Volume 1 Issue 1 25 December 2015 Kakao: Madeline Miller Facebook: Madeline Miller Instagram: majmiller123 Snapchat: klmnmiller1 Wordpress: klmnmiller1.wordpress.com Email: klmnmiller1@gmail.com YouTube: M Miller On adulting and adventuring in South Korea. Song of the Week A Room of Her Own, LikeSwimming, 2014. #mjinsk Quick Note - First Issue This is my meager endeavor to create more self-accountability for (1) documenting my experiences, and (2) sharing with my family and friends what I m actually up to. I m teaching at the SDA Language Institute in Sang-mu, Gwangju area. I ve been here for just over 2 months, and I m totally loving it. I m here with three other foreign teachers, and we also work with three Korean teachers, serving about 50 adults and 150 elementary and middle school students each term.
On Adulting Library Card I felt incredibly accomplished walking out of the library on December 1. I managed to apply for a library card, with the help of a friendly librarian and some broken English and even more broken Korean. The first books? The Life of Pi, Dostoyevsky s The Idiot, and some Shel Silverstein. I m hunting for Plato s Republic for the next time Borecky recommended it for the morality questions I m working through, and, despite having read it before, I don t remember much what it s about. Apartment I ve never had a room to myself, so having my own apartment is pretty exciting. Bills are a little nauseating, just knowing that there s the impending living costs money now doom looming over my head. But having a space to design and recreate at whim is thrilling. Cell Phone It took me more than two months to work up the courage for two words: SIM card. In all reality, it was incredibly easy to set up my phone plan prepaid for 10 minutes of cell calling, 1g of data and only cost 32,000 won. But now I m proud to say I have both Kakao and Snapchat, thanks to that phone number. Quick Culture I don t know much about Korean culture yet, but here are a few tidbits I ve picked up so far... - Respect is so important. Know your social position in a group before you speak. - Eye contact is generally a no-no. Despite this, as a foreigner, you can get away with murder, so just smile and nod when someone looks confused. - If you aren t using a utensil while eating, it s more polite to put it down, rather than continuing to hold it.
On Adventuring Friends I m a total introvert, and that really shows with how I make friends. I ve been working on growing in this area it s generally tough for me to be genuine with people I haven t known for a while, and I don t make new friends quickly. The other teachers here at the institute are phenomenal, and I m thoroughly enjoying getting to know them. That said, it s hard to invest in those relationships because I know that several will only be here for a few months. So part of my stretching is going on adventures with others. I m really glad to be here with another PUC alum, Arve Lloren (check out her Instagram or YouTube, btw; she s pretty artistic, that one!) We ve done some fun stuff bowling, Jeonju Folk Village, ice skating, Thanksgiving, trying new foods, more ice skating. It s cool to explore our area with some of the other teachers and with students who re also friends. Arve s super easy going, and constantly reminds me I ought to be more of the same. Ice Skating - Yeomju Gymnasium Last weekend I decided to hunt down an indoor ice rink I d heard good things about and found online. It s about 2.5 miles from where I live, and takes about half an hour by bus, so I decided to just make an afternoon of it and walk. After getting there, I realized the place was too huge to just find it there are half a dozen buildings to the gym, plus some office buildings, a Lotte Outlet, a park, and the Gwangju World Cup Stadium. I plucked up enough courage to ask a few people for directions, but, unfortunately for me, I chose the wrong people they were sticking around for a concert, and had no idea where the ice rink would be. Given my personality, I just gave up and walked home. But, walking through that area, I found the equestrian center, two golf driving ranges, golf course, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, and the Lotte Outlets. It was a great adventure. Other than Arve, my partner teacher, Nina, is probably my best friend here. She and I have a fairly similar personality we get stressed about classes because we want to, even if it s not part of the job; we prefer to work than play; sleep is our favorite hobby and she makes friends in a similar manner. I so much appreciate her advice and willingness to answer my questions. The first week especially was overwhelming, because my six junior classes were back-to-back-to-back, without any breaks. The first day passed in a haze, and I couldn t even remember which questions I had wanted to ask; thankfully she was able to help me decompress from that and process what I needed help with.
On Teaching In General To give a quick run-down for those I haven t spoken with much: The institute I work for is Sahmyook SDA [Seventh-Day Adventist] Language Institute, and my branch is in Sang-mu, Gwangju. While the institute is SDA, I don t identify as SDA. The administration is really chill about other cultures and religions being a part of the organizations, provided we re really chill about respecting their ideal lifestyle something I certainly don t mind. At my branch, foreign teachers teach either three or four adult classes, and either four or six elementary/ middle school classes, depending on how many adult classes we re given. For the adult classes, we re essentially given free reign; other than the term project, midterm feedback day, and final test, the structure of our class is up to us. With the elementary / middle school classes, we work with a Korean co-teacher. (Mine is the best) Integrating Media After working with my two Trampoline classes in particular, I see the value of adding media to class time. My primary concern is keeping them focused on the material while I can find related content, no problem, I don t know how to make sure they re actually absorbing said content. This makes me really cautious about including videos during teaching time. I ll be doing some research on best practices for using video content in the classroom with elementary school ESL students for next term. In addition, I was hoping to find a couple Friends episodes to use for my adult classes on our curriculum-short days. Finding actual episodes is a breeze; it s the subtitles that are the problem. Some of the jokes will definitely be lost without them. Hopefully more digging will prove rewarding. Term Wrap-Up The end of the term meant a lot of grading from listening to the junior classes speaking tests, to term presentations for the adult classes. In order to give my kind of adequate feedback, I made rubrics per Professor McGuire s template and graded accordingly. While these were helpful, I ll definitely need to do some editing for next term. The worst of it was the juniors speaking tests. The grading itself wasn t difficult just so time-consuming; every student had at least four questions, and each needed to be evaluated according to either three or four categories More annoying, than anything else. This last term I worked with Level 2 (out of 6) for the adults, and I ll be doing Level 4 next term. I m excited about the change the book has more real conversations and topics, so we can have more indepth conversations of a slightly philosophical nature. Due to my love of travel, I also like the theme for the term project favorite country. I also know some of the students already one is married to one of my Level 2 students from this term, and another is one of our student/friends, Bruce, who is really cool.
On Intellect and Creativity Struggles I ve been wrestling with the issue of morality recently particularly the question(s) of a moral standard and where it may come from. (I think) I see that there s got to be some kind of standard how else could we have any kind of justice system in society? We couldn t justify telling kids not to hit or that psychopathic serial killers actually have something they need to work on in jail before rejoining society, unless there were some kind of defining line between right and wrong. But where does it come from? Theists (obviously) argue God; atheists generally take the view of a genetic/biological evolution, modified by culture and somewhat varied by individual personality traits. Also, why should I - the white kid from America raised in a Protestant family - have a better shot to win the game of life by getting to go to Heaven because of my exposure to a positive view of Christianity, instead of a kid from Pakistan or India or Malaysia or Eritria raised Hindu or Buddist or athiest? Why am I, of all people, one of the lucky few? How is that fair? If anyone has any thoughts to add, I d be glad to hear them and dialogue about the issue. I have no idea where this ll take me, but if you want to join me on the journey, I d love to have you along. Writing I generally have a pretty tough time keeping up with my blog, so hopefully this will help me stay consistent. *Weekly* kind of consistent. That said, I do keep a journal of sorts. I don t write in it daily, but I do keep track of my thoughts and emotional journy(ies) in it. It helps me to process what I m reading, learning, and talking about with others. Sometimes I draw in it, too, though not as much as I did at PUC, and far, far less than while I was in Europe. So while I do beat myself up a little for not posting more, it s not that I don t process. I need to be a little kinder to me, methinks.
The Back Page More Music - Promise, Ben Howard, 2012. - Cambridge, 1963, Jóhann Jóhannsson, 2014. - Doors to Heaven, Shake Shake Go, 2015. Recent Reads - Life of Pi, Yann Martel - The Idiot, Dostoyevsky - A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein Coming Up: - The Republic, Plato - We Have No Right to Happiness, CS Lewis. TheQuotables Screw the fear - Brother Newport. I m funny. How are you? - Young stranger met while ice skating. Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in they way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims. - Martel, Life of Pi. The Videos - Debate between Harris and Craig on the foundation of morality. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vmlqjdt7ia] - The Theory of Everything, dir. James March. The soundtrack is unbelievable. - While long, this video of the slack-line life has both impressive cinematography and a couple of interesting people. [https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/148268680] The Linguist In Me 안녕하세요 - ahn-yahng-ha-sey-yoh - hello!/goodbye! 감사합니다 - kahm-sahm-nee-dah - thank you 배고파 - peh-go-pah - I m hungry 배부르 - peh-booh-loh - I m full Upcoming Projects - Canvas / oil for expanse above my couch - Japan video / summary - Video of the beauty at the institute Japan I m hoping that I ll get over my lack of spontaneity and my nerves, enough to take a trip to Japan over the Christmas break. This is intended to be a stretching experience, so I don t have much of anything planned; we ll see what happens I ll include the result in the next issue stay tuned!