Rides #2 and #3

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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?