarred kitchen table...) Katherine was assuaged with the remnants of the snack bag from home - er, from Canada - a few dinosaur cookies and a cup of applesauce, and settled down to play quite happily with her stuffed animals, which her mother unearthed from her suitcase first.

A quick meal of bread and strawberry jam when the men returned, a couple of t-shirts as pillowcases, the couch turned against the wall and a coat as a bed for Katherine (plus her Nana-pillow, unpacked from Mama's suitcase, and her Micio, the stuffed tiger that Liese made so long ago) ....

In the morning (Wednesday) things looked brighter. As they should at five in the morning. But at least there were now eggs, and bread, and the Cheez Whiz from the suitcase to keep body and soul together, and Katherine occupied. Dev came by at about nine-thirty, and put himself and car at our disposal for the day.

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And since it was a full and adventuresome day, and Bry is waiting for me to finish, I'll have to post more about Wednesday later! Let me just put in a couple of 'spoilers': Katherine was accepted at "Sunrise Daycare", a local Korean facility; she has a new little Korean girlfriend just a month older than she is; we have met old friends at our favorite restaurants; a huge new E-mart has come in on the main street with lots of food choices and options; and my portable harddrive works marvelously. Oh, and Bry is so happy to be eating dosot pibimpap again!

Love to you all - please comment if you read this!

Judy

Leaf 1, Chapter 3, Volume 7 (March 1, 2007)

2007-02-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

Our Apartment Layout

2007-02-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is the apartment as we'd like to have it. It comes 'furnished' with a bed, some chairs and a sofa, a TV, stand, and coffee table. Bookcases and the rest we have to add in.

[link]http://www.alembyc.com/apartment.JPG [/link]

Shaken, Not Stirred - February 24

2007-02-24T16:33:00.000-08:00

People keep asking us: 'so, are you excited yet?'

Who has time to be excited? All I am is stressed. Three months to liquidate eight-tenths of all our personal possessions, ship one tenth, pack and store the remaining tenth, clean, stage, and sell a house, and prepare to emigrate to South Korea. Two nightmarish days of frantic final packing ... if you can call it that. More like triage in an emergency ward. Hold item up for a split second, scream 'Pick, Pass, or Play?' (sorry, in-joke. Usually it was 'Keep, pitch, or take?' or less printable alternatives) and hurl it into one of three piles. Box up each pile. One huge pile to thrift store. One medium pile to storage. Very very small pile to 'take with'. Oh, and don't forget the pile of just plain garbage which turned into a half-trailer load to take to the dump - even after three months of weekly dump runs to empty out the house... One day spent completely on the road, from Oshawa to Toronto and back to Oshawa...then another four hours back to St. Thomas...

WHERE DOES IT ALL COME FROM? The virtues of the simple life have never been more apparent - and tempting...

I am immensely exhausted, but also immensely grateful for the angelically patient and energetic assistance of D & L, good friends who endeared themselves even further by not only spending an entire day (WITH their two-month old baby along) 'packing' with us but actually helping by cleaning out the fridge, running stuff to the thrift store, and taking things they could use 'at the cabin'. D & L, you were bona fide blessings and answers to prayer. So were our long-term friends S & B, who among other generous gifts of time and energy, took our daughter for the day and made up a bed for us to fall into at midnight at the end of it all.

Which reminds me that I also should thank the many people who were doing that praying. Not only our respective parents, and concerned family, but also our church family and my mother's church, have been talking to God about us on a pretty regular basis. I don't think He would have been allowed to forget about us, even if He could... And from providentially perfect weather to paperwork coming in well ahead of schedule, from various functionaries' attitudes being consistently helpful and informative to times and appointments opening up and matching our needs, things have fallen into place far more neatly than we had any right to expect even with better planning and organization than we exhibited.

Excited? Nope. Just weary. But thankful.

Only one more day. We're here at Mom and Dad A's and will be doing the final 'repack' to get all the various pieces of luggage as efficiently loaded as possible tonight. Tomorrow will be, as it should, a day of rest - and then early Monday morning (and I do mean early. We'll be up at three in the morning to be at the airport by 4:30 am....) we'll be off on our long voyage overseas.

Expect the next post to the Alembyc to be the first official 'Leaf' from the Land of Morning Calm - in other words, the next time we write in will be from Korea!

Love,
Judy

Welcome to The Alemblog...er, the Alembyc Blog!

2007-02-17T09:51:00.000-08:00

This is the every-so-often journaling system for Bryan and Judy Alkema. We're looking forward to sending out our new, technologically-advanced version of "Leaves from the Land of Morning Calm" via blog rather than photocopied newsletters; we hope that this new format will also allow you, our readers, to interact with comments and reactions.

It's just over a week before we fly out of Toronto to Incheon, to start a new life - literally - as ESL instructors at Myongi University, Yongin, Korea. We leave behind family and friends, a few stored possessions, our first house, and a lot of memories and emotions. Almost three-quarters of the things we had accumulated in 15 years of marriage are now gone for good - out of our lives as we attempt to embrace the guiding principles of simplicity. It's not easy for a confirmed packrat, particularly when it comes to our books...

But thanks to my Mom, for making it possible for us to ship some of our most prized (is 'unsacrificable' a word?) possessions, such as our journals, photo albums, and homeschooling resources! Thanks to M & L for storing the closet's worth of books we couldn't possibly live without... thanks to Mom and Dad A for the many eat-and-run meals and crash-and-run uses of their guest room - not to mention the loan to help us get back overseas! ... and thanks to those who helped us in so many other ways. You know who you are...

Keep an eye on this spot. Let us know if you like what you read. We hope the Alemblog becomes a dialog!

B&J