The Great Divide
This is the least creepy photo I could find without taking one.
I was originally going to post about how I resonate better with my students than I do with my co-teachers but after thinking about it, I know that's not the case. What is true is that I find myself trying to appeal to both groups.
Korea: Serious Business
Koreans show their support for their national football team.
"You are in Korea. You must remember."
That was the threat I got from my third graders last week. How did I go from a peaceful light-hearted lunch conversation to threats on my well-being?
Minor Blog Edit
You may or may not have noticed the small change to the site. I removed the pages part of the site and reorganized my categories. The links up top now display category pages so if you're looking for my posts on Korea just click the link and you can successfully ignore all my tech, gaming, nerd, rants, and boring life posts.
As far as 'Projects' are concerned, it's mainly space for my budding game development information but I don't know what else I might end up working on so I gave it a generic label. 'Korea' is all my adventures abroad, if I manage to visit another country I'll relabel to fit the content. I imagine that's what most of my friends are here to see. Trust that more content is on the way. I still have to do the obligatory apartment post (with video) and I want to do a sort of video tour and photo walk around Yeongcheon. I might do some Daegu content but downtown Daegu is a bit too big for me to run around filming, I might just talk about my favorite spots. If you have any ideas about what you want to learn about Korea I'm game to do a piece on it. Try to ask for something you can't already learn with a Google search (e.g. food, Chuseok, noraebang, etc.)
Lately, I've been sleeping and doing the same stuff I did back home (watch movies, hang out with friends, sleep) so there isn't anything interesting to report as of yet.
Fun Fact: Scott Pilgrim vs the World is an American movie, with a Canadian star, using a English director. The actor playing Knives Chau is not Chinese but Cambodian (and pretty attractive when not styled to be a 17 year old).
Reawakening
I officially, reopened Project Silver Star (PSS) as a in-development project as of today. I mentioned before that I have been doing some offline design work for it and I have some good ideas to add to the existing design and a lot of things to cut. At its heart, PSS is a top-down vertical scrolling shooter with some minor tweaks of individuality and ideally higher standards for the genre.
The Silencing “Why?”
One day I walk in to class. As usual, the students are doing their rounds of "Hi, teacher!" Instead of my usual superstar correcting English and saying hello he was kinda down. After the lesson I noticed he was gone for half of it (yeah I miss things). Anyway the point is, I went and asked him what was wrong. At first I thought he was saying "What?" indicating he didn't understand what I said. That happens a lot so I repeated it a couple times. Then I realized, I was the one misunderstanding. He was saying, "Why?" I pretty much looked at him with a puzzled face and then shrugged in agreement and went to lunch.
Status Check: OK
I do this every now and again, just feeding a little status update. The highlights:
- Camera
- Money
- Site Updates
- Time Management
Acquire Currency
Two months in, and I've managed to save the effective amount of nothing.
I am at the unfortunate disadvantage of having school bills to pay back in the States. Even with those financial commitments, one would expect that when you're making over 2 million won you should be able to pocket some of that. Sadly, my consumption has decided against that.
I know what you're thinking, "Noky, you've only been there two months -- you have to naturally get items to settle in." No sir, I did that and then some. I think I just have a natural disposition to burn money. In fact, I know have a problem with sticking to a budget. I hoped for some reason things would be better here.
Anyway, I told you that story to tell you this one:
FFXIV: The Fear and the Reality
No one is wearing gear this good yet, much less doing anything this epic.
I purchased FFXIV knowing I was going in to a game with a host of issues. The problem is with a game this big and you really can't half-ass it. I'd hate to be Blizzard trying to make a World of Warcraft 2. Sony Online Entertainment crashed and burned trying to follow up Everquest with a solid offering. It's a really hard thing to do. That said, Square Enix has not only had plenty of time but an abundance of feedback. They also pulled a huge budget for the title.
Part of me thinks all the money and energy went in to making the most visually impressive game possible. There's no MMO that can compete visually with FFXIV and few gaming titles can period. Sadly, I don't subscribe for pretty pictures so lets get to the problems:
Yes, I’m in Korea
Yeongcheon Sidewalk and View
Korea is different. That's the great conclusion of my first full week at my post. Since this is the very first post of the saga, let's set some details down.
Location: Yeongcheon City, Gyeongsangbuk Province
Occupation: Public School Teacher
Grade(s): Middle and High School
If there's anything else, I can't think of it. I don't currently have a camera but rest assured -- I am working on that. Without a camera, it makes talking about a lot of things really boring. I can't show you any of the awesome stuff I'm talking about. Thankfully, my good friend Geoff can show you. Thanks to his blog, I found out I live pretty close to him; I was worried I lived quite the distance from everyone. His building looks nicer than mine. Anyway, check out his blog for now and trust that I will actually update mine in the near future.
Geoff's Blog: http://geoffsasianadventure.blogspot.com/
Let Your Seoul R.O.K.
I don't know what to post about. I don't have my camera so while I've seen a lot of different things, it's hard to share them with you without writing some mammoth post. Normally, this is the part where I write a short re-cap of what happened but this is Korea and I'm going to do it right. My friend told me to make a separate section and it sounds like a good idea. When the first post comes out, it'll be on a separate page much like the Project's section that never gets updated.
NOTE: The word play in the title is just to get it out of my system. I wouldn't dare subject you to it on a consistent basis.