Gale has an office at home with a screen so he can interact with his students as needed. He often neglects to turn the stream off and really doesn't care who's watching (it's just one room in a huge house). It's not weird for his students to chill on video call while they work.
Gale lives in a big house in the woods- so a lot of ghost stories probably get inspired and traded.

The giraffe thing is a joke. Any time someone gets close to figuring out there's something magical up with him he tells them he's a giraffe. Why not? The truth would sound just as ridiculous.