Morning Calm

...I wish.

Phew!!!! I'm so tired!!! This week was the first week of my new schedule. Getting out of bed 2 hours earlier and adding on an hour or so of extra work seems to have really taken it out of me. From the moment I get out of bed, I don't stop until 8pm...when I am (sometimes) driven home by the Gomdo trainers. Thus, in the Land of the Morning Calm, my mornings are far from calm (as are my afternoons and the start of my evenings). Well, ok, I get 20 min in between Gomdo and Hagwon to throw some lunch down, and half an hour after hagwon to have dinner...but it does feel like there is no break. Still, I do appreciate the fact that I am constantly kept busy. The down side is that at the end of the day, I have no energy to study Korean. Nevertheless, I don't regret taking on the extra responsibilities.

The weather this week has fluctuated. Today was bitterly cold, while the rest of the week was cold but tolerable. It's the nights that are the worst...when darkness folds an icy chill penetrates Gunsan like a knife in the heart. And to think that it is usually colder than this at this time of year. I shudder to think (pun intended).

A couple of Koreans have really annoyed me this week.

1) When I bought Cordelia (my new houseplant) the female shopkeeper, assuming that foreigner equals stupid, informed me that you don't water the flowers of the plant, but you pour the water into the soil instead. I somehow resisted the temptation to say
" Cho nun eehaehaeyo!!! cho nun pabo anieyo!!! ie I understand!!!! I'm not stupid!!! If I could effect a sarcastic tone, I would have said
"Kuraeyo???" ie "is that true???"
My god, I could have throttled her.

2) The woman who I often see on the bus and has my phone number informed for the second time this week that she thinks I'm boring. Charming. You see, she is not fluent in English, so conversation is limited...I cannot say everything I want to say, nor in the tone of voice etc I want to say it in....duh!!! plus everytime I see her I'm tired (which I have previously explained to her). What does she expect??? Billy Connolly???

3) The teenagers (middle school) at Hagwon perpetually ignore me in class, no matter how much I enforce discipline/show a sense of humour/every trick in the book. Nonetheless when one of them thought it was funny to mimic me, I yelled "sonsaegnim ieyo?" at him (are you a teacher???) which earned me a full 15 min of relatively quiet and respectful behaviour.

4) Suk-Hyon continues to ignore me and bother the other students in my now 3to1 class, despite a severe telling-off from myself, and two other Korean teachers on my behalf. This child single-handedly manages to wreak my day (Mon, Tues and Thurs), or at least he has the potential to. His b******ly behaviour is balanced and often outweighed by cries of aaaaaassssssssaaaaaaaa!!! from my other students when I walk into the classroom, and the fact that my three easiest students (ie smart and willing to study) are at the end of the day (but not Fridays-thats when I get the middle-schoolers).

As an aside, I bought a Cordelia rather than a Fred, as Cordelia is prettier, and did not come in a clay pot, thus cheaper and easier to carry. I have taken some photos...



Cordelia in all her glory, in the corner of the living room section of my apartment



"Isn't she lovely...isn't she wonderful..."



My camera doesn't like close ups...but I kinda like this photo, so I have posted it anyway

Today I learned that balae balae ie Hurry up/quicklu quickly is often the first phrase an Foreign Hagwon teacher learns (mine was kayo ie go!). Well, I would have to be different!!! However, in general I learn the onomatopoeias quicker, or at least, words that are onomatopoeias
to the English ear eg Balae balae, tal (moon), ddong (poo), kayo (go)shinae (town centre) plus others.

Other words that I find interesting are (Konglish aside) ones that sound similar to latin or european words.
eg Oma= mummy
eg apa=daddy

It is believed that babies when surrounded by their native language learn the words that are easiest to say first. For English babies this is often Dada followed by Mama (sometimes Papa) as the lips form the basic sounds of the language. Additionally, it catches a parent's attention, which is benefical for the survival of the baby. (Do western babies still produce 'dada' if their parents don't make an effort to associate the word dada and mama with themselves? Though even if the parents don't make this initial effort, they get excited when their baby says these words and teach the child to associate the sounds with themselves anyway).I wonder if the above are amongst the first words Korean babies form? If it is true that dada and mama (or something similar) are the easiest words to say, I wonder if many thousands of years ago, our ancestors immediately decided it best that these sounds that their babies made were associated with themselves, thus giving meaning to these sounds to be passed onto one generation to the next. Given that we all have a common ancestor, this may explain the similarity between these words that are so essential to our survival. (and Ddong is similar to dung!!!).

This weekend I will be going to Junju again, but this time to visit the museum. I very much doubt any of the descriptions will be in English, but I will go nevertheless. I wanted to do some traveling this weekend, but it is far too cold, so the museum is a happy compromise...I get to learn more about Korea (maybe) and stay indoors at the same time.