Corporal punishment belongs at home!

/rant on

The place where I work kids can get “spanked” for breaking a rule. Every week there are at least two or three kids getting “spanked”. Actually it is more like a beating, or getting hit with a rod. 

I grew up getting spanked as a child, and as an adult I realize that my personality type needed that kind of guidance. Not every child responds well to that type of punishment. Others require other methods which parents should know what is needed.

I hate seeing kids get into trouble for basically just being kids. I understand playing during class time you can lose a star or some privilege.

Ugh also when getting spanked the parent SHOULD NOT be angry. This is what I see regularly where I work. My goodness the poor kids. Apparently parents sign up for it like they are signing up for a service. Parents stop being lazy and raise your kids yourself. You can learn a lot about yourself and your child. Not to meantion building a very good relationship with your kids.

Ok I have to go.

/rant off

Might chill at home this weekend.

Yogita and I have made a large number of friends in Iksan in the past few weeks. Yesterday both of us looked at each other and almost at the same time decided that we ought to postpone our trip to Seoul.
Our hobby is gaming, and the two games we play...we have been falling behind. Only yesterday night did we start to catch up in our games.

Also I got a new gaming notebook that is almost as powerful as my desktop. I really want to “take it for a ride”. It has a 4th gen i7, 32gigs of ddr3 ram (fastest clock speed), a gtx 970m, a 17 inch display.
I really enjoyed my time yesterday playing ArcheAge on it. So there is a very real possibility we will chill at home.

On the other hand going to Gunsan might in the cards. We have some hardware (car battery charger) that we need to buy. We know where to buy it in Gunsan. We have been going to the mans shop for years. So we could hang out at some of our favorite places and get back home and charge my car’s battery. So we will have to see.

On I side note I really hope all of the students finish their essays tomorrow. Then I can get more work done on Thursday...


/tata

A chipped tooth and a dead battery....ARGH

Had a couple of things happen to me over the weekend. First I had a lot fun with Yogita. We got a lot of walking done. It was nice to hear our boys at home playing. Oscar was his usually annoying self.

While eating some really tasty noodles I bit down my metal chopsticks and yes you know by now...I chipped my tooth. Ugh. Poor Yogita was so worried. I look at it like this. Chipped tooth or dead in a helicopter crash as a billionaire. I’ll take my chipped tooth. Seriously there are such worse things in this world.

My car on the other hand it was expected that the battery would give out. It isn’t getting the charge that it needs. My solution? My buddy Hwanil made it easier for me to replace my car battery. So I can easily pop it out and take up to our place and trickle charge it overnight. The challenge finding the place the sells such devices in Iksan. In Gunsan we know a guy. I think on a weekly or bi weekly basis I will trickle charge the battery. Give it 12 hours. Actually the chargers are pretty good. They shut down when the battery is fully charged.

Ugh.

/tata

P.s On the plus side I will get very good exercise this week.

Getting Exercise

Since I got my note 8 I have been using samsung health. It is a program that has a step counting feature. It calculates how many calories you have burned how far you have walked. I know it is not an exact measurement. However, I can see if there is an increase in activity then I tend to lose weight. SO using the program helps me to make sure that I keep my activity levels up.

Since moving to Iksan I have lost 3.5 kilograms. I need to keep it going if I am going to lose more weight. Diet is the most important factor. I have recently gone back to a bad habit of eating at night. I need to get some nuts in the house. They really shut down my appetite. When the snows come I will not drive as often. Gotta keep the burn going. For me the real challenge is in the summer. I sweat a lot. So there is a tendency to stay in cool places and not exercise. Which can lead to weight gain, even though I eat less in the summer.

Tonight’s plan: drive home then walk back to Yogi’s workplace. Then we will walk around the neighborhood getting more exercise.


/tata

Kids and getting bullied.

Yesterday Yogita had a difficult class. One of the students was throwing a temper tantrum. When Yogi spoke to the mother she said that her son had started to change after he joined elementary school. When I heard this I was brought back to when we were little and some observations that my mother noticed.

You see before we went to school we rarely fought. We never teased each other. We got along pretty well. However, public school changed all of that. We started lashing out at each other. Making fun of how we looked. Over time we started to fight more with the intention to hurt each other’s feelings.

At school one thing that happened to me was that I bullied. Other kids would also get bullied usually by one kid in the class, or a group of kids. This resulted in me becoming more of an introverted person. I became shy, would react violently to teasing from my brothers.

It took years perhaps late middle school early high school for us to make up, and stop that distructive behavior. We started becoming more supportive and loving towards each after we got married.

I will tell the mother that her son is getting bullied in school and is showing the same symptoms that I have seen in my own professional experience. You see we taught many children from kindergarten to high school. We saw the same thing happen them. Moods suddenly changing due to being bullied. The kids told us everything. For some reason Yogita and I make students so comfortable that they freely tell us things that they would not tell their other teachers or parents. Puberty plays a role as well. But when a child is in elementary school it is likely bullying or excesses teasing which is basically the same thing.

Some of my students Tina, Philip, and Marcus are here so I have to go!

/tata

Can not wait for next week!

Once a month Yogita and I will travel to Seoul and try different cuisines or just look around at places we have been to in the past. Seoul is where our story started. It is fascinating to see the changes. Next week we plan to try South African food. Josh has a friend who is running her own restaurant. We will drop by have a taste of South Africa.

I will be honest I am more excited about East African food; Kenyan, Ethiopian to name a couple. We plan to get some good exercise while enjoying the sites and sounds of Seoul. When we travel via train or bus I do not have any stress dealing with parking.

We will have to book tickets early for the KTX.

Ok my students are here RIGHT NOW. SO I have to go!!

/tata

The boys are having a ball.

Ms. Choi has two homes. One them is where her heart is. It is located about 30 minutes from iksan.
This small town called Gosan has a very active community oriented culture. The have many modern and new ideas in so many areas. Education, they do not follow the damaging trend of having kids study for a ridiculous number of hours. Instead they an approach that in my opinion is more holistic. Study subjects in small class sizes. The student to teacher ratio is small.

The high school is having a star viewing event. The students are learning about the stars in a very hands on way. You see the night of the viewing many planets will be visible. Our boys and Oscar have been in that community all weekend until tomorrow afternoon. There have been numerous get togethers. It really is a wonderful small town. Oh most homes are equipped with sun roofs.

Ok I here kids..

/tata

Korea's sandwich days strike again..

Ok so here we are Monday and Today are work days. Tomorrow is a national holiday which means it is back to work on Thursday. Thus we have the term sandwich day. This nice but odd. The sandwich starts out with you relaxing at home. Feeling good that you do not have to come in for work or school.

I recommend using your day to the fullest because come evening...it is time to prepare for the rat race once again. So I will likely be up early gaming, listening to youtube and having a little fun on my ipad.

My family well except Yogi she tends to enjoy sleeping it will get up and try to get the most out of the day. One nice thing about these kinds of holidays is that it speeds the week up. Time always flies when you are having fun.

Yogita will cook lamb curry, I am looking forward to that. MAYBE we will see a movie. Venom opened last week in Iksan, so it would be nice to watch that movie.I will try to walk 5km everyday this week. Gotta burn those calories.

Ok my little people are here so I have to go.


/Tata

A double post day!

I only have 3 more classes left then we will head to Gunsan. There is a very nice Chinese restaurant that opened 2  months ago. The owner is also the chef and...lets just say her food is so good that I end up daydreaming about it. We made a video on facebook I will link it here https://www.facebook.com/jeyo.hogan.7/videos/pcb.2020816931272038/2020814511272280/?type=3&__tn__=HH-R&eid=ARDse3N6O9qsOzwx60ZhPrTYy_-iUOqS-6BWQkH3PpV4bOaLPiowhnPZQX-kc3F1Mjx9PAEoxoe9hnNN

Such good food. Our boys understand this and they love it because they get a little more free time. Tomorrow a friend of mine Steven will be smoking ribs at Josh's house. That would be quite nice! Plus I can meet a friend who I have not seen in a long time, and spend all day my best friends house!

Hmm, the students are running late today. Ok time to go.

/tata