Yeoboseyo?

This video I'm using for my fifth graders this week (to teach phone conversation) is too amazing to describe. So just watch it for yourself.

System failure

Not so smart are we google...?

Hint: Click on the image and check out the 'did you mean' section. 

Brought to you by Miro Bergeron.

Who has also just brought to my attention that google could just be playing a (clever) trick.  

Hint: Actually look up the definition of "recursion."

Why I haven't had a steak since 2009

It has been 13 months now that I've been living in the land of the morning calm, and it wasn't until today that I figured out one of the deepest, darkest secrets of this nation. My inquiry into the matter began shortly after I realized that every time I buy beef here in Seoul, I feel like I'm getting punched in the face. Why? Because in this city (and the entire country for that matter), beef costs roughly $2 per 100 grams, on a good day. Or $20 per kg, for those of you in the West who are used to seeing meat prices in kilograms. The reason they don't show you meat prices in kg here is because if they did, half the nation would turn vegetarian. 

For months and months I wondered if I was eating cows from royal families (royal cows if you will), or cows owned by royal families, or something with the word royal in it. It'd only make sense. I looked for gold shavings in my chucks, shanks and briskets, but alas, I could find nothing distinguishably superior about the beef in South Korea. And this was all Australian beef as well. Majority of the beef you find in Korea comes from the land down under. Meat from cows actually raised in Korea costs $ 200000000000 per 100 grams. Or something like that. I stopped counting after the first few zeroes.

I finally figured it out today though. In my head, the story goes a lot like that of the film Deep Blue Sea. I've copied and pasted the plot of the film, as it is presented in Wikipedia, and adjusted a few phrases here and there to fit the situation in question.

"On a highly-populated top-secret peninsula facility called South Korea, a team of scientists are searching for a cure for Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD), a disease slowly crippling the Korean population. One of them, Dr. 김현주 (Kim Hyun-Ju) violates the code of ethics, and genetically engineers three Korean royal cows, intending to increase their brain capacity so that they can harvest the tissue as a cure for IAD. Unfortunately, the increased brain capacity also makes the cows smarter, faster, and more dangerous.

[...] However, an accident sets off a chain of events that allows the cows to engineer an escape, and flood the internal structure with milk, allowing them entry to target the humans within it. [...] The scientists make the startling discovery that the cows have not just been trying to kill them, but were actually leading them to flooding the facility (with milk) so they could escape into the open country to breed (but not be eaten)."

And so, to this day, it has been an ongoing battle of intelligence between the Korean people, and the Korean cows. The heightened brain capacity of the cows makes it hard for the Korean farmers to catch them and kill them for food. The few cows that they do manage to kill are the ones the farmers find in PC방s (or internet cafes), as these ones ironically have fallen prey to IAD.

And that, my friends, is why beef is so damn expensive in this country.

If you're the weird type that actually likes to read up on stats and research and 'legitimate' news, then you might prefer to read this to get your explanation on why beef is expensive in Korea. But, I don't know why one would even bother after reading this post of mine. 

One island, two babies, several cows.

My school had an English writing contest. I was the judge. I got to pick the topic. Ya I pretty much run this school. So this is what I assigned...

You have to move to an island. You can only take three things with you to the island. What three things will you take, and why?

I had to pick the best entry, and this is the entry I really wanted to pick, but couldn't.

First, I will take two baby. One baby is boy and another baby is girl. Because they grow up I will take marry And they had a baby than marry...marry...marry...I will happy. Connect my life.

Second, I will take cows because cow give the milk than baby eat and grow up. and cow give the meat. very delicous.

Third, I will take many coat because very cold at night than I will give babies and cow. Cow is can be die. so I will give.


Epic.

Maybe Canadians are just too politically correct?

A few hours ago, I emailed a teacher in this school regarding afterschool programs. My coteacher told me that this teacher (한채린) is in charge of all afterschool related things. So I sent her an email asking her if I would be allowed to start an English afterschool program for 'low level' students. This is the email I just received-

OK. I'll ask vice-president about lower level English program. I'll let you know the result.
But we already have a program(Korean, math, social, english, science) for retarded students and it'll start anytime soon.
And We contracted another native teacher for a year in the private company program.
Anyway if you want to join the afterschool program in any form, that's good.
I hope that I can help you.

Oh how cultural differences never cease to amuse me.

2009 was so last year

It's a brand new school year with brand new teachers. Well, my school has a whopping 21 new teachers who are all busy adjusting to their new offices and schedules. In Seoul, a teacher has to switch schools every 5 years. So we lost 21 of our own teachers in February and have a fresh new batch of teachers from other parts of the city. One of these teachers, a man by the name of 정세창 (Jeong Sae Chang), has been quite the source of amusement. He barely speaks any English, but by watching him speak and interact with the other teachers, I can tell that he fills the role of the class clown, or the office clown(?) in our department in school. He's super friendly and has come up to me several times and has tried to speak to me, but his limited vocabulary (in English) makes it quite difficult for the two of us to hold a conversation for longer than 10 seconds. So I told him that he should teach me more Korean so that we can converse more. This morning, within seconds of sitting down at my desk after taking my coat off, I get this message from him via Cool Messenger (The Seoul School Board's chat messenger...I know...Cool Messenger...it kills me).



정세창 (Jeong Sae Chang) 님이 보낸글 >>

Hello!
Have a nice day~~~
See you later...^-^

It made me laugh and it made it smile. This guy is not going to give up, no matter how limited his vocabulary is. If my Korean students were more like him, they would learn a whole lot more in English!

We've been sending messages back and forth all morning. The process has been slow, but amusing and rewarding for both parties. Here's what I have so far...



Zenith님이 보낸글 >>
Hello! Thank you. I hope you are having a good day too!

And please teach me some Korean when you have time.

I would love to learn Korean so that I can talk with you
and the other teachers.

:-)

Zenith Bose

정세창님이 보낸글 >>
ha ha ha ha~ I saW...
I want to teach you easy Korean any time.
But I am poor at English
I'm studying.....



zenith님이 보낸글 >>
Haha. You can teach me easy Korean then. How do you say "I live in Mokdong" ?

정세창님이 보낸글 >>
I 나
live 산다(살다)
in 에
Mokdong 목동

Korean order~
I in Mokdong live
나는 목동에 산다(살아)

zenith님이 보낸글 >>
Thank you! Why don't you teach me one new sentence every week? This way I can slowly learn more and more Korean and maybe practice with you some time.

And I will help you with English also. Have a good lunch! :-)

Zenith



This has made my otherwise dull 'non-teaching' week a tad more amusing. Yay for middle aged Korean men.

I can't believe I haven't written on this thing for 6 months

I lose. I said that I would regularly update this thing every time I was travelling or living abroad, and how I've failed. So here you are. My first post in 6 months. Last time I wrote on here, I had just landed in South Korea and got hit with the swine. Six months later, I'm swine-free, kimchi-laden, and generally quite satisfied with the way things have turned out for me in Korea. I should upload photos...shitloads of them. I will soon. I promise for realz. But today, I just wanted to post this. It's an email I just sent a friend/acquaintance from couchsurfing. What will he reply? Will he reply? Will my beet money go to waste? It's all on you JD.

Dear JD,

So I bought half a beet today, on a whim. Then I realized I don't really have many recipes that revolve around this peculiar purple vegetable. THEN I had a flashback. Back to spring 2007 when my friend Divya and I were on a road trip around the North Carolina region. I thought of that beet salad you prepared at your friend's potluck. I still remember that beet salad because...well, it was delicious. I'd never tasted beet prepared that way. If you would be so kind as to pass on that recipe, if you still have it, I would be forever grateful.

Fellow vegetable enthusiast,

Zenith