Gentleman, Or: PSY Trolls Everyone

The video for PSY's new single is hilarious, and the song is damn catchy. It definitely made me a bit homesick for the sketchy bar districts in Seoul, even if I have decided I'm officially too old for that shit.

For those of you who want the Korean lyrics to this new earworm, here they are (courtesy of jumpersjump). It took me longer than it should have to find proper Hangul lyrics instead of awful romanized crap, so I'm doing my part to signal boost:

젠틀맨

알랑가몰라 왜 화끈해야 하는건지

 알랑가몰라 왜 말끔해야 하는건지

 알랑가몰라 아리까리하면 까리해

 알랑가몰라 We Like We We We Like Party 해 ~

 있잖아 말이야

 이사람으로 말씀드리자면 말이야

 용기 패기 똘끼 멋쟁이 말이야

 너가 듣고픈말 하고픈게 난데 말이야

 Damn! Girl! You so freakin sexy!

 Ah Ah Ah Ah~ I’m a…

 Ah Ah Ah Ah~ I’m a…

 Ah Ah Ah Ah~ I’m a mother father gentleman

 I’m a…

 Ah I’m a

 I'm a mother father gentleman

 I’m a…

 Ah I’m a

 I’m a mother father gentleman

 알랑가몰라 왜 미끈해야하는건지

 알랑가몰라 왜 쌔끈해야하는건지

 알랑가몰라 달링 빨리와서 난리해

 알랑가몰라 난리난리 났어 빨리해

 있잖아 말이야

 너의 머리 허리 다리 종아리 말이야

 Good! feeling feeling? Good! 부드럽게 말이야

 아주 그냥 헉소리나게 악소리 나게 말이야

 Damn! Girl! I’m a party mafia!

 Ah Ah Ah Ah~ I’m a…

 Ah Ah Ah Ah~ I’m a…

 Ah Ah Ah Ah~ I’m a mother father gentleman

 I’m a…

 Ah I’m a

 I’m a mother father gentleman

 I’m a…

 Ah I’m a

 I’m a mother father gentleman

 Gonna make you sweat.

 Gonna make you wet.

 You know who I am~ Wet PSY!

 Gonna make you sweat.

 Gonna make you wet.

 You know who I am~ Wet PSY!

Wet PSY! Wet PSY! Wet PSY! PSY! PSY! PSY!

 Ah I’m a mother father gentleman

 I’m a…

 Ah I’m a

 I’m a mother father gentleman

 I’m a…

 Ah I’m a

 I’m a mother father gentleman

 Mother father gentleman

 Mother father gentleman

Satire: Korea, Ben Folds, and Asian Americans

Oh hey, I'm still here. I've been meaning to do some student profiles, before they slip out of my memory (I had so many good kids at my last hagwon), but I guess I can't bring myself to do it.

What I CAN bring myself to do, though, is bitter, incompetent parody. I started working on this—a parody of Rockin' the Suburbs changed to reflect some of the worst foreigners I ever met in Korea—a couple years ago and, inspired by Douglas Kim's "I'm Asian American," decided to finish it today. First, enjoy Kim's version, because it's great:



That said, here's my own Rockin' the Suburbs parody. It'd be my dream if someone recorded this. Maybe I'll record it myself when I have the time. (Hah! Fat chance.)

Rockin' Korea
(White Whine Anthem)
With apologies to Ben Folds


Let me tell y'all what it's like
Being male, middle class, and white.
Despite my privileges I still believe
I'm an oppressed minority.
Sham on!

I got shit posted on my blog
It's so hip, please follow along
While I drink in Itaewon
And sing Journey in the noraebang.

I'm rockin' Korea,
Just like Doug MacArthur did.
I'm rockin' Korea;
Only care when it's me that's exploited.
I'm rockin' Korea!
Cash the checks and drink the booze.
After all, I'm not Korean, why should I follow all their rules?


I'm pissed off, it's because I'm white
That people push on the subway line.
Ajosshis, you make me so uptight
Gonna rant in the bar tonight.
All I do is piss and moan
But never, ever go back home.

I'm rockin' in Korea,
Just like Bella Bishop did.
I'm rockin' Korea;
Only care when it's me that's exploited.
I'm rockin' Korea!
Cash the check and drink the booze.
After all, I'm not Korean, why should I follow all their rules?

In a haze today,
What the fuck did I do last night?
I can feel that something's not right
I can feel that someone's next to me
in bed! I'm dead,
I don't want a K-girlfriend!
'Cause all the guys who post on Dave's place
Have well assured me that Korean girls are cray.
It wasn't my idea,
It wasn't my idea,
It never was my idea.
I just went to Hongdae
For some soju stress relief.

Ya'll don't know what it's like
Being male, middle class and white.

Y'all don't know what it's like,
being male, middle class, and white.

Y'all don't know what it's like,
being male, middle class and white.

Y'all don't know what it's like,
being male, middle class, and white.

It gets me real pissed off and it makes me wanna say
It gets me real pissed off and it makes me wanna say
It gets me real pissed off and it makes me wanna say

씨 발~~~~!


Just like Alan Alda did.
I'm rockin' Korea;
Only care when it's me that's exploited.
I'm rockin' Korea,
Cash the checks and drink the booze.
After all, I'm not Korean, why should I follow all their rules?
Fuck this place~

Yeah, yeah!

I'm rockin' Korea,
yeah, yeah!

I'm rockin' Korea,
yeah, yeah!

You better watch out, because I'm gonna say 씨 발.
You better watch out, because I'm gonna say 씨 발.
You better watch out, because I'm gonna say 씨 발.
You better watch out, because I'm gonna say 씨 발.

Speech Contest Lulz

Anna (of the Anna and Lina I mentioned earlier) is participating in an upcoming English speech contest. I've been helping her and the other students practice during my down time at work.

Anna's speech is about Dokdo. Yesterday she had a massive memory fail and closed her speech with these words:

"I want to let the world know clearly: Dokdo is Japanese territory!"

The resulting giggle fits could not be stopped for the next five or six minutes.

Happy Chuseok, everyone. I'm not going on any awesome trips because I work (half a day) on Tuesday. Off to see the Suwon fortress am I.

The Best Engrish Moment Ever

Spotting and collecting awful English slogans—often just strings of related words in a grammatical relationship best described as "vague"—from clothing and apparel is one of the anglophone foreigner's favorite past times. I was guilty of it myself during my first few months, though now I mostly don't give a hoot.

Mostly.

I was pawing through shirts outside a boutique in Bundang when I came across this:

Sorry for the typical Ebay clothing shot. I didn't
feel up to modeling it.

At first blush, it's unremarkable, really. A random image with some bedazzled bits and random English text: par for the course as far as Korean fashion goes. Yes, it is indeed way ~girlier~ than anything else in my wardrobe, for those of you playing along at home. Not only that, but it is not the most flattering of fits or colors for me.

Why did I buy it, then?

Because while I was processing the English text, I realized: This is familiar. I could a hear a man's voice singing these words in my memory, and after another ten seconds to let the song play out to the chorus, I had it pinned.

Alternative, Baby

Reel Big Fish

Well, I see you up on stage and I
don't know just what you're sayin',
But you're my hero.
Whoa, oh oh.
But a guy just kicked me in the head,
a little girl just passed out dead,
I'm in between a big jock and a sweaty skinhead,
but I love you.
Whatever that means.

But I don't wanna talk to you,
'cause I know I'd just say something stupid and
I know you've got
better things to do.

Hey, little alternative girl,
so don't you wanna be my friend?
You know I'm singin' all my songs to you.
It's all right if you don't understand.

Well, maybe I shouldn't be so serious, 

Tellin' you that everything sucks, 'cause I don't wanna 

bring you down.

But it never never works out right. 

I'm gonna lose, give up the fight. I won't get what I want,

won't get anything, but I love you.

Whatever that means.

And they don't wanna talk to me 'cause they know what I'll turn out to be.

 I said I was cool,

but I can't lie to you. 

Hey, little alternative girl, don't you wanna be my friend?

You know I'm singin' all my songs to you.

It's all right if you don't understand.

And I don't wanna start again

'cause I know it'll be the same in the end.

I didn't like it the first time anyway.

Hey, little alternative girl, so don't you wanna be my friend?

You know I'm singin' all my songs to you.

It's all right if you don't understand.

If you aren't familiar with Reel Big Fish, it makes it even more hilarious to realize that this is an amped-up poppy ska song from their 1996 album Turn the Radio Off. Have some YouTube. And don't worry: despite the parental advisory warning, this song is perfectly inoffensive.

Listen to that, and then go back and look at the first picture.

You see why I had to buy it, then.

Not that this would ever happen to me in Korea...

...but I understand the sentiment so well.

(Click the comic to read it on the Cat and Girl homepage.)

Multimedia Monday: Who's on First?

Someone translated Abbot and Costello's immortal "Who's On First?" routine into Korean. Whoever they are, I could kiss them. I'd also ask them to work on some classic Marx brothers bits.

Entirely in Korean:



The original with Korean subtitles:

Multimedia Monday: CSI: Legoland

I'm early for the first time in a while with this! That's because after a string of mediocre essay topics, the advanced textbook really geared it up for the last chapter: "Crime Fighting Scientists." Of course, talking about crime and violence is always a little unsettling and awkward because inevitably things like rape and sexual assault come up. I'm fortunate enough that those aren't triggering concepts for me, but some of my advanced students are at the age where I'm not sure if they've had "the talk" with their parents about the mechanics of sex. Others are old enough to know, presumably, but there's still no way of knowing what kind of discussions they've had about boundaries and consent and "no means no" and so on.

So, I mean, there was that minefield.

Odd that I don't really have much issue discussing murder, though. I guess death is a bit easier to joke about?

Anyway, I started out the class with a bit more levity.

At least one of the CSI variants are ported over here, in addition to The Mentalist and probably other  crime shows I don't know about as well. I started off class by asking if they knew CSI, and what they thought about it and why. Sometimes we chatted a bit more about TV shows in general, if time allowed.

Then I told them I had a video that was like a CSI episode and gave them two questions.

1. Who did it? And why?
2. Why does the man put on his sunglasses?

After checking to make sure they understood the questions, I played the video. In retrospect, I should have pre-taught the words "lumberjack" and "convict," but I don't think it detracted too much from their understanding. The nice thing about whodunnits is that they're pretty straightforward.

I paused at the shot with all three suspects and took a tally to see who everyone thought was guilty, then let the rest of the video play out.

Obviously everyone could give me a good answer for the first question. The language is too quick and kind of too punny for anyone to have been able to answer the second one, I suppose, but I thought my more advanced students might have been able to catch the "axe"/"ask" joke.

I had textbook material to cover, so I left it that, but I'm sure you could exploit the hell out of this. Simple past and sequencing words spring to mind. Putting aside the content, you could also talk about how to create stop motion animated features and review imperatives and giving/following directions as well.

For more videos (with and without lesson ideas), check out the Multimedia Monday tag. If you don't have Internet access on your classroom computer, I recommend YouTubeDownloader HD.

Multimedia Monday (On Tuesday): Shit Korean Girls Say

I feel really guilty for thinking this is funny, but...it is. At least the actor isn't in Yellow Face.

God, who thought this would be a good idea?

At some point or another I'm going to have to write a post dissecting all of the hate the stereotypical "Korean girl" gets along feminist and racial lines, but until then, I'm going to be really thoughtless about my privilege and share this with you:

Multimedia Monday: "Careless Whispers" Interpretative Dance

To download this and other clips off of YouTube, I recommend, as always, the YouTube Downloader HD program. For other videos I've used and the skeletal lesson/activity plans I've built around them, check out the Multimedia Monday tag.

David Armand is one of the funniest comedians I've seen in a while. He's done a whole bunch of "interpretative dances," and while they're all hilarious, unfortunately only this one is unequivocally appropriate for a young class. (The others either have references to sex, genitalia, or both.) Any time I have a chance to show something in class that I like watching? Everyone wins.

You can print out the lyrics before, if you want—that's probably helpful for lower-level classes. With more advanced students, you could easily make this a game. It'll take a bit of advanced planning, though. Write "I'm never gonna dance again" on the board, cue the video up to the chorus (with sound), and hit play. In this video, it's at about 40 seconds in. It helps if you point along to the words: once I did that, my kids sussed out right away what Armand was trying to convey.

Then, back to the beginning, and kill the sound. Maybe watch it twice. Have the students write what they think the lyrics are based on Armand's mime routine, and then pass out the lyrics so they can see how close they got it. (I admit, I haven't done this part yet, as I don't really have the time for it in my advanced classes. But I've got it ready, just in case I ever do.) If you have the time, you can play the video one more time with the lyrics so they can try to match the mimes to the real words—have students circle the words at parts where they didn't understand the mime, and so forth. Considering how damn popular George Michael's Last Christmas is in Korea, I'm sure Korean students will take to Careless Whispers fairly readily.

I React to Western Adults Reacting to Western Kids Reacting to K-pop

I don't know about elsewhere on the Internet, but LiveJournal's "Oh No They Didn't" community, at least, is having a massive hatefest over "Kids React to K-pop."  My reactions are entirely based on how the K-pop fans at ONTD are taking it, but if  Roboseyo is to be believed (which I think he is), the entire K-pop army has similarly imploded at the sight of it.

Here's the video, it's gone down periodically but hopefully now it's up for good:

If it goes down again, the Cliff's Notes version is: comedians show kids videos of things, film their reactions, edit them together, and put it on the Internet.  This particular instance was kids reacting to K-pop: Girls' Generation, Super Junior, and 2NE1 in particular.  And at first blush, I thought it was funny.  Shit, I still DO think it's funny (sometimes the kids are a little too performative, but hey, they're kids).

On the one hand, I try to think about stuff like this.  And certainly, upon reflection, I realized that a bunch of white kids mugging up their incomprehension at Korean pop music for the camera is kind of...unfortunate.  But they're kids, and they're being cajoled into being funny because presumably they know this is going on a video for YouTube for millions of people to watch.  Everyone is an attention whore at some level, but especially little kids.

Instead, as only one commentor on ONTD (in ten pages of comments) pointed out, we should really be thinking about the adults who picked the videos: if they picked certain videos hoping for a specific effect, if they goaded the kids off-camera, and so forth.  They're the ones creating and perpetuating the white hegemony, and so on.  But no, everyone on ONTD immediately goes on their "herp this is why I'm child-free" rants because they enjoy having the license to be bitter about kids, instead of taking a moment to consider the man behind the curtain (or video camera, as it were).

And finally, I love all the butthurt from the K-pop fans about how "the music's really good they don't know what they're missing waaaaaaaah"  Seriously? Seriously?  There are great Korean musicians and talents, but trying to argue that they're coming out of the child abuse factory that is JYP (or whatever other company) is so ridiculous I don't know where to begin. If anything, talent emerges in spite of it, not because of it.

And child abuse isn't an exaggeration, either.  Limiting teenage (read as: still growing) girls who do intense bouts of cardio every day to just 1200 calories?  Abusive and potentially metabolically damaging.  Bear in mind, K-pop groups train for years before they ever even drop a single, and so many debut when they're just sixteen or seventeen years old, or younger. That means training at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.  Shit like that can fuck up your body for life. Not to mention the long and exploitative contracts, exhaustive touring schedules, and so forth.  But K-pop fans like to conveniently ignore that and just continue to squeal about how CL is just so ~fierce~.   DANCE MONKEY DANCE.  ENTERTAIN ME.

Embracing K-pop but rejecting American pop  just because the latter is ~Korean~ and therefore ~exotic~ is nothing more than a bunch of bullshit exoticizing/eroticizing the Other.  Liking something just because it's Korean isn't really a whole lot better than disliking something because it's Korean.   And guess what?  If you haven't seen it before, K-pop is going to look really fucking bizarre.  It still looks bizarre to me (even if I get the larger cultural framework in which it fits), because I didn't grow up with it for twenty-odd years, but I get where it fits in the scheme of things.

What I also notice about Koreaboos/weeaboos is that there's a certain segment (not all of them, by any stretch) that only catches the stuff that floats the top—in other words, the bands and songs the industries really push to make internationally.  It's like they're only interested in a shallow, surface-level interaction with another culture; it never occurs to them that Korea or Japan would be capable of producing any kind of indie music scene. I'm not trying to play the hipster card, here ("I like Neon Bunny, but you've probably never heard of her.") but rather pointing out that it takes a minimal amount of digging to find some really great treasures (thanks, IndiefulROK!).  Like me saying, "Oh, I really like Korean movies!" having only seen Oldboy and The Host.  "The Housemaid? No, never heard of it."

I bet if you had kids react to this video from Linus' Blanket, there'd be a lot less cultural befuddlement and all of the bullshit Koreaboos wouldn't know what the hell this was.  Here, have a palate cleanser.

Multimedia Monday: Viral Marketing and Mummers

This edition of Multimedia Monday is brought to you by the first installment of my advanced students' new textbook: "Viral Marketing."  Great opportunity to bring in some real life examples.

(For other videos, you can find all of the Multimedia Monday posts at this link. As always, I recommend using YouTube Downloader HD to save these and other videos if your classroom doesn't have Internet.)

After some beginning of class chit-chat ("How was your New Year? What did you do?"),  I played this clip for my kids.  Before I hit play, I asked them to think about what the ad was trying to sell.

They were pretty much horrified; at thirty-five seconds in they started really losing their shit.  If you're going to do this, please find a discreet way to take pictures of your students' faces because seriously, the reactions are priceless.  After it finished, I asked them a quick follow-up question.

"What is this commercial for?"

"iPad?"

"Mm, not quite.  Here's one more."

"Teacher, why he smile?"

"He really likes his blender."

I asked them again what the commercial was selling, and one of the more vocal students sussed on it right away this time.  "Ah! Mixer."

"Do you like these commercials?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

I put some of their answers on the board, because in the book they have a mind map on the topic (eg, viral marketing) to fill out and they always like to do that part together.  I got responses like "funny," "unique," and "surprising."  We also talked about whether or not they're popular commercials, why they're popular, where we would see them, if they would show a video like this to their friends, and so forth.

I'm sure you could expand on it from here (have students write [and film?] their own "Will It Blend?" or other ad, eliciting Korean examples of viral marketing), but after this I just worked through the requisite pages in their textbook.  We also watched some more "Will It Blend?" videos.  All of these got really popular responses:

The iPad was the most popular one, but this was a pretty close second.

Also very well-received, plus it has brand recognition (SPAM) and gross-out factor.  This, the glow sticks, and the two I mentioned earlier were the most popular ones.  (I actually let them watch the iPad one again during a break.)

This is pretty talk-y in the middle, as he reads excerpts from Justin Bieber's autobiography.  Lower-level students might tune out, but intermediate and advanced students shouldn't have a problem.  The presenter has good enunciation and let's face it, it's Justin Bieber's autobiography.  We're not talking about Ulysses, here.  You'll want a camera for their reactions at 1:36 or thereabouts.

This one is also pretty talk-y, so lower-level students might disengage while the salesman is yammering on about the Fiesta.  But they thought the green-screened projections and final shot were pretty funny.

BONUS CULTURE POINTS FOLLOW-UP

(maybe not relevant if you're not from [near] Philadelphia)

Of course, not all of my students are in the advanced class with the textbook.  Since today was kind of a lost day (I can't really review anything on the first day of a new movie),  I also had a  Mummers Parade lesson.

I drew a grid on the board.  On the left hand side I put: "EAT," "DO," and "WEAR" each in their own row.  On the top I put "U.S." and "SOUTH KOREA" in their own column.

If there had been more time for me to prep, I would have made up one of those "mix and mingle" worksheets, where each group has a select few pieces of information in a grid and they have to talk to everyone to fill out the whole thing.    Instead, we just talked it out: what does each country eat, do, and wear for New Year's?  (You'll probably also want pictures of funny hats, the ball in Times Square, noisemakers, and so forth.)  (I'll probably do all of these things tomorrow, assuming I have time to prep some things before I leave for work.)

This was a good opportunity to introduce myself, actually, since in my first two classes today I had a few completely new students who only knew my name.  I had them guess where I was from, and then explained that this is a New Year's tradition in my home (or "home") town:  people dress up in fancy costumes, play music, dance, and have a big parade in the city. (I skirted the fact that many of them are probably still wasted from New Year's Eve.)  I found this clip after a bit of digging (many of the other ones online are people's home videos so the quality isn't so great; this is an excerpt from the news coverage so there's very little ambient noise and the announcers are thankfully silent throughout).

I asked them basic "what" questions throughout to keep them from zoning out (while this was popular in some classes, it wasn't as popular as "Will It Blend?"): "What is his job?" and "What is that?" and "What animal is that?" and so forth.  I taught every single class today the words "mermaid" and "merman," productive!  I don't think I'll be teaching them to strut, but maybe we'll sing "Golden Slippers." ;)

The Mummers Parade is one of those things I don't realize I miss until it rolls around and I realize I can't just veg out in front of the TV on January first to watch it.  Of course, when I'm home, I don't park myself on the couch for the whole thing, but it's nice to be able to drift in and out of it.  So I do the next best thing I can: find clips from last year's parade online.

Happy New Year! 
새해 복 많이 받으세!

Multimedia Monday (On Tuesday)

Since I now have a "wired" classroom (meaning: I have a laptop that connects to a sizable flatscreen TV), I can for the first time in my teaching experience SHOW VIDEOS. (There was the one time I brought in a Twilight movie to a class of middle school girls because we were way ahead in the book and they had just had a test, but I had to bring in my laptop to do that.) I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS THAT I WILL SHARE EVERYTHING I USE WITH YOU. Mostly because they make me happy, but also on the off chance that other ESL teachers stumble here.

One of the topics in my advanced students' textbook was about "green profits": businesses switching practices to be more environmentally friendly and marketing new products based on the current trend of YAY SAVE THE PLANET. I found four relevant (and funny) TV commercials. I'm sharing them in order from (what I think) is the easiest for ESL students to understand (and for them to verbalize their comprehension).

If you want to use these videos, but don't have Internet in your classroom (like me), there are plenty of programs available that will rip video off of YouTube. The one I use on my laptop at home is the Google Chrome Youtube Downloader extension; at work, since the extension doesn't work (I don't know why?), I use Youtube Downloader HD.

GE's "Househugger" ad

"The Sky is Falling" PSA about CO2 emissions

Audi's "Green Police" Super Bowl ad (with guest star Cheap Trick!)

Green Planet Network's "Do Time With Green" ad

The kids (and my coworkers) responded the best to the "Green Police" one, but all of them went over pretty well.   The animation on the "Househugger" commercial also elicited some "OMG!"/"Aw, cute!" reactions, as well.

Relevant to my Life

I've been reading this webcomic since high school.  This latest one struck a particular chord with me (click the image to see it full-sized) in an "I take myself too seriously, hah" kind of way:

Cruel and Unusual Punishment?

I'll let you decide.  That said, some of those prisoners have some pretty sweet dance moves.

Funny Because It's True

The image is a link to the original website. Most of them are pretty funny and manage to avoid go-to, "HERP DERP KOREA IS WEIRD" jokes.

Quickie: Matchmaking in the ROK

I've seen a couple people link to this silly little article about finding a wife for Kim Jong-un (mostly a goofy promotional gimmick to coincide with White Day). But I thought this snippet was really telling:

The agency claims to have matched 23,000 people over the past 20 years using Korea-specific criteria that emphasize their clients’ jobs and educations, their families’ assets and their parents’ levels of education, especially which universities their fathers attended.

This is what matters in South Korea—or maybe what South Koreans want to believe matters, at least when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Titles, jobs, education, and other assorted things you can list on a resume. Things that are not of you but are around you. I wonder what those matchmaking professionals would say about my own relationship, with a boy whose education and familial assets are in no way similar to mine. Our fathers went to universities in different countries, even.

I've been busy hammering out the details on my new contract in Uijeongbu. With any luck, I'll start on May 30th. I look forward to re-immersing myself in Korea soon!

CELTA, Week 3: This Time It's Personal

Now that I'm partway through week four, thoughts on week three:

God. Damn. Brutal. We had to design our own syllabus for this week, which was fortunately fairly hands-off and not as terrifying as it sounds. I think at this point my fellow CELTees have started to wonder if I'm not going to just "get a Glock and mow these people down!"* This isn't commentary on CELTA as such; more that my time management skills are terrible. (I should be working on a self-evaluation right now. What am I doing? Hint: you're reading it.)

The other thing about CELTA is that there is literally a whole rainforest of paperwork to sort. In addition to the two to four handouts we get per "how to teach" class (two of those classes per day), for every lesson we teach we have to fill out lesson plans, cover sheets for the lesson plans, and language analysis or skills focus sheets. Additionally, whatever handouts we use or create, we need an extra copy for the portfolio we send off to Cambridge. Then, once we've taught our lesson for that day, we go home and type up a self-evaluation to go in the portfolio, along with our lesson plan and the tutor's evaluation of our performance (which we get the next day, during group feedback). If we're not teaching, then we're assessing other teachers (so we have things to contribute to group feedback the next day), which means we get copies of their lesson plans to mark up with notes. And for the cherry on top, there's the written work we have to turn in. For the first two, it's quite straightforward; for the second two, since they're about planning a theoretical lesson, we have to (again) include any handouts we created for that theoretical lesson.

In case you couldn't tell, that's a lot of paper. Paperwork, and keeping track of papers, is just not really my forte. I think at least half of the stress I've had to deal with on this course comes from sifting through a whole notebook of papers. Every couple days I go on what I've come to call a "hole punch bonanza" so I can at least not have them faffing about loose, but it's still annoying.

"Oh, but Katherine, there's so many ways to organize your stuff! You can fix that easily!" Well, nuts to you. Every attempt to impose some kind of logical order on my morass of stuff degrades into chaos, 99% of the time. The 1% exception is books. My library at home is very neatly sorted and categorized, maybe because books are much bigger and easier to see? No clue. Without the time to sit and sort and purge my coursework of unnecessary faffery, things get out of control. Papers and little things are a hot mess and will continue to be so until I die.

Moral of the story? If you have issues with your executive functions, prepare to crank your attention knob all the way up to eleven if you're doing CELTA.

So three weeks of swimming in handouts and lesson plans will just do you in. My latest feedback session, I probably gave off the impression of being absolutely frustrated with myself and depressed and convinced I'm a total failure etc. It's not that. It's just a combination of 1) having high standards for myself that I never live up to 2) getting absolutely overwhelmed with handouts and paperwork and bits of paper every day, five days a week, for the last three weeks, 3) a broken sleep schedule and 4) having to, within a lesson, be conscious of five trillion things at once.

And here we're back to the executive functions bit again.

Instead of just planning a lesson and having it assessed on whether it was a successful lesson or not, you are constantly performing to CELTA's standards. Some of those are fairly broad and important, like: creating good rapport with the students, successfully conveying the meaning of new material, whatever. But others are minor, almost to the point where I'd call it nitpickery. Things like task-checking, when you drill and when you write things on the board, etc. Having to juggle all of those nine hundred things in your brain while simultaneously interacting with your students and facilitating a successful language class takes an intense amount of concentration—at least it does for me, since interacting with students and taking on the performative role of a teacher sucks up more of my spoons than other people.

(Aside, that article is really interesting. No, I don't have Lupus, but I think it works out for everyone—teaching may take more of my spoons than of a coworker's; on the other hand I can sit down and breeze through a writing or "language awareness" assignment with only half a spoon or so.)

So on some level, CELTA is going to cost you some spoons. Either you're an energetic, gregarious entertaining-type who can't bear to sit and spout off a lot of analytical nonsense, or you're a total language pedant introvert who cranks out the essays with a certain academic glee, but absolutely struggles with classroom management and engaging people. It's not even a spectrum, probably, it's more like a Cartesian plane: at (0,0) is where you need to be to get through CELTA without losing any spoons, the ideal balance between whatever factors are relevant. But of course people have strengths and weaknesses and so you have (6,0) or (2, -2) or whatever else. You're going to have to make some weekly (even daily) sacrifices and struggle (to a greater or lesser extent) through all of them as you try to traverse the distance from your point back to (0,0). And it will take a toll on you. The question is, how far do you have to go, and how much can you push yourself?

---

*To end on a more lighthearted note, the "get a Glock and mow these people down!" line is a reference to the legendary MST3K episode Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. I quoted it to myself during a break and managed to confuse just about everyone who heard me. To clarify, here's the clip. The whole thing is hilarious, but the line in question is at about the three minute mark. It loses something in the pure reading of it; half of the humor is Mike imitating Raul Julia (or imitating Mike's imitation of Raul Julia).

Fingal: Maybe I had to put up with out there, but not in here.
Mike (as Fingal): I'm going to get a Glock and mow these people down!



And for Facebook, which hates embedding video in notes:

You make me tingle, Fingal. Are you single? Gimme a jingle. ;)

Transfer of Power

It seems pretty clear that Kim Jeong-il is getting ready to step aside for his son Kim Jeong-eun. Back in January, Jeong-eun's birthday was declared a national holiday (source: the AFP). Then in March came the sinking of the Cheonan (which granted is arguable, but either way suggests that THINGS ARE AFOOT in the DPRK), and now this: a shrine dedicated to Kim Jeong-eun. According to the article, the official hand-off may come as early as September.

The all-knowing Wiki cites a lot of information about Kim Jeong-eun (alias Kim Jeong-oon, alias "Yeongmyeonghan Dongji" ["Glorious Comrade"]) from a former private chef to the family, who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto and occasionally appears on Japanese television specials as an "expert on North Korea." Tidbits include:

• "Jong-un is 'exactly like his father'"
  
• "He has superb physical gifts, is a big drinker and never admits defeat."
  
• When Jong-un was 18, Fujimoto described an episode where Jong Un questioned his lavish lifestyle and asked, "We are here, playing basketball, riding horses, riding Jet Skis, having fun together. But what of the lives of the average people?"
  

Mr. Fujimoto has written a few books on his tenure as chef to the infamous Kim dynasty; one of them will probably be next on my library check-out list.

Mostly I'm posting this because there are hilarious comments in the Yahoo! news article. They're not hilarious for their insight or razor sharp satirical wit, however; they're hilarious in a way that also kind of depresses you.

BRONZE MEDAL
From "RBT", a male in Cambridge, Mass:

I thought Kim Jong II son's name was " Mentally ILL ".

Hah! Hah! Hah! It's punny, get it? Hah!


SILVER MEDAL
From "I Voted Obama," a male from...somewhere:

Forget pissing off china, they have no oil, therefore little or no interest there.....

Clearly he is an expert on foreign policy, with such a nuanced, insightful view of a complicated political situation!


And finally, the

LOL'DGOLD MEDAL
From "Richard," male from Texas:

has anyone ever found it hilarious that these guys are Asian, but have the name "Kim"? Kim!, lol, i've never heard of an asian with a english name! KIM! LMAO!

Really, the comedy just writes itself with this one.

Kobarea: Music From the Motion Picture

Or: My Year in a Playlist

(Now with commentary!)

Part One: Getting Settled
1. Suicide is Painless [theme from M.A.S.H.] (Manic Street Preachers) [I couldn't think of a more appropriate song to lead into a year spent in Uijeongbu. Also note the theme of this blog. Cough cough.]
2. Welcome to the Working Week (Elvis Costello)
3. It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere (Alan Jackson & Jimmy Buffet) [True, Alan Jackson isn't singing about drinking on a Wednesday night so much as he's singing about drinking on his lunch break, but the sentiment is close enough.]

Part Two: The Hagwon
4. Hard Knock Life (the Annie soundtrack) [It is a pretty hard knock life if you're a Korean kid.]
5. Who Needs Sleep? (Barenaked Ladies) [Certainly not high school students.]
6. Fight For Your Right to Party (Beastie Boys) [These kids could do with a little more fighting for their rights to do anything except go to classes and lessons and activities.]

Part Three: The First Few Weekends
7.Heroes and Villains (Beach Boys)[I would say that Seoul is full of heroes and villains. Heck, even Uijeongu.]
8. I've Got A Feeling (Black Eyed Peas)
9. Fire (2NE1)
10. Woo Hoo (The 5, 6, 7, 8s)
11. Just Dance (Lady Gaga)
12. Gold Digger (Kanye West) [Korean women do have a bit of a reputation...]
13. Bublitschki (Gogol Bordello) [I can think of no song that's more aesthetically appropriate for the post-partying fatigued/semi-hungover English teacher bumbling their way through Seoul. I think it's the tuba part.]

Part Four: The Acclimation
14. I'm Afraid of Americans (David Bowie) [I still feel weird around white people. Unfortunate, considering my current location.]
15. (I'll Never Be) Far From Home (Tiga) [The sentiment of "As far as I go, as far as I know, I always got a place called home. I cross all the seas, it's fine by me, 'cause I'll never be far from home." is something I think I already knew about myself but confirmed while in Korea: home is something I create around myself, not just the country on my passport or the town where I was born or the area where I grew up.]
16. Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta (Geto Boys) [Well, it does...]

Part Five: The Departure
17. Changeless (Carbon Leaf) [Basically anything I have to say about this song, I already said here.]
18. Take This Job And Shove It (Johnny Paycheck) [Korea I miss, sure. But hagwon politics? Eh...]
19. Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver)
20. I Bombed Korea (Cake) [I did. And I have my beer, and my stories to tell.]

Fellow (ex) expats, what would go on your playlist?

Two Things I Love, Together At Last

Rifftrax takes on a Korean movie, in the form of Dragon Wars: D-Wars. I haven't seen anything by or featuring the director of D-Wars, Shim Hyung-rae, so it's entirely new to me. But apparently, D-Wars had the largest budget in South Korean movie history. If Wikipedia is to be believed, its budget was at least three times that of The Host.

I realize the odds are pretty good that you have a DVD copy of Twilight or Fellowship of the Ring. Not so much Korean explosion-laden nonsense. Here is a link to the BitTorrent, with the soundtrack synced right up to the movie. (But do the right thing and send them a bit of cash, yeah?)