At Dong Sang, I have been teaching the 3rd, 5th, and 6th grades. I will be teaching 5th and 6th grades with the whole time I am in Korea (at least until next August), but 3rd grade is a little different. I was told that I would be teaching 3rd graders for September and October, and then in November and December I would switch to 4th graders during the periods previously occupied by 3rd grade class. So, this past week, I had my last 3rd-grade classes. They are so cute, I am going to miss them. For the last class, we gave a listening test, and then taught them the Hokey-Pokey...that pretty much took up the entire class time. Such is the stress of my life...singing and dancing with cute little kids...I know, sounds horrible, right? At the end of one of the classes, when my co teacher told the kids that this was my last day teaching them (because 3rd grade English class was being moved to either a Monday, Thursday or Friday so that I could teach the 4th graders), a few of the girls ran up to me and grabbed my arm and hugged me. Haha. It was so cute! They are so adorable. Later that day when I saw some of them in the hall they did the same thing...haha. I feel a little bad though, I wonder how the other teachers think of me when they see the kids grabbing onto me and hugging me...I hope it doesn't create any negative feelings.
Anyway, so after school, today I was determined to take my bike to the shop. I was telling my co teacher at Dong Sang about my bike issues, and later on during the day she said, 'you know, if you would like, I can come with you to take your bike in - I'm just afraid I won't be able to help much because my English is not very good'...! I was so incredibly excited and thankful to hear her say that! She had graduate school after work, and she offers to come with me to the shop before going to graduate school...even though there was absolutely nothing obliging her to do so in the least. So we went back to my apartment to get my bike and then headed off to the shop (mind you it is about 15 minutes to walk to my house, and then another 20 to get to the shop, so I am also taking her on somewhat of a tiresome errand since I don't think she is used to all of that walking right after school, especially sine my place is up a big hill...). So while we are walking to the shop, I am trying to explain to her what I did to my bike, and realized, hey...this actually isn't so easy to understand...even someone who speaks English fluently might have had a little bit of trouble understanding the explanation of my thought process for..essentially breaking my bike. But we worked it out so she understood the basics - ultimately, the people at the shop didn't need to know WHY my derailleur was no longer on my bike, but I wanted to try and explain because if not I look like even more of an idiot...haha.
Before getting to the shop, I told her that if it was going to take them 1 or 2 weeks to fix the problem, then I can do without having the derailleur fixed, and we can just have them fix the chain (and if the chain was going to take very long, then I could just buy a new chain and do it myself...hopefully...haha). I was thinking it was going to take at least 3 or 4 days. But once we got into the shop and she explained what was going on (and after I had sheepishly taken my derailleur out of my bag to show them that I had so intelligently removed it), I heard the man say "sahm sheep boon", which means 30 minutes...I looked at my co teacher in disbelief, wondering if what I had heard meant the amount of time it would take for them to figure out what was wrong with the bike, or if it indeed meant the amount of time it would take them to fix it. She said that they had told her the latter; the only problem was that I forgot to bring the bolt to secure the derailleur, and since there are soo many different lengths and widths of bolts, they could not find one in the shop that matched the dimensions of the one that I left at home...bah. So they said that they could find something to hold it in place until I brought the original bolt to the shop, and until then, they would fix everything that they could fix without the bolt. The owner actually offered to lend me his bike so I could ride home to get it!!! (I told him that I had to be somewhere at 7p, so I wouldn't be able to walk back to my place and return to the store and still have enough time to meet my friend) I couldn't believe that - he was going to let a foreigner, whom he had only met once before, borrow his seemingly brand-new bike to ride a few km away...unbelievable. But I said I didn't fee comfortable doing that, because the streets/sidewalks of Busan are not the safest in the world, and if I happened to slip on something (there was plenty of construction between my place and the shop) and scratch the bike, especially since it looked so new, I would not be able to forgive myself. So I said I would return the next day with the bolt.
So I thanked my co teacher a thousand times, and headed off to meet my friend to shop for Halloween costumes. We met in the PNU area to do some serious shopping, because there are lots of stores there, many of which are very very cheap. Althoug in this area there are also relatively expensive stores, but they have ver good quality, so we hd the best of both worlds. Or just both worlds, I guess. Anyway, we went through racks like it was our job. And I spent money like I had a company credit card with which I was encouraged to use to buy things of partial necessity. But we won't talk about that much...let's just say I got a lot of great things, all of which were insanely cheap compared to the prices I would have paid in the States (I did need to buy more clothes, though - it wasn't like I was intending on just buying a costume...), and I also got a fantastic costume. At least I think so. I basically bought a bunch of clothes that were all different shades of mismatching orange, and a green knit hat with a big fluffy pom-pom thing on the top. Can you guess what I am going to be? I'll give you a hint: it's a delicious vegetable...
So Wednesday I gave up going to practice (the only one of the week since my coach was still in Bali on Tuesday) to get my bike back ASAP. So I went to the shop after school (and actually my coach met me there because I had something of his that he needed back by Saturday) and picked up my almost-fully functional bike (I had to readjust the quick release levers after riding it for a few minutes because the wheels were not spinning freely, but that was an easy fix). I took out a monkey-load of money, not knowing how expensive it was going to be...and it ended up being around $8!!! I could not believe it - I looked so shocked, and I kind of feel bad because I think the shop owner might have thought that I thought that was expensive...but I didn't want to say, 'wow, that is cheap!' because I didn't know if that would be insulting...so I am just like, seriously? wow...and he goes through the breakdown of the prices...anyway. So I am going to stop by the shop sometime soon and drop off some fruit or something, as a thankyou. It has only bee about 40 hours since I got my bike back and I have already ridden it 4 times, a total of about 2h 20min. Haha. I love having a trainer in my house...
Oh, so briefly...haha - so one of my friends who is also teaching in Busan told us about a t-shirt that one of the kids was wearing in her elementary school. It said: "Shit Happens When You Party Naked." (Hey, an elementary school student was wearing that in school - if that is ok, then I think I can write it in my blog.) Hahahahaha. That is SO amazing. The thing is, most of the time I don't think that they know what their shirts mean when they display saying like that. Kids would probably be suspended in elementary schools here if they had that on their shirts...haha. Ohhh Korea. Amazing.
Tonight is Halloween. I'm so excited to go out and forget about the stupid things that are weighing me down and just have tons of fun. Hopefully I will have some great pictures to post as well. :)
Thursday, October 30, 2008
I Won't Cry Over Spilt Milk, But I Will Throw a Fit (and Feel the Need For Comfort Food) When My Bike Breaks
WARNING: The following paragraph chiefly consists of a somewhat poetic account of my grapples with my bike. So perhaps some of you might want to skip to the next paragraph (which is probably 50 lines down...I got kind of carried away...). So the front derailleur on my bike hasn't been as cooperative as I would have liked in the past few months - even in the States, I think it had its limitations, but I'm sure I messed it up a bit more when I put the bike back together, especially after it had been in the bike box for 2 weeks (poor bike...). I have been toiling with it for the past few weeks, trying to effectively manipulate the limit screws and the angle of the derailleur, etc, but with no significant avail. I mean, the bike was working, but the chain was rubbing against the FD (front derailleur) in about...maybe 8 or 9 gears out of the 18 that I have..not a pretty sound, so I would just try and avoid those gears, thus significantly limiting my ability to fully utilize the bike. So, my affinity for mechanically oriented activities and further desire to triumph over any obstacle that may prevent me from riding my bike in the way it was meant to be ridden finally convinced me to try and fix the problem. So I tried and tried (let me just state that if the limit screws had been labeled this would not have happened - I have faith in my basic-to-moderate bike mechanic abilities) to figure out the intrinsic nature of the FD, but (pathetically) I could not figure it out to the extent that was necessary. Amongst all of this, I somehow managed to cripple the bike even further by annihilating the function of the FD (which is to move the chain from the big chain ring to the small chain ring, assuming the bike only has two chainrings). GREAT. So now I only have the use of the small chain ring, and furthermore, the chain is still rubbing while in 3-4 of the 9 gears which can be utilized by only using the small chainring. I still have not done my riding for the day... So I took a break, got a little frustrated, and decided that I was going to just ride and then try and fix it after. But my curiosity and excitability dominated my desire to ride with a sub-standard drive train, so I tried again to figure it out. After a bit I thought, hey - if I just remove the FD completely, at least I will have the full function of all 9 sprockets in the back, even though I will be limited to only one chainring in the front (those who are not following me, just take my word for it that this is an ingenius idea...at least for my brain in comparison to how it normally functions...I still thought it was pretty clever though...). So I go to take off the FD, and...realized that I had not spacially thought this through...because you cannot remove the FD unless you also remove the chain. Makes sense, because, WHY WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO TAKE OFF THE FD. So I think, fine, I'll remove the chain. I have a masterlink (I think, either that or something close to that), which means that I should be able to remove that link with my hands, rather than having to use a tool to take apart the chain. However, I could not get the masterlink off - I thought it might be stuck. So I decided to use my chain tool to remove the chain. Here, my ingenuity stopped dead in its tracks and starts to rapidly retreat, for I decided to try and take the pin out of the MASTERLINK (for those who are still reading this and don't know what that means, it means this is an idea somewhat equivalent to the following situation: you have 26 t-shirts, 25 of them are white and one of them is brown. You also have a royal-blue marker. Your goal is to draw something of insignificance (the number 5) on one of the shirts and have it come out in a color such that when asked what color the number 5 is, any observer would say "blue[, of course]". But instead of choosing the simplest and most effective method to achieve this goal, you choose the brown shirt, because it had a cute little monkey on the sleeve...basically what I'm trying to say is that choosing the masterlink was a horrifically idiotic thing to do). Since there is no reason why anyone would ever try to use a tool to take the pin out of a master link (for the master link exists for the sole purpose of eliminating the necessity for using a tool to remove the chain), it is only natural that the link would break, thus altering the status of my bike from partially functional (and still acceptable to train with) to 100% dysfunctional. YAY ME. Bring on the tears. Enter comfort food.
You know, its strange. If I get lazy and decide I don't want to ride one day, and thus take a day off which I did not schedule, it doesn't bother me too much. But if I break my bike and cannot ride, its like my world is rapidly falling apart...particularly in Korea where I can't be assured that I will be able to take my bike into a shop and know that they will be able to fix it due to my inability to properly express myself and my (bicycle) deficiencies. It makes sense, obviously, because one scenario involves conscious decision-making and the other involves complete helplessness, but still. Grrrr.
Wow, that took way too long to write. I think sometimes my vocabulary gets more pretentious (which is unintended...is that even possible to be unintendedly pretentious?) when I get frustrated with my bike. I apologize for that... :) ANYWAY. So I legit almost cried Sunday...I did have a few bodily convulsions from internal sobs, and I definitely went out to buy some chocolate and other sugary things to console myself, as well as to make up for the calories that I would not be burning. I hate how that happens...this came at a particularly bad time too becasue I just signed up for IM China two days before this happened, and I was all starting to get into the mindset of training like whoa, and then this happens. Hence the sobbing. I didn't know if it would take two weeks to get this fixed...but actually, although I was scared to go to the shop myself with a lack of proficiency in Korean, this is something that would have forced me to get off my high horse and submit to the feelings of inadequecy and embarrassment.
Anyway, I canceled my Korean lesson on Monday so I could take the bike to the shop - bike/IM stuff = #1 priority (aside from work, of course). But of course, something else came up - which was that horrific bodily paid that I occasionally get in my stomach (the one I got junior year in college which resulted in my off-campus relocation...if anyone remembers that...). It wasn't as bad as in college but it was still bad enough that I couldn't stand up and my tear ducts were filled to the brim (damn, twice in two days, that's plain ridiculous). I was considering going to the hospital, since I didn't have much medicine with me for this problem, but I didn't want to resort to the hospital unless absolutely necessary. I'm not a fan of wasted time, and I consider that wasted time if I am not in a state of emergency (which I nearly was - I was getting feverish and dizzy...haha oh man...). So the teachers took me to the nurse's office where I took some more medicine ( I had taken a bunch of rolaids and some other related medicine in my office once I hit the floor from the pain) and laid down on a bed with a red heat-lamp radiating over my stomach. After about 30 minutes of being in the nurse's office, the pain started to subside, thankfully. But now my whole preperatory mindset for taking my bike to the shop has been extinguished, and for me, the mindset is 85% of the game when there is something of a stressful nature (of any degree) to be done. So I go home, don't take my bike to the shop...ugh.
So Monday I didn't get any exercise in (save 10 minutes of Pilates, but if I don't get in at least 30 minutes then I count it as an off day - actually even under an hour is pretty much an off day, depending on intensity), and with the bike problem compiled with the stomach madness and other personal frustrations, I can safely say that Monday was the worst day I have had yet in Korea. But for the worst day I have had in 2+ months, it still wasn't too bad. Definitely not comparable to some of the bad days that I have had in the States, ha. Actually, Monday I also started to discover my no-bullshit attitude in class (excuse the language, but that word is essential in portraying the actuality of the attitude). We continued with tests for 6th grade at Allak, and my focused-determination attitude of IM combined with my frustration of the day before caused me to unleash the fury. Or at least as close as I have come to that in class. So at the beginning of class, my co teacher and I would go through the flashcards that we were going to use for the speaking tests so that the kids could practice one last time, and so that we could give all of them a chance to get 100%. But when my turn came to go over what I would be testing, I gave very little mercy. Normally I would shush them and maybe wait a minute until they quieted down. But this time I got up there, said, OK - gave them a few seconds, and when they didn't shush up, I just continued to speak. I said, "when you come to me, I will ask you, 'How was your vacation?' And you will answer, 'it was good', it was great,' 'it was so-so', 'it was fun,' 'it was not fun.' You can say anything. BUT YOU MUST SAY SOMETHING. IF YOU DO NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION CORRECTLY, I WILL GIVE YOU A ZERO. (The kids start to hush up a bit now but still are kind of noisy) So, I will ask you, 'How was your vacation?' And you will say...(pause for kids to give response)." About maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the class were responding at first, and then I repeated it one more time, emphasizing that I would 'take points off' if they did not answer that question correctly. There were still some kids who did not hear what I was saying because they were talking, but I told them I would take points off twice, and I had them practice the answers to that question three times, so I don't feel bad at all. When they came to see me, if they did not know what to say in response to that question (which, all they really have to do is understand what I am asking, because they all know how to say "good" - I would have accepted that, even though it was not in a full sentence), then I would usually give them the answer in Korean - like say "it was fun" in Korean, for them, and then say, 'say that in English'...which most of them did not do...so I gave them a disappointed face (with a smile but still I made my point) and took off points. Take that noisy 6th graders. Just kidding. But seriously, I will not waste time out of the 40 minutes that I have with each class every week to hush them up anymore. I feel that I am fair, and in order to be fair, I cannot let them waste time in English class yelling and screaming and talking to their friends in Korean. That would not be fair to them for me to let them do that, and sacrifice the time they have to learn English with me as well as the money that their school pays me to teach them. Sorry. Game over. Time to learn.
Hmmm...so there is more to tell about school Tuesday with my last classes for 3rd grade for this semester, as well as my adventure bringing my bike to the shop...but I have to jump on the trainer before bed. So I will continue tomorrow... :)
You know, its strange. If I get lazy and decide I don't want to ride one day, and thus take a day off which I did not schedule, it doesn't bother me too much. But if I break my bike and cannot ride, its like my world is rapidly falling apart...particularly in Korea where I can't be assured that I will be able to take my bike into a shop and know that they will be able to fix it due to my inability to properly express myself and my (bicycle) deficiencies. It makes sense, obviously, because one scenario involves conscious decision-making and the other involves complete helplessness, but still. Grrrr.
Wow, that took way too long to write. I think sometimes my vocabulary gets more pretentious (which is unintended...is that even possible to be unintendedly pretentious?) when I get frustrated with my bike. I apologize for that... :) ANYWAY. So I legit almost cried Sunday...I did have a few bodily convulsions from internal sobs, and I definitely went out to buy some chocolate and other sugary things to console myself, as well as to make up for the calories that I would not be burning. I hate how that happens...this came at a particularly bad time too becasue I just signed up for IM China two days before this happened, and I was all starting to get into the mindset of training like whoa, and then this happens. Hence the sobbing. I didn't know if it would take two weeks to get this fixed...but actually, although I was scared to go to the shop myself with a lack of proficiency in Korean, this is something that would have forced me to get off my high horse and submit to the feelings of inadequecy and embarrassment.
Anyway, I canceled my Korean lesson on Monday so I could take the bike to the shop - bike/IM stuff = #1 priority (aside from work, of course). But of course, something else came up - which was that horrific bodily paid that I occasionally get in my stomach (the one I got junior year in college which resulted in my off-campus relocation...if anyone remembers that...). It wasn't as bad as in college but it was still bad enough that I couldn't stand up and my tear ducts were filled to the brim (damn, twice in two days, that's plain ridiculous). I was considering going to the hospital, since I didn't have much medicine with me for this problem, but I didn't want to resort to the hospital unless absolutely necessary. I'm not a fan of wasted time, and I consider that wasted time if I am not in a state of emergency (which I nearly was - I was getting feverish and dizzy...haha oh man...). So the teachers took me to the nurse's office where I took some more medicine ( I had taken a bunch of rolaids and some other related medicine in my office once I hit the floor from the pain) and laid down on a bed with a red heat-lamp radiating over my stomach. After about 30 minutes of being in the nurse's office, the pain started to subside, thankfully. But now my whole preperatory mindset for taking my bike to the shop has been extinguished, and for me, the mindset is 85% of the game when there is something of a stressful nature (of any degree) to be done. So I go home, don't take my bike to the shop...ugh.
So Monday I didn't get any exercise in (save 10 minutes of Pilates, but if I don't get in at least 30 minutes then I count it as an off day - actually even under an hour is pretty much an off day, depending on intensity), and with the bike problem compiled with the stomach madness and other personal frustrations, I can safely say that Monday was the worst day I have had yet in Korea. But for the worst day I have had in 2+ months, it still wasn't too bad. Definitely not comparable to some of the bad days that I have had in the States, ha. Actually, Monday I also started to discover my no-bullshit attitude in class (excuse the language, but that word is essential in portraying the actuality of the attitude). We continued with tests for 6th grade at Allak, and my focused-determination attitude of IM combined with my frustration of the day before caused me to unleash the fury. Or at least as close as I have come to that in class. So at the beginning of class, my co teacher and I would go through the flashcards that we were going to use for the speaking tests so that the kids could practice one last time, and so that we could give all of them a chance to get 100%. But when my turn came to go over what I would be testing, I gave very little mercy. Normally I would shush them and maybe wait a minute until they quieted down. But this time I got up there, said, OK - gave them a few seconds, and when they didn't shush up, I just continued to speak. I said, "when you come to me, I will ask you, 'How was your vacation?' And you will answer, 'it was good', it was great,' 'it was so-so', 'it was fun,' 'it was not fun.' You can say anything. BUT YOU MUST SAY SOMETHING. IF YOU DO NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION CORRECTLY, I WILL GIVE YOU A ZERO. (The kids start to hush up a bit now but still are kind of noisy) So, I will ask you, 'How was your vacation?' And you will say...(pause for kids to give response)." About maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the class were responding at first, and then I repeated it one more time, emphasizing that I would 'take points off' if they did not answer that question correctly. There were still some kids who did not hear what I was saying because they were talking, but I told them I would take points off twice, and I had them practice the answers to that question three times, so I don't feel bad at all. When they came to see me, if they did not know what to say in response to that question (which, all they really have to do is understand what I am asking, because they all know how to say "good" - I would have accepted that, even though it was not in a full sentence), then I would usually give them the answer in Korean - like say "it was fun" in Korean, for them, and then say, 'say that in English'...which most of them did not do...so I gave them a disappointed face (with a smile but still I made my point) and took off points. Take that noisy 6th graders. Just kidding. But seriously, I will not waste time out of the 40 minutes that I have with each class every week to hush them up anymore. I feel that I am fair, and in order to be fair, I cannot let them waste time in English class yelling and screaming and talking to their friends in Korean. That would not be fair to them for me to let them do that, and sacrifice the time they have to learn English with me as well as the money that their school pays me to teach them. Sorry. Game over. Time to learn.
Hmmm...so there is more to tell about school Tuesday with my last classes for 3rd grade for this semester, as well as my adventure bringing my bike to the shop...but I have to jump on the trainer before bed. So I will continue tomorrow... :)
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Crazy Shenanigans; IM CHINA; Adventurous Weekend
I think Thursday was one of the first relatively boring days I have had here. We were supposed ot have our fall picnic day at Allak, which was supposed to consist of us going to Haeundae to ...look around? Yea, I think look around and not have class were the objectives of that trip. Sounds good to me! But it was raining...so we didn't go :( So I did nothing. And I legitimately almost succeeded in accomplishing nothing. I think I made some revisions on my syllabus for the teacher's class on Friday, and maybe attempted to study Korean, but that hasn't been working - I need a library, or better yet, a better textbook. But enough complaining. I did catch some sweet sleep Thursday night though, much needed. So it was productive in some sense.
Friday was actually a fantastic day. I gave speaking tests for 4 periods, which was nice because I got to talk to all of the kids individually, which I haven't yet done at Allak. I get to continue this on Monday because we have the rest of the 6th graders on Monday, so that will be fun. The speaking tests were in my room, which is adjacent to the room in which I teach the 6th graders (my co-teacher's room). So two kids would come in my room, one would have a speaking test for lesson 11 with my co-teacher, and another would have a test with me on chapter 9. The rest of the students were in the other room "doing worksheets". In addition to this being a very fun (yet tiring) day, I also discovered that I feel much more powerful in my room than in my co-teachers' rooms (which makes sense). Sometimes there would like maybe 6 kids in the room (when there wasn't supposed to be but I didn't say anything unless they were being obnoxious), and at times some of the kids were pushing each other and hitting each other, and I FREAKED OUT. Well, not really, but I stopped giving my test, looked over with a stone-cold glare, and yelled "HEY - NO" really loudly in an I-mean-business voice. If they didn't listen I got up and started to walk over in my I-mean-business walk, and they scattered out. If they didn't stop I kicked them out. But it was weird - in the other classes, I don't feel quite comfortable doing that. I'm sure its because I am teaching in another teacher's room, and while I am co teaching with them, they have certain rules which they have enforced for a while before I got there, and also things happen which they allow that I might not think are appropriate. So I try to stay out of things in their rooms. But when it was my room, I felt infused with the power and not at all afraid to use it. I would feel 100% completely comfortable picking up a child and placing him or her in the hallway if they were hitting another child in my room and didn't listen to me when I said stop. And if I told them to do pushups while in my room and they didn't, I would make sure they did what I said or else give consequences...while in other rooms if the teachers ask me to have them do pushups and the kids don't do it I kind of just sit there lamely and say...huh...ok...well...maybe if I just keep saying 'get down' they will eventually do it... so yea. I tapped into my power source Friday. I'm sure I won't be using it all that often, but now that I know it is there I think I might be able to utilize it more efficiently in the other classrooms, to a more mild extent, if necessary.
After school, I was chilling in my office not doing Korean (rawr) and some 6th grade boys came in to say hello. At this moment I had actually just gotten a message from S and I wanted to speak Korean to him so I had the boys come in to help me...haha... So anyway. They helped me a bit, I talked to them in English, and then things started getting a little rowdy...they were wrestling, jumping on my couch...which at first, OK - but then I am thinking, naw, I don't want one of the kids to get hurt and then have to deal with it. So I tell them to stop. But they are 6th grade boys, so once I turn back around they start again. Next time I turn around, one of the boys is on the floor with his pants down...(his underwear was on, thank goodness!)...hahahaha - I just think that it is funny that that is what 6th grade boys do - tackle each other and try and pull their pants down. Hahahaha. And they were tickling him, I think. Well, he was laughing. Anyway. I separated them after that and made sure they understood 'keep the pants on'. So I go back to talking to my friend, they are being noisy, whatever. I turn around again a few minutes later and another one of the boys is now on the ground. It looks like he is being strangled because his face is all red, but I think what was happening was that he was holding his breath, because a few of the other boys had taken off his shoe and put it over his airholes!!!! (aka nose and mouth...hahaha) Oh man. When I saw that, I said, 'hey, no no no no!"...however, this was all amidst uncontrollable laughter (not like I-can't-breathe laughter but laughter that I couldn't stop because it was so ridiculously funny - I'm a bad teacher...) so they of course didn't stop...oh man...I am laughing now just reenacting the scene...hahahahaha. Wow. I love it. They are fun boys, but I'm glad they left soon after that. I might have had to kick them out just because I don't know how to handle situations like that and not burst out laughing...haha.
Also on Friday... I FINALLY SIGNED UP FOR IRONMAN CHINA!! I had been wanting to do that for a long time. Last year when I registered for IM Wisconsin, I had to pay with check or debit card, so I figured the same to be true for China. But since I was a little frustrated that I wasn't able to yet register (because I didn't have sufficient funds in my American debit account because I still wasn't able to transfer money), I decided to go online and see if I could register from my Korean debit card. That ended up not being an option, but I WAS able to pay with a credit card!!! So now I am officially doing IM China!!!! I am soooo excited. And now I have something to dedicate myself to, something tangible. I feel so much more focused and more content, and am psyched to start working on getting my times down to try and qualify for IM World Championships in Hawaii :)
Friday night was great too - I went out with my friends again, which was really really fun. I really like the group of people with whom I stayed in contact with from Orientation in Seoul. They are really cool people, and the people with whom they hang out are awesome too, so even amidst my lack of having time to meet the cool Americans/Canadians etc in Busan, I get to meet them through the few awesome friends I do have. Yay. The only bummer about that night was that my teammate and his friends were supposed to meet us and ended up not being able to at the last minute, which was very sad - we were all excited to have them come :( But he said that they want to reschedule soon so I'm looking forward to that :)
Saturday - haha. So we did our first ride over 36 miles...about 63 this time, just over 100km. It actually probably wouldn't have been over 100km if we hadn't gotten kind of lost... Ok, well to start off the day, we left from Nurimaru (where we run and swim on Sundays) instead of the usual Songjeong Beach, so that we could add in the extra kilometers. And in between Nurimaru and Songjeong Beach there are some decent hills - I'm not sure if it could be classified as a mountain...but it kind of looks like one once you have passed over it...anyway, hills much bigger and steeper than we are used to, so that was great :). After 50 km, we had some lunch - one of my favorites - sachonjjajang - mmmmm - and then headed back (it was me, S, and another guy J who just started training with us recently - he had been training with the team before but he got injured so he was out for a bit, and now he is back to run and bike with us :) ). S had said that we were going to take another way back, and I was thinking maybe to avoid the somewhat big hills that we rode on the way there (because he made the comment soomewhat soon after finishing the hills), but alas, the other route we took not only had a huge mother hill (that term (mother), for people who are not familiar with it, means 'oh my gaaaaad that's big - it is in no way meant to be offensive to the female parental unit, rather maybe it could be seen as a compliment - larger than life...authority...? I don't know...moral of the story, mothers, please don't take offense :) ) instead of two relatively big ones, but it was also on a very main road...haha. At least I can comfort myself with the fact that I am riding with other triathletes who have experience riding in Korea so they know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable (at least more so than I would), so I didn't worry about it being dangerous. It was a b**** to climb though. You would see pretty far ahead in the road, but there were some turns occasionally, and at least three different points, the road turned and you just saw at least another 400 more meters of climbing and then another turn in the distance...not knowing what the future held...it was actually kind of invigorating. I know I said it was a bad word, but I use that word with love. You can love and embrace the pain (as most of us triathletes do), but let's face it - pain is still pain. So yeah, that was that. About 5 minutes later I got a flat - staple in the tire - and we were already running late because of taking a long time for lunch and departing a little late (we were running late for swim practice, not just for getting in back in time for general...life...), so I felt especially bad when I fumbled a little bit trying to get the new tube in (which should NOT have happened because I change my tire at least twice a week to switch from my trainer-back-tire to my outdoor-back-tire - although I don't change the tube there but still), and I also fumbled a bit with my CO2 cartridge - more understandable since I haven't had to use one of those for months and my adapter was not in the correct position for maximum air slow/transfer (am I losing people? sorry...). Also, I'm not going to lie I was hoping to impress S and J with my tire-changing skills and efficiency as well as my CO2 skills, but I kind of failed there. Bummer. Although it probably only still took about 6 minutes, which isn't that bad. ANYWAY.
So now we are definitely running late. J isn't coming to swim practice because he and swimming don't really get along. So he leaves us soon after, and S is saying we are going to take a faster road because we are late. However, we ended up on a street going against traffic (on a main road...like main like no shoulder and Korean taxi drivers and buses...), and a street which by some stroke of fate did not have any crosswalks anywhere in sight (which is hardly the case in Busan). So...haha...we are riding up on the sidewalks (and occasionally back on the streets when the sidewalk spits us onto the street if we couldn't get back up because of a big lip or people walking 5 abreast blocking the entry to the sidewalk) for a bit, and then finally come to a crosswalk. We then crossed the street...but we still had to make about 5 more maneuvers - maneuvers which...let's just say at times I was legitimately pretending that I was invisible because I felt like drivers were going to throw things at me. But lots of sidewalk riding..anyone who is a cyclist reading this, it was pretty much like an alley cat race (I think - at least from what I have heard about alley cat racing). I'm just hoping my tire is going to hold up, because I didn't get all of the CO2 into my tire because of my poor adapter-usage performance and we were riding over chunks of unevenness every 30 seconds at points. Basically...it was an AMAZING ride.
Anyway, suffice(s) to say that we got to swim practice a little late, although not too bad because we always start a little late. And swimming today was longer than normal, and I was tired from having ridden 50% more than we usually ride on Saturdays (although I was the one who suggested the additional mileage - I don't regret it but I'm just being honest that I was tired...haha) and we were booking it through the streets (and sidewalks) of Haeundae for the last 10-15 minutes, so yea, I was a bit tired. Although, strangely...my sprints today were a good 2 seconds faster than previous days...!!! I was super pumped about that. But then we did some drills with the dolphin kick AKA the devil (at least for me - I am so horribly bad at it -I tried to explain to S that I didn't know how to do it and he was basically just like, yea, mmhmm, just do it (he didn't say that, haha) - but then I was like - can I maybe practice it before I do the drills? Seriously, let me show you what I am doing to prove to you that I have problems. So he laughed, and he showed me how to do it. I tried again, and he was like...yea, maybe you practice...hahaha. So I had him show me one more time and then I actually got it down after a few minutes, which I was super proud of, because this kick has been killing me for the past 2 months whenever we have to do it in practice - I look like a class A fool. Or at least, I used to :) So I got that down - but it is still hard - we did the dolphin kick (the butterfly kick) with the crawl stroke, syncronized so that one kick was simultaneous with one arm going into the water, and the next kick simultaneous with that arm pull, and then the other arm, etc. By the time that I got it down and had done 3 out of my 10 assigned drills for that kick, it was time to leave...haha. Oops.
Today, we did our usual ocean swim. The water was like 6-10degrees cooler(Fahrenheit) than last week (by the way, I think that dude that came up with that system of measurement for temperature has one of the hardest-to-spell last names I have ever encountered...I don't think I have ever spelled his name right on the first try, and if I have it was luck...). I'm glad I brought my wetsuit! And, also - this was the most intense ocean water swim I have ever done. It was leashing out the fury like giving candy to trick-or-treaters (if you live in a populated neighborhood). I legit got taken at least a foot off course by a wave at least twice, and my cap almost came off twice (once I had to stop to put it back on because it was basically a goner) as well as my goggles. And this is while I was swimming, not diving into the water with any notable acceleration or anything. Multiple times my stroke was interrupted by a big wave which overtook my momentum (which was actually pretty powerful today, I was really getting into a 'damn-you-ocean' rhythm and was modifying my breathing well for those frequent occasions where I went to breathe and there was a huge mother-wave there (sorry for the repeated usage but it is justified for this weekend's activities) displacing the air which I was hoping to use to supply my body with oxygen. But I adapted pretty well, I think, without sacrificing my rhythm much at all. Oh the skills you acquire during training sessions like these. In all seriousness, they are extremely useful, and you can only really learn them in such situations which at the time make you want to get out and call it a day.
Wow, my butt hurts from writing this blog. Maybe I should shower? I still have ocean on me. Yea, sounds like a plan.
Friday was actually a fantastic day. I gave speaking tests for 4 periods, which was nice because I got to talk to all of the kids individually, which I haven't yet done at Allak. I get to continue this on Monday because we have the rest of the 6th graders on Monday, so that will be fun. The speaking tests were in my room, which is adjacent to the room in which I teach the 6th graders (my co-teacher's room). So two kids would come in my room, one would have a speaking test for lesson 11 with my co-teacher, and another would have a test with me on chapter 9. The rest of the students were in the other room "doing worksheets". In addition to this being a very fun (yet tiring) day, I also discovered that I feel much more powerful in my room than in my co-teachers' rooms (which makes sense). Sometimes there would like maybe 6 kids in the room (when there wasn't supposed to be but I didn't say anything unless they were being obnoxious), and at times some of the kids were pushing each other and hitting each other, and I FREAKED OUT. Well, not really, but I stopped giving my test, looked over with a stone-cold glare, and yelled "HEY - NO" really loudly in an I-mean-business voice. If they didn't listen I got up and started to walk over in my I-mean-business walk, and they scattered out. If they didn't stop I kicked them out. But it was weird - in the other classes, I don't feel quite comfortable doing that. I'm sure its because I am teaching in another teacher's room, and while I am co teaching with them, they have certain rules which they have enforced for a while before I got there, and also things happen which they allow that I might not think are appropriate. So I try to stay out of things in their rooms. But when it was my room, I felt infused with the power and not at all afraid to use it. I would feel 100% completely comfortable picking up a child and placing him or her in the hallway if they were hitting another child in my room and didn't listen to me when I said stop. And if I told them to do pushups while in my room and they didn't, I would make sure they did what I said or else give consequences...while in other rooms if the teachers ask me to have them do pushups and the kids don't do it I kind of just sit there lamely and say...huh...ok...well...maybe if I just keep saying 'get down' they will eventually do it... so yea. I tapped into my power source Friday. I'm sure I won't be using it all that often, but now that I know it is there I think I might be able to utilize it more efficiently in the other classrooms, to a more mild extent, if necessary.
After school, I was chilling in my office not doing Korean (rawr) and some 6th grade boys came in to say hello. At this moment I had actually just gotten a message from S and I wanted to speak Korean to him so I had the boys come in to help me...haha... So anyway. They helped me a bit, I talked to them in English, and then things started getting a little rowdy...they were wrestling, jumping on my couch...which at first, OK - but then I am thinking, naw, I don't want one of the kids to get hurt and then have to deal with it. So I tell them to stop. But they are 6th grade boys, so once I turn back around they start again. Next time I turn around, one of the boys is on the floor with his pants down...(his underwear was on, thank goodness!)...hahahaha - I just think that it is funny that that is what 6th grade boys do - tackle each other and try and pull their pants down. Hahahaha. And they were tickling him, I think. Well, he was laughing. Anyway. I separated them after that and made sure they understood 'keep the pants on'. So I go back to talking to my friend, they are being noisy, whatever. I turn around again a few minutes later and another one of the boys is now on the ground. It looks like he is being strangled because his face is all red, but I think what was happening was that he was holding his breath, because a few of the other boys had taken off his shoe and put it over his airholes!!!! (aka nose and mouth...hahaha) Oh man. When I saw that, I said, 'hey, no no no no!"...however, this was all amidst uncontrollable laughter (not like I-can't-breathe laughter but laughter that I couldn't stop because it was so ridiculously funny - I'm a bad teacher...) so they of course didn't stop...oh man...I am laughing now just reenacting the scene...hahahahaha. Wow. I love it. They are fun boys, but I'm glad they left soon after that. I might have had to kick them out just because I don't know how to handle situations like that and not burst out laughing...haha.
Also on Friday... I FINALLY SIGNED UP FOR IRONMAN CHINA!! I had been wanting to do that for a long time. Last year when I registered for IM Wisconsin, I had to pay with check or debit card, so I figured the same to be true for China. But since I was a little frustrated that I wasn't able to yet register (because I didn't have sufficient funds in my American debit account because I still wasn't able to transfer money), I decided to go online and see if I could register from my Korean debit card. That ended up not being an option, but I WAS able to pay with a credit card!!! So now I am officially doing IM China!!!! I am soooo excited. And now I have something to dedicate myself to, something tangible. I feel so much more focused and more content, and am psyched to start working on getting my times down to try and qualify for IM World Championships in Hawaii :)
Friday night was great too - I went out with my friends again, which was really really fun. I really like the group of people with whom I stayed in contact with from Orientation in Seoul. They are really cool people, and the people with whom they hang out are awesome too, so even amidst my lack of having time to meet the cool Americans/Canadians etc in Busan, I get to meet them through the few awesome friends I do have. Yay. The only bummer about that night was that my teammate and his friends were supposed to meet us and ended up not being able to at the last minute, which was very sad - we were all excited to have them come :( But he said that they want to reschedule soon so I'm looking forward to that :)
Saturday - haha. So we did our first ride over 36 miles...about 63 this time, just over 100km. It actually probably wouldn't have been over 100km if we hadn't gotten kind of lost... Ok, well to start off the day, we left from Nurimaru (where we run and swim on Sundays) instead of the usual Songjeong Beach, so that we could add in the extra kilometers. And in between Nurimaru and Songjeong Beach there are some decent hills - I'm not sure if it could be classified as a mountain...but it kind of looks like one once you have passed over it...anyway, hills much bigger and steeper than we are used to, so that was great :). After 50 km, we had some lunch - one of my favorites - sachonjjajang - mmmmm - and then headed back (it was me, S, and another guy J who just started training with us recently - he had been training with the team before but he got injured so he was out for a bit, and now he is back to run and bike with us :) ). S had said that we were going to take another way back, and I was thinking maybe to avoid the somewhat big hills that we rode on the way there (because he made the comment soomewhat soon after finishing the hills), but alas, the other route we took not only had a huge mother hill (that term (mother), for people who are not familiar with it, means 'oh my gaaaaad that's big - it is in no way meant to be offensive to the female parental unit, rather maybe it could be seen as a compliment - larger than life...authority...? I don't know...moral of the story, mothers, please don't take offense :) ) instead of two relatively big ones, but it was also on a very main road...haha. At least I can comfort myself with the fact that I am riding with other triathletes who have experience riding in Korea so they know what is acceptable and what is not acceptable (at least more so than I would), so I didn't worry about it being dangerous. It was a b**** to climb though. You would see pretty far ahead in the road, but there were some turns occasionally, and at least three different points, the road turned and you just saw at least another 400 more meters of climbing and then another turn in the distance...not knowing what the future held...it was actually kind of invigorating. I know I said it was a bad word, but I use that word with love. You can love and embrace the pain (as most of us triathletes do), but let's face it - pain is still pain. So yeah, that was that. About 5 minutes later I got a flat - staple in the tire - and we were already running late because of taking a long time for lunch and departing a little late (we were running late for swim practice, not just for getting in back in time for general...life...), so I felt especially bad when I fumbled a little bit trying to get the new tube in (which should NOT have happened because I change my tire at least twice a week to switch from my trainer-back-tire to my outdoor-back-tire - although I don't change the tube there but still), and I also fumbled a bit with my CO2 cartridge - more understandable since I haven't had to use one of those for months and my adapter was not in the correct position for maximum air slow/transfer (am I losing people? sorry...). Also, I'm not going to lie I was hoping to impress S and J with my tire-changing skills and efficiency as well as my CO2 skills, but I kind of failed there. Bummer. Although it probably only still took about 6 minutes, which isn't that bad. ANYWAY.
So now we are definitely running late. J isn't coming to swim practice because he and swimming don't really get along. So he leaves us soon after, and S is saying we are going to take a faster road because we are late. However, we ended up on a street going against traffic (on a main road...like main like no shoulder and Korean taxi drivers and buses...), and a street which by some stroke of fate did not have any crosswalks anywhere in sight (which is hardly the case in Busan). So...haha...we are riding up on the sidewalks (and occasionally back on the streets when the sidewalk spits us onto the street if we couldn't get back up because of a big lip or people walking 5 abreast blocking the entry to the sidewalk) for a bit, and then finally come to a crosswalk. We then crossed the street...but we still had to make about 5 more maneuvers - maneuvers which...let's just say at times I was legitimately pretending that I was invisible because I felt like drivers were going to throw things at me. But lots of sidewalk riding..anyone who is a cyclist reading this, it was pretty much like an alley cat race (I think - at least from what I have heard about alley cat racing). I'm just hoping my tire is going to hold up, because I didn't get all of the CO2 into my tire because of my poor adapter-usage performance and we were riding over chunks of unevenness every 30 seconds at points. Basically...it was an AMAZING ride.
Anyway, suffice(s) to say that we got to swim practice a little late, although not too bad because we always start a little late. And swimming today was longer than normal, and I was tired from having ridden 50% more than we usually ride on Saturdays (although I was the one who suggested the additional mileage - I don't regret it but I'm just being honest that I was tired...haha) and we were booking it through the streets (and sidewalks) of Haeundae for the last 10-15 minutes, so yea, I was a bit tired. Although, strangely...my sprints today were a good 2 seconds faster than previous days...!!! I was super pumped about that. But then we did some drills with the dolphin kick AKA the devil (at least for me - I am so horribly bad at it -I tried to explain to S that I didn't know how to do it and he was basically just like, yea, mmhmm, just do it (he didn't say that, haha) - but then I was like - can I maybe practice it before I do the drills? Seriously, let me show you what I am doing to prove to you that I have problems. So he laughed, and he showed me how to do it. I tried again, and he was like...yea, maybe you practice...hahaha. So I had him show me one more time and then I actually got it down after a few minutes, which I was super proud of, because this kick has been killing me for the past 2 months whenever we have to do it in practice - I look like a class A fool. Or at least, I used to :) So I got that down - but it is still hard - we did the dolphin kick (the butterfly kick) with the crawl stroke, syncronized so that one kick was simultaneous with one arm going into the water, and the next kick simultaneous with that arm pull, and then the other arm, etc. By the time that I got it down and had done 3 out of my 10 assigned drills for that kick, it was time to leave...haha. Oops.
Today, we did our usual ocean swim. The water was like 6-10degrees cooler(Fahrenheit) than last week (by the way, I think that dude that came up with that system of measurement for temperature has one of the hardest-to-spell last names I have ever encountered...I don't think I have ever spelled his name right on the first try, and if I have it was luck...). I'm glad I brought my wetsuit! And, also - this was the most intense ocean water swim I have ever done. It was leashing out the fury like giving candy to trick-or-treaters (if you live in a populated neighborhood). I legit got taken at least a foot off course by a wave at least twice, and my cap almost came off twice (once I had to stop to put it back on because it was basically a goner) as well as my goggles. And this is while I was swimming, not diving into the water with any notable acceleration or anything. Multiple times my stroke was interrupted by a big wave which overtook my momentum (which was actually pretty powerful today, I was really getting into a 'damn-you-ocean' rhythm and was modifying my breathing well for those frequent occasions where I went to breathe and there was a huge mother-wave there (sorry for the repeated usage but it is justified for this weekend's activities) displacing the air which I was hoping to use to supply my body with oxygen. But I adapted pretty well, I think, without sacrificing my rhythm much at all. Oh the skills you acquire during training sessions like these. In all seriousness, they are extremely useful, and you can only really learn them in such situations which at the time make you want to get out and call it a day.
Wow, my butt hurts from writing this blog. Maybe I should shower? I still have ocean on me. Yea, sounds like a plan.
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