A devastating cliff higher, with Jun Pyo begging Jan Di to tell him not to get married, what is going to happen? I guess I’ll find out more tonight, although GT2B class gave away some important details. I’m just glad they were speaking English. Sarah was able to host Boys Before Flowers after all; her plans fell through. I’m currently making kimbap for tonight’s get together. I hope it will be ok, I think the pack I bought (like two weeks ago) may be expired (like 13 days ago), but everything is pickled so I can’t really imagine that it would be too bad. We’ll find out later guess.
Oh so many adventures since I made Jaemin cry, the past week has been intensely busy. Last Tuesday, for St. Patrick’s day, Sally and I met the gang out in Itaewon at a pub, sadly no green beer. After most of the group split, Mike, Chris, Amber, Sally, and I stayed out, hitting up the Rocky Mountain Tavern for some Canadian beer, also not green. Then the boys left and us girls tried to find a hof, but because Itaewon sucks, we had no luck. Eventually we just gave up and went home; I got in at about 3:30.
Boys Before Flowers on Wednesday, had two action filled episodes, things finally started to move along and currently Goo Jun Pyo and his fiancé are about to get married but Jun Pyo really doesn’t want to; it’s heart aching. And Sally finally is totally into it. We did get pizza, breaking our Kimbap tradition, but it was worth it.
My Rice is ready, I have to go make kimbap now....
Ok, I’m back, Kimbap completed, apartment cleaned, I should be going for a walk right now, but I’m lazy. Soon.
On Friday, I discovered the name of my new hot student, all brooding and angry, JUN PYO! If he was less serious I would have definitely made fun of him, but like I said, brooding angry type. I can’t get that class to pay attention to me, the one student that actually did the work moved to a different class, so now I spend the whole time talking to myself. It’s awful. Jun Pyo is seriously annoyed at everybody in the class and clearly thinks (correctly) that I am inept as a teacher. He constantly makes annoyed sighing sounds. I can’t wait to fail all those mother fuckers on the next speaking test!
After class on Friday, Sally and I headed to Hyehwa to meet, Amber, Sarah, Dave, and Lisa. We hung out at hof for a bit and then we went to see the 12:30 showing of Slumdog Millionaire at the CVG. Although I appreciate being able to see movies so late, I find it difficult to stay awake; I only slept for like five minuets though, I barely missed anything.
On Saturday, I went to a baseball game of all things. I don’t even like baseball. I saw the LG Twins defeat the Doosan Bears in a not so exciting exhibition match. Although, there was one really nice triple play by the LG Twins. The game was free and the weather was incredible. I actually got a little bit of sun burn on my chest. Anyway, going to the game was fun. At the stadium you are allowed to bring in any food you wanted. I even saw one couple with a cake. Outside the stadium, there are vendors selling all sort so delights, included dried squid and beer (a beautiful combination, I discovered a couple of weeks ago).
After the game we walked to the Han River and had a picnic delivered. We had fried chicken and a Chinese dish that you can only get in Korea, a black bean sauce over noodles. It is really delicious. The noodles came in reusable dishes, just like when food is delivered to school. We just left them in a pile by a bush and a few minuets have we finished eating the delivery guy came and picked them up. I love Korea. It is as if we were hanging out at Assiniboine park and had pizza delivered to the park. Is that even possible? Something to keep in mind. This is one of the many reason that it pays to have to Korean friends, they can actually order things over the phone because they speak Korean.
After we were finished eating, Mike suggested that we walk to Itaewon. Sarah and Amber had a rugby meeting there later and we had nothing to do in the meantime. So walk we did, and about three hours later we arrived in Itaewon. The walk is really nice, along the river there are we groomed walking paths. The only bad part is that just before Itaewon is a huge hill, so after walking three hours, we had to trek up an insane hill. It was a good walk though.
We arrived in Itaewon too late for Sarah and Amber to go to their meeting, so we got drinks instead and then had burgers at the All-American Diner. I know, I know, but it was a really good burger. Before we went to the diner, we actually tried to go to the Rocky Mountain Tavern, but it was full and as we looked around for seat we realized that we had accidentally stumbled into an AskNow welcome party for new arrivals. AskNow is the recruiting agency that most of us had been recruited by and we couldn’t leave fast enough. We all have jobs, we all arrived, everything is fine. That doesn’t mean we have to be friends with them. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t really trust AskNow. And they seem to more about organizing social events and sending pointless mass emails then getting people to Korea. And finally, they are a recruiting agency, clearly about the bottom line, then don’t’ really want to be friends, they want to make as much money off of me as possible.
After the burger, was had to run to the subway station, our beautiful sunny cloudless day turned into hard rain. By this time it was already about 10:30 maybe close to 11:00 already. The gang I was with decided to call it quits for the day, but plans had already been made to meet Sally Hongdae so I bravely carried on. I met Sally in Hongdae and we huddled under her umbrella as we trekked around Hongdae, at first the plan was to find a club Free Bird to watch some Beatles cover bands, but as we got wetter and wetter, we abandoned the plan finally ended up, inevitably, at FF. The music was good and we danced the night away. We ended up at Sake bar and hung out drinking nice warm sake until the subway started running again and our clothes were some what dry. I fell into bed at about 8:30.
Then on Sunday, once I finally crawled out of bed and showered, I meet Lisa in Hyehwa for supper. She had invited me out to meet a couple of Korean girls with whom she is friends. We had sushi and then had a traditional Korean drink that is served ice cold. It is alcoholic and it was pretty good. Definitely better than soju, although, apparently more dangerous if you are not careful. I was careful and falling over tired. Fortunately, it was Sunday night and everybody had to get home. I collapsed into bed and slept until 10:00 AM. I was still tried all day on Monday; I even took a nap before I went to school.
I learned something interesting though. Most Korean girls live with their parents until they get married, this I already knew. But it seems that even girls in their 20’s often have curfews imposed on them by their parents. One girl I met this weekend, has a midnight curfew, she is 22! It makes sense though, at night, there are many many more guys hanging out than there are girls. It is much more common to see large groups of guys than large groups of girls and I finally understand why; all the girls have to go home. That totally sucks.
Oh, and Jaemin got over it. I was worred for the next class, that he would hate me, but he didn't. He was all smiles and sunshine, as if nothing was wrong. Kids get over stuff fast I guess, short memories?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Smile Like You Mean It
I made Jae Min cry today. I’m going to hell, teacher’s hell. Well, I may have made him cry; it was possibly a combination of Kim and I that caused the tears to flow down his cherub cheeks. Jae Min was being silly in class, hiding under a desk, actually believing that I didn’t see him. My recent strategy has just been to start class and ignore the rouge child. ( I have an older student that liked to hid behind the white board in one of the classrooms.) He was lying on the floor between a couple of desks. After a while, he was annoyed that I wasn’t pay attention to him (like all kids, he wants to be caught, he wants the attention) and he started playing on his cell phone. I continued to ignore him. He turned up the volume. I ignored him. He turn the up the volume again. I kicked him out of class, with much yelling and anger. When he came back in at the end of class, I saw Kim standing out in the hallway, I assume he gave Jae Min a lecture. As Jae Min started packing up his stuff, he started to sniffle and then he cried, hard. I felt so bad. He’s just a little boy. I made him cry. I’m a bully.
Jae Min and posse excluded (that class almost makes me cry every time I had to teach them, three times a week!), I mostly like my classes. There is one class of elementary kids that I love, four sweet boys and one sweet girl. Of the boys there is Harry (a newly acquired name) who is quite and shy and never causes problems and all the kids like him as much as I do. There is Eric, formally Herry (yes with an “e”), who is loud and doesn’t listen very well, but is ultimately a good kid and super adorable, and then Mike and Sunny both of whom were previously in a lower level and both of whom I totally adore. The girl, Olivia is as sweet as her name and doesn’t let the boys push her around.
Last week, after a particularly bad day with Jae Min and posse, I let this class do nothing for almost an entire class. I just let them ask me questions and I asked them lots of questions. We didn’t even finish the first page of the unit. Then I did the same thing with the following writing class. It was very much a bad teacher thing for me to do. I have become increasing bad at controlling my classes and actually getting work done. I have started a decent in to apathy and need to come back. I am an uncaring teacher, I like my kids, but I’m sick of trying to teach them.
And Sarah cancelled Boys Before Flowers this week! Sally, who hates the show, offered to watch it with me. She felt badly because she was supposed to go on a walk with me this morning, but coudn't do ti because she got really bad blisters from a pair of new, too small Chuck Taylors that she bought this weekend. Which reminds me, I also bought a new pair of chucks this weekend. This week we are getting pizza, or perhaps we’ll go to a hof after the show, or maybe I’ll make kimchi pancakes, which I can do now. I use a mix, which is startlingly like regular pancake mix. I though it would be different. Less sweet, I guess. The mix just needs water, kimchi (obviously), and veggies of your (my) choice. It is a popular hof food (to me anyway) and I was very surprised at how easy it is to make. (I learned in a Listening class today that Kimchi is one of the healthyist foods in the world. However, the book may be published by a Korean company, which makes the information some what unreliable. I have notied some phrasing and odd usage that is eerily simialr to how many Koreans speak English.)
And while I’m ranting about school, I am starting to see more and more the middle school politics between girls. He-Jin, for example, is always really mean to Ta-Bin and it makes me really angry and I don’t know now to stop it. She does her best to make Ta-Bin, a sweet girl and a good student, feel stupid and childish. He-Jin is kind of bitch and I don’t want her to be rude to Ta-Bin. I get so annoyed He-Jin’s behaviour.
And my new favourite pastime: creating romances between my students, Korean romances. For example, Ta-Bin and Gi-Joo. Ta-Ban, a bright and studious girl, eager to learn and smart. Gi-Joo, sleeps all class. Unlikely? I think so. Romantic? Definitely! Gi-Joo needs an English tutor and for some reason, he is convinced that Ta-Bin is the way to way to passing the ultra important English test that he must pass or his parents are going to send him to live with some relatives in the country, which will take him away from his beloved, his beloved, or something important, dance team, hip-hop dance troupe! They are the best and will win the competition that they want to enter with a huge award, like dancing in a Big Bang music video (Big Bang cameo!), but he is the leader and they need him, so he has to pass the ultra important test. Gi-Joo needs Ta-Bin to tutor him because she doesn’t go to his school and for some reason, nobody at his school can know that he needs a tutor. It would ruin his reputation or something. They meet at English hagwon. Ta-Bin and Gi-Joo fight a lot, they can’t get along and try to be as hurtful as possible to each other. And he has to black mail her into helping him, that is the only way. She did something and he will tell her parents. She, she... she has a part time job about which her parents can’t know. They would be so angry. No-no, she continues to play on the soccer on which her parents forbade her to play because soccer was taking away from her study time. Gi-Joo threatens to tell her parents about the soccer team unless she tutors him. Also, she needs the money (that he pays her for tutoring) because she needs new soccer cleats. They fall in love as they fight. Love is almost hate after all. Then they are separated by something tragic and strange and potentially involving He-Jin, who is in love with Gi-Joo , to whom she is connected by some mysterious past event. I haven’t figured that part out at this point, but it has to be random and make you go “what the hell?” Eventually they are brought back together by either fate (cop-out) or some super complex scheme concocted by their friends to which they are totally oblivious. That right there is an award winning treatment, almost. Once I get the kinks ironed out, I’ll write the screenplay. This is classic Korea drama. Hagwon Romance. Hazzah!
Jae Min and posse excluded (that class almost makes me cry every time I had to teach them, three times a week!), I mostly like my classes. There is one class of elementary kids that I love, four sweet boys and one sweet girl. Of the boys there is Harry (a newly acquired name) who is quite and shy and never causes problems and all the kids like him as much as I do. There is Eric, formally Herry (yes with an “e”), who is loud and doesn’t listen very well, but is ultimately a good kid and super adorable, and then Mike and Sunny both of whom were previously in a lower level and both of whom I totally adore. The girl, Olivia is as sweet as her name and doesn’t let the boys push her around.
Last week, after a particularly bad day with Jae Min and posse, I let this class do nothing for almost an entire class. I just let them ask me questions and I asked them lots of questions. We didn’t even finish the first page of the unit. Then I did the same thing with the following writing class. It was very much a bad teacher thing for me to do. I have become increasing bad at controlling my classes and actually getting work done. I have started a decent in to apathy and need to come back. I am an uncaring teacher, I like my kids, but I’m sick of trying to teach them.
And Sarah cancelled Boys Before Flowers this week! Sally, who hates the show, offered to watch it with me. She felt badly because she was supposed to go on a walk with me this morning, but coudn't do ti because she got really bad blisters from a pair of new, too small Chuck Taylors that she bought this weekend. Which reminds me, I also bought a new pair of chucks this weekend. This week we are getting pizza, or perhaps we’ll go to a hof after the show, or maybe I’ll make kimchi pancakes, which I can do now. I use a mix, which is startlingly like regular pancake mix. I though it would be different. Less sweet, I guess. The mix just needs water, kimchi (obviously), and veggies of your (my) choice. It is a popular hof food (to me anyway) and I was very surprised at how easy it is to make. (I learned in a Listening class today that Kimchi is one of the healthyist foods in the world. However, the book may be published by a Korean company, which makes the information some what unreliable. I have notied some phrasing and odd usage that is eerily simialr to how many Koreans speak English.)
And while I’m ranting about school, I am starting to see more and more the middle school politics between girls. He-Jin, for example, is always really mean to Ta-Bin and it makes me really angry and I don’t know now to stop it. She does her best to make Ta-Bin, a sweet girl and a good student, feel stupid and childish. He-Jin is kind of bitch and I don’t want her to be rude to Ta-Bin. I get so annoyed He-Jin’s behaviour.
And my new favourite pastime: creating romances between my students, Korean romances. For example, Ta-Bin and Gi-Joo. Ta-Ban, a bright and studious girl, eager to learn and smart. Gi-Joo, sleeps all class. Unlikely? I think so. Romantic? Definitely! Gi-Joo needs an English tutor and for some reason, he is convinced that Ta-Bin is the way to way to passing the ultra important English test that he must pass or his parents are going to send him to live with some relatives in the country, which will take him away from his beloved, his beloved, or something important, dance team, hip-hop dance troupe! They are the best and will win the competition that they want to enter with a huge award, like dancing in a Big Bang music video (Big Bang cameo!), but he is the leader and they need him, so he has to pass the ultra important test. Gi-Joo needs Ta-Bin to tutor him because she doesn’t go to his school and for some reason, nobody at his school can know that he needs a tutor. It would ruin his reputation or something. They meet at English hagwon. Ta-Bin and Gi-Joo fight a lot, they can’t get along and try to be as hurtful as possible to each other. And he has to black mail her into helping him, that is the only way. She did something and he will tell her parents. She, she... she has a part time job about which her parents can’t know. They would be so angry. No-no, she continues to play on the soccer on which her parents forbade her to play because soccer was taking away from her study time. Gi-Joo threatens to tell her parents about the soccer team unless she tutors him. Also, she needs the money (that he pays her for tutoring) because she needs new soccer cleats. They fall in love as they fight. Love is almost hate after all. Then they are separated by something tragic and strange and potentially involving He-Jin, who is in love with Gi-Joo , to whom she is connected by some mysterious past event. I haven’t figured that part out at this point, but it has to be random and make you go “what the hell?” Eventually they are brought back together by either fate (cop-out) or some super complex scheme concocted by their friends to which they are totally oblivious. That right there is an award winning treatment, almost. Once I get the kinks ironed out, I’ll write the screenplay. This is classic Korea drama. Hagwon Romance. Hazzah!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Feeling English Phonics
I got a new middle school student on Friday, and he’s a babe. I know that’s inappropriate, but it’s true. Damn 16-year-old boys. I could never be a high school teacher. And because he’s new he still thinks he needs to try in English class. Most of the kids gave up a long time ago. On Friday, during my last class, I decided that everybody was going to participate in the activity, I made two of the boys wake up (by hitting them with my book) and I made on boy put away his graphic novel that he had (not so cleverly) hidden behind his work book. I made them all answer questions about their favourite movie’s and video games (it was part of the unit). They often try to get away with answers like “I don’t know” or “no favourite” but I didn’t let them on Friday. And I hounded them with follow up questions if their answers weren’t satisfactory. It was painful, probably more painful for me than for them. I stopped a few minuets early and let them have free time, at which point they all immediately whipped out their cell phones and started texting.
After school, I went to Sally’s (who gets out on 9:00 on Friday, not fair!) to meet the guy she is kind of dating, Len from Canada, and we went out for back alley samgupsal. It was fun to see the eyes pop out of the heads of the ladies working there when we walked in.
Saturday morning I went to Jonggak to meet to Sarah Kim. After many disappointments and a lot of frustrations, she has finally arrived in Korea and I was pumped to hang out with someone from home. I was running a little late in the morning and was worried that I would be late, then I remember that I was meeting Sarah, which meant I could count on her being at least 15 minutes late. And true enough, as I was riding the subway, I got a text from her about how to get to Jonggak. I had left my English subway map at home, so I was at the mercy of the Korean map that I had in my wallet. We figured it out together, but only after she started going in the wrong direction. Fortunately, there are many many Starbucks near Jonggak yuk, so I settled in with a coffee and a book to wait for her. Our 12:00 meeting turned into a 1:00 meeting. It was her first time riding the subway and she did it alone so I wasn't annoyed. In fact, I rather like the atmosphere of coffeeshops in the morning or early afternoon in Korea. They are always very quiet and the few customers are usually alone, reading or doing work. It is pleasent and relaxing. The atmosphere chagnes dramatically as the day wears on, they begin to fill up with girls and couples and get much lounder and by the evening they are packed and it's impossible to find a place to sit. I honestly don't mind waiting for people if there is place to sit and a coffee to sip. I'm often late too.
She came bearing a care-package from Raeanne, which I was not expecting. I didn’t think anybody would think about sending me stuff, so I was really pumped and touched. It was a package of candy. Which I shared later with my friends, well some of it anyway.
Sarah and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around a few different parts of the city and eating. Typical of day in Seoul. I was supposed to meet up with my friends at some point for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, but didn’t know the exact plan, so I also had supper with Sarah and two of her friends from California. All three of them, including Sarah, are of Korean decent. It was strange hanging out with them, all of them looking Korean but not really being Korean. They were really nice and I had a good time with them.
After supper, I went to meet my friends in Itaewon. Sarah (not Kim) is part Irish (I guess) and takes her ST. Patty’s day celebrations very seriously. I think their day started out in Hyehwa with a parade and free Guinness. Then they went to a soccer game and finally ended up in Itaewon at the Rocky Mountain Tavern (a Canadian pub), the Wolf Hound (an Irish pub) was apparently totally packed and insane. We had a few beers, Big Rock; I believe that is a Canadian beer. I shared the Rockets that pan sent me, educating the Americans who call Rockets “Smarties” and don’t have “Smarties” at all. I showed them the “Smarties” and explained that they like M&M’s, but I didn’t share them.
After Itaewon, it was still pretty early, but most of the kids wanted to go home. Sarah, Amber, Sally, Len, and I went to Amber’s new part of the town and found a lovely hof at which to hang. Lucker, it was called and the beer the cheap, even the imported beer. There was group of drunk of boys hanging out, one of which promptly fell in love with me and wanted my phone number. He told me I was beautiful and patted my head. I told him I didn’t have a cell phone. He didn’t know much English. His friend kept apologizing for him and eventually dragged him out. They were cute.
After a round of King’s Cup (lame drinking games again), we went to Party Party noraebang across the street sang a bunch. They kept giving us extra time (for free) so we kept singing. I love noraebang.
Sunday, I took another really long walk during which I stopped at a couple of the big department stores, Lotte and Hundai, with the intention of looking at jackets, I want a new one so bad. Unforantly, the one I like the most was around 128,000 won. I should have known, both department stores are pretty high end. I mean, they have Burberry. After my walk, I planned to go see a movie by myself, but then Sally called me and invited me to see Dragon Ball Evolution, which was so bad, it was awesome and at least two of my students were in the theater with their families, but I don’t think they saw us.
And because no blog post would be complete without, Wednesdays episodes of Boys Before Flowers were again, extremely disappointed. Nothing happened and now there are only five episodes left. I want Jan Di and Jun Pyo to be happy together for a least one full episode at the end, but I assume that they will only get together at the very last possible moment, if at all. On a much sadder note, one of the mean girls killed herself last week. The actor who played Sunny was apparently suffering from depression and committed suicide. That is a harsh dose of reality to such a superficial show. It is really sad.
41 Days until Bryan!
After school, I went to Sally’s (who gets out on 9:00 on Friday, not fair!) to meet the guy she is kind of dating, Len from Canada, and we went out for back alley samgupsal. It was fun to see the eyes pop out of the heads of the ladies working there when we walked in.
Saturday morning I went to Jonggak to meet to Sarah Kim. After many disappointments and a lot of frustrations, she has finally arrived in Korea and I was pumped to hang out with someone from home. I was running a little late in the morning and was worried that I would be late, then I remember that I was meeting Sarah, which meant I could count on her being at least 15 minutes late. And true enough, as I was riding the subway, I got a text from her about how to get to Jonggak. I had left my English subway map at home, so I was at the mercy of the Korean map that I had in my wallet. We figured it out together, but only after she started going in the wrong direction. Fortunately, there are many many Starbucks near Jonggak yuk, so I settled in with a coffee and a book to wait for her. Our 12:00 meeting turned into a 1:00 meeting. It was her first time riding the subway and she did it alone so I wasn't annoyed. In fact, I rather like the atmosphere of coffeeshops in the morning or early afternoon in Korea. They are always very quiet and the few customers are usually alone, reading or doing work. It is pleasent and relaxing. The atmosphere chagnes dramatically as the day wears on, they begin to fill up with girls and couples and get much lounder and by the evening they are packed and it's impossible to find a place to sit. I honestly don't mind waiting for people if there is place to sit and a coffee to sip. I'm often late too.
She came bearing a care-package from Raeanne, which I was not expecting. I didn’t think anybody would think about sending me stuff, so I was really pumped and touched. It was a package of candy. Which I shared later with my friends, well some of it anyway.
Sarah and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around a few different parts of the city and eating. Typical of day in Seoul. I was supposed to meet up with my friends at some point for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, but didn’t know the exact plan, so I also had supper with Sarah and two of her friends from California. All three of them, including Sarah, are of Korean decent. It was strange hanging out with them, all of them looking Korean but not really being Korean. They were really nice and I had a good time with them.
After supper, I went to meet my friends in Itaewon. Sarah (not Kim) is part Irish (I guess) and takes her ST. Patty’s day celebrations very seriously. I think their day started out in Hyehwa with a parade and free Guinness. Then they went to a soccer game and finally ended up in Itaewon at the Rocky Mountain Tavern (a Canadian pub), the Wolf Hound (an Irish pub) was apparently totally packed and insane. We had a few beers, Big Rock; I believe that is a Canadian beer. I shared the Rockets that pan sent me, educating the Americans who call Rockets “Smarties” and don’t have “Smarties” at all. I showed them the “Smarties” and explained that they like M&M’s, but I didn’t share them.
After Itaewon, it was still pretty early, but most of the kids wanted to go home. Sarah, Amber, Sally, Len, and I went to Amber’s new part of the town and found a lovely hof at which to hang. Lucker, it was called and the beer the cheap, even the imported beer. There was group of drunk of boys hanging out, one of which promptly fell in love with me and wanted my phone number. He told me I was beautiful and patted my head. I told him I didn’t have a cell phone. He didn’t know much English. His friend kept apologizing for him and eventually dragged him out. They were cute.
After a round of King’s Cup (lame drinking games again), we went to Party Party noraebang across the street sang a bunch. They kept giving us extra time (for free) so we kept singing. I love noraebang.
Sunday, I took another really long walk during which I stopped at a couple of the big department stores, Lotte and Hundai, with the intention of looking at jackets, I want a new one so bad. Unforantly, the one I like the most was around 128,000 won. I should have known, both department stores are pretty high end. I mean, they have Burberry. After my walk, I planned to go see a movie by myself, but then Sally called me and invited me to see Dragon Ball Evolution, which was so bad, it was awesome and at least two of my students were in the theater with their families, but I don’t think they saw us.
And because no blog post would be complete without, Wednesdays episodes of Boys Before Flowers were again, extremely disappointed. Nothing happened and now there are only five episodes left. I want Jan Di and Jun Pyo to be happy together for a least one full episode at the end, but I assume that they will only get together at the very last possible moment, if at all. On a much sadder note, one of the mean girls killed herself last week. The actor who played Sunny was apparently suffering from depression and committed suicide. That is a harsh dose of reality to such a superficial show. It is really sad.
41 Days until Bryan!
Monday, March 9, 2009
I Have the Right to Destroy Myself
I know that spring as truly arrived in Seoul. On Wednesday, during my walk I noticed that the city workers had begun to plant flowers in the large pots beside the main roads. The petunias and pansies, still in their packs, were sitting on top of the pots waiting to be planted and bags of potting soil were sitting beside each pot. The weather has grown nice again, although it did rain most of the day on Thursday. I went for a long walk, tempting fate by not bringing my umbrella, and was caught in a gentle spring rain while still far from home. Seoulites are hideously afraid of rain and will pop open their umbrellas at the slightest hint of precipitation. I only had the hood of my hoodie to protect me from the acid rain which leads to baldness. (I say suck it up and admit your Baldness is genetic; you can’t have all biological luck, you thin beautiful Koreans, there has to be some balance!)
At work, the schedule changed again. The school year just started or at least a new term. So once again, we were all rearranged. Mostly for the better this time around, I have lots of really good classes. Some horrible classes, but more good than bad. However, I did get stuck teaching speaking classes to the MLB’s (middle school beginner level). These kids know almost no English and I have to try to get them to speak and the course book isn’t very good and there are moody middle school kids who think they are too cool for school or are painfully awkward and shy. The worst part of the schedule is that I have 26 classes to teach a week, by far the most I have had. Also, I don’t get until 10:00 everyday expect Monday and Wednesday, when I get out at 9:00. This is only bad because Wednesday is Boys Before Flowers night with Sarah. All of February I was getting out at 7:00 on Wednesdays. This puts some serious time restrictions on our evening.
Tragedy occurred, the actress who plays Guem Jan Di was in a car accident, apparently she is fine, but because of a facial injury, they had to take a break from filming. It seems they actually film the show only days before airing. So, there was only one episode this past week. Something Sarah and I did not know until the cliffhanger ending of episode 17. We searched and searched for episode 18 until we finally found a website that explained the problem. A severe disappointment. And things are getting intense. I am glad there are only 24 episodes, I don’t know if I could handle the suspense for too much longer.
To get our fix of Korean Teen Drama we started watching a comedy called Princess Hours. This one is almost exactly the same as Boys Before Flowers; expect the leading male is actually a prince instead of just rich. This shows pretends that Korea is constitutional monarchy. We only watched part of one episode though; I had to leave to catch the last subway home.
On my own, I also started watching a comedy with dramatic moments that has Rain (Bi) as the leading male. The premise is ridiculously weak and Rain is always throwing things like shirts and towels when ever he gets mad, which is all the time. And there are lots of shots of him running in small shorts. This show is a couple of years old, definitely pre-Ninja Assassin, the movie for which he sculpted his body. There is also a fashion designer whose bra is always showing. I think it is supposed to indicate that she is a character that we are not supposed to like; only a villain would let her bra show in Korea. I had to stop watching it because the rest of the episodes are streamed off a website that no longer seems to work in Korea. I’m kind of bummed, but will get over it and just watch something else. There are plenty of crappy Korean dramas where two people who hate each other and fight all the time but through unusual circumstances they are forced together and eventually fall in love, even though many people in their world conspire to keep them apart. There is always much misunderstanding, poor communication, and the press always misconstrues things. At least one character must be famous and the Korean Press is vigilant. At least that is what TV has lead me to believe. I don’t actually know how important celebrity gossip is in Korea or how invasive the press is. I don’t read newspapers or internet sites because I can’t read Korean.
On Friday, after work, Sally and I met Dave, Lisa, and Sarah in Nowon for supper and The Watchmen. We went to a samgupsal place where two businessmen were trashed long before we arrived. When one of them literally fell off his stool, the owners took away their soju and asked them to leave. Well, kind of escorted them out, the one who paid was almost blind drunk. His friend took off and for the next half hour or so, we watched as the one that was left, stood outside in the cold, with this suit jacket pulled over his head for warmth while waiting to be picked up. People watching in the evening is one of my favourite pastimes in Korea. The drunk people are plenty and always highly amusing.
We went to a 12:50 showing of The Watchmen, which meant that we didn’t get out of the theater until 3:30 ish. It was a good movie, but so long. At least it is easy to find a taxi at that time; there is not much competition.
On Saturday, I went for a really long walk. I walked to the Gireum subway station, which is five subway stops south of Ssangmun. I took the subway back to Suyu for a coffee and walked back to Ssangmun. The whole excursion took about three and half hours. It was a lovely day.
Sunday was an even lovelier day. I walked to Gireum again, this time by a different route, worrying that I was lost many times. But I just followed the signs and eventually stumbled into the station. This time I took the subway to the centre of the city, to Jonggak station, where I browsed Bandi and Luni’s for a while, managing to only buy four books. I was so frustrated the other day with all the books I had on my shelf, I needed something new and interesting to read. I found one book that was an English translation of a Korean writer. I was pretty excited about this book and read it all on Sunday. It was good, although not necessarily essentially Korean, which is what I would really like to find. A book about Koreans in Korea with events and thoughts that could only occur in Korea. Essentially Korean. Most of the English books in the Korean section were written by Korean Americans and were about Korean immigrants in the states.
I am curious about celebrities in Korea, singers, actors and writers (if you can call writers celebrities). They have such a rigid fan base, unless they can speak in multiple languages they can really only be famous in Korea. I know that performers like Rain do a lot of crossover stuff and record their singles in four languages (Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese). Also, many singers also do acting in movies and on TV. Lots of the famous people are often on TV in these really odd random comedy shows where they do stuff like cook together outside, but not in a competition, just for fun so that people can watch. There are also TV shows were two famous people will pretend to to be married for a month and other such odd things. They have time for this because there are only so many times you can tour a country the size the Korea.
At work, the schedule changed again. The school year just started or at least a new term. So once again, we were all rearranged. Mostly for the better this time around, I have lots of really good classes. Some horrible classes, but more good than bad. However, I did get stuck teaching speaking classes to the MLB’s (middle school beginner level). These kids know almost no English and I have to try to get them to speak and the course book isn’t very good and there are moody middle school kids who think they are too cool for school or are painfully awkward and shy. The worst part of the schedule is that I have 26 classes to teach a week, by far the most I have had. Also, I don’t get until 10:00 everyday expect Monday and Wednesday, when I get out at 9:00. This is only bad because Wednesday is Boys Before Flowers night with Sarah. All of February I was getting out at 7:00 on Wednesdays. This puts some serious time restrictions on our evening.
Tragedy occurred, the actress who plays Guem Jan Di was in a car accident, apparently she is fine, but because of a facial injury, they had to take a break from filming. It seems they actually film the show only days before airing. So, there was only one episode this past week. Something Sarah and I did not know until the cliffhanger ending of episode 17. We searched and searched for episode 18 until we finally found a website that explained the problem. A severe disappointment. And things are getting intense. I am glad there are only 24 episodes, I don’t know if I could handle the suspense for too much longer.
To get our fix of Korean Teen Drama we started watching a comedy called Princess Hours. This one is almost exactly the same as Boys Before Flowers; expect the leading male is actually a prince instead of just rich. This shows pretends that Korea is constitutional monarchy. We only watched part of one episode though; I had to leave to catch the last subway home.
On my own, I also started watching a comedy with dramatic moments that has Rain (Bi) as the leading male. The premise is ridiculously weak and Rain is always throwing things like shirts and towels when ever he gets mad, which is all the time. And there are lots of shots of him running in small shorts. This show is a couple of years old, definitely pre-Ninja Assassin, the movie for which he sculpted his body. There is also a fashion designer whose bra is always showing. I think it is supposed to indicate that she is a character that we are not supposed to like; only a villain would let her bra show in Korea. I had to stop watching it because the rest of the episodes are streamed off a website that no longer seems to work in Korea. I’m kind of bummed, but will get over it and just watch something else. There are plenty of crappy Korean dramas where two people who hate each other and fight all the time but through unusual circumstances they are forced together and eventually fall in love, even though many people in their world conspire to keep them apart. There is always much misunderstanding, poor communication, and the press always misconstrues things. At least one character must be famous and the Korean Press is vigilant. At least that is what TV has lead me to believe. I don’t actually know how important celebrity gossip is in Korea or how invasive the press is. I don’t read newspapers or internet sites because I can’t read Korean.
On Friday, after work, Sally and I met Dave, Lisa, and Sarah in Nowon for supper and The Watchmen. We went to a samgupsal place where two businessmen were trashed long before we arrived. When one of them literally fell off his stool, the owners took away their soju and asked them to leave. Well, kind of escorted them out, the one who paid was almost blind drunk. His friend took off and for the next half hour or so, we watched as the one that was left, stood outside in the cold, with this suit jacket pulled over his head for warmth while waiting to be picked up. People watching in the evening is one of my favourite pastimes in Korea. The drunk people are plenty and always highly amusing.
We went to a 12:50 showing of The Watchmen, which meant that we didn’t get out of the theater until 3:30 ish. It was a good movie, but so long. At least it is easy to find a taxi at that time; there is not much competition.
On Saturday, I went for a really long walk. I walked to the Gireum subway station, which is five subway stops south of Ssangmun. I took the subway back to Suyu for a coffee and walked back to Ssangmun. The whole excursion took about three and half hours. It was a lovely day.
Sunday was an even lovelier day. I walked to Gireum again, this time by a different route, worrying that I was lost many times. But I just followed the signs and eventually stumbled into the station. This time I took the subway to the centre of the city, to Jonggak station, where I browsed Bandi and Luni’s for a while, managing to only buy four books. I was so frustrated the other day with all the books I had on my shelf, I needed something new and interesting to read. I found one book that was an English translation of a Korean writer. I was pretty excited about this book and read it all on Sunday. It was good, although not necessarily essentially Korean, which is what I would really like to find. A book about Koreans in Korea with events and thoughts that could only occur in Korea. Essentially Korean. Most of the English books in the Korean section were written by Korean Americans and were about Korean immigrants in the states.
I am curious about celebrities in Korea, singers, actors and writers (if you can call writers celebrities). They have such a rigid fan base, unless they can speak in multiple languages they can really only be famous in Korea. I know that performers like Rain do a lot of crossover stuff and record their singles in four languages (Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese). Also, many singers also do acting in movies and on TV. Lots of the famous people are often on TV in these really odd random comedy shows where they do stuff like cook together outside, but not in a competition, just for fun so that people can watch. There are also TV shows were two famous people will pretend to to be married for a month and other such odd things. They have time for this because there are only so many times you can tour a country the size the Korea.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
I Would Be an Octopus
(I’m currently talking to Bryan on Skype while writing this blog because he is listening to Flight of the Conchords while we talk. We always fight when we talk on Skype. So maybe it is better this way. We just look at each other doing other things. It’s free so it’s not big deal.)
My dad always used say that most disgusting part of his job when he was plumber was cleaning out people’s drains. I now thoroughly sympathize. From the beginning of living here, I have had problems with the drain in my bathroom. Every time I took a shower my whole bathroom became a pool. I couldn’t even wash my hands or my face without small puddle forming at my feet. I started washing my face and brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink. I had tried many times to open up the drain, it seemed to be a removable piece but I couldn’t get it to move. Finally, on Friday morning, after living in this apartment for four months, I managed to unscrew the drain cup. I just about threw up on the spot, and it only got worse as I pulled it out. A huge clump of course dark hair clung to the drain filter, combined with my hair and at least four months worth of everything that goes down the drain. The stench was awful. I faithfully cleaned it all out putting the hair and guck in a plastic bag with was tightly sealed and immediately thrown away. It was so worth it, my drain actually drains. I took a shower and didn’t have to stand nearly ankle deep in water; it all drained immediately. I can wash my hands without turning the water off between soaping and rinsing (although I still do out of habit). It is so luxurious to have a bathroom drain that drains.
I had a late night on Friday, helping Sarah, Dave, and Lisa mourn the loss of on of their Korean co-teachers. Wendy, her English name, is leaving for a year to study in English in Australia. She invited her boyfriend, who was never introduced beyond Samgupsal boy. Apparently he runs or owns a samgupsal restaurant, which, in my books, makes him a keeper. Free samgupsal and soju for life, that sounds like heaven. He didn’t speak any English but seemed very devoted to Wendy and he was super cute.
We partied at Konkuk University on the Green line. We drank delicious pineapple and strawberry soju and very tall beers. Sally and I called it night before we hit the noraebang.
On Saturday afternoon, I walked over to Nowon, to Amber’s apartment to help her clean and pack up her stuff. She is moving to a new apartment for her new job. I did the dishes and cleaned the bathroom. I seem to end up cleaning bathrooms whenever I help people move. After everything was packed and cleaned we all sat around waiting for her new director to arrive to put all her stuff in his car. He was really cute, really really cute. Amber has all the luck.
We moved her to Girem, an adventure that involved mad cap taxi rides and getting lost near her apartment and not being able to find her her apartment and devastating disappointments at the claw game machine (I wanted the sexy lighters so badly!). She had too much stuff to put it all in her directors car, so we had to take a couple of taxis to move everything. We didn’t know the exact location of her place so the taxi dropped us nearby. It took many calls to the director before we finally found her apartment, by which time the director had moved everything inside. He used her kimchi bucket as a doorstop. She invited him to supper with us, but unfortunately he had to bet back to work.
After getting Amber a little settled, we went out to supper. It was Sarah, Amber, Amber’s language exchange partner Sang-Hoon, her co-teacher (who’s name I don’t remember) and her co-teachers boyfriend (Q?). We had dalk galbi, which was alright. The restaurant had guns as decorations. I now know what an AK-47 looks like. Good.
After supper, we headed over to Hongdae for welcome home celebration for another friend of Amber’s, Min-yoo. We started at a hooka bar called Bricxx, which had uncomfortable harem-like seating. The severs were stupid good-looking and all spoke English very well, but makes me wonder why they are working as servers if they can speak English that well. We did stay out until the subway started running, but there was nothing of note that evening expect the band we saw later at FF. Pillow Fighter, kind of MGMTish, but not as catchy, as dancy as Woodhands. I really enjoyed their set and I was pumped to finally see a good band in Seoul, one that plays music I really like.
Sunday, I went to the National Museum again. And once again, I just have to admit that I am an uncultured person who just doesn’t really like museums, at least not that kind of museum. It is information overload. If I were by myself, I bet I could do that museum in an hour instead of the three we spent on Sunday and still didn’t see it all. After the museum, Song-Hoon and Min-You took Sarah, Amber, and I to Sinchon (south of the river) for super. We had this delicious octopus meal. Octopus is great.
On Monday, I bought kimchi in the grocery store and I have eaten kimchi with my lunch everyday this week. I’m practically Korean.
53 Days until Bryan.
My dad always used say that most disgusting part of his job when he was plumber was cleaning out people’s drains. I now thoroughly sympathize. From the beginning of living here, I have had problems with the drain in my bathroom. Every time I took a shower my whole bathroom became a pool. I couldn’t even wash my hands or my face without small puddle forming at my feet. I started washing my face and brushing my teeth in the kitchen sink. I had tried many times to open up the drain, it seemed to be a removable piece but I couldn’t get it to move. Finally, on Friday morning, after living in this apartment for four months, I managed to unscrew the drain cup. I just about threw up on the spot, and it only got worse as I pulled it out. A huge clump of course dark hair clung to the drain filter, combined with my hair and at least four months worth of everything that goes down the drain. The stench was awful. I faithfully cleaned it all out putting the hair and guck in a plastic bag with was tightly sealed and immediately thrown away. It was so worth it, my drain actually drains. I took a shower and didn’t have to stand nearly ankle deep in water; it all drained immediately. I can wash my hands without turning the water off between soaping and rinsing (although I still do out of habit). It is so luxurious to have a bathroom drain that drains.
I had a late night on Friday, helping Sarah, Dave, and Lisa mourn the loss of on of their Korean co-teachers. Wendy, her English name, is leaving for a year to study in English in Australia. She invited her boyfriend, who was never introduced beyond Samgupsal boy. Apparently he runs or owns a samgupsal restaurant, which, in my books, makes him a keeper. Free samgupsal and soju for life, that sounds like heaven. He didn’t speak any English but seemed very devoted to Wendy and he was super cute.
We partied at Konkuk University on the Green line. We drank delicious pineapple and strawberry soju and very tall beers. Sally and I called it night before we hit the noraebang.
On Saturday afternoon, I walked over to Nowon, to Amber’s apartment to help her clean and pack up her stuff. She is moving to a new apartment for her new job. I did the dishes and cleaned the bathroom. I seem to end up cleaning bathrooms whenever I help people move. After everything was packed and cleaned we all sat around waiting for her new director to arrive to put all her stuff in his car. He was really cute, really really cute. Amber has all the luck.
We moved her to Girem, an adventure that involved mad cap taxi rides and getting lost near her apartment and not being able to find her her apartment and devastating disappointments at the claw game machine (I wanted the sexy lighters so badly!). She had too much stuff to put it all in her directors car, so we had to take a couple of taxis to move everything. We didn’t know the exact location of her place so the taxi dropped us nearby. It took many calls to the director before we finally found her apartment, by which time the director had moved everything inside. He used her kimchi bucket as a doorstop. She invited him to supper with us, but unfortunately he had to bet back to work.
After getting Amber a little settled, we went out to supper. It was Sarah, Amber, Amber’s language exchange partner Sang-Hoon, her co-teacher (who’s name I don’t remember) and her co-teachers boyfriend (Q?). We had dalk galbi, which was alright. The restaurant had guns as decorations. I now know what an AK-47 looks like. Good.
After supper, we headed over to Hongdae for welcome home celebration for another friend of Amber’s, Min-yoo. We started at a hooka bar called Bricxx, which had uncomfortable harem-like seating. The severs were stupid good-looking and all spoke English very well, but makes me wonder why they are working as servers if they can speak English that well. We did stay out until the subway started running, but there was nothing of note that evening expect the band we saw later at FF. Pillow Fighter, kind of MGMTish, but not as catchy, as dancy as Woodhands. I really enjoyed their set and I was pumped to finally see a good band in Seoul, one that plays music I really like.
Sunday, I went to the National Museum again. And once again, I just have to admit that I am an uncultured person who just doesn’t really like museums, at least not that kind of museum. It is information overload. If I were by myself, I bet I could do that museum in an hour instead of the three we spent on Sunday and still didn’t see it all. After the museum, Song-Hoon and Min-You took Sarah, Amber, and I to Sinchon (south of the river) for super. We had this delicious octopus meal. Octopus is great.
On Monday, I bought kimchi in the grocery store and I have eaten kimchi with my lunch everyday this week. I’m practically Korean.
53 Days until Bryan.
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