I own a scooter!

Another exciting week and weekend in Korea. The end of the month means pay day! I decided to treat myself by purchasing a motor scooter. It was the best 400,000 won I have ever spent. The best thing about living in Korea is that you don't need a license, insurance or anything. You are supposed to have all of that, but no one actually gets it. I have spent quite a bit of time cruising around town especially down by the river. While it is very fun, it is also a little dangerous! But don't worry, I have a helmet. The first night I had a bit of a theft scare. I had parked the scooter in front of my building and the next morning it wasn't where I put it. I eventually found it down my street. Good thing I had bought a lock for it because someone had tried to steal the scooter but the lock jammed up the rear tire so they ended up leaving it on the side of the road. No damage done. So needless to say, I bought an additional lock for the added security.

On Sunday, I took a bus to Cheongju to visit my friend Sam from university who has recently arrived in Korea. It was a good afternoon of exploring her city. It was a little tricky navigating the Korean bus system on my own, but now that I have done it, I feel like I can go anywhere in this country. I was happy to introduce Sam to her first traditional Korean meal with shoes off at the door and sitting on the floor. We had bugolgi (beef cooked over a Korean bbq) served with many other vegetables. At one point there was some miscommunication with the owner of the restaurant when he pointed to his dog that was outside and then pointed to our table. Eventually it came to be known that he meant, he owns the dog and it lives with them. It was good to know that we weren't eating dog unknowingly.

Next weekend I will be heading to Seoul with some friends. I've been here for 2 months, so I think its finally time I headed to the big city to see what all the hype is about. It sounds like there is so much to do there and this will be the first of many trips. So I look forward to what there is to see and do there.

It has been mentioned that I do not often speak of my job, which is the reason that I am here in Korea. That is because it seems like I am there for a very short time in a day, most of my time here is spent outside of the classroom. I teach for only 7 hours a day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays for just 3 hours. But I can say already that I have learned many techniques for being an effective teacher. One of the most important from when I first arrived was to speak slower and use smaller words. Also, behavior altering is quite easy with the correct reward and punishment scheme. At first I would ask many times and sometimes have to yell for them to sit down or be quiet. But I have learned that rewards work much better than punishments. For example, giving stars for being quiet and doing work. When a student gets x amount of stars, they get a small candy. It doesn't seem like a big reward, but it works! So classes are pretty easy these days. Most kids are pretty good and are learning quite a bit at the same time. I even get them to teach me some Korean along the way. My last class of the day is with these 5 girls that are pretty fluent in English. We talk about social issues and read a pretty interesting book about it. I am learning a lot reading it even after 4 years in political science!

I think that is all I have to say for now... my blogs have become less frequent, so at I am trying to make up for it with a rather long one. I will try to post some pictures of the scooter as soon as some are taken. More adventures and stories to come...