I was a freshman at the University of Texas, and the one-week spring break was coming up. Some students went home to be with their families in Dallas or Houston, rich ones took skiing trips in Colorado or places more exotic, and others...
Who is Avril Levigne? Heck if I knew until I read about the Canadian singer/songwriter in one of the LIKE textbooks. Kim Hee-Man, director of the Yongsan school, had written it himself and so it was part of the curriculum. He thought...
I am writing this nearly two years after the fact, so I have forgotten some of the details. I wish I could have forgotten all of them, for reasons that will soon be clear. First, permit me to set the scene. The Chilgok LIKE School where I...
He really did not want to talk. It was early in the morning in Los Angeles, and I was calling from Austin to do a telephone interview for my book about integration of Southwest Conference football. No, Bubba Smith was not too happy that day in...
During the 14 months I taught at a pair of hagwons in Daegu, I had what seemed like thousands of children troop through my classrooms. There were all kinds of personalities, from painfully shy and introverted to bold and brash. None, though...
While visiting my former home (Texas in the USA) in February 2011, I had a plan. I was going to purchase a lot of books and bring them back with me to Korea. I entered four Half-Price Books stores in Austin and Dallas, and after careful...
I really did not experience culture shock when I left Texas for Korea. I had been here once before (briefly in 1994) and had some idea what to expect. Furthermore, I was walking into a situation where my job and housing were already...
Shortly after I agreed to become one of LIKE’s teachers back in 2007, I took an online course and earned a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL). I thought the extra credential might come in handy at some point...
I dearly loved some of my students at the Chilgok LIKE School. But when it closed in April 2008 and I moved to the Yongsan branch, my happiness quotient tripled. Now I lived near a subway station and a Home-Plus store, I was two...
The contract I signed to teach at LIKE School in Daegu was for a year, but I ended up giving the Kim family 14 1/2 months (mid-November 2007–January 2009). The classes were usually 40 minutes long, and the beginning was signaled with a...
I have been called sports-obsessed more than once, but really it’s not true. While I appreciate athletic competition and excellence, I do not live and die with it. In fact, I feel pity and a measure of scorn for those people whose lives...
2007: Daegu (November 14), Seoul (December 25) 2008: Gyeongju (February 23), Andong and Hahoe (June 28), Changwon (July 18), Busan (August 16‒17), Goryeong and Haein-Sa (October 4), Mungyeong (November 7) 2009: Ulsan...
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