New Years Resolutions

I guess it's that time of year. I've made a couple New Years resolutions.... well more like goals... to keep in mind through the year.

1. To continue to grow as a teacher.

I have a new job starting in march, as previously mentioned, and i look forward to working with real teachers. Some collaborating, curriculum planning together... it's a good thing. I look forward to this oppertunity. Maybe i'll even get some professional development, and learn more about the koeran view of teaching? That would be fabulous. Either way, i hope to continue to become a better teacher.

2. To continue working with my art

When ryan told me i needed to have more specific resolutions, i determined that i wanted to enter a minimum of two online contests with my work (prob my jewelry). I have a bunch of differnt sites i frequent that have regular contests, so the logistics shouldn't be too hard. Only problem with the 'viewer voting' contests is that it often turns into a contest where the winner is the one who's blog gets the most views, as they send over their viewers who vote for them. Either way, the important thing isn't to win, it's just to enter.

3. To improve my trombone playing.

Specifically, i want to improvise publicly once this year on my trombone. I have a meet-up group i play with, and prob will find something through this group.

In closing, here are pictures of me playing and one of some people in my group. I took the pics of the meet-up site, and they were kindly taken by the meet-up leader.

Merry Christmas everyone, and job news

I've got a new job. Starting in march, I will be working at elementary school here in Seoul. It's pretty exciting, as this isn't an after-school academy, but an actual elementary school. This means things like lesson plans, real teaching, and some freedom. I am so very pleased about this. The contract is signed, this is a done deal. My current contract is up only about 3 days before, so i'll have, like, zero time between jobs but that's okay. Another job is in the process of sending Ryan a contract to sign. We are very pleased.

Another plus about this job, and the one ryan's going for, is the drastic increase in vacation time. Both of us will be taking pay cuts, but be working far less hours and get way more vacation. We'll be getting about 3 weeks off in the summer, and hope to come home briefly during that time. A very, very nice thing that our current job didn't afford us.

Well, it's christmas day here in Seoul. Not a lot of exciting things are happening here for christmas, it's not that big of a deal here in Korea. Everyone gets a day off, but it's not a major holiday like Solal ('chinese' new year) is here. That's a much bigger one i'd say. It's interesting the way they do it here. We get a day off for both the Christian holiday of Christmas and the Budhist's holiday of Buddha's birthday. I like how that mixes together. The more holidays i get paid for, the better!

Ryan and i have great plans for christmas break. We'll be heading down to Singapore and staying at my parents place. They are in canada, so it should be so very nice to have a quiet, hot vacation by the pool.

Our place is nicely decorated here for christmas. We've got a tree, and lights all around. I even made a handmade copper star for the top of the tree! It looks great, and i'll be posting pics of it on my other art blog eventually (but prob not till after i get back lol). I'll end this post with pics of ryan and i christmas shopping for ornaments.

Jazz night, seeing Owen Hart Jr. play

This post has been waiting a bit of time for me to have a chance to type it up and post it. I am really keeping very busy here with work. The hours are kind of long... I try to get to the school at about 9:15 and i don't leave the school until 7:30 pm. It does feel like all ryan and i have time to do during the week is work, though. By the time we get home and have supper and such, it's usually about 9 pm... leaves 2 hours to do things before i try to get to bed around 11ish. It really makes for a long day... but the kids are great and the money is good so i am not complaining.

About two weeks ago, Ryan and i saw a poster taped to the ground in front of the subway station. Really... the poster was just taped to the ground. I guess they are going for a place people would be guaranteed to look? They were posted all over the place. I took a quick picture of the website portion of the poster and decided to check it out. I was intrigued by the promise of jazz on the poster, and the picture of a sax player doin' his thing. It's no trombone, but a girl takes what she can get.



When checking the website, I discovered it was in Korean (duh!). Luckily, the Korean staff at the school are very kind and helpful, and one of them helped us out by calling the phone number listed, and getting general directions to the place we are going to. We discovered it was in the Nakseongdae neighborhood, which is only one subway stop off of ours! She typed up directions as she was talking, but they were all in hangul so i could not understand them. I had to run to teach class then, and by the time i went back to get those typed directions she was gone!!!

So, Ryan and i went for a nice supper at Subway (the Nakseongdae location is the only location we know of!) and then we decided to just start looking around. Half an hour later, we were still searching for this club. We saw posters everywhere, taunting us, and the posters even had a map, but we did not understand as all the landmarks were in hangul (hangul being the korean alphabet). After a while, exasperated, i am ashamed to admit that i ripped down one of their posters with a map on it (i figure it couldn't do them THAT much good 20 minutes before the show started). I then tried asking koreans as they passed where the heck we were on the map, as we had been walking for a bit. We discovered that the best time to get koreans to help you find something is while they are waiting at the light... look for someone youngish, dressed in buisness dress, waiting for a light so they aren't busy. They usually speak enough english to point you in the right direction for what you are looking for (the buisnessy young people speak the most english).

After discovering the 'ask while they wait for the light' tactic, we finally made it to the Mo' Better Blues Bar club, 5 minutes before the show was supposed to start! The club was small and smoky, but very cozy. The owner of the club was very friendly and spoke fair excellent english. He came over to have a quick chat and drink with us, as the set was starting. He seemed like a very friendly guy. The bar made EXCELLENT tequila with lime on the rocks too... using top quality tequila (NOT Jose Cuervo!) and even top quality lime mix.






















Owen Hart Jr. was the feature musician of the quartet that night. Apparently, so the owner says, he is a very big jazz drummer in Europe. After seeing him play, i could easily see why. The rest of the quartet (a bassist, a pianist and a saxophonist) were quite good, but Owen's solos were nothing short of amazing. His solos were really quite inventive and he kept the tension tight all through his solo. I remember Dr. Lewis, an old jazz director of mine, used to say that any band can play loud. It takes a truly skilled band to play quietly. Owen mastered the art of dynamics within his solos, playing occasionally just above a whisper in his solos, with the audience so fascinated you could have heard a pin drop. Those are magical moments. Not only were Owen's solos awesome, but he truly mastered the art of leaving spaces and having quite sparse but meaningful spurts during the other's solos. In short, WOOO for Owen Hart Jr., and not only because he put me on the guest list after i messaged him about the show on myspace :).

All in all, it was really a fabulous night. Ryan seemed to quite enjoy himself as well, and was also quite impressed by Owen. I do plan on going back to that club for sure, especially after we discovered, on the way home, that it is only a 20 minute walk from our house (we didn't even need the subway!) However, i think this will have to wait until after we have been paid, as it came to quite an expensive night! We didn't get a receipt we understood and don't know whether it was Ryan's cover charge (which they put on the final tab) or my expensive tequilas that pushed it up, but for 2 drinks and 2 cokes came to 40$. If ryan had been drinking too, we really could have racked up quite the tab that night. However, it was worth it, as the atmosphere was great and the jazz was fabulous. I look forward to going back again :).

First post!

Well, this blog goes out to primarily all my friends and family back home, but also my art blog friends if you are interested. Feel free to lurk/skim/comment obsessively/ignore as desired :). I do not yet have Internet at home (until Friday morning), so i am at a local pc-bong (Internet cafe) and can therefor not post pictures. Pictures will come in later posts!

On Monday, December 22nd, 2008 (three days ago) my flight landed in Incheon (which is very close to Seoul where i live). I have moved to Seoul until (minimum) January 2010 to teach English with my boyfriend Ryan.

I have decided to embark on this great adventure for a variety of reasons. Mostly, I had been going through some life changes, and the opportunity presented itself at the perfect time. My boyfriend got a job offer to go work in Korea, as he had twice before, and i decided to go with him. I now work teaching English to elementary children here in Seoul.

Yesterday was my first day of work. The school was beautiful. It is in a high rise type place, on the third floor. My bosses seem very nice and very enthusiastic. The kids seem very high energy, but you will find that anywhere. Yesterday was the Christmas party. Ryan got to be Santa :). (He made a great Santa!). We spent most of the day creating games, including our own version of Quiddler (a word creation game). The school is now on Christmas break. School resumes on January 5th. I think the timing worked out perfectly... i had a chance to meet people at the school, ask my questions, and get things set up, and now we have 10 days to get settled into our new place.

I am fascinated here how everything is sort of all jumbled together in high rise places. At the school, the ground floor is a grocery store. Above that, there are many things such as a dentist office, a couple of restaurants and... my school :). My own apartment is on the second floor of a high rise, with the ground floor being a 7-11, a dry cleaners and a Korean restaurant. Who'd have thought I'd be living above a 7-11? That kind of thing would never have happened at home hahaha. On the other hand, Seoul is a BIG city, and it is crowded. Lines for taking the bus stretch longer than to get into an Irish pub on st. patrick's day, and that's on a daily basis in the morning. (Thank goodness i walk to work). Everything is sort of jumbled together on top of one another here. It is fascinating to see what is around.

As for my place, we are very pleased. For a Korean apartment it is really a fair size. It has nice hardwood floors, a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It did not come fully furnished, only a bed, a desk (but too nice for my art :( ), a fridge, a stove, and a bookshelf. We will still need to get a kitchen table and chairs, something to sit on in the living room, and an art desk for me. Something like a night stand and a coffee table could be nice for me, but not absolutely necessary.

So, today we are going to Yong-san neighborhood, as they have a good store for small appliances. We need adaptor cords for our laptops, so we can charge them. Then, I will be able to post at will (!!!) from home and the comfort of my own apartment (as soon as we get internet on Friday).

This morning we went out to Paris Baguette for breakfast. I am so pleased... there are three french bakeries within a five minute walk of my apartment. Two 'Tous Les Jours' and one 'Paris Baguette' (I like the Paris baguette better as they also have a juice bar and are also a cafe). Walking in there reminded me so strongly of the bakeries around where my parents lived in Germany. The place is filled with sooo many delicious breads, cakes and so much more. I couldn't resist! We had really nice french style fresh salads, and we picked up a variety of baking for at home including bread. I can bet that i will find myself there often in the mornings. Who needs breakfast at home when you can have fresh sticky bun/croissant/turnover/raisin bread/one million other things, with fresh squeezed juice, right on the way to work? Ryan and i were able to buy two lunch sized salads (that were very good), croissants, a mocha cake, a sausage turnover thing, and a baguette for only 20 dollars. The baking is mostly only around 1.50, so it seems very reasonable. I will be posting pictures of this place later. It is the kind of place i know my mom would love.

Well, i think this is already a kind of long post, so i will be off now. It would be nice if you could leave a comment here, even just to say a quick hello, so i know how many people made it over here from my last blog/to my new blog.