Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Day 174...14 peoples

June 9 Tuesday

I ordered some books from a guy on ESL cafe. They arrived today. I got "Korean for Foreigners 1 and 2" with cds, "Lonely planet Korea"(1997 edition), "Yes you can learn Korean sentence structure in 40 minutes". I paid 26,000 won for all 4 books(including a 4,000 shipping charge). I won't be fluent but at least I'm attempting to learn a new language. I think its going to be hard to use the books though. They are all in Korean and not romanized. There is an English translation but no way to know how to pronounce the words (i was thinking it would have romanized words instead of hangul). The tape doesn't even pronounce the words in a slow manner. They speak at regular speed. Its definatly not for people starting from scratch!

I got a call at 1pm. I had to go at 2pm to sign for my paycheck at Nokbeon. A little more notice would have been nice but I should be use to the last minute notices by now. Then when I get there they tell me that I need to pay my phone bill with cash. Good thing I actually had cash on me. Why couldnt they just deduct it from my paycheck? crazy! My phone bill was 5,200 won and I don't even use it. Currently I don't even have it plugged into the wall. I unplugged it on the weekend so there wouldnt be a chance of anyone disturbing me. I don't feel a need to plug it back in. If someone needs me they can just call my cell phone. Its always with me.

Oh my goodness. They are always on my case about bills. Do you have a receipt? I PAY ALL MY BILLS! I've already given them all the receipts for the bills I've paid so far. What is the deal with having to have a receipt for everything? They bug Lesley about her bills too.

I take the elevator everyday at the subway. walking up 60 stairs really kills me-I know I need to get into better shape. I'm working on it. Plus I have the extra weight of a bookbag and gym bag. We had a full elevator today! I saw a lot of people waiting at the elevator and I was thinking "there ain't no way we will all fit", but we did! Once we all got on we were cramped. I guessed there must have been about 15 people in there. Then this one guy who could speak some English looked at me and said "14 peoples".haha.

Tomorrow is payday. I have extra money this month because I'm not paying that stupid security deposit! I'm going to the bank on Thurs or Friday to transfer some money home. I'm going to keep 500,000 won to live off of, save 300,000 to put away for vacation and I'm sending the rest home.

My first class was good today. There are 4 students. They all participated and interacted with each other during the part where I asked them to ask a list of questions to each other. I feel like today was a productive class.

In my second class we are finished with the book. They begged to play a game so I let them play games for the whole class.

My fourth class wanted me to rush through the lesson. They keep saying "go fast". Ha. They loved the song from the book. It was hilarious. After we covered 3 pages of material I let them have free time. They were writing on the board and trying to teach me Korean. They would write some words and get me to repeat them.

I had a good workout tonight. I was on the eliptical for 25 minutes. Then I cycled on the recumbent bike for 20 minutes. I rode 10km on the bike again in half the time as yesterday. Yesterday I biked 10km in 37 minutes. Today I biked 10km in 20 minutes. I must have went at a steadier pace. Then I went to Burger King and got a whopper. All that workout for nothing! At least maybe I burned off a tuna sandwich from supper or lunch. This is not good.

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