Miscellaneous

Just some random thoughts and observations.

Having been in this school for a week I have been amazed at the amount of Simpson's merchandise the kids have. I have ten different classes of kids all with around 30 students and at least 25 percent of them have some sort of Simpson's item. There are pencil/pen bags, t-shirts, sweatshirts, pencils, erasers, notebooks and so on. It reminded me a little of when I was in elementary school and the show first came out and everyone had Bart Simpson stuff. I just can't imagine that any of these kids actually watch the show and if they did they wouldn't really understand most of the humor. It just seemed odd to me.

The lessons we use in class have multiple parts; workbook exercises, videos, songs, cartoons, games, etc. In all these parts the material uses examples from different countries. There will be a cartoon with a kid from Korea talking to a kid from Singapore and a kid from Australia. I have noticed that every time the United States comes up (cartoon, flash cards, video) there is almost always a cowboy theme. Today we were practicing naming the flags of different countries and saying something famous that came from there. The American flash card had a cowboy and Indian (Native American) on it and the kids yelled out “The US and they are cowboys.” I just couldn't’t help but laugh. Some of the kids looked at me and I just smiled and said they were doing well. Also every American has blonde hair. So while I may not be a cowboy I guess that I fall into that category.

In my apartment I have a washing machine. I have never had a washing machine in the apartment I lived. I have always had to go to a laundry room of some sort. And the washing machine they gave me seems brand new and is by far nicer than any of the washing machines I have had at my other apartments. The only thing was I did have to get one of my work friends to come over and translate all the buttons on the machine since they were all written in Korean. But despite this nice washing machine there was no dryer. I guess they don't use dryers in Korea but just air dry everything. So Sunday morning I did my first load of laundry and hung everything up to dry. It took two days for everything to dry and all I washed was a load of whites (undershirts, boxers, socks) nothing heavy. I couldn't believe how horribly inefficient air drying was. I just can't understand why a place that has such nice washing machines doesn't also make dryers? It seems like an obvious progression to me. It is the first thing I have really been annoyed by since moving here.

Lastly I still love all the English writing the kids wear on the clothes. Today one of the boys had a shirt that said I hate polar bears and I couldn't help but wonder if he knew what it said. I never asked.