My Bum Knee.

After over twenty years of being active in some form of sports or another, I guess it's about time I suffered my first significant knee injury.  Sadly, I have been taken down by infrapatellar tendonosis.  Which is a nice way of saying I developed carpal tunnel syndrome in my knee.  Basically, from what I can gather, the injury is a result of repetitive motion and a lack of acceptable recovery time.  Tendons are made of a collagen, a fibrous material which is strong.  Unfortunately, like rope, they are prone to fraying with overuse.  Unlike rope they are capable of healing themselves but the body builds collagen slowly.

What happened in my knee is the Patella tendon began to fray a little bit due to the constant jumping I was doing in volleyball.  When compounded with a jump a month ago where I landed badly, a small injury was created.  There was only a little bit of pain and I ignored it.  However, over the course of the next month or so, the small fray began to grow bigger until two weeks ago I could barely walk without limping.  What was also very concerning, besides the limp and the pain, was the instability of my knee.  I would be walking and it would simply buckle on me.  All of these things caused me to see a doctor here in Korea.  After performing the normal range of motion tests the doctor sonogramed my knee.  He instantly asked me if I was active in sports, to which I said yes.  Quickly after that he checked my other knee and gave me my diagnosis.  Unfortunately there is no real treatment option for this injury besides letting it heal.  The bad news is that I can't play volleyball until it heals, and my knee may never recover fully.  The good news is that I get to go to the gym four to five days a week now and destroy my upper body.

Ohh, here is a picture of my knee.  The giant black hole in my tendon is the bad spot.  It's not supposed to be there.  I'm going back to the doctor's office tomorrow to get a follow up check.  Hopefully I'll have good news.  My knee is feeling stronger but there is still some pain in the area.

A Cosmic Coincidence

Sometimes in life, you just run into something that shocks you.  Sometimes they are horrible actions or events that change the very fabric and nature of our lives.  Others are moments where love and compassion ring through and they reinforce our belief in humanity.  Sometimes they are no more than a bunch of coincidences which are important only for a day or so, but still are quite shocking and entertaining.

This Sunday, I had one of those moments, a moment where the odds of it happening were so astronomical that if you had bet a penny on it happening, you would be a billionaire today.  Sunday started off like most normal Sundays do in Seoul, with the sun shining through the motel window and an aching head.  Well, ok, my head wasn't wasn't aching, but most of my friends were beginning to regret their choices from the night before.  Normally Sundays in Seoul are a good way to spend a day.  The choices are limitless, but they normal consist of some form of shopping, a non-Korean lunch and maybe a little sightseeing.  However, this weekend I had to get back to Seosan early because I was taking part in a Halloween party at a local company.  Needless to say, noon still rolled around far too quickly and I needed to be on a bus no later than 1.


After leaving our motel Hana and I headed to Central City Terminal so that I could catch my bus back.  Instead of taking the subway we decided to take a taxi.  It's only about 3 dollars and it's much faster than the subway provided there is no traffic.  As we hop in the cab and start on our way to the bus terminal it's just a normal taxi ride.  It's a ride I've made too many times to count and at this point I've pretty much tuned everything out.  Then, it happens.  I hear a bell ring as we make a turn.  I thought to myself "That was strange."  I didn't see a bell when I sat down, where did it come from.  As I begin looking around I check all the normal places for a bell to be, and finally I see it, right in front of me.  It's a small replica Liberty Bell, sitting on the dash.  At first, I don't really pay it any attention beyond just a simple "Huh, it's the Liberty Bell." 


Then, all of the sudden, I pay a little more attention to it, and it hits me all of the sudden.  This isn't just a replica of the Liberty Bell, but it's a pencil sharpener also.  In fact, it's the exact same pencil sharpener that I had in 5th grade.  While it's not the one I specifically had, what happened to that I don't know.  It's probably somewhere in a landfill.  However, this still is the exact same thing I had as a child.  At this point I start acting like an idiot because I can't believe that it's the exact same pencil sharpener I had as a 5th grade student.  It'd been almost 20 years since I'd seen anything like it.  I don't even think I saw it the last time I was in Philadelphia at the Liberty Bell Center.  Yet, here I am, in a taxi in Seoul, South Korea, and this taxi driver has one in his car.

Besides the trip down memory lane, the sheer probability of this was boggling my mind.  When you think about it, in a city of 10 million official residents, and almost 25 million in the capital area of Seoul and suburbs, and out of all the taxis in Seoul (easily over 100,000), I found the one taxi that had a replica Liberty Bell pencil sharpener in it.  On top of all that, it's the exact same one that I had when I was in 5th grade.  Now I know it was probably made in China, and the Korea is really close to China, but there really is no demand in Korea for Liberty Bell memorabilia.  What were the odds of this?  Honestly, what were the odds?  1 in a billion, 1 in a trillion.  This was just one of those random events in life, where the chances of something happening, or ever happening again are astronomical.  I have a better chance of winning a lottery I never played in Africa than ever having this happen again. 

Needless to say I remained shocked for the entire day and just marveled by the odds of all of it.  I guess I should have bought that lottery ticket after all. 

Essential turnover

It's been a rough two months here in Seosan.  In the span of two months it seems like half of the veteran teachers here departed for either greener pastures or headed back home.  In the span of these two months I went from one of the longest tenured teachers, to the longest (visible) tenured foreign teacher in Seosan.  I say visible because there are a couple of teachers here who are married, or never venture out, and a few of them have been here longer than I have.  However, as far as someone who is active in the social scene, I'm now the godfather.  It's a weird position to be in.  Before the role has always been filled by multiple people, but by sheer attrition I'm not the longest tenured public school teacher in Seosan that I know of. 


Yet, with all of this, it brings to light an interesting problem.  How can an education system expect to succeed when it replaces it's teachers every year or two.  It really does begin to boggle the mind.  Considering the expense, I don't know how the schools are making any money off of having a foreign teacher.  I understand the visible image of having a foreign teacher, and how the improves the status of the school, but if we're truly trying to make a difference how can the school expect any tangible results with such high turnover.  Every teacher has a different style, different expectations, and different beliefs on what is important and how to run a classroom.  These things take at least 6 months to implement and considering the language and cultural differences they may take even longer.  I guess it goes further to illustrate the perception of foreigners are interchangeable parts, and not really essential educators. 

While this may seem like a negative assessment of our impact and bring into question the necessity of having a foreign teacher, the simple truth is that a foreign teacher can have a genuine impact in their schools.  In one year, you ability to positively impact a school and your students is very limited.  With two years, you can begin to see noticeable improvements.  I understand the necessity of a one year contract.  Most people would be hesitant to commit to two years of teaching in a country they know little to nothing about.  It's a catch 22 really.  If they require two year commitments they will not be able to fill their quotas.  However, if they do require two year commitments they will also weed out those who are coming here with the impression they can do nothing and get paid for it. 

Either way, turnover is an essential part of the Korean job experience.  Once you've been here longer than two years you assume pretty much everyone is going to leave at some point, and that your friendships, while important and potentially life changing, do have an expiration date on them.  Once we leave Korea, we end up completely scattered across the English speaking world.  We come from all over the place and it's rare to find someone with the same home town.  I guess it's all part and parcel of life here once you stay for a long time. 

The Book Cafe

This past summer vacation my classroom underwent a dramatic renovation.  It went from a classroom which looked like it belonged in a museum to a classroom that feels and operates like on in the 2st century.  Part of this renovation also included setting up a book cafe (library) at the back of my classroom for students to be able to use and enjoy.  The cafe is an offshoot of our school library and is stocked entirely of English books, DVDs and books on cd.  The awesome thing is that these books are registered as part of the school library and the students can check them out like a regular book at the library.

Today was the first day that we officially allowed for students to take books out.  Two of my better students were up here before I even knew the cafe was open for business looking for books to take out.  I hope that the cafe will serve two purposes.  The first is to provide an place for my students to be able to find and to read English books.  My school right now might have the largest collection of English books in the city.  I have no facts to back this up but I know that you cannot find English books for sale in this city.  The second is to possibly inspire students to achieve higher.  Simply put I'm going to start using the movies as rewards for students who achieve above and beyond.  We have 4 DVD players and I think I will start using coupons that allow the students to go to cafe and to either read a book, or watch a movie.  I may even allow them to do this during certain classes due to the fact that they probably already know what I'm teaching them. 

All in all I am excited to see how the cafe works.  Simply put I think that exposing my students to these materials will help those students who want to study at their own pace or want to come here and learn on there free time.  This also gives us a tool to use for motivation.  Some students will want to come here and spend time, if they do, I can use access as a motivation tool in class.  Already today I have one of my students who has trouble focusing in class watching a DVD.  If I don't sit him up front he can't pay attention, yet here he is quietly watching a DVD in English.