New semester adjustments: There’s some new kind of antivirus apps on the uni PCs. They do such lovely things as prevent you installing the apps you need and nobody else needs, like apps that play both sound and subtitled for ripped DVDs that have not been released in Asia. There’s a workaround, sort of. But I hope it stays worked around long term. There’s some kind of SQL thing running on all the PCs too, and you can’t log out of it without a password of some kind. Ack! I’m trying to slow down my speech again. Having been out …
Category: teaching in Korea
Bamboozled Redux
I just watched the Spike Lee movie again, and I gotta say, it really got me… again. I don’t get what people had against this film. The only thing I can think is that it cuts close to too many uncomfortable, sad, embarrassing truths on (all?) sides, maybe? I see those cartoons, those skits, the long set of clips at the end of the movie, and then I think of how blacks, whites, and other people are portrayed in the media in the country where I live, and I wonder: will my students get what the hell I am talking …
… San Peu-ran-shi-seu-ko~~~…
UPDATE (11/09/2006): There are a number of factual errors in this post, as to the derivation of specific Korean pop-music words. Check out Charles’ comment (appended to this post) for more info. Yeah, just goes to show you that you can’t take it for granted when people explain something to you that they actually know what they’re talking about, as I was assured of the derivation of these words more than once, back in my Iksan days. Shrug. Actually, that’s an exaggeration. The title of this post, I mean. Tonight, on the way home from the grocery store, I decided to …
Rocnknroll
One of my students from last semester asked, after I’d failed to mention it, whether I’d be running a class website like I had last semester. She seemed to be relieved that I’d be leaving it up, including the list of useful links in the sidebar. I’d say that in itself is a sign that the site was a useful resource for students. Now I just need to go in there and retool it so updating is less of a hassle. Should be easy, if I can work in a few template thingies and so on. Maybe this weekend… Another …
On The Ever-Raging English Teachers in Korea Debate
One of the best posts I’ve seen to date on the ongoing Foreign-English-Teachers-Are-All-Sex-Maniacs mediafest in Korea can be read at Scribblings of the Metropolitician. As for me, this crap is old news. A few weeks after arriving in Korea, I was accused of being a sex maniac and a tempter because I was having a conversation with a female Korean bartender, who was explaining the names of the various bar snacks to me. Which says a lot about the idiot who was saying that to me, much more than it says about me. Most human societies are obsessed with sex …
The Terrible Trio
Meetings with the three students who participated in the mini-outburst in class the other night were mixed. One student was very reasonable, asked me to reconsider the grade on a paper she’d submitted a long time before, and said that she felt the emotional hysterics of the evening before were out of line. The second student, once she saw that the main reason her grade had tanked, and that a higher grade on her final paper wouldn’t make a difference, acquiesced quickly and left. The third student, however, decided to make things as uncomfortable as she could. She questioned my …
You’d Think
UPDATE: There’s an update to this post, but it’s in the private posts. If you read it, you’ll see why. You’d think by the time graduation rolls around, every student would have learned that doing homework leads to good grades, and not doing homework, especially homework graded in cumulative performances rather than leveled evaluation, leads to bad homework. You’d think they’d know to make sure what the basis of their grades will be at the outset, to pay attention when it’s stated and ask carefully if they missed it. And most of them have. Most of them.
Doing Your Homework Helps…
I should have known, but of course I didn’t expect it. Now, I should clarify: most of the students who have come and seen me about grade-modifications have done so on relatively understandable grounds. They admitted error, but expressed an opinion that perhaps I was a little too harsh in my grading. This I can swallow. But there is a small group of students in one of my classes who basically spent the semester, to one degree or another, shirking a major assignment that I informed them many times, from the beginning of semester, would be worth 25% of their …
Teaching How to Write a Resume
Today I made a crack with my class about my teaching over the last semester. We’d just finished a very detailed examination of two different resume types, and I was asking if they had any questions, and they said, “No.” “Was it all clear?” “Very clear!” a few of them said. When I quipped, “First time all semester, I was finally clear!” A few of them laughed just a little too hard at that. However, it was a particularly good lesson. I handed out two resumes, one using the Experience-Based format, and the other using the Skills-Based format. We discussed …
Tight Shirts and the Complainer
Two things from the last week: Very tight T-shirts seem to have become de rigeur on campus. I don’t know if it’s the weather, or whether these young ladies are thinking that wearing T-shirts that show off their chests will help “push-up” their grades slightly (uh, terrible pun), but I have noticed that all of a sudden, show-offy T-shirts are being worn by just about anyone who feels she has something to show off. (The other young women are still in princess garb and plainer, baggier clothes.) It’s not working, by the way. I am nothing if not scrupulously fair …