The Master Mistah

Like clockwork, here I am, Monday evening, to dispense the events (or lack thereof) of my past week. Not too much of note this week, more of a placeholder between events. Which is fine, as I'm content to play the waiting game for now. Next week all the students will be gone for the entire week to the English village and I will simply be teaching the parents for 2 hours a day, so I'm looking forward to stress less teaching for a week. Jethro and I are possibly attending an orchestra concert or two this week, so I'm trying to be as patient as possible in waiting for that to possibly come to fruition. I'm waiting for God to throw us a god damn bone as the weather forecast looks like rain again (that makes 3 Saturdays out of 4) for this weekend. I'm, you guessed it, waiting for another chance to watch FC Seoul and for a chance to hit the basketball court, but that is all dependent on the weather. It's been way too long since I played a organized and competitive sport of some sort and I'm starting to forget how wonderful it is to utterly and completely kick someone's ass in something/anything. I'm even waiting when it comes to job searching. My paperwork is all submitted to the recruiter, now I'm just waiting for my references to send in the letters of reference and then for SMOE to contact me about an interview. As for the planning for next year (September plans, registering for university courses)? Obviously, it is waiting for confirmation of a job.

Enough waiting, lets get to the actual events and adventures of the weekend. Friday looked to be interesting, as the school was heading to Lotte World and so was I. 'Cept I wasn't. I got up and readied myself for school at the same time as usual, as I had been given no notification about the bus leaving early, so naturally assumed that the bus would be leaving sometime after I normally arrive. No problem. So was I surprised when I arrived at school and it was empty, save 4 teachers. "Ohhh Eric, the students left at 8:20, 40 minutes ago." The strange thing was that the previous declaration wasn't an oops, we forgot to tell you about the bus, you missed it, sorry, but rather that I was supposed to be staying at school. I love when the school eliminates that nasty freedom to choose and all the headaches involved by just deciding everything for me. They're really thoughtful like that. The day was pretty decent regardless, as I just sat around, read, wandered around the school admiring the pretty scenery, then went home early. Not a bad day, when you look at it.

School day over, it was on to the rendezvous in Uijeongbu. Since Uijeongbu is obviously not Seoul, the trip was a bit round about. 50 minute train ride to Seoul with Carrie and Amy, then on the subway for the 1 hour ride north to Uijeongbu. Once in Uijeongbu, we quickly met with the rest of the party and commenced to drinking. Uijeongbu itself isn't much to write home about. It's quite big, around half a million, but it looks exactly the same as Seoul and has exactly the same stuff as every other big city, so mehh. We country folk were jealous as Jamie, who lives in Uijeongbu, is part of GEPIK, like us, but he managed to land in a real city as opposed to a "village" or "shantytown",etc. Our big party managed to draw attention to itself, as the waitress at the first bar threatened to withhold our booze if we didn't quiet down. Even more ridiculous than being asked to take the volume down a notch in a BAR, was that we were in a German themed bar. These people really have no idea the manner of revelry and energy present in bars in countries where people really know how to drink. The Koreans were like mice, uttering nary a word and I assume were there simply to drink in the spectacle of foreigners. Course, they were probably expecting some real fireworks, as Uijeongbu is an army base, and where there's a base, there are GIs making a bloody mess and ruining the good name of foreigners everywhere. God bless the troops. The troops served to entertain us at the next bar, as several off-duty GIs, donning the dandy douche wear of visors and polos, maybe with popped collars to top it off (seriously, there must be a higher power, as I always have the good fortune to find stupid and drunk SOBs wherever I go), saddled over to our table and started chatting us up. What followed was a entertaining mix of nonsensical conversation, random bro hugging and love between the two GI buddies and attempted grinding up on the girls of our party on the floor. Following protocol, I sat in the corner at our table, drinking myself full on the stupidity of it all and judging them. Man, I love judging people.

After the bar, the party headed back to Jamie's apartment where we were supposed to get some sleep. Not without drama first. Firstly, Jamie, being the lazy sack of British garbage that he is, had been neglecting the burned out light bulb in the bathroom for 3 months, count 'em, 3 months, so everyone else had to urinate in the dark. Given the amount of alcohol consumed, there were lots of toilet visits. Plus, some of the group swore that the floor was wet. Ewwwwwww. Then there was the issue of the smell. Now, having never been in Jamie's place before, I can't for certain say where the smell was new or if had always been there, but it was bad enough for people to be hanging out of the window. I naturally accepted the blame for the smell, given my track record, in an attempt to save us a long and drawn out blame session about whose fault it is. Given my ripe shoes and constantly rotting colon, chances were good that part of the smell was me. Now to complete the trifecta of grossness is Jamie's chest hair. Now the man has a propensity for unzipping his shirt and exposing his hairy chest. I naturally complained about the awful sight to maybe make him stop. What did I get instead? A face full of Jamie's chest. I'm still coughing up hairballs.

The horrors of the night before past us, the guys went about enjoying their Saturday, sans females. The ladies all headed home early the next morning to rest up at their respective homes, leaving the men free to discuss all the secret things that men talk about when not in the presence of women. And if you ladies out there are curious as to the secrets of the world of men, then listen well. When the ladies are away, men talk about......drum roll....sex. What? What did you really expect? Lots of talk about graphic sex, with a pinch of conversation about body fluids. Now the ladies in our group are a fine bunch, but I had forgotten how graphic and downright fun conversations can be when the womenfolk aren't around. These estrogen lacking environs are were Jamie truly shines. He is indeed the Master Mistah, as the title proposes. Now originally I had no fucking clue what a "Mistah" was, probably some British drivel or what not. But after talking with him about it, it appears to have similar connotations to the term "Pimp", given with love and respect to smooth mother fuckers. There are many treasures and delights in this world, but one of the highest has to be listening to a drunk or sober (doesn't really make a difference) British man from the self-described "hole" of the UK talk about how he wants to drink some girls bath water and how he wants to kiss her...and stuff. Yes, he wants to drink the girl's bath water....I'm pretty sure I soiled myself from laughter the first time I heard that one. The Mistah took it up a notch this weekend, as he, still convinced that his chest hair was the aphrodisiac of aphrodisiacs, attempted to seduce the convenience store clerk...sort of. He was so convinced that he could get the store clerk to touch his chest hair if he lowered his shirt line down to Italian level (you know, way past the nipples), that he bet Chris and I 1000 won each (only 1 dollar). When we entered the store, he began strutting and preening to impress the clerk, who happened to be female. When he saw that wasn't working, he started telling the clerk to "Touch it". I had to leave the premises as I simply couldn't keep from laughing. The best part: after all of this absurdity, Jamie walked out with the woman's business card, as she told Chris in Korean that her daughter is in college and wants to find an English speaking partner. Hahahah.

Eventually, we had to leave the tropical paradise that is Uijeongbu and Chris and I headed to Seoul to catch a movie. Not just any movie, but the new movie from the director of "Oldboy", which will be presented to the world at large in several weeks at the Cannes Film Festival. I feel so cool having hoped on the bandwagon way before those tools at Cannes. To add to my excitement over the movie was that it's a vampire movie. 2 hours of graphic blood letting, death, and graphic sex scenes? Yes please. We were disappointed to find that the movie wasn't being screened with English subtitles (fucking Korea Times lied to us!!), but is it really hard to understand a guy who becomes a vampire and then wants to kill people and have sex with people, sometimes both? Plus, I enjoy the chance to see where my Korean is at. The final verdict: movie good, my Korean still pretty bad. I understood enough to never be confused with what the hell was going on, but beyond that I didn't catch a lot. Damnit. The movie wasn't as good as Oldboy, but everybody back in the States should still check out 박쥐 or "Thirst" when it comes to the States. It also features the lead actor from "The Host" as the priest who becomes a vampire and begins a trail of blood throughout the city. Also, if you are really into finger or foot fetishes, you'd be well satisfied by this flick. I guess a side effect of being a member of the undead is a lust for sucking on fingers and toes as well as blood. Who knew?