The first lecture was supposed to instruct us on how to teach grammar. It was presented by an American who had been in Daegu for 13 years (he started as an ESL teacher) and has a masters on functional Grammar (or something like that). It was very technical and overly-complicated and needless-to-say, went straight over our heads. It doesn't help that, at my Hagwon, we don't teach grammar, making the lecture quite irrelevant.
The second lecture was called 'Living in the 'gu'' and was again presented by a native English speaker who had lived in Daegu for 12ish years (he was from Canada). This lecture was much better received and focused on how we can integrate ourselves into the Daegu community and generally how to live in Korea as a foreigner. The lecturer was quite entertaining, had good personal stories and a lot of good information. I didn't learn much new information, but some of the other teachers around me were certainly interested and jotting down some notes. It make me realize how fortunate I was to get a job at a larger Hagwon that employs more than one or two foreign teachers. The group of teachers are my Hagwon create a tight-knot community and support system for the new teachers coming in. Many other teachers are dumped into this new country with no contacts, no friends and no help. I certainly have it easy.
Upon arriving home after the seminar, I discovered that I no longer had electricity... And I still don't. I have, however, developed a new respect for my gas stove. When all else failed (i.e., my microwave and fridge), I was still able to cook (starting with the un-frozen freezer foods respectively). When I got to work a few hours later, I informed by boss that I had no electricity and she said that she would contact the landlord and inquire as to why that was... 8 hours later, I returned home to find that I still had no electricity, sped-walked back to the school to ask if she had gotten a response from the landlord and discovered that she had not, in fact, contacted anyone about the issue and now being past 11 pm, she would probably not be able to get a message through until the morning. She then suggested that I go back to the apartment and find the breaker and see if I could fix it myself and then e-mail her to tell her if it works (because I obviously have internet in my power-less apartment. Needless to say, it did not work, I walked down the street until I could pick up an internet connection, e-mailed her to say so, and then went back to my apartment, crawled into my dark bed and decided not to worry about it 'til morning.
Morning came and went. No electricity, no contact from landlond. Finally, he showed up with a plumber to fix my toilet and shower head... which I'd asked them to do a few days earlier. When they went to flick on the light, they were confused about why it would not turn on... The plumber then turned to me and said 'no problem'... YES BIG PROBLEM!!!! He looked at the breaker
switchy-thing, exchanged words with the landlord, and told me that they would contact an electrician to come fix it. 'Please
wait'... And so I wait.
At about 3 pm, the Landlord returned with an electrician, who started testing all of the outlets and determined that it was my fridge that can caused the problem. He then told me that I would have to leave it unplugged for a week to let it dry out properly before trying to plug it in again... Not cool. IN the end, the Landlord moved the broken fridge out of the apartment and moved another fridge from down the hall in to replace it. Much better. They also did more work on the toilet (it no longer leaks!). The whole process took a little over an hour. For a good chunk of that time, we were waiting on the Landlord to get something... I think, so I was left to entertain two older gentlemen in my apartment. One of them spoke enough English to make the exchange quite entertaining. They told me many times that the Landlord was a 'bone head' and was probably hit on the head as as young child. They were also interested in the photos that I have from back home on my wall. I have a good variety of different Canadian landscapes that they were quite enthralled with.
Once everything was fixed and functional, they asked me to make them some coffee. I was quite happy to oblige but all of my mugs were dirty. The Landlord disappeared yet again, returning with small paper cups. I quickly made up some of the instant coffee sticks and handed them to my saviours. One of them made a face when he drank it and asked for more sugar! MORE SUGAR?!?! Those packets are 75% sugar! I couldn't believe
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