1. Mi Nam had a bad day today. Correction, Mi Nam was a bad boy today… a very boy. I started my morning off with him deciding he was going to pee on my bedding, which meant I had to take it to the dry cleaners later on. Then he decided he was going to chow down again on his already somewhat destroyed custom-made collar, which meant I then had to go to the store to pick up a cheap one and which also meant he got sick later. He puked pieces of it up and yup, it was me who had to clean it up. Mi Nam’s bad days turn into expensive, hassle-filled days for me.
2. Got word that my friend Satoshi in Japan has just bought his ticket to Black Skinny’s fight in Japan next Monday… and I’m so envious. I’m kicking myself for not being able to go cheer him on.
3. My morning started off a bit earlier than usual because I had an early morning staff meeting to attend.
4. Had one of those “are you really that clueless?” moment during the meeting when what appeared to be a no-brainer was questioned and pushed by a coworker. Now I am by no means a genius but some times I seriously question the intelligence of those around me. I don’t particularly care for stupidity or those who sport it. “Some people just want to hear their own voice” a coworker whispered to me after the meeting. True, very true.
5. My Wednesday reading classes are pretty smooth running and they’re filled with some really amazing students. There’s a couple of guys who always sit in the front row that I love chatting up with, there’s the super hardworking student who’s named herself Michelle, a couple of my former students, and a pair of dudes who sit at the back of the room who always bring up some pretty cool reading articles to class.
6. Wednesday classes this semester are very stress free… that’s if you don’t consider the testy computers. The computer tech guy now is on speed dial on my phone and he visits my class weekly to make sure all is running smooth.
7. “Just because my favourite colour is white doesn’t mean I like white guys” I blurted out after what started out as a fellow coworker simply asking me what colour I liked turned into him directing a flirtatious comment to me. “Oh gosh” I thought, “did I really just say that?!”… hahaha. It's true though.
8. With one of my coworkers away dealing with a family emergency, I had the “joy” today of having to be a substitute teacher for one of his classes, making my four hour day a six straight hour teaching day. And just my luck they were all sports students. They didn’t say a peep in class until I broke out into Korean and asked them, in Korean, to do the task I had presented to them. My coworker who’s responsible for this class doesn’t speak a word of Korean and so I can only imagine how frustrating this class must be for both him and the students. I’m all for integrating students into an English-only environment as being the best way to pick up the language but when even simple things like “please write down your name” is not understood and takes a couple of minutes to get the message across, I really question whether or not it’s really a good idea at the university level when it’s assumed they at least have a rough understanding of the language. I mean, so much time is continually wasted with such simple mundane things and explaining grammar to a room packed with students who don’t even understand “please write down your name” is such a high and unrealistic expectation. They understood when I said “please” and “name”, but “write” was mistaken for “right , left… right, wrong” and so they didn’t know what to do.
9. Taking the bus home from school always seems to be an eventful part of my day. Whether it means me running into former or current students on the bus or stirring up a conversation with others, the bus is always a prime spot for socializing, apparently. Yesterday it was a student of mine who walked me to my bus stop and who carried all my books for me that made my journey home eventful. Today it was running into three of my students on the bus that made the bus ride fun.
10. I ended up resorting to using a lot of Korean in my class but in doing so it felt like I had somewhat switched the roles and had become the student. Two hours later when the class had finally ended, I felt so brain-drained and so I went to boxing feeling already exhausted. Junior Mint laughed and told me “Be easy on sport students. Just give them A’s and you’ll have no problem”. “Just give them A’s?!” I questioned. “I’m more likely to give them a boot in the butt than an A” I added…. Hahaha.
QUESTION OF THE DAY...
Do you think before you speak?
QUOTE OF THE DAY...
What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.
-- Sigmund Freud
As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).
After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.
Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.
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