Showing posts with label Random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Random. Show all posts

I'm A Winner! (or, Men Are Stupid!)

Wednesday, December 02, 2009
So, I did something pretty dumb this weekend.

In Korea, there's a chain of restaurants/bars called "Garten Bier". The drinks are pretty cheap, and you aren't required to buy food like at some other places (a common practice in Korea), so it 's a good place to meet up with friends.

Anyway, one of the other gimmicks they have is a sort of "mini-fridge" for your beer. The table has a built in cooling apparatus, which cools your beer. And the beer glasses fit in perfectly. Pictures below.



Anyway, I challenged my friend to see who could keep put their hand inside the beer holder, and keep it in the longest. My friend is from Toronto, which is further north than Wisconsin or Minnesota, the two states I've lived in. But, he's always complaining about how cold it is here, so I give him crap from time to time. So, that's why I put forth the challenge.

I didn't keep track of how long I kept my hand in, but it was definitely over 10 minutes (although we started with the cooler off, so it took awhile to cool down.) It was a struggle.

And after I took my hand out, I realized I had some minor frostbite.

Needless to say, after a couple days, my hand now looks like this:


It's a little sore to the touch now, but I don't have any loss of motion in my hands, which is the only thing I was really worried about.

And hey, you know what? My friend quit before I did, and it's a good thing he did, because his hand doesn't look nearly as bad as mine. I guess he didn't have his pressed against the metal as tightly.

So, in the end, I'm a winner!

And that' s what counts!

"I'm fine, and how are you?"

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
This is a completely random thought I decided I just had to post up, so bear with me!

As many of my fellow English teachers know, when dealing with South Korean students, the following dialogue is fairly common:

Person A: "Hello, how are you today?"
Person B: "I'm fine, and how are you?"
Person A: "I'm fine."

I think to many English teachers, this seems pretty unnatural and a little goofy. More advanced students will say other things other than "I'm fine", but having "I'm fine" as the "standard" answer to the question seems somewhat awkward, because few people say it. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but in the US, I think there are other more common answers (such as "I'm alright") that convey the same general meaning.

However, tonight I'm working on a "self-introduction" lesson, and I've come to realize that I also used to abuse the word "fine".

Back when I was in grade school, every day my parents would ask me "How was school?"

And 95% of the time (not an exaggeration...I actually may be underestimating), my response would be "Fine." And I wouldn't go into any more detail. If I responded with something else, it was quite the event.

So, I guess I was just as good at giving out a "standard answer" as all of these Korean students!

Anyway, that's my random thought of the day. Hopefully it wasn't too random.

My Korean Life (in 14 Seconds)

Friday, October 09, 2009