(Apologies to dial up users - there are still some of you out there - lots of photos in this one)
Almost half way through the winter vacation season and I'm still not on top of things - but what's a guy to do? Today however was far from pleasent thanks to one of the kids in my 12:00 class who decided to play the little shit class. After 40 minutes and finally realising that no number of bribes or threats were going to work I dragged his punk ass out of class and made him sit in the foyer to start his wor's simply not good formk with 10 minutes to go.
'The Boss' came out and proceeded to give the erant child not two but three swift cracks to the back of the head - quite hard - which settled him down somewhat and that was that. A couple of kids in my so called advanced class are also giving me the shits. More accurately one is misleading another relativly good lad and so I had to have a few words with them this afternoon - hopefully they will sort themselves out for at least a couple of days.
While I'm not that concerned at the events that transpired at twelve - boys will be boys - the aftenoon lot are worrisome in that it's an extra class which parents are paying extra and for which I am getting paid extra, I don't think I'll get fired over it, (I hope) but it doesn't look to good, and it's not really good form is it.
In other news
Let me introduce to you the new W5000 note
There has been talk of the new notes for ages and I was aware that new designs had been chosen. I did do a double take this evening when I went into the LG25 for a pack of durries and got this in return.
I must say it looks a whole lot nicer than the old one, and has a sort of Euro feel to it. As you can see it retains the picture of 율곡이이 who lived in the 16th century
I particularly like the new hologram showing the Penninsula and 5000, you can't see it in the photo but when tilted in the light it shows the 4 ideograms on the Korean flag (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) (??) You should also note the new counterfitting measures in the improved watermark and metal strip
There is also no doubt micro printing on the note - I would say somewhere in the face. The serial numbers have been romanized and also of note the seal of the bank of Korea has changed to the more modern square version and it clearly states "Seal of the Bank of Korea" or 한국은행총재. The note also retains the Dots found on Korea's currency - 1 dot for the W1000, 2 for the W5000 and 3 dots for the W10000.
I cannot verify where but I did hear that counterfit notes were on the decline in Korea due to the relative ease of electronic fraud as compared to printing out bits of paper which can be tracced a little easier. I dear say that Bank Cheques are probably a bit easier to fake as well, Korea's highest denomination only being W10000 so large amounts of money are paid out in standardised bank cheques which are fully negotiable.
In totally unrelated news I have now had my new phone for 2 weeks now and have a few things to say about it.
Mostly praise infact for a phone I have lusted after for some time indeed. Firstly it's size cannot be compared (although the new L9 from Motorola is a "CandyBar" styled RAZR obviously called the SLVR). So much so that it comfortably fits in my shirt pocket.
I am mostly happy with the camera and it takes pretty good pictures for a 1.3 megapixel CCD. Although with my shaking hands they are rarly in focus. But the colour is pretty good and there is little noise in the images as seen below
and here are some shots of some of the better kids I teach hard at work. These are particularly good shots in terms of colour reproduction.
The interface for taking pictures is similar to earlier moto phones
The phone also has the ability to capture moving pictures. With over 70MB of internal storage there is little problem as I find few reasons to break out the video rather than still camera, but I have used it a couple of times and 3 minutes of video only take up about 2MB. The quality is pretty dodgy but the novelty value is pretty good. I have seperatly downloaded some connectivity software (There is a USB cable in box) which allows me to sync contacts, photos and movies etc. On the down side the software converts the native Motorola format into .avi but blows the size up enormously - 2MB on the phone becomes 12MB on my desktop. (For an example of the video visit my Protopage here) The phone has three phot folders to manage images and they can be edited to an extent after being saved. They can be rsized, cropped and colours changed, included in one of the sizes is a wallpaper mode meaning images are resized to fit the idle standby screen, or even the external screen. You can also take photos on the external screen with the flip closed - good for checking your makeup or if anything is stuck between your teeth.
Overall the interface is similar to the first Motorola I had (and lost) here in Korea, so was easy to pick up and use straight away.
The internet on the thing is fast (It is after all on an EV-DO connection -advanced CDMA if you will) but access to anything outside of SK Telecom's services is pretty limited meaning I am stuck in this Korean speaking only walled garden of sorts. What I woul give to be able to check my gmail on its gorgeous bright screen. But this is a service provider issue rather than with the phone. Likewise the ability to load a couple of mp3s o the thing would be good but I have to register and download the SK Telecom player on to my desktop and registering for anything on the Internet in Korea is a bitch and a half if you are a foreigner without a ID number. (The foreigner numbers are one short of the Korean ones ). Call connect and quality are all pretty good and clear and the speaker phone works well, a number of times I have had to go speaker while connected to the computer.
Overall its a pretty good device with a nice big bright screen, relativly good camera and taking into the exchange rate cheaper than the GSM version offered in New Zealand (but inexpicably twice as expensive as the eqivilant model sold in the US). On top of that it lacks the connectivity of the GSM version - no Bluetooth - but has a better camera. I quite like it in black too rather than silver (or the pink Maria Sharapova version). It lacks the myriad of functions on the (Now 3 year old Sonyericsson P800) and can't access the real internet. But I am more than happy with ot and hopefully it will last me through another year in Korea.
That's it - your bored after reading all this and I'm bored after writing this - besides, "House" is on TV I'm off...
