The Silence of Nothingness

Pretty fucking deep title, don't you think? I thought so too. I think I'm gonna use that for the title of my next book of poetry. You wanna hear some of my poetry? Do ya?....Sorry, got off track there. Another week is upon is us and I sit down at the PC to shart out the past week of my life for you folks. I'm writing this installment from school, as I really need something to pass the time, seeing as how my students are gone all week. Yup, the little buggers are off at the English Village all week. Unlucky bastards. Now I was hoping that my school would let me just stay home all week so I could jet off to some country for shits and giggles, but clearly that isn't the case. I must have been hallucinating from sleep deprivation or something, if I thought that was gonna happen. Instead I sit here at school and teach the parents after school, provided they show up, which is never guaranteed. But all things considered the week of desk warming should be quite useful, as I'll have the time to hopefully get my vacation days and my future job stuff ironed out.

As for the last week, nothing really happened, so lets just skip to the weekend. Yet again, mother nature intervened to keep me from the basketball courts. That makes 3 weekends out of 4 that have been rainy and generally shitty. The weekend that was nice? The one we spent inside watching the vampire movie. Clearly, if a higher power does exist, then he is an enormous prick. But you already knew that. The shitty weather also rained out any chance of seeing a baseball or soccer game. Thankfully, we were able to find amusement indoors. With my sanity at stake (see later paragraph), I headed to Seoul both Saturday and Sunday, despite the weather. Jamie and I, once in Seoul, decided to head to Insadong to while away the rainy afternoon with drinks and intellectual discussion of such topics as three-ways and three-ways with lesbians. Now I was naturally curious as to the possibility of the latter, seeing the inherent impossibility of such an act, but I guess everyone gets curious. After which, they probably go running back to women, but that's another story. With our intellectual discourses finished, we headed to the Sejong Concert Hall to watch a concert of various classical music pieces (one from Shostakovich, Dvorak, Beethoven, and Arensky, for those who are curious). Now the tickets ran for just under 10 dollars, but we still found ourselves woefully under dressed compared with the Koreans, but that is the standard operating procedure for foreigners here. Remember this is the place that had people rocking suits and high heels at the bloody ski slopes. I could talk about the performance and the pieces, but seeing as how I'm classical music challenged, I should just reserve my comments to saying that the concert was very good overall, especially given the price. Sunday wasn't anything crazy either, as I wandered around one of the nicest areas of Seoul and admired just how nice it was. You wanna know how I knew it was a rich/nice area? They actually had trees....anywhere. As much as I'd like to live in that area if I get a Seoul job, I have nightmares about just how self absorbed and narcissistic those rich kids would be. Shudder. I can't even get poor ass farm kids to do what I tell them, what chance do I have with Samsung's CEO's kids? Answer: no chance.

Now, normally I'm not so insistent on heading to Seoul over the weekend, but this past weekend was a special circumstance. In the hurry and scurry of leaving school Friday for the teacher's dinner, I forgot the power cords for my PC. And since my laptop is, in a word (or two)...not good, I had all of 2 hours (if I'm lucky with the PC's battery) for the weekend. I also had to try and conserve as much as possible for the chat with the parents on Sunday, so that left me with even less. Now, the loss of the Internet can be survived, but my PC's most crucial function is that of stereo. We now come back to the post's title. I have no way to access or listen to music outside of the PC, meaning that my choices are utter silence or Korean music on the TV. I chose silence. Eric, settle down, put down the gun, you can get through this. It's just one weekend. Seriously though, the absence of sound and music is enough to drive me crazy almost instantaneously. With the weather as lousy as it was, I was unable to even open the window to let in the litany of lovely Korean sounds (trains, yelling, honking car horns, explosions) from outside my apartment. The silence was complete. Couple that with loss of the Internet and the subsequent inability to access por.....ahhh, uhhhh....portable etiquette lesssons, yeah that's it. Portable etiquette lessons. With 18 or so hours of free time to now fill up, I got bored pretty quickly. Although the whole thing may have been a blessing in disguise, as it finally convinced me to get off my ass and get a guitar to help occupy my time. And since I still don't know if I will ever get that berimbau, I gotta do something in the meantime involving music. Good thing my neighbors are Korean and thus have very strong tolerance, perhaps even appreciation, for awful music, otherwise the bleating and mewling coming from my room would be a problem.

And for a small taste of what we here in Korea have to deal with, my link of the week. This week's is an "article" from a "real newspaper" The Korea Times. This is our source of supposedly legitimate English language news about Korea. Don't even get me started on the joke editorials written by foreigners that sneak past the editors. Seriously, you think an editorial written by someone with the email address of dokdoisours@gmail.com is real? C'mon.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/05/123_45051.html

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?

"Pee all that you can Pee"

Happy Children's Day everyone! That's right, thanks to Korea's need to have even more chances to shower children with presents (as Christmas and their birthdays weren't enough), I and all of Korea has off tomorrow. I'm not 100 percent on this one, but I'm assuming that the holiday was just made up as an excuse to shower kids with useless shit. Not that I'm complaining. I'll take any national holiday I can get. The dissapointing fact was that it falls on a Tuesday. Saturday was a major holiday, known as Buddha's birthday. I was a little pissed that I forgot to get him something, but he said it was cool since he's not into that whole worldly possession thing. I lucked out there. Anyways, many foreign teachers were lucky enough to have their schools cancel school for Monday as well, giving them a nice 4 day weekend to go to Jeju, Busan, or some nearby country. Can you take a guess as to whether or not Eric was one of those lucky few (and by few, I mean most of the teachers actually)? Good guess, he wasn't. Days off are always nice, I just would have preferred to get back to Busan or something. Ohh well.

Our joke day of school was at least interesting. The day was greatly shortened, perhaps to manke the day that less meaningful and to make me that much more frustrated at having to come to school. If you are gonna start school 30 minutes earlier, cut five minutes off each class, and cut one entire class just to be done by 12:30, why even bother having school in the first place??? Seriously, in both of my English classes we spent the entire hour announcing the scores from the midterms then adjusting seats to reflect the scores (the teacher has the top students sitting next to the lowest students). That's it. Thankfully the day was amusing enough to make me not care so much about the day. Now I'm sure you're thinking right now, "Eric, what's the title mean? Your titles are always so funny and insightful and relevant to what you are talking about. God, I wish I could write titles that were half as good as yours. Plus you are so damn handsome." Thank you, thank you, you are too kind. But to answer your question, the title appeared in gym class. As I walked in, I noticed one of the boy's was wearing a pink t-shirt that read "Pee all that you can Pee". Needless to say, I laughed a fair bit. Perhaps I even laughed out loud or even was rolling on the floor laughing. Maybe. The best part was when the high level kids got the joke and then translated it for all the kids. The boy seemed to be even more proud of it once he found out what it means. Now the shirt got me thinking, have I really been living up to that motto? I'd like to think I have. I've been to my fair share of places and I've pissed in nearly all of them. I done my business all over the world from standard, recognized restrooms to the less common (take that Madison ROTC building! what you gonna do now? I'm not even in the country!) to the downright filthy (like Round's....OMG, did he just say what I think he said....uggg, that is so rancid...what the fuck, man?)

The day continued to amuse me when I met the brand new student in 3rd grade. Seemed like a nice girl. Decent amount of English, which is always a plus. So imagine my surprise when, before class started, I was talking to her and she told me I was handsome (whatever, I'm used to it by now) and followed that one up with a real humdinger. Boy was I surprised when she suddenly spit out something like "Can we have dinner together?". Jaw, meet the floor. Even more shocking to me was that she was confused why I would say no. Naturally, I asked her if she was going to be paying for our meal, but she said that her parents don't give her any allowance. Dealbreaker. I felt all the more emasculated (don't worry, it happens alot), as this 15 or so year old had no problems asking someone out in a foreign language, whereas I can't even summon up the minerals to ask out a girl in my own language.

School ended and all the teachers gathered behind the school for an old fashioned picnic. They even broke out the grill. Sadly, they are not worthy of the title of Grillmaster, that is to say they don't stand around someone else cooking the food and talk about how they could do it so much better, but then they fuck it up once they are actually cooking the food for themselves (sound familiar Collin?). Sitting there, listening to the teachers talk about my white skin or admire/play with my arm hair, I longed for a brat and some real beer. Alas I had to settle for imperfect beef and some crazy ginseng liquor. I kid you not, they had a bottle with massive ginseng root in it and it was an alcohol. I didn't touch the ginseng stuff, as the ginseng drinks I've had are akin in taste to umbilical cord fluid, I presume. As for the arm hair thing, the Social Studies teacher seriously asked me if I get mosquitos stuck in my arm hair and if when I squish them they get caught in my hair. Well, what he actually said included the Korean for mosquito, which I somehow know, and lots and lots of furious arm gestures and noises. Good thing I'm a champ at pantomime.

The weekend wasn't much to write home about, yet I'm writing home about it anyways. Yet again, the weather literally rained on our parade, dumping on us for most of the day. So much for the FC Seoul game and pick up basketball at one of the universitys. Now I know I'm rusty, but I could handle an 0-30 shooting night if I could walk away with near 300 blocks, which I naturally would, given I'm playing against little people. Maybe just to challenge myself I would only try to block using my elbows, just take away the rest of my forearm. Though I am sad I didn't get to see any Asian ballas. That would have been hilarious. Maybe even funnier than white, wannabe ballas. With the soccer game out of the question, we headed to the theater to catch the opening showing of the new Wolverine movie. I didn't actually get to see it, as the theater fucked up with our tickets, so Jethro and I wandered the mall for the 2 hours. After doing some serious shopping and walking away with a to die for dress that really shows off my cleavage and some gorgeous fuck me pumps, we were on our way. Yeah, right. Anyways, on the way out the group met this cute little Korean kid about 4 or 5, who spoke really good English, as he had lived in the Philippines. He burned us pretty good when he asked one of the group members why they don't know Korean. When she responded that Korean is hard, the boy just skoffed at her. Ouch. He also said he didn't understand why people in the Philippines and foreigners here don't speak Korean. He apparantly found the fact that Filippinos speak English instead of Korean to be very frustrating. I'll make sure to suggest it to them when I visit in August. The benefits of speaking Korean are countless for people living outside of Korea. There's....ummmm...and then there's that one where....no wait, that doesn't count....ummm....hold on, I'll think of one...

Lastly, I had another interview of sorts with another recruiter and this one went better. No screwups by me, but the lady was genuinely concerned about whether I could start the SMOE job on time. The SMOE contracts generally start August 26th and my GEPIK contract doesn't end till August 28th. Ohhh my god, two whole days. Cuz I'm so far away and it would take me forever to get there, like all of 50 minutes. But as one comes to expect from dealing with Koreans, that which seems to be meaningless/uncomplicated/simple is never such. Now I'm genuinely concerned whether I will be able to come home between contracts. I'm also genuinely concerned whether I will be able to get a job at all. Gaaaaaaaa. Korea.

The grass is greener.....where you can actually find it

Yes, ladies and gentlefolks, after 8 months of searching, I have finally found accessible grass. No, not the widely popular recreational drug (shame on you for even thinking that...don't you know its illegal?), but the green follicles that adorn the ground in most places (most places not being Korea). I can't really blame Korea, as in a country trying to squeeze every possible use out of every inch of land, green grass just for looks can't really be a high priority. Now, I've seen grass in some spots, namely Olympic Park in Seoul, but the key word is accessible grass. Though this spot may stretch the definition a bit, as it is located about a 25-30 minute jog from my apartment along the Han River jogging path. Though the distant location does give it a nice quiet feel, devoid of Koreans, which Olympic Park, with its million or so Koreans cluttering the premises at any given time, cannot hope to offer. So, you ask, what did I do upon finding this holiest of holy sites? I laid down and took a nap...sort of. Being a connoisseur of lazing about and napping in the grass (remember? English major and a lazy one at that, leaves a lot of free time), I can tell you that this might have been the least comfortable grass I've every laid on, all stiff and coarse and generally unpleasant. Not like I cared. Eventually I got up and continued with my day, as I was in the midst of a jog and it was only 52 degrees and windy, so I really didn't feel like staying forever.

As you might have guessed, the past week has been terribly slow, given that my joy upon finding grass made page 1. School is the same old, same old. Have even less work to look forward to in the next couple weeks, as midterms eat up most of this week, next week features a national holiday on Tuesday and a trip to Everland on Friday, and in several weeks the entire school goes to the English Village for an entire week. Not sure what the school intends for me during that week, but I sincerely hope I don't have to go to the English Village. It's a bunch of religious crazies that run the place. Middle of nowhere (30 minutes by bus from Yangpyeong and 15 minutes from any town at all), no smoking or drinking allowed in the rooms (as you apparently live a dorm life) and no members of the opposite sex in one's rooms. Ouch. I would in all likelihood start spouting anti-Christian hate by Tuesday morning and that would possibly be detrimental to my continued employment. The weather has been dog shit for the past week as well, so that's always a plus. Looking back at previous posts, I notice just how much the weather is responsible for my mood. Couple weeks back, when the sun was shining and the temperatures were great, I was having a ball. Now that its been rainy and shitty and cold for the last week straight, I can only describe my mood as blase.

This lovely weather ruined a perfectly good weekend in Seoul, and that is simply unforgivable. Wanted to go to a baseball game but it was raining in the evening. Boo. Wanted to go to the blues club we managed to find, but didn't wanna just sit around for several hours waiting for the live acts to start, so we just went home even earlier than usual. All my time in Seoul accomplished was a haircut, which as usual was a struggle. I had never realized the issue that haircuts would be before I came. It was always pretty easy back in the States, just describe the cut, and the lady would more or less get it right (Maria, you can just shut your damn mouth about my haircuts...not everybody can look as good as you do all the time, its just too hard to reach your demi-god status on a regular basis). Here not only is the language issue, but the fact that the Koreans have no idea how to give me a simple Western cut. They have experience in women's haircuts and women's haircuts (aka Korean "men" haircuts....Wallin 9,999,999,999 and counting, Anna and her Korean "boys" 0). This was my second time at the particular place, which did a decent job last time and the owner speaks a little English. This time I laughed when I saw the final result. The picture I showed him in the book was some Western guy with a similar cut to what I get, and this is important, the hair in front was laying straight down. What I got: hair parted on a slant across the face, heading to one ear, which is quite popular for, you guessed it, Korean haircuts. I almost asked him if I looked Korean to him. "Do you see the arm hair, the not black and straight hair, the whole not two feet tall thing, the inability to speak Korean? Do I look friggin Korean?" I can't really expect too much from a country that has been idolizing this guy and his absurd hair for the past several months.

http://www.kbs.co.kr/drama/photo_gallery/popup_new.html?Drama_Type=&Img_Code=151005002&mcode=005

Now, it may not be clear whose absurd hair I'm referring to, but in this case its the guy front and center with the perm. Now this particular show has been going gangbusters over here and all the students can't stop talking about it, so obviously I see his hideous hair wherever I go and it makes me frustrated to no end. Now, I'm no supporter of the American idea of "manliness" and not doing "girly stuff", whatever that may be, but I have a huge problem with a dude having a perm. My problem is that no one, male or female, should care that much about their hair or spend that much time getting it ready. While the lack of this male pressure to be manly otherwise you are gay is refreshing, I do badly miss the lack of pressure on men to spend huge amounts of time on their appearance. Over here, the boys have to deal with all the same looks bullshit that women have to deal with. If only the West could find a way incinerate this societal pressure for women to dress and look a certain way. But that is asking way too much of the good ol' USA, at least for right now. Now quick quiz. The chick on the right in the picture, the one with the lighter longer hair? You see her. She's pretty good looking isn't she? She's pretty flat in front, but she is Asian, so that comes with the territory. Otherwise, though, she's good looking. Yeah, you'd buy her a drink at the bar. Now here's the stunner: its a dude. Bammm. Have I blown your minds? Probably not. I just can't pass up a chance to burn the Korean men. Ohhhh Anna, that's another point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66yP7UKNf0g

This last link is just to give you an idea of what we foreign teachers are working with over here, in regards to music and popular culture. I'm not sure if it was the pink suits, the shiny pink suits, the colors, or the breathtakingly bad song, but I'm really in need of an abortion for my eyeballs. And I don't even mind the particular boy band most of the time. This was just much too much. Ohhh and the best part, the entire song/video is just a advertisement/plug for the phones that everyone was rocking, which the model type is appropriately named Lollypop, I believe. Yeeeesh, artistic integrity my ass.

When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong (I gotta learn to shut my damn mouth...)

Yup, imagine that. After last week's concern over fucking it up in the interview with the recruiter, I went....and fucked it up in the interview. Dohhhhhhh. Yes, yet again I lost out on a possible job because I simply don't know when to shut my big fucking mouth and smile. Maybe someday I'll learn, but just not yet. I had the interview with the recruiter last Wednesday and it went....not well. She called me using Skype and I had forgotten that my status on Skype read, and I quote, "I hate my f#$kin' computer more than I hate the Korean education system...and that's saying something." Well, I obviously forgot about this and what should be the first thing the interviewer says once we connect but, "So I see you don't like the Korean education system." Mooooother fucker. Already cornered, I truthfully explained my frustrations and problems with the education system and my co-teacher in general, all legit hurdles and obstacles in the way of the children learning English, but not like that mattered. Logic has a way of being discarded like that. She naturally asked what I expected to be different in Seoul, since that is where I am applying to go to. I told her that I didn't expect much to be different, but I wanted to take my chances with a new "whitey wrangler" at my new school. I explained that my primary reasons for moving to Seoul deal with maintaining my sanity and my health. Presently I exist in a bit of a Catch 22, as I go to Seoul 5 times a week to maintain my sanity/have something to do, but I sacrifice sleep and food at times, as I average about 5 hours of sleep from Tuesday-Thursday and consume my dinners past midnight. Were I to quit going to Seoul and capoeira, I would be well-rested, but I would go insane from boredom and inability to blow off steam. I chose to be tired. Sadly, the interviewer saw no merit to this, as she responded rather gruffly "Well, lots of people wanna move to Seoul". I guess the idea of a happy and sane and rested teacher is a good teacher is a load of crap. So regardless of all my credentials and experience and the fact that I'm presently here in Korea and haven't pulled a midnight run yet, despite my issues, I'm not SMOE material, according to this recruiter. Fuck them. I just moved on to the next SMOE recruiter.

Otherwise, last week wasn't too bad, as I got several trips all shored up and squared away. The ticket for the Philippines trip finally came, not without a fair amount of drama (We are in Korea, its just the protocol). The ticket was originally delayed because the travel agent screwed something up with the name on the ticket. All I know is that once I emailed her my passport, she sent some frentic and nonsensical email about the name on the ticket being wrong. I won't be surprised if there is drama when we leave in August and there are issues because the ticket name doesn't match the passport name. The DMZ trip got officially paid for so if you hear nothing from me after May 23, you'll know what happened. Either I got shot/kidnapped by the North Koreans, died from a bungee jumping accident, or got shot by the North Koreans. Actually, the last one seems like a pretty XXXXtreme way to die. I could do worse. The only loose end to tie up is working out my vacation days with the co-teacher. I emailed the GEPIK coordinator in hopes that she would call the school, shout at them, and then I would magically have the vacation days, without me being involved in any shouting. Sadly, the coordinator told me to have the coteacher call. I'm in the midst of finding a subdued and gentle way of saying, "Hey lady, you fucked up big time. I get 25 vacation days, not 19. You are full of shit and a liar. Call this number and have the coordinator tell you how full of shit you are." This one may require more tact that I possess. I really want to call her out to her face on this fuckup, but obviously, with all the confusist bullshit running through Korea's veins, being publically brought to task for you fuckups doesn't work. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate Confusianism.

The school is much the same as ever. English classes with coteacher: mind numbing for the student and myself and nobody is really learning anything. English classes I teach solo: enjoyable, but frustrating due to inability to punish the children, thus they do not obey my authority. I've got on student in particular that I have no idea what to do with. This is the same student that I was told was "stupid" a while back. While I don't wanna call her stupid, she is by no means hauling in MENSA awards or genius grants. The problem is that she is most certainly emotionally and maturity level-wise delayed. In one class last week, I spent most of the hour pulling a comb out of my beltloop, as she spent the whole time trying to covertly lodge a small comb in my pants' beltloops. It wasn't even like she would just do it when I walked by. She actually would get up from her seat and wander around the classroom, trying to sneak up behind me. She makes no attempt to even look like she is doing work. While the other low level or lazy students are wily enough to simply cheat off their smarter peers (another issue, but less bothersome), she makes no attempt to even cheat. In another un-related incident, I took away her cell phone in class and she spent the rest of class whining and nearly crying about it. Then after class she simply followed me around and repeatedly asked for the phone. It got so bad that students from the next class started yelling at her to just bugger off, but to no avail. Eventually she got so desperate that she actually physicaly dove (just her hand....well they are small people, so I thought I should clarify) into my pants' pocket to retrieve her phone by force. I was shocked and freaked out to no end, as this violated so many rules of teacher and student conduct. I obviously had to get her out of my pocket post haste, lest she find another "handheld device" that I keep in my pants, so I actually had to forcibly remove her arm from my pants. I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do with her. I don't know why students like her are in my classes, probably so the other teachers don't have to fucking bother with her. It's students and encounters like these that make many foreign teachers feel much more like babysitters or day-care providers, rather than actual students. We spend alot of our time making sure the students are fed, happy, awake, and changed, as opposed to simply teaching. Ohhh well.

For the most part, though, the kids are great. To add to my already hefty legend in their eyes, they begged me into giving a capoeira demo during gym class. It was shitty, naturally as I'm no good, but it was enough to bring them to hysterics. So the kids (in their eyes obviously) have an awesome foreigner that can do handstands and crazy b-boy shit, can dunk, is really tall, is really cool and funny, and is really handsome. I'm assuming they think this is what 하느님 (God) is like. And they would be right. A God does walk among them (pauses to bask in his own greatness). It's amazing how talkative most of the kids are now, as opposed to how what they were like when I got here. They are so comfortable with me, that today one student who is as timid as human beings, nay mice, come, actually came up behind when I wasn't looking and tried to scare me by shoving me in the back. Had I been 3'2" and 26 pounds like her, I probably would have gone flying from the shove, but obviously I didn't. It was just amazing that this student, who looked like she was gonna pee and poop herself if I asked her to say the most basic thing in English when I arrived, now is doing stuff like this. How far they have come.

The weekend offered new sights and sounds, but mostly the same smells, as all of Seoul carries the same weird funk. The crew journeyed to World Cup Stadium to take in a FC Seoul soccer match. A good time was had by all. The stadium and surrounding complex was gorgeous, at it was constructed for the World Cup back in 2002. Shame the current product and attendance isn't befitting such a grand structure. The stadium holds around 63,000 people and obviously they aren't gonna fill that for on a weekly basis, since the Korean league falls kinda low on the cultural chart as far as sports go, but they didn't even get close. Now I already knew that attendance was bad from the Seongnam game I attended last fall, but attendance of 5,000 or so looks a lot better in a stadium of 12,000, as opposed to a 63,000 seater stadium. Empty seats aside, the game was great fun. 8,000 won (about 6.50 dollars) for an endline seat, 12,000 (10 dollars or so) for sideline tickets and 3,000 won (2 bucks) for big 32 oz beer cups makes it a economical, and possibly quite drunk, time. Plus the few fans that were there were all into it, cheering and chanting all game. Just great energy all around. Too bad FC Seoul is pretty mediocre and could only manage a 0-0 tie. I could talk for hours about their poor play, but lets just leave at the fact that their main offensive strategy of "boot ball" (just dribbling the ball around and then booting it into the box, hoping and praying that the one striker can out head two or more defenders and a goalie to score) was frowned on by my high school coaches. Either way, a good time was had, and more good times will soon be had as Jamie and I will be back in 2 weeks for the next home game, with a baseball game somewhere in between. I walked away from the stadium with an FC Seoul jersey for my brother (finally!!! been searching all over Seoul for one...if I wanted a Man U jersey, I could have chosen color, year, sponser, etc, but home town team....uhhh, nothing). With the jersey in hand, I can finally send home the last bundle of...gulp...Christmas presents. Shut up. It's all the time zone stuff. It's still like Jan 1st or something over here. I don't know. Just shut up.

I'm high on life (cuz I can't find anything else here...)

I must be getting my fiber, cuz I've been so fucking regular with these here blog posts. Wow, apologies for that last sentence. It just popped into my head and I knew immediately that it had to be put down on paper, regardless of how inane and absurd it may be. But it is true, as I've been relieving myself of my thoughts on a weekly basis. This one looks to be shorter than most, as I'm in an insanely good mood with nothing to really complain about, and everyone knows that 90% of the energy expended to open and close my mouth goes towards bitching, with eating taking up about 8% and saying nice/good/happy things filling in the last 2%. If I'm in a good mood, I usually shut the hell up, so as not to ruin it with the sound of my own voice. There are exceptions to the rule, especially when events of an EPIC nature are unfolding, as the world deserves to know just how EPIC that one beer pong match was. For those of you in the dark, trust me, it was pretty fucking EPIC.

On the job front, not too much new. I've settled into the standard job niche, where one spends every waking second there thinking about what the hell they are gonna do as soon as they clock out. The bonus is that there are actually things to look forward to once I leave. God, there is so much shit going down in the coming months that it's making my head spin. I'm pretty sure sometime over the weekend I had an epiphany where it dawned on me: this is what having a life is like. Man, its not half bad, now that I think about it. Not to take anything away from the weekends spent alone in my apartment, writing my poetry and listening to Dashboard Confessional (man, Chris Carrabba, you so get me), but I think this “life” thing might actually be better. But more on future plans in a little bit, as I should probably finish with the school stuff. As for the extra classes that were proposed for me last week, I was told the next day that they had been canceled cuz no foreign teacher would that that shit with a 10 foot pole, surprise, surprise. Problem solved. The only other issue at present is concerning my next job. I've managed to find a recruiter that deals with SMOE (the public school organization for Seoul) and have successfully sent in the paperwork, so now all that remains between me and contact with actual school is the interview with the recruiter. Unfortunately, its a phone interview, so I can't take advantage of my most powerful aspect: my gorgeous and glistening ivory skin. Don't worry, I'll find a way to sneak it into the conversation. “So where do you see yourself in 10 years?” “Well, that's a good question...did I mention I'm white. Yup, white as white can be. Shit, my mom and brother are basically gingers, I'm that white.” Done. Hired. The interview also poses the unique challenge of making sure the recruiter sees who I am, but not too much of who I am. I keepz it realz, perhaps much too real (and for the record, I still stand by my decision in the SAFEWalk interview. Drunk people do make me laugh. The shit they do is hilarious. End of story. I should have gotten that job.).

As for the highlights of the weekend, there isn't a huge amount to say. Since there was no ridiculous encounters with Koreans, no bullshit to wade through, no soul crushing disappointments, there isn't a huge amount to say. Saturday saw the group heading out for Jethro's birthday. We decided to head to Apgujeong, the ritzy of the ritzy in Seoul, supposedly, since it is also home to Seoul's only reputable jazz club. The group stopped for dinner at a fusion Chinese or something restaurant in the neighborhood. This place had a freakin' Koi pond in the middle of the restaurant. That's how we knew it would be good. Actually, I got good mixed up with expensive. A Koi pond guarantees that the restaurant will be expensive, not necessarily good. But this place just so happened to be both. I, per usual, ate my fill, as the majority of the party was unable to finish their dishes. Enter the Human Garbage Can. 3 other party members' dishes later, and I was satiated....kind of. From there, we began our long and drawn out journey to the jazz club. Thanks in part to my inability to perfectly read a Korean map or write down the telephone number, to several Koreans inability to know the difference between their asses and holes in the ground, and simply lousy maps, we journeyed long and hard. Sadly, as we didn't pack enough rations and supplies for the journey we were forced to consume one of our party members to survive the journey. It's true what they say, Asian does leave you hungry in 2 hours. My major faults withstanding, we were lead astray by a lousy map that insinuated that the jazz club was near the Apgujeong subway station instead of 30 minutes away and various Koreans that didn't even know the direction to the fucking enormous department store located near the jazz club. At long last, we found the club and not a moment too soon, as I was becoming increasingly frustrated. I was walking at least 25 yards in front of the rest of the group instead of the usual 10 or 15, that's how angry I was. The jazz club was everything that I was looking for, but sadly it didn't appeal to the majority of our group. Probably had something to do with drinks being 3 times the standard price here in Korea. Maybe. Either way, Jethro and I were badly outvoted and we moved back to the bar “Beer Hunter”, yup, for cheap and copious amounts of liquor.

Sunday brought the first official capoeira park gathering for the new year. The group was scheduled to meet at 2pm at Olympic Park and I arrived fashionably late....2 and a half hours later. Though, it wasn't my fault, mostly. The traffic was bad enough to add an additional 30 minutes to my already lengthy bus ride and I ended up going to the wrong subway stop and ended up having to walk all the way across the park to meet the group. Going to Olympic Park? Go to the Olympic Park subway station, right? Fuck no. That would be logical. Finally, I arrived to discover that it wasn't a practice, it was a demo. Oooops. Now, I thought the crowds back in Madison were ambivalent to our performances. That was before Korea. Seriously, we had 5 or 6 guys pulling off the manner of floreio that only Carlos could do back in Madison and the crowd gave us nary a woop. I couldn't blame them at some times, as the music was pretty god damn weak. Even though we had a group of 10 or so, I felt like (and probably was at times) the only one not on instruments involved in the music, whether by singing or clapping. On a side note, Olympic Park made me very happy, as I saw real grass, you know, the kind you can sit on. Though, in true Korean style, the Koreans don't actually sit on the grass without a mat or some kind of buffer between themselves and the ground. You know, cuz you wouldn't wanna get dirty or get yucky grass all over you. Fuck no, that would be awful. Clearly. I didn't think I would be excited about grass, but then I realized I haven't seen green grass in 7 months, let alone sat and relaxed in its sweet embrace. Hot.

Back to the future plans. God damn it looks busy in the near future. Just finished up paying for my Philippines ticket and finalizing travel plans. We are just in the infancy stage of planning for what we are gonna do while we are there, but already we are all starting to get pretty antsy. Amy started looking at scuba diving packages today and I nearly pooped myself of excitement. Cept we may have to take a ferry to travel around. The ferry: my nemesis. We meet again. In brighter news, I believe they may be attempting to “hook me up” with some of the locals. The following conversation appears exactly as occurred. Person: “Hey, listen that reminds me. You said you'd never pay for sex, correct?” Me: “Go on....I'm listening.” Person: “But what if...when we are in the Phils, a girl would say...come up to you? Not asking for money or anything. She just likes you. Would you prefer that? Because I'm told that it can be worked out.” Me: “I do prefer consenting sex, yes.” Interesting, is it not? But even beyond the Philippines, things are looking up. The weather is getting even more gorgeous, but will soon be moving into sticky and uncomfortable, but I really couldn't care less. I'm just tired of being cold. Warm weather brings weekly capoeira rodas in the park, as well as baseball and soccer season. Having spent the majority of today trolling various Korean sites to find schedules for said sports (it was a slow day, alright, lay off), I have before me a comprehensive list of games. I shall now commence attending said events. Last we have an upcoming trip to the DMZ, coupled with bungee jumping? Naturally, since those things go together like bacon and chocolate chip cookies (but wait...those two things do go together, hmm...). I've been assured that we won't be bungee jumping into North Korean territory or even into the DMZ, so I'm less excited. I've also been told there will be rice cake making, but not during the bungee jumping. Again, a let down. Korea is just not eXXXXXtreme enough for my tastes. I'll have to settle for plain old boring bungee jumping. But then again, we will presumably be jumping off a bridge that services motor traffic. And since we are in Korea, we are liable to get hit at any second. That probably knocks the whole thing up to maybe a two X, but not the 5 X I was looking for. The car accident thing is no joke. I live in a third floor apartment on a small alley and I'm still afraid of being hit by a car, in my apartment, most of the time. You just never man. You never know.

The Cultural Revolution, in a way (no not really)

It's Monday again, and that means its time to post once again on the happenings, if such thing exist, in my life. As I write this post while munching on dried banana chips and listening to Sigur Ros, life doesn't seem so bad. Banana chips are a new delight, having discovered the fantasy of flavors concealed within a mere 5 minutes ago. While I don't agree with Korea's policy of drying each and every food product imaginable, banana seems to turn out pretty well. And guess where the bananas are from? The Philippines, which brings me to my next point....We are going to the Philippines, for realzzies. Amy and I spent most of last week in a bit of a fog, as we were perpetually fluctuating betwixt various vacation day numbers, but now everything has be finally cleared up to our liking. The basic problem was this: the copy of the GEPIK contract the Madison crew signed was a bit old and sort of out of date, as it only had 14 vacation days listed. Somewhere between when we signed in May and when we started the contract in September, GEPIK raised the vacation days from 14 to 20, and it was reflected in the newer contracts (aka everybody's but ours). Our schools obviously knew nothing about this change and are holding to the contract while we claim that the vacation applies to anyone starting sept 1, regardless of what the contract says. After much waiting and praying, we heard word from Dain Bae that we do indeed get the extra vacation, leaving me with 15 vacation days to still play with. The Philippines trip (I swear to God that I'm gonna learn how to spell the Philippines correctly with spell checker before this whole thing is over) will be from August 1st to August 15th, so I'll still have a week left over to do with as I please, whatever that may be.

The weekend was especially pleasant as it offered something new, which is vital given my attention deficit dysfunction. Friday evening saw the group trying a pretty damn classy Italian restaurant in Itaewon. The food was so delectable that I momentarily forgot my hatred of Italy (well, actually just Italians themselves....well, actually just Italian-Americans.....well, actually just one Italian-American and he had it coming). Buoyed by our inflated stomachs and spirits, we discussed on our homeward jaunt a great many things. Jethro and I in particular discussed the absolute lack of culture in our lives. I, in particular, was starving for some conversation about literature, music, cinema, and anything in between that can be declared even remotely intellectually stimulating. Since we only see each other once a week due to our locations, the majority of our conversations seem to play out in a manner akin to this: "Ohhh my god, you will not believe the shit my co-teacher/students/principal pulled this week......" "Are you fucking serious? Dude, I don't even believe that just happened." "What the fuck, man? Only in Korea, seriously, only in Korea." so on and so forth. For once, rather than bitch and moan about it, I decided to do something (I don't believe it either). I must really be starved for culture then. Now Yangpyeong isn't a horrible town, in fact its quite quaint, but culture it doesn't have. Sorry. Dirt, mountains, kimchi, and crusty old country folks do not culture make. I feel a little bad always referring to the old folks as "crusty", but really I can't think of better word for them. They literally look "crusty", like bread that's been left out way, way too long in the open air and has gone hard and stale. Our first cultural conquest was decided to be an art museum of all things. We settled on the Seoul Arts Center and its exhibition of Gustav Klimt's works. I knew almost nothing of his work going in (sorry, my knowledge of turn of the 20th century Austrian expressionists is a little weak at the moment), but the exhibit was fantastic. The exhibit was a pretty big deal as this was the first and probably only Asian exhibition of his works ever. I even found the other onlookers to my liking. The place was crowded, sure, but there was absolutely no pushing, shoving, and no rush to get from point A to point B like everywhere else in Korea. There was a relaxed and calm atmosphere surrounding the whole complex, which marks the 2nd time I've encountered that here in Korea (don't remember where the first was, but I figured I would be generous and give them the benefit of the doubt). When we got to his erotic nude sketches, there were no giggles and snickers and freakouts about the penises and vaginas in front of them, simply observation. That really surprised me given the kinda pathetic reaction that Doc Manhattan's "Empire State Building" got during the Watchmen showing. Seriously, I thought I was watching the movie with a room full of 12 year olds. Most importantly of all was the very favorable attractive young women to oxygen molecules ratio. I'd put it at a very acceptable 10 oxygen molecules to 1 attractive girl. I like this social circle. I even walked away with a small framed copy of one of the pics.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/k/klimt/klimt_medicine.jpg

What? Did you think I was gonna walk away with a pastoral landscape pic? Cmon, you know me better than that. Our cultural thirst was not quenched, so we headed up to the music hall on the grounds of the complex and got ourselves a schedule for the various symphony orchestras shows for the next month. Thankfully, they have performances here on the weekends, which we can actually attend. The Seoul Symphony Orchestra, the big guy, apparently only performs during the week. This would seem stupid and ridiculous to the untrained eye, but one must remember that we are in Korea. All bets are off. But wait, there's more. We did some searching and found some jazz clubs that appear to be to our liking. In fact, we plan on frequenting a rather upscale one next weekend for Jethro's birthday party. They have a dress code, which obviously poses a problem for yours truly. I don't think "I listen to bands that don't even exist yet" or "I love Rounds cock" t-shirts will cut it here. Damn.

As for school, the last several days have been amusing. Had I been in a worse mood, they could have led to me pulling my hair out, but given my sprightly mood, I can only laugh. The co-teacher has been especially friendly and nice the last couple weeks, which lead me to believe that she finally had that mature adult blue whale removed from her ass. Possibly, but it know seems more likely that she was buttering me up for her next round of unpleasant demands, which she clearly knows I won't take lying down. Last Friday, when driving me home, she explained that we would have an open class in July. Nothing out of the ordinary there, as native speakers usually have to deal with at least one of these a contract. Basically, it consists of the co-teacher and native speaker getting together and making a really bitchin lesson, rehearsing it with the students (yes, I said rehearse, they practice it so that the kids answer perfectly to make it look like they actually know English), then performing it for several onlooking teaching tandems from around the area. The open lesson is always concluded by speeches about how the children are the future or some drivel. In general, this is only of the only times where many co-teachers actually plan something, as this is a big deal for the Koreans, as it is basically a job review and is necessary in order to get promotions/pay raises/move to better schools. It means nothing to the native speaker, so we usually slip to the sidelines and let the co-teacher actually do the planning and prep for the class. After my co-teacher introduced the open lesson, she told me that I, not we, but I, would have to come up with the lesson plan and make the preparations. Then in all seriousness, she asked if I had come up with an idea for it already, which is only fair given I had learned about the open class at least 30 seconds before. I just laughed and politely told the teacher I didn't have any ideas yet. I laughed to myself knowing full well that I have no intention whatsoever of doing all the legwork for her. If this crashes and burns, then its her head, not mine that rolls. Look forward to updates on that front. Today brought even more laughs when the co-teacher explained to me that Yangpyeong is putting together more of the weekend supplemental classes that they did last semester. Just to recap that, back in October, the co-teach came to be practically begging, saying that they really, really needed a native speaker and would I do this for her. Being a nice guy, at least back then, I said yes. The teaching job was miserable. 3 hours a day for 3 consecutive Saturdays, teaching really obscure/difficult/stupid/preassigned material to lousy students who clearly didn't wanna be there with a co-teacher who simply wasn't around 90 percent of the time. I obviously had no intention of ever accepting this extra work again, ever. So today the co-teach explained that they are trying to do extra classes in the evenings after my regular classes end (starting around 5 to 5:30) and also on Saturdays and Sundays. I explained to her that I go to Seoul on Tuesday-Thursday and are probably in Seoul on Saturday and Sundays too. She then began whining and moaning about how she can't get any native speakers for these programs and what is she gonna do, ohhh, Eric, please help me out, won't you help me out just this once? No shit, no foreigners wanna take on this much extra work. And the whole ohhh please help me bullshit is really unprofessional. If she came at me in a professional manner and set the job in front of me, rather than trying to guilt trip me, I might have been at least a little bit more inclined to the offer. Her approach is just disgusting to me. I explained to her that I don't have to do this work as per my contract states and I simply don't need the money and don't want to take the job, end of story. She got a bit flustered, uttered a bunch of "igo"s (Korean expression for "Oh my god") and eventually told me that I should think about it, working once or twice during the week (Monday and Friday, my only nights to unwind during the week) and 1 or 2 weekends a month. Now the job in the fall was simply 3 weekends, while this one, now that I think about it, seems even worse, as it sounds like these 1-2 days a week and 1-2 weekends a month would continue on for god knows how long. I told her I would think about. And I did for like a microsecond (actually, that's a lie. I didn't think about it at all). All this and the fact that my school will be receiving notice from GEPIK soon that I actually have 6 more paid days of vacation than previously thought should add even more spice to the mix. Given the stink they made about me using 10 vacation days over a 2-2.5 month long vacation, just imagine the fit over me using 15 vacation days over the span of 1.5 months. It should be interesting. Relations with the co-teacher and school can only go one direction from here on out, and you the lucky reader get to travel along for the whole ride. Hold on to your asses.