L.O.V.E.

Here I set in a coffee shop no bigger than a middle class American Master bedroom sipping on espresso as if it is going to make a bigger difference than last time ;). Don't get me wrong, I'm not depressed or even overwhelmed, but I am tired. It has been 10 months since I finished my student teaching for my undergrad and I can honestly say that just now I am beginning to feel like I'm regaining a little bit of what the essence of life sucking experience demanded of me. I think that sometimes there are things and situations in life that would break anyone who wasn't meant to endure them in half. Student teaching while working weekends at a busy coffee shop is one of those! In fact, had it not been for God, I would have likely ended up in a wrecked car, a hospital bed, or a psychiatric ward.

Since student teaching I have donated a third of my belongings, moved another third of them to the state I left 6 years ago with my family, and left the other third where they were at my merciful storage unit, also known as my friends' house.   I don't believe in hanging on to a material possessions if you simply cannot part with it. If you don't feel like you can part with something, then in my book, it simply comes too close to competing with God. Our lives are but a blip on the radar screen of time. Any material possession I have or have had is not due to my own capability but was given to me. Yes I may have worked hard and put hours in to earn the money to buy those things, but not without God putting the breath in my lungs, the food in my stomach and a healthy body that functioned well enough to do the tasks. Without His continual hand upon my spirit and life, I would be no different than the other pieces of dirt I walk upon with the shoes He provided for me.

I don't look at my life as mine. If it is mine, then I don't see it that way because each day I give it all right back to its Creator. I feel so lucky, for I feel like I have been let in on the biggest secret that is always telling others about itself but no one listens. I'm not entirely sure why I listened, but I don't question it in perspective that I might miss out on another exciting new perspective it has to share with me. The secret is  Christ. The most loving, powerful, just, merciful, caring, forgiving, righteous, amazing, decisive, understanding God and King of all existence. I'm not sure why, but He decided to make us. He decided to make us with all the emotions, creativity, strengths, weaknesses, and complexities that we have. Then, once He created us, He wanted to share with us, and be given back a kind of love that only He can give. In order to do this though, He had to become vulnerable. In order for us to experience and give and embrace His creation of Love, we had to have a choice. You see when you take the free choice out of LOVE it simply becomes love. It becomes something short of its original intent, and therefore becomes corrupt and sold short. It becomes gossip, lust, greed, a grudge, confusion, regret, revenge, it becomes... sin.

Now you would think that anyone in their right mind who had any concern for their own well-being would give someone else one, two, but at the most three chances. After three times of getting burned, back-bitten, betrayed, sworn at, cursed, defiled, cheated on, and much more, that should be it! No more! Right? Wrong. You see, that is the extent of our love, because we don't understand LOVE. Before we can understand LOVE, our understanding and living in love must die. We must come to the end of who we have convinced ourselves that we need to be. We must first give up our own "freedom" if you will, in faith that true FREEDOM and LOVE are one in the same. For you see, as long as you hold on to you and what you think is importan... as long as you refuse to make yourself vulnerable and look into becoming more, finding out why you are really here, you will never experience this incredible LOVE, FREEDOM and YOU that was created by an incredible Heavenly God named Jesus Christ who loves you so much that He gave you all you have in hopes that you would want more and better  and choose to love Him back! He wants to give us so much, He wants to help us see this world in a new light, a new excitement, a new way that is literally only possible if we come to the end of us and reach out vulnerably and give our lives to Him to fill with Joy, forgiveness, healing, and joy. This freedom can only be found in the giving up the bondage to sin in our lives and claiming our belief in Jesus Christ and the cleansing power of His blood shed for us on the Cross.

So, now that the espresso is gone, the hour has passed and I have had the blessing and joy of sharing a glimpse of the joy that literally renews me daily, I digress to go rest and do it all again tomorrow. May joy fill your life and you experience the same joy I don't know what I would do without. ;)

Full of inspiration!

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement, nothing can be done without hope and confidence." -- Helen Keller


"A very wise old teacher once said: "I consider a day's teaching wasted if we do not all have one hearty laugh." He meant that when people laugh together, they cease to be young and old, master and pupils, jailer and prisoners. They become a single group of human beings enjoying its existence." -- Gilbert Highet


"Learning is finding out what we already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, and teachers." -- Richard Bach


"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming." -- Goethe


"In education it isn't how much you have committed to memory or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know and it's knowing how to use the information you get." --William Feather


"I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." -- Christopher Reeve


"Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers."--Josef Albers


"Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants." -- John Gardner


"A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had in the bank...but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in the life of a child." -- Forest Witcraft

9 MONTHS!

Depending on your perspective, nine months is either long enough for God to create a baby, or not nearly long enough to live in one house. Like I said, its all a matter of perspective. Whichever view you lean towards the period of time is concrete at least to our human understanding. During that length of time in the most recent history of my life I find gross number of experiences I have been blessed with incredible. 

         During this time I have entered my 10 country and 3rd continent.
        I have eaten sea creatures I both didn't know existed, and others I wish still didn't.
       I have sat on the floor more while eating than I did during my entire childhood at play. (possible                                                                                         slight exaggeration there. ;)
  My world has been flipped upside down when it comes to conversation! I have been in a world where                        .   instead of being able to have higher levels of conversation in my own tongue with elders, it is the youth                  .    Just when I thought I had  perspective, it all changed.
       I have been in a world where Biggie-sized drinks are dwarfed but the human desire for repeated-      .           .       refills are the same.
.         To attempt to once again, gain a perspective I would reach for something I knew, like coffee.
.           NOPE! Finally my persistence has payed off, but for the first month I was truly terror stricken that .          Millions of people in Korea believed coffee came pre-measured small packages containing 8% .         .         coffee imitation, and it was the best coffee ever!
         Just when I thought I had perspective it all changed.
.       Before coming to this beautiful land of mystery and adventure, I didn't suspect I would go through              .      culture shock.
.     Wrong!
      Just when I thought I had perspective, it all changed.
     I stepped into a world where space has become so limited that to put the word personal before it would .   be selfish.
  Even though I originally, and sometimes do still struggle with that, I can now begin to see the beauty .    .     within it. A common thought among many westerners when visiting this land is to think that things . .       are done wrong. Then they hear other say "not wrong, just different". Then they play along with .                                               .         the phrase while still believing inside that it is wrong and and "not as "good" as my  country/culture". Then there are about two more groups of people. Two groups between which I .              tend to categorize myself. The two groups are those who can see that there little things that are different about this land and people that flows in a beautiful way, and, those who have been able to fully embrace the culture and breath it in so that they begin to become part of it, not just a piece of debris floating aloft like yellow dust.

If there is one important glint of light I have been able to harness in my retina long enough to enjoy its beauty, it is that sometimes even things that appear to not make sense, like run on sentences, improper word usage, ridonculus words that only half the people understand and cultures on the other side of the world, like the format and out-l;i,n.:E of this paper can be crazy, but you have to look beyond that, and listen to it with your heart. Sometimes to see what God is trying to show us, we have to quit trying to figure it all out, and be still, listen, trust, follow, and know... He Is G-D! ;) pEaCe BEEE wit ya! Batter Up!?



       

 

DON'T CENSOR ME!!!!!!! ;)

I have now been in South Kor... for about 9 months. So in a weird sort of way if I was a baby I would now be taking my first breath in and out in this new world. For the past 9 months I have learned more things about the Kor... people and culture than I can reiterate in this post. Although, there is one aspect that I would like to bring up, censorship.

Even though I don't speak the Kor... language "Hangul", I do learn many things about the culture. I volunteer to teach a college age young Kor... woman English on the weekends, I teach an English speaking class full time during the week at a public high school, and meet new Kor... friends on the Kor... University campus I am near. I also play in a saxophone group that rehearses and performs together. I am the only native English speaker out of about 18 people. Needless to say, I have more exposure to Kor... culture than I could ever get from researching it back in the United States. Thankfully I tend to be a rather observant person.

DON'T CENSOR ME!!!!! Since this blog will be read mostly by Native English speakers from Western cultures, I will direct my comments to them. Below I will include information on the censorship within Kor.. from various sources along with personal experience. This is the place for you to feel free to post your thoughts and opinions. Please take into consideration that this is a blog viewable to all audiences. I would love to hear your opinions and questions. If I don't know, I'll ask a Korean friend or research it myself other places.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_South_Korea

“The nation of S. K. is a world leader in Internet and broadband penetration, but its citizens do not have access to free and unfiltered Internet. S.K.s government maintains a broad-ranging approach toward the regulation of specific online content and imposes a substantial level of censorship on election-related discourse and on a large number of websites that the government deems subversive or socially harmful.[2] Such policies are particularly pronounced with regard to anonymity on the Internet”

“Since 2008 illegal websites such as unrated games, pornography, gambling, etc., have also been blocked. Attempts to access these sites are automatically redirected to the warning page showing "This site is legally blocked by the government regulations”

“In 2007, numerous bloggers were censored and their posts deleted by police for expressing criticism of, or even support for, presidential candidates. This even lead to some bloggers being arrested by the police.[“
<sup>(Personal experience)
During my privileged time of teaching this year I have had several instances of both male and female students using the "F" word toward each other or various other words that would be deemed "inappropriate" for a professional school setting. Most people would simply tell the student not to say those words and move on. After punishing a student with typical Korean discipline (exercise) the first time it happened in my class, I observed the confused look on the students' faces. I then decided it was time to further investigate. In broken English that the students could understand (leaving out articles) I asked them, "what does the word "F" mean"?  The students didn't act like they were holding back knowledge, they genuinely didn't know. You see, in South Korea censorship even extends to the big screen. What is on the big screen? Many American movies  with many "professionally inappropriate" words in them. The catch is, when putting up the sub-titles, the "bad" words are simply all translated as the equivalent of  "oh shucks" or  "oh man!" So students then use these English equivalents in public in place of the non offensive or conservative Korean word they meant to use.

What are you thoughts?
1. For a country that prizes unity and looking at what is best for the whole first and individual last, instead of vice verse like the States does, is it a good or bad thing?
2. Does this share socialist characteristics?
3. Is this helping shield the public from dealing with many problems Western culture already faces?
4. If you have a Google account, please sign in a drop your comment on this actual blog instead of other places it may be linked to if you have time. Thanks again for your time.</sup>

Korean High School Education

This is a quick glimpse into a typical testing situation in a Korean public high school in the city of Cheonan, South Korea.

Student population: Approximately 1600
Class size: 40 students
Classroom description: Each classroom has 40 desks distributed into 5 rows. The rows literally touch the back and front of the classroom to fit as many students as possible in. On the hallway SIDE of the classroom there are two sliding wooden doors with frosted or tinted glass window in them, minus one that can be used to see in. The first row of desks is literally blocking both sliding doors so that students must move their desks or be sitting very close in order for anyone to get into the room. During test time, each of the rows are spaced about 2 1/2 feet apart. The floors are wooden even though this building is only about 5 years old. Also due to the poor maintenance given to the building, it already looks 20 years old. The maintenance is partially due to the students being responsible for cleaning their own class during a 20 minute cleaning period each day instead of a custodial worker. Any native English teacher in South Korea asked to  describe cleaning period would likely mention students pushing around dirty mop water for 20 minutes. There is a large chalkboard at the front of each classroom that is capable of moving up and down on vertical tracks to make viewing from the back of the room easier. Also on the front right of the classroom suspended from the ceiling is an newer, very thin, TV.

Students: The students in this particular high school are divided up into gender specific home rooms. When they attend other classes they are sometimes co-ed. During testing it is common for students to be handed 3-5 large sheets of thin gray paper on which the test is printed. The students are also handed a scan-tron bubble sheet to mark their answers on. Of course there is silence expected throughout the hour long testing period. During a testing day they usually take 3 tests with a ten minute break in between each. They also have a one hour long study period among those periods. The material for their mid-terms is written by their teachers from the material in their curriculum. Since my class is a speaking class only, I am not asked to write or grade a test for English speaking.

Questions: If you have any further questions about Korean testing in a public high school, students study habits, common practices, discipline and so on, please just ask.