Blogs from Cheongju, South Korea, Asia

One of my favourite, and often quoted sayings is that by the much herald non-violent civil activist Mahatma Gandhi "Be the change you want to see in the world". My mum recognised how this had touched me and encouraged me to help others, 'do what you can, when you can, but get an education first. Don't just be helpful, be intelligent'. The impressionable 12 year old self that I was took this to heart. So I participated in MS read a thons (raise money for multiple sclerosis by reading books e.g. my mum donated 50 cents for every book I read http://www.msreadathon.org.au/), I participated in the 40 hour famine (subsist on barley sugar and water for 40 hours whilst attempting to function at school) http://www.worldvision.com.au/40hourfamine.aspx, I traversed the neighbour hood ... read more

So it's quite clear that I've been rather remiss in updating my blog as the last blog I published/wrote was in fact on Australian soil. Since then I've set my size 8 (no longer stilleto clad feet) in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Macao, Hong Kong, and South Korea. But never fear, I've reset my password, made an internal commitment to continue blogging and perhaps most importantly I actually have an extrinsic motivation to blog. This motivation is strongly linked to the next countries soil that these feet will be stepping onto - Cambodia. Thus all the necessary boxes are ticked, and I shall be adding my warbling to the already massive amounts of warbling that exist on the inter-webs. You want more information you say? Well, I'm glad you asked. So after a year in ... read more

Whilst travelling in Vietnam last year I had the pleasure of meeting and travelling briefly with a couple of American girls who positively raved about their teaching experiences in South Korea. Both of these girls were working in South Korea as part of the 'English Program in Korea', more commonly referred to as 'EPIK'. http://www.epik.go.kr/ EPIK. 1999. Teach English in Korea. Available at: http://www.epik.go.kr/. . "Clean running water? Health and safety standards? Supportive teaching environment? Pension contributions? Signs in English? Food regulations? As easy as being home? Safe? Convenient travel? No theft? Good pay? Road rules? South Korea huh, you don't say." To be fair before living in China my brain wouldn't have even thought to add any of these... read more

Dear Blog Readers, The penultimate week of curriculum teaching has been relatively uneventful. Mr Oh walked into the teacher’s office on Tuesday wearing a surgical mask. This isn’t that uncommon for Koreans but he wasn’t wearing it because he had a cold. Nor was he worried about the students sneezing violently with no hand in front of their mouth (I actually saw a student sneeze into his water bottle and pass it to his friend who was happy to drink out of it). Mr Oh had disturbed a bee hive and had been stung on the lip. Under his surgical mask was the evidence of this in the form of the biggest top lip I’ve ever seen. The students found it hilarious and kept asking him to put the mask back on because it visually offended ... read more

Dear Blog Readers, I was dealt a harsh viewing figures blow to my blogs as a result of last week’s photo-less blog with no less than half the usual number of views. Clearly the photos have roped in the illiterate crowd so Laura and I have decided to pack this week’s blog full of photos of our apartment. I've also added some random photos into last week's blog to learn from the error of my ways. Marking the exams has brought along a rollercoaster of emotions from crying at the number of completely blank exam papers to jubilation when somebody answers with, “I am an introvert so I enjoy reading books and playing computer games.” I’ve also noticed a worrying trend in the results. There are a large number of students who score very low marks ... read more