By technomonkeyx, on August 29th, 2011
After completing the final draft of Monster I did a few things; first was emailed my family, then facebooked the friends telling everyone to come here and check out the story and finally, started formatting the story for submission to Wet Ink, an Australian writing magazine I think (and hope) will publish it. Well it turns out that if I publish it here, despite the low readership, the story counts as published and it becomes ineligible for publication in Wet Ink (and I presume any other magazines that I’ll flog it to if it’s rejected by Wet Ink. A process that will take four months. !! Ah!)
So, I’ll continue writing and then, continue the long process of submitting the stories all around the world for publication here and there. Sooner or later brilliance is always found, right? I’ll just have to work on shining that brilliance until then.
Korean News
It’s amazing how quickly you forget things and its amazing how inhibited your learning is when you take a class at a level that is too high for you. In my last Korean class at Yonsei university, level 4, I struggled, but I learned the grammar and I got through. Now, 2 months later, most of that grammar is forgotten (as we hardly ever practiced it in the course) and my still pitiful vocabulary is holding me back. I had an interview for Sogang’s language course today. Reputably Sogang are much more speaking orientated and, despite the facilities being much older than Yonsei’s, the staff were kinder and much more interested in putting me in the correct level. It didn’t take long before I grew extremely frustrated with both the speaking test and the long written test (the woman reminded me of myself when I was told to interview 20 students thoroughly in 40mintes). After practically giving up, she went and printed me about 30 pages of revision homework to complete before the first class. If I can do all of it without any problems, then I’ll take level 3, if not, then level 2. Either I think will be fine; I’m looking forward to speaking practice and improving my vocabulary. I think these two are the biggest sticking points for me at the moment.
School News
School started back today and I’m happy to be busy again. The holidays were wonderful but I allowed too many things to get on my mind and was beginning to stress, idol hands… Today I finished designing a new rewards scheme for our classes that incorporates individual rewards with a class reward system, I think it’s going to work really well. Lessons start on Thursday and over the next two days I have lesson plans, new seating plans and student selections for the brand new remedial reading classes (5th grade and 6th grade, my idea – so the pressure is on). The goal is to have 90% student literacy in grades 5 and 6 by the end of the year. At present, we’re probably at around 50-60% (and those who can don’t necessarily read well.)
By technomonkeyx, on August 1st, 2011
I won’t write much because writing about this will be tiring but I am thankful I didn’t see it at the movies in 2009 when I had the chance. Never have I seen a movie more stupid and yet at the same time, intermittently fascinating. I can’t help but wonder that if the film makers had the sense to strip away at least half of the stupidity in this film, if that would have been enough to elevate it to a truly good and unique film. Well, it sure is unique anyway. Watch it in 5 minute chunks over breakfast.
By technomonkeyx, on July 16th, 2011
When I started this blog it was all about travel and if you’re reading this due to a subscription or prior visit of any kind, I’m extremely grateful for your interest in my stories and the general stuff that makes up my life. So as most travel bloggers realise, there comes a point when their travelling stops, either permanently or temporarily, [I expect I am the latter, though you never can tell.] and the suddenly, the content for the blog stops too. When my travels stopped my life changed dramatically; I returned to South Korea and took up teaching again, in a different school, location, student age group [elementary as opposed to high school] and with new friends. Time was short and when I did sit down to write, I wondered this – what the hell should I write about?
Adventures haven’t stopped and stories are a dime a dozen over here, but after I finally got over the excitement of the move and the [re]adjustment to living in Korea again, I soon fell into a slump – did I really want to spend my few spare moments blogging about matters and stories which just seemed trivial my comparison to all else I’ve written? Furthermore, would anybody even care or be interested? Writing about Korea and teaching would surely require a change of blog design and urk… It became a headache, so I stopped and thought – for a long time.
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For the past six weeks I’ve spent most of my spare time writing fiction and have completed three short stories [around 3000 words each] and a short novella [22,000 words]. The novella is might largest piece of writing so far and I don’t believe it totally sucks. Also, I’ve been reading about a book and a half each week, closer to two books a week if you count audio books. On Writing by Stephen King has improved my writing dramatically as has The Elements of Style (Strunk & White). Most importantly, I realised how much I truly enjoy writing. The process is always a challenge and, I am forced to discipline myself into writing every day, but it’s happening. On average I’m writing around a thousand words a day, twice my modest minimum of 500 and as of today, I’ll be changing my minimum to 1000. As per Stephen King’s advice my works are currently sitting and maturing (each for six weeks) before I’m allowing myself to write the second draft and then, after some feedback and a third draft and more, I believe I’ll begin to publish some or part or all of these works here. So that’s what I’ve been doing these days.
Yesterday Semester 1 finished and this Monday, three weeks of Summer English Camp begins. After that there’s a week of work from home and two weeks of holidays. I had originally planned on seeing Japan but I can’t justify spending half my savings on a two week jaunt when I could do a month for the same cost (if i had the time.) So that time will go to seeing more of Korea and to writing, honing my craft and relaxing.
I do deal with the occasional bout of loneliness and wish I lived in a two or three bedroom unit where there were others to mingle with (in the common areas) when you feel like doing so. I’d also like to find a girlfriend and believe I’ve spotted someone special, though there’s a good chance she’s out of my league. Still, time will tell.
As for blogs, this website will slowly become a mishmash of even more things. The occasional teaching related post, Korea things, personal stuff for my family, tid-bits that interest me and when they’re ready, larger works of writing. For anyone out there who is reading these, thanks for sticking about.
By technomonkeyx, on June 28th, 2011
Last weekend was spent with good friends in Seokcho on the eastern side of Seoul. Dave has written an excellent post on the adventure, so I’m going to be lazy and post a link to his blog here:
http://baileybrosbuildingandloanabroad.blogspot.com/2011/06/rainy-days-and-mondays.html
True updates will begin soon.
By technomonkeyx, on May 20th, 2011
About a month ago a sixth grade boy very seriously declared his love to me, correcting my misunderstanding by grabbing my arm, staring me in the eyes and saying ‘No. I REALLY love you.’ Today, he had this interesting thing to say to me… We’re sitting down back, he, his friend and I for a speaking test when suddenly he reaches over and smells my arm, exclaiming in Korea ‘Oh! Watermelon smell!’ I hadn’t been near a melon for days, let alone eaten one. ‘I smell like watermelon?’ I questioned. ‘Mmm,’ he laughed. ‘Tomorrow we get married.’ What is going on… honestly, there’s something about me that brings out the strangeness in people.
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