Panggu

I recently learned the most important word - banggu (the b is actually an unaspirated p, so it sounds like a half-way p/b to  us English speakers) - 방구.

I also recently learned that there's a way around some site blocking. Should I teach you? Hmm. Admittedly it doesn't work for everything. Last week the school's computers all updated (windows, i assume) and this ruined the flash player - which our textbook's computer program runs from. This not only stopped us teachers from using the interactive software, but then the students couldn't do their homework. Conveniently - the flash was ok for 3rd and 4th grade. I think those youngsters would have cried if it had happened to them. The real problem though is that the province of education has blocked adobe.com and blocks attempts to update existing adobe products. I couldn't fix it. So we had to call in the computer person for our school and she couldn't fix it and they called in an expert. And he couldn't fix it. My co-teacher got them to "wipe the harddrive" claiming that the computer was too slow. It wasn't. So pretty much there's nothing on that computer now except flash - which I'm not sure how she did it, but our school's computer lady fixed the problem (for us... it was later on in the week that the students' computers went down). But that still didn't fix my co-teacher's problem with IE not working with his little fox website (english learning site with cute flash animations). I downloaded chrome and showed him how to use it - and that it would make little fox play. At first he seemed pleased. Later he decided this was "too much work" (to open a browser he is less used to) and says "it should work in IE." There goes my google chrome convert. *sigh*

So I guess we'll see in a bit if the problem is resolved for the students who couldn't do their homework - since today is a co-teacher day.

Oh yeah, the trick is... use https instead of http. Yup. Simple. :D

Busy Days

Since school has been back in full swing, I've been keeping pretty busy. On the weekends, J and I typically stay in town and wander around finding new things. About 2 weekends ago we found that our town has a shrine to the legendary founder of all Korea (back from the year like 2333 BC).

And that day we also bought a 3D crystal puzzle. And I bought cute shoes. :D J bought me an adorable bunny shaped white out strip dispenser and hello kitty eraser.

In the meantime I eat chips with cute actors on the bags (i mean, it's not enough for sunny 10 soda to have pop stars.. LOL). And watch clouds, sunsets and such things.... 

This is of course when I'm not cleaning my house. 

Like last weekend, when I went to Everland in Seoul with J. (and didn't clean my house.... the centipedes thought this meant they were welcome to move in. ha.)

Everland was decorated for Halloween, and we were even lucky enough to come the 2nd night of the horror nights. :D I must add -- one nice thing about Korea is that they do not understand the scariness of clowns. I've asked my kids, different ages, if they thought clowns were scary, and they said no. They were puzzled. The Western concept of a clown is new to them, and luckily the scary part didn't carry over yet. So there were no scary clowns at all! ^_^ The only actor that got me was the Korean grim reaper. I didn't realize he was a costumed guy at first, and all of a sudden he whipped out a fan and spread it open, fanned himself and walked briskly past, scowling. I scream a little. (which was his goal anyway)

Everland has a really pretty rose garden with all kinds of roses, and naked Greek goddess statues. lol.

This vampire was willing to pose for a picture. He got really close. 

 Right after the rose garden is the "four seasons garden" which changes depending on the season and holiday. It was a graveyard when we went through. It felt like fall - with orange and burnt red colored flowers, lots of pumpkins, and even a bush or two shaped like a jack-o-lantern.

In the horror village, you could pose with plastic bones and body parts. 

The owl is my new stuftie - Whoobert. J got him for me. 

The day after Everland, J and I went to see the Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki exhibit at the Seoul Arts Center. They had at least a few hundred of the layouts and storyboards all on display. There were some for every single Ghibli movie, even the obscure TV only ones. It was really cool. I realized I've only seen a small fraction of all their works. 

Other than that... my school went on a field trip the week before last. I went with the kindergartners through 3rd graders to the Cheongju zoo. That was fun. The kids would ask me what different things were called in English. That was exciting for me, because usually they don't care. And the kindergartners, who I don't teach, looked at me curiously. One little boy asked his sister (my student) is she the English teacher? So I told him yes I was. (all in Korean...) 

I still am not very good at Korean. But I understand a lot more.