roblog

Christmas 2011

2011-12-24T23:24:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas!

The kids had a pretty good Christmas. We did not pull out all the stops, as you can see from the picture of our Christmas tree. It may not be spectacular, but it fits our living space, and will not be terribly offensive if left up until Easter, a long time custom in our home.

Maxine was probably the happiest person of the day. She got a Barbie-clone bedroom set:

She also got some little tin cats from Grandma and Grandpa, as well as a Ken doll, which can be seen in the background.

Unfortunately, Ken is proving to be a bad influence...

SCANDALOUS!

Quinten is happy with his dragon that shoots yellow balls (of fire, I presume) when you jam them in his snoot and squeeze his belly (the dragon's belly, that is, not Quinten's).

Horyon and I got matching Kansas Jayhawks shirts, which is pretty awesome.

I also got Horyon some thick, fluffy socks to keep her feet warm. I got a new chair to sit on while I use the computer, hence the Roblog entry.

Of course, we got to church a little late. I took care of Quinten while Horyon talked with an expectant mother (due any day now), so neither of us actually got to sing along much or listen to the sermon. Hopefully we will have many more opportunities to actually participate in a Christmas worship service.

Merry Christmas from the Sacks in Korea to all of you.

Peace,

Rob

Nasal Irrigation, Speech Contest, and Biking (of course)

2011-11-13T03:23:00.001-06:00

I've been coughing for a couple of weeks. It moved up into my sinuses this past week. I've been using my Neti Pot (a device for nasal irrigation) the whole time, once or twice a day. Today I stayed home from church and have used it four times already, and plan to use it at least once more before going to bed.

Friends, if you have not poured water through your nose to fight a head cold, I most heartily recommend it. I've been doing this for a few years now. During allergy season I do it once a day, as well as when the pollution levels are high. This cold is pretty nasty, but for ten or fifteen minutes after rinsing, I can actually smell things and breath freely. I've also read that it helps you to heal faster because there is no more efficient way to get rid of the gunky mucus resulting from a cold.

So this past week I only biked a couple of times. Got caught riding home in the rain Monday. It was only sprinkling when I left school, but it slowly got heavier until I was soaked. If it had just been pouring when I left school, I would have taken my bike on the subway; When it rains the roads are slippery, and the drivers are crazier. Tuesday I was sore all over from the tension of riding in the rain on busy roads, so I skipped. My cough was showing no signs of vacating the premises by Wednesday, but I still rode. No rain, and I figured the exercise might help me throw it off. Instead, for the last five minutes I started sneezing, as though I had walked into a hot barn full of dusty hay which had been thoroughly searched for needles by wrestlers who search by throwing things. I figured it was something in the air, but it turned out to be something in my sinuses.

I didn't ride Thursday and Friday because the sneezing, coughing and ear-clogged dizziness just seemed like poor choices for riding partners. "Hey guys, you wanna go for a ride?" "Sure! Don't worry, we'll keep it short!" [evil chuckle].

Saturday was speech contest day at Dongsung. It's in the contract, it's been planned for months, it was unavoidable. I was miserable, coughing and blowing my nose while trying to be impartial in judging these poor 1st graders who had worked their hearts out. The scores I gave showed a general downward trend that was more reflective of my physical and mental state than of the speeches being delivered or the props being presented.

Afterwords we all went out for sam-gae-tang; It's a Cornish game hen stuffed with rice, flavored with ginseng, jujubes and chestnuts, and served in a heavy ceramic bowl in soup that is still boiling when they bring it to the table. It was pretty good, one of the few Korean foods that comforts me when I have a cold.

So it's Sunday night, almost 11 o'clock. I've almost finished my Theraflu Night drink (for severe colds, not "serve cold" Josh), and I'm ready to sleep. There's plenty more on my mind, but you will probably not see another Roblog post for a while. This week is shaping up to be crazy, and we have a job translating a website for a Korean company that makes a new, exciting (dare I say revolutionary? Nah.) kind of shear reinforcement for concrete. You probably know it as rebar--the metal rods that are hidden inside concrete structures to keep them from breaking when there is any force other than simple downward pressure put on them. It's a new level of editing for me. They gave me a version that has two English translations. One is better than the other, but they are both clearly written by engineers. A lifetime ago I learned that Engineers are generally terrible writers, and in some alternate reality my career is/was/would have been in technical writing and I wouldn't have ever met Horyon and Maxine and Quinten would be no more than cloudy dreams, forgotten upon waking.

Anyway, we're trying to get that done by Friday, but I just don't think that is going to happen unless I wake up tomorrow healthy as a bat. And that is more possible if I get more sleep. So goodnight.

Recent Riding

2011-11-03T09:26:00.002-05:00

I've been pretty good. As it becomes regular, it feels like there is less to report. My right leg is about 95% recovered, but I am still taking it fairly easy on it. Haven't taken the mountain road home yet.

Monday Horyon told me not to ride, and I decided not to fight it. I had been (and am still) fighting a cough, and she thought riding would make me worse. I felt a bit better Tuesday, so I rode. Wednesday too. I think riding actually helps to fight it off, as it makes my lungs work harder and more thoroughly than usually.

Today (Thursday) I couldn't ride because I had to get to the doctor's office then home. Our doctor doesn't take appointments, but if you go sign in, you can leave and come back in an hour (or less) and not have to wait. I think this is because Koreans are (in general) not good at appointments. I know, sounds racist, but it's actually a cultural thing with them. Drives newly arrived Westerners crazy, and can do a number on those of us who have been here a while as well.

Tomorrow I'm not sure whether or not to ride. On Fridays I leave school and go to chat with someone almost an hour away by subway. I have to drag my bike on the subway, right at the beginning of rush hour, then ride home afterwards in the dark on a pretty busy street. But if I don't do it, my daily exercise is reduced to walking.

We've had a scale now for a couple of weeks, and it looks like I've dropped about a kilogram. Feeling good about that, though the scale doesn't do decimals, so it's hard to be sure.

And this week I was informed that Dongsung Elementary School will rehire me for the coming year. I was told this at a 40 minute meeting which was not the most fun meeting I've ever been in. I won't go into the details, as I would rather not look back at this some day and experience a spike in my blood pressure. If I leave it vague like this, I will be able to look back on it and laugh. "Ha ha, me in 2011 so funny!"

It's getting cold to ride, which causes problems for me. The biggest problem is, of course, shedding excess heat. Dress warm enough to start, and I am hot 10 minutes in, sweating by the time I get to work. Dress too skimpy and I don't warm up until I'm almost at work. Gotta figure out the balance.

Two Turtles, a Buffet, and some Blocks

2011-11-02T10:24:00.000-05:00

Yes. We have our first pets, and they are reptiles.

No, your monitor is not malfunctioning. They are in a pink wash-basin while their tank is being cleaned. I can't get any decent pictures of them in their tank.

I don't know what kind of turtles they are. If anyone out there can help me on this, I would sure appreciate it. Maxine was begging for a turtle, and we gave in for her birthday without researching much. Turns out that turtles often carry salmonella, so you aren't supposed to touch them or hold them. Makes them pretty boring pets in some ways. They are still fun to watch, though. They are semi-aquatic, and like to swim around in their tank as well as perch on the faux rock we bought for them. It's kind of sad to be on display like that, and not entirely unlike my job as an English teacher in a Korean school.

For Maxine's birthday we went to a kids' buffet at Bexco, which I wrote about in this post. Here are a couple of pictures we took at the time which I have only just now moved to my computer. We have borrowed my parents'-in-law camera.

I like these pictures. It's difficult to get Quinten to look at the camera and smile, so this is a rare find.

And this picture of Maxine and I captures both of us nicely, if a little darkly.

We recently got some Duplo blocks for the kids to play with. Horyon found them used, and got an incredible deal. I'm sure we'll be able to sell them for more than we paid, but more importantly, Quinten LOVES playing with them. Right now his focus is on seeing how high he can stack them. Not bad for three-and-a-half, eh?

Don't Wear Your Coat All Day!!!!!!!!

2011-10-15T02:58:00.000-05:00

So Maxine told me that she wore her coat all day at school today, and I decided to let her know that if you wear your coat too much in the winter, you sweat, then it's easy to get cold when you go back outside. Being a big fan of the Socratic method, I started leading her with some questions. Here's how it went:

Rob: So when you wore your coat did you feel hot?

Maxine: A little.

R: So what happens to a body when it is too hot?

M: When a body is too hot it explodes!

R: !

So be warned as winter approaches: Don't wear your coat all day, because if you get too hot...

BANG!

Rides 8-11

2011-10-12T21:48:00.002-05:00

This week I have ridden every day, following the subway here (20 minutes, though I think I got it down to 17 today busin' my hump) and taking the mountain road home. I still can't get all the way over without putting a foot on the ground. Especially if there is a lot of traffic coming up behind me, and especially especially if someone honks at me as he passes. That happened yesterday and just blew my concentration, and once you stop going up a steep hill it is really hard to get going again. I ended up walking a way until the traffic let up.

The traffic is not really that fast; they are dealing with stop lights and frequent stops by taxis and buses. Sometimes I pass cars going up hill, even as I am in granny gear, huffing and puffing and wishing that there was a short cut to getting serious bike muscles and lungs.

Maxine told me that it looked like I had lost some weight. I'm not sure that I trust her on this one; she knows I want to lose weight, and likes to say things to make me happy.

So I have biked back and forth to work 11 times out of the last 12 work days, missing only once because of a rainy forecast. I could have beaten the rain here, but there's no way to know that when you set off, so I'm probably better off not finding out. That puts me at around 92%, an A-. But they have forecast rain for tomorrow as well, so we will see what happens. As it is now, I change clothes when I get to work anyway, and my bag has a rain cover. If it is a light rain, I might ride anyway.

It seems that this is really the only way I will get regular exercise. I can't squeeze any more significant time out of my daily schedule, and this combines a necessary activity (getting to work) with a desirable activity (exercising). I know that some people wake up early to exercise. I just can't do it. Waking up early is an unnatural activity for me, whereas staying up late comes easy.

In other news, at work they are asking for all of the foreign English teachers to evaluate a big stack of English science books to choose one for next year. It will be a supplementary book, used a couple of times a month, and probably not by us. It's hard for me to build up much interest in this, as this school has a reputation for soliciting advise and then ignoring it. What does it cost them to ask us to spend time? Nothing. But we are not considered experts, in spite of our experience and first-hand knowledge. It is quite frustrating.

And at the end of October it is time for re-signing contracts for next year, and for the school to let us know whether we will be invited to re-sign or just resign. Unfortunately, there are already rumors about who will not be asked to come back, rumors spread by the people making the decision. It seems very unprofessional to me, but once again, I was not asked.

The other event at the end of October is Halloween. We will have our school-wide Halloween party on the 28th, with games, a haunted house, and candy. It will be a nice break from teaching, but it is ironic that we are doing fake scary at the same time that some of us are going through the real-life scary prospect of losing a job. I think if the party were after they dropped pink slips, some of our kids might get a bit more scaring than they had anticipated.

Rides #6 and #7

2011-10-08T10:45:00.000-05:00

Well, six and a half anyway. Maybe I can round it up to 7. No choice, as I am NOT going to keep track of fractions on this thing.

We only had school for three days this week: Monday was a national holiday, and Tuesday was a holiday for our school. Wednesday was a normal ride (#5). Thursday I rode to school normally, but rode home via the mountainside road. It's not any longer, maybe even shorter. Hard to tell as I need to replace the batteries in my odometer. But it's a lot hillier, that's for sure.

Friday's are an odd ride day for me: Our work day finishes early, at 3:00 instead of 4:30. But I have an, um... "standing appointment" from 3:30 until 4:30 every Friday at school, so it's pretty much the same for me. Then I have another appointment at 5:30 across town in Haeundae. It's a solid 40 minutes by subway, plus 20 minutes of walking altogether, so my schedule is tight. Last week I took my bike on the subway, then rode home from the appointment. This week I had the same intention, but screwed it up rather badly. As I entered the subway station I remembered that my Hanaro Card (electronic debit card good for all buses and subways in Busan, fantastic invention, they introduced it shortly after I moved here in '97, but I digress) did not have enough money on it to ride. So I rode through the station (not many people around, I figured why not?), charged my card, and went down to the tracks.

The wrong tracks. Didn't realize it at the time, because it was crazy getting a bike on the subway car, and holding it still while we were moving, and trying to avoid bumping people with it. After 20 minutes I looked up to check what station we were at. I didn't recognize it, so I figured I was getting close to my destination. I'm not familiar with the stations out past where I live. I took a look at the map above the car door, and tried to find where I was. When I finally found it, my mind refused to accept where I was. There was a nasty little bit of cognitive dissonance followed by a little bit of cursing, and the plan to get off at the next stop and get on the train going the opposite way. I followed through on the plan, then called my wife and my appointment. Horyon also had an appointment to teach in the evening, so I could not start mine late. I had to skip it. Which means not getting paid for it. I was not happy with myself, and had a good hour of subway riding during which I could think about exactly how unhappy I was with myself.

So the only afternoon riding I did was from the school to the subway station (downhill), inside the subway station (maybe 200 meters of smooth, level floor) and from my subway station home (all of two minutes). Not much of a ride.

On the bright side, if I count it as a full ride, I have ridden seven out of eight possible days since starting. 88% is not too bad, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Maxine's Birthday, Ride #5 and Buffets

2011-10-05T02:22:00.003-05:00

Today is my sweetheart Maxine's Birthday. Six years old, going on 13. Happy birthday Sweetie!

We celebrated yesterday by taking Horyon's parents to a buffet in Bexco. It is a kid-friendly restaurant, with basically an indoor playground. Some tables are right on the edge of the playground, and some are removed far enough that you can barely see and not hear the play area at all.

And the food... oh my hat, as my friend Gert says.

My number one favorite place in the line-up was the grill: cute little steaks, cooked to order. I had three in the course of the evening, all cooked to a perfect medium rare, three lovely sauces available, meat so tender I was cutting it with a butter knife. Very very nice. Right next to the grill was the pasta station, which was also very nice. I had some spaghetti cooked with garlic, olive oil and dried chili peppers. A bit too spicy, but fresh and wonderfully prepared. The raw fish was fresh and tasty. The hot dishes were all fresh and tasty. The deserts were very good, and in such tiny proportions that I could have a creme brule (dangit, how do you spell that?), a raspberry cake/cream thing, a blueberry yogurt, and a little cordial. The chefs were friendly and helpful, and spoke some English. They didn't look down their noses at me when I came back for another steak, and even helped me pick out a good one.

The kids got to play and eat, back and forth, and we got to go back and forth as well to keep an eye on them. With four adults, we didn't have to rush our food. The adult price was just over $20, and the kids around $12, and we stayed from six until almost nine p.m. We will not likely eat there frequently, but we will very likely go back, as I am in love with the place and we can bring the kids.

I don't know if Maxine enjoyed her birthday celebration as much as I did, but I think that's reasonable considering how often I do things with her that I do not enjoy as much as she does. And even if she didn't enjoy the food as much as I did, she enjoyed the playground a lot. As an added bonus Horyon's parents gave her a present: some princess pencils and 10 new Barbie Dresses. I think some of them are a bit over-the-top, but that's what Barbie is apparently all about.

It was my second buffet this long weekend (no classes Monday or Tuesday), as we went out after Sports Day on Saturday, which was an event requiring more attention than I can give at the moment. Saturday's buffet was billed as "The Biggest Seafood Buffet in Asia." Maybe so. I had some crab legs, sliced ham (right off the joint), rare roast beef (with a perfect sauce), and a lot of other tasty food. It was a very different atmosphere, as I was with my coworkers and without my family, the beer and soju flowed freely, and it was the end of a long, hard, but fun day. I'm not sure how much it costs to eat there, as the school paid for it, but I still prefer the Bexco buffet.

So this morning I skipped breakfast. Didn't feel like I needed it, as I was still burping from dinner the night before. My ride this morning felt a bit sluggish, but it was good to be back in the saddle after four days without riding. Kendra also rode this morning, and we have agreed to hit the mountain on the way home. That will add some work and time to the ride, and though it may not make up for two buffets, it will at least be an acknowledgement that I ate perhaps more than I should have this weekend.

Ride #4, Busy Day

2011-09-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

Took my bike on the subway today. On Fridays I teach an extra lesson at school for an hour, then another extra lesson some distance from our school. I usually take the subway to get there, and it is more than an hour's ride by bike (I think, might be worth taking a trial ride some time), so I took the bike on a subway ride.

It wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. I parked in a wheelchair access spot, fervently hoping that no one with an actual wheelchair would show up. It was crowded at times, but not bad.

My one mistake was not bringing my headlight. It's a super bright LED rechargeable that my brother-in-law gave me along with the other equipment. I just wasn't thinking about it when I left at 7:15 this morning. By the time I left my last job, it was dark, and I was riding some pretty busy roads. Not much fun. But I made it with no incidents. I should probably just throw the light in my backpack, as winter is coming on and it is getting darker earlier and earlier. We finish at 4:30 Monday through Thursday, which should still give me good light even in January, but if I get distracted or stop somewhere on the way home for an hour, it could take me past sunset.

And tomorrow is Sports Day (note the capitalization)! Every student I have talked to is excited about it. When I tell them that American schools don't do a Sports Day, they always ask me why. Tough question, but it basically boils down to individualism being such a core value that most parents don't want to see every kid in the school singing a song with the same motions. And the people who do just have to be satisfied with marching band or ROTC.

So I had a full teaching schedule today (three classes, 80 minutes each plus two hours of tutoring after school) then came home in time for Horyon to leave for her tutoring. So I got to spend the evening alone with the kids. Bedtime went very smoothly today, for which I am grateful. Thanks Maxine and Quinten!

And Sports Day is tomorrow!!!!!

The Umbrella Charm

2011-09-29T10:36:00.002-05:00

The weather forecast called for rain today, so I carried my umbrella and rode the subway to work. Just as I got there it started sprinkling, so I think I could have made it by bike. Twenty minutes later my coworker Ed stopped by my room on his way in. He was soaked to the skin from riding his motorcycle to work. He told me that when he left home the weather looked fine. He took the tunnel (cuts a couple of k off the trip to work), and when he came out on the school side it was pouring rain. So I felt somewhat better about not riding.

It was fairly clear when I left work as well. It might have been a successful ride today, but then again I may have staved off the rain by simply carrying my umbrella.

If you had not guessed, I am attempting to publish the Roblog daily, even if the posts end up being somewhat insignificant. I started this post before midnight my time, but it is now 20 after. Even insignificant writing takes time, you know.

Before I go to bed, a quick update on the kids:

Quinten has taken to loudly announcing when a television show is finished. To the uninitiated it probably sounds like "blah blah blah ih pinish!", but we can hear it as "Mickey Mouse is finished!" He hollers whether one of us is in the room or not, and often yells three or four times even after verbal acknowledgement.

Maxine is psyched because her birthday is coming up, October 5th. Don't tell her, but I think we are going to get her a turtle.

Sports Day's a comin'!!!!!

2011-09-28T02:01:00.000-05:00

A common phenomenon in Korean schools is Sports Day. Today we had rehearsal for it all morning, from 8:30 until after 12:30. Saturday the actual spectacle will be from 9:30 until at least 3:30, with a lunch break, plus clean up time, plus time at a buffet with free food and beer.

If it weren't a Saturday, I would totally be down with it. Unfortunately, on that Saturday Horyon's mother will be out of town, so the kids will be staying with just her father. He has had a couple of surgeries in the last few months, and is supposed to be taking it easy, so we were kind of concerned: Maxine is not much trouble, but Quinten will run away from you while outside, play rough inside, and get into stuff he should avoid wherever he is. (Maxine never put stuff in her mouth that wasn't food. Quinten is just now sort of figuring out that he's not supposed to, which means he does it when you're not looking.)

Fortunately, we've found a solution: Charlie Brown's Cafe!

I believe that they have officially gotten permission from Charles Schultz's estate to use the Peanuts characters. Unusual for Korea. They have pictures on the walls, merchandise, and some statues of Snoopy, Linus, Charlie and a few others. But that's not why we like to go. They have good food, though it's a bit pricey ($10-$15 for most entrees, $5-$6 for coffee drinks, and adults must order food or coffee along with paying $10 per kid). The reason we like C.B.C. is that it is full of toys, and has only one entrance, and attendants who play with the kids. They have a bunch of fake food in the little pretend grocery store area, lots of toy cars that you can scoot around in (if you are a child that is, they are a bit too small for me). They have a little golf area, and a padded area with big foam blocks. They have a table with wooden blocks, blocky "paper" dolls with magnetic clothing. They have one of those giant gerbil cages like you see at McDonald's with a ball chamber in the middle and a train track that goes around it and they run the train every hour on the hour and the kids go nuts over it.

When we go we spend about $50 for three hours, which is a lot on our budget, but we get lunch and we can let the kids run around and play without worrying about them getting hurt or wandering off. If you have kids you probably understand why this is a pretty good deal, especially if you don't have friends with whom you can easily do play dates.

So Horyon's father will take the kids to Charlie Brown's Cafe, and by the time he brings them to his home it will be Quinten's nap time. Maxine can color, watch t.v./video, or play with one of the hundreds of toys or books at their home.

Horyon will go there as soon as she can. I, however, will join my coworkers for food and beverages provided by the school after biking home for a shower.

Rides #2 and #3

2011-09-27T18:24:00.000-05:00

Nothing much more to say 'bout that. I found that if I don't get curious about side streets or stop to talk to people the ride here and the ride home take about the same amount of time--22 minutes. That is riding mostly in the streets, but taking to sidewalks when the hills are long and the shoulder narrow.

The distance is just over 4 miles (6.7 km or so, I keep forgetting to check/reset the odometer).

My coworker Kendra rode yesterday and today. She is a bit more skittish about riding on the road than I am. For me it is just a return to my Kosin days, only the ride is about twice as long.

Today I passed a guy on a bike, and he followed me most of the way to work. That probably pushed me to go faster than if I had been on my own.

Official Ride #1

2011-09-26T02:29:00.000-05:00

I made it today. 22 minutes riding time. Google maps says it's doable in 18 minutes, but I think they assume that the train pulls into the station just as you get to the platform, rather than leaving as you fret behind the person not walking down the escalator. I left home around 7:20, so I got here at my usual time. Still feel good at 4:00, half an hour before time to head home.

The question now is whether to ride home easy or hard: follow the subway or head up the mountain? I will probably take it easy. I won't necessarily have time to shower right away, and I didn't get to clean up after the morning ride, either, aside from splashing some water on my face.

And it is now time to go. I am hoping to ride back and forth every day this week. Friday I will have to take my bike on the subway, as I have something to do in Haeundae, and not enough time to ride there.

Bike to work?

2011-09-24T06:14:00.000-05:00

So today (Saturday) my coworker/friend Kendra and I rode our bicycles to our school, just to get an idea of how long it would take. On the way there we took a foothill road, and on the way back we followed the subway (above ground, of course). The round trip was 20 km (12.4 miles for those of you who are slaves to ancient rulers) and took almost exactly two hours: 75 minutes to get there, and 45 minutes to return. We spent about 10 minutes on a dead end going (an extremely uphill dead end), but came back pretty much directly.

Following the subway was a fairly level course, and I've decided to try riding it to work almost every day for the following reasons:

1. In March I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Rather than tackle the causes, the doctor put me on medication. This brought it under control, but Horyon has been worrying about it the whole time. Last week she bought a book about it, and has decided that I need to bring my blood pressure down by more natural means than taking a pill every day. And of course, losing weight is one way to bring down blood pressure. Regular exercise being one way to lose weight, and not being one who frequents health clubs (loud music, bad smell, bright lights and no alcohol, it's like the worst half of the bar scene), I need exercise I can enjoy.

2. Riding bikes is fun. Working to the top of a hill is a challenge, and coming down the other side is like a well-earned reward. A good, long, low-access downhill gets the wind blowing through your hair and clothes, and 15 mph feels like daredevil breakneck speed.

3. It is a surprisingly low stress way to travel. Even in a big city like Busan, it is relaxing for me. Driving a car in Busan is stressful because when the fight or flight urge comes, the only option is to turn up the music. But when you're on a bike you can almost always burn off the adrenaline by standing on the pedals and just working the bike with a vengeance. And it is very satisfying to pass cars while they wait at a traffic light.

4. Taking the subway costs about $2 round trip. The bike is expensive, but it's already been paid for. I can pump that $2 right into other bad habits.

5. Taking the subway to work, together with the walk at both ends, takes about 30~35 minutes, depending on how long I have to wait for the train. The bike route back today took 45 minutes, but I'm thinking that I can bring that time down by optimizing the route and getting my rather large behind in gear. An extra 15 minutes is no big deal, especially since...

6. Exercise wakes me up. I will shop up for work with a fresh mind, if not the freshest arm pits.

7. It's a good example for my students of living green, maintaining good health, and being unafraid to be different.

8. It's a good way to stay warm in the winter. When pedestrians are bundled up and shivering, I find that I am unzipping my jacket to avoid sweating too much.

9. I am reducing my carbon footprint on the world.

10. Just because I have ten fingers doesn't mean I need ten reasons. I'm saving that last finger for someone who truly deserves it on the road.

In an attempt to encourage myself through better record keeping, I will attempt to make a small Roblog post every day, letting the world know whether or not I am keeping this commitment, and giving those who care a chance to encourage me. Check back frequently, and maybe I can even throw in a picture of the kids from time to time.

English Summer Camp

2011-09-21T09:51:00.001-05:00

Our school had an English Summer Camp for four days at the end of August. And I want to say right up front that it was better than I expected. I had a good time overall, enjoyed most of the time with the students, liked most of the food, and very much enjoyed the time with my coworkers. However…

There wasn't really very much English involved; the students came to four hours with a native speaker every day, plus another hour or two with their group leader. But the groups were big--up to 14 or 15 in some--so the kids spoke Korean even in class and with their groups.

We got there around 10:30 a.m., had an opening ceremony that was basically a speech by the principal simultaneously translated (read) into English by Ed. This being the first of one-hand-countable times that the entire student body was addressed in English. It was the usual "Welcome to Camp" speech, though the line "Stand up and give respect to the principal" still sticks out in my mind. It totally fits the communist prison camp slash boarding school vibe that our school gives off in spades. (At this point Horyon tells me to not be cynical, painting a picture of our school that makes them look crazy. I say, “I’m just telling it like it is, and if people think it sounds crazy it is hardly my fault.” She comes back by pointing out the “communist prison camp slash boarding school vibe” line, and reminds me that they may be monitoring my blog, which sort of fits the communist prison camp slash boarding school vibe. We both laugh nervously and once again scan the walls for surveillance devices.)

The facility was nice. It was basically a big hotel with mostly bare concrete walls. Standard decor for camps, I suppose. The students were in groups of about 14, same grade, same sex. They slept on the floor in their room, moved around in their group, went to all their English activities in their group, and probably wanted to kill everyone in their group by the end of the week. I certainly would have settled for decimation of many groups, and I only spent significant time with my own group of 3rd grade boys.

Once inside the facility, they did not exit until the next afternoon. They had their meals in that building, did morning exercises in that building (which we were fortunate enough to miss), and went to class in that building. They were indoors for almost 27 hours, then outdoors for two and a half or three. The older half of the campers went to the swimming pool, and the younger half went to the "river". The next day (Friday) at the same time they switched outdoor activities, after 22 hours of being inside, and also spent a couple of hours at a “bonfire” which needs something stronger than quotation marks around it to signify that it was not only un-bonfire-like, but tacky and at times extremely offensive as well but with plenty of blaring music and the fumes of refined petroleum products to lend atmosphere.

But back to the afternoons: It was the first cool weather we had all summer, so I saw lots of kids coming out of the pool with bluish lips, but they had a good time. Like every Korean swimming pool I’ve ever seen, this one was about four feet deep at most. Deep enough to swim without kicking the bottom if you are careful, and big enough that it didn’t feel crowded with 50 kids and half a dozen foreigners splashing around in it. The “river” was what we in Kansas would call a creek, though we would pronounce it “crick”. Just over knee deep in some places, ankle deep in others, and more than 50 feet across. The staff brought down some nets, and the boys and the girls tried to out fish each other. They brought in a total of about 40 minnows. I was a bit surprised that they were not cooked up to be served with dinner that night. Maybe the camp staff knows more about what happens upstream than I. It was a shame that the weather was not typical for late August in Korea, but that’s not the kind of thing you can blame the school for. So let’s look at the score so far:

In my humble opinion, if you are spending 80% of your time indoors, you are not camping. And if you can easily avoid speaking English, and hear it only half the time you are awake, and it is not used functionally at all, it doesn’t seem right to label an activity as “English Whatever-it-is.” The weather was not very summery, but nothing could be done about that.

In conclusion, Donsung’s English Summer Camp was neither “English”, nor a “camp”, and only “summer” by virtue of its placement on the calendar, which was not strictly validated by the weather conditions.

But I still had fun.

I had an apartment all to myself for three nights. There is an incomprehensible beauty to this statement that I would not have understood before I had children. When I was quiet, there was no noise; I could clearly hear the creek running nearby and the wind blowing. The apartment had sliding doors with screens on opposite sides, so there was a lovely crosswind. There was a refrigerator in which I kept Pepsi, strawberry jelly, and bread. I kept the peanut butter out on the counter so it would spread easily. When I had free time I read, ate PB&J, and drank Pepsi. And slept. It was simple and awesome, and not so long that I got homesick.

It was my first time to stay away from my family since Quinten was born. I talked to Maxine, Horyon and Quinten on the phone every evening. Quinten is becoming quite chatty, but still has issues with using the phone correctly. Not surprising for 2.5 years old, I suppose. But Maxine can talk up a storm. And she was happy to relay everything I said to anyone who would listen. It drags on the conversation a bit, but is so endearing that I couldn’t help but laugh.

And in the evenings, after finishing with the campers, I hung out with my coworkers. We drank, and I did something I don’t do when I’m going to be around my kids: I consumed more than one alcoholic beverage. The fact is I drank more in those three evenings than I have total in the past year, though that isn’t really saying much. Thursday night we played drinking games, which I have not done since before Maxine was born. But it didn’t get messy. It ended up getting sentimental for those of us who were there. Ed told us that he had proposed to his girlfriend while back in the states, and we all got sentimental after that. He then reminded me, in a very direct, if somewhat slurred and repetitive way, that in my family I have everything that is important. Darned if I didn’t get all teary-eyed over that. At the time I didn’t have the words to properly express how right Ed was, and how I have been distracted by losing my job, moving away from Kansas, and a million other little things that pale in comparison to the joy I have in Horyon, Maxine and Quinten. There were many statements of agreement. My coworker Kendra, a wonderful Canadian woman in her 20s, told me, “When I see your kids my ovaries ache!” There was more said, both pains and hopes shared. And we all stumbled off to bed sometime after 3 a.m. Friday morning.*

None of us brought it up after that, or since getting back from camp. I don’t know about the rest of them, but to me this is a precious, somewhat delicate memory. I’m afraid that someone else might break it by laughing about what was so touching to me, lumping that jewel in with the earlier part of the evening.

When I was young I went to Church Camp as a camper, then as a counselor after graduating high school. Camp always ended in a circle that was reluctantly broken, and I always went home feeling like I had experienced something that I could not truly share with anyone who hadn’t been there before. The imprecisely named Dongsung English Summer Camp was a little bit the same, only with alcohol.

On a side note, today I was told that after passing feedback on to the administration, it was suggested that I might be asked to be camp coordinator for next summer. I kind of doubt that will happen, but one never knows...

*Amazingly enough I did not have a hangover Friday morning. I drank lots of water and juice and took a shower before bed. It cut back on my sleep, but made the next day tolerable.

Excuses, excuses.

2011-07-31T10:59:00.000-05:00

All right, here's the deal:

1. Maxine dropped our camera a couple of months ago, and now it no longer works. The lens is extended, and won't go back in to the casing. Hence the lack of pictures on the Roblog.

2. Our summer vacation started last Monday, a week ago, and I am just now feeling relaxed enough to write. Seriously.

During the last week of classes I started getting a tooth ache. A real doozy. I had only recently had my upper right wisdom tooth extracted and the tooth next to it capped, but this pain was in the bottom front right. I was sure that that's where the pain originated, and it was so bad that it made my jaw hurt the first couple of days, then the whole right side of my face. The kind of pain that makes your brain go on strike.

I found that if I could lie down and relax before it hit hard, it passed quickly. I found that sometimes Tylenol helped and sometimes might as well have been nasty candy. I found that I am a wimp when it comes to taking pain, so I called my dentist (i.e. had Horyon call) and begged for an appointment.

They took some x-rays, tapped the culprit tooth, asked questions in halting English, and told me that they could find nothing wrong. Treatment? Wait and see what happens.

I figured this meant that it was all in my head. Of course, an actual toothache would be in my head as well, but this must have been me being mental. So I made a conscious decision to not be stressed.

It worked. I did not let myself raise my voice in class. I did not let myself get upset when students were obnoxious. I dropped my jaw, and found that I had been clenching. I still wonder how long I had been doing that.

Next thing I knew vacation started. I woke up last Saturday feeling like I had lost 50 pounds. I don't remember longing, hungering for a vacation like this since my days in Nepal when escaping to Thailand felt like going into orbit.

I don't think I'm cut out to be an elementary teacher.

3. We are giving Maxine an allowance of sorts, in line with a presentation Horyon attended a couple of weeks ago. We are all excited about it, especially Maxine. She is actually getting paid for doing work around the house. I think this deserves a separate post, so I'm closing this one down.

Maxine's Thank You cards

2011-07-30T13:47:00.000-05:00

Maxine is changing schools this month, and these are the thank you cards she made for her teachers, and a birthday card for my brother-in-law's wife:

Undersea B-Day Partay!

Open your eyes, duck, or you will seriously run into a tree:

Either a lot of love, or practice drawing hearts:

A combination of Tangled and Frosty the Snowman, perhaps?

The Birds! The Birds!

Translation: Happy Birthday, Auntie (wife of parent's brother, to be exact)!

Look out fly! You can't tell from the scan, but this composition used glitter crayons to great effect:

We plan to encourage Maxine to continue to express herself through art. She will be six in October. Someday people may look back on Roblog as the first documentation of her career.

A Good Monday and House for Sale

2011-07-30T13:34:00.000-05:00

Our house is for sale. Of course, this link won't last past the house selling, and maybe not even that long. Hopefully it will sell quickly. Our agent has described it as a

Totally Updated and Super Slick SW One-Level!"

Not sure if those are the words I would have used, but it does look good on the virtual tour.

And today when I came in to work I found that my morning classes had been cancelled. And I don't have any afternoon classes on Monday! Happy day! Got some planning done.

Selling the house is depressing. It will be nice to have those financial resources freed up, but...

It was our first house. Maybe our last, if we've learned our lesson properly. It was our shot at the American Dream, and we missed it. Yes, our timing was bad. I understand that the American economy has maimed and destroyed many, and that we are fortunate to have a fall back like Korea. And I can now see clearly that I was naive about moving back to the states and teaching in a public school.

I am so glad that we had the chance to live close to my family, and to make new friends in Lawrence. But we just couldn't make it work.

So much for a good Monday, eh?

Quick Maxine Quote

2011-06-03T20:10:00.002-05:00

So I'm working with Maxine on her homework (yeah, homework in kindergarten. Welcome to Korea, Maxine) and out of the blue she says this to me:

""Daddy, if you want to married you would have to get a duel to see who marries Mommy. I would say, 'Go go Daddy! Go go Daddy!"

It's good to know she's rooting for me.

We had a couple of weeks of health and catching up, but Quinten has had a mild fever and some coughing the last couple of nights, so we're split up sleeping with the kids again.

The good news is that...

um...

I'll come up with something later.

Everybody home

2011-05-16T10:21:00.000-05:00

Last week we had no school, though we were supposed to be there on Wednesday to hold down our seats.

Didn't work out that way.

On Monday (a holiday, as Tuesday was the Birthday of the Buddha, happy belated birthday big guy!) we took Maxine to the hospital, as she was still very uncomfortable and vomiting over night. They suggested checking her in for a couple of days to run some tests. Sure, no problem. This was a different hospital than the one we went to before, and it just felt more professional to me.

We checked her into a 3-patient room instead of the single. This cut our payment down from $110 a night to about $25 per night. Of course, you get what you pay for: sharing a room with a couple of kids who are coughing sick at a time when Maxine's body is stressed out. Drunk relatives of said kids spending the late part of the evening, after bed time, being noisy, stinky, and bearing greasy food, the smell of which made Maxine feel ill. And of course they couldn't open the window for ventilation, because their kids were sick! Aargh! Horyon complained to the nurse, and that eventually got things moving.

Eventually it was agreed upon that problem in Maxine's stomach was with her lymph nodes. I was not aware that there were lymph nodes in or around the stomach. Learn something new every day. The reason was stress, compounded by all the medicine she had been taking for the colds she had gone through. Made sense to me.

They checked her out on Thursday, and she has been home since. Of course, it is only Monday now, and there is still time for things to go wrong. Horyon said she was coughing a lot today...

Here is an interesting piece of A4 paper that Maxine decorated, front and back. It is to be a birthday card, I believe for me to give to her when she turns six. She made it more than a week ago, and I was undoubtedly short on sleep when she explained it to me, so I may very well have it completely wrong. If so, I'm sorry Maxine!

A big shout out to my parents. They just sent me some bicycling equipment and a copy of Disney's "Tangled" (on Blu-Ray and DVD!). I sat and watched the entire movie with Maxine while Quinten and Mommy were in the hospital. It was a nice Sunday for me and Maxine. I can't remember the last time I sat with her for so long.

She was not happy about going back to school today. She protested that she wanted to be with me and Horyon. What can you do? It would drive her crazy to stay home with us all day, but she can't really imagine that. And she can't imagine what would happen if we both just stopped working to be with her. I don't want her to be able to imagine being hungry all the time, and not having a home. I'm glad she can't. But how do you respond without trying to help her picture it?

Oh well. I'm sure it will all be better once she becomes a teenager.

Enough is Enough

2011-05-08T01:12:00.000-05:00

OK. So last night Maxine spent the night vomiting. (Dr. guessing the stress of too much medication and stress and not enough eating are catching up with her, poor kid.) Yesterday Horyon's father was admitted to the hospital, also for constant vomiting. (No news yet.) I have no classes this week, and Horyon only has class on Wednesday, so we are pretty much set to spike this one down. Quinten is healthy, and Horyon and I are okay. We just want to have a sane existence at this point.

We did have everyone home Friday night, and Saturday was mostly okay. Long naps for everyone. Right now Quinten is napping, and Horyon and Maxine are at the hospital (different hospital from the past couple of weeks) getting a slow IV, as Maxine had nothing left inside after about 11 p.m. last night.

Not sure what else to say at this point. Horyon's father doesn't have insurance, so things will be very tight around here for a while. On the bright side, Dad tells me that soon our house will be on the market. On the less bright side, the first house we bought will be on the market soon because we just couldn't afford to keep it.

I find myself being nostalgic for a time which I'm not sure ever existed: the time of a normal, happy, healthy life. Then I remember that I have a friend whose seven-year-old daughter has Cystic Fibrosis. She has a regular regimen of IVs, being poked with needles, and taking medications. I remember that I have many friends raising their children as single parents, making do with one paycheck and no one you can just count on to be there while you take a kid to the hospital. I remember that I lived for two years in Nepal, where children in villages died, and still die, from diahrea. I remember that my blessings are uncountable.

I have had trouble praying lately. We pray at every meal, but it has become somewhat mechanical for me. I am occasionally rescued by Maxine, because when she prays she really means it. Today it was just Quinten and me eating lunch at home, and I got choked up when I prayed, saying "Thank you for all the blessings you have given us."

So if you are praying for the health (and sanity) of my family, please also pray for my spiritual health.

Sick kid, well kid, manageable dad

2011-05-03T20:30:00.000-05:00

The good news is that Quinten is fine. Fit as a fiddle and ready to rock. Well, he still shows signs of one ear being a little infected, and his throat is not in the best of shape, but relatively speaking he is doing great.

The bad news is that his sister is not. Maxine fought a fever last night, which kept Horyon up wiping her down with damp towels. Now it is her throat, the same culprit that knocked Quinten down last week.

So Horyon is staying at the hospital with both of them again tonight. And tomorrow is a holiday, Children's Day, so we are unlikely to be checking out then. Besides, we have to work on Friday.

So yeah, this is racking up. As I mentioned before, the cost for hospital stays here is relatively low, but we have already passed the point where my entire paycheck for April will be consumed in this health crisis. So much for making progress on the bills. So much for sending money back to the States. So much for saving for retirement. Worth it to have healthy kids, but I am just tired of the whole thing.

I thought they were coming home today. Last night I was up until 1 a.m., vacuuming, doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen. Looks like I have time to do more cleaning today.

I am nearing the end of two months of treatment for hypertension. I take blood pressure medicine every morning. The only tricky part is remembering to get the prescription refilled in time. Today I will have to rush, as I am also teaching a private lesson and visiting my family at the hospital.

These days it is not fashionable to refer to private lessons as such, so we call them "Tea Parties". It makes me feel as though I should be sitting at a little table with dolls and pretending to drink tea and eat cake. Silly, but not as shady as telling people that you are pretty happy with your privates.

Yesterday I rode my bike to the hospital for the first time. Cut the 30 minutes walk down to about 8 minutes. Almost all level, little side streets. The time varies as there is a stoplight that takes two or three minutes to turn over. I got the bike from my brother-in-law, Young-whan. He is a really good guy, even bought me a $200+ helmet to protect my precious, if ineffective, noggin. And the bike itself is worthy of a full post, as soon as I get some free time.

Gotta get ready for class. I only have time for this because one class this morning was cancelled.

Sick Kids

2011-05-02T09:11:00.000-05:00

OK. I've set my timer for 30 minutes, after which I will post this and go to sleep.

It has been one week today since Quinten was admitted to the hospital with a high fever. It started to come down Friday, and they stopped giving him drugs, but they didn't want to send him home until Monday, because when they release patients on the weekend they frequently come back and need to be readmitted through the emergency room, which is, I guess, a major bummer for everyone involved and not worth the minor advantage gained by taking your family out of an environment full of sick people and health care professionals who don't necessarily have germ theory grilled into their minds.

Last week Maxine and I stayed with Horyon's parents, while Horyon spent every moment outside of work in the hospital with Quinten. Friday, Saturday and Sunday night Maxine and I stayed at home, got some laundry done, caught up a bit on cleaning up the kitchen, and I cooked a nice chicken soup, which made me feel tons better. Maxine whined at first because there were onions AND green onions, but I had deliberately left them large enough for her to eat around.

Sunday we hung out at the hospital with Quinten and Mommy, then Horyon's parents took Maxine and I to a meat restaurant. Maxine ate quite a bit, as did I.

That night Maxine had a tummy ache. I gave her a Tums, and we both got to sleep by 9:45, pretty early for us. And this morning she felt crummy. Vomited twice, and had a fever. So she got admitted to the hospital instead of Quinten being released.

Right now (almost 11 p.m. my time) Horyon is there with both kids. The sofa is pushed next to the bed, the kids have their IV drips going, and it is cozy and warm, and just a bit stuffy. Today was a Yellow Dust day. (Comes from China, fun stuff, coats everything and makes you sneeze. The Korean Herald said today was the worst yellow dust day of the year.) That always makes things more fun.

Some people have asked me about insurance for the kids. We are all insured through our work, though there have been complications. Nothing that keeps the insurance from working though. Since Maxine and Quinten are both officially Korean citizens, they are automatically insured by the state if we do not have insurance for them. Neat, huh? And though I have issues with the hospital, at $120 per day after insurance picks up the lion's share, I can't complain. Not out loud, anyway. Well, not out loud to them, anyway.

Here's one characteristic of a Korean hospital: everyone gets the IV drip, all the time. You see patients standing outside having a cigarette with IVs, though not so much from this hospital as it is a pediatric hospital. Quinten has had an IV into his hand (switching hands every three days for the past week. He has become quite clever at untangling himself, and they have the entry bandaged up so that he can't pull it out or mess it up. At least he hasn't so far.

They put the IV in Maxine's right hand. She was pretty upset over how it impacted her coloring, but quickly got over it with some positive reinforcement from me. She still gets tangled, but she's learning.

Speaking of Tangled, Mom and Dad sent Maxine the video "Tangled" and it arrived this weekend. Maxine and I watched the whole thing together. First time in a long time for us to do that. It was a lot of fun, had me laughing out loud in many places, though not usually the same places that made Maxine laugh out loud. Thanks Mom and Dad! They also sent me some bicycle stuff. Don't know when I will be able to use that...

I brought them both fresh coloring and sketch books today. Looks like Quinten may be heading down the same artistic path as Maxine, except that he seems to prefer methods that make more noise. Hmm....

I have gotten a lot of support from friends and family back in the states, and my coworkers here have been great, too. Of course, when you're a teacher there is not a whole lot that other people can do to make your job much easier. In the end it is you up there either teaching or making a fool of yourself.

My half hour is almost up. I need to remember to bring some shoes for Horyon. She lets Quinten walk around diaper-less sometimes, and today he peed on her shoes. I usually tell her that it's not a good idea to leave him diaper free, but today I kept my mouth shut. See Mom, I'm learning something!

Maxine's School

2011-03-27T00:15:00.000-05:00

This is Maxine's class at her kindergarten. Her class name is "Happy Beavers". Before making any remarks, please keep in mind that these are children.

The school sent us these pictures. I'm thinking that they could not resist Maxine's charms. Who could?

They took their first field trip to a potato farm. Maxine told me that she planted seven potatoes. That's pretty good. I have not even planted one.

As you can tell, the whole class is seriously into posing for pictures. Maxine's teacher told Horyon that Maxine doesn't really speak much Korean (she has individual tutoring in the afternoons to catch up), but that she still ends up leading the free play games, like playing house. I can tell that her Korean is quickly gaining speed. I think that she heard enough before she turned two that her brain is programmed to receive Korean, she just needs to learn the structures and vocabulary.

I would still like to see her get more attention in this regard. I know that American schools (KS schools, anyway) are required to have ESL programs for kids who don't speak English. It's kind of disappointing to hear that Korean schools have little or no plan for kids who don't speak Korean. My coworker's daughter spent 5th and 6th grade in a Korean public school before transferring to an English school, and she is now working hard to catch up with her peers, because the Korean school administration and teachers let her sit in class not understanding anything, making no concerted effort to get her the language skills she needed to succeed.

Maxine's Art

2011-03-24T08:29:00.000-05:00

Here is some of Maxine's art. Click on the picture for a bigger version. Below each picture is what Maxine told me about the pictures. I attempted to preserve her words as she told them to me, explaining why the Roblog today sounds a bit more like a five-year-old wrote it than usual. All were drawn in March 2011.

Everyone thinked of a fiesta for the trees, so they decorated it! With paint and with Christmas decorations, Christmas holders for the Christmas trees.

And they put a ladder on top. (Daddy: "Is there a ladder in there?" Maxine: "They put the ladder away.")

And when they put up the ladder, they put three hearts: one medium, one small, one big, on each size tree. They put the little one on the little tree, they put the medium one on the medium tree, and the big one on the big tree.

And they put paint the trees with sand to cover the holes chipmunks made in the trees.

The sun was too bright that it put on sunglasses!

(D: "What are the pink things?") It was so bright that pink flowers comed out of the sky.

They put on strings behind the branches on each tree to another. D: "What's it for?" They put a ribbon through the other in the middle. They put strange things around the trees. D: "Who?" The Christmas guy that loved Christmas. It wasn't Santa Claus. Nobody seen Santa Claus, because they were so sleepy.

"Is the sky special? Why?" The sky was so lightful that it wanted to be a little dark. The people loved each other, and they lived happily ever after. The End.

A fairy was so happy of a smell she came and came of a lost flower falling down from the sky. And the fairy thought it as a very sweet thingy. And she really loved it so much that she gave up with going with the other fairies and just followed the smell.

There was a lost thingy that was a jewelry thing. All lost things come from the mainland. When fairies see lost things they get it. When fairies saw it they took that junk to the mainland.

There were five little mermaids that lived in the sea. They really loved the sea until Ariel said, "I love a prince." And he lived on land and she just gave up with the other princesses. Her mother died, but she didn't care. She just gave up with other princesses and went up to the top of the reef where fishes live and crabs. And she got on a rock to sit. She loves the prince. The wind was blowing her hair. She didn't care. She was the only one different from the other sisters, so she went back under the sea. But she forgot something. She still loves the prince! The end.

... and found.

2011-03-03T08:10:00.000-06:00

Yesterday (March 3rd) we met at a bookstore to hear a presentation on some of our English materials ("Journeys" textbooks from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) in the afternoon. It was very nice, a good refresher for someone like me who hasn't taught ESL for a few years. We heard more news about the school, and were told to meet there the next day (March 4th) at 10 a.m.

When we got there, it was a bit of a shock. I had seen the pictures I showed you in my last post, but they didn't do it justice.

The third floor, where my classroom is, wasn't so bad. Fire had passed through the hall, melting or burning everything on the walls, including the bulletin boards which had sucked up a day of work for me. The glass panes of the sliding doors to my room were cracked, broken or smoked over. Inside the room everything was covered with soot, just like the last fire I had to clean up after.

I salvaged a few laminated things from my classroom, but not much. I hadn't really done much, unlike the teachers who had been there for years. My puzzle book and a couple of novels survived, as well as my Korean grammatical structure book. I was happy to clean up the new mouse and take it out of the room, though I will probably have to take it apart and clean it before I use it again. All of the textbooks were fine, though I had to wipe soot off of the ones on the top of the stacks.

Restoring my room to a usable condition will not be difficult, just time consuming, and I will not have to do it. The hallway, however, will take more work. The ceiling is sagging, and will need to be replaced. The bulletin boards are all gone, as is the wood paneling. They had just paneled the stairwells a few days before, which was probably a factor in how quickly the fire spread. Freshly varnished well-dried wood in a big chimney, funneled the fire right up from the 1st floor where it started due to an electrical problem.

The second floor hallway was worse. "It looks like a war zone," was a comment I heard many times. The ceiling panels had all fallen in, making a mushy, ashy carpet on the floor. In some places the metal framework for the ceiling was sagging or laying on the floor, and there was a lot more debris scattered around. I passed a framed picture from which the glass had sagged and dripped without falling off completely. The classrooms were still mostly okay, but they took water damage from the fire fighters, where the third floor really didn't.

The first floor was gutted in many places. Desks burned down to their metal frames, books lost, total mess. We were fortunate that there was no severe structural damage, though I am sure that they still need to do a complete assessment.

Amazingly enough, my slippers were still in their cubby. They are no longer usable, as some glass or plastic had dripped into them and hardened into an unpleasant sort of insole. Horyon took hers, though. They need to be cleaned, but she can use them. I need to order a new pair.

We spent the day carrying books and our stuff to the gym, then cleaning the piles of books. I still smell smoke on myself, and need a shower before bed.

And finally, while cleaning my zipper notebook, I opened the pockets and found my USB drives! Hurray!

Our classes will be distributed through other buildings and schools in the neighborhood, as well as in "container classrooms" in the school yard. In the States schools often use portables (like a mobile home with a classroom inside instead of a home), here they use cargo containers. I have never seen one, so that should be an interesting revelation. We will be doubling up, so 30-40 students in one class shared by two teachers. I am trying to think of it as a unique opportunity to do some team teaching, share some prep, and do activities involving more third graders than I care to imagine in one place.

Wish us luck! Right now all of our materials are sooty, aromatic, and piled up in the gym, and they expect us to start teaching on Monday! No problemo!

Slight problem at school...

2011-03-02T08:15:00.004-06:00

So today was supposed to be the first day of classes. We had planned to wake up at 6:30 to get ready to go. I, of course, was putting together handouts for the first day at 1:00 in the morning. At around 5:20 a.m., I got a text message: "was a fire @ school so no classes today...we are on standby so if they call me later we may have to go in.. I'll let you know."

Surprise. To say the least. So I went back to sleep.

At 6:30 I got a message that we were to go in at 1:00 to help clean, so I figured no big deal, right? I've been through this before, at Kosin University; small fire in one office, everything in my office covered with a thin layer of soot. I expected I would spend the next couple of days cleaning.

I found some pictures here and here. At this site there are three pictures of the aftermath and a video if you scroll down. I have run it through Google translate for you. Not sure how long this link will be live. And some of the translations are pretty fishy. For example, the headline:

"National Gay Elementary gaehakil four days a temporary suspension of fire ..."

Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

"Gaehakil early morning at an elementary school in Busan, a large fire in the classroom and being burned or shot to a new semester, while students in class were put to great inconvenience.

The school temporarily closed four days of action down the fire damaged building repair and maintenance naseotjiman, meals room, some classrooms and the two burn victims and the size is bigger than you think to the future of the academic calendar seems to have gained a considerable setback. "

No wonder it is so hard to learn Korean if they all speak like this.

In the second picture, looking up the stairs, the little lockers at the bottom left are shoe lockers. When anyone enters the building, they take off their shoes, put them in their locker, and put on the slippers which they had stored in their locker. There are extra slippers for guests, as well. Right behind the person taking the photo were Horyon and my lockers. Horyon had just put in a cute pair of shoes which she had bought back in Kansas just to wear in the classroom. She was very happy with the shoes, but now they are ash. My slippers were bought here in Korea, so they will be more easily replaced.

If you continue up those stairs to the third floor, my classroom is (was?) the first one, and Horyon's is the second. The articles say that the second and third floor halls are in bad shape, and quite a few classrooms as well. Our classrooms have sliding doors that are all little windows. It is going to be a serious mess to clean up, assuming the doors survived.

And right inside both of our doors, still in the boxes, are new printers for our computers. Well, they used to be new anyway.

I had put a few of my books in the classroom, and a new computer mouse, but not much else is mine. The one thing I may really miss (assuming it is unusable) is a book of Kakuro puzzles. Each one now takes me about 20 minutes to complete, maybe more. The book had more than 600 puzzles, and I figured it would not only fill some down time for me but keep my math and puzzle skills somewhat sharpened.

I guess we will see in the morning.

Lost

2011-02-23T06:44:00.000-06:00

Somewhere between Leavenworth and here I lost both of my USB drives, which had all my old school files. I love the convenience of computer stuff, but Natalie Dee gets it.

Happy 10th Anniversary!

2011-02-17T10:46:00.000-06:00

I can't quite believe that I've been married for 10 years. Or, to be more accurate:

I can't quite believe that Horyon has put up with me for 10 years.

We celebrated by going to Hello Sushi. We both agreed that it sounds too much like "Hello Kitty." However, the place was very tastefully decorated, without a trace of pink, smiling kitty faces with empty eyes that promise oblivion to those who follow her dainty tracks.

Since it's been a while since I reviewed a meal (I think the last time was also while we were living in Korea!), I will do so now:

Oh wait, I almost forgot: it has been a wonderful trip, these ten years. Ten years and eleven months ago I was walking home from a date with Horyon. I was on a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks, it was dark and quiet (for the city), and I was overjoyed by the presence of this person in my life. A few days later, on March 14th (White Day), we were at a nice restaurant (Charlie's, in the top floor of Lotte Department Store) and I had just given Horyon chocolates, flowers and perfume. (She never wears perfume, the flowers have returned to dust, and she didn't share the chocolates with me.) I suddenly experienced a moment of clarity, in which it became obvious to me that I needed to be married to her. I had, of course, thought about being married to her, but hadn't considered asking. After all, I had only known her for about 45 days. But in that moment I knew it more surely than any fact I had ever learned: I belonged with Horyon, and she belonged with me. So I asked her to marry me.

Her response was the classic: "I beg your pardon?"

After repeating myself, she said yes. I think we both surprised ourselves that day, but in the almost eleven years since we have never looked back.

Somewhere I read that deja-vu is just your brain remembering things that haven't happened yet, that the impulses that create memories get sort of mixed up at the quantum level and go the wrong way in time. I sort of like this idea, because maybe that's what happened to me eleven years ago:

Through the course of our marriage, what has gone by, and what is yet to come, I have thought back on that quiet night above the railroad tracks and the day I proposed many, many times, and never with regret. Even though a very small fraction of memory impulses travel backwards in time, I relive these moments often enough that they add up. On the bridge and in the restaurant I was feeling a backwash of future emotions, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

And who knows: if I hadn't asked her to marry me that night, maybe I would never have gotten around to it. Maybe she would have had enough time to figure out how forgetful I am, and how messy I can be, and all the other annoying things about me. Maybe we only got married because we will be married for so long, and quantum entanglement has dictated that it be so.

Or maybe it's just a miracle.

Or maybe both.

Anyway, back to our tenth anniversary at "Hello Sushi!" (the exclamation point is mine, feels like it needs it.)

As I mentioned, the decor was subdued, classic, with American antiques here and there and lighting that revealed without glaring. They started by bringing us each a glass of wine, included with the meal. I don't know much about wines, but I liked this red. Very drinkable, and had me feeling a bit light-headed, as I have not had much alcohol in the past few years. I started with the table of non-sushi items, including shrimp in cream sauce, spaghetti carbonara, and some salads. For my second plate I hit the sushi line.

I didn't count, but there must have been a dozen chefs preparing sushi up and down the line. Little slices of raw fish on top of clumps of rice that would fit on a spoon, prepared with a variety of sauces and garnishes. Some brought me back for seconds, a very few didn't work for me at all. I also had some crab soup, but passed on the udong soup.

I finished with fresh pineapple chunks, grapefruit slices, and lychees! Then coffee, with cookies and cream ice cream that wasn't really that tasty.

Cost: 30,000 won each, about $27, according to Google. (Did you know that if you type in "30000 Korean won" the first result is the US Dollar equivalent? How cool is that?) And we felt that it was worth it.

Of course, we will not eat there again for some time. It is just too expensive to do more than once a year. In spite of the price it is still quite popular. Even though it was lunch time on Wednesday, they first told us it would be an hour wait. A few minutes later they told us we could have a table, but had to clear out within the next hour and 20 minutes. (We made it with 10 minutes to spare.)

It was a great meal, the perfect bookmark for our first ten years.

Arrival

2011-02-07T10:32:00.000-06:00

The comedy of luggage movement continued in Pusan. We dragged our four carry-ons plus laptop bag plus kids out of the plane, picked up our stroller at the gate, and went to baggage claims where the serious baggage was waiting. Once we got it all on a couple of carts, we found out that you could not take the carts out of the secure area. So Horyon went out with the kids while I stayed with the bags. She left the kids with her parents, then came back, and we ferried our bags out to the main lobby. Fortunately many of our bags are equipped with wheels.

It was a touching reunion, being back with Horyon's parents. I was surprised at how I had missed them.

We then ferried the luggage out to the curb. The temperature was an uncharacteristic five below zero Celsius, about 23 degrees Fahrenheit. It was cold for a couple of days, then our highs came back up above freezing, and our highs for the last week have been around 50F. I've been wearing my jacket instead of my coat, and the serious winter gloves that Mary Lou gave me for Christmas when we moved to Kansas have been packed away the whole time we've been here.

So yeah, there are some things about Kansas I'm not particularly missing, like the blizzard that hit last week.

After we left Korea, Horyon's parents moved into a new apartment. It is much bigger, and brand new. They had the place decorated with pictures of us and the kids, framed pictures sitting all over the place. On little shelves, only a foot or two high. In the kids' room, as well as the living room.

It took a few days, but most of those got put away. The apartment is still, at 12 days, not quite Quinten-proof, but it's much better.

Jet-lag has never been a huge issue for me. Two or three days of grogginess and I was usually okay. I am older now. Travelling with two kids is not as relaxing as travelling by yourself or with an adult loved one. The kids have no sense of why they want to sleep all afternoon and be awake at night, and they have no inclination to change that pattern on their own. It takes brute force from Mommy and Daddy to shift it. Fortunately, we arrived with more than a month in which to adjust. Here at day 12, we are pretty much there, except for one thing:

The kids won't sleep alone. One of us has to be in the room with them when one of them wakes up. Usually Horyon. They are sleeping on pads on the floor, which is warm, but a bit hard for my taste. Make that a lot hard. I slept with them for three hours the other night, then Horyon came in to say good night. I was in pain, and soaked in sweat. I'm sure I could get used to it, but I'm already getting used to more things than I really want to, and Horyon likes sleeping with the kids. One or both have been waking up around one a.m., needing to be soothed back to sleep. Sometimes Horyon stays up doing other work and I go back to soothe them to sleep. But usually she is there. We have a queen size bed, but we haven't both slept in it since we got here. Soon, I'm hoping.

On the food front, I have been eating Korean food two, sometimes three times a day, and not suffering much for it. Granted, our first shot of sushi (and by that I mean sliced up raw fish, not those California rolls) the other night hit my mouth like a dream and my tummy like a freight train, but other than that it has been good.

I have been enjoying my mother-in-law's kimchi more than I ever have before. I honestly don't remember it being so good when we lived here before, but now it is so good I don't mind eating it at breakfast.

I know. Right now my Mom is making a nasty face. Two weeks ago I would have, too. I think the change has to do with this:

I left Korea with my family four years ago tired. Tired of being the foreigner, tired of the food, tired of the customs, and wanting a fresh start in what I thought of as my home country. Four years in Lawrence taught me that the USA is not really a kind place. Don't get me wrong, the people are wonderful. I just took a quick break to chat with Judy Chadwick, a friend from First Christian Church in Lawrence. In our four years, she became family, and she is not unique in that sense. And the only reason I could walk away from my parents at the airport without tears streaming down my face was that I didn't want Maxine to focus on what she was leaving behind, but what she was heading towards.

I have always said that people leaving their country are either running away from something or toward something. Sometimes both.

I decided that I would be moving toward a country that I enjoyed, respected, and even loved. I decided to embrace the role of stranger in a (not so) strange land, and bring back the openness that I originally brought when I arrived in 1997. And so I have been eating whatever food my mother-in-law or wife serves up, with the intention of enjoying it.

Much to my surprise, it has worked. Kimchi and rice and soup for breakfast. It works! I do have a piece of toast before, and sometimes follow up with orange juice, but hey, I'm the foreigner: I can be eccentric.

I've gone to the bath-house about every other day as well. This was not a difficult change to embrace. The bath houses were the one thing I missed most about Korea, and was most looking forward to visiting upon our return.

We arrived at my in-laws home, now our temporary home, at around 10 a.m. I think. The drive from the airport seemed to take forever, even though it was only about 45 minutes. It was like revisiting a dream: I kept thinking places were familiar. Sometimes I was right, and sometimes I was wrong. The traffic seemed insane, and I had to remind myself that I actually used to drive in it, once upon a time. I wondered, in passing, if perhaps my mental state (circadian rhythm twisted 180 degrees, not enough sleep, too much stress) was projecting my own neurotic mood onto the streets around me. If so, the projector is still running full tilt. My father-in-law is a mild-mannered man, but when he drives I keep expecting him to open a panel of James Bond buttons on his dashboard and start laying waste to thugs.

I can't quite imagine getting back behind the wheel here, and will avoid it as long as possible. So much for embracing the culture, right?

Oh, the other important cultural adjustment: we got cell phones. I've got a cute little android, though I can't afford to deck it out with apps right now. Nor do I have many people to call. But I have a phone!

In the next week or two we will be checking out the apartment provided by our school. I think we will move in, as well. We had originally talked about staying with Horyon's parents long-term, but it is hard on everyone. So we will retreat to our own home at night.

When you make a move like this one, it is inevitable that you lose some items. We can't find my socks. This was a major annoyance, as Korean socks are not comfortable for me (tried again this time), and I was making do with two old pairs of my socks that I had planned to toss after wearing. Fortunately, we found some suitable replacements at Costco, where we went for the first time today.

And so I am trying to be all the way here as long as I am here. I'll let you know how it works out, and get some pictures of the whole thing up as soon as I can work the bugs out of our internet setup. It's difficult to make time for blogging during the day, and it is now 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday here (11:30 a.m. on Monday for those of you in Kansas). I will write more about how the kids are settling in next time.

The Trip part 2

2011-02-05T10:09:00.000-06:00

Third flight, Incheon to Pusan. I didn't manage to do any writing on the Chicago/Incheon leg. I did watch “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” starring Nicolas Cage. It was amusing, I think. Amusing enough to keep my attention after one a.m. They served me a pretty good steak. Probably my last big chunk of beef for a while. I heard an announcement that Koreans can't bring meat into the country, and I'm guessing that it's hard for anyone to import it.

The second flight itself went well, but we hit Chicago right around Quinten's usual bedtime, and hadn't had dinner yet. We do not have pleasant memories of Chicago, with all due respect to my friends from the windy city. Hopefully some day we can make up for this short, yet unpleasant stay.

We found a food court around 10:00, and the only place open served hot dogs, gyros, and some other greasy sandwiches. The food itself wasn't bad, but it didn't appeal to Horyon and it was so expensive that I just can't recommend it to anyone. And there was a McDonald's, but it was closed! The only thing worse than eating at McDonald's is wanting to eat at McDonald's but not being able to.

The kids were fussy, Horyon was fussy, I was fussy. It had been an emotional day, and we still had almost 20 hours of traveling ahead of us. So on to security to check in. One advantage of night flying is that the security lines are shorter and faster than during the day. The only bag that was consistently checked was Horyon's sewing machine carry-on. I guess all that machinery, combined with some kids toys containing magnets and odd plastic bits, looks a bit too much like a weapon of mass destruction, rather than the tool of individual construction which it actually is. It got opened at all three security check points on our trip. Good thing we didn't pack it with heroin.

Seoul was both the best and the worst layover. There were helpful airline employees at every airport, making sure we got on the plane early, talking slowly to us like the zombies we were, rearranging our seats so that we were less likely to explode. In KC the ticketing agent from United Airlines spent 20 minutes or more working with us, getting our luggage weighed (and ignoring at least one half-pound excess) and helping us to anticipate what would happen at our next couple of stops. I offered to buy him a snack or drink or something to say thanks, but he refused. In Chicago when we finally sat down to eat one of the cleaners asked us to change tables five minutes after we had sat down to eat. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but two hours past bedtime and coming off of an emotionally draining day the first response to come to mind was, “Really? Our first time to sit in actual chairs around a table and try to relax and you want us to move?” Of course, I actually just said, “Okay,” and we moved.

We had no trouble finding our gate. It was the one crowded with Asian people, as well as being the only open gate in sight. The flight was scheduled for one a.m., and mercifully left on time. By then we were hoping that Quinten would be asleep, but he wasn't. He couldn't settle down in the crowded, noisy, brightly lit departure lounge, though he was bedtime-fussy for quite a bit of the wait. Our Asiana flight left from Chicago, and they took good care of us. They boarded us early, along with people in wheel chairs and other baby families, which was nice. There were at least half a dozen other babies and small children on the plane. Big fun.

Once we were boarded (more than 40 minutes to board a 777), we took off with no delay. Once we got past the ear pain stage, both kids fell asleep. They stayed asleep for five or six hours, much to our relief, and that of the people around us, no doubt. That's when I watched "Sorcerer's Apprentice." I was too wired to just sleep, and have never slept well on airplanes anyway. I think I got some sleep after that.

I was seated with Maxine while Horyon and Quinten were across the aisle from us. They started with a passenger between them, but she was a nice lady and offered to change seats very quickly. A very sane move, in my opinion. For the most part, and for most people, this ability to choose your plane seat months in advance is a big advantage. But for a family hoping to sit together, it can cause problems like this. Our other problem was that the plane we were on had no more than 3 adjacent seats. No way for all of us to sit together.

Horyon spent most of Quinten's sleeping time squeezed into a corner of one seat so that Quinten could lie down on one and a half seats. I did the same for Maxine for a little while, then realized that she could sleep while being seriously contorted. She spent part of her sleep time with her legs off the seat, feet on the floor, and her back arched back. Not very long, but long enough to have caused me some serious pain.

Many people had recommended giving Quinten some sort of allergy medication to help him sleep on the flight. We tried it out the week before, and found that if anything it made him more active. Difficult to imagine, I know. So we did this run straight. Turns out that flying at night is probably the best way to deal with kids. Their sleep cycles are not easily altered; if they are supposed to be asleep, and they are not allowed to move, they tend to sleep.

By the time Quinten and Maxine woke up, most of the rest of the passengers were awake, too. Quinten did laps on the plane, more than I can count. Some with me, most with Horyon. Maxine colored lots, and didn't watch much of the in flight entertainment. Maybe a couple of hours. Less than the amount of tv she watched at home. Neither of them ate much, but that makes sense considering how little they moved around.

About seven hours into this thirteen hour flight, Maxine started asking if we were almost there yet. Nine hours in she got a serious case of want-to-be-with-Mommy. She got to spend some time with Horyon while I walked Quinten around and fed him a meal, but he was more successful at playing want-to-be-with-Mommy. I keep urging him to be more rational, but it's hardly surprising that he is in no hurry to learn to speak or think: he gets his way when he pushes hard enough. He also got to keep his binky for most of the flight. I swear, he is like a little chain smoker with that thing. When it is time to throw away the binky, it is going to be a rough couple of days, with lots of toys and stuff going into his mouth, I am betting.

We approached Incheon (Seoul's airport) from the Southwest, having taken a wide detour to avoid North Korea. They can't feed themselves, but they can sure as heck shoot down any airplane that comes near. Eventually we arrived in a snow-covered Incheon. Clearing immigration was easy, as we (Horyon) had done all the work in the previous four months. No surprises.

Picking up our luggage was no fun at all. I'm sorry we didn't take any pictures, but we had eight checked bags, two of which were boxes. They were all right up against the 50 pound limit for international checked bags, so we're talking about 400 pounds of luggage. Plus two car seats and a stroller, all of which were checked with no penalty. Plus four carry-on bags, one of which was a sewing machine. We never weighed them, but I would be surprised if any of them weighed less than Maxine's 35 pounds. We also had Maxine and Quinten, and to top it off, our two computers in a laptop bag. Yep, you can actually bring all that stuff when you fly international.

We had some help at the luggage carousel from some kind airport employees. We got all of our bags onto two luggage carts, and headed for customs. No problems there. Apparently families moving into the country are not worth searching for contraband.

Then we went out into the airport, Horyon pushing Quinten in the stroller, computers slung under the stroller, wearing her backpack/carry-on and holding Maxine's hand. (If I don't keep her busy she gets into trouble.) I had it easy: I was only pushing a couple of luggage carts that weighed about a quarter of a ton. It was weird. And not just because we looked like refugees and had more luggage than the Clampetts. I have spent most of my adult life in Korea, and so this was a sort of homecoming for me. I was sort of expecting that, but not the gut-level feeling of being back home. The airport was crowded. I'm sure most of them were starting their day with a little travel, rather than heading for the last leg of a 27-hour journey (door-to-door time). They tended to get in our way, completely oblivious to the 500 or so pounds of luggage rolling their way. Maybe I should have converted to kilograms. I was stared at. I couldn't understand most of the conversations around me, but snagged bits and pieces. There were signs in Korean, some of which I could understand. And it was crowded. I felt like I was back home again.

After some wrangling and waiting, we were booked on a flight to Pusan. Believe it or not, up until that point our tickets from Incheon to Pusan were abstract, if not downright indeterminable. The flight we had originally booked had been dropped from the schedule, but we had been assured that one way or another we would make it to Pusan. Even if we had a six hour layover.

Thankfully, that was not the case. I'm not sure how long we spent in Incheon. We had to drag our bags, selves and kids about a quarter mile through the airport, then up an elevator in two shifts, then a bit further to the domestic ticket counter for Korean Air Lines. They had to have a person from Asiana physically come to the counter to verify that we deserved to be sent to Pusan, along with all of our stuff. We had some spare time to retape a box that had started to fall apart, then we had less than 20 minutes until our flight boarded. Once again the sewing machine set off warning bells. Once again the car seats and stroller were checked at the gate. Once again we were boarded first.

No. Wait. We weren't. We had to go down an escalator, outdoors (time to put the coats back on!) and rode a bus to our plane. Another small plan, this one six seats across. I sat by Maxine, who immediately asked if we were in Korea yet. I gave the short version of the world geography lesson. She was disappointed to find that we were, in fact, in Korea, but had not yet arrived at our final destination. They got us all boarded pretty quickly, and took off with no problem. The flight was only about 40 minutes, just long enough for me to have some Coca-Cola, the beverage I choose when Pepsi and Dr. Pepper and Cherry Coke aren't available. No ice. Time to start getting used to it.

If you go to Google Maps and search for Busan, Korea, you will see the airport. We came in from the South, and had a clear view as we approached, our first daylight landing. Click that Busan link and go to satellite view. It was fun to pick out the beach, roads, apartments. A few days later we purchased a high chair for Quinten from someone who lives in one of the apartments we flew over. My father-in-law, Youngsoo, drove us there, and I was excited to recognize the neighborhood that I had seen from the air.

It is now after midnight, and my impressions upon arriving in Pusan are too weighty to tackle when I am this tired. We have been here for 10 days, and the impressions are fading, but I will try to get them down before they are gone. Let me know if you find any glaring mistakes so far.

The Trip part 1

2011-02-01T10:28:00.000-06:00

I'm writing on the first plane of our trip. It's an ERJ, three seats wide. I had to ask to find out, and the stewardess pointed out to me that it is a small plane. I suppose that in her line of work you do a lot of pointing out of obvious things. Horyon and Quinten are across the aisle to my right, and Maxine is in front of me. Probably my last opportunity to write during this journey. I suspect that if the kids sleep on the next flight, I will, too.

Quinten is doing fine with the pressure changes. A little babbling and munching on some grapes seemed to equalize his pressure. Hopefully it will be as easy coming down. He is currently bouncing around between Horyon and the bulkhead, standing on the seat, exploring the seat tray, doing his little scientist thing. But boy oh boy does he want to move around. We are really hoping that he sleeps through the first part of the next flight. We are scheduled to leave Chicago at 1 a.m. They will very likely be asleep at that time, so the only question is will they stay that way?

Maxine is doing great. She has a new princess sticker book and a journal with seven little colored pens attached. She is drawing pictures and supplementing them with stickers while enjoying some bubble gum purchased just today.

Speaking of today, it has already been a long day. After Quinten woke up, Horyon and I drove back to the house in Lawrence for what may be the last time. (We are putting it up for sale, and hope that it will be sold long before we return.) We loaded up our shipping bags (four bags at 80 lbs each, for a total of 320 lbs) and took them to the UPS store, then drove back to the house. We picked up a few key items which we had forgotten Saturday, like my carry-on backpack. This was a big deal because it contained both Maxine's pillow pet and her polar bear. These items would be sorely missed, as would my ancient (six-year-old) 60 Gigabyte MP3 player, my super big bottle of store-brand pain reliever that is cheaper than Tylenol, my comb, and my software CDs, without which my next computer would be missing lots of important stuff.

So we loaded up the van, dropped some stuff off with a couple of friends, dropped by Hancock Fabrics to say goodbye and make sure Horyon's W-2 gets sent to the right place, spent our last gift card (at TJ Max), and had lunch at a Chinese buffet that has a really good selection of California rolls and a make-your-own noodle soup buffet, as well as crab rangoon, General Tsao's Chicken, and a few other Chinese buffet yummies. We are seriously going to miss our Chinese buffets in Korea.

Then back to Leavenworth for showers, last-minute packing, and other stuff.

We are beginning our descent, so I have to stop for a bit.

16 hours and change...

2011-01-24T01:55:00.000-06:00

We are almost ready to go, in the sense that we could ever truly be completely ready. Most everything is packed, we are taking our delivery bags to be delivered tomorrow (4 bags, 80 lbs each, $600+ from the UPS store in Lawrence to our home in Pusan), and we are going back to Lawrence in the morning to pick up a few things we accidentally left behind.

Saturday we (Dad, Horyon and myself) spent most of the day at the house in Lawrence, trying to sort out what we need to bring. We left a ton of stuff for Mom and Dad to go through. I am so grateful to them for how they've handled it. We dither about what to bring and what to store in their basement, and if I had a dollar for every time Dad said something along the lines of, "If it can be easily replaced at a future date, get rid of it, only bring what you absolutely need, and throw away some of this crap," I could afford to just put it all in storage.

Props to Mom for staying home with the kids all day. Granted, she had help from the 10-year-old girl to whom she gives painting lessons, and Bob and Diane came in the afternoon, and Quinten took a 2-hour nap (rare these days), but she was still here with the kids.

Today we went to Leavenworth First Christian Church. Another tough round of goodbyes, though not as heart-wrenching as last week at Lawrence F.C.C. The family went out to lunch at the China Buffet (let me tell you, we are going to miss Chinese buffets in Korea): Us, Mom and Dad, Bob and Diane, Doug, Tom and Debbie and Grandma Mary Lou. She gave me a special present: Grandpa's pen knife. A wonderful remembrance, as long as I don't lose it.

At home Aunt Becky and Uncle Don came for one last visit. We had a great time, and Horyon had a three-hour nap. Quinten got two. I got nothin', and now I'm writing on the Roblog.

And tomorrow (well, it's today already) we fly.

I don't exactly have doubts about this move, but I am sad. We really built a home here in less than four years, and now we're leaving it all behind. Don't get me wrong, I will be very happy once the house has sold. I am relieved to no longer have to worry about upkeep on cars which I don't understand. And going back to a country with a health care system that works for almost everyone, instead of just for rich and/or healthy people is a serious load off of my mind. And two full paychecks? plus overtime? plus private lessons? I would be lying if I told you I wasn't looking forward to the combination of job satisfaction and making money.

But my last 10 years in Korea never saw a church family like the one we are leaving here. In Korea it will never be as easy to buy the groceries I prefer as here. My parents won't be there, but they will try to visit in a year or so.

I will try to keep you all updated. I'm writing from my Dad's computer, so no pictures tonight. I will try to catch up as soon as I can after we arrive in Pusan.

Peace, Rob

I Don't Want You to Die, Daddy.

2011-01-16T03:03:00.000-06:00

Horyon and I decided a long time ago that we were going to be honest with Maxine about death and dying. We talked about my grandfather after he passed away three years ago, and she seemed to understand as well as one can expect a two-year-old to understand. Since then she has learned a lot, and the other day in the car on the way home from preschool she cried to me, "I don't want you to die, Daddy!"

I can't remember the last time I wanted so badly to lie. I wanted to stop the car, hold her in my arms, and tell her that I would not die, that I would always be there for her. I just wanted her to feel better, and to be reassured, and I wanted with all of my heart for it to be true.

Another example of why it is a good idea to make big decisions before the pressure hits.

I did my best to reassure her that I would probably not die soon. I talked with her about Heaven, and how we would be there together.

She was not in the mood for it. "I don't want to go to Heaven!" she cried. "I want to stay here! I don't want to move to Korea!"

Don't they look like they're ready to move?

Aha. There it is. As painful as it is for me and Horyon to tear up our lives, at least we've been through it before. Maxine was too young when we moved here, and doesn't remember it at all. Now we are selling our life here, bit by bit. When we sold her dresser she cried for five minutes. "I want to keep my stuff! I love my stuff!" I am hoping that going through this now will make her better able to part with stuff later in life, but it is absolutely no fun.

Earlier this week she figured out that we would be leaving this house and not coming back. She hugged the wall, crying, and said, "I don't want to leave this house! I love this house!"

I don't even want to contemplate telling her that she will not see Grandpa and Grandma for a long time.

Later Horyon told me that Maxine had watched a video earlier in the day in which a character had died, and it seems that it connected for the first time. A separation that lasts forever. An end to something that seemed to be eternal.

I tell myself that this is actually building trust with Maxine, that she is learning to believe what I tell her. I know in my head that I am helping her, but can be hard to believe. Fortunately, it works in the short term as well. For example:

In November we all got flu shots, and Maxine did not do so well. She screamed. She kicked. A nurse had to help me hold her down while she got the shot, and it bled afterwords because her blood pressure was sky high. It hurt her arm for a few days, because we couldn't hold her completely still, even after seeing Mommy and Daddy take their shots.

Then last week we had to get her last three immunization shots. It had been two months, which is usually an eternity for Maxine, but she remembered the flu shot like it was yesterday. We didn't tell her where we were going when we got in the car, but eventually we had to. The tears started, and I started a pep talk:

I reminded Maxine why her flu shot hurt so much, and talked about how we could avoid it this time. I made her promise, multiple times, pinky promise, that she would look at me, not the nurse during the shot. We talked about the antibody game she played on PBSKids.org with Sid the Science Kid. We talked about how being healthy makes you less likely to die. We talked about silly things, and our favorite songs. And when it was time she sat on my lap and cried, but she didn't scream or kick or thrash. She did her best to look at my face during the shot, as I reminded her that she had promised to look at me. And when she found that it would be one shot in the left arm and two in the right, the tears started to seriously flow.

But she kept her eyes on mine, and soon it was over. Soon she was just sniffly, rather than outright crying. She said "thank you" to the nurse and receptionist as I carried her out. She let me carry her out, understanding that there was a reason for the pain I had put her through. And then we went to Orange Leaf and got ice cream, even though it was after 5:30 and getting close to dinner time. There were smiles and laughs, and she said that her arm hurt less than before.

Maybe trust only grows out of tears. Maybe you can't really believe in someone until you've been through some kind of hell with them. If that is the case, then this move to Korea may be an opportunity to build my family, and strengthen us.

I don't think I will be able to convince Maxine that dying is not a big deal, because it is still a big deal to me. When she asked me if I was going to die someday and I said yes, I felt okay. But when she asked if great-grandma was going to die, it was a good thing that she was in the back seat where she couldn't see my tears as I said yes, someday she would.

At this point, I am just grateful that Quinten is too young to understand what is going on. Yeah, he's going to have and inflict a miserable 24 hours on everyone within earshot, but then it will be over for him. The new faces and places will be confusing at first, but Mommy, Daddy and Maxine will be there, so he will settle down quickly. And hopefully get over the jet-lag quickly as well.

Quinten Wasn't Finished...

2011-01-04T00:07:00.000-06:00

If you don't like scatological posts, or if the previous post didn't do much for you, you might want to skip this one.

As if he thought we were unimpressed with his technicolor yawns (see Splatty New Year), Quinten followed up Saturday night's performance by blowing out the other end Sunday night.

For those of you who were wondering, yes, it is possible to fill a diaper to overflowing in one, foul shot.

However, Horyon, who is always looking on the bright side of things, pointed out that the smell of poo is less nauseating than the smell of upchuck. To me, "the glass is half full" is only a positive if the contents of the glass are not violations of the laws of nature.

At least I did not spend the night in the same room with Quinten, and we are hoping he feels better today. If not, we will be trying to get into the clinic on short notice, with more stool sample than they can handle.

Just to make clear, it is not my intention to entertain anyone with this little gem. It's just here to jog my memory later, when my brain has had the good sense to blank out the past few days.

Splatty New Year!

2011-01-03T00:32:00.000-06:00

On New Year's Day, someone in the Sack household must have overdone it, because there was a serious amount of chunks blown during the first full night of 2011.

Enough suspense: it was Quinten. We have no idea what happened. He at the same thing for dinner (fish and rice) as Maxine and her friend, Chae-eun, both of whom are just fine. Quinten himself has been fine today, including a three hour nap, but last night...

Half-way through his bottle he spit up. He only takes one bottle per day now, as part of the bed-time routine. We're hoping that will help us on the long trip (which is only three weeks away!). We both got a change of clothes, and while he was playing with Horyon, he did some serious regurgitating. We cleaned him up, and I put him in his play pen to sleep. After a very short time, he coughed, blowing out his binky like a cork in a champagne bottle full of barf.

Another clean-up, and we decided that I would sleep with Quinten in Maxine's bed. That way maybe I could catch him before he made a mess. The strategy worked two or three times in the night. Once loud enough for Horyon to come assist. I think that after that he didn't have anything left to hurl. We had been giving him sips of water, but not too much. The poor kid was so tired that he couldn't even put up a fight against sleeping. I rocked him gently, sitting up on my lap, wrapped in a blanket. I am better at ignoring the smell of sickness than Horyon, and he tends to get excited when she's around, so I usually get night duty.

By morning he seemed to be okay. He drank some water, and had some eggs. Horyon and I exchanged words over breakfast which caused Maxine to ask, "Are you guys fighting?" Pretty rough morning. She had to go to work at noon, and we agreed that I should stay home with Quinten. Fortunately, we have friends at church who could take care of Maxine, so Horyon dropped Maxine off at church in time for Sunday School, then went to do some shopping and eat before work.

Quinten seemed fine. Didn't eat as much eggs as usual for breakfast, but he later ate a whole banana. Through the whole thing he never had a fever, and in the morning he had a regular, solid poop in his diaper. I don't think he was really sick. Looking back, I had fed him dinner without feeding myself. Maybe I just put too much food in him. He usually feeds himself, and he is not that fast, so he doesn't eat as much. And after dinner Maxine had some pistachios (she tends to call them "statues", how cute is that?) which she shared with her little brother. Then he had warm milk. Perhaps rice, fish, pistachios and milk just don't mix well in toddler tummies. Not sure they would mix well in mine.

At any rate, Quinten had a three hour nap this afternoon, and got to bed on time this evening, so I think we are back to normal. For the next three weeks, anyway.

More Subbing Notes and Praxis results

2010-12-08T14:06:00.000-06:00

It bears repeating: after two years in my own classroom, subbing is a piece of cake. In the worst case scenarios, I shake the dust off of my proverbial sandals, but the worst cases have not been anywhere near as bad as some classes that I had to teach every day.

I have become a popular sub at SouthWest Jr. High (SWJH) since they found out that I will teach a math class, or any class for that matter. I subbed for an English teacher on Monday. I had been in her classroom as an inter-related resource teacher (support for kids who struggle with school in general). Her class was high-speed, to say the least. She had a very jovial mood, and jumped from one activity to the next. Her lesson plans totally filled the class period, even with me deliberately pushing the pace. We started with a daily grammar exercise, proofreading a couple of sentences with three or four errors each. The advanced 9th grade English class had a student assigned to mark corrections on the overhead while the class helped, and the 8th grade English classes had me leading. It was good to ask questions and have them answered, and I felt good about knowing the answers myself. The teacher had actually left a quotation problem unfixed, so I had to fix it on the fly. Fortunately, I'm a fair shake at English stuff as well as math.

In fact, I just found out that I passed my English Literature and Composition Praxis test with an Excellent rating. Once I submit the paperwork, I will officially be qualified to teach English in certified Kansas schools, grades 6-12. And I do feel qualified to do the day to day stuff, but I would need some assistance in the broader planning for a whole year.

Last week I subbed for a couple of days in a classroom which went back and forth from Jr. High Geometry to a couple of classes doing website design and one class doing AV projects, including documentaries and stop motion films. It was all fun.

Because you know what? I like teaching. Even substitute teaching is fun, when it's not dull. If I could make a living doing it, I would seriously consider it as an option. I am learning a lot about how different classrooms are run, how different subjects are taught, and how different buildings are organized (or not, as the occasional case may be). I had originally thought that I would try to blog about it at least once a week, but too many subbing jobs take too much of my attention.

And then there are jobs like today: Lawrence High School (still hard for me to hear LHS without thinking of my alma mater and good 'ol Pioneer Pete) has late starts on Wednesday, and the teacher I am subbing for was here for most of the first class, so I didn't have to show up until 10:30. Very nice, gave me time to iron a couple of shirts this morning, fix breakfast for Maxine, and entertain Quinten for a while. On top of the late start, the classes themselves are Drafting and Research and Design with Autocad. Project-based classes, with students who are more highly motivated than many. These are kids who act remarkably adult. They work on their projects, stop from time to time to shoot the breeze, then get back to work. They help each other, and when the teacher came back she brought DQ treats for all of us, even me! They are even consulting with a professional as they learn to use a new program (Inventor).

Days like this make the job totally worthwhile.

Some pictures from October and November

2010-12-07T22:41:00.000-06:00

My apologies to the readers out there who actually tune in just to see pictures of my kids. I hope this makes up for it a bit.

Princess Ariel came to Maxine's 5th Birthday Party, but Maxine was still the #1 princess.

Dual trips to the pumpkin patch: Two preschools = two trips for Maxine. The rest of us only attended one. I figure that more pictures in a different outfit would be too much.

Quinten was thrilled to be in this picture.

At 18 months old, quite the handsome fellow.

The Perfect Pumpkin

Thanksgiving with Grandpa

Quinten really loves his Grandpa, and responds very well to him. Perhaps the facial hair is familiar to him...

Sorry again for the lack of posting. I won't promise to do better: I have too many other promises to break first.

Attention Roblog Readers!

2010-12-03T00:18:00.006-06:00

I Wordled Roblog, and this is what it came up with:


          title="Wordle: roblog">
          src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/2826127/roblog"
          alt="Wordle: roblog"
          style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

I know it looks like a garbled mess.

Just click on it, already.

In other news, I have just gone through my list of Roblog

"drafts"--unfinished posts.

I found about a dozen from 2007 and 2008 that I had just

never finished writing.  Some of them just needed me to

hit the "Publish Post" button, and some needed some

reworking, but they are all up now.

Click on 2007 or 2008, and all of the posts from that year will come up. You will probably recognize the new ones. Have fun!

Something from the Archives

2010-11-28T23:31:00.001-06:00

Back in the day when I worked at Wal-Mart, some truly weird things happened on the job. I found myself writing about one of these incidences at length, but unwilling to publish, for whatever reason. Eventually the piece sat for long enough that I forgot about it.

Just this evening, I came across the lovely story of A Match Made in the S-Mart Parking Lot, and decided to polish it up, try to fix the spelling mistakes, and put it out there for you to enjoy.

There is some embellishment, but most of the action going on in this little vignette is pretty much as it happens. The biggest departure from reality is that the jewelry associate is not nearly that clever in real life.

Take the Good with the Bad

2010-11-23T00:33:00.000-06:00

Today and tomorrow I am at Central, filling in for one of my favorite teachers, Charlotte Prosser. And as usual with these sort of experiences, I had a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride.

After spending two years in the classroom, subbing is so much easier than it was before. I can walk into most classrooms and put on the Teacher 'Tude with very little effort. One trick that I have developed is to offer "Free Chat Time" at the end of the hour. I give them the last two minutes, then offer to tack on an extra minute for every five minutes in a row that they are productive. If anyone talks, I walk up to the board and restart the countdown time. I have a precise spiel that goes with it, which is becoming quite polished. I am trying to use it only when I have a sense that there is no other way to get work done. But so far it has worked really well.

The toughest jobs now are the ones at Central, where I end up working with kids who are somewhat familiar with me, and perhaps used to a more relaxed version of myself. Because Thanksgiving is this week, there are only two days of school, so no one expects to get much done. Most of my classes are "Learning Strategies" classes: small study halls for kids who just aren't hacking it in their other classes. The smallest was five kids, the biggest nine. Most of them went just fine, especially the 7th graders. Being the youngest kids in the school makes them easy to manage.

My last class of the day, however, was 8th and 9th graders. And there were some serious attitudes in there. Three, to be precise. I'm afraid that today I let them get away with too much talking, including a fair amount of back talk. It was the last hour of the day, I was tired, and wanted to avoid conflict. I never raised my voice, and was polite but insistent that they work or read quietly. They weren't having any of that. They did not use any inappropriate language, but they were rude to me. They weren't interested in earning more Free Chat time at the end, because they were chatting along during the class. The resource teacher, Rebecca Clark, was working the room with me. She is in that class every day precisely because of these problem students. I'm sure her presence helped, but it didn't suppress the mess.

So by the end of the class period, I was feeling kind of down. The rest of the day went well, but it had ended on a sour note. I spent some time talking with Rebecca about how it had gone, and she asked me where I had gotten my Free Chat Time routine. It was so finely polished, it must have come from somewhere.

I got a bit misty. It was a strong compliment at a time when I was not feeling confident. I told her that it was mine, and thank you for lifting me up like that. Since losing my job, I have been having an internal debate over whether or not I am a good teacher. I tend to be a pretty positive person, with a good self-image, but getting fired has really screwed with that. Kind words from friends and family are well and good, but hearing that I am doing well from a colleague lifts my spirits in a unique way.

So I left the school feeling pretty good.

Of course, it didn't hurt that today was the Staff Thanksgiving Luncheon. I brought a 12-pack of Pepsi, and feasted from the pot-luck wonder. Sooooo good. I love a good pot-luck. And that was an unmixed blessing in the middle of my day.

Prarie Park Elementary P.E.

2010-10-25T10:24:00.000-05:00

Today I taught PE at an elementary school here in Lawrence for a friend of mine, Mike Martin. He is a fantastic teacher, with a real passion for teaching kids how to be physically fit. He is fighting off a sinus infection, but still came in this morning to meet me and give me a verbal rundown of the day. Not absolutely necessary, since he left pretty good lesson plans, but still very considerate. Of course, he was probably there because his daughter is a sixth grader at the same school, but he had no idea that I would be his sub. I got the call just after six in the morning. A rude awakening for a night owl who (Who! Who!) has gotten used to waking up after eight.

It's been a long time since I substituted in an elementary school. I had forgotten the innocent energy of that age. There are still incidents of meanness, but they are much rarer, less humiliating, and more inclined to be fixed by even a forced, insincere apology.

Lesson Learned: One of the basic things that kids learn in PE is sportsmanship. Because sportsmanship is a kind of discipline, requiring individual attention and effort. In other words, it is work. And what do students naturally do when there is a sub? You know it: they slack off on their work whenever they can.

My first class, a group of 4th graders, did not play nicely; they played a sort of capture-the-flag game, and some of them took it just a little bit personally. There was some name calling, some bending of the rules, and some outright cheating. I compensated for this in later classes by starting the class with a talk on sportsmanship, asking them to give examples, and encouraging the practice.

I had forgotten that kids can cry easily. I saw four or five kids cry today, mostly because of perceived unfairness or insult from other kids. One or two were close to tears after a fall. A couple of kids got very whiny when they didn't get what they wanted from me, whether chosen to be “it” or allowed to pitch in kickball.

I had also kind of forgotten that kids can latch onto a reasonably friendly and fair adult, such as myself, in one class period. By lunch time, as well as at the end of the day, there were kids saying, “Hi Mr. Sack!” from all over. And of course, I had learned absolutely no names, as I did not even have rosters. Still, the open friendliness of the kids made me feel welcome, and I'm guessing that if I am back at Prairie Park some of them will remember me. When I started teaching at Central Jr. High there were kids who remembered me from when I subbed in their elementary classes. Like I said, they can latch onto some adults.

It was a good day, but a reminder of why I don't want to teach elementary school all the time. They have an amazing energy, non-stop, and mostly positive, but by the end of the day I have had enough of it. I prefer the more laid-back atmosphere of high school.

Maxine Quote

2010-09-15T18:56:00.002-05:00

As I am taking down the Christmas lights we leave up year round, Horyon asked me why.

"Because Christmas lights don't last forever," was my reply.

Maxine quickly chimed in, "Like flowers. And tattoos."

Leavin' on a jet plane.

2010-09-04T00:26:00.004-05:00

In January.

Let me cut to the chase: Horyon and I have accepted jobs in Korea, and will probably leave in late January.

And my wife is awesome.

Over the past month we have been discussing our options. That's when it started to become apparent that there was no teaching job waiting for me in the Lawrence area, nor even a job slowing down to a manageable pace to which I could catch up. Heck, most of them seemed to be in vehicles while I was on foot. This was very frustrating, after spending the past two years in a transition to teaching program designed to help Kansas deal with their teacher shortage. I feel sorry for anyone getting into a program like this one right now.

Since I lost my job, I have gone in and out of a funk. More in than out, I'm afraid. On a rational level I believe that a man is not defined by his job, but it seems that as you walk into my reptile brain, my job title is written on the door and the mailbox. And when you ring the doorbell, it announces, "Someone to see you, Mr. Teacher!" Even the towels were monogrammed. Now when you push the doorbell button it makes a rude noise.

Through all this Horyon has been patient with me, and lifted me up when I felt like just giving up. Not just telling me things would be okay, but talking about what we could do practically to move on.

It was not an easy decision to make. Whatever doubts I had faded quickly: less than a week after telling Horyon's parents about our decision, her father found a school that wanted to hire both of us.

We are now collecting documents to prepare to go. Maxine needs a new passport soon, and Quinten has never had one. Horyon needs to file some very expensive paperwork to leave the country without losing her visa. Papers will have to go back and forth across the ocean before we can go. It's all somewhat messy, and that's not even getting into the fun and excitement of packing and disposing of three years worth of stuff.

We are planning to leave in mid-Januray. You would think that four months is plenty of time, but it is going to be tight. We've already made flight reservations before the prices start changing for the worse. Hopefully we will not have to change them before leaving.

In the mean time, I have applied to be a substitute teacher again, but can't start until the state processes my license. So I have time to work on these projects, but our only income is from Horyon's sewing. Yeah, no stress there, right?

I feel like there is lots more to write, but I'm going to leave it here for now, and hopefully have more news to share sooner rather than later.

Stuff Happens. Like getting laid off.

2010-04-16T23:14:00.008-05:00

[OK, I started writing this on the posting date. It was too painful to work on again until I felt there was some resolution. Check the next post for that.]

I'm unemployed as of June. Well, technically August, because that's how long my contract is, officially. But when this school year ends, I will no longer be a math teacher at Central Jr. High.

My principal, Dr. Stubblefield, let me know that this might happen last Friday morning [early April], right before my classes started. Let me tell you, that was not a pleasant way to start my Friday. One of my favorite coworkers, Charlotte Prosser, came and offered to cover the first ten minutes of my class. That was very kind, but I figured that all I would do was sit and think about how crappy my situation was, and that if I were going to be miserable, I might as well be doing my job (teaching jr. high students!).

By the end of the day, I had sort of settled into the idea, though. My intention had always been to spend three years teaching at the jr. high level before deciding whether or not I liked it. Perhaps this is God's way of telling me that I don't really need three years, or maybe not three at this school.

I should have been applying feverishly for every position within an hour's drive of our home, but I was also trying to juggle the last few assignments for my Baker class.

Finishing the year was tough. The kids always get antsy the last few weeks of school, and when the teacher is unfocused, as I was, it's even worse. And when the teacher spends the last two months in deep uncertainty and feeling unappreciated, things can get much, much worse.

I finished my course work with no problem, but was still left with the burden of being between jobs. I had been telling people that I was unemployed until someone told me that I was being too negative. She asked me if I thought that I would have a job again in the future. "Of course," I replied. "So you are between jobs!" she asserted. I have been using this terminology in an attempt to bootstrap myself into a better mood. It didn't make me happy, but if the alternative was feeling worse, I'm glad I did it.

Job application season came and went. I sent resumes and applications for any math job within an hour drive of our home. I just couldn't see doing much more driving than that and having anything left of myself to give to my family. A one-hour drive would mean leaving for work around 6:30 a.m. and probably not getting home until 6:00 p.m. Later than that for the first few weeks, as I adjust to new circumstances and plan out courses I haven't taught before, perhaps earlier if the school/district has tight plans in place or the material is familiar to me. And this was basing driving times on GoogleMaps rather optimistic projections.

There were not many openings available. The Kansas Dept. of Education website has a job connections page. It is not mandatory for schools to list on the site, but most do. The site keeps track of the total number of jobs and the total number of applicants. At the beginning of summer there were about 220 teaching jobs listed, all subjects, all grade levels. At that time there were more than 23,000 applicants. I came to wish that I had never looked at those statistics, because it's been burned into my mind: more than a hundred applicants for each job, on average. Maybe the odds were in my favor as a math teacher, but it takes a lot of swaying to balance out that much competition.

I had two years of part-time teaching in America, and an online teaching certificate from a small university. Of course, in Lawrence K.U. provides a deluge of freshly trained teachers every year, with their student teaching done right here in town. Hard to pass up, with all that energy, youth, and the option to sleep ten hours a night.

This is a difficult topic for me, as it draws me into being bitter easily. There have been nights when I've been unable to sleep, replaying some choices made over the past few years and felt the heaviest regret of my life. I've thought about how fascinating and fun my post-college life was, how different my life has been, and wished that I had just gotten a job and married someone before I realized how big the world is.

Usually at this point I realize I am throwing myself a big self-pity party, and do something to get out of it. It's been harder this time, and I'm not quite out of the woods yet. But rest assured that the party is over, and we have a plan.

Ben Folds Concert

2009-10-27T00:56:00.007-05:00

Okay, I should have finished this and posted it the night I started writing.

I got my Christmas present on October 27th (2009):

I went to see Ben Folds in concert at Liberty Hall in downtown Lawrence. A $35.50 ticket, and completely worth it. I've been a fan for years, and seeing him in concert was fantastic. I went with my friend, Mike Colvin. He wasn't very familiar with Ben Folds' work, but he came out calling Folds a genius, and I had to agree.

His opening act was Kate Miller-Heidke. Fantastic. Bought her CD. The CD is fairly heavily produced, but tonight it was her and a guy with a guitar, and they were great together.

Looking back ten months later, it was still worth the money ($35 per ticket). When we moved back to the USA, I had high hopes of seeing live music. Ben Folds is the only concert I've attended, if you don't count jr. high band and choir concerts. (Incidentally, if you do count them, for the most part you shouldn't. However, Central Jr. High had a pretty good choir, and their band and orchestra were not too bad, either. I fear that switching to a middle school format will blow that out of the water.)

Back to Ben Folds. He was fun to watch. It felt like he had just come over to my house to play for me and some friends. The first thing he did after sitting down at the piano was to take his cell phone and keys out of his pockets. He set them down on the strings of the piano, as it was propped open and the music stand shelf had been removed. He then realized that would cause problems, so he picked them back up and fumbled them around a bit before a stage hand could come out and take them.

He played and sang for a good three hours. I knew, or at least recognized, a lot of it, though I am still a couple of albums short of having his full catalog. The parts I didn't know were as fun as the parts I did. The amazing thing is that I think Ben himself had as much fun as the audience.

Folds sometimes caresses the music out of the piano, and sometimes he pounds it out. He reminds you that it is in fact a percussion instrument. I hope they checked afterwords to make sure the stage didn't have a depression where that piano got seriously beaten on.

It is common at concerts for the audience to sing along, but at a Ben Folds concert he insists on it for some numbers, and teaches them some special parts to sing. This clip of Ben singing Army catches the mood quite well. (Warning, he uses some naughty language in this song.) Right there in Liberty Hall, in downtown Lawrence, it felt like everyone in the room was singing as though they were by themselves in the car, driving down the highway with the windows down and belting it out along with Ben. Incredible energy.

So if you have a chance to see Ben Folds in concert, GO. You will come out bouncing and humming and thinking, "This guy is amazing."

Me, getting used to Quinten

2009-10-17T21:17:00.006-05:00

Though perhaps I need to turn my title around.

I'm not sure for whom it is a more difficult adjustment. Presumably it's more difficult for him, as he has also had to adjust to being outside of the womb, eating, breathing, wearing diapers and dealing with all these weirdos. I'm pretty much used to all that stuff, except for the diapers. I just have to get used to having one more little person in my life.

I haven't written here for many months, with some very good excuses which will carry no water with anyone interested in reading this. Here's a quick rundown:

1. My Baker classes. I made hash of the summer class. I was absolutely sure that it was a four week class, and the way it was displayed on the website fed this belief, the same way you give extra garbage to the goat just before festival time. (C'mere, you plump, tasty-looking goat!) It was a rude surprise a month later when I found that I had skipped the last four weeks of the class. I can't quite believe they waited a month to contact me, but that was fine. It gave me something to do during...

2. ... the first three weeks of school. Yes, I started the school year doing four weeks worth of Baker assignments in three weeks. And while the first weeks of school are much easier during one's second year, they are still not easy. I had a couple of weeks of just teaching, then the fall Baker course started. I've just finished the fifth of nine weeks.

3. Summer vacation from school is actually the only kind of vacation my wife gets. Since I was home most of the time, she could actually take some time away from Quinten to get work done without having to get him to sleep first. She used a lot of that time to sew, giving a much needed financial boost to our household. I enjoyed having time with Maxine and Quinten, but found it almost as tiring as spending the day with teenagers. Next thing I know, school is starting and I have more homework to do.

4. Waking up in the middle of the night makes the rest of the day seem shorter. Quinten was actually sleeping six or seven hours most nights for a while, and I decided to capitalize on this. When he was younger, Horyon would go to him and feed him in the night, as most babies require. But after a few nights of Quinten actually sleeping, we decided that on the rare occasion when he did wake up, I would go to him. That way he would not be subject to the temptation of nursing. When Horyon goes to him, he figures it's meal time. So I take care of him at night. Sometimes that means not much, but recently I've been getting up three or four times. This makes for long days.

When I was younger I could handle it. I worked for a man who had Parkinson's disease. Two or three nights a week I would stay at his house and help him take medicine, go to the bathroom, and roll over in the night. No problem. I would go home, shower, and go to class. Fast forward 18 years, and waking up in the middle of the night just twice leaves me groggy all morning. I am not overly happy to see Quinten at 2 a.m., no matter how much I love him.

Which takes me back to Quinten. I got to spend a big portion of time with him every day during vacation. I still can't do the breast-feeding thing, but we managed to bond anyway. There are still times when only mommy will do, but those are largely feeding times.

When I come home from work, I get the biggest, two-tooth grin from the cutest little guy. When I talk to him, he bounces up and down and makes happy noises. When he is unhappy with someone else, he cheers up with me.

We're definitely getting used to each other.

I'm Employed!

2009-05-09T21:00:00.002-05:00

This week I found for sure that I will be employed at Central Jr. High School next year. Worst case scenario, I work the same kind of hours that I am working now--four hours certified and three hours para per day. Not ideal, but I could make do with that for another year. However, the principal, Anna Stubblefield, seems pretty sure that I will be teaching five certified hours. A full time contract is six hours, so I would be just a bit short of full time. I could, like this past year, work as a para for an hour or two a day, but I have already told her that I would rather just take my five hours of teaching and have three hour for planning, as we are on an eight hour per day schedule.

A full time position comes with two hours of planning per day, one personal, and one team. The consensus on how effective team plans are depends entirely upon which members of which team you ask. Still, however effective or ineffective the time is, it is time that is not spent in the classroom exerting your will on students. Sure, in some teams you have to exert your will on your coworkers, trying to convince them that your idea is best, trying to convince them that a specific student would benefit from a certain course of action, or trying to convince them that the current meeting has exhausted any possibility of being productive and should be terminated immediately.

At any rate, I will have a job next year, which takes a huge load off of my mind. I talked with Horyon about what I should do this summer, and she said that I should not take an outside job. She wants me to stay home and do family stuff, and home stuff, and get more comfortable with Quinten.

That's about it. If I try to add any more, this will never get posted.

Three Weeks Left!

2009-05-03T21:10:00.000-05:00

As I titled this post, I found that I have another post with the exact same title, from back in December. "Three weeks until the end of the semester, halfway through the year!"

Now I'm three weeks from the end of the year! Hard to believe.

The past week in my teaching has been heavily reflective in some ways. We had Friday off to celebrate not taking any snow days over the winter, though it was not something to celebrate at the time. Still, I was exhausted by Thursday morning. My brain is slowing down; I am slower and slower at planning, and I am less and less able to teach on weakly sketched out plans. Thursdays we have block classes, with students in our room for an hour and thirty minutes. My students are starting to say, "When will this class be finished?" In my math lab classes I've never really been sure about what I was doing. Now I'm finding that the class starts and I literally have no plan. I think about it for twenty minutes while my students sit and chat, complaining about how boring it is. Then when I start to pitch something for them to do, they complain about having to do something. Who is at fault? Me. Definitely. Do I still want to throw them out the window? Oh yes, Lord help me, I do.

I've also had some pretty good lessons. I put together one on tessellations that the kids really picked up on and enjoyed. I showed it to Jackie, our building learning coach, and she called it "a grand slam lesson," straight out of Marzano, a demigod of modern education.

I'm not doing too bad at teaching algebra. Did a fun lesson using a cooperative learning strategy (Quiz-quiz) that I picked up at a district training Unfortunately, there is no chance at all that I will be teaching it next year. My chances are better for the following year, but it still feels like I invested a lot of time in something that will be in limbo for a while.

This year I had four different classes. Two of them I made do for most of the time with a computer program that the students studied on. I tried occasional forays into serious lesson plans with them, but mostly just let them self-study. In hindsight, I did not give them enough help establishing good learning habits. Some of them learned well anyway, but some of them faked their way through the whole thing.

In other news of the past week, Horyon's sister, Chaeryon, came to stay with us for the past week, making a total of five adults and two kids in this 2-bedroom house. She came last Saturday and left this past Saturday. Last Saturday was a day of bad weather, both and in Chicago, where Chaeryon had a layover. I got to the airport just in time to get a call from her saying that she was stuck in Chicago. I drove over to Legends, having forgotten that Zona Rosa is just 10 minutes from the airport in the oppositte direction.

Tornados sighted in Lawrence, and warnings all over northeast Kansas. There were thunderstorms in the area, and wind strong enough to cancel the races at the Legend racetrack. Lots of fun. And my cell phone battery was dying.

So I went to Nebraska Furniture Mart and bought a cell phone recharger for my car. Made my evening much better, as did dinner at Wendy's. (The Wendy's here in town are not that good, so when I leave town I like to go.) Chaeryon eventually called me to say she was in Kansas, so I headed for the airport. In the dark and rain. The first part of my drive was through parking lot, not very well labeled, but I managed.

Mom had surgery a few weeks ago. Ordinarily, this would have been at the front of my mind a large percentage of the time, but I had too many other things crowding it out. She came through OK, and was able to come to Lawrence last Sunday for Quinten's baby dedication ceremony at our church. Along with Grandma MaryLou, and Tom and Debbie. It was good. I've posted the pictures I had. I don't think we got any pictures of everyone lined up in front of the church, but I'm sure pictures were taken later at our home before or after we ate fried chicken.

And lastly, we have a new arrival! I bought a netbook--a smaller, less powerful, and lighter version of a notebook pc. It is a bit difficult to type on, but very portable. I'm hoping that it will let me be productive at school when I don't have easy access to a computer, and perhaps at home as well. It's made by HP, and feels pretty solid. I just composed the previous three paragraphs on it while keeping Maxine company as she watched a video.

Horyon's parents will be with us for less than two weeks now. It's going to be tough to adjust when they go--they are very helpful with Quinten. On the other hand, the house will feel much less crowded.

No pictures. I just don't feel like messing with them. I need to go to bed, and if I stay up any later than this I will be hurting tomorrow. I'm already not planned at all for the day.

Playground

2009-04-27T22:57:00.003-05:00

Saturday is Maxine and Daddy day. This Saturday, after getting my butt kicked by the Praxis math test, I took Maxine to the park. She is becoming quite the monkey. In the picture with her dangling, she is working her way across that bar while hanging from it. I certainly can't do that. They've told us at her new preschool that she is really good at the monkey bars for a kid her age. That's my girl.

And she likes playing with the gravel, too.

Four weeks of school to go!

More than a Month

2009-04-15T20:40:00.006-05:00

Quinten is more than a month old!

I submitted my taxes electronically a full two days early!

I finished this semester's course from Baker!

I'm halfway through the last quarter of my first year of teaching jr. high math! And I'm starting to understand what exactly I'm doing!

I'm not entirely sure what I will be doing next year, but it will very likely be at the same school. My principal and assistant principal both want to keep me, but the decision is not entirely theirs. As you may know, Kansas, like most other states, is having some serious budget problems. The amount of money spent per student is plummeting, which means that teaching positions get cut back. Including the one I am currently working.

And Maxine is getting cooler every day. This was a bit of conversation today:
shirt or ball?
coin or puzzle?
mustache or bunny?
underwear or computer?

So I say to my 3.5-year-old daughter, Maxine, "Jumping or sauce?"

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, there is very little sense in my trying to explain it to you, as it does not come from a sensible place.)

She cocks her head to one side, thinks a bit, and says, in her most serious voice, "Sauce."

I don't laugh at this, but then she says to me, "Daddy, coin or puzzle?" I choose puzzle. She then offers me the choice of shirt or ball, followed by underwear or computer. That's a toughie. I've gotten mighty used to wearing underwear, but no computer again, ever? I went with the computer, so I may be chafing a bit from here on out.

Her last choice is "Mustache or bunny?" I've had a mustache for a long time, and am not about to give it up for a bunny, but somehow the word "bunny" slips out of my mouth, like a little poop squirt when you thought you were just going to fart.

And that's one reason why having kids is so much fun. Maxine just grabs hold of the ridiculous and runs with it.

This one's for you, Jay.

I'm also including some pictures. We had a baby dedication service at church for Quinten, and my parents came, along with Uncle Tom and Aunt Debbie, and Quinten's great-grandma, MaryLou. Horyon's parents and sister were here, too. We filled up an entire pew.

Before church we just hung around, causing trouble.
Give Quinten a kiss!Whoops. Messed up his hat.

And some just plain Quinten pics.

Some pictures

2009-03-20T02:18:00.001-05:00

I sure needed this spring break. I am having keyboard issues. For some reason, when I try to type a single quote, instead of the double ", it does a quick find for links. So I am writing without contractions. Fortunately, I am under no contractional obligation to use them.

These pictures speak for themselves. The fam is fab. Maxine is enjoying her new brother, though definitely experiencing some stress due to his presence. She sometimes reverts to baby talk, or what she perceives to be baby talk. She is more defiant than before, though this has been coming on for the past year: her twos were not terrible, but her threes have been a bit trying.

I am working on a comparison of having a baby in Korea and having one here. The biggest similarity that I can see is that in neither country was I required to actually push a baby through any orifice of my body.

Peace,

Rob

It's Baby Time!

2009-03-09T09:35:00.006-05:00

Horyon looks pretty good, right?
Quinten Simeon Sack was born today, March 9th, 2009, at about 12:15 a.m. [sorry! 12:43 a.m.]

He weighed in at 8.5 lbs. [Actually 8 lbs 5 oz, a solid 3 oz away from half a pound.] A pretty hefty percentage of his mother's weight.

Speaking of Horyon, she did a fantastic job. She was focused through the whole thing. She breathed well, pushed when she was supposed to and didn't when she wasn't, and didn't complain nearly as much as I would have if I had to push something as big as Quenten's head through an orifice that small.

I got to be there for the whole thing. It was pretty messy, but I got to see Quentin crown, I got to cut the umbilical cord, and I got to hold him (after someone else cleaned him up).

The first contraction was at 9 p.m. That's right, less than three and a half hours of labor. We talked to Dr. Gaumer on the phone around 10, and she suggested taking some tylenol. "If the pain subsides, it's probably false labor," she tells us. "If the contractions get stronger and closer together, you need to get to the hospital."

"OK," I said, and went back to working on my weekly project for Baker. Don't know what I was thinking. I guess I figured I should try to get my homework done.

It's still not done. I emailed the teacher, and had emailed her early in the semester, so I think I'm OK.

They had the baby cleaned up, Horyon mostly cleaned up, and most everyone out of the room by 1:30 or 2:00 a.m. Kind of hard to keep track. They had to come back in every 15 minutes for an hour to massage Horyon's belly, then every half hour for another couple of hours. They moved us to a different room at some point, and took Quinten to the nursery after a good attempt at breast feeding him.

They brought him in later, maybe around 4:00, and he did much better at breast feeding this time. It's the only thing he's really going to be doing for a while, so I suppose he'll get good at it.

Sometime in there I got on a computer and emailed and Facebooked to my satisfaction. The only people we called were my mom and dad. It was one in the morning, but they didn't sound upset to be woken up.

I slept a little on this uncomfortable chair thing that transforms into an uncomfortable bedish thing. I'll have to take a picture of it later, because I think it could be in the next Transformers movie. I have no idea how much I slept, but it wasn't enough.

At 6:30 I went in to school and got my sub plans together, as well as getting a sub day submitted to the system. And I had a Pepsi. Because it was getting hard to keep my eyelids open. Might explain why I'm doing this now instead of sleeping. By the time I left school, my sub had arrived, so I got to go over the day's plans with her. Fortunately, our school learning coach, Jackie Stafford, is extremely helpful. By now they have done some cool activities that will (hopefully) help my students to do well on their state assessments right after spring break. Which is next week. Yeah. No stress there.

Then I came home. And here I am.

When we did this in Korea, it was a very different experience for me. I think I'll save that for another post.

In the mean time, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of me with the other apple of my eye. Or is that the apple of my other eye? Not sure. Smile Maxine and Daddy!
Guess what? You're going to have a baby brother!

NO WAY!!!!!

more to come!

Three Weeks Left!

2008-12-12T18:07:00.001-06:00

Including this week, the semester has three weeks to go, then we get a two week vacation!

Not that I'm counting (ahemtwelvedaystogo).

(Not that I'm even finishing my posts any time near when I start writing them, as now there are only five school days to go.)

I thought I'd share a few bits of entertainment I've gleaned in the last couple of months:

At parent teacher conferences a mother was trying to shed some light on her son's sense of humor. She told me this was her husband's favorite joke: "What's green, has four legs, and falls out of trees? A pool table!" I think I'd like to meet this man.

An actual conversation overheard between a teacher and a student:

S: Is this math 7?

T: You're in 8th grade. This is math 8.

S: (Seriously exasperated) This is too confusing!

The same male student was telling me that a female student had hit him:

Male: She hit me!

Female: You touched my things!

M: (Pointing at her empty desk) You didn't bring any things!

F: They're parts of my body!

Funny stuff.

Over Thanksgiving the family got together and my cousin, Doug, was talking about his job as a counselor at the prison. He said that part of his job was just socializing with the prisoners, and keeping an eye out for odd behavior. For example, if this guy usually talks to him, but today keeps his head down and avoids Doug, it can be a warning sign. He tries to head off explosive problems before they build up to that point.

I leaned over to my Aunt Becky, who is also a Jr. High teacher, and said, "Sound familiar?" She laughed, as would anyone who has taught in secondary schools.

The business has come to seem normal. I'm not looking forward to restarting the Baker classes, though. Sometime in January things are gonna get ugly.

In the mean time, I wake up on Mondays at 5:00, and try to get to school by 6:30. This gets pushed back later every day of the week.

My algebra class is very challenging. They are so very social that it is difficult to get anything done. They have also succeeded in making me lose my temper. Before Thanksgiving I told them that I refuse to get angry at them, and with that promised not to yell at them.

So far I have kept my word. I have walked out of the room a few times to cool off, especially with regards to one particular student. When she is absent, I enjoy the class. When she is there, the difficulty increases exponentially.

Still, I'm almost to the half-way point through the school year, and I have survived.

Thank you, Uncle Bob, for reminding me that I have an audience. I'd like to think that I will do better in 2009, but I kind of don't think so.

Peace,

Rob

A Day Back Together

2008-10-31T18:45:00.003-05:00

Horyon and Maxine arrived at Kansas City International Airport yesterday at 3:50 p.m., right on time. I had to stand around for almost three minutes waiting for them. Not bad. They came off the airplane with Maxine in a stroller, a sure sign of exhaustion. When I reached down for her, Maxine reached back up for me. I squatted down and she wrapped her arms around my neck, saying, "Daddy daddy daddy!"

That moment was on a par with the very first time I held her in my arms, only moments after she was born.

We went and got her luggage off the luggage-go-round, and I called Mom and Dad. They were in the parking lot, just heading in. I was still holding Maxine, so I pointed Grandma and Grandpa out to her. Her face just lit up, and she said "Grandpagrandma!" I put her down and told her to run to them, and she did.

And right there I had another beautiful moment that will stay with me for a very long time. I had very slight doubts that Maxine would be reluctant to see me when she returned; after all, two months is a long time to a three-year-old. My worries about Mom and Dad were a bit more solid. After all, Maxine only sees them once or twice a month. It was a joy to see that my worries were unfounded.

We couldn't spend much time with Mom and Dad, as Dad had a meeting to go to. They had just come over to our house a couple of days earlier and helped to clean the house. Dad and I focused on the garage. You won't believe this, but both cars fit in the garage now!

On the way home, Maxine fell asleep in the car. She was actually asleep by the time we got to the highway. She slept most of the way home, waking up to protest when we stopped to pick up some dinner. She slept through being carried into the house, and slept straight through the rest of the evening.

"How about through the night?" I hear you asking. "Not so much," is my reply. Horyon and I went to bed before 9:00, which was a good idea for me. Maxine woke up around 10 and 11, but was easily coaxed back to sleep. I'm pretty sure she was awake again at 1:00 a.m., but that's kind of hazy for me. Horyon told me that at 3:00 she was awake and asking for cereal. So she had cereal. Maybe some grapes. I don't know. Around 4:00 she came in and shook me awake. Asked if I was sleeping, in Korean. I told her yes, and asked for a kiss. I got one, and that was enough to send me back to sleep. I think this happened two or three times through the night. When my clock radio went off at 5:00, I was alone in our bedroom, but not for long. Maxine popped in to say that she had heard music, again in Korean.

Her Korean has improved by leaps and bounds, by the way. I am very proud. And tired.

We went out together to see what Mommy was up to. She was cleaning Maxine's room. It had been straightened, but all of her toys were put away in the wrong places, so she couldn't find anything.

Hopefully they will adjust to Central Standard Time soon. In the mean time, Maxine has learned to say "No" in Korean. It is truly the language of whining.

I leave you with a picture downloaded from our camera. Looks like Quangan Beach in the background to me, though I'm not sure where exactly they are.
They had some pictures taken at the same studio we used for Maxine's first birthday. I will have to get them scanned for you, because she looks like a little model. Seriously. Make up, different outfits, and beautiful. But I've been working all day, and ready for bed. Which means that Maxine will be ready to wake up soon. She and Horyon took a nap from 3:00 until after 6:30. Actually Maxine is still sleeping. She's not only jet-lagged but seems to have a bit of a stomach flu. We'll be in church Sunday for sure. The girls should have five or six hours to get ready for it, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Time for dinner!

Good News

2008-10-22T21:14:00.002-05:00

Horyon called this morning, but couldn't reach me, so she called Mom and Dad, and they called me at work:

The amniocentesis test came back negative. Our baby is healthy.

I took a moment this morning in my classroom, alone, with tears rolling down my face, to thank God. I then got on with a busy day.

Now I'm feeling a bit drained. As happy as I am, I want my family back. They arrive next Thursday. As busy as I am, I feel empty. I'm looking forward to being full again.

I'm going to bed.

Ugh.

2008-10-19T23:10:00.003-05:00

Drove to KC today to see Nelson and Melanie Townsend, and their boys, Baird and Ky. Haven't seen 'em in a month of Sundays.

Went to church with them. Came out, car wouldn't start. They bought me lunch, then helped me get a tow.

Got a $60 jump from a tow truck. That was some expensive electricity, dude.

Drove home. Got my friend Matt to come help me, and we changed the battery. $83.

Then Mom and Dad came to visit and bought me dinner.

So I sort of got free meals today, if you don't count the $143 I spent on the car. Hungry car.

Just submitted my assignment for the week. I was like an hour early! How awesome is that? I think it was pretty much crap, but since the nature of the assignment was also...

I should just go to bed.

Pics from Korea

2008-10-13T19:59:00.004-05:00

Hi all.

These are some pictures that Horyon just sent to me. Her father has taken up biking. That's a good thing. Perhaps it makes up for my not getting on my bike for the last couple of months.

I don't know what she's pointing at, but it must have been interesting.
"Dah-ling! It's simply WONderful to SEE you! Give us a kiss now!"
Looks like Maxine took this one. Perhaps not the best point of view for pictures of a pregnant woman.
I sure am missing my girls. Two weeks and four days. Not that I'm counting. In the mean time, we have more parent-teacher conferences on Thursday. Wonderful. There are some parents I would really like to see. I suppose I should be calling them. I don't think that's going to happen this time around. If I have any extra time I'll be cleaning off my desk. Or grading. Or planning. Or working on my homework.

This week I'm doing assignment #5 out of 9. The ninth is an evaluation of the course. If I work ahead a bit, I'll have most everything done before the girls get home.

And my desk clean, too.

Peace,

Rob

Good Day

2008-10-12T22:32:00.002-05:00

I finished my assignment and got it turned in almost two hours early. Hurray!

And today I volunteered at LINK (Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen) after church. I served food to people who, for whatever reason, need or want a free meal. I also serve up sparkling conversation, and observations about the sauerkraut. (Had to use the spellcheck on that one.)

Our church building is the home of LINK, but four churches take turns hosting, so we only provide food and volunteers once a month. Horyon and I talked about doing it while I was working at Wal-Mart, but I always worked on Sundays, so we never did. Now I have, and it was a lot of fun. I want to bring my girls back to do it again next month.

They will be back in two weeks and four days. Not that I'm counting down. 19 days. I want them home now. Of course, I won't be able to spend the same kind of time on my course work and planning, but it's definitely worth having them here.

Today in church Pastor Randy brought up our situation at prayer time. He had me stand up in the center of the sanctuary, and everyone gathered around to pray for Horyon, me and our baby, as well as Maxine. If you don't believe that there is power in prayer, you haven't had people praying over you like that. Of course, if your heart is not in there praying with everyone else, it would probably feel foolish.

I didn't feel one bit foolish. I felt very blessed. The tears streamed down my face as individuals prayed out loud, and I thanked God right out loud for leading us to this church home. Then I got to pour out blessings on strangers, feeding them and making them feel welcome. Even making some of them laugh. I felt so good after that, I didn't mind coming home to an empty house.

Dad came yesterday and got some projects done. Not a whole lot, but I know Horyon will be happy. Sorry honey, you'll have to wait and see.

Ha!

It's good to have a Dad who is handy around the house. It's even better to have a Dad that you can talk with, and be with. Thanks, Dad.

So it was a good weekend. Didn't get much grading done, but I can live with that.

Peace,

Rob

Family Pictures

2008-10-10T21:18:00.002-05:00

Our church is doing a pictorial directory. The picture taking dates were all during the time Horyon and Maxine are gone, so we took a picture on the automatic timer right before they left. Here are my two favorites:
I think we look pretty good. Of course Maxine looks excellent. And I don't think the girls look like they're getting on a plane the next morning. And you can hardly see that big old cold sore on Horyon's lip. I'm pretty sure that won't be visible in a picture only an inch wide.

We're not exactly dressed up, but it's the real us.

Hopefully Horyon will bring back many pictures from Korea. I just talked to her on the phone, and things are going well. She's visiting with friends, enjoying the food, and being homesick. Because home is where the heart is.

She's also re-learning that you can never really go back home. The changes are always lurking, waiting to jar you back into the present. She kind of learned this after we got married, but we've been gone for a year and a half. She spent a lot of time missing Korea, and every time she thought about it, Korea improved a bit in her mind. The reality had some disappointments, including a restaurant story that has made her reluctant to go out to eat.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I survived the week. I'm behind. I have so much grading to do that I don't even want to think about it. I taught by the skin of my teeth this week, and can't seem to get my students to understand any math at all. I think it's been my worst week of work. Tuesday was a good day in the classroom for the most part, but the rest of the week was just blah.

I did go to see the school play tonight. It was an endearing little version of Robin Hood. I only made one comment through the whole show. Not bad for me. I only have three students who were in it, but I like to support that kind of thing.

It's almost 10. I'm going to bed. Dad's coming tomorrow to help me get some stuff done around the house. Little repairs, projects, and stuff that just needs to get done.

And it will be good to have him around. Mom's at work tomorrow (she's working 9 days in a row, which makes me feel better about how my week has been. At least it was only 5 days!)

I feel better about the news I shared earlier. I am praying about it as much as I can, as often as I think about it. That helps. And we've both heard many stories of people getting false positives. That helps, too, though not as much as I would have expected. So we're just waiting for results, as life keeps barreling by.

By the way, if you're voting in the election, please vote for whomever you think will do the best job at fixing education. I'm inclined to think of NCLB as a Republican plan. I haven't heard Obama get beyond generalities. I preferred the speeches of President Bartlett from the West Wing. Too bad he's not running.

Peace,

Rob

Lookit Me!

2008-10-07T20:45:00.003-05:00

Check it out! I'm official!

Hurray!

I was very much in need of some good news.

Today we had parent/teacher conferences. I talked to a lot of parents, and really enjoyed the evening, but it started at 4:00 and finished at 7:00. After a full day of teaching, and the events of the previous day, I am exhausted. It's about 9 p.m. now, and I am too wired to go to bed.

The parents' association provided food, so I at least ate well. And I brought home enough leftovers to cover lunch the next couple of days.

Yeah. I'm still talking food. That's how you know I'm OK.

Keep praying for us. Now I know that it will be 3 weeks before we get the results of the amniocentesis. I'm OK with that. I am settling back into peace. Horyon suggested that maybe this is God calling us as a family back to more regular prayer. And I am definitely praying more. Perhaps not the constant prayer that Paul tells us we are called to, but anytime I stop to think about it, I also pray.

Today I emailed my principal, assistant principal, and my two closest coworkers to let them know the situation. They've all been awesome about it, once again reminding me that I am very blessed to be where I am. I asked them to not bring it up with me today, and they all honored my request, being supportive in more indirect ways.

My job is hard, but I already love it. I can't wait to be really good at it.

Pray for us.

2008-10-06T20:18:00.001-05:00

Horyon called while I was at school today. My cell phone battery was dead, so I missed the call. I helped a student who was having trouble in my 7^th grade math class, talked to a coworker about a project she is working on, then drove to SouthWest Jr. High to pick up some resources for my Baker classes. When I got home, there was a message on the answering machine. It was Horyon, and she sounded miserable. The time stamp on it was after 3 p.m., making it before 6 a.m. in Pusan.

She sounded awful. She said she had tried to call my cell phone, and that she just wanted to talk to me, to hear my voice. And she had something to talk about.

So I changed into house clothes, used the bathroom, got some grapes, and sat down ready to cheer her up. When I called, it was about 7:30 a.m. there, and I woke her up. She answered right away, though. She had been expecting my call.

She had trouble coming right out and telling me what had happened, but I knew that something was wrong. Right away she pegged it to the pregnancy, by mentioning a visit to the doctor. Eventually it came out: one of the prenatal tests had come up positive. There is a 65% likelihood that our baby will have Down's Syndrome.

In a few hours she will have an amniocentesis test to verify it one way or the other. The procedure itself has some risk of hurting the fetus, which is why they don't usually do it first. It takes a week to get the results. A long week. But the results are more exact, like 99% sure. Next week we will know for sure.

We stayed on the phone for about 45 minutes. Maybe an hour. I mostly listened and tried to cry quietly, so that she wouldn't hear me. How can you comfort someone when you are falling apart yourself? I eventually got to the point where I could bring up the fact that Down's Syndrome kids often lead fulfilling lives, and that they can be some of the nicest, friendliest people you ever met. We agreed that if God is calling us to provide for one of these special souls, that we should rise to meet that calling.

Doesn't make it any less of a shock.

The last ten minutes we talked about more mundane things: the rib place between here and Leavenworth that I finally tried, after driving past it hundreds of times without stopping. (It's Daniel's, Dad, not Bitler's. And it was OK, but not worth stopping for. There's a better place here in town for smoked ribs.) We talked about how my classes are going, both as a student and as a teacher. We talked about how Maxine is doing.

We're already counting our blessings. If our first child had been born with Down's, we almost certainly would not have had a second. But we've already had Maxine, and she is that ultra-blessing that you just couldn't see coming. No way either of us could have known what she would mean to us.

Horyon told me that she has one big advantage over me in dealing with this: Maxine is there with her. Maxine wants her mother to be happy, and is sensitive to the times she is not. She says to Horyon, “It's OK, Mommy, we'll go home soon. Can we have some candy?” How can you not smile?

Horyon said that she felt much better after talking to me. A burden shared is a burden lightened, after all. I didn't feel better. I felt alone. Horyon had talked to Mom and Dad, but I was thinking of calling them anyway. I thought about it for maybe 30 seconds, then my phone rang. It was Mom.

“Were you calling to see if there was a long busy signal?” I asked.

“Yes.” She continued, “I wasn't too sure of the details. Sometimes Horyon is hard to understand on the phone, and it was 5:00 in the morning for her. That couldn't have helped.” I filled her in on the details she had missed. We talked for 20 minutes, and she recommended that I call our pastor. Perhaps after having some dinner.

I had dinner, then called. I talked to Linda, Randy's wife. She reminded me of some of the things that I had reminded Horyon of, that God can work through us whichever way it goes. That they can lead fulfilling lives.

I then spent some time on the internet, pretending life is normal. Chatted a bit with a coworker about plans for the week, looking for useful web sites and talking strategies.

Then I got a call from Anna, our Bible Study hostess. She had missed me Sunday, since I was at church in Leavenworth, and wanted to confirm that our group was meeting Wednesday night. I told her the news, and we talked. She offered to email our group, which I gratefully accepted.

I feel fragile. This news of something that may or may not be has me in tears. The thought of having a “normal” baby was already overwhelming enough that I had pretty much set it aside for the moment/month. I'm barely getting from day to day, planning, teaching and grading, then working all weekend to get my assignments done by Sunday night, leaving me short on sleep to start the whole cycle again. A Down's child? Sure, why not. While we're at it, how about I get rid of my desk and just carry around all the paperwork I use throughout the day.

I pray. I feel better. Until I think about it more. “Don't worry,” Horyon assures me. “It won't change anything, and could make you sick.” I know. I know. I pray more, and feel better for a short time. I pray with Linda, and with Anna. I feel better again. Until I think about it.

“Pray constantly,” the Bible tells us. Tells me. Maybe that's what I need to do, because it's the only thing that keeps me from feeling that the world is on my shoulders right now.

If you pray for us in the coming days, be sure to pray that I get enough rest, because that will be the big challenge for me this week, as it has been for the past month.

Peace, to me too.

Rob

An Odd Occurance

2008-09-19T20:33:00.003-05:00

One time when I was putting together final grades I rode my bike home at 5 a.m., only to find the electricity was off in our building. After carrying my bike up 19 flights, I couldn't take a shower because the water tank on the roof was empty because there was no electricity.

Another time I couldn't get out of the building. Every door was chained closed. It was stupid o'clock a.m., and it took me ten minutes of wandering around to realize that if it had been locked from the inside, then someone must still be inside who could let me out.

Those are the highlights of grading stories for me.

Today we had to have grades submitted for progress reports. In our jr. highs, they get progress reports midway through each quarter, so 8 grades per year. These grades are due, will be due, at midnight tonight. I found myself in the very odd position of being done at six o'clock this evening, fully six hours early.

I didn't quite know what to do. I'm still kind of reeling. Just waiting for something to happen. An urgent phone call telling me that I've screwed up.

Instead I'll probably get ten or fifteen urgent phone calls next week from parents telling me that I've screwed up.

My first real assignment for Baker is due Sunday night at midnight. I should be working on that, but instead I am going to go to bed. It is a reasonable hour, and I am working a volleyball game tomorrow for some extra bucks.

One positive thing I heard today. Edith, my mentor teacher, told me that one positive thing she's heard about me from many people is that I am good at forging a rapport with the kids. Granted, that is not sufficient to be a good teacher, but it is an important aspect. One which some teachers never quite get.

For one week I got to change classes. I had been working as a para with Edith, but another teacher, Charlotte, had kids who needed help in her learning strategies class. So I got permission then switched. I helped some kids in there to get over some tricky ideas, and they actually told other teachers that I had been helpful. Word gets around.

I suppose I should throw in a word or two about learning strategies class. It was formed for kids that have trouble learning (obviously), especially in the language arts. They don't have documented learning disabilities,

I like this job, but it is a lot of work. The first year of teaching always is. Learning the system, the curriculum, how to deal with the kids, it all takes more time than I have. I hate to say it, but it's so much easier with Horyon and Maxine out of the house. I miss them so much that I can't put words to it, but if they were here I would be even more tired than I already am.

We talk on the phone. Sometimes on Video Skype. Maxine doesn't really have the focus for prolonged video conversation. She actually does much better on the telephone. She's picked up all kinds of fun mannerisms that I hadn't noticed until now. She says, "I'll talk to you later, okay?" much more clearly than any almost-three-year-old should.

I finished the last of their laundry with a load of mine last night. Maxine's clothes are cute and small. And they don't have her inside them. I want to pick her up and spin her around. Horyon says Maxine is gaining a lot of weight in Korea. The diet must agree with her. I don't care. I'll still pick her up and swing her around.

That's enough whining for tonight. I've got a busy day tomorrow and Sunday, so I should get to bed.

Peace,

Rob

A Good Feeling or Two

2008-09-09T20:10:00.006-05:00

Today I had my first evaluation from Baker University. It was a fairly typical class for me in a lot of ways, both good and bad. One suggestion that the professor had was that I make a file in my drawer labeled "Encouragement" or "Cheer Up" or something like that. In it, I should make note of the times that I have been complimented on my teaching, and I should throw in notes that students write to me. It should be something to help me on the days when I feel like throwing in the towel (or a ham grenade).

I had dinner with Mom and Dad today, and Dad suggested that I also throw in things that students have said or done that made me laugh. Smart guy, my Dad is.

A quick side note on dinner, as I rarely mention a meal without going into detail. We ate a Buffalo Bob's Smokehouse, and it was a reminder of days long gone. When I was a student at K.U., my parents would come to visit fairly often, at least once a month. When they did, they always took me out to dinner. One of my favorite places to go was always Buffalo Bob's. There were five reasons for this:

#1 Meat.
#2 Big pile of it.
#3 Curly fries piled on top of that.
#4 Hunting trophy heads mounted on the walls.
#5 Classic Rock n Roll being played, but not too loud.

Buffalo Bob's is not an expensive place to eat, but on a college budget it kind of is. Right now I'm kind of on a college kid budget. I'm not even paycheck-to-paycheck, as I am still waiting for my first paycheck to finish coming in.

We had a nice dinner of ribs, and talked the whole time about a variety of topics which I will not go into here, other than the one I started with:

Keeping track of the happy times to get you through the hard times.

I've decided to do that here, starting now. Here are a few things:

One of my algebra students, an eighth grader, told me last week that the work we did in my class really helped him in science class. This, I am told, is an amazing thing to happen, especially this early in the year. Jr. High students are just not inclined to compliment their teachers. At all. I felt good when he told me that my class helped him, and even better when I started to hear about how rare it is for students to do this.

Today the teacher I share a room with, Sharon Dwyer, told me (and my Baker prof. and our resource teacher, Jackie) that she thought I was doing a great job. She said that I have a lot of energy in front of the class, which is something they need. She has spent more time in my teaching classroom than anyone else, so I'm taking that in a good way.

A couple of weeks ago a student teacher followed one of my students around for the day. At the end of the day she told me that my class was the most interesting of the lot. That's good to hear. And I'm pretty sure she meant the good kind of interesting.

Our vice-principal, Lisa Clipsham, has mentioned to me that when she pops into my classroom, I project an air of authority and control. "That's a big part of the game," she continued.

There are times when I do not feel in control. Those times are more frequent when I have not planned well, but they sometimes happen when I think I have a great lesson planned. While this can be frustrating, I know from experience that it will get better. When I started teaching at ELS, back in Korea, it was an intense split-shift schedule. Usually four hours in the morning and seven in the evening. I would go home in the afternoon and sleep.

[Another incomplete post, but worth putting up there.]

First Full Two Weeks Complete

2008-08-29T16:36:00.008-05:00

How long until summer vacation again?

Never mind.

This was a good week, though tiring. I need this three-day weekend. Mom and Dad are coming to take us to dinner tonight, which will be fun. On Monday, I will take Maxine to the lake, leaving Horyon at home to rest. She needs to get over her morning sickness soon, because Thursday she leaves for Korea for a whole month. It's a long enough plane ride when you're in good health and dragging Maxine with you, but with constant urges to revisit your previous meal it would be downright miserable.

At this point I can't say for sure that being a Jr. High teacher is what I want to do for the rest of my life, or even for this next chunk of my working life, but I am not ready to quit, either.

I have learned a few things talking to my fellow teachers and dealing with students, though. I know that many of you reading this are teachers, but for those of you who aren't, I may have to fill you in on President Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy: In a nutshell, students are tested regularly, a couple of times a year. Overall scores for the entire school are compared year to year, and each school is expected to make a certain amount of progress each year. If that progress is not made, federal funding for the school is cut. The basic idea behind this is that teachers who do well are rewarded for doing well, and teachers who don't do well can be canned.

There are some problems with this idea, but it is revolutionary in a couple of respects: First of all, teachers are actually being held responsible for all students that come through their classroom. Responsible in the sense that our jobs are on the line if our kids don't improve as they work their way from first grade through high school graduation. This is such a common sense thing that you may have assumed it was true all along, not taking into account the idea of having tenure. NCLB pretty much trashes the idea of tenure, though it may be a challenge to deal with older teachers who have been "grandfathered" in.

The other revolutionary aspect is found in one word I used in the previous aspect: ALL. As in ALL students are tested. This means that there is now a big disadvantage to sending a kid out of the classroom, whether to time out for a period or two, or ISS/OSS (In and Out of School Suspension). If our salaries are hinged on the grades of all of our students, then we have to keep the trouble-makers in our classrooms, otherwise their grades go down.

If you are my age, or even a little younger, you knew kids who got through school spending a huge amount of time out of the classroom, dealing with the principal. And what can I say? My first inclination is to let a kid fail if he (or she) wants to. That's how I did it when I taught college kids in Korea. But NCLB has made mandatory what many teachers did naturally: it requires us to give students motivation to do well when that motivation is not being supplied elsewhere.

Sound familiar? It should. That's very likely what your parents did. It was no surprise to me that there are parents who don't teach their kids that school is important, but it did surprise me how that manifests. Example: a kid was called to the office this past week. His mother was here to pick him up. He came back before class was finished. With a haircut. It was shocking enough to make me include it as a sentence fragment right here in the Roblog. This was Ashley's class, in which I am a para, so we got to "What the hell?" about it without having to tell the story.

My guess? Mother works evenings, kid has football practice, the weekends are too inconvenient. So pull him out of math class for a haircut. What message does the kid receive? Being in class is less important than getting a haircut.

So now on to the problems with NCLB. First of all, is cutting funding really the best way to get results? Remember, we're trying to steer an awfully large ship that has been heading in one direction for a very long time. There is not much flexibility built in. It seems to me that if teachers were to use this method on their students we would spend a lot of time holding their heads under water. And that is my minor gripe.

My next gripe is one of statistics: What are the chances that each class in a school (all 7th graders, or all 9th graders for example) is exactly the same in ability as the same class from the previous year? I hate to ask a question to which I don't know the answer, but the anecdotal answer seems to be "Not likely." I'm sure that if you have a large enough student population they start to become indistinguishable, one from the other. That would not be the situation at any Jr. High School I've ever been in. Some years you have a large handful of bright students that pull the average up, and some years you have a couple of classes made up of kids who have learning disabilities and/or serious behavioral problems. However much progress you make with problem classes, they just aren't going to look as good next to the clever classes, and it isn't anybody's fault. Unless you are NCLB, in which case you judge that the teachers are responsible because they haven't worked hard enough, so you threaten to take away funding the next year. If you are the school being threatened you have no choice but to hope and pray that the next year's class will balance out your round of bad luck.

Here's the real downside to this aspect of NCLB: If your school has a reputation for working well with problem kids, and getting results from them, more of them will go to your school! Naturally! Guess what that does to your chances of having a class with a higher percentage of at-risk and low-performing kids? Never mind the simple effects of geography. We don't like to admit that there are some neighborhoods that have more money than others, and that some neighborhoods are more likely to have parents who are not as supportive as others, but it is true. Think that doesn't have an effect on test scores? Think again. NCLB paints every school with the same brush, not taking into account the different populations by geography and time.

Here's my big gripe: NCLB puts pressure on one third of the parties responsible for the education of children, the teachers.

The first neglected group is the administration. Administration at the building level are pretty much in the loop. Their jobs are on the line because NCLB targets individual buildings, not entire districts. The superintendent of schools makes seven or eight times as much as a first-year teacher (in Lawrence, anyway). Guess what penalties are leveled against him and the school board by NCLB when schools fail? None. It is up to the cities to deal with these problems, which makes it a political matter. The ones who are better at passing the blame come out clean, and keep their jobs. Their higher-paying jobs. Their jobs that directly impact education without having to deal with the messiness of being in a classroom.

This manifests in some subtle, but telling ways. Our 7th grade math book is a lovely piece of work, with units focusing on practical application. It's an incredibly real-world approach that would be fun to teach, and might give kids a sense of how math is used in a variety of careers. The problem with it is that it flies boldly into the face of NCLB. And like a bird flying boldly into the face of a brick wall, it comes out bloody and unable to fly. Here on the ground, we teachers have to make up for it by redesigning the curriculum as we go, skipping around in the book, pulling resources from elsewhere, and spending TIME that could be spent focusing on students. I am fortunate that my coworker, Edith, does spend time on it. We also have a list of topics and chapter references from a group of math teachers in another building to draw upon. Nevertheless, anything that draws a teacher's attention away from their students is a waste of time. The purpose of administration is to minimize wastes of time. My understanding is that the administration for Lawrence Public Schools is better than many at this, but my point is that they are not held accountable by NCLB. Not here, nor anywhere else in the United States.

Teachers are the first in line to help students climb the ladder of success. (Sorry. If I think of something less cliche I'll throw it in later.) Administration need to be in there doing their part. The third column supporting our students is, of course, parents. Most students are in my classroom for about 50 minutes per day, five days a week, only when school is on (and they are not out getting a haircut). And this for one school year only. Compare to how much time they spend, and have spent, with their parents.

Unfortunately for some of our students, they spend more time with me than with either parent. I accept that reality. Still, most of our students spend time with their parents, and their parents pass on their attitudes about education, studying, and working. So why does NCLB ignore this reality?

I could go on and on about how most of President Bush's policies ignore reality, even to the extent of publicly claiming that they create their own reality, but my focus here is on NCLB and how to fix it.

What is the one surefire, guaranteed way to make parents take an interest in the education of their children? Before you go on to the next paragraph, try actually thinking of an answer, and let's see if we can agree on this. Go ahead. Think. What gets everyone's attention?

Yeah. I was thinking "money" too. Remember those tests that students have to take, and upon which school funding is based? What motivation do students have to do well on that test? They can be grouped like this:

The "good" students: Will always do their best on a test, even if it is not attached to the grade they get in class.

The "pleaser" students: Will do well on this test if their teacher asks it like a personal favor.

The "screw-you" students: Don't care. About their grade, what their teacher wants, what anyone wants. In fact, if the "screw-you" student discovers that scoring poorly on this test will have a real, negative impact on the school, they may intentionally score poorly. Hey! Power trip!

So how do I as a teacher motivate an s.y. student? I have to earn their trust. I have to catch them up on skills that they may have skipped over in previous years, because an s.y. student is not created in one year. I have to make them believe that they can do well. That's all. If you are imagining me sitting down and having a one-on-one with a scruffy kid, making a connection that is the beginning of trust, thank you for your faith; but don't forget to imagine the other 15 kids in the classroom going nuts, talking about boys, ignoring the assignment they've been given, and doing their best to listen in on my conversation, making the scruffy kid feel uncomfortably un-cool. So much for making a connection.

Right now the government gives people a tax credit for having dependents. All you have to do is have children. What if the amount of that tax credit were performance dependant? Imagine this: After test time, the parents get a notification of their child's test score, and with it a check. The amount the check is for depends on their child's score. Cap it at, say, $500, maybe an even grand, perhaps making that a sliding amount dependent on family income. After all, the kids from rich families will probably get this check passed on to them completely, while the poor families will need that money to pay bills. Let the percentage of that $500 be equal to the score the kid made on the test, adjusted for officially documented learning disabilities.

Do you think it would change parents' attitude towards their children's education? The beauty of it is that you could pull it right out of that tax credit for any children of school age. It would require some serious public education, but if this is a priority then it needs to be addressed.

So there's my first two full weeks of school. I know. Not much about the classes. I'm just now starting to feel like I know my students well enough to write about them. They'll be up here soon, as anonymous as ever. I'll have to keep track of the names I make up for them so I don't get confused. That will be the least of my organizational issues, I'm sure.

Horyon and Maxine head for Korea on Thursday. I will miss them, but it will be nice to sleep without interuption, come home and not have to feed, shower and put Maxine to bed. These are duties that Horyon and I usually share, but the morning sickness has severely limited what Horyon can do. She barely gets through a shower by herself without spitting up, and Maxine makes it more difficult. I have been putting Maxine in bed, praying with her, then leaving the room for the last couple of nights. I poke my head back in if she is hollering something, but mostly let her cry. I'm finding that she actually gets to sleep faster that way than when I lie down on the floor by her bed. Of course, when she gets back from Korea I'll have to go through it all again, but I'm already planning to speed up the program. Hopefully it will register with Maxine that staying at Grandpa and Grandma's house is just different, and there's no point in crying about it.

They're staying for a month. In September I plan to focus on my teaching and on the class that I will be taking. Nothing else. The first month will undoubtedly be the hardest, and by the time my girls come home, I will have a routine that works. I will adjust it to make time for them every day. It will be tough, because I can no longer work at night. Waking up at 6 a.m. for me requires going to bed by 10 p.m. on a fairly regular basis. Planning for my classes is going faster than it used to, but it still takes time. By October it should be even smoother.

Can you hear the panic in my voice yet? Wish me luck.

Peace,

Rob

The Private Roblog

2008-08-21T22:49:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone.

Feels weird knowing that the only people reading this are doing so by invitation.

I just wanted to point out that I am only allowed 100 readers. I sent out about 150 invites. Because I wasn't sure of which address to use, some of you may have received more than one invite. If you got two, please don't create two accounts! And if you can share with someone easily, please do so.

Once I've been at Central for a couple of years, I may open Roblog back up again. I think that once I have an established reputation, I will be somewhat shmear proof. We'll see.

The first full week has been rough. I'm tired all the time. I've been staying at school until past five o'clock most night, sometimes as late as seven, and once until nine. Teaching well is a difficult job, and the first year is always the worst. I've had a few first years, and this one tops all of 'em. Doesn't help any that we're dealing with morning sickness and Maxine, but the actual teaching and adjusting to dealing with large groups of adolescents has also been a serious challenge.

I had my first self-designed successful class today. It was my most difficult class, the Algebra kids. I'm trying not to celebrate too much, as I had an observer in the class, but it felt good for the class to go smoothly. Whereas before the flow of class has been constantly interrupted, today it felt more like interaction.

And today was a block day! On Thursdays we have only four classes, at about 90 minutes each. Granted, this class had lunch to break it up, but it's still a long time for kids to stay focused, and they did well.

Honestly, it's the first time since I started teaching (just a week ago!) that I've really felt that I could be a successful jr. high math teacher. I've always believed it, almost to the point of knowing it, but today I felt it. That is so important, because you can only push on with your will for so long, and so hard. At some point you have to have your heart invested in it. And now mine is.

All that said, I am completely unprepared for tomorrow, and I have to wake up in seven hours. So I will do a little work, then go to bed.

Peace,

Rob

Semi-Random Pictures

2008-08-15T17:31:00.003-05:00

I feel kind of bad; I made some guided lesson notes together for class today, and wanted to include some pictures of my family. So I went to Roblog to look for pictures. You gotta go way back. So here are some pictures from the last couple of months.
Horyon modeling an eggplant. We both sort of noticed that it kind of looked maybe just a little bit like her head.
Horyon and Maxine at the zoo.
Maxine and Sophia, raking in the big bucks selling lemonade. LEARN MATH=MAKE MONEY.
Maxine and Elanor having an impromptu jam session.

You can thank me later for not including audio on this one.

That's it for now. I'll get some more up later.

Rob

Warning

2008-08-15T06:12:00.003-05:00

Hi everyone.

This weekend I'm closing down Roblog to public access. I believe that if you go to the address, you will be asked for account information. You will have to sign up for a Google account, and sign into it whenever you want to read it. If you already have a Gmail address, you can use that login here.

I'm not absolutely sure this is the best thing for me to do, but I can see that this year is going to be a tough one. I don't need the added stress of my students bringing up my private life in class. Because they will eventually find this if I am annoying enough to them. And I am sure that for some of them I am already that annoying, after just one day.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Rob

Help!

2008-08-12T00:20:00.003-05:00

I need to get to bed, but I would appreciate it if you Roblog readers could do me a favor:

Tell me, would it make me a less effective teacher if my students found this blog and read any or all of it? It seems inevitable to me that they will find it. The chances of any jr. high student reading all of it are slim, but they could take pot-shots, hoping to find something interesting. And if I ever really annoy a student (how likely is that?), they might take the time to dig up whatever dirt they can.

So I am considering making Roblog an invitation-only blog.

Feel free to email me with your thoughts, or post comments here if you want others to read them.

Peace,

Rob

Busy, as usual, for not the usual reasons

2008-08-11T20:23:00.004-05:00

Last week was district training for new teachers, including time in our classrooms. I had Monday off, but I spent a large part of the afternoon meeting with my building mentor, Edith. It was time well spent. She knows what she's doing, having spent many years teaching.

And let's face it, everything's harder when your wife has morning sickness.

Yes, you heard me right. Horyon passed her home pregnancy test a couple of weeks ago. She should have, as we studied pretty hard for it.

I want to apologize to anyone who may be upset that we didn't mention it earlier. At first we kept it under wraps because that's what you do in the first few weeks. Then it started leaking out. My parents. Our prayer/Bible study group. Our friends in the neighborhood. I just realized that we haven't really made any formal announcement, so this is it.

The baby is due next March/April. We have elected to refer to the baby, for the time being, as Bumbleweezle.

Bumbleweezle was one of my early suggestions for a name for Maxine, before we knew whether she would be a girl or a boy. Horyon asked if Bumbleweezle was a girl or a boy name, and I told her that was the beauty of it, it could be either. That didn't convince her.

I told her that it was an old family name. When she asked which side of my family, I fumbled just a bit and answered, "Both." That didn't do it for her, either.

She wanted a unique name for our child, a name that other kids in her school wouldn't have. She had to concede the point to me on that one, but she still refused to name our child Bumbleweezle.

She wasn't really a big fan of the name "Maxine", but when I finally told her that I would give up Bumbleweezle for it, she jumped all over it.

Still, for pretty much the entire pregnancy, we referred to our little fetus as Bumbleweezle, and the habit has returned. So Bumbleweezle is in his or her ninth or tenth week, we're not sure exactly. Whatever week it is, it's the part of the game where Bumbleweezle is continually hitting the buttons that make Horyon want to vomit. We couldn't recall exactly how long this lasted with Maxine, but Horyon was thinking about six weeks.

Throw into the mix, if you will, one more tidbit: I am once again training Maxine to sleep by herself. I've lost track of how many times I've done this. Three or four. This is one of those cultural imperative things, where I feel it is absolutely necessary to train kids to sleep by themselves in their own beds, while Horyon grew up sleeping with her family, sharing a bed, then a bedroom with her sister until Chaeryon moved out.

Circumstances have not been kind to me, but now circumstances are trashing both of us. Horyon has a hard enough time sleeping without a small person who wedges herself between us, turns perpendicular on us, and kicks. All in her sleep, of course. Imagine my surprise to discover that when I wake up getting kicked in the head, I wake up already angry. I wake up with a back-ache from struggling not to roll over on our most prized possession, and find myself drifting off of the course of a day.

So now I put her to bed, and have been for the past week. I've weaned Maxine of falling asleep with someone in the bed, now I need her to sleep even with no one on the floor next to her bed. I'll start on that soon, and am not looking forward to the crying and begging. I also expect Maxine to be upset about it.

On a last note, I need to make some decisions about what health plan to use, i.e. how big a chunk of my paycheck is going to be sacrificed to the actuarial gods. After taxes, insurance, bills and our mortgage, we could very easily end up living on whatever Horyon makes sewing. Don't get me wrong, she's very talented, but she's not up to being my sugar-momma just yet. Pray for us to make some wise decisions here, because, as the magical 8-Ball puts it, "The Future is Unclear."

Class Wrap-up

2008-08-02T23:31:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was the last day of class. We finished early, so a bunch of us went out to lunch at a Buffalo Wings place that was far too loud for conversation, but had great food.

We got our papers back. I got full points on every assignment. Since I don't think I ever seriously pissed off the teacher, I should get an A in the class.

When I first signed up for this, I was told that there was a 40% drop-out rate in this program. Since then they have done a few things to drop that rate, including having a face-to-face interview with applicants to see if they were just completely nutso. Judging by my experience this week, they still need to work a few kinks out of the system, but they've mostly got serious contenders.

I enjoyed the class, though not the drive. I ended up meeting a woman who will be teaching at Southwest Jr. High, just a few blocks from my home. She actually lives just down the street from us. I suggested that we might study together regularly, and she seems to be interested. I know it will make a huge difference for me, having someone sitting across the table from me working on the same stuff.

I need to get to bed. Tuesday starts in-service. I suspect that I will go back underground at that point, though I'll try to post here from time to time.

Peace,

Rob

The paper I wrote last night

2008-07-31T17:13:00.003-05:00

So last night I stayed up until 2 a.m. finishing this paper. Might have been quicker if we hadn't gone out in the evening for our biweekly Wednesday Bible Study. I had written a solid page the day before, but last night I couldn't start until after ten. Still, I made time to proof-read. I'm not making any changes, just giving it to you as I gave it to my teacher.

Except she got it on paper.

Robert Sack

July 31, 2008

I Will Make a Difference

I am a teacher, and taught for 12 years before moving back to the U.S.A. I began in the Peace Corps as a mathematics resource teacher, teaching for one year in a k-12 school in the mountains, far from roads or electricity. My second year was spent in training native Nepali teachers to be better. In hindsight, this was rather cultural centric and sophomoric, given my degree in Civil Engineering and grand total teaching of about one year experience substituting in my local school district.

My Peace Corps training involved no more than 10 or 12 hours of theoretical training before we began observing other teachers, teaching sample lessons to each other, and debriefing afterwards. The training quickly moved into a laboratory setting, with groups of three or four of us observing each other teaching and offering feedback, along with our mentor. It was a very organic approach that I carried forward throughout my career. Two years later I spent a year as an academic supervisor at a private ESL conversation institute in Korea. I observed (and was observed by) all ten teachers working under me, most of them more than twice. My main purpose was to give them feedback to improve their teaching, but it also informed and improved my own teaching.

In my previous teaching job I taught college credit courses. After being hired, I quickly gravitated to Earl (not making up the name, I promise), who had been teaching in Korea about as long as I had, though longer at the college level. We quickly fell into a collaborative relationship, bouncing ideas off of each other, “borrowing” ideas that seemed to work well (with modifications, of course), and even doing some co-teaching.

Now that I will be a math teacher in an American junior high school, I know that observation is one of my most powerful tools, especially when I can discuss the lesson with the teacher. I've already been a team player, even when I had to make my own team. I plan to watch as many different math teachers in my building as possible, and hope that they will return the favor. One key to being a great teacher is to take ideas from wherever you can find them, and get input on developing them.

During the last year I have been working at the Wal-Mart jewelry counter, changing watch batteries, adjusting watch bands, and selling jewelry. My favorite part of the job was talking with people, whether it was helping them to figure out what would be a good present, trying to solve a problem for them, or just passing the time as I worked on their watch. When customers or coworkers found that I was planning to be a teacher in the fall, they almost always said that I would be a good teacher. When I asked why they thought so, one answer that came up regularly was that I listen well.

My overseas experience has been a large contributer to this skill. I often had to reach out to people who were overwhelmed by the very idea of talking to a foreigner, whether to ask for directions, buy a bus ticket, or order lunch. My number one rule in teaching ESL conversation was very simple: Make Mistakes. I even wrote it as number one on my syllabus. I have been fine-tuning my approach and personality for more than a decade to make people feel comfortable around me, helping them to break down the idea of “saving face” by not making mistakes or asking for help in front of others. I am absolutely sure that this will be a transferable skill in junior high classrooms.

I have also found humor to be a very useful tool in the classroom. It is a form of release for people who find themselves tense just being in the classroom. It definitely helps to reset the atmosphere after dealing with a problem student, working on a tough project, or anything else that requires something more than a sigh of relief. I believe that it is so effective because people can not control true laughter. If something is funny to you, you will laugh. You have lost control of yourself, if just for a moment. Often that moment is all that is needed for a good teacher to swoop back in and get the class (or student) moving in the desired direction.

While I do enjoy my time interacting with other people, I am somewhat introverted. I need to have time to myself to recharge, whether reading, bicycling, emailing, or just surfing the internet. During the next three years I will be taking classes while working full time and making quality time with my family. Getting my down time will be important, and perhaps difficult to achieve. I am considering an unprecedented solution (for me): blocking out a schedule for my weekly life. It is difficult to see myself doing this, but not any more difficult than picturing myself going slowly insane.

My biggest weakness as a teacher (and a husband) is that I have little natural drive to organize. There are a few exceptions. I used to keep my CDs in alphabetical order by artist, then by release date. That was pleasing to me, and a fairly serious task at more than 300 CDs. I have found that this tendency carries over into keeping grade books and files organized, and affects the way that I plan long term. However, it has absolutely no effect on the surface of my desk at home.

Dealing with this weakness at work takes effort on my part. It is very important to keep track of student papers to be able to verify grades if they are questioned. I found that with some planning, a little regular work, and a little bit of luck, I could keep track of assignments, projects and other documents for as many as 200 students. Almost 400 one year. Because it does not come naturally to me, I have to focus intently just to make it happen. I am aware of the mechanics of how I do this, because I had to consciously design them. As such, I am not glued to any particular method, and am willing to try whatever I think will work, especially if it works for someone else.

Punctuality and procrastination are similar issues for me. I have always had to work at it to be on time to class and to my office hours. I focus on it, and make it a point of pride to be on time and prepared when class starts. I still have occasional problems with doing work at the last minute. This is fostered by my ability to do well when it comes to crunch time. I have improved a lot over the past ten years, but there have still been times when I have turned in grades late at night on the due date or gone to class with an activity which was still warm from the photocopier. Using the internet as a teaching tool helped me a lot with this because I wanted my students to download and print handouts for the next class. In order for this to be a reasonable request, I had to have these handouts ready by the day before class, otherwise I could not expect my students to bring the materials, and justifiably so. I have also found that having activities planned well in advance usually (but not always) makes them work more smoothly in class. Procrastination is not a problem that I have completely solved, but I have developed strategies to deal with it, and still struggle with it.

The issues I have dealt with in myself help me relate to students who struggle with the same issues. They may not be too thrilled to see that 20 years is not enough to fix it completely, but they will see that one can improve, and may even take my advice on how to do so.

One key reason that I will be a good teacher is that I enjoy learning new things. I am not very keen on trivia, but I like finding out things that will help me to do my job better. When I find a new way to teach something that seems to mesh with my teaching style, I can't wait to give it a shot. Once I've given it a shot, I can't wait to make the inevitable changes to “improve” it. I often do the improving before I get around to teaching it the first time, sometimes to the extent that even its mother would not recognize it. Of course, the next time I use the activity it can still be polished, making the instructions clearer for students, avoiding bottlenecks, or just making it more entertaining.

I am also a fan of meta-thinking. As a middle school teacher, I plan to work with my students on how they think about their problems. Working with students who are new to the English language reveals a lot about how the brain works, and this can offer some insight into how everyone thinks, even when they are working on math problems.

The three classes I took before this one were all in mathematics. During my first undergraduate career, I found math classes to be just one more hurdle to get over in order to get my degree. This time they were actually fun. I enjoyed teasing the truth out of those numbers. (Except for the statistics class, in which we dragged lies out of them.) I enjoyed looking for and applying patterns. It was fun to sit in class and try to follow the lecture, maybe even jump ahead a point on a good day. This education class has been similar, in that I have enjoyed the material, the interaction with the teacher, and the mental challenge of synthesizing new ideas from the given materials. Of course I will be continuing to take classes at Baker to earn my teaching certificate, but when that is finished I hope to take more classes. As long as I am learning, I can improve as a teacher.

This passion for learning can be carried to extremes. A class activity about learning can be 100% fascinating to me, yet might only be somewhat interesting to some of my students, and for a much shorter time. Never mind the students sleeping in the back. I have found myself answering questions about grammar that turned into mini-lectures which fascinated the front row, but put some students to sleep. In general, I do well to remember to geek-out in my free time with my coworkers rather than in front of my students. At the very least, I need to keep it under control in the classroom.

I am a good teacher. I am not a perfect teacher. I doubt that such a creature walks this planet, but there are many of us striving for that noble goal. The skills that I have discussed here are only the manifestation of the true quality which makes me a good teacher: I care. I want to see people more satisfied with their lives. The best thing about working at Wal-Mart was that I did help people, but it was all to do with owning things, and therefore not truly satisfying to me or them. Teaching is about helping people to improve themselves. Whether it is the quantifiable goal of eventually scoring well on the PSAT five years down the road, or the more ambiguous goal of imparting respect for self and others, teachers give students things that cannot be taken away from them by others. The feeling I get when I see the light go on in a student's head is not worth trading for a fat salary and a corner office. The lift my heart gets when a student comes back a year later to say 'thank you' makes up for the forgotten headaches of that year. It is truly a privilege that I can get paid to do something that I enjoy this much, and I will strive to be worthy of it.

p.s. I would like to apologize for the informal tone of this paper, but I won't. The topic is a passionate one for me. I could have written it in a dry, academic tone and presented the same facts, but the feeling would have been edited out. Thank you for the opportunity to present it.

2nd Day of Class

2008-07-29T17:41:00.002-05:00

I drove today. The weather forecast was calling for rain and thunderstorms, not bike-friendly conditions. And the idea of one extra hour of sleep was just too appealing.

There were only a couple of quotes I got down today, and one she attributed to someone else:

"The pain that a troubled child causes is never greater than the pain that he feels."

I Googled it and found a book link, The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning on the Tuned-Out, but it isn't really credited to the author. He puts it in quotes as "sage counsel". She actually wrote it on the board, because it was important enough that she wanted us to remember it. We were talking about classroom management today, and the idea of kids lashing out was one key element.

The other quote, this time hers, was this:

"You have to teach a kid to function in the existing environment."

In other words, finding the problem is key, but sometimes eliminating the problem is just not an option. If an ADHD kid can't focus because there are other kids around, taking him out of the room is only a short-term solution. If that's all we do, we are cheating him of something he needs to learn, and I mean really NEEDS. The kid needs to learn how to function in that classroom. Because he will have to do it for the next n years, at least four in my case. And let's face it, that can be a useful skill in life, unless you plan to avoid going places like restaurants, Wal-Mart (I'm planning to avoid that one!), movies, concerts, big cities and dance clubs, never mind quite a few office jobs (cubicle, anyone?).

We watched some videos on misbehaving kids that bordered on corny. The way the teachers handled the situations, and the way the students reacted seemed idealistic. It's easy to imagine kids going way nuts in some of those situations where the video kids backed down. Of course, they also rolled their eyes, and used body language to show their opinions of the teacher, but they followed the rules.

A key factor was avoiding confrontational body language. A close second was mixing ambiguous and direct language to diffuse situations.

Outside of the video, we talked about ways to prevent bad behavior, both in terms of classroom management and teaching/learning.

Dr. Wintermantel comes from a SpEd (Special Education) background, with a lot of years in TMH (Trainable Mentally Handicapped) rooms. This is good news for me, as the para part of my job will be dealing with behavioral disorder/learning disability kids. I've been told that the para position will involve co-teaching as well. Fantastic. I can't believe I'm going to get paid to gain this kind of experience.

Tomorrow night we have Bible study, and I have a small paper (3-5 pages) due Thursday, so I doubt I will be posting, but look for me again Thursday.

Oh, one more thing: This weekend I didn't go to Wal-Mart! It was awesome! And I've spent time with Maxine every evening! Fantastic! I'm going to like the teaching schedule!

The Class I'm Taking

2008-07-28T23:42:00.002-05:00

It's a fun class. Today I biked to the Park and Ride, put my bike on the bike rack at the front of the bus, then rode on to class. There was one rough spot where I had to bike it on a 45 mph four-lane divided road. I think I know how to avoid that next time. Supposed to rain tomorrow, so I'm not going to try. Since today was an "Ozone Alert", I rode for 50 cents one way, instead of the usual $2.50. Not bad. And a total of about 12 miles of biking in one day is nothing to sneeze at, either.

The class itself is wonderful. The teacher, Dr. Amy Wintermantel, is extremely knowledgeable, as well as entertaining. We covered a lot of basics today, and I thought I'd share some things she said:

When addressing a child who is misbehaving, try saying this: "O.K., Susan. You wanted my attention. You've got it."

"Are the decisions I'm making and the actions I'm taking getting me closer to the person I want to be, or further away...?"

"Meet [students] at the door with what they've got and do everything possible to take them where they need to be."

A former student speaking to her, "You helped me to understand my choices [in life]."

"Don't be part of the circle that marks a student as 'that kid, the one with the problems.' "

When a student/teacher relationship starts off badly, "Can we just start over? I love stories that end happily ever after, and I want this to be one of them."

I'd love to be able to write more about it, but my alarm is set for 6:15 a.m., and that is less than seven hours away. I've finished my homework, and started Roblogging about it, so I guess that will have to do.

A Long Week

2008-07-26T22:25:00.002-05:00

My life seems to be full of long weeks these days, though the time seems to be slipping by faster and faster as I look back.

Last week our dear friends Jibraun and Sujin Emerson moved to Kansas, along with their lovely children, J. Jr., who turned six last week, and Miah, who is four. Horyon and Sujin went to the same middle school, and Horyon and I M.C.'d J. and Sujin's wedding.

If you have to ask why a wedding needs an M.C., you haven't spent enough time in Korea.

Penultimate Wal-Mart Experience

2008-07-22T23:48:00.003-05:00

Today was a typical Tuesday. Fairly slow. Spent some time training the new girl. She seems fairly smart, once you get past the 19-year-old cute-girl put-on. There didn't seem to be much work to do until I was alone, which is when I found a box of sunglasses that needed to go up. So I got them up on the towers.

You know what? I'm not going to have to do that again after Friday! Sweet!

So by five till ten, I was ready to go. I had locked the keys in the safe, the counters cleaned, and the department well zoned (straightened up, with everything in place). At three minutes until ten, I was getting ready to push a cart full of stuff out of there, when a lady came up to me and asked if I could change a watch battery and show her a couple of rings.

I should have told her it was closing time. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

I told her that it was three minutes until closing time (true), and that I couldn't show her a ring because the keys were locked in the safe (true), but I'd be happy to change her watch battery (not exactly true).

My mock happiness quickly changed into disgust. The watch had been running slow when she brought it in, but it was running. I checked, and the battery was running a bit low, but it should have made the watch work. But you never know with analog watches. They sometimes slow down before the battery dies. I put in a new battery, and the second hand started moving. I put the back on the watch, and it had stopped. It's already past ten, and I'm really, really, ready to go home by this point, and this is without the benefit of knowing how the next thirty minutes would pass.

I opened the watch again, figuring that the battery had wiggled loose. I taped it in place, and put it back together. Still not working. Back off again, and worked both the old and new batteries around. No luck. Dead watch.

I felt like she had brought in a patient coughing up blood, I had tried CPR, and killed him.

She was not happy. She was very polite about it, but insistent that she should get a discount on a new watch. And she still wanted to see those rings, too. So I should get a manager to come open the safe.

So I did. Assistant Manager Carmen authorized me to give a 15% discount on a new watch, and bumped it up to 20% when the woman whined a bit. The woman then went through the painful (to me) process of picking out a new watch. Her teenage daughter was just as annoyed with this as I was, but was making no effort to hide it. The three- or four- year old girl in her shopping cart was even less restrained at hiding her displeasure.

The woman eventually settled on a watch that she wasn't really happy with, but she needed a watch, and there were major medical expenses in the family, and couldn't I make it 50% off? I offered to get Carmen back, and she stopped pushing. It was a Twist-o-flex band, the metal kind that stretch. You may not be aware of this, but it is possible to remove links from bands like this. It is a neat little trick that is not one bit intuitive. It took me about three minutes to get her band shortened, and my prayers were answered when she accepted it with just one link out.

Then we looked at rings for a few minutes. She spent nothing more but time, which would have been just fine if she hadn't been spending my time as well. That was the most tempting moment of my Wal-Mart career to just lock up and leave and to heck with the consequences. As I said before, she was polite enough, but I had told her 25 minutes previously that I was supposed to close in three minutes. Did she figure that all I was going to do was go out and party? Or that I effing enjoyed being at the Wal-Mart jewelry counter long after my time to go home?

Of course, what it comes down to is that she didn't really care what I thought or felt. As far as she was concerned, I had no more say in my function than a shelf or a cash register. And that is the most annoying thing about working at Wal-Mart. Corporate Management is fond of saying that associates are their greatest assets, but they do little to back up that idea when the customer is always right, even when he or she is a total jerk.

I am sure that as a teacher there will be times when I am unappreciated, mistreated by management, and perhaps shot at. But I will be doing something important, and I will know that, even if my wife is the only one who ever reminds me. Or even if she doesn't. I won't be simply adding value to the Wal-Mart corporation and staying out late five nights a week.

Car Fun, finished for now

2008-07-22T23:46:00.002-05:00

Fortunately, all that was wrong was a leaky hose. The shop fixed it and didn't charge me anything. So I'm going to give them a plug here:

Three cheers for Gaber Automotive!

I'm definitely bringing my cars back to them when they have trouble.

More Car Fun

2008-07-16T23:23:00.002-05:00

Three days after getting the Windstar back, the power steering went out. It's going into the shop tomorrow. I'm starting to consider having it crunched into a little cube.

Car Fun

2008-07-15T00:14:00.003-05:00

I just realized that it's been a month since I posted anything, so I thought I'd do a little sharing.

A couple of Saturdays ago, Horyon packed Maxine in the car to go to her Saturday Bible Study. She recently found one at a Korean church, one which has an interesting connection to us. The pastor's daughter, C.G., was my coworker at Kosin University in Pusan.

But that's beside the point. The point is that Horyon didn't make it there. In fact, she didn't make it out of sight of our home, which was a fortunate thing. When she tried to turn right on Wakarusa Street (isn't that an awesome name for a street?), the van refused to move. The cars behind her were getting impatient, but she couldn't move. She turned on the hazard lights, and they moved around her. She then backed down the hill to the curb opposite our house.

I became aware of this when the doorbell rang. I got up, opened the door, and saw Horyon running back across the yard and towards the van. She stopped long enough to tell me that it wasn't working. I got in and had her take Maxine into the house, then backed the van into our driveway and garage.

Monday morning I had it towed to our mechanic. The verdict: needs a new transmission. $2700 for a factory rebuild with a three-year guarantee. I didn't even ask for the price of a new one, just told him to order it and get started.

A week later I picked it up. Seems okay to me, but Horyon isn't so sure. I'll drive it a bit tomorrow to check.

I went to our bank to ask about borrowing money to pay for this and my upcoming school fee ($600 for the summer class, more for the fall class). They could offer me a line of credit up to $6000, at in introductory rate of 3.9% for six months, after which it would be something like 9-11%. When my parents heard about it, they offered to pay for the repairs. Horyon and I talked about it, and decided to try fielding this one ourselves. We figured we could get the loan paid off withing three or four months if we kept our budget tightened down. It seemed like a good idea to build our independence.

When we brought this up with our bi-weekly Wednesday Bible study group, all three of them said that we should take my parents' offer. Matt asked if I were just being proud. They are all parents, and agreed that it would be a blessing for my parents if they could be allowed to pay this expense for us. When Horyon and I sort of sat quietly in reaction, they backed off, suggested that we talk and pray about it, then moved on to the study.

(We're studying the book of Daniel, which starts with some Vacation Bible School/Sunday School stories, and moves on into some deep, hard-to-follow, prophecies. A lot of us is leaving us all feeling like the dumb kid in the back of the physics class, wondering what's going on with all these wacky animals and statues and kingdoms and angels and demons and stuff.)

On the way home we decided to accept Mom and Dad's offer, so we called and told them so.

Because it was mostly pride. Or at least partly pride. Do we really need to see if we can "Make it on our own?" No. Not really. It really drove the point home when someone asked if I had any brothers or sisters. The answer is yes, but... it feels like no. And part of the problem there was pride, or so it seems to me. And I wondered, by saying no to my parents, do I make them feel like we're cutting them out?

And besides, as one of our friends pointed out, which would you prefer, a gift now, or a larger inheritance later?

I'd hate to be labeled "prodigal," but let's go for the present.

So Mom and Dad sent us an even $3000, which really works out for the best. Because my Cavalier (pronounced cuh val' ee AYE, thank you) needed new brake pads, to the tune of $170. It could also use new struts and a couple of new tires, but they told me those could wait. So they will.

So Mom, Dad, thanks. I do want us to be independent, but not because I want us to be parted from you. I just want us to be ready when Maxine needs her Mom and Dad to spring for a new transmission.

job hunt

2008-06-14T12:54:00.002-05:00

A week and a half ago Central Jr. High contacted me. They had turned me down for a full-time position a couple of weeks earlier, but asked if I would be interested in a half-time position. I told them that full-time would be preferable, but staying in Lawrence was also a high priority.

(They were the only school that called to tell me that I didn't get the job. I thought that was very nice at the time, considering that other schools either sent a letter or just let me call to find out that the job was given to someone else.)

It really got my hopes up. I wrote to my friend Jon the following:

--------------------------

Dear Jon:

The job lead should pan out one way or the other by this coming Tuesday. It sounded pretty positive, for a few reasons:

1. It's part time math combined with part time para. This makes it less attractive to most teachers, as the pay will be lower. This also makes it more attractive to me because it leaves more time for studies, gives official, paid time to observe other teachers (while helping out in their classrooms), and comes with full-time benefits (insurance).

2. The vice-principal (the principal is moving on to another job) that I talked to sounded like she had me in mind for the position. We got along well in our interview a few weeks ago, and it sounded like they wanted to hire me. They actually called to tell me that I hadn't gotten the job--the only school to do so. I asked why not, and they told me that they had hired someone who interned at the school.

3. She told me that they couldn't officially move on the position until the posting had been up for ten days--Sunday. So unless someone better than me steps in, they want me.

The faith tag on my status was understated. (This refers to my status on Facebook. I had written that I still did not have a job, but was remaining faithful.) We've been praying lots about this. Within the past week or two I shifted my prayers of supplication to prayers of thanks for whatever God has in mind for me this fall. In hindsight, it's something I've never done before in earnest. I have always been somewhat carefree regarding the future before, but now there are two other people riding on my future, and that has opened me up to worry, work and concern like only my mother has experienced.

And so a weakness has been exposed, and it's been an opportunity for God to grow my faith. I realize that it is still not finished, and that I need to maintain the same gratitude even if I do not get this particular job. But I do believe that God wants the best for me and my family. Whether I "deserve" this job or not is beside the point. I have received no signs that I need to get out of education. No promptings to work my way up the ladder at Wal-Mart. No feelings that I am headed in the wrong direction. Just an encouragement to step forward into the dark.

--------------------------

And so I spent last week waiting for the call. I called the school twice and left messages on their answering machine, each time hoping that it wasn't the call that made them think, "What's the matter with this loser? Maybe he wants it too badly? I don't think we should hire him."

I got called back Friday by vice-principal Lisa. She told me that they were contacting my references, but that they were having trouble reaching them. She had talked to one (Bob at Wal-Mart, who gave a sparkling recommendation), and the voice mail of two others. I suggested a couple of other references that weren't on my previous application, and asked if anyone else was being considered for the position.

The answer was no. I felt better, but had been through too much to just start thinking of the job as mine. And it was a long weekend.

We took Chaeryon to the airport Saturday morning, then stopped at Zona Rosa for breakfast and a quick tour of Cabelas. Then home, food, shower, work. Sunday morning we went to church. Dad came to visit, including our church service and lunch afterwards. The sermon yesterday was given by John Kerstetter, a missionary from Lawrence F.C.C. staying with his family in Brazil. We invited them to our home for a meal, which we could only fit in today, Monday. Sunday afternoon and evening I was at work again, until 10 again. Today we sent Maxine to Stephanie's Day Care, I went shopping for lunch food, came home, cooked, we ate, sat around talking, and I got a phone call.

A job offer from Central Jr. High! I immediately said yes, and things are proceeding. The Human Resources department has to process my paperwork, and hopefully I'll sign a contract within a week.

Then I went to work again. Until 10 again. Now it's 1:36 a.m., my eye's are itchy and heavy, but my brain is spinning around, and I don't feel like sleeping. I put in my resignation at Wal-Mart. My summer is looking like this:

Wal-Mart until July 25th. July 28-August 2 class at Baker's Johnson County Campus, six hours a day. I get the following Monday off, then start new teacher training that Tuesday. A week and a half later, the kids show up and it just gets nutty from there.

I want to thank everyone who has been praying for us through this. It's been a long, sometimes frustrating process, and it's just about over. Then I become a Jr. High teacher, where I am sure I will have entire new vistas of frustrating opened to me. I am looking forward to it now much more than I did when we first moved back. A year of Wal-Mart has really given me a different perspective on life, because I have seen so very many people during this year, behaving well, badly and the whole range in between. I very much recommend doing a retail job to everyone. It will make you appreciate the anonymous person who takes your order, helps you find stuff, and smiles and says "thank you" even when you've been a complete jerk.

Well, Horyon is here, wanting help to put medicine on her chigger bites. Those little critters really love her. And it's almost 2 a.m., definitely time to go to bed.

Revenge served Hot

2008-06-09T23:51:00.003-05:00

So a coworker came up to me the other day and said, "Robert, here's my idea for getting revenge on my ex-girlfriend. I'm going to get her friend to come here and visit me. I'll take pictures of us doing the nasty, and email them to my ex. What do you think?"

Just to give some background, his ex used to work at Wal-Mart, and I was friends with her, too. She moved back to her hometown, some distance from here, and apparently took up with a new boyfriend. He says that she was with the boyfriend before they broke up, she says not. Whatever the details, the fact is that he got hurt. Not sure about her.

Of course I suggested not going through with it. I reminded him that revenge never leaves one feeling as good as one expects. I suggested that perhaps the best revenge on your enemies is to live well. He countered with the suggestion that perhaps he could just sleep with the girl and not take pictures. I had to concede that the new plan was an improvement, though still not ideal.

Later he told me that after sharing his plan with everyone in the store, I was the only one to counsel restraint. I'm not sure how I feel about being consulted as a sort of external conscience, but when he later told me that he didn't send pictures to his ex, it made me happy to have been involved.

Wedding Pictures... sorta

2008-05-31T01:34:00.003-05:00

Horyon made the flower girl dress that Emma (one of Jamie's cousins, I believe) is wearing below.It turned out absolutely lovely, and we took a lot of pictures.It kind of bothered Maxine that we were taking so many pictures of someone else's little girl, so she sort of made her way in to some of them
Later we changed into more informal clothing for the reception. Here we are wearing my birthday present t-shirts. Mine says, "This is MY daddy!" and hers says, "This is MY daughter!" They both have Maxine's hand prints on them. Very cool.
And we finally got a new picture of Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob has long been a favorite of Maxine's. She has been able to identify him in photos since before we came to America. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps the words "Uncle Bob" just sort of roll off the tongue, like marbles. Or maybe she likes that he is so tall. Or maybe she plans to go to him for financial advice some day, and is hoping to get it for free. Anyway, here they are:
We stayed overnight in the hotel. It was cool, but we didn't take many pictures. And we took so few pictures of the wedding party in their lovely outfits that I'm a bit embarrassed. Had I not a daughter as charming (and energetic) as Maxine, there would be no excuse for it.

And the account wouldn't be complete without a video of Maxine tearing up the dance floor. I've got a few more videos like this, with her spinning around, bumping into people, dissing me, and generally having a good time.

I've still got a few more pictures to go up, but your weekends are my heavy work days, so be patient!

Zoo Trip 2

2008-05-27T02:06:00.003-05:00

Okay. There must be some trick to getting more than five photos at a time up here, and I just got lucky before. So I'm posting these and going to bed.

Zoo Trip 1

2008-05-27T01:05:00.006-05:00

[To answer Colleen's comment, yes, it is indeed the "World Famous" Topeka zoo. I doubt her little brother was driving the train, as the two guys who were taking turns driving were older gentlemen. But next time we'll look out for Shane! We didn't ride the carousel this time, as we wanted to hit the zoo, but it's definitely on the itinerary for next time!]

Remember, I can only attach five photos to any given post, unless I can attach more. Huh. Whada ya know? I can attach more, it's just that I can only attach five at a time! Who knew! I've spent the last 20 minutes going through and choosing the best, so I'm not going to write about this event. If you want to read about it, check out my previous post, about the whole day, including a job interview. So here are some pictures, in no particular order

Another one...

2008-05-22T23:13:00.003-05:00

I got my rejection letter from Free State High School today, and interviewed at Highland Park High School in Topeka.

The interview was first, and so that's what I'm going to write about first. That and I don't want to tackle the letter just yet.

The interview went well, I thought. Of course, I thought the same about the Free State and South interviews. There are a couple of disadvantages of working at Highland Park: 1. It is half an hour to drive there from here. That's an hour per day, ten per week. I could probably arrange to car pool, saving on the gas bill, but adding to the ride time. No chance of biking to work at this place. The other disadvantage is, as the interviewer told me, that more than 60% of the students are minorities, and about 35% of them are from "poor" homes. Their standardized test scores are improving, but not as fast as the goals are going up. It seems that good things are happening in that school, and it wouldn't be a bad place to work. I could live with teaching minorities. After all, I spent the last twelve years being a minority.

Still, I hope that I will get a job in Lawrence. My time will already be tight with a new job, studies, and my girls.

Speaking of the girls, I dropped them off at Gage Park before going to the interview, then joined them afterwards. We had hot dogs, and went to the zoo. It was a fun afternoon. Then we joined my Aunt Becky and Uncle Don for dinner at the Coyote Canyon. It is an "American Buffet," as Uncle Don put it. They had steak, pork roast, fried catfish, plenty of vegetables, potatoes, and a new treat for me: deep fried macaroni and cheese. I had no idea what it was when I picked it up, other than it was a little deep fried puck. Imagine my delight when I bit into it and found everyone's favorite comfort food, surrounded by a crispy, golden shell. Maxine liked it, too. As usual, I ate too much. Made the drive back from Topeka a little long, but we made it.

When I got home, there was a message on the machine. The most recent addition to our jewelry staff called in sick today. Again. All week she's called in sick, and tonight there was no one to close. So I went to work for a couple of hours. I wanted to get through some of our sunglasses before Memorial Day Weekend hits hard.

When I got home, I went and got the mail. I knew what was inside the envelope from Free State High School without even opening it. The second rejection letter hurts more than the first, for a few reasons. The first reason is the most shallow: it's totally a form letter. I'm pretty sure the first one was, too, but it said things like, "Our decision is likely to be disappointing to you, but in view of the high quality of the candidates, you should not regard it as any reflection of you or your abilities." Whereas the second said, "While you have commendable qualifications, we have selected another candidate for the position at Lawrence Free State," along with two thank-yous for my interest in their school. I know, it shouldn't be a big deal, and it's not. But it's a difference in courtesy that would cost them very little effort. Or maybe not. Maybe they had so many applicants that anything more would have been a waste of time.

They also told me at the time that it was a screening interview, with call-backs within a week. If they followed through on that, I didn't even make call-backs. Ouch. Though I can imagine that they called back candidates in the order that they wanted to hire them, and stopped when they had both positions filled.

There's the other painful thing: they had two positions. That means three of the six positions in the district have been filled.

I think the worst thing about it is that it feels like the beginning of a downward trend.

I am sure that I will feel better tomorrow. After all, this means that my three toughest competitors are out of the race. I know that God has planned the right job for me, and I'm trusting God to lead me to it. But it sometimes feels like walking through a dark room, being led by someone holding my hand. I know that God isn't in the dark. I know that God isn't going to run me into stuff and then fall on the floor laughing. But I'm still so used to trusting my eyes that it's hard to walk without them.

So pray for me, please. Pray that God will lead me steadily and surely, and pray that I will follow just as steadily and surely. Because right now I feel very unsteady, and while I know that the unsteadiness is in me rather than the path I cannot see, it is still making my metaphorical tummy a bit queasy. As well as my real tummy.

p.s. Tomorrow I'll post some pictures from the zoo trip. If I don't, complain!

Slackline Yoga

2008-05-22T00:41:00.003-05:00

How cool is this?

This guy is living an amazing life, totally devoid of consumerism, and loving it. Probably couldn't name a single current t.v. show, doesn't own an item of clothing that is fashionable (at least not on purpose), and lives his life going from adventure to adventure. No retirement plan, no 401K. Of course, his marriage fell apart, and I shudder a bit at the idea of this guy trying to raise kids, but what a unique human being!

He's in the spotlight because he is the originator of Slackline Yoga: holding yoga poses while balanced on a giant rubber band (OK, it's actually a piece of 1" flat tubular webbing, you know, like rock climbers use). They string it between any two anchor points three or four feet off the ground, then stand on it, sit on it, and do yoga on it. Check the videos on the site. I've done a little yoga myself, and this looks way more difficult. I'm thinking my buddy Mike Shea is probably reading this and thinking about going out and getting some 1" flat tubular webbing.

So that's a nice little distraction.

I've had five job interviews so far, and all went well. One rejection letter, four deafening silences. Well, not quite silence. My manager at Wal-Mart, Bob, told me that he talked to someone at Free State and told them about how awesome I am (not quite his words, but that's how I heard it). And my pastor told me the same thing, so it looks like Free State is interested enough to check up on my references. That's the job that will have another round of interviews. It's also a school which the children of some friends are or will be attending. My friend Anna really wants me to be there, as her daughter Monica has not had good math experiences so far. If anyone is capable of praying me into that job, it's her. And frankly, she could do worse for me. I was impressed with the principal, and the building itself is only about 11 years old. Maybe 13. Anyway, it wasn't around the last time I lived in this town. So it is hard-wired for internet, has projection computers and screens in every room, and it's close to the Lawrence Aquatic Center.

I'm not sure whether I would prefer a high school or jr. high teaching position now. As I have already written, Jr. High has some points in its favor. Granted, some of points in that post had to do with South Jr. High specifically, but some of them were universal. I am sure that I will be satisfied with any job in this district. The different schools face different problems, with a wide array of students from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. However, it seems that the district is strongly inclined to actually improve learning in the schools, rather than impressing politicians.

Tomorrow I have an interview at Highland Park High School in Topeka. Google Maps tells me that it will take about 27 minutes to drive there from here. We'll find out tomorrow. Horyon wants to take Maxine to the zoo at Gage Park, so I may drop them off first then go to the interview.

I'm not overly concerned about the interview itself. By now I've had lots of practice. The interview with Central on Monday was the toughest, in a way. The principal (who will not be there next year), a vice-principal, and a math teacher took turns asking questions. I answered their questions as best I could, including a pitch for a teaching idea that I've been developing since the first interview at South Jr. High. In hind sight, it might have served me well to put together some plans and ideas before starting the whole interview process. On the other hand, anything I come up with is just ideas, not experience. Let's see what you think of my plan:

Once a week we have a student-written test. I divide the students into groups of two or three, and they write a math word-problem, together with the problem that it breaks down to, and the solution. I collate the problems, clarify them, change a number or two, mix in a few of my own problems if needed, and pitch them back as a test during the next period. Every week the problems are based on the unit we are studying. Their grades are based on the problem they have created (as a small group) and their score on the test (as individuals). In a more experimental direction, I would also like to partly base their grade on how other students perform on the problem they wrote. To me, this would bring out the competitive spirit even more than usual, spurring them on to write problems with misleading information and requiring creative solutions. Of course, for me assigning grades in a situation like this would be a bit more of a headache than the usual test grading. I would have to do a fairly complex spreadsheet for each test. And I doubt I can get Miran (my former office assistant) to come help out on this for five bucks an hour.

I would like to hear your opinions on this, with this pre-comment reply:

I know it sounds difficult, as though I am asking for something that they simply will not be able to do. However, it is my experience that when students trust you, and you ask them to do fiendishly difficult things, they come through for you. PLUS this requires no out-of-class time. So comment away, especially if you have an idea that will make this go more smoothly!

Peace,

Rob

Still Waiting

2008-05-17T00:13:00.000-05:00

I've gotten my first rejection letter. South Jr. High sent me a very kind letter about how hard it was to make their decision, but they have. And I'm not it this time. But I've interviewed at West Jr. High, and I will interview at Central Jr. High next Monday, as well as Lawrence High School and Free State High School. Free State was actually a screening interview, so I will probably be back there at some point for another interview.

I still feel confident that I will get a job, it just seems that God is sort of smacking down my pride about it.

I love Pearls Before Swine. Cute little characters being so very obnoxious. Someday I will be that algebra teacher.

I had my final exam today at 7:30 a.m. I bicycled up to campus, figuring that the exercise would wake me up for the test. It worked. Partly because on the way there I looked down at my rear tire and started to veer off the sidewalk. I wobbled a lot, got back in control, and didn't fall, but my body had already started pumping adrenaline. I was very much awake. And the professor was kind enough to have some bread, cream cheese, and apple juice there for us to munch on. I got there around 7:15, had some food, and got started. It was a difficult test, but not unreasonably so. Took me an hour and half. Not bad considering the cold I am fighting. Some students finished within 45 minutes

Geometry for teachers was an interesting class. A lot more intense than when I studied geometry back in Jr. High. At this point, however, I am happy to be finished with it for one reason, and one reason alone: I will not have to go out on Wednesdays and Thursdays and do homework Wednesday nights.

Happy Rob!

On the work front, my Saturday hours are changing from 1-10 to 10-7. I'm pretty happy about this. It means I will be able to do stuff Saturday nights if we can get a babysitter. It means I won't be going to bed so late, and thus able to wake up more easily on Sunday mornings. It means getting off work before sunset! Huzzah!

Time to pack it in for the night. I need to get some sleep to be ready for tomorrow.

Update

2008-05-09T16:36:00.003-05:00

I called South Jr. High at 4:15 and got their answering machine! I have no idea whether or not I'm hired!
It's going to be a long weekend. And Monday I will start applying to other districts.

(Thanks to Kevin Steele at Flickr for the cat image.)

Job Interviews (plural)

2008-05-09T00:02:00.003-05:00

So Tuesday night I went to bed with a cough. Wednesday morning it was worse. We took Maxine to the dentist at 8:00 (no problems, just a discolored tooth we need to keep an eye on), then I went home and skipped class to sleep.

I slept for three or four hours, then went to the interview. I thought it went well. The principal, Will Fernandez, even told me that it went well. We spent 10 or 15 minutes with the head of the math department, with her asking a few questions and follow-ups to his. I thought I handled the questions well. I haven't taught math since Nepal, and that was pretty basic stuff in a foreign language, but I have been taking math classes since last summer, and I've been thinking about how to teach it since early this year.

As for the questions about classroom management and teaching strategies, relating to students, and other stuff that all teachers do, I think I gave answers reflecting the fact that I've been a teacher for twelve years, followed by this past year of subbing and working at Wal-Mart. In other words, I think I did OK.

Will has given a good impression every time I have met him, and Wednesday (yesterday!) was no exception. I had a few questions for him about his role as principal, the ways the school involves parents, and how teacher collaboration is encouraged. He answered those questions well, making me excited about the prospect of teaching at his school.

So at the end of the interview, he told me that I had interviewed well, and that there were three other candidates for the job. I hope it didn't show that my heart sort of skipped a beat, though it may be more accurate to say that it skipped, shuffle, step-2-3-4ed a beat. They are going to let me know one way or the other by tomorrow. (Well, it's today now, but somehow I doubt that they'll be calling me at 12:34 a.m. to let me know.)

I was tired. On the way home I thought of two or three things that I should have brought up but didn't. Cough. Cough. Ack. I went home, then out to pick up Maxine and Sofia from their daycare. We ate dinner at Cici's pizza, because we were both to beat to cook.

This morning I went to class. I've got a take-home final for math history to write by Wednesday noon, and the geometry for teachers final to take Friday morning at (gasp) 7:30. Yeah, that's gonna be fun. And I have tons of prep to do for both. I figure the take-home as a two hour job, hopefully less. And I need all the study and practice I can get.

So this afternoon I interviewed at West Jr. High. I went to school at West Jr. High in Leavenworth. Perhaps that is a good sign. Or perhaps every town in America has a West Jr. High and it's a flip of the coin whether you went to East or West. Lawrence needs to consider some renaming, because West Jr. High is almost at the center of a map of the city, and Central Jr. High services the Northeast part of town. They don't have any North or East Jr. Highs. It's like the restaurants that have medium and large drinks, but no small sizes.

Anyway, that interview went well, too. The principal, Myron Melton, was very personable. Our interview felt much more conversational; he asked quite a few questions about my experiences overseas without seeming to tie them as strongly to the job at hand. But once he got down to it, I heard many of the same questions as I had heard from Will, and some similar answers to my questions. Very similar on the runnings of the school, as it seems there is some district-wide pressure towards the Professional Learning Community approach. (I don't expect you to investigate much into that link unless you have a personal stake in education, but it is an exciting set of ideas that could potentially be the biggest transformation in education since making schools accessible to everyone.)

The biggest difference I saw was in the way they see their own roles in the school. Will sees himself as a coach, very much a leadership position, training his teachers and guiding them towards being better educators. Myron sees himself more as a facilitator, connecting people and bringing problems to everyone's attention to help find solutions. I think that either would be good to work for. Still, I feel a pull towards South. I prefer Will's style. Not that I think it is necessarily more effective in general, but that I think it will be more effective with me.

It's almost one a.m., and I was thinking about not posting this until I have an offer, but I know that some of you want to know. As soon as I have news I will post it here. Well, right after I call Mom and Dad anyway. In the mean time, pray for me.

Observed at Wal-Mart

2008-05-07T21:00:00.005-05:00

A guy is carrying a baby, around three months old. The baby's pacifier pops out of her mouth and down onto the floor. The father gives a heavy sigh and picks it up. He then pops it in his mouth, sucks it clean, and gives it to his baby.

And I didn't laugh. Out loud.

-------------------------------

A guy is walking and talking on his cell phone. The only thing I hear him say is, "I gotta get some ear plugs. I guess revenge is sweet."

-------------------------------

I changed the battery on a watch with a layer of grime thick enough to grow weeds and nasty enough to evolve them.

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A couple came by this evening. I had sold them rings back in November, I think. Her daughter told me that her mommy graduated to be a nurse today. When I congratulated her, she proudly told me that a mother of four, six if you count her husbands kids, went back and graduated from college, and it felt great. As lousy as this job is at times, it does have its moments.

-------------------------------

Woman talking on her cell phone: "Don't give me that innocent look..."

Job Interview

2008-05-02T14:15:00.004-05:00

I just got the phone call. Next Wednesday, May 7th, I have a job interview with the principal of South Junior High School here in Lawrence. I have a feeling this is the job I will take in the fall, for a few reasons which I will now share with you:

1. My first inclination towards Jr. High students is a polite, but firm, "No thank you." I would prefer High School students, as they are just a bit closer to sanity. Then the whole teacher instinct kicks in, as I contemplate what I did for the six years before moving back here: in a nutshell, teaching required classes for university freshmen in Korea is largely about getting them to come to class on time, be polite, and develop good work habits. Sounds like Jr. High students, doesn't it.

2. Jr. High marks some key points in mathematical thinking--working with variables (algebra), connecting shapes to math (geometry), and the beginning of the idea of functions. It may be arrogant of me, but I think I can help kids to make that transition.

3. Circumstances keep pointing me in that direction. The principal, Mr. Fernandez, spends lunch time in the cafeteria at South. One day I subbed for half a day, and introduced myself to him on the way out. I mentioned that I was planning to start in the fall as a math teacher, and he told me to check back later, as he didn't have any vacancies yet. A month or two later, he came to the jewelry counter to get his watch battery changed. I re-introduced myself, and he remembered me. He told me to be sure to submit my application, as they needed a full-time math teacher.

4. I substituted for an English teacher there a few weeks ago. She is very part time, teaching only two classes per day, but she just had to miss this one. The subbing instructions she left on the website asked me to call her, so I did. She emailed me detailed instructions and talked with me quite a bit about what the students were doing and what she needed from me: two students in each class were giving presentations, the last of both classes. She wanted me to take notes for her so that she could assign grades. So I did my best, and recommended grades for all four. She was happy with the results, so when I contacted her to ask for a recommendation letter, she replied quickly and positively.

5. I finished all of my application paperwork and turned it in to the district office yesterday. I got called by South Jr. High today. I submitted to two other schools: West Jr. High and Lawrence High School. They haven't called. Yet. But South got back to me so quickly that it feels like they want me.

So I got some happy feeling going on right about now. Time to go to Wal-Mart. That should take care of that.

Anyway, pray for me, wish me luck, or spit every time you say my name next Wednesday.

Wal-Mart Lingo and Courtesy

2008-04-30T21:26:00.005-05:00

The jewelry dept. just started two new people, one from another part of the store, and one from a Wal-Mart in Michigan. Sounds like the biggest difference is that it's colder there. Having two newcomers left me with both of them over the weekend. Long weekend.

Then last night I was alone. It was mostly a good night, as Tuesdays at Wal-Mart are nothing to write home about. Not many customers, so I got a lot of costume jewelry stuff done. On my way out of the store afterwards I told this story to my coworker, Gabe:

The person filling in while I had my lunch asked if I could wait until 8 p.m., so I said sure, why not? It hadn't occurred to me that I had clocked in at 1:00. Just a few minutes before eight, a couple came in and wanted to cancel their layaway. They had chosen a ring some time ago, and in the mean time had found something they liked better. I typed my ID and password into the register, but it booted me out because I needed a break. I called over a C.S.M., and he signed in for me, then I tried to cancel the layaway. It needed approval from a C.S.M., and he told me that he couldn't do it, because he was logged onto the register, so we logged him off, got another guy with register numbers over to sign in. He was signed in to another register, so the C.S.M. approved him to sign in on two different registers, I canceled the layaway, and the C.S.M. approved the cancellation. A few minutes later someone came over to cover my lunch, and I gratefully left. Gabe's response was that the C.S.M. probably could have approved the operation if he had tried.

If you managed to make it through that paragraph without falling asleep, I'll be surprised. To most of you, it probably made little or no sense, so here is the short version:

I worked too long without a lunch break, so something simple that usually takes just me less than a minute to do took three people more than five minutes to do.

It's not a particularly entertaining story, but it highlights an interesting effect that I suppose is true for most jobs: if you stay long enough, you learn enough stuff for a new language. As I pointed out to Gabe after telling this story, it is a story that requires some serious background knowledge. You would have to know about working retail, and there are some bits that are pretty Wal-Mart specific. It added flavor knowing exactly who the C.S.M. was, and the fact that Gabe also tends to get worked into his break times.

Anyway, not much insight here, really.

I did get accused of stealing someone's watch Saturday. That was kind of fun. I had changed a woman's watch battery, and she came back five minutes later asking why we hadn't given her back her friend's watch. I was pretty sure I had given it to her friend, and I said so. She demanded that we look for it, so we did. (This was my former Michigan coworker, Carrie. Nice intro to Kansas, huh.) While supervising our search, she asked to use the phone to call her friend and double check. So I dialed the call for her. Soon she found that I was not, in fact, a thief, as her friend had the watch. So she said thank you (presumably for letting her use the phone), and left. No apology.

The sad thing is this: I wasn't really surprised, and hardly cared enough to be offended. This kind of thing doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen often enough that I've become a bit callused to it. And in my world view, some people take out their bad days on others because that's just what they're used to doing. It's not a good thing, or a right thing, it just is. It's up to me to decide how to deal with it; I can be polite and kind, or I can take it as a personal insult.

My coworker Julianna just left the jewelry department to work overnight in the cash office. She had trouble not taking impoliteness personally, and the job was really getting her down. I don't mean that as a criticism of her. Her situation is quite different from mine, in that she has had a job she liked in the field she majored in (Art History), but is now unable to find a job like that. She's been job hunting for three years now, six months of that during her previous job. If I had been given reason to believe that I might never escape Wal-Mart, I might have more trouble dealing with difficulties there. But my employment situation is looking good.

More in another post.

Sub 26

2008-04-26T22:47:00.005-05:00

Turned out to be a fairly busy day. Yes, I had a two hour lunch break, but the rest of the day was busy.

I sat in on a regular 7th grade math class, which was cool. The teacher did a lesson on probability. She had students roll a pair of dice 18 times, record both numbers and the difference between the two. She then had them play a one-on-one game in which noticing the correlation between those numbers could help you to win. They talked a bit about how their numbers compared with the expected numbers, and why they were different. I later suggested that if she were to compile the numbers from the whole class, and then from every class doing that activity, that they might get a better idea of how a larger sample brings you closer to the expected results, and she seemed kind of excited about it. Told me she might give it a try.

I also got to help a kid with his math homework, hopefully contributing to his understanding of probability. (At least one out of two of us understood the homework.) I talked with some of the teachers and paras about some education concepts, and one teacher lent me a book on learning communities. I arranged to sub for a math lab teacher (I think this is like remedial math, only they don't call it that anymore) this coming Monday. I felt like a teacher. It felt good.

After school I came home, rested a bit, ate some dinner. Not much time, so not much to do. Then I went to work at Wal-Mart.

And that dragged me right down. It wasn't a bad or difficult day, it just wasn't my thing. I was definitely tired, and it didn't help any to be working a five hour shift after a day of subbing. Still, I can work tired, but it's another matter to work when your heart isn't in it.

So there you have it. Get a job you like, because if you are doing something that isn't YOU, it will wear you down.

Subs 25 and 26

2008-04-25T08:32:00.002-05:00

Sub 25 was ok. In one class I had time to bring up my experiences, as suggested by a teacher during my 24th substituting job. There were only a dozen students, and even if they weren't totally absorbed in my account of being a Peace Corps Volunteer, at least they didn't ignore me and talk to each other the whole time. Well, except for the two girls in front who were too cool to be interested in something that didn't revolve around themselves. And they might have been listening and just pretending to be bored. That's what I tell myself, anyway. The other class took a test, so I just stood over them, freaking out every time someone talked. At least that's how they probably perceived it.

Today I am at Southwest Jr. High. In some ways, this would be an ideal building in which to work: it's a new facility that feels very spacious and open. The classrooms have internet computers and projectors built in. It's starting to have that lived-in look without being worn-down. And it's a ten or 15 minute walk from my house. I didn't walk today, as it was supposed to rain. And it did rain. But now it's sunny.

So today I'm subbing for an inter-related studies teacher. Once again, this is special-ed in the day and age in which everyone is special so we need another name for the students who used to be special. I graduated from high school 20 years ago (I heard they're planning our 20-year reunion. A couple of my class-mates own a bar, so they're reserving it for the LHS Class of 88 for a weekend. Whoopee.), when mainstreaming was something you only did on the fringes. The special ed kids joined the rest of us for P.E., sort of. They were there at the same time as the rest of us, anyway, using the same locker room for the most embarrassing part of the day--changing clothes and taking a shower. And that was it. For the most part, kids with learning disabilities were kept separate. Whether that was done "for their own good" or to avoid distracting everyone else is unclear to me from this perspective. And maybe it was more integrated than I remember. God knows my point of view has changed in a big way in the last 20 years.

Now things are a bit different. More kids are identified with problems, but there is a much stronger push to have them engaged with other kids their age. They are placed in regular classrooms as often as possible. Usually this involves a modified curriculum, and it sometimes involves having an assistant (either a para or a teacher) stay with the student to help them maintain focus.

For the most part, that's the usual job of the teacher I'm subbing for. Today it's a bit different. For the first two hours he usually goes to an English classroom. The regular teacher in there is out on maternity leave, so there is a long-term sub in her room. But today the long-term sub called in sick, so there is a sub for the long-term sub. Double-sub. I went over to the classroom (with the teacher I am subbing for, who is still in the building, which is another story) to check in, and we found that the kids were doing silent reading all hour, both hours. And that is why I can sit down and write on the Roblog before the day has even gotten started.

The regular teacher I'm subbing for is in the building. He's helping out with the sixth graders who are visiting to tour the school for Transition Day. I vaguely remember doing that when I was on the verges of jr. high and high school. I'm sure I considered it a day off, perhaps a peek into my own future. To the teachers who have to escort students around, it's a boring day.

So today I will be working one-on-one with problem students, when I am actually working. I have two plan periods in a row at lunch time, so I will be getting out of here and getting some grub. For now, I kind of need to get ready, make sure I know when the bell will ring and where I should be when it does. So I'm going to post this, and come back with a new post if there's anything to report.

Peace,

Rob

Sub 24 (and 25?)

2008-04-18T08:33:00.004-05:00

Today I'm subbing for a half day in a vocation/agricultural classroom. The teacher is at a meeting, first hour is a planning period, and second hour is taking an exam. It looks like I'll actually have to do something 3rd hour, and then I'll be finished. As to what I do, she has left some plans. I'll let you know how those go later.

For now, I need to tell you about Friday's subbing, number 24.

It was a low day for me. Block classes of 90 minutes each, teaching French and Poetry. I guess I should be grateful it wasn't French Poetry, but I'm not. Instead I am grateful for the intervention of a fellow teacher. Not that she intervened in a class, but... I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was clear from the start that the students in this classroom didn't like their regular teacher and that they considered me a holiday. Very clear. As in, they told me that they didn't like their teacher and they considered me a holiday. With the first class I started by asking about why they were taking French, and this came out. With the other classes, it just sort of came up.

I made the French class work. Our opening conversation got us off to a good start, they did their work as usual, then I offered to let them play a language game like I would do in Korea. They had fun with it, and I think were sad to see me go.

The English classes were tougher. She left a full lesson on poetry, and I tried really hard to lead them through it. I encouraged answers, I read the poems for the lesson. I had them write answers to the questions. All in the plan. It seemed to me that if the teacher leaves a full plan, it is my responsibility to try to follow it.

At the end of the day I was writing a letter to the teacher about how lousy the day had gone, how disrespectful the kids were, how the French students were not satisfied with their learning experience, and how annoying the day had been. And that was before I had discovered that I had locked my keys in the car that morning. I had filled a page and was working on the back when a teacher popped her head in the door and asked what I was doing. I told her, and she suggested that it probably wouldn't do any good.

She had worked in this district as a sub for three years, she said, and at some point had decided to recast herself in a better role than "Substitute Teacher." And she told me that if I wanted to enjoy what I was doing, I should do the same.

"You," she told me, "are a field trip that they wouldn't be able to take if the teacher was here. I'm sure you have all sorts of colorful experiences. Promise the kids something else, then get through those lesson plans as fast as you can. Then take them on a trip. You'll be surprised at how quickly they will be hypnotized, and the questions they will ask. But if you insist on following the lesson plan to the letter, you will often be an obstacle that they will do their best to overcome."

Wow.

She continued: "Don't worry about the forms and paperwork, yours or the teacher's. Nobody looks at that stuff. The district and teachers don't want to alienate any subs. Teachers will take your notes too seriously, passing on a multiplying the stress you've had. They don't really care if you finish or follow the plans they leave, as long as the room isn't a mess and no one gets hurt.

"So take some time and tell them a story. Or two. And let them ask questions. You will have a good day, they will have a good day, and on the evaluation form you just write 'good day, happy to come back'."

And so, today when I get to 3rd hour, I'm going to try to implement this philosophy. The teacher was here when I came in, and left specific plans: a practice quiz (real thing on Monday) and designing flyers (my spell checker is not happy with that. Fliers? Help!) for an event almost a month away. And that's it, for an entire hour. I'm definitely telling some Peace Corps stories.

Wish me luck.

Sub 23 and music

2008-04-14T23:36:00.006-05:00

I got to be a Jr. High band teacher on Friday. Lots of fun. I was surprised at how good a program they had at South Jr. High. And band is something I know well enough to run a smooth rehearsal, even if I'm not familiar with the pieces being played.

The 9th graders were first. They have a concert in a week and contest after that, so they wanted to work. It took a bit of sweat on my part to get the 7th graders to work, but when they did, they actually sounded good.

I then travelled to two different elementary schools to assist with the band programs there. I was given flash cards to use with the trumpets for some one-on-one fingering practice. Fortunately, I used to play the trumpet, so I could actually tell them if they were right or wrong. I also spent five minutes or so with a euphonium player who was not hitting the right notes. He had the fingerings right, but just couldn't make his lips do what they needed to do, so I took him out and we worked on it a bit. I played his horn a bit (after cleaning off the mouthpiece, of course) to demonstrate, and found that he could actually do it with the right coaching. He just needed some individual attention.

It made me want to get my horn out and play. It's been sitting in the closet pretty much since we moved in. I've played it a couple of times to amuse Maxine, even got her to blow an actual note on it, but not anything like regular. I would love to play in church, or with a local ensemble or band. It's one of those things that is hard to explain to someone who doesn't do it. Horyon and I both enjoy the bell choir at church, and that's hard to explain to other people too. There is a satisfaction that comes from spending time practicing and building up to a performance that is unlike anything else. I'm sure that it's partly because I enjoy being in front of people, but it's more than that. It just feels good to make music happen.

I also enjoy listening to music. At last count my CD collection was approaching 1000. I haven't had them all in one place since I left for the Peace Corps, and right now there are still many in my parents' basement, many in my garage, and quite a few scattered through my house. One Korean man I knew owned his own building. The first three floors were his clothing shop, the fourth and fifth floors were rental apartments, and he and his family lived on the sixth and seventh floor. He had helped design (or maybe remodel) his residence, and it was one of the coolest homes I've seen in Korea. I won't go into the architecture except for this: he had built in CD shelves, which he seriously needed. Thousands of CDs. And built in CD shelves are definitely the classiest way to keep your CDs. He also had a most impressive sound system. All imported. Speakers that were not only tall, but beautiful. His CD player was two pieces, the reader, in which you put the CD itself, and the digital decoder. He claimed it made a difference. And the amplifiers used tubes, like the radio your grandparents listened to. Only in this case, the tubes are all mounted where you can see them. The components sat on plate glass shelves, a very graceful presentation. And when he played music it sounded like you were there in the room with the musicians. Piano, orchestra, jazz, drum sets, singers, they all sounded like they were right there.

I'm not saying I want to spend thousands of dollars on a stereo system, but... it sure would be nice to spend thousands of dollars on a stereo system.

Anyway, it's a bit late in my life, but now I can picture myself being a band teacher! There are some annoying things about it, for sure, but they do have fun. And they get to be there at the beginning of a lot of musical careers.

Fantastic Day

2008-04-08T00:03:00.002-05:00

Today was a fantastic day.

First, I didn't sub. After last Friday I was ready to not sub, even though we kind of need the money.

Second, Maxine pooped in her little potty right here at home! She's been doing it from time to time at Stephanie's, but she's had some mental block about doing it here. She insists on having us put a diaper on her so that she can do it standing up. I kind of sympathize; when you're used to doing something a certain way, it's hard to change.

And so I was greeted at the door when I came home around 10:00 by the sight of Maxine's potty in the kitchen. Yep. They saved it so I could see. I would have taken their word for it: Maxine's reward was a couple of pieces of candy, and she spent the rest of the evening running them off. She didn't get to bed until 11:30, though she dropped off pretty quickly.

Third, before bed we were reading "The Itsy-Bitsy Spiders," when Maxine asked something she's never asked before, though I expect this is far from the last time. "Spiders" is a an excessively expanded retelling of the old song about the itsy-bitsy spider who climbed up a waterspout only to be washed down by rain, after which the sun comes out and dries up all the rain and the itsy-bitsy spider once again attempts to climb up the water spout. In this version, there are ten spiders, each of which climbs up the water spout in different ways--dancing, driving race cars, riding a skateboard, being shot from a cannon, etc. Each one is written as a new verse in the old song, and each verse stretches the rhythm scheme of the old song almost to the breaking point, making them somewhat difficult to sing. As if that were not challenge enough, in one corner of the book is a little button. When you push the button, you get little electronic beeps that follow the tune of "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" in a sort of chipmunks version, high and fast. And with no warm-up notes, so you'd better be ready to come in on the right note when you hit that dang button.

Maxine, if you are reading this, you may not remember the itsy-bitsy spider book. And if I have anything to say about it, the batteries will be long-dead and never-replaced by the time you read this. (Though with my luck you were clever enough to replace them yourself by the time you were four.) However, if you do have fond memories of those lame rhymes, please don't take this the wrong way: I didn't really like that book very much.

But there is one good thing about it: Each spider is a little plastic bump on the book, poking through holes in the pages. As you turn the pages, you lose one spider each time, so they count down from ten to one. It gives up something to count, different on each page. And they are not in neat, orderly rows, either. They're sort of randomly scattered in the bottom half of the right page. This is a good thing, because you can't have too much exposure to counting at Maxine's age.

So getting back to the third thing that made today fantastic: I asked how many spiders there were on one page, and she counted four. Very usual. Then she asked where the other spiders were, and I told her they went up the water spout, as I pointed up the picture of the spout. Then she used a special word for the first time in her life:

She asked me, "Why?"

I stopped, trying to think of an answer. Why do those spiders move in various ways up the water-spout? What treasure do they believe lies at the end of this long, dark climb? Are they truly climbing to something, or are they climbing away from something else? Is it all just a futile effort to escape from their own inadequacies? Or perhaps an ironic struggle to evade the rain which they can sense is approaching. I had no easy answers then, and still do not.

Then Horyon pointed out that Maxine had never asked "why" about anything before, and it hit me: It's not about getting to the top of the water-spout, it's about the journey.

No. I mean, it hit me that Horyon was right. Maxine has embarked on her own journey of exploration. She's figured out "what", "where", and "who", has a good grasp of the basics of "how", and probably understands "when" better than most of us (i.e. "If it isn't now, it is future, unless we already did it."). But now she's getting into the dangerous territory of "why," and I have to tell you, I am excited.

I know what you're thinking: This is going to be like mowing the yard, where it was so much fun the first time, but quickly got old. Everyone knows that kids are annoying when they constantly ask why, why why.

Wrong. This is way cooler than mowing the stupid yard (which isn't so bad when I think of it as a time to be outside and listen to music from my MP3 player). This is about learning, and Maxine being hungry to learn. I so badly want to answer all of her questions, and help her to hunt down the answers that I don't know. I aspire to never bluff my way through an answer, so that she always knows that my answers are true. I plan to give her the information she wants, as well as the perspective she needs. I don't want to bore her, but I don't want her to feel brushed off. You can bet that I will ask her questions in turn to make her think through the answers for herself sometimes. And I hope that she never feels that there is a question she cannot ask me, whether it be about work, relationships, sex, drugs or rock and roll.

So there you have it. A fantastic day.

Oh, I almost forgot. K.U. won the national championship! In overtime! By making their second three-point shot of the game! We had tuned in the radio to catch the end, but it wasn't the end. I decided to try fiddling with the t.v. antenna to try to make sense out of the blur of static. It worked! We got the clearest picture I've ever seen on channel 13, and all I had to do was stand there holding it at a funny angle. I eventually figured out that propping it in the fireplace door worked almost as well, so we sat back to watch the game. Kept Maxine up well past her bedtime, running in circles on the floor, burning off the excess energy she got from the candy she earned by pooping on her potty.

It's been twenty years since they won. I was a senior in high school.

They tell me that downtown Lawrence was a crazy mess until it started raining around 3 a.m. People literally couldn't move, there were so many other people crowded around them, and this in the middle of Massachusetts Street!

And now it's time to settle back down. Back to normal life without March Madness.

Whatever.