The past few days have not been the most delightful. I have lost a few things very dear to me, including my new running shoes, my sole inserts (which, after practice last night, I realized were VERY dear to my training, and have been a key factor in helping assuage, and perhaps even prevent, knee pain which so often would occur after running for over 30 minutes), as well as a bit of tolerance. I am declining to further comment on this very unfortunate circumstance due to the possible repercussions that could ensue if certain people were to happen upon this blog, although if you wish to know, feel free to email me and I can give you the down and dirty :) Ir nothing else, it provides for an interesting story :).
I love Korea. Life has proved to very entertaining here, and full of surprises and excitement!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
"I Got My Lunch Packed Up, My Boots Tied Tight, I Hope I Don't Get In A Fight"
Oh, back to school.
Well, technically last Friday was the first day back, but we only had one class, and we spent most of the time playing games so it didn't really count in my book.
But today was full out back to school. And the first class of the day lived up to the frustrations that I was fearing. And it was not a self-fulfilled prophecy, trust me (especially since the latter two clases, for some reason, were much better than the first, and I entered the second class a little tainted from the previous). 6th graders are seriously the bane of my professional existence (again, I must point out that this is a general statement). But, I made it through alive. And for that, I am grateful.
I also found out today, at lunch, that apparently I will not be teaching at Dong Sang in March!! At first I was really sad, because the kids are better behaved at Dong Sang, so Tuesdays and Wednesdays have been my week's salvation (and now thinking about it again I am a little sad...). And of course I am going to miss teaching with my co-teacher at Dong Sang, because she is great. But in another way I am happy for this change. In the past I have had to lug around all of my teaching materials (which trust me is nothing to scoff at - I am usually one to welcome physical labor but it can become extremely inconvenient at times), and now I will be able to leave all of them at Allak everyday. And also, I will be able to get to know the teachers and the students better, which I am very thankful for. So it will be a new adventure.
Next year's 6th graders, though...well, they will be starting the year with me, which means I will be able to at least have a say in laying down the rules. So I'm sure I will have more control over and hopefully more respect from the next bunch.
I'm starting to get back into shape. This is evident not only through my own perception but also by means of my heart rate monitor's calculations. Since the last time I complained about my resting HR in this blog, maybe a few weeks to a month ago, it has dropped more than 10 beats per minute. YAY.
In a similar vein, post sickeningly-fast swim workout (fast for me, I mean - a 2000m pull done at an IM pace of 67:30...!), Coach challenged me to an underwater swim in the 25m pool in which we had just finished training. I was very amused at the prospect of a possible one-breath success, because I believe the last time I tried this I could only get about half way down a 25yard pool before my lungs gave out. I know I'm in better shape now, but underwater-swimming is very different than the type of swimming I've become decent at. In addition, I had slept 5 hours the night before, biked for 3 hours and 15 minutes in the morning, and swam for 35 minutes with an average heart rate of 169 (for swimming, that is high). Not that all of that should greatly affect my ability to do this challenge which required basically one minute of a very determined mindset, but I have to admit I was a bit intimidated.
The challenge was distance, not time. And Coach went first. I don't know what I was expecting, but of course ('of course' referring to the fact that in order to not fail I would have to match his 25 meter success, not referring to the fact that because he is in great shape he should be able to do this. Personally, I do not measure an athlete's aerobic capacity by their ability to swim long lengths under water, partially for my own peace of mind) he got to the other end without coming up once. My turn. I'm using my peripheral vision to try and covertly detect any sources of future embarrassment, any onlookers who might have understood what was going down (I don't know why I flatter myself with this possible prospect, but sometimes my foreign status tends to draw attention). But I sucked it up, looked at it as a 'hey, if you end up failing horribly, then at least you will have a new goal to work on' opportunity. To make a long, unduly drawn-out story short (or rather to prevent its further extention), with great difficulty, I was able to swim the length in one breath. Although if my lungs were the only organ working (in the absence of my mind hushing the cries of my lungs), I'm sure I would have resurfaced sooner.
That was way too involved for such an unimportant task that I'm sure many people do without thinking much of it.
Anyway.
A note about dog poo and shoes. If you ever step in dog mess wearing sneaker nice shoes, just be glad that you are not wearing bike shoes...because the complex cleated nature of the bike shoe enables poo to get stuck in areas of a variety of shapes and sizes, for which you need many different size sticks to clean it out.
Time to work.
Well, technically last Friday was the first day back, but we only had one class, and we spent most of the time playing games so it didn't really count in my book.
But today was full out back to school. And the first class of the day lived up to the frustrations that I was fearing. And it was not a self-fulfilled prophecy, trust me (especially since the latter two clases, for some reason, were much better than the first, and I entered the second class a little tainted from the previous). 6th graders are seriously the bane of my professional existence (again, I must point out that this is a general statement). But, I made it through alive. And for that, I am grateful.
I also found out today, at lunch, that apparently I will not be teaching at Dong Sang in March!! At first I was really sad, because the kids are better behaved at Dong Sang, so Tuesdays and Wednesdays have been my week's salvation (and now thinking about it again I am a little sad...). And of course I am going to miss teaching with my co-teacher at Dong Sang, because she is great. But in another way I am happy for this change. In the past I have had to lug around all of my teaching materials (which trust me is nothing to scoff at - I am usually one to welcome physical labor but it can become extremely inconvenient at times), and now I will be able to leave all of them at Allak everyday. And also, I will be able to get to know the teachers and the students better, which I am very thankful for. So it will be a new adventure.
Next year's 6th graders, though...well, they will be starting the year with me, which means I will be able to at least have a say in laying down the rules. So I'm sure I will have more control over and hopefully more respect from the next bunch.
I'm starting to get back into shape. This is evident not only through my own perception but also by means of my heart rate monitor's calculations. Since the last time I complained about my resting HR in this blog, maybe a few weeks to a month ago, it has dropped more than 10 beats per minute. YAY.
In a similar vein, post sickeningly-fast swim workout (fast for me, I mean - a 2000m pull done at an IM pace of 67:30...!), Coach challenged me to an underwater swim in the 25m pool in which we had just finished training. I was very amused at the prospect of a possible one-breath success, because I believe the last time I tried this I could only get about half way down a 25yard pool before my lungs gave out. I know I'm in better shape now, but underwater-swimming is very different than the type of swimming I've become decent at. In addition, I had slept 5 hours the night before, biked for 3 hours and 15 minutes in the morning, and swam for 35 minutes with an average heart rate of 169 (for swimming, that is high). Not that all of that should greatly affect my ability to do this challenge which required basically one minute of a very determined mindset, but I have to admit I was a bit intimidated.
The challenge was distance, not time. And Coach went first. I don't know what I was expecting, but of course ('of course' referring to the fact that in order to not fail I would have to match his 25 meter success, not referring to the fact that because he is in great shape he should be able to do this. Personally, I do not measure an athlete's aerobic capacity by their ability to swim long lengths under water, partially for my own peace of mind) he got to the other end without coming up once. My turn. I'm using my peripheral vision to try and covertly detect any sources of future embarrassment, any onlookers who might have understood what was going down (I don't know why I flatter myself with this possible prospect, but sometimes my foreign status tends to draw attention). But I sucked it up, looked at it as a 'hey, if you end up failing horribly, then at least you will have a new goal to work on' opportunity. To make a long, unduly drawn-out story short (or rather to prevent its further extention), with great difficulty, I was able to swim the length in one breath. Although if my lungs were the only organ working (in the absence of my mind hushing the cries of my lungs), I'm sure I would have resurfaced sooner.
That was way too involved for such an unimportant task that I'm sure many people do without thinking much of it.
Anyway.
A note about dog poo and shoes. If you ever step in dog mess wearing sneaker nice shoes, just be glad that you are not wearing bike shoes...because the complex cleated nature of the bike shoe enables poo to get stuck in areas of a variety of shapes and sizes, for which you need many different size sticks to clean it out.
Time to work.
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