Pumpin Some Iron! Part 2

So it turns out that the really jacked Korean dude who gave me my first session wasn't actually my personal trainer. I got a call that night saying that my free sessions would begin tomorrow and my trainer would meet me at 8 o clock. I arrive at the gym the next day to meet my trainer. Who happens to be a really small Korean girl who probably weighs about 70lbs. So instead of having a buff Korean dude yelling at me to keep my form up, I have a small Korean girl emasculating me at every turn. After getting all my body information from a super duper high tech Asian machine she reads a piece of paper it printed out and tells me I have too much fat on my lower abdomen. She then takes me through a routine full of exercises most guys in the states would consider girly but were actually quite difficult. And of course she did them flawlessly, which as I said, made me feel like less of a man. Afterward she suggested I join a spinning class, which is full of middle aged Korean women. I didn't really feel like dancing around with them so she said I could just run on the treadmill.

Jason

Pumpin Some Iron!

One of the first things I told myself I was going to do when I started to live in Korea was join a gym. 1 month later that dream has become a reality. A brand new gym opened up right across the street from my apartment. You're probably thinking, "Jason! How could it get any better than that!" Well it can! As part of my contract to sign up for a year I received cool Korean work out clothes, a gym bag, and 3 free sessions with a personal trainer! That's right, my very own jacked Korean guy to help me get buff. I had my first session today and it was everything I thought it would be. Which was a huge Korean guy yelling at me in Korean to lift weights with the proper form and feeling my muscles while I was lifting to make sure they were getting worked. As I was doing a rope pull down exercise for my triceps I was having trouble with my form and we basically ended up spooning up right just so I got it right. He was the big spoon. I can only hope tomorrow's session will be as good as today's! Time to chug a protein shake!

Jason

Time Flies

It's kind of hard to believe that I've almost been here a full month. Not much has changed since my last post, but teaching does get to be more fun once you get to know the students. I always thought it was quite amazing how teachers could remember all those names, but now I understand. You remember the good students names because they don't bother you, and you remember the bad students names because you say them at least 50 times a class. All in all, things at work are falling into routine now, which is good.
Outside of work, however, I'm still trying to find routine for my mornings, wandering around the city, and hiking up the nearby mountain can only take up so much time. And the fact that I can't read Korean doesn't help much either.
I will say one thing though. Living in a country that actually cares about soccer while the World Cup is going on is very cool. In America we never heard much about it, but here every one is cheering for South Korean Red Devils. People walk around with red shirts and light up devil horns on their head. Last night I had my second class off so I got to watch the game while all my other fellow teachers were teaching. I was walking to a bar to watch the game and on the way I could see TV's in almost every single store and restaurant watching the same game. Wherever you went you could here cheer's or cries of greif echo through the city because so many people were watching the game. If South Korea does somehow manage to win the World Cup, this place will literally explode.

Ninja training and teaching english

For those of you who were wondering, I have not found a place to practice Ninjitsu yet. A typical morning for a ninja trainee/English teacher usually involves either sleeping until 12 o clock and missing the morning completely, or waking yourself up really early to work out only to find that you could have slept till 11 and still got your work out in. You then boil some dumplings and watch the Mummy Returns for the 5Th time that week.
After two viewings, 20 dumplings, and an inner battle to resist going to the 24 hour McDonald's that is right next door, 3 o clock finally rolls around and you cast aside your ninja stars and pick up your text books. The next hour and a half is crucial. Preparing your lessons. This might seem easy to the untrained eye, but looking at a lesson entitled "Banana" (That's right, you guessed it, the lesson is about a dog.") and trying to find a way to make it remotely interesting to a bunch of middle schoolers is no easy task.
Interesting or not the 6 hours for two classes goes by and you and your fellow trainees meet for the walk home. At this point, one of two things happens. A teacher decides to internalize the complaints he or she may have about the students and simply go home to eat more dumplings/ chocolate, or the teachers gather to go out and complain about the students together over Korean BBQ. At this point I'm pretty much the BBQ master.
Some people may be reading this and say "hey Jason! Ninjitsu is only in Japan!" While that is true I must say however that Asian cultures do tend to mix a bit. For example, I've been here three weeks and I've heard the saying "the nail that sticks out gets hammered" twice from two different people. This is a Japanese saying, and it's also from one of my favorite movies. 2 points if you can guess which one.

Jason

Wired

So after two weeks of being in Incheon, and 3 weeks of being in Korea I am now officially hooked up to the Matrix. I have a Bank account with quick money transfer, a cell phone that receives spam text messages in Korean on a regular basis, and super fast internet that I had to fight to get (usually involved me yelling over the phone "I don't speak Korean.") But we must look on the bright side, now instead of wasting time playing spider solitaire I can now waste time playing online video games.

Darling Little Angel or Hell Spawned Demon Child?

With My first week of teaching over I decided to write a little bit about my first impressions of the children I have/ will be teaching. I'll start with the younger elementary kids. The first thing I want to point out is that while they may look very cute, every single one of them has the potential to utterly destroy you mentally whether they know it or not. Fact: there is nothing scarier to a young Korean boy than having to sit next to or work with a girl. On the first day of class I had assigned seating and one boy was supposed to sit next to a girl, he looked at her, than at me and simply said "girl" to which I replied, "yes that is a girl, now sit down please." And God forbid that you have to have only one boy work with two or three girls, the same kid simply turned his chair around and wouldn't look at me. All the children are expert not passers and will not hesitate to beg you to play a game when they're bored, which is all the time.
The older middle school kids are any or all of the following: apathetic, tired, mean, awkward, emotional, feel they're too cool for this, and very hard to motivate. I would say teaching English to them is like pulling teeth but I'd prefer to quote my old TEFL instructor in saying that it's more like trying to drag a dead water buffalo through a swamp. I could literally be shouting at these kids with enthusiasm trying to get to read the story about pirates, and ask the easiest questions I can to try and get some response out of them and more often than not I will be met with blank stares.
Don't get me wrong though, some of these kids are indeed darling little angels that will make you smile whenever they open their mouths, but a class with all good kids is a rarity.
I complain of course, but the fault is not all with the students. Your average Korean child is at some form of school from early in the morning, to very late at night. Some of these kids are a lot smart than I was at there age. And while I was busy stuffing my face with swiss cake rolls and playing video games after school still looking forward for the weekend, these kids were still in school until about 8 at night, only to go home and do homework, and than still have school on Saturday. Needless to say the average American kid would probably have literally died in a Korean school system.


Jason