politics is crazy: ahnuld (arnold) was made governor and now this? the president of korea wants to get some feedback from the korean public b/c he thinks he's not very popular. what da heck?! he doesn't know HOW he wants to do it, but he wants to know. so what's going to happen if people say they don't like him? is he gonna resign? i think he has mental problems.

u don't realize until u come to a foreign country how lucky u are to know english. i've realized that time & time again here. let me show u the difference btwn a "korean teacher" and a "foreign teacher" (such as myself):

*the korean teacher has to make phone calls to the parents and let them know how their child is doing. i don't.

*the korean teacher has to write up reports on the child's progress. i just have to write a couple of letters (grades) and write a sentence or 2 about the child. easy.

*the korean teacher has to come in by 1:30 when classes start at 3. i can come in whenever i want. (but i don't. i come in around 1:30-2 these days.)

*the korean teachers don't receive an apartment or the housing allowance. foreign teachers either get an apartment or cash. i get cash.

*the korean teachers receive much more less money.

*the korean teachers work on incentives also. if more kids sign up for their class, they get a bonus. but there is a difference when 98% or 99% of the kids sign up. can u believe that?

*foreign teachers (just changed) from now on do not have to give written tests. before i had to give a written & oral test, but not it's just a simple oral test.

i feel bad when i see the korean teachers dealing with rude and/or overbearing korean parents who refuse to acknowledge that their bratty lil kid is too dumb or too slow to keep up with the class. many of the korean teachers travel far enough as it is (most travel an hour by subway or bus) and then get this huge amount of stress on them. i guess that's all part of being a teacher, but when u see this huge difference btwn the korean teacher & the foreign teacher, u can't help but feel sorry for them. =[ so i try to go in early and prepare well for my classes so they don't have to hear any complaints about me.

i guess another thing i have to deal with is when or when not to use korean. i know i don't speak korean really fluently or anything, but i can get by on my own. but there are times when it's best to act like i don't know alot of korean. for instance, i have a kid i tutor privately (carrie introduced me to them) and she suggested that i act like i can't speak korean very well. if i show that i can, they might be more hesitant to hire me b/c they would think i can't speak ENGLISH very well. weird, huh? and during my tuesday/thursday/saturday classes, all the kids think i can't speak korean at all. it's hilarious. i think i made a slight mistake not doing the same to my mon/wed/fri kids, but it's ok. but the t/th/sat kids are so freakin' quiet and afraid to talk to me. makes teaching much easier.

okie, i should be getting ready for school now. hope that everbody has a great day. oh and...

HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY TO MY BESTEST BESTEST FRIEND ANN!!!! I LOVE U!!!

i'm so sorry i couldn't be there to celebrate it with u, but i hope you have a wonderful day. <3, me

Squirted 10:08 PM by E-J Yi

my 1 day in japan: wow, i can't believe i went there for one day...

i landed in osaka (kansai airport) around 1130am. i quickly passed through customs and went straight out to the airport lobby. i was supposed to find the "rapido" train station. i found the station, but had to follow some lady to find the trains. it was sooo pretty! i had some time before the train left so i took some pics of the cute vending machines. i musta looked weird. hehe.

got on the train. so comfortable. so clean. it made about 3 stops before ending up in namba, my stop. riding on the train, u get to see lots of the suburban areas of osaka. none of the houses or apartments were very tall. maybe the highest was about 7 or 8 stories. and alot of the houses had put out their laundry to dry. just like korea except much more so in japan. my cousin also told me that when she lived in japan, she lived next to a cemetary. in japan, sometimes there will be a cemetary right btwn houses! i saw that, too. scary!

i get to namba. i found my exit very fast and started walking to the korean consulate. it was so crowded on the sidewalks with people and bicycles! dang, so many japanese people ride bikes. and inside of saying "excuse me" when they wanna get by, they ring their bell on their bikes. young japanese men & women dressed very quirky. kinda like punkish, but trying to look like a cartoon character or something. anyways, it was interesting to see.

get to the korean consulate's office around 1pm. the lady has lunch until 130pm. all of a sudden, lots of white people start pouring in. they were there for a visa like me. i ended up talking to one of the guys, i think a brit, for a lil bit, but then when the lady came, i quickly wanted to submit my visa application so i could get my visa that day. luckily, she said it would be done by 4pm. i had about 2.5 hours to kill. yesss! (funny thing was that those "white people" were teachers from other schools too. i ran into them alot during the day, but i was busy looking around for stuff for me & my relatives that i basically avoided them. bad of me, i know, but i had a schedule to keep! we even ended up on the same place going home.)

my cousin and my aunt both told me about a shopping mall/dept store called "takashimaya" that was very famous. it was right next to the namba train station. korean dept stores are copied after japanese dept stores. (actually, korea has copied SO MUCH MORE japanese culture, but i digress...) toys were on the 6th floor. toys, u say? i just HAD to go buy some HELLO KITTY stuff!! i was a lil disappointed b/c they didn't have as much stuff as i wanted to see, but i ended up buying a few things. hehe. went to buy some japanese singles for my cousin. man, for 2 singles, it was $20! i was thinking of buying boa's album (with howie d in it), but it was freakin' $22!! forget that.

it was fun to speak english to the dept store employees. they'd get all surprised and say, 'hite!' and somehow use their body language to answer my question. japanese people are very polite. and there is hardly any crime there so i felt very safe. (but i was told by a teacher at my school that japanese people are known to be two-faced? hmmm.)

i headed back to the korean consulate after a couple of hours. i stopped inside a convenience store, lawson's, to look around. places like 7-11 or lawson's in japan are very popular. the food (like udon) is actually quite good there so lots of people go there to eat for a quick bite. i wanted to look around at japanese cookies, drinks, and toiletries. i bought chapstick, some crackers, and face-blotting sheets since it seems like japan has better products.

i also stopped by a sporting goods store to see if there's any cute apparel or bags to buy. they had a cute (michigan-colored) adidas (bowling-style) bag, but it was about $40. ugh. i also went to look at their bball stuff. freakin' soooo much allen iverson stuff!!! there was like a whole section of just iverson stuff. i happened to find 3 dirk jerseys, but that was all the dallas stuff. of course there were lakers stuff, but some nets, blazers, and magic stuff. blah.

headed back to the consulate. got my visa. went back to takashimaya dept store to get a quick bite. i really wanted tonkatsu (fried pork cutlet) since i heard it was so freakin' good in japan, but there aren't any places to sit down and eat in the dept store. only take-out. so i ended up buying a small unagi (eel) roll and ate that on the train.

i was so tired from walking around that i could feel my feet burning up. ugh. got on the plane. there was a cute (male) flight attendant. haha. i just fell asleep after eating the (nasty) plane food. took the airport bus home and fell asleep right away.

check out my pics from japan and the stuff i bought. hehe. :)

******************************************************

last night i had dinner with the 3 korean teachers again. i guess i should introduce them to u:

carrie - lived in england for about 2 years. japan about 1 year. 30. speaks english with a slight british accent. freakin' hilarious and smokes. has fast observation skills ("noonchi") and likes to comment on about just everything, but isn't annoying one bit. no bf. the loudest of us 4.

jen - extremely quiet. learned english in korea. met her bf over the internet. gonna get married next year. 31. LOVES animals. loves cha in pyo, an actor (like my mom).

chloe - also pretty quiet. learned english in korea, too. no bf. loves cute things. doesn't want to get married. or have babies. very honest.

i guess i'm kinda a mixture of the teachers. we ate "deh gi kalbi" (pig kalbi) last night. it was so freakin' good. (maybe b/c i was starving) then we had coffee (me, hot cocoa) afterwards. all of them like BACKSTREET BOYS, esp carrie!! lol. :D i learned a lil about some of the teachers at my school. also found out that the new teacher, tommy, seems very popular with the females even tho most of them are older than him. he's the only korean male, but can't speak korean very well. he was born in 1978 which makes him older than me & this other teacher cecile (who is a korean native). he's alright looking, i guess, but seems a lil slow. haha. but yeah, a 30-yr old teacher already exclaimed "he's mine! he's my style!" korean women can be scary sometimes. -.-

okie, i think i wrote enough to keep u happy, right? hehe. have a great day ya'll! (^.^)v

Squirted 8:52 PM by E-J Yi

"ahree-gahtoh-gozimuss": guess who went to japan in 1 day? and (everybody together now!) "...all by myself..."

i have uploaded a bunch of pics. go check 'em out!

check back later when i tell of my adventures in osaka!!

got to get ready for school! (^.^)v

Squirted 9:52 PM by E-J Yi

lazy, crazy me...: my last entry i wrote on friday. guess what time i went to sleep?

6 AM!!

me & my cousin watched some tv until 12am. i wrote my blog entry for friday. i looked around on friendster. watched some tv. went upstairs to say good-night to my cousin. she wasn't tired so we watched "panic room". then we talked. then i noticed that the sun was coming up. OMG. so then we went to sleep. haha. :)

then we both woke up around noon. hung out the house & ate lunch. then we went to apkujung to eat soft pretzels (she's crazy about them right now) and get my marker for cross-stitching (which the lady forgot to put in my bag). i ended up buying a sweater and 2 magazines. i bought the oct issue of InStyle (ONLY $9...wtfreak?!) and an old nba mag for $3 with dirk on the cover. came home. cross-stitched a lil bit. went to sleep.

today (Sunday) i FINALLY went to Church. aren't ya'll proud of me? :) i went to Church with my cousin. it was freakin' far, but it was pretty okay. they have about 10,000 (!!) members. my cousin was one of the original Church members. guess how many they started out with? 30!!! it grew to 10,000 in about 10 yrs. crazyness. i'm going to go to this Church's english service next week to see if i like it. anyways, after Church me & my cousin went to eat spaghetti @ coex and then we went to the airport terminal (korea has a separate terminal u can check in & out of instead of at the airport which makes things faster) so i know what to do on tuesday morning. then we both ate mcd's ice cream and went home.

i'm pretty tired now for some reason. doing some more cross-stitching tonight. :) have a great day ya'll! GO MAVS!!! (1st preseason game) (^.^)v

Squirted 3:07 AM by E-J Yi