Nhemskie's Haven

Inspired from Belle Saerae Kim-Moon segment at IOB. 1985 : Ate Nikki Daedrian Darwin and I had a Hello Kitty cake on our birthday party. That was the first birthday party that I could remember since Nanay was not really into parties. My Kuya Allen Alejandro was a photo bummer:) 1992 : Nanay generously sent me a-3.00 peso birthday allowance which I bought two rolls of bread spreaded with mayonnaise and Cheezwhiz at “ibaba.” The bread was so delicious that it was so impossible for me to resist eating them during Mommy Sylvia Cruz classes. I ended up eating them under my wooden desk during my class and left me with no snack at recess time. 1996 : It was intramurals at STC and I wore the coolest “HARD CLASS” shirt of my section, IV-St. Margarette ( Lizette Jasa , Raquel Gahol-Gregorio , Bernadette Dolor Anonuevo , Allan Abcede Alba , Moffet Alamag Sambo and so on). I woke up early, dressed up nicely (shirt tucked in my jeans) and left my Kaka’s home to wait for a ride to school...

It was a no ordinary Saturday for us.  It was a day we ’ d booked for a night at Citadines Heaundae Busan and a full-course dinner at Le Convive in Centum City. Honestly, I ’ ve never had expected that my favorite radio program,  Inside Out Busan , would give me these amazing prizes... really. Citadines Haeundae Hote l is conveniently located at the Busan Metro and a short walk would take anyone to the beach. Check in at Citadines starts at 3 pm and the hotel receptionist and staffs were all professional and courteous as we fill up the necessary information for the room that we have booked. We were directed at the 36 th  floor and found a little trouble with the elevator. Nevertheless, the room was clean, cozy and had a stunning view of the beach. The room that we stayed in had a kitchen with all basic kitchen utensils and a balcony meant for laundry. The bathrobes were clean and the towels were freshly piled up at the bathroom rack. Toiletries were provided as w...

by Thess Manangan (Busan, South Korea) ---------------------------------- This aticle was shared with us by Ate Thess last Saturday at the FEESK meeting. It was published as a featured article in KOTESOL's English Connection ten years ago. We were very thankful and fortunate to have her as a guest speaker this month. Thanks ate Thess~! --------------------------------- Are native speaking English teachers better qualified to teach English than non-native speaking English teachers? Since living in Korea for more than six years, I have asked myself this question countless times. Non-native speakers of English, especially non-white Asians, face a difficult task finding quality teaching positions. Being Filipino, I have faced many closed doors when looking for teaching posts. It is not easy because Koreans hold certain perceptions of what foreign English teachers should look and sound like. If you don’t fit their perception, then you are simply “not qualified” to teach English. I came ...

Yup. I have a new phone and this is because of Chloe. She knocked out my phone so hard on the bathroom floor that made the monitor useless for two whole days! I went to a near Anycall service center and actually planned to repair it but they said that I had to pay for around 25,000won for a part replacement, I just thought of buying a new one since there are a lot of free phones nowadays and I had used my phone for more than two years. To pay 25k for an old, really full of scratches phone (because of Chloe) is too much for me since sooner or later I also need to replace it. In the end, it turned out not to be a free phone(850,000 won / $690). Tommy bought this phone for me saying that I need a "much, much better phone" because of his daughter...hahaha! and because I've been always using free phones since I came here in Korea (which are NOT really FREE PHONES because of the additional services included in the phone bill for the first few months). So, I resulted picking thi...

Have you ever experienced walking on the right side of a sidewalk when suddenly a rushing Korean run into your direction, literally? If you won't give way, you'll just hear that someone muttering something under his breath. Or have you ever had these cases like you were doing " patintero "(pah-tin-teh-roh) with the other person when you are walking? I find this behavior very bothering (sometimes odd and funny) especially when I use the stairways in the subway. Some subway stations have escalors going up installed at the left (e.g. Deokcheon Station). What is surprising is that they even have this sign: I told this to Tommy a few days ago and I just found out from him that they learn walking at the left side of the road in their elementary days. They even have this song that goes lilke this: "People keep to the left and cars to the right. Let's cross the street after looking right and left." So, it must be because of an old convention of walking on the le...

TESOL is the teaching of English to people whose first language is not English. TESOL stands for ` t eaching E nglish to s peakers of o ther l anguages' (From left to right: My two sisters-in-law, Chloe, me, mom-in-law, Dong and father-in-law) ( Tommy, Chloe and me posing after the closing exercises of the 12th Cycle of TU-PUFS TESOL) I enrolled the TESOL certificate Program at PUFS last March, 2009 hoping to learn some new things and get a plus qualification (incentives~!) next time when I apply for a teaching job. Actually, I considered Times TESOL , or SMU first but since Times TESOL doesn't credit units for Korean graduate universities and SMU which pioneered the first TESOL programs here in Korea but is quite far here from Busan, I chose PUFS for practicality and convenience. This certificate program made me very busy for the last six months. I did the classes in the morning and had my work in the afternoon. I tried to do multiple activities all at the same time, b...

This year's summer vacation is gonna be boring... for sure. The main reason is Tommy's vacation days are different from mine. I even asked him to file a leave so we could spend the summer like a family since the three of us don't have much bonding time nowadays( I go to school in the mornings and work in the afternoons. Tommy goes to work early in the mornings and goes home very late at nights... he even works over the weekends~ for goodness sake! I blame LG for that! and Chloe, goes to nursery school from morning to afternoon, then she goes to her granny's house right after school)... but it's impossible he said. So, I'm gonna spend my vacation with Chloe. Perhaps spending mostly our time with Chloe's relatives, since her aunt from Seoul will be coming over the holidays. I'll be arranging some playdates for Chloe and her friends and maybe see the " Thomas and Friends " display at BEXCO with them. It will be really happiness if Tommy would be ...

When my sister-in-law and her family came from Thailand last month, they brought me the best gift that I could ask for --- MANGOES ! Before coming, she (my sis-in-law) asked me what gift would I like to have but of course as a humble wife of her brotherㅋㅋㅋㅋ, I said she didn't really need to bring anything. I just threw a joke that she might want to give me something that reminds me of my country (coz' Thailand is a bit similar with the Philippines because of its weather) but to my surprise she brought fresh mangoes for me and Chloe. I couldn't thank her enough for bringing them so I cut and served them like the ones in the pictures with my in-laws. They were so interested on how did I cut the mangoes into halves, complementing too that it was like eating mangoes in a tropical resort abroad. Tommy was also thrilled by the sweet taste of the fruit. For him, it reminded him of our second honeymoon trip in Bangkok last 2007. For me, their tastes brought me back to the days...

Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow . ~Oliver Wendell Holmes Life has never been easy for me when I first came here in Korea. I remember the very first day that I could just hear “swala-la-la” sounds from all of the people around me. I wonder what do they talk about and how do they make these sounds. I, for one, have been raised bilingual by my parents and have at least known somehow how I learned my other language, but when it comes to learning a third language it may mean different. The first two years had been quite such a mess and a frustration day by day but it lessened year after year of careful thinking and experience. A whole day stint Before coming to Korea, I knew how to read and write Hangeul. I learned these skills when a former student in my previous workplace volunteered to teach us (teachers) the Korean characters. Korean characters are easy to write unlike the Chinese character so it took me only a week to master the cha...

______________________________________________________ I am indebted to too many people. Many people are suffering too much because of me. The sufferings that will come are unfathomable. The rest of my life is a burden for others. Because of poor health, I can not do anything. I can't read nor write. Don't be too sad. Life and death are both just a part of nature. Don't feel sorry. Don't blame anyone. It's all fate. Cremate my body and set up a small gravestone near home, I've thought about this for a long time. - Former President Roh Moo-Hyun's suicide letter _____________________________________________________ Pictures were taken when we went to his hometown last year in Bong Ha Town, Gimhae. More than words can say, Our family is deeply saddened by what happened to the former President. He didn't deserve this kind of death. May he rest in peace.

_______________________________________________________ I was featured at the local newspaper ( Busan Ilbo ) last January 24, 2009. Actually it was a group interview composing of four "foreign ajummas" (married women) from Philippines (me), China, Vietnam and Japan. It was all about the Korean Holidays -- traditions and beliefs that differ from our native country and how we spend the Korean Holidays with our Korean family. My in-laws were surprised seeing me in the paper because I kept it a secret for days and never told anyone (except Tommy) that I'd been interviewed a few days before it was published. After seeing the newspaper (I didn't like my picture though...) they called me at once to congratulate ( if that's the word...?) and told me that my dad-in-law had a good laugh after reading the article (my father-in-law is the traditional 경상남도 남자 [Gyeongsang Nam Do Man] who never wears his heart on his sleeves. SO I got little at ease when they told me so... haha...

My mom-in-law gave me a skin care set as a gift when I first came here in Korea. I panicked over the idea that I never had tried those stuff before... honestly. So I asked Tommy how, and he quite didn't know then too(I had expected the answer) so he tried to asked his sister and I was too embarrased that I never knew these 'chronology' of things which I, as a WOMAN, should know~ Ha! So far I've had gained fairly good observations on how to use them and through several practices I think the results are amazingly good! Here's how: 1. Cleansing First you have to cleanse. There are different types of facial cleansers: cream, foam, oil, bubble or even towel-types (like wet-tissues) to cleanse your face. I do put the cream type cleanser first on my face (especially for removing make-up) gently rubbing a dab in circular motion and wiping it off with a clean facial tissue. After getting rid of the make-up, I then use the foam type, doing the same circular motion then washi...

다 름 이 같 아 지 는 이 야 기 필리핀 친구가 “결혼생활은 처음에 힘들지만 시간이 가면 갈수록 더 힘들어” 라고 말해줬습니다. 그 말을 듣고 웃음이 나와 눈물이 뚝뚝 떨어 졌어요. 하지만 한국에서 5년이 지난 지금은 그 말을 이해할 수 있습니다. 한국의 인간관계에서 힘든 점을 떠올리면 처음 한국에 왔을 때 일단 문화가 너무 달랐습니다. 문화가 달라서 아마 첫 인연을 맺는 것이 힘들었어요. 시부모님을 모시는 것, 그 중에서도 아침에 시부모님 보다 먼저 일어나서 인사 드리는 것이 힘들었죠. 왜냐하면 필리핀에서는 그런 문화가 없어요. 필리핀에서는 보통 9시쯤에 잠을 자서 아침 6~7시 사이에 일어나 자기 생활을 해요. 하지만 저희 남편 집은 저녁에 자주 가족들과 함께 식사를 하고 술도 한잔 하면 늦은 시간에 잠을 자요. 갑자기 생활리듬이 바뀌고, 그래도 시부모님께 좋은 모습을 보여드리려고 하니 몸이 피곤하고 힘들었어요. 또 한국은 필리핀 하고 음식 맛이 달라요. 어머니가 준비하는 음식이 많이 맵고, 제 입에 안 맞아도 “네~ 잘 먹겠습니다^^”하면서 먹어요. 사실은 우리 시어머니 마음이 상할까 봐 먹기 싫어도 어머니가 정성스럽게 만든 음식이기 때문이죠. 저희 남편 집 음식은 원래가 맵고, 짠데 제가 오고 난 이후로 어머니께서는 저를 위해 안 맵고, 안 짜게 해주세요. 저를 위하는 어머니 마음을 알고 나니 미안했어요. 저는 나 혼자만 한국 문화에 맞춰야 한다고 생각했었는데 어머니도 저를 많이 생각하고 있어줘서 고마웠어요. 그리고 또 힘들었던 점은 한국 사람들은 모임이 많아요. 초등학교 동창회, 중학교 동창회, 고등학교 동창회, 부부동반…… 그냥 모이는 것만 아니고 돈을 내는 ‘계’도 많아요. 한국 오고 일주일 후에 남편의 친구 결혼식이 있었어요. 결혼식 전날 친구를 소개시켜 준다고 모임에 참석했어요. 처음에는 고기만 먹고 집에 갈 줄 알았는데 새벽3시에 집으로 갔어요. 그리고 다음날 아침 일찍 결혼식을 하고 비행기 떠날 때까지 또 같이 놀았어요. 필리핀에서 결...

My vacation this year was very busy and tiring. And though I had a full 10-days off from work, those days were still not enough to have a real decent vacation where I could get a day's nap and take things slowly than my usual pace. Most of these times were spent at the Philippine Embassy in Seoul, our Community Center and the Busan Immigration . If you were keen to guess... yes, I am now a naturalized Korean. I won't say I'm very happy for this big change but I won't deny too that it'll make my life easier here in Korea and for my family too since we're all of the same nationality now. I also applied for Chloe's Philippine Passport and reported her birth as well (meaning she's now a dual citizenship holder). I'll do some more talking about the procedure next time. So, off we go to Seoul last Friday's night after my last class. We started at 11 pm and arrived at Euijeong bu at 3:30 am. Tommy drove all the way from Busan~Euijeong bu IC for four a...