Midnight lullaby

It's me, that dude whose face you fortunately don't remember as well as you once did. Everything is going well here, no major catastrophes or anything, so if you clicked into this post looking for something compelling you have wasted a perfectly good click. My classes have so far been a mix of fun, interesting and massively frustrating. It's a nice balance; even the frustrating ones at least yield something to complain about over drinks after work. But not at work. No. Never.

Some of my classes are incredibly rewarding though. I'm teaching a one-on-one class with a student at Rookie level, which means he is at a very beginner stage right now. When I started teaching him a month ago, he had literally zero idea what I was saying at any given point. He barely knew the English alphabet, and though it was difficult to cross the communication barrier at first, he started picking up on the material and now he is progressing into short sentences and more complex pronunciations. Seeing the results of your efforts pay off every week is incredibly gratifying, it's kind of hard to describe.

And then you have kids in advance-level courses who don't know what words like "not" or "walk" mean, but that's what the screaming pillow under my desk is for.

Autumn is finally here, thank Whatever. Still the odd hot day but the temperature has at least settled back below the iron-melting inferno of July and August. It's nice weather for getting out, which may be why this month I've written one post about bicycling and another post about nothing because I'm lying. Chloe and I visited Gyeongbokgung Palace recently in the evening, when large parts of the palace were illuminated by stylized lighting. It was gorgeous and the weather was beautiful; we spent an hour walking around the palace grounds on Sunday. There was a short light show projected onto screening on one of the buildings which was pretty fantastic. Plus we managed to get in on a limited run of tickets because guess who's a foreigner? This guy!

It's like a house but bigger and with more things

I get most of my fresh air in the evenings actually. This is partly because of the late work schedule and partly because I'm too lazy to wake up at a reasonable hour. I usually go out for walks or a bike ride just after midnight, and I've discovered some neat stuff. I found a stream with a bike trail running along it that bisects the town which I had no idea existed until recently, which has been nice to ride along despite the occasional mouthful of spider web followed by quite a bit of screaming. 

I've also seen some weird things around here, man. I followed the highway to the other side of the train tracks, and it turns out the expression "the other side of the train tracks" is quite astonishingly accurate in Pyeongtaek. I think that end of town is populated exclusively by haunted farming equipment. The other night I saw an intercity bus heading out of town with all it's lights on and a solitary passenger sitting alone at the front, but it was several hours after the last bus was scheduled to leave town. Oh, and just earlier tonight I saw a guy in a really nice suit talking on his cellphone while walking down the direct middle of a four lane road for some reason. At least, I assume he was talking on a cellphone. I didn't actually see a cellphone. I hope he had one.

That's it from me right now. Stay tuned for the next blog post which will be written in all of the Korean I can speak, which as of today is about three words incorrectly.

Today's title:

Bicycle! Bicycle! Bicycle!

In my previous post I talked about how I was going to post a mashup of all the things I hadn't talked about yet to celebrate the past year. I have decided to continue my legacy of Not Following Through on Stuff by abandoning that idea completely. To be honest I typed out a couple drafts and just tremendously hated it for some reason. So maybe I'll subject you to that in the future, but for now it's back to business as usual.

We're into the second week of our new term (my 5th so far) and things are going well! My schedule has completely shifted; I am now working in the April branch, teaching more fundamental lessons to younger kids. In fact it was what I was originally hired for before I got switched to the normal CDI program and it's been a lot of fun. My lessons are a little more involved and my overall number of teaching hours is lower, which leaves more time to get caught up on prep work, grading and...well, posting dumb things here. I've also taken over the classroom of Sara, a teacher who had worked here since I was first hired and who recently moved down to Pohang. Being in her old room feels a little like dancing on someone's grave, except with more games and snacks and such.

New room, new curriculum, new students, same old backpack I've had for eight god damn years

You know what I've been up to a lot since I last posted? Biking! I have a bike now and am turning into some kind of bike guy. People around town will say, "Who's that lumbering jackass who almost hit me with their bike the other day?" and there's a significant chance they're talking about me.

Practically, having a bike here is pretty great. It takes about half the time to get to and from work as walking, and most of the ride back is downhill. Getting downtown is easier, and while not quite as fast as a bus it has its own set of advantages. For example: not having to ride the bus. Plus even though it is late summer it still gets pretty hot in the afternoon, and the less time spent out in the blistering hellscape the better.

On top of which it's also a lot of fun. I forgot how much I actually enjoy biking as I haven't done it much since I was younger. It's nice to go out for a ride through the rice fields or just cruise around town looking for things. There's a guy who runs a shop near my apartment who I go to for supplies (still haven't gotten used to sitting on a bike seat without a generous amount of padding) and he gave me some directions to trails around town that I have yet to explore. I can't wait to get out a bit more when the weather properly cools down. And then it will be winter and I'll just be annoyed again for totally different reasons. Ahh nature, you are an actual bastard sometimes.

So that's what's up with me these days. Thanks for reading!

Go away!


Today's title (I didn't want to go with this because it was the most obvious, but I did some research and learned there is a preposterously huge number of songs written about bicycles so I gave up):