Camping...

 It has been a while since we have gone camping. This weekend we will venture out to a campsite in our province. I plan to bring just 2 things to grill...maybe 3. A few steaks, some lamb, and sausags. The challenge will be getting the lamb. I think I will get the lamb thursday night. Let it thaw in the fridge over night and Friday. 

I will bring our tiny old grill. I am attached to it now. It has served us really well. I will bring Yogita's gaming notebook, and my ipad pro. We will watch some programs while grilling the lamb. 

One thing that we MUST bring will be an electric blanket. With out it lets just say staying warm becomes a major challenge. I had to bear hug Yogita all night as she absorbed my body heat. I could not sleep very well at all. The boys...so toatsy and warm with the blanket we brought along for them. I thought we could buy  an electric blanket at the campsite or nearby. After walking a few kilometers, I think we even hopped in the car to find a shop. The result we failed to find a place selling the electric blanket. 

I am looking forward to next week we might be heading over to Gunsan. We have not visited in over 3 months. So I am looking forward to that. 

But the flavor of this week in camping!

/tata

Will I be here net year...or not?

Most academies run the year from March to March of the next year. This is because there are major changes that happen among students. New classes are formed (hopefully) usually younger phonics learners. On the older age range students go to middle school. These students either quit or attend later in the day. Some students go to middle schools far away and actually live at a dormitory. 

So this can result in either a school being stable or needing to cut back. If there is a trend of losing students then I am out of the door!

Now if I leave our plans are to have the rent for an apartment (currently we are monitoring prices and good locations) prepared for 1 year. Next Yogita and I will upgrade our main computers. Not for gaming per se but for enhanced connectivity and for easier maintence. 

So many peope over look their cars and pc's. If it has an issue take it to a shop. With the right case a pc owner and open the side panel and troubleshoot MOST issues. If something needs to be replaced, order it online, and learn how to install it yourself Things have gotten more plug and play over time. 

Today I just got some WONDERFUL news. My sister's family finally upgraded their pcs, and internet connection. So now when we chat it will be smooth with 1080p to 4k resolution. FINALLY! All it took was a pandemic. This is big news to me and it shows that I stated above with enhanced connectivity upgrades. A pc needs plenty of RAM 16 gigabytes is ideal, 32 to 64 IF you game (running multiple clients at the same time). If my sister tells me that she has 8 gigs I will advise that she brings it upto 16. They are finally using fiber optic connections. Before we relied on our own fiber optic connection paired with a crownded LTE connection that was likely being throttled (slowed down) for network stability. Fibre optic connections....it is like night and day. 

ok time to finish Monday 10/26th 

/tata

Hump day is almost over!

 As a teacher there are some things that really make my day. I woild say the thing I look forward to the most is when  student is happy to come to my class. This is hard to see these days. Parents send their kids to many private schools for varying reasons. Most simeply do not trust the public school system. I do not blame them. Many of the older teachers are ... strange. I have heard of teachers physically abusing students. Sexual harrassment of students in full view of other students. For example one female student of mine was groped (her breast). I actually met the teacher she was talking about When he met me the only thing he was interested was drinking soju. He also smelled of soju and cigarette smoke. When I looked at the other teachers (mostly femalte) they looked very uncomfortable. This guy was able to teach for years like this. YEARS! So it is no wonder parents send theri kids to private academies. 

Another reason  is to "keep up with the Jones's" mentality. This of course places a heavy fiancial burden on families. Some parents need a safe place for their kids because both parents work. 

Anyways I have some students who enjoy just coming to my class. That makes my day.

/tata

Ugh a lost post Count your blessings!!

 I actually made a post yesterday but the browser got bugged and now it is lost. That sucks. Well October is almost over next week will end the month. Sometimes we tend to forget the small blessings in our lives. Perhaps we lose a job, then later we are actually in a better situation. Perhaps we have t move far from family even then we tend to ignore how that move actually helped us. 

Due to this pandemic I am still in South Korea. I will likely be here for one or even two more years. MAYBE. I was disappointed this year because I was supposed be preparing for our move to India next year. However, it is best that we stay in here. Things are very stable workwise my current boss (or should I say bosses) are happy with my performance. My boss has stated that I am an asset to his business. So it makes perfect sense to just wait it out next year, and maybe even the next. Our savings will be even better, my pension payout will be higher. Also the school I work for handles all work related papers properly. Which means when I do part ways it will be a very smooth process, likely very emotional.

Anyways count those blessings! Wearing a mask and washing my hands after every class has resulted in me not catching seasonal colds or the flu, not to meantion covid-19. 

/tata

20th Wedding Anniversary today!

 All that rambling in the last post, well ok it is how I feel but rambling it is today is our 20th wedding anniversary!

I think I will go over how we started our story. It all began back in September of 2000. We were both attending  Ewha Womans University. She was a graduate student, I was an exchange student. 

Back when I met Yogita for the first time she did not see me. But boy oh boy did I see her. I was new to South Korea and actually thought the Korean girls I saw were really pretty. Not until I laid eyes on my Yogi that is, all of those girls just seemed plain. I actually went on a date with a few girls (I did not know it was a date at the time) and it was a very confusing experience. I just could not understand what they were saying. They were so vague. It was obvious that one girl liked me. However, when she would talk to me it was so vague. 

When I saw Yogita she was helping a very unattractive girl (in my opinion) with her backpack. We did not lock eyes or anything like that but I could not take my eyes off of her. A couple of days later I saw her in the cafeteria, even from where I was sitting perhaps 15 meters away I could see her soft brown eyes. I thought to myself I will never get a chance to meet her. 

Well in the language class at the University there were Korean classes. Our class was the lowest level class, and perhaps 2 weeks into the semester this beautiful Indian girl is shyly standing in the doorway. The teacher introduces her and then she looks around to see where Yogita should sit. I was begging with my eyes if she could sit next to me. It was like magic! The teacher said, "sit next to Jemal si". Or sit next to Mr. Jemal. I proposed to her 3 days later. We married 2 months later. 

Now 20 years later we have 2 boys..and now a dog. I have the person I never realized I needed. 

We have had ups and downs over the years, however, she is the one for me. I can not imagine a day without her. Many people do not understand we love spending time with each other.

/tata

Successful people and happiness...

 I think it sucks that we measure success by fame or money. Happiness is often assumed to come with more money. I feel happy for a number of reasons. I guess knowing that I have gotten what I wanted out of life, and knowing what my role is in the world makes me happy. I have faith that things on Earth will get better. Even though there is so much evil in the world, I feel that a happy world is right around the corner. 

I met some friends over the weekend. They are so caught up well one friend is in politics. Politics today are meant to divide. Even Facebook executives have mentioned that they use an algorithm to make sure that divisive comments and topics propagate on their platform. It seems people today are more stimulated by hate. This will change. 

Politics place a veil over our eyes. You see the political leaders commit worse crimes, cheat the legal system more than a non top 1% can even imagine. Clinton was photographed with a known child trafficker and pedophile. Clinton is not the only one guilty many of them are. But instead of looking into them, we argue about black lives matter, police brutality. It would be so easy to solve those issues if we were not so divided. The term black lives matter is in itself divisive. Police hurt people of all backgrounds (blacks and other non-whites get hurt at a higher ratio). 

Democrat, Republican, far right, far left, liberal, conservative, pro-life, prochoice I could go on and on. These "labels" divide us. If we see someone has a different opinion as an enemy how can we sit down and solve issues? We need a greater power. It is not of this Earth. 

I will not get into religion here. However, the answer lies there. I wonder how the media will portray that. How will the higher-ups try to divide us then? 

It is funny how things that were written long ago are coming true today!

/tata

Final holiday for the next 11 weeks.

 Hangeul day or Korean language day falls on Friday, tomorrow. We have some special plans. We will do what we did last year. We will cook some kababs Lucknow style, and go to the park behind our house and have a little picnic. Maybe we will do this Saturday night. It is really nice that there is a sizable population of South Asians in Korea. It is easy to find Indian spices and mutton! 

Our family really enjoys Indian food. We had two Indian meals this week (thanks my little lady!).

Well, actually this was not completed last week. Yesterday we had a wonderful Indian meal. Meat dishes take on a new level of flavor with Indian spice mixes. 

We did not make the kebabs we actually got invited to a friend's house. More on that in the next post!

/tata

No new covid-19 cases since September 17th

 So it looks really good right now. No new cases since the 17th of last month, That was the message we received this morning on our smartphones. We will be coming out of our family lockdown this week. Of course, that could change over the course of this week. President Trump was reported to have contracted COVID-19. Funny this happened after a terrible debate. 

I believe the man is fine and this is a ploy for votes, or to distract from the fact that America is in a terrible position concerning the pandemic. Deaths are down but still with 400 plus dead from this pandemic along is just horrible. 215,000 Americans have died of course these are the reported numbers. As I have mentioned before there are far more who have died due to not realizing that the novel virus was already present BEFORE the official timeline. 

Actually, I just read this yesterday, Trump and others have spread the infection to others on the White House staff. Thanks to most Koreans wearing masks, and washing hands, even canceling trips there has not been a spike in cases. I think there were 113 cases yesterday. 

I think we can relax a little (with regular precautions).

/tata