reading my friend's blog, i was reminded about some pets my family used to have.
one pet's name was poncho. he was an iguana. he drowned in the bathtub. my mom [unsuccessfully] gave him mouth to mouth.
i don't remember if i cried. i probably did. but i was also the only one who cried (i think...) when the weiner dog ramsey bled to death out of every hole in his body after eating the rat poison dangerously planted behind the deep freezer in the basement. in retrospect this is a good memory, not because my dog died (even though he did bite me on several occassions and made me dump a whole fucking bowl of hot oatmeal in my lap. but that's neither here nor there) but because it's a very vivid reminder of a good time and place in my life when everything was better than just okay, good even (everything, except of course my dog bleeding to death). just another oddly-colored event in the history of my house on union street. i miss that house. in the backyard there's a veritable pet cemetary, final resting place to most of the animals my mom brought home from the vet clinic that we adopted. but then there was lobo, the alaskan malamute who used to pull us up the hill on our sled, who died of the cancer during the winter. the ground was too hard to bury him, so we had him cremated instead.
that's all about my pets. don't even get me started on bahb, the pitbull whose framed picture currently sits on top of my tv here in the korea.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
bored. board.
i have two more hours to kill at the miracle library. why am i even here? for one hour today i played games with little kids. they take their uno very seriously, as the losers inevitably cry every time. one of the moms gave me a dirty look today when i didn't let her kid when the game. what can i say, i'm competitive. i play uno to win.
today's the day i'm sposed to sit at the big desk and check books in and out, like a real live librarian! but now i've even been ushered away from that. i'm sitting in the office typing while everyone else around me hustles and bustles with the burden of seemingly important library activity. this flurry of people and movements circles me as i struggle to keep my eyes open, chewing gum and typing in slow motion.
and always this feeling that maybe this isn't what i'm sposed to be doing. maybe i should be helping with something--i don't know what, but something, something involving english maybe--as i have offered to do on numerous occassions. but until someone instructs me i will continue to just sit here typing, startlingly attuned to the weight of my own eyelids.
i drank a lot of soju last night. my friends urinated off of my 6th floor balcony onto unsuspecting passerby. it reminded me of a new years eve i spent in hot springs, ar a few years ago. my friends will and anne were with me, as was my manfriend at the time, chris. it was turning out to be another dismal, disappointing, subtlely soul-crushing new years--the inherent sense of holiday possibilities instead replaced by the same aloof complacency afforded people who drink too much but never get drunk. perhaps it's foolish of me to assume we all have those kinds of nights....anyhoo, the one thing that salvaged the holiday and raised our collective spirit, was the fact that i had lots of condoms in my pocket that would make perfect (albeit greasy) water balloons. so we made spermicidal water balloons and chucked them at the people below, retaliating against the holiday spirit we presumed they had. only through hurling wet prophylactic objects at complete strangers did i feel like not everything was a loss.
i go to beijing early early on saturday morning en route to tibet on sunday. so if i die, this would be my last blog post ever. of course i say that now knowing that i'll probably be in this exact location again tomorrow--in this chair at this desk of the miracle library in suncheon south korea--trying to type away the minutes until i get to leave and actually begin my life for the day. whether i die or not, this will be my last blog posting for a while, as i don't imagine i'll feel like pc bong hunting in the tibet.
i can't wait to get my hands on some yak chee-juh and yak meat.
today's the day i'm sposed to sit at the big desk and check books in and out, like a real live librarian! but now i've even been ushered away from that. i'm sitting in the office typing while everyone else around me hustles and bustles with the burden of seemingly important library activity. this flurry of people and movements circles me as i struggle to keep my eyes open, chewing gum and typing in slow motion.
and always this feeling that maybe this isn't what i'm sposed to be doing. maybe i should be helping with something--i don't know what, but something, something involving english maybe--as i have offered to do on numerous occassions. but until someone instructs me i will continue to just sit here typing, startlingly attuned to the weight of my own eyelids.
i drank a lot of soju last night. my friends urinated off of my 6th floor balcony onto unsuspecting passerby. it reminded me of a new years eve i spent in hot springs, ar a few years ago. my friends will and anne were with me, as was my manfriend at the time, chris. it was turning out to be another dismal, disappointing, subtlely soul-crushing new years--the inherent sense of holiday possibilities instead replaced by the same aloof complacency afforded people who drink too much but never get drunk. perhaps it's foolish of me to assume we all have those kinds of nights....anyhoo, the one thing that salvaged the holiday and raised our collective spirit, was the fact that i had lots of condoms in my pocket that would make perfect (albeit greasy) water balloons. so we made spermicidal water balloons and chucked them at the people below, retaliating against the holiday spirit we presumed they had. only through hurling wet prophylactic objects at complete strangers did i feel like not everything was a loss.
i go to beijing early early on saturday morning en route to tibet on sunday. so if i die, this would be my last blog post ever. of course i say that now knowing that i'll probably be in this exact location again tomorrow--in this chair at this desk of the miracle library in suncheon south korea--trying to type away the minutes until i get to leave and actually begin my life for the day. whether i die or not, this will be my last blog posting for a while, as i don't imagine i'll feel like pc bong hunting in the tibet.
i can't wait to get my hands on some yak chee-juh and yak meat.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
provocative lunacy
was a band name my dad thought up. he thought any band with that name should be a supergroup. we all made jokes about naming a band "attila and the hun-eys" (that's julie's baby), but then dad blurts out, in all seriousness, "provocative lunacy." okay, dad. but then he also says things like "egg fu neil young" so similar outbursts are to be expected.
i'm at my country school today and i already made my lesson plans about christmas. today we're going to make christmas cards, write letters to santa, learn the words to jingle bells and disrespect the teacher for 3 hours. i can't wait.
i suppose i could kill some time by discussing korean driving culture, as with each passing day it seems less and less extraordinary to me and more and more routine. and it would be downright tragic to let the novelty that is korean driving evade my memory! so let me first say, my impressions of korean driving are based only on suncheon, because apparently i didn't pay attention when i was in chuncheon for four months.
besides people driving like maniacs, merging and yielding at will in intersections lacking in the areas of discernible rules and/or traffic lights, there are several other contributing factors that make the way dese here asians drive notably unique.
the first thing is a very liberal use of the buttons in the car. god made those hazard lights, so fuck it, we're gonna use them! normally en los estados unidos, we only use our hazards when we're double parking, or when our car is a piece of shit that is on fire and stopped in the middle of an intersection (usually in close proximity to wal-mart or dollar general). occassionally inclement weather will induce some hazard usage. but here, any time a taxi driver slows down, the hazards are on. then they speed up, off. slow down, on. just to get to work, dude will turn the hazards off and on 15 times. and this doesn't just happen occassionally, it's the norm. they also have a lot of fun with headlights, turning them on and off at will.
another car feature seeing frequent use in the orient is the emergency brake. if a taxi stops where there actually is a light, the emergency brake goes on. it's just a rule. yet when they park, no emergency brake (this gets more interesting in conjunction with the next coupld of nuggets of driving culture).
in the window of basically every car in suncheon is the driver's phone number. a lot of times it's a cross-stitched pillow with little bears or hearts on it. darling. it's common knowledge that the number of cars needing to park outnumbers the amount of spaces available. so it's perfectly acceptable to block one, two, three (if you're driving a truck or van) cars in their parking spot. most people don't leave their parking brake on when they park, so you are expected, even encouraged, to just push the offending vehicle out of the way to get out. on the off chance that a person did put on their parking brake when they parked, this is where the pillow comes in. give a ring, have them move their car. it's quite funny to see this sort of large scale game of tetris going on in the morning. maybe tetris isn't the right analogy, but i couldn't think of anything else that reminded me of moving actual vehicles around.
one last tidbit would be that koreans like tacky decorations. this is not limited to cars, but cell phones as well. there's all sorts of shit dangling, smelling (okay, only in taxis), displaying photos. nothing screams masculinity like a guy holding a cell phone that has little charms dangling off it. charms and ringtones are like status symbols, as though the fact that the phone probably cost at least $300 isn't enough.
but enough about cars.
it's christmastime, but it doesn't feel like christmas. there are obnoxious christmas decorations here, just like back home, but there's doesn't seem to be any sentiment. just "happy fun time christmas party days" which really means, "hey, a sale!" not that it's different in the states. but it is and it isn't. i guess the closest it's gotten to feeling like christmas was when i went to this annoying buffet christmas dinner this weekend. it felt cult-like, there were annoying white churchy types, i won an orchid (?) and i felt awkward. i guess that's familiar, but not necessarily exclusive to christmas or the states. i dunno. i watched home alone last night, alone (go figure) in my apartment. and i was appalled by the fact that this movie with the now has been (huh?) macaulay culkin was the one thing that has made me weepy and sentimental. i guess it don't take much...
i'm at my country school today and i already made my lesson plans about christmas. today we're going to make christmas cards, write letters to santa, learn the words to jingle bells and disrespect the teacher for 3 hours. i can't wait.
i suppose i could kill some time by discussing korean driving culture, as with each passing day it seems less and less extraordinary to me and more and more routine. and it would be downright tragic to let the novelty that is korean driving evade my memory! so let me first say, my impressions of korean driving are based only on suncheon, because apparently i didn't pay attention when i was in chuncheon for four months.
besides people driving like maniacs, merging and yielding at will in intersections lacking in the areas of discernible rules and/or traffic lights, there are several other contributing factors that make the way dese here asians drive notably unique.
the first thing is a very liberal use of the buttons in the car. god made those hazard lights, so fuck it, we're gonna use them! normally en los estados unidos, we only use our hazards when we're double parking, or when our car is a piece of shit that is on fire and stopped in the middle of an intersection (usually in close proximity to wal-mart or dollar general). occassionally inclement weather will induce some hazard usage. but here, any time a taxi driver slows down, the hazards are on. then they speed up, off. slow down, on. just to get to work, dude will turn the hazards off and on 15 times. and this doesn't just happen occassionally, it's the norm. they also have a lot of fun with headlights, turning them on and off at will.
another car feature seeing frequent use in the orient is the emergency brake. if a taxi stops where there actually is a light, the emergency brake goes on. it's just a rule. yet when they park, no emergency brake (this gets more interesting in conjunction with the next coupld of nuggets of driving culture).
in the window of basically every car in suncheon is the driver's phone number. a lot of times it's a cross-stitched pillow with little bears or hearts on it. darling. it's common knowledge that the number of cars needing to park outnumbers the amount of spaces available. so it's perfectly acceptable to block one, two, three (if you're driving a truck or van) cars in their parking spot. most people don't leave their parking brake on when they park, so you are expected, even encouraged, to just push the offending vehicle out of the way to get out. on the off chance that a person did put on their parking brake when they parked, this is where the pillow comes in. give a ring, have them move their car. it's quite funny to see this sort of large scale game of tetris going on in the morning. maybe tetris isn't the right analogy, but i couldn't think of anything else that reminded me of moving actual vehicles around.
one last tidbit would be that koreans like tacky decorations. this is not limited to cars, but cell phones as well. there's all sorts of shit dangling, smelling (okay, only in taxis), displaying photos. nothing screams masculinity like a guy holding a cell phone that has little charms dangling off it. charms and ringtones are like status symbols, as though the fact that the phone probably cost at least $300 isn't enough.
but enough about cars.
it's christmastime, but it doesn't feel like christmas. there are obnoxious christmas decorations here, just like back home, but there's doesn't seem to be any sentiment. just "happy fun time christmas party days" which really means, "hey, a sale!" not that it's different in the states. but it is and it isn't. i guess the closest it's gotten to feeling like christmas was when i went to this annoying buffet christmas dinner this weekend. it felt cult-like, there were annoying white churchy types, i won an orchid (?) and i felt awkward. i guess that's familiar, but not necessarily exclusive to christmas or the states. i dunno. i watched home alone last night, alone (go figure) in my apartment. and i was appalled by the fact that this movie with the now has been (huh?) macaulay culkin was the one thing that has made me weepy and sentimental. i guess it don't take much...
Thursday, December 14, 2006
dude, what's wrong with your hand?
after work yesterday i had plans to meet up with one of my korean friends from the past summer's epi program so we could go eat. there also happened to be a party going on at work, so my coworkers all expected me to stay. there is a pattern developing here, where significant events are occuring that i would really enjoy attending were i ever told ahead of time when they were occuring. if someone had told me about wednesday's party on monday, that would have been swell, but instead they tell me there's a party as the party is already underway. and they look hurt and disappointed that i'm not attending.
we ate, it was good, then we decided to walk around the yeon yeong dong area. it's quite a study in contrasts to walk past lotteria and baskin robbins, and then see rows and rows of agimas displaying their fishy wares a mere 8 feet from the entrance to said "modern" shops--seems to sum up the dichotomy that is korea. there was one old person (the wrinkled face made it difficult to distinguish gender) who sounded like his/her lung was going to pop out onto the sea creatures in front of him/her. anyhoo, shin young and i were walking and a middle-aged man sees me and immediately wants to shake my hand, i guess temporarily forgetting that if his left hand is his cigarette hand, his right hand must be his fish-grabbing hand. so he shook my hand, and it felt like death--cold, clammy and fishy. and wet. it also was discolored and looked like the skin was peeling off. so he looked apologetic, and then he picked up an octopus to try to give it to me. i declined. in retrospect, i should have accepted and taken it to my korean class. but hindsight is 20/20. next time. so i immediately went and washed my tainted paw.
the end.
we ate, it was good, then we decided to walk around the yeon yeong dong area. it's quite a study in contrasts to walk past lotteria and baskin robbins, and then see rows and rows of agimas displaying their fishy wares a mere 8 feet from the entrance to said "modern" shops--seems to sum up the dichotomy that is korea. there was one old person (the wrinkled face made it difficult to distinguish gender) who sounded like his/her lung was going to pop out onto the sea creatures in front of him/her. anyhoo, shin young and i were walking and a middle-aged man sees me and immediately wants to shake my hand, i guess temporarily forgetting that if his left hand is his cigarette hand, his right hand must be his fish-grabbing hand. so he shook my hand, and it felt like death--cold, clammy and fishy. and wet. it also was discolored and looked like the skin was peeling off. so he looked apologetic, and then he picked up an octopus to try to give it to me. i declined. in retrospect, i should have accepted and taken it to my korean class. but hindsight is 20/20. next time. so i immediately went and washed my tainted paw.
the end.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
no more nearly naked blog
i've been an avid blogger for a while now, but i finally came to accept what i was willing to deny for so long--not everyone is on myspace, including people who might actually give a shit about my life.
i started this blog when i came back to korea, but have been really really lazy about updating it. so i took the liberty (it is my blog, after all), of reposting all the myspace blogs i've written on korea, round two.
to further convolute the korean experience, there is also www.shakespeareseast.blogspot.com, the blog i contributed to with my sister, brother in law rory and dog in law huey when we lived in chuncheon for 4 months.
i started this blog when i came back to korea, but have been really really lazy about updating it. so i took the liberty (it is my blog, after all), of reposting all the myspace blogs i've written on korea, round two.
to further convolute the korean experience, there is also www.shakespeareseast.blogspot.com, the blog i contributed to with my sister, brother in law rory and dog in law huey when we lived in chuncheon for 4 months.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
just another manic...
originally posted Monday, December 11, 2006
monday at the miracle library. been here since 10 in the am. bored bored bored. and i know that my breath smells bad, but i don't have any gum. i hate that. like when you realize your armpits smell and there's nothing you can do about it but hope that people don't notice. that's why i try to carry deoderant with me at all times. just in case anyone wanted to know. i'm your deoderant hook up, as long as you're cool with baby powder "flavor."
i have an actual class in half an hour. it's my beginner level english drama class. i have no idea how these young folks are going to pull off an english only play. i think today we get to work on stage directions. which should be interesting, as i'm pretty sure they have no idea what the play is even about. nor have they understood any commands i've given them since the class began. therein will lie the miracle that is the miracle library, i suppose.
i would give some sort of lengthy weekend recap, but there's really no point, as once again it involved me being drunk a lot. i didn't even really do anything too stupid worth mentioning. i ate shabu shabu with erica and wore a slutty shirt out to the bar to show off my large tattoo. but i felt weird about it. just drawing attention to myself in general. shouldn't have, but i did. i guess having a large tattoo in the first place draws attention, so i think i'm contradicting myself.
i did a lot of reading and was a consumer as well. i bought a large, ugly coat and some boots for tibet. some funny taxi rides home and the drunk harassment of a cab driver.
random: i don't like feeling foolish or embarassed. just had to throw that out there. i don't feel either of these things currently, but there were some times over the past couple of days when i did. for stupid reasons.
monday at the miracle library. been here since 10 in the am. bored bored bored. and i know that my breath smells bad, but i don't have any gum. i hate that. like when you realize your armpits smell and there's nothing you can do about it but hope that people don't notice. that's why i try to carry deoderant with me at all times. just in case anyone wanted to know. i'm your deoderant hook up, as long as you're cool with baby powder "flavor."
i have an actual class in half an hour. it's my beginner level english drama class. i have no idea how these young folks are going to pull off an english only play. i think today we get to work on stage directions. which should be interesting, as i'm pretty sure they have no idea what the play is even about. nor have they understood any commands i've given them since the class began. therein will lie the miracle that is the miracle library, i suppose.
i would give some sort of lengthy weekend recap, but there's really no point, as once again it involved me being drunk a lot. i didn't even really do anything too stupid worth mentioning. i ate shabu shabu with erica and wore a slutty shirt out to the bar to show off my large tattoo. but i felt weird about it. just drawing attention to myself in general. shouldn't have, but i did. i guess having a large tattoo in the first place draws attention, so i think i'm contradicting myself.
i did a lot of reading and was a consumer as well. i bought a large, ugly coat and some boots for tibet. some funny taxi rides home and the drunk harassment of a cab driver.
random: i don't like feeling foolish or embarassed. just had to throw that out there. i don't feel either of these things currently, but there were some times over the past couple of days when i did. for stupid reasons.
duuuuudddde.......
originally posted Friday, December 08, 2006
if this fucking chick in the pc bong listens to this cheesy korean love ballad and screams along with it at the top of her lungs one more time....
i'm not going to do anything but write a blog about it.
seriously, it's one song on repeat. and she's been singing it for the past 20 fucking minutes.
if this fucking chick in the pc bong listens to this cheesy korean love ballad and screams along with it at the top of her lungs one more time....
i'm not going to do anything but write a blog about it.
seriously, it's one song on repeat. and she's been singing it for the past 20 fucking minutes.
thanks mr. pizza, made for women!
originally posted Tuesday, December 05, 2006
i walked into the miracle library today, greeted by a sea of boxes, books and bubble wrap. but these weren't korean books, oh no, they're all yong-o and beautiful and here for me! okay, not here for me, but for the wee little munchkins who endure my monotone every wednesday during storytelling.
and who, you might ask, donated 15 boxes of shiny, new, english children's books to the miracle library? noneother than mr. pizza herself, some actress whose name i don't know. she's 20 years old and she's not the one with the unfortunate mole right on the end of her nose, but the one with the really large eyes. she's been in lots of commercials (actually, in the mr. pizza ones she sort of looks like a boy. a cute boy though). she's in some movie now where she's blind or something. korean movie previews are left to my own interpretation, as i don't know how to speak the language. but gesticulating like a blind person whilst staring off into space vacantly--you know, just like blind people do--leads me to believe that's what's going on here. maybe it's easier to appear blind when you've got large eyes. or that's just good acting.
apparently her mom's a librarian so she felt it was her duty to give back to the community that so generously gave to her and her family (again, my interpretation. poetic, ain't it?).
so i think i owe mr. pizza an apology. i've been cheating on him/her with lee's pizza here in town (i'm on the vip list). i can't promise that i will end things with lee's, but i can promise to maintain an open relationship that involves both of them, if they'll have me.
i walked into the miracle library today, greeted by a sea of boxes, books and bubble wrap. but these weren't korean books, oh no, they're all yong-o and beautiful and here for me! okay, not here for me, but for the wee little munchkins who endure my monotone every wednesday during storytelling.
and who, you might ask, donated 15 boxes of shiny, new, english children's books to the miracle library? noneother than mr. pizza herself, some actress whose name i don't know. she's 20 years old and she's not the one with the unfortunate mole right on the end of her nose, but the one with the really large eyes. she's been in lots of commercials (actually, in the mr. pizza ones she sort of looks like a boy. a cute boy though). she's in some movie now where she's blind or something. korean movie previews are left to my own interpretation, as i don't know how to speak the language. but gesticulating like a blind person whilst staring off into space vacantly--you know, just like blind people do--leads me to believe that's what's going on here. maybe it's easier to appear blind when you've got large eyes. or that's just good acting.
apparently her mom's a librarian so she felt it was her duty to give back to the community that so generously gave to her and her family (again, my interpretation. poetic, ain't it?).
so i think i owe mr. pizza an apology. i've been cheating on him/her with lee's pizza here in town (i'm on the vip list). i can't promise that i will end things with lee's, but i can promise to maintain an open relationship that involves both of them, if they'll have me.
weekend recap
originally posted Sunday, December 03, 2006
i like mondays. mondays are my day to get paid to email my whole family and to blog and to still have time leftover to actually do the work for which i am so generously paid.
things (in no particular order):
i am going to tibet for christmas. i've typed that sentence a whole lot since i decided that's what i was doing, but it still seems pretty fucking weird. i am going to tibet for christmas. i'm not a buddhist, i'm not a person looking for any sort of spirituality (at least not admittedly...), i don't really know much about tibet. nonetheless, that's where i shall celebrate the little baby jesus. i might die. i need all sorts of gear like in a north face commercial. not to do any serious climbing, but just to be there. i know that i am in way over my head. but i get a land rover, a tour guide who speaks english, and i get to go to everest base camp. those are all things i didn't think would be happening about a month ago. oh yeah, and it's fucking expensive. but not as expensive as flying home to "miguk" for the holiday (obligatory konglish insert). i guess it could all fall through still, as i'm still in the process of getting my chinese tourist visa. and by "in the process" i mean, i will start that process tomorrow. and none of it has officially been paid for, probably a plus considering the visa issue.
this weekend i accomplished a few things. the first being extreme inebbriation. i really like friday nights. i really like drinking. i particularly like friday night drinking. last week was sort of a rough one for me--physically, not emotionally. well, i guess the twin-less birthday was pretty damn emotional, but it didn't hurt to stand up because of it. had some intense back pain, on account of my disease (no, not the hiv. degenerative disc disease. pretty long word for a pretty common affliction, so no, i am not seeking pity here. i'm just complaining because i can.). i think i just like to claim ownership of a disease. but i guess it's more like i'm a shareholder or something. anyhoo, pain. yes. so i went to physical therapy. in chuncheon, jules had herniated discs and had physical therapy for that, so based on her screaming and the torture she endured, i don't really have a good reason for why i decided to go to physical therapy for my back here. other than the fact that i had to take some sort of action. and walking into a hospital/clinic at least appeared to be proactive. so i go in, and physical therapy involves me laying on a heating pad, laying on some bed that punches my back and having electrodes hooked up to the problem area. no bending, no screaming. actually, just sort of a waste of time, but i have bruises to show for it? so i decided i would just tough out the pain as i always do and roll around on the old yoga ball, telling myself that i'm excercising.
but back to the innebriation. hung out with matt and helen for a little while on friday night, then we migrated up a floor and i decided that i should probably drink a lot of scotch. let the drunktardedness ensue. good gad. canadian dude steve had a pretty handsome bar and i drank 4 glasses of scotch (that i pretend to like, only because it was expensive, and i just like the idea of being a scotch drinker. and i call it scotch, but maybe it's whiskey. someone help me out here, what's the difference?). then we moved onto juliana's at about 1 or 1:30 am. and kept drinking. but it was fun to be out acting like an idiot when i knew everyone else was right there with me. i think i tried to flirt with people. eek. that must have been awkward (for the recepient[s], not me. thanks, alcohol!). went home at 3:30. taxi driver didn't give me all my change, but i didn't care since i had to stop the car early to get out and yak in the bushes. i'm a classy broad!
saturday was basketball day. i was really really hoping that dave didn't call, but he did. so i played. surprisingly not as hungover as the last time. and half court 3 on 3 (plus steve's hurt hand) treated me kindly. in my opinion i didn't play as poorly as the last time. i don't know what anyone else thought. but the funniest part of the day was brad. who's brad? good question. there were only 5 of us and we were all equally hungover, so there was some debate as to whether to actually play basketball, or just to say fuck it and go to mcdonalds. but we had to wait for the elusive brad. somehow he got invited to play, though we quickly realized that none of us had any idea who he was. so he shows up an hour late, right when we were deciding to leave. so we played. and it was swell. and then we went to mcdonald's anyway. 6 of us in a tiny korean car, dave's head touching the ceiling, me crushing the nuts of at least two of the dudes in the back seat. riding in a taxi is always a wee bit life threatening, but riding with 6 big folks in a tiny car trying to bully our way through the intersections was an adventure in itself. then i ate a big mac (for the first time in years...reminds me of the days of high school basketball where we would go get extra value meals as "snacks" after practice, then go straight home to eat our "real" dinners). the special sauce still tasted...special.
saturday night, ate some lee's pizza with the mizzou clan, some light drinking. called it an early night at 1:30 am.
sunday, had made plans to go to seonamsa and the other temple (whose name i consistently forget) via mountain trail. the real adventure (as it increasingly seems to be) was getting on the fucking bus just to get out there. we had to catch the number 1 bus at suncheon yeok. so we stand on the side that i was pretty sure i stood on the last time, but then a 1 rolls by across the street, which made us doubt my memory. so a girl tells us we need to be across the street. so we cross the street (fyi, we=me and erica) and then a 1 drives by where we were just standing. keep in mind, #1 only comes by every half hour. so the third time around when the bus came, we had been waiting at least an hour. plus it takes a pretty long time to get there.
i just realized that these bus details really aren't important at all. the point is, we got there, it was really cold. some old people decked out in north face told us it was a bad idea to hike from seonamsa to the other one. so we went to the gift shop and the people started yelling (not at us, but about us), so we quietly exited. that was not monklike behavior!
the end. good gad.
i like mondays. mondays are my day to get paid to email my whole family and to blog and to still have time leftover to actually do the work for which i am so generously paid.
things (in no particular order):
i am going to tibet for christmas. i've typed that sentence a whole lot since i decided that's what i was doing, but it still seems pretty fucking weird. i am going to tibet for christmas. i'm not a buddhist, i'm not a person looking for any sort of spirituality (at least not admittedly...), i don't really know much about tibet. nonetheless, that's where i shall celebrate the little baby jesus. i might die. i need all sorts of gear like in a north face commercial. not to do any serious climbing, but just to be there. i know that i am in way over my head. but i get a land rover, a tour guide who speaks english, and i get to go to everest base camp. those are all things i didn't think would be happening about a month ago. oh yeah, and it's fucking expensive. but not as expensive as flying home to "miguk" for the holiday (obligatory konglish insert). i guess it could all fall through still, as i'm still in the process of getting my chinese tourist visa. and by "in the process" i mean, i will start that process tomorrow. and none of it has officially been paid for, probably a plus considering the visa issue.
this weekend i accomplished a few things. the first being extreme inebbriation. i really like friday nights. i really like drinking. i particularly like friday night drinking. last week was sort of a rough one for me--physically, not emotionally. well, i guess the twin-less birthday was pretty damn emotional, but it didn't hurt to stand up because of it. had some intense back pain, on account of my disease (no, not the hiv. degenerative disc disease. pretty long word for a pretty common affliction, so no, i am not seeking pity here. i'm just complaining because i can.). i think i just like to claim ownership of a disease. but i guess it's more like i'm a shareholder or something. anyhoo, pain. yes. so i went to physical therapy. in chuncheon, jules had herniated discs and had physical therapy for that, so based on her screaming and the torture she endured, i don't really have a good reason for why i decided to go to physical therapy for my back here. other than the fact that i had to take some sort of action. and walking into a hospital/clinic at least appeared to be proactive. so i go in, and physical therapy involves me laying on a heating pad, laying on some bed that punches my back and having electrodes hooked up to the problem area. no bending, no screaming. actually, just sort of a waste of time, but i have bruises to show for it? so i decided i would just tough out the pain as i always do and roll around on the old yoga ball, telling myself that i'm excercising.
but back to the innebriation. hung out with matt and helen for a little while on friday night, then we migrated up a floor and i decided that i should probably drink a lot of scotch. let the drunktardedness ensue. good gad. canadian dude steve had a pretty handsome bar and i drank 4 glasses of scotch (that i pretend to like, only because it was expensive, and i just like the idea of being a scotch drinker. and i call it scotch, but maybe it's whiskey. someone help me out here, what's the difference?). then we moved onto juliana's at about 1 or 1:30 am. and kept drinking. but it was fun to be out acting like an idiot when i knew everyone else was right there with me. i think i tried to flirt with people. eek. that must have been awkward (for the recepient[s], not me. thanks, alcohol!). went home at 3:30. taxi driver didn't give me all my change, but i didn't care since i had to stop the car early to get out and yak in the bushes. i'm a classy broad!
saturday was basketball day. i was really really hoping that dave didn't call, but he did. so i played. surprisingly not as hungover as the last time. and half court 3 on 3 (plus steve's hurt hand) treated me kindly. in my opinion i didn't play as poorly as the last time. i don't know what anyone else thought. but the funniest part of the day was brad. who's brad? good question. there were only 5 of us and we were all equally hungover, so there was some debate as to whether to actually play basketball, or just to say fuck it and go to mcdonalds. but we had to wait for the elusive brad. somehow he got invited to play, though we quickly realized that none of us had any idea who he was. so he shows up an hour late, right when we were deciding to leave. so we played. and it was swell. and then we went to mcdonald's anyway. 6 of us in a tiny korean car, dave's head touching the ceiling, me crushing the nuts of at least two of the dudes in the back seat. riding in a taxi is always a wee bit life threatening, but riding with 6 big folks in a tiny car trying to bully our way through the intersections was an adventure in itself. then i ate a big mac (for the first time in years...reminds me of the days of high school basketball where we would go get extra value meals as "snacks" after practice, then go straight home to eat our "real" dinners). the special sauce still tasted...special.
saturday night, ate some lee's pizza with the mizzou clan, some light drinking. called it an early night at 1:30 am.
sunday, had made plans to go to seonamsa and the other temple (whose name i consistently forget) via mountain trail. the real adventure (as it increasingly seems to be) was getting on the fucking bus just to get out there. we had to catch the number 1 bus at suncheon yeok. so we stand on the side that i was pretty sure i stood on the last time, but then a 1 rolls by across the street, which made us doubt my memory. so a girl tells us we need to be across the street. so we cross the street (fyi, we=me and erica) and then a 1 drives by where we were just standing. keep in mind, #1 only comes by every half hour. so the third time around when the bus came, we had been waiting at least an hour. plus it takes a pretty long time to get there.
i just realized that these bus details really aren't important at all. the point is, we got there, it was really cold. some old people decked out in north face told us it was a bad idea to hike from seonamsa to the other one. so we went to the gift shop and the people started yelling (not at us, but about us), so we quietly exited. that was not monklike behavior!
the end. good gad.
random trip down memory lane (as opposed to mammary lane)
originally posted Saturday, December 02, 2006
when i worked for this record label in austin texas (www.newwestrecords.com), i guess someone high up in the company owed someone else a favor, so we ended up doing the marketing and promotion for the band jackyl. yes, jackyl, with the guy who plays a chainsaw. but because we didn't want any of our peeps--namely, delbert mcclinton and the flatlanders--to be associated with jackyl, we had to create a new logo for everything jackyl-oriented that we sent out. and the label "humidity" records was born. i made many a laminated jackyl "vip" badge for the masses gathering at best buys and circuit city parking lots all over the country. but what would i expect the jackyl demographic to be....
anyhoo, i had to search long and hard for this, but i think it was worth it. and keep in mind, when i saw jackyl in austin, the drummer took his pants off in the middle of the show and played in his speedos. they're a classy bunch.
http://www.fullthrottlesaloon.com/FTS_Bands/Video.php?id=10
also, jesse james dupree--champion of the chainsaw guitar--was on tom green's show once and cut up his desk. new west had to buy tom green a new desk. that's funny shit. i tried to find footage of it, but no dice.
when i worked for this record label in austin texas (www.newwestrecords.com), i guess someone high up in the company owed someone else a favor, so we ended up doing the marketing and promotion for the band jackyl. yes, jackyl, with the guy who plays a chainsaw. but because we didn't want any of our peeps--namely, delbert mcclinton and the flatlanders--to be associated with jackyl, we had to create a new logo for everything jackyl-oriented that we sent out. and the label "humidity" records was born. i made many a laminated jackyl "vip" badge for the masses gathering at best buys and circuit city parking lots all over the country. but what would i expect the jackyl demographic to be....
anyhoo, i had to search long and hard for this, but i think it was worth it. and keep in mind, when i saw jackyl in austin, the drummer took his pants off in the middle of the show and played in his speedos. they're a classy bunch.
http://www.fullthrottlesaloon.com/FTS_Bands/Video.php?id=10
also, jesse james dupree--champion of the chainsaw guitar--was on tom green's show once and cut up his desk. new west had to buy tom green a new desk. that's funny shit. i tried to find footage of it, but no dice.
fumar
originally posted Wednesday, November 22, 2006
my co-worker is sitting about 3 feet away from me in the miracle library/"library of miracles" (i like that translation) smoking a cigarette at his desk. i'm pretty sure you're not sposed to do that....
yesterday on my way home from work, between bus transfers, i decided that my cowboy boots needed some polish. so i sat down in one of those tiny little sheds while a guy made my boots look new again. i think he said he liked them too. but i actually woke up in the middle of the night just so i could go look at them. shiny boots make for a happy jamie.
my co-worker is sitting about 3 feet away from me in the miracle library/"library of miracles" (i like that translation) smoking a cigarette at his desk. i'm pretty sure you're not sposed to do that....
yesterday on my way home from work, between bus transfers, i decided that my cowboy boots needed some polish. so i sat down in one of those tiny little sheds while a guy made my boots look new again. i think he said he liked them too. but i actually woke up in the middle of the night just so i could go look at them. shiny boots make for a happy jamie.
it's not the taste, it's the texture. that's what she said?
originally posted Sunday, November 19, 2006
i don't like things stuck in my teeth--be they pubic hairs, bits of severed limbs or pieces of octopus, it matters not. and if i wanted to eat octopus-flavored gum--that is, chewy nothing with an octopus aftertase--i'm sure i could buy it here in the korea. but i like gum that tastes like gum. the point is, octopus is too fucking chewy. that's all.
some days i like being social during my lunch break, some times i don't. today was one of the latter days. so before anyone could sucker me into eating lunch with them, i snuck out to a bakery near by. i had just finished my hotdog-laden pastry when my phone rang. so i answered and it was my co-worker wondering where i was. so i told her and said "we can eat lunch together on wednesday." so then we awkwardly said goodbye and i thought that would be the end of it. not so. 5 minutes later, i see another one of my co-workers peering in the window of tous les jous (huh? that ain't korean) looking for me. so i get my coffee to go and am told to follow him. so i walk around the corner and there are more of my co-workers sitting around a vat of something that was, quite honestly, terrifying. it looked like the ocean puked into a wok conveniently located right in front of my face. thanks, ocean! different sized shells, legs, little feeler like things, and a whole octopus bubbled in front of me. it's really difficult i've found, to escape the octopus here in the suncheon. i didn't have this problem so much in the chuncheon. but good gad. each time i try it i think "maybe these koreans are onto something" and each time, i'm alarmed by the fact that it still tastes like absolutely nothing. if you eat a piece of bread and it tastes like nothing, that's one thing. if you eat a piece of cheese and it tastes like nothing, no problem. if you eat octopus and it tastes like nothing, it's lack of taste is in itself fucking gross. i don't want to chew on the nothing taste--trying in vain to rip and tear with all the muscles and implements of my mouf--for 5 minutes. i just don't get the point. stop the senseless killing of the octopus and give me some swine or cow. mash-i-seyo! those are animals that taste like animals. and they probably scream in agony when you kill them. does an octopus do that? i don't think so.
enough about lunch i suppose. i went to seoul this weekend and it was just grand. i spent a lot of money, but i didn't buy a lot of things. hmmmm.
let's see. went directly to the bus station after work on friday, caught the 7:10 bus with mike and erica, whom i hung out with the whole weekend. a cool 4 hours and 20 minutes later we roll in to seoul, well-rested and thirsty. because the subway was going to close shortly, we decided to go get a room in itaweon as it was a cheap taxi ride away and erica was relatively familiar with the area. a lot different being in itaewon this time, as the people i was with weren't acting whorish and trying to sleep with whoever approached them, like last time. i also don't think either of them barfed and then immediately "necked" (heh heh) with a stranger in the back of a taxi after drinking until 7 am either (and no, i'm not talking about me. the chick i was with the first time i was in seoul and the last time i went to itaewon was a sloppy cunt. yup, i'm going to hell, and i haven't even dropped my retard anecdotes yet!). anyhoo, enough vague venting about a person whose life doesn't really matter to me anymore.
so we go to a bar nearby and there were lots o' foreigners. a few korean girls, but they were too busy making out with each other trying to get attention to really interact with anyone besides the people whose mouths their tongues were in. whew, long sentence! but the place had jameson, and just a small taste of it made me happy. as we were leaving the bar, two dudes asked us where we were going, so we made what could have turned out to be a bad decision and followed them to another bar. the second bar was cool. it was very small and there was hardly anyone in there. a guy behind the bar--korean--had real, live dreadlocks! and he played reggae, go figure. after some awkward dancing to reggae--aside: one doesn't "dance" to reggae, one "bops." that was the distinction i came up with--we went back to our love motel and had a hot threesome until the bed broke and my toes curled up. but not really.
next day we wake up and decide to be tourists. so we take the subway to erica's old univerisity--eewha (sp?). i believe it was somewhere along this subway endeavor that mike was punched in the back by the wee-tahd (should i say i'm going to hell each time i type that word or a variation of it? i dunno....). mike thought it would be funny to enter the subway car korean style where you stand about an inch away from the glass as it comes to a stop. our simpleton friend did not approve, so he lunged at mike and feebly, though emphatically, punched him in the back. there was a slight grunt. funny shit.
after eewha, met a former mizzou chick and went to a palace/village in the middle of the city. it was quite relaxing, and for some reason, the weather was perfect. the leaves are just now starting to actually change and it was jacket weather (too bad i packed for parka weather, but no matter). inside the village/palace/temple area there just happened to be an art museum, so we went to that too. i'm not some pretentious person who likes to think that i "get" art, but i always find it interesting to see the progression an artist makes on the way to figuring out their style. people go through their still life phase, their portrait phase, their realism phase, then they end up all cubist and/or weird and/or modern and/or abstract. me likey.
post museum, we sort of just wandered around for a while. and it was great. there was some promotion for mandarin oranges from jeju island so we saw a house made of oranges, tasted some orange juice and ate oranges. i like that there always seems to be random shit like that going on here. then we walked by a waterway where lots of kids were running around. eventually ended up at the coex mall to meet another korean mizzou chick. looked at lots of expensive clothes and didn't buy anything.
parted ways with erica and mike to meet up with my friend clayton and his girlfriend sunghi. a big group of us got together to eat shabu shabu, but it was chinese shabu shabu (i guess just a hot pot) and not nearly as good as the shabu shabu i remembered. salty sauce and cow intestine=not as good as spicy sauce and some other part of the cow that actually looks like meat. some dude randomly grabbed my face in the bathroom and tried to force me to kiss him. add this to the list of transgressions by korean men--waking up to naked korean stranger on top of me in motel room (thanks to the whorish chick i referred to earlier), creepy supervisor asking me about kissing and sexual energy drinks, waking up to a good friend naked on top of me (maybe this is their method, i dunno. but it's not working), creepy guy in bathroom trying to make me kiss him--and i don't really like them too much. but what i like even less than korean men, is how willing everyone seems to be to pass this off as a cultural difference. well, then i don't like your culture? i certainly don't like this aspect of it. i'll punch an asian man in the face. i should have done that by now...don't fucking touch me.
kept drinking with some germans and other asians later (clayton has a very international entourage). a good time, but by this point i was exhausted. went back to the hotel and crashed.
next day, we go eat thai food and catch a glimpse of other suncheon foreigners out the window. apparently we all made an exodus to seoul this weekend. we probably could have coordinated or something. yo well. took a cable car up the side of namsan mountain and it was really nice. once again, the weather was quite kind to us. it would have been nice to actually see the views instead of trying to imagine what was there through the smog/fog, but it was just nice to be outside, at a high altitude, drinking makkali and beer in seoul, south korea overlooking one of the largest cities in the world. i like to try to imagine myself from space zooming in on my location--looking down, falling through the atmosphere, the whole earth spread out in front of me as i descend on asia, south korea, seoul and then this mountain in the middle (google earth style). it's times like that when i am quite pleased to consider where i've come from and where i am. and i don't even mean in some sort of metaphoric sense. i'm talking sheer geography. i'll save the metaphysical for my lisa frank journal...
descended the mountain via cable car again, made our way to the bus terminal and headed home. got back at 12:15 last night. all in all a pretty good weekend.
other news that i didn't get a chance to mention before. saw madame butterfly at the suncheon opera hall. erica and i were in the second row. one of the chicks in the orchestra fell asleep as she was playing. funny shit. but the women actually in the musical were amazing--both koreans with these huge voices. and a real live i-talian man was in it too. it was great. i didn't realize i missed things like that until i went to this production. korea is a very culturally rich country, steeped in tradition but also increasingly modern (just like the beanpole commercial says!), but as far as things like music and art that i'm into, there doesn't seem to be a lot of it. so the opera was good, and the art museum in seoul was good. i think i needed it.
my mentally handicapped story for the month...last tuesday at my country school, my second class didn't show up, but a bunch of random kids came in and wanted to play games. so we sat down to play uno and a special kid (who looked like he had a shrunken head and was remarkably and inexplicably tan) came in to play. he just kept saying "okay." good times. that's what teaching's all about--playing games with the special kids while kids who should be in your class instead just come in and take away all the chairs without speaking to you. fair enough.
i think being underutilized in the workplace is starting to get to me.
thanksgiving this week, my birthday on monday, christmas coming up...i forsee an emotional twin-missing crazy jamie in the forcast. sorry if you happen to associate with me in one of my "fits
i don't like things stuck in my teeth--be they pubic hairs, bits of severed limbs or pieces of octopus, it matters not. and if i wanted to eat octopus-flavored gum--that is, chewy nothing with an octopus aftertase--i'm sure i could buy it here in the korea. but i like gum that tastes like gum. the point is, octopus is too fucking chewy. that's all.
some days i like being social during my lunch break, some times i don't. today was one of the latter days. so before anyone could sucker me into eating lunch with them, i snuck out to a bakery near by. i had just finished my hotdog-laden pastry when my phone rang. so i answered and it was my co-worker wondering where i was. so i told her and said "we can eat lunch together on wednesday." so then we awkwardly said goodbye and i thought that would be the end of it. not so. 5 minutes later, i see another one of my co-workers peering in the window of tous les jous (huh? that ain't korean) looking for me. so i get my coffee to go and am told to follow him. so i walk around the corner and there are more of my co-workers sitting around a vat of something that was, quite honestly, terrifying. it looked like the ocean puked into a wok conveniently located right in front of my face. thanks, ocean! different sized shells, legs, little feeler like things, and a whole octopus bubbled in front of me. it's really difficult i've found, to escape the octopus here in the suncheon. i didn't have this problem so much in the chuncheon. but good gad. each time i try it i think "maybe these koreans are onto something" and each time, i'm alarmed by the fact that it still tastes like absolutely nothing. if you eat a piece of bread and it tastes like nothing, that's one thing. if you eat a piece of cheese and it tastes like nothing, no problem. if you eat octopus and it tastes like nothing, it's lack of taste is in itself fucking gross. i don't want to chew on the nothing taste--trying in vain to rip and tear with all the muscles and implements of my mouf--for 5 minutes. i just don't get the point. stop the senseless killing of the octopus and give me some swine or cow. mash-i-seyo! those are animals that taste like animals. and they probably scream in agony when you kill them. does an octopus do that? i don't think so.
enough about lunch i suppose. i went to seoul this weekend and it was just grand. i spent a lot of money, but i didn't buy a lot of things. hmmmm.
let's see. went directly to the bus station after work on friday, caught the 7:10 bus with mike and erica, whom i hung out with the whole weekend. a cool 4 hours and 20 minutes later we roll in to seoul, well-rested and thirsty. because the subway was going to close shortly, we decided to go get a room in itaweon as it was a cheap taxi ride away and erica was relatively familiar with the area. a lot different being in itaewon this time, as the people i was with weren't acting whorish and trying to sleep with whoever approached them, like last time. i also don't think either of them barfed and then immediately "necked" (heh heh) with a stranger in the back of a taxi after drinking until 7 am either (and no, i'm not talking about me. the chick i was with the first time i was in seoul and the last time i went to itaewon was a sloppy cunt. yup, i'm going to hell, and i haven't even dropped my retard anecdotes yet!). anyhoo, enough vague venting about a person whose life doesn't really matter to me anymore.
so we go to a bar nearby and there were lots o' foreigners. a few korean girls, but they were too busy making out with each other trying to get attention to really interact with anyone besides the people whose mouths their tongues were in. whew, long sentence! but the place had jameson, and just a small taste of it made me happy. as we were leaving the bar, two dudes asked us where we were going, so we made what could have turned out to be a bad decision and followed them to another bar. the second bar was cool. it was very small and there was hardly anyone in there. a guy behind the bar--korean--had real, live dreadlocks! and he played reggae, go figure. after some awkward dancing to reggae--aside: one doesn't "dance" to reggae, one "bops." that was the distinction i came up with--we went back to our love motel and had a hot threesome until the bed broke and my toes curled up. but not really.
next day we wake up and decide to be tourists. so we take the subway to erica's old univerisity--eewha (sp?). i believe it was somewhere along this subway endeavor that mike was punched in the back by the wee-tahd (should i say i'm going to hell each time i type that word or a variation of it? i dunno....). mike thought it would be funny to enter the subway car korean style where you stand about an inch away from the glass as it comes to a stop. our simpleton friend did not approve, so he lunged at mike and feebly, though emphatically, punched him in the back. there was a slight grunt. funny shit.
after eewha, met a former mizzou chick and went to a palace/village in the middle of the city. it was quite relaxing, and for some reason, the weather was perfect. the leaves are just now starting to actually change and it was jacket weather (too bad i packed for parka weather, but no matter). inside the village/palace/temple area there just happened to be an art museum, so we went to that too. i'm not some pretentious person who likes to think that i "get" art, but i always find it interesting to see the progression an artist makes on the way to figuring out their style. people go through their still life phase, their portrait phase, their realism phase, then they end up all cubist and/or weird and/or modern and/or abstract. me likey.
post museum, we sort of just wandered around for a while. and it was great. there was some promotion for mandarin oranges from jeju island so we saw a house made of oranges, tasted some orange juice and ate oranges. i like that there always seems to be random shit like that going on here. then we walked by a waterway where lots of kids were running around. eventually ended up at the coex mall to meet another korean mizzou chick. looked at lots of expensive clothes and didn't buy anything.
parted ways with erica and mike to meet up with my friend clayton and his girlfriend sunghi. a big group of us got together to eat shabu shabu, but it was chinese shabu shabu (i guess just a hot pot) and not nearly as good as the shabu shabu i remembered. salty sauce and cow intestine=not as good as spicy sauce and some other part of the cow that actually looks like meat. some dude randomly grabbed my face in the bathroom and tried to force me to kiss him. add this to the list of transgressions by korean men--waking up to naked korean stranger on top of me in motel room (thanks to the whorish chick i referred to earlier), creepy supervisor asking me about kissing and sexual energy drinks, waking up to a good friend naked on top of me (maybe this is their method, i dunno. but it's not working), creepy guy in bathroom trying to make me kiss him--and i don't really like them too much. but what i like even less than korean men, is how willing everyone seems to be to pass this off as a cultural difference. well, then i don't like your culture? i certainly don't like this aspect of it. i'll punch an asian man in the face. i should have done that by now...don't fucking touch me.
kept drinking with some germans and other asians later (clayton has a very international entourage). a good time, but by this point i was exhausted. went back to the hotel and crashed.
next day, we go eat thai food and catch a glimpse of other suncheon foreigners out the window. apparently we all made an exodus to seoul this weekend. we probably could have coordinated or something. yo well. took a cable car up the side of namsan mountain and it was really nice. once again, the weather was quite kind to us. it would have been nice to actually see the views instead of trying to imagine what was there through the smog/fog, but it was just nice to be outside, at a high altitude, drinking makkali and beer in seoul, south korea overlooking one of the largest cities in the world. i like to try to imagine myself from space zooming in on my location--looking down, falling through the atmosphere, the whole earth spread out in front of me as i descend on asia, south korea, seoul and then this mountain in the middle (google earth style). it's times like that when i am quite pleased to consider where i've come from and where i am. and i don't even mean in some sort of metaphoric sense. i'm talking sheer geography. i'll save the metaphysical for my lisa frank journal...
descended the mountain via cable car again, made our way to the bus terminal and headed home. got back at 12:15 last night. all in all a pretty good weekend.
other news that i didn't get a chance to mention before. saw madame butterfly at the suncheon opera hall. erica and i were in the second row. one of the chicks in the orchestra fell asleep as she was playing. funny shit. but the women actually in the musical were amazing--both koreans with these huge voices. and a real live i-talian man was in it too. it was great. i didn't realize i missed things like that until i went to this production. korea is a very culturally rich country, steeped in tradition but also increasingly modern (just like the beanpole commercial says!), but as far as things like music and art that i'm into, there doesn't seem to be a lot of it. so the opera was good, and the art museum in seoul was good. i think i needed it.
my mentally handicapped story for the month...last tuesday at my country school, my second class didn't show up, but a bunch of random kids came in and wanted to play games. so we sat down to play uno and a special kid (who looked like he had a shrunken head and was remarkably and inexplicably tan) came in to play. he just kept saying "okay." good times. that's what teaching's all about--playing games with the special kids while kids who should be in your class instead just come in and take away all the chairs without speaking to you. fair enough.
i think being underutilized in the workplace is starting to get to me.
thanksgiving this week, my birthday on monday, christmas coming up...i forsee an emotional twin-missing crazy jamie in the forcast. sorry if you happen to associate with me in one of my "fits
dear korean dudes,
originally posted Thursday, November 09, 2006
i don't want to have sex with you.
jamie sonsang
i don't want to have sex with you.
jamie sonsang
belated weekend recap
originally posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006
So I'm a little overdue on the blogging. Since I'm a librarian in korea, I should know how to say "overdue" in korean. Alas, I don't . that's neither here nor. But there's no better time to recount the past weekend than with the next one rapidly approaching..
Okay, weekend happy fun time party days. Let's see, Friday night what did I do…. I went to the outback steakhouse, and did NOT eat a bloomin' onion. But I did drink two, large, overpriced beers, which set the tone for the rest of the evening. Post outback, decided some jamie time was in order. Which really means I go home, shower, nap, put on some face paint, all while drinking whiskey out of the bottle (I guess not during the nap…). I don't know why it's worth mentioning that I drank whiskey out of the bottle, except that I don't ever drink whiskey here NOT out of the bottle. So there. Then I walked back to downtown to a soju bar called the fish and grill. Drunkenly called my dad to tell him happy birthday (my first phone bill is going to be ridiculous. Hey, I'm innebriated, time to drunk dial…my parents? Yup, that's how I roll). After the fish and grill and a decent amount of soju, ended up at juliana's. for a place I didn't think I liked very much, I sure end up there a lot. And I know I'm drunk when I actually start dancing. Some hip hop was actually played, albeit briefly, but I'm sure it was on just long enough for me to embarrass myself. Either that or me removing layers of clothes that didn't necessarily need to be removed. That's usually the point I realize I should go home. So I walked home at 3 am. It was very difficult to maintain a straight line, I might note. But at least there was no one else on the sidewalk.
The next day there was the potential for a hangover, but nothing that a loteria bulgogi burger couldn't fix. I woke up at noon-ish, went and ate lunch, came back, took a nap, then woke up to clean up and go out again. Saturday was EPI day, hence the nap. A bunch of my korean friends who were in a 6 week class at my university office in co, mo this past summer were in town. I may not speak korean, but that translates to copious amounts of soju. So the first thing we did when we all converged on the university (we=a bunch of koreans and most of suncheon's mizzou contigent) was eat dakk boki while we waited for any stragglers to appear. But my korean friends told us, "don't eat too much, we've still got dinner to eat." So hey, the thought of more food always makes me exceedingly happy. After dakk boki we killed some time watching this shitty korean band dick around on guitars. But they were kind enough to let us take pictures.. they also had a girl playing bass, and that's something I can whole-heartedly get behind.
When our posse had all arrived, we went to dinner at some bamboo rice place. Turns out this fantastic meal I had been eagerly anticipating was all oceanic in origin. Great, I've always found that a hard, long night of drinking is something best supported by meals involving tentacles, eyes, and shells. But when in korea, eat squid, snails, and octopus as the koreans do. And also drink a whole bottle of soju and two narsty bomb shots with your meal. What the fuck was I thinking? But a good time was had by all.
Post dinner, we went to some bar somewhere, but I'll be honest, I wasn't feeling too coherent or pleasant at this time. Thought I might yak, so I hung out in the bathroom for a while, then I walked around. And my dutiful korean friend followed me around the whole time, eager to hold my hair, should the occasion for such a chivalrous gesture arise. But it didn't. after the walk, I had gotten my will to drink again! Didn't gain any of the coherance, but if I had been given a choice, I would have sacrificed that anyway. Which is good, because then we ended up at some chicken place. And with chicken, comes…BEER. So I drank more, gave the korean waiter my number, and didn't realize I saw a lot of people that I actually did see. And I honestly don't know if we all went to the norae bong upstairs before or after the chicken. Actually, I guess the norae bong came first. Whatever. All I know is that I felt like molesting people in the norae bong, and I tried on numerous occassions to take clothes off of my protesting friends. One of my korean friends, min-jae, danced like a stripper the whole time, and must have done the splits at least 20 times, most of the time as he was diving between my legs. That's hot. Then he did some awkward pullups on the chandelier, or something hanging from the ceiling. I remember trying to be seductive singing 'like a virgin." But it's a little hazy. Then chicken place. Post chicken, my korean friends were smart enough to realize it was time to go home. But not me. I talked the mizzou peeps into going into juliana's to see if there were any "prospects." Heh heh. I'm funny. Not like I would ever even hit on anyone I was interested in. Hello, socially awkward! But yeah, I nursed one beer for two hours, convinced myself to play pool miserably and got to hear some shins and jay-z. that made me quite happy. I think I also sobered up a bit. Always nice to sober up at 4:15 am. But as we were drunk and overzealous, me, erica, and scott made plans to go "exploring" the next day.
So 1 o'clock on Sunday rolls around and I feel like hell. Tried to make myself yak, but no luck. Then I sat in my shower for a half hour trying to let the water wash away the soju and unsettled stomach. It was at this point that I got text messages from erica and scott asking if we were still going exploring. Carpe diem, mother fuckers! Good gad.
Erica was in a rough way too—which was oddly comforting—and I think this all confirmed for scott why he's content to not drink. Anyhoo, we met at 3:30 to take a bus to nagan folk village. Excellent. A nice windy bus ride into the country to make me forget the queasiness. In all honesty, I have no idea how I managed to not yak on the bus. But I didn't. as soon as we stopped though, I made a beeline for the nagan toilets. It's like my stomach new it was near an acceptable vomit receptacle. The nice thing about ye olde squatter toilets is that if you're barfing up ramen and you sort of miss the trough, you can just shovel it all into the floor with toilet paper., isn't that a nice visual? Anyhoo, I felt a lot better, and ready to explore the folk village. It was cool, I guess. You've seen one thatched roof house, you've seen them all. I think I prefer touristy sites that you can actually have some sort of physical interaction with. Seonamsa was great because I had to hike up a mountain to even see anything. The temple became some sort of reward for exercising my body. Me likey. But nagan was cool. I've seen it now, so that's all that matters. As we were leaving the seemingly deserted labyrinth of houses, we heard a cow bellowing. It sounded pretty close to us to. Just as I asked "hey, where's the cow at?" erica says "oh, it's heading straight for us." So I turn and, indeed, there is one tan-colored rabid looking cow bucking and thrashing his way towards us. There were a couple koreans around, so we looked to them to gauge our own reactions. But they all started running. So we sort of start to back away, but I'm the closest to this creature. Erica and scott turned away from it, but I just stared at it for a minute. He pushed his ears back and flared his nostrils and made some sort of noise akin to a dog growling. But then an agima came to the rescue and corralled the beast and order was restored. Pretty damn funny. Pretty damn unsettling. Pretty damn random.. oh but wait, it gets even more random.
After we made it out of the village, we had to wait for a bus. We had just missed number 63, and didn't realize that the next one didn't come for 2 hours. So we settled in for a long wait at the bus stop. Then a van pulled up in front of us and a korean asked where we're going. We said suncheon, he said he'd give us a ride. so we say "sure. We'll get in a van with a complete stranger in a foreign country when it's dark at night and there are probably lots of peeps here who hate us amer'cans." But we sit down and dude immediately hands us apple beverages and tells us to put on our seatbelts, although erica's didn't work. . he was a terrible driver and almost ran off the road on several occassions. And maybe his van smelled like soju. I can't be sure. Anyhoo, the whole time, erica managed to engage him in korean conversation, so we were able to discern that he was a military man and the reason he gave us complete strangers a ride was because he had the utmost respect for the american military. HUH? So after he dropped us off at city hall, he turned right back around and drove 20+ minutes back to nagan where he lived. Needless to say, I was very pleased that I dragged my ass out of bed that day.
I think my liver is excited that I have no major plans for this weekend. I guess it doesn't take much planning to get drunk though….
So I'm a little overdue on the blogging. Since I'm a librarian in korea, I should know how to say "overdue" in korean. Alas, I don't . that's neither here nor. But there's no better time to recount the past weekend than with the next one rapidly approaching..
Okay, weekend happy fun time party days. Let's see, Friday night what did I do…. I went to the outback steakhouse, and did NOT eat a bloomin' onion. But I did drink two, large, overpriced beers, which set the tone for the rest of the evening. Post outback, decided some jamie time was in order. Which really means I go home, shower, nap, put on some face paint, all while drinking whiskey out of the bottle (I guess not during the nap…). I don't know why it's worth mentioning that I drank whiskey out of the bottle, except that I don't ever drink whiskey here NOT out of the bottle. So there. Then I walked back to downtown to a soju bar called the fish and grill. Drunkenly called my dad to tell him happy birthday (my first phone bill is going to be ridiculous. Hey, I'm innebriated, time to drunk dial…my parents? Yup, that's how I roll). After the fish and grill and a decent amount of soju, ended up at juliana's. for a place I didn't think I liked very much, I sure end up there a lot. And I know I'm drunk when I actually start dancing. Some hip hop was actually played, albeit briefly, but I'm sure it was on just long enough for me to embarrass myself. Either that or me removing layers of clothes that didn't necessarily need to be removed. That's usually the point I realize I should go home. So I walked home at 3 am. It was very difficult to maintain a straight line, I might note. But at least there was no one else on the sidewalk.
The next day there was the potential for a hangover, but nothing that a loteria bulgogi burger couldn't fix. I woke up at noon-ish, went and ate lunch, came back, took a nap, then woke up to clean up and go out again. Saturday was EPI day, hence the nap. A bunch of my korean friends who were in a 6 week class at my university office in co, mo this past summer were in town. I may not speak korean, but that translates to copious amounts of soju. So the first thing we did when we all converged on the university (we=a bunch of koreans and most of suncheon's mizzou contigent) was eat dakk boki while we waited for any stragglers to appear. But my korean friends told us, "don't eat too much, we've still got dinner to eat." So hey, the thought of more food always makes me exceedingly happy. After dakk boki we killed some time watching this shitty korean band dick around on guitars. But they were kind enough to let us take pictures.. they also had a girl playing bass, and that's something I can whole-heartedly get behind.
When our posse had all arrived, we went to dinner at some bamboo rice place. Turns out this fantastic meal I had been eagerly anticipating was all oceanic in origin. Great, I've always found that a hard, long night of drinking is something best supported by meals involving tentacles, eyes, and shells. But when in korea, eat squid, snails, and octopus as the koreans do. And also drink a whole bottle of soju and two narsty bomb shots with your meal. What the fuck was I thinking? But a good time was had by all.
Post dinner, we went to some bar somewhere, but I'll be honest, I wasn't feeling too coherent or pleasant at this time. Thought I might yak, so I hung out in the bathroom for a while, then I walked around. And my dutiful korean friend followed me around the whole time, eager to hold my hair, should the occasion for such a chivalrous gesture arise. But it didn't. after the walk, I had gotten my will to drink again! Didn't gain any of the coherance, but if I had been given a choice, I would have sacrificed that anyway. Which is good, because then we ended up at some chicken place. And with chicken, comes…BEER. So I drank more, gave the korean waiter my number, and didn't realize I saw a lot of people that I actually did see. And I honestly don't know if we all went to the norae bong upstairs before or after the chicken. Actually, I guess the norae bong came first. Whatever. All I know is that I felt like molesting people in the norae bong, and I tried on numerous occassions to take clothes off of my protesting friends. One of my korean friends, min-jae, danced like a stripper the whole time, and must have done the splits at least 20 times, most of the time as he was diving between my legs. That's hot. Then he did some awkward pullups on the chandelier, or something hanging from the ceiling. I remember trying to be seductive singing 'like a virgin." But it's a little hazy. Then chicken place. Post chicken, my korean friends were smart enough to realize it was time to go home. But not me. I talked the mizzou peeps into going into juliana's to see if there were any "prospects." Heh heh. I'm funny. Not like I would ever even hit on anyone I was interested in. Hello, socially awkward! But yeah, I nursed one beer for two hours, convinced myself to play pool miserably and got to hear some shins and jay-z. that made me quite happy. I think I also sobered up a bit. Always nice to sober up at 4:15 am. But as we were drunk and overzealous, me, erica, and scott made plans to go "exploring" the next day.
So 1 o'clock on Sunday rolls around and I feel like hell. Tried to make myself yak, but no luck. Then I sat in my shower for a half hour trying to let the water wash away the soju and unsettled stomach. It was at this point that I got text messages from erica and scott asking if we were still going exploring. Carpe diem, mother fuckers! Good gad.
Erica was in a rough way too—which was oddly comforting—and I think this all confirmed for scott why he's content to not drink. Anyhoo, we met at 3:30 to take a bus to nagan folk village. Excellent. A nice windy bus ride into the country to make me forget the queasiness. In all honesty, I have no idea how I managed to not yak on the bus. But I didn't. as soon as we stopped though, I made a beeline for the nagan toilets. It's like my stomach new it was near an acceptable vomit receptacle. The nice thing about ye olde squatter toilets is that if you're barfing up ramen and you sort of miss the trough, you can just shovel it all into the floor with toilet paper., isn't that a nice visual? Anyhoo, I felt a lot better, and ready to explore the folk village. It was cool, I guess. You've seen one thatched roof house, you've seen them all. I think I prefer touristy sites that you can actually have some sort of physical interaction with. Seonamsa was great because I had to hike up a mountain to even see anything. The temple became some sort of reward for exercising my body. Me likey. But nagan was cool. I've seen it now, so that's all that matters. As we were leaving the seemingly deserted labyrinth of houses, we heard a cow bellowing. It sounded pretty close to us to. Just as I asked "hey, where's the cow at?" erica says "oh, it's heading straight for us." So I turn and, indeed, there is one tan-colored rabid looking cow bucking and thrashing his way towards us. There were a couple koreans around, so we looked to them to gauge our own reactions. But they all started running. So we sort of start to back away, but I'm the closest to this creature. Erica and scott turned away from it, but I just stared at it for a minute. He pushed his ears back and flared his nostrils and made some sort of noise akin to a dog growling. But then an agima came to the rescue and corralled the beast and order was restored. Pretty damn funny. Pretty damn unsettling. Pretty damn random.. oh but wait, it gets even more random.
After we made it out of the village, we had to wait for a bus. We had just missed number 63, and didn't realize that the next one didn't come for 2 hours. So we settled in for a long wait at the bus stop. Then a van pulled up in front of us and a korean asked where we're going. We said suncheon, he said he'd give us a ride. so we say "sure. We'll get in a van with a complete stranger in a foreign country when it's dark at night and there are probably lots of peeps here who hate us amer'cans." But we sit down and dude immediately hands us apple beverages and tells us to put on our seatbelts, although erica's didn't work. . he was a terrible driver and almost ran off the road on several occassions. And maybe his van smelled like soju. I can't be sure. Anyhoo, the whole time, erica managed to engage him in korean conversation, so we were able to discern that he was a military man and the reason he gave us complete strangers a ride was because he had the utmost respect for the american military. HUH? So after he dropped us off at city hall, he turned right back around and drove 20+ minutes back to nagan where he lived. Needless to say, I was very pleased that I dragged my ass out of bed that day.
I think my liver is excited that I have no major plans for this weekend. I guess it doesn't take much planning to get drunk though….
holy crap, i can be engaging!
originally posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006
two blogs in one day. yowsas.
i thought i should record the historic occassion of me realizing that i actually have the capacity to be engaging with little kids. my first storytelling hour today was arguably lackluster, but i made a decision to be engaging for round two, and i believe it worked. so now i'm not in such a pissy mood. i've gotten my will to drink beer back! thank you, children!
two blogs in one day. yowsas.
i thought i should record the historic occassion of me realizing that i actually have the capacity to be engaging with little kids. my first storytelling hour today was arguably lackluster, but i made a decision to be engaging for round two, and i believe it worked. so now i'm not in such a pissy mood. i've gotten my will to drink beer back! thank you, children!
maybe i'm culturally insensitive
originally posted Tuesday, October 31, 2006
i just got an email from the dude i work with (creepy guy from my elementary school). apparently some of the women from my office complained about me getting rides to and from work. so i have to take the bus from now on. which is a good thing. i wanted to take the bus from the beginning because i'm an adult and should know how to get to and from my workplace. it also means no more creepiness outside the workplace, but the way this was presented sort of annoys me. i didn't ask for any special treatment, and now these women (who won't even try to speak to me!) resent me for accepting a favor that i never even asked for. if i don't accept a ride, it's rude because they're trying to be nice to me. if i do accept a ride, i'm rude because i "expect" special treatment. so much confusion and tiptoing around trying not to offend people.
and why the fuck does it matter if i don't push my rice down in my bowl when i'm finished?
i just got an email from the dude i work with (creepy guy from my elementary school). apparently some of the women from my office complained about me getting rides to and from work. so i have to take the bus from now on. which is a good thing. i wanted to take the bus from the beginning because i'm an adult and should know how to get to and from my workplace. it also means no more creepiness outside the workplace, but the way this was presented sort of annoys me. i didn't ask for any special treatment, and now these women (who won't even try to speak to me!) resent me for accepting a favor that i never even asked for. if i don't accept a ride, it's rude because they're trying to be nice to me. if i do accept a ride, i'm rude because i "expect" special treatment. so much confusion and tiptoing around trying not to offend people.
and why the fuck does it matter if i don't push my rice down in my bowl when i'm finished?
bus. drunk. motorbike. in no particular order. oh yeah, yoga balls and monks!
originally posted Sunday, October 29, 2006
well well well. this weekend was interesting. on friday night i had been planning to go to a halloween party at the foreigner bar, elvis. so i made myself cute (i wanted to be an agima--korean old woman-- but i couldn't find a visor obnoxiously large enough to suit my needs) and my costume was "jamie with more makeup on than usual." i think i pulled if off though...
anyhoo, i got myself dressed and purtied up and then just sat in my room reading, debating whether or not i was in the mood to go to a halloween party at a foreigner bar in suncheon, south korea. sometimes these things require much deliberation, i've recently discovered. but then mike (another missouri dude. we foreigners tend to be real clique-y) said he would go too, so i felt better about having a comrade in the whole endeavor. we left for elvis at midnight. a reality that definitely takes some getting used to. it's just bizarre that a person can begin their night so late, also bizarre that i didn't go to sleep until 6 am saturday morning. not since the days of "the party", falling off the heidelburg and skinnydipping at stephen's lake have i stayed up/out as late. only in south korea. good gad. anyhoo, before even getting to the bar, i made sure to drink a lot of the alcohol i had already purchased (that's what it's for, right?), so when i showed up, i was "feeling no pain", as the young kids say. i continued to drink, which meant that i began to dance, and that's just bad news. but that wasn't even the most embarassing part of the night. one of my korean co-workers from the library showed up (he also knows british daniel who used to work at the places i now work and who was djing for part of the night), so i was really excited to see an actual korean that i know. except that i don't really know him or speak to him. i just sit next to him. but most of my suncheon friends have been really busy since i've been here, so i don't get to see them as often as i would like to. anyhoo, i'm drunk, he's drunk. besides "dancing" inappropriately on him and his buddy, i licked his face. he asked for a kiss on the cheek, so instead i licked him. now, if only i could be this forward with people i wanted to bone. yes, i said "bone."
anyhoo, i guess a face licking warranted coffee for me from him. maybe he was just being nice, maybe it was a subtle suggestion to sober up and not lick people. i dunno. but by the time we got back to the bar from our coffee run, a fight was breaking out between coworker's friend and some irish dude dressed up like an indian (american indian, i guess i should distinguish here, i am in the orient). so here we are with an arguably serious situation unfolding outside the bar, but it's sort of difficult to take things seriously when an irish injun and a shirt-ripping korean are threatening each other in the street. it was certainly fun to watch, especially as other costume-clad people hovered, watching events unfold. but i didn't stick around to see who would actually hit whom, or if other items of clothing would come off in the melee. so i went home and slept. i think i actually turned off my light around 6 am. jesus christ.
at 1-ish the next day, i get a call from a friend who informs me that that day would be the day i begin to ride a motorbike. well, hell. so i go out to learn this and i'm not feeling so great. i felt like i was going to yak and had a headache--something i'm not used to with other hangovers. typical hite/cass hangover. nice to know i've been drunk on enough occassions to classify these after effects... the point being, i was not at peak performance level. despite this, i did manage to sit on a motorcycle and ride it on a stretch of road all by myself. but then i slowed down and the bike fell over and for some reason i got the brakes and the clutch confused and then gas spilled out of the motorcycle. again, not a clear-headed day for me. and all of this looked a lot worse than it actually was. but my brain was already damaged from the night before, so this all freaked me out a bit. plus, i was having a hard time expressing myself and formulating sentences--a direct result of drinking, but also a habit of switching from truncated, botched konglish to full-fledged english. a diffcult transition, given the circumstances. oh, and i did not do any actual gear-shifting. i only got on the bike twice. but hell, i did it. and i think the next time, if i am clear-headed at all, things should go infinitely better. and knowing how to drive a manual transmission car is sposed to help somewhat. we shall see.
and again, the best part of my day was getting a ride home, because then i wasn't responsible for my own well-being and put it in the much more capable hands of someone who knows what he's doing on a motorbike. i don't yet know if i want to be the driver of one of these things, but for the time being, i very much enjoy being the passenger. especially when the driver goes maybe more quickly than he's sposed to. but i didn't die, so no problem.
later that night i met up with scott, yong geun, and yong geun's friend. we went to a bar in the university area that reminded me a lot of all the places i would go in chuncheon with jules and rory. and that made me sad. but i was also so excited to be hanging out with my korean friends. yup. here's a belated warning of me delving into sappy sentimentality...
besides the general atmosphere of this bar--most notably a lack of foreigners besides scott and i--we drank makali. a liquor made of, you guessed it, rice! i hadn't been able to remember the name of this drink for the longest time, as i had only had it once before. the very last thing me, jules and rory did in chuncheon was eat dakgalbi and drink makali with our canadian friend and his wife. immediately after that lunch we spent a tear-filled two hours in a van on the way to incheon, a whole year sooner than we were sposed to have to think of any of the logistics of going home. flew back stateside the next day. so i hadn't even tasted this alcohol yet, but i saw the spoon and the bowl and the milky liquid and it triggered something overwhelming. i was simultaneously elated and depressed. i guess "bittersweet" would be the closest word, if i'm content to deal in understatements. it's odd the physical things i will always associate with other larger, abstract things, feelings and/or images that sometimes can--but for the most part can't--really be verbalized or pinpointed. all this from a spoon? but the associations are all mine. and i guess therein lies the beauty.
since i left south korea initially i have made numerous efforts to speak to said friends in chuncheon, but to no avail. for that last week we were there, they were the only people who were actually of any help to the three of us. they put their own business in jeopardy by simply associating with us. and that was the last time i ever talked to them.
moving on. sunday i decided it was time for me to do some adventuring, so i decided to navigate the city bus system alone. ultimately, i ended up at my destination, but not without a little bit of confusion. i wanted to go to the buddhist temple of seonamsa, but i had no idea how far away it was. so i took 59 until it ended. then i sat awkwardly on the bus with the bus driver until he acknowledged that i was the only person still on the bus and had no choice but to help me. so i got off and transfered and rode the one bus for what seemed like a really long time, especially when you have no idea how long it's sposed to be. there's really nothing better than riding a bus for a long time through a ruralish part of south korea. or at least that's how i felt on the way out to the temple yesterday. ah, the beauty that is a ripe persimmon on a tree. seriously, these things are everywhere! but just because you can grow it doesn't mean you should eat it. that's the moral of this whole story and it will be my last mentioning of persimmons.
okay, so i end up at the temple, and it was pretty cool. that's it. that's all i've got--"pretty cool." even if i don't have the adjectives, at least i have an explanation. things that were pretty cool: being the only foreigner there for at least 4 hours, not having to speak to anyone for 4 hours (besides monks who were eager to practice their handful of english phrases), climbing a mountain, monks bowing and putting their hands togther for me (and my awkward reciprocation), beautiful scenery, old ornate buildings, a hint of inner peace. things that weren't cool: monks with headphones and nikes driving vans and cars and honking at you. tons of people taking pictures and buying "monk wares" from the gift shop. the norae bong and love motels near the base of the mountain. i dunno. for some reason this all took away from what i naively thought was supposed to be the vibe of this place--a place with real, live monks!--serenity and all that crap. part of the allure of being a monk, or at least what i hope the allure of being a monk is, is giving up worldly things to focus on becoming closer to nirvana. seems like you get an ipod, a car, some nikes and a tourist attraction and that's kind of like cheating. where's the self-sacrifice that warrants me actually bowing to you out of respect and admiration for what you've given up and what you're pursuing? why aren't these monks acting like the monks I want them to be? it was a little disappointing. more like going to a zoo than a holy-ish place (unless you think the zoo's holy). except these animals get to walk around amongst you and dress alike.
the most uncool thing about the temple was getting on the bus to come back into town. i didn't know where the bus stop was, but it just so happened that i was at the front of the line to get on. i thought everyone was just sitting there because it was the only place to sit. so i followed suit. so when the bus rolls up right in front of me, all these old men and women are pushing to the front and yelling at me to go to the end of the line. and i wanted to just say "fuck you! i wasn't butting on purpose." but instead i just stood there looking confused as to why complete strangers were being assholes to another complete stranger. it's not like there were 20 of me pushing people out of the way and stealing all the seats on the bus. as it was, i didn't take the seats that were still available (some nice old ladies let me cut in front of them), but i stood patiently the whole 45 minutes back and now my lumbar region is wondering why it hurts so much. but i bought a yoga ball and did some stretching whilst watching "the rock" star in "the scorpion king." good flick. solid acting.
one last uncool thing. korean fashion. it's not that the actual clothing is bad, but there seems to be no happy medium between fashion and function. nowhere was this more apparent than at a temple on a mountain. there were either people dressed in head to toe northface hiking gear--replete with walking sticks, or girls in stiletto boots and miniskirts. what the hell?
and that's the end.
well well well. this weekend was interesting. on friday night i had been planning to go to a halloween party at the foreigner bar, elvis. so i made myself cute (i wanted to be an agima--korean old woman-- but i couldn't find a visor obnoxiously large enough to suit my needs) and my costume was "jamie with more makeup on than usual." i think i pulled if off though...
anyhoo, i got myself dressed and purtied up and then just sat in my room reading, debating whether or not i was in the mood to go to a halloween party at a foreigner bar in suncheon, south korea. sometimes these things require much deliberation, i've recently discovered. but then mike (another missouri dude. we foreigners tend to be real clique-y) said he would go too, so i felt better about having a comrade in the whole endeavor. we left for elvis at midnight. a reality that definitely takes some getting used to. it's just bizarre that a person can begin their night so late, also bizarre that i didn't go to sleep until 6 am saturday morning. not since the days of "the party", falling off the heidelburg and skinnydipping at stephen's lake have i stayed up/out as late. only in south korea. good gad. anyhoo, before even getting to the bar, i made sure to drink a lot of the alcohol i had already purchased (that's what it's for, right?), so when i showed up, i was "feeling no pain", as the young kids say. i continued to drink, which meant that i began to dance, and that's just bad news. but that wasn't even the most embarassing part of the night. one of my korean co-workers from the library showed up (he also knows british daniel who used to work at the places i now work and who was djing for part of the night), so i was really excited to see an actual korean that i know. except that i don't really know him or speak to him. i just sit next to him. but most of my suncheon friends have been really busy since i've been here, so i don't get to see them as often as i would like to. anyhoo, i'm drunk, he's drunk. besides "dancing" inappropriately on him and his buddy, i licked his face. he asked for a kiss on the cheek, so instead i licked him. now, if only i could be this forward with people i wanted to bone. yes, i said "bone."
anyhoo, i guess a face licking warranted coffee for me from him. maybe he was just being nice, maybe it was a subtle suggestion to sober up and not lick people. i dunno. but by the time we got back to the bar from our coffee run, a fight was breaking out between coworker's friend and some irish dude dressed up like an indian (american indian, i guess i should distinguish here, i am in the orient). so here we are with an arguably serious situation unfolding outside the bar, but it's sort of difficult to take things seriously when an irish injun and a shirt-ripping korean are threatening each other in the street. it was certainly fun to watch, especially as other costume-clad people hovered, watching events unfold. but i didn't stick around to see who would actually hit whom, or if other items of clothing would come off in the melee. so i went home and slept. i think i actually turned off my light around 6 am. jesus christ.
at 1-ish the next day, i get a call from a friend who informs me that that day would be the day i begin to ride a motorbike. well, hell. so i go out to learn this and i'm not feeling so great. i felt like i was going to yak and had a headache--something i'm not used to with other hangovers. typical hite/cass hangover. nice to know i've been drunk on enough occassions to classify these after effects... the point being, i was not at peak performance level. despite this, i did manage to sit on a motorcycle and ride it on a stretch of road all by myself. but then i slowed down and the bike fell over and for some reason i got the brakes and the clutch confused and then gas spilled out of the motorcycle. again, not a clear-headed day for me. and all of this looked a lot worse than it actually was. but my brain was already damaged from the night before, so this all freaked me out a bit. plus, i was having a hard time expressing myself and formulating sentences--a direct result of drinking, but also a habit of switching from truncated, botched konglish to full-fledged english. a diffcult transition, given the circumstances. oh, and i did not do any actual gear-shifting. i only got on the bike twice. but hell, i did it. and i think the next time, if i am clear-headed at all, things should go infinitely better. and knowing how to drive a manual transmission car is sposed to help somewhat. we shall see.
and again, the best part of my day was getting a ride home, because then i wasn't responsible for my own well-being and put it in the much more capable hands of someone who knows what he's doing on a motorbike. i don't yet know if i want to be the driver of one of these things, but for the time being, i very much enjoy being the passenger. especially when the driver goes maybe more quickly than he's sposed to. but i didn't die, so no problem.
later that night i met up with scott, yong geun, and yong geun's friend. we went to a bar in the university area that reminded me a lot of all the places i would go in chuncheon with jules and rory. and that made me sad. but i was also so excited to be hanging out with my korean friends. yup. here's a belated warning of me delving into sappy sentimentality...
besides the general atmosphere of this bar--most notably a lack of foreigners besides scott and i--we drank makali. a liquor made of, you guessed it, rice! i hadn't been able to remember the name of this drink for the longest time, as i had only had it once before. the very last thing me, jules and rory did in chuncheon was eat dakgalbi and drink makali with our canadian friend and his wife. immediately after that lunch we spent a tear-filled two hours in a van on the way to incheon, a whole year sooner than we were sposed to have to think of any of the logistics of going home. flew back stateside the next day. so i hadn't even tasted this alcohol yet, but i saw the spoon and the bowl and the milky liquid and it triggered something overwhelming. i was simultaneously elated and depressed. i guess "bittersweet" would be the closest word, if i'm content to deal in understatements. it's odd the physical things i will always associate with other larger, abstract things, feelings and/or images that sometimes can--but for the most part can't--really be verbalized or pinpointed. all this from a spoon? but the associations are all mine. and i guess therein lies the beauty.
since i left south korea initially i have made numerous efforts to speak to said friends in chuncheon, but to no avail. for that last week we were there, they were the only people who were actually of any help to the three of us. they put their own business in jeopardy by simply associating with us. and that was the last time i ever talked to them.
moving on. sunday i decided it was time for me to do some adventuring, so i decided to navigate the city bus system alone. ultimately, i ended up at my destination, but not without a little bit of confusion. i wanted to go to the buddhist temple of seonamsa, but i had no idea how far away it was. so i took 59 until it ended. then i sat awkwardly on the bus with the bus driver until he acknowledged that i was the only person still on the bus and had no choice but to help me. so i got off and transfered and rode the one bus for what seemed like a really long time, especially when you have no idea how long it's sposed to be. there's really nothing better than riding a bus for a long time through a ruralish part of south korea. or at least that's how i felt on the way out to the temple yesterday. ah, the beauty that is a ripe persimmon on a tree. seriously, these things are everywhere! but just because you can grow it doesn't mean you should eat it. that's the moral of this whole story and it will be my last mentioning of persimmons.
okay, so i end up at the temple, and it was pretty cool. that's it. that's all i've got--"pretty cool." even if i don't have the adjectives, at least i have an explanation. things that were pretty cool: being the only foreigner there for at least 4 hours, not having to speak to anyone for 4 hours (besides monks who were eager to practice their handful of english phrases), climbing a mountain, monks bowing and putting their hands togther for me (and my awkward reciprocation), beautiful scenery, old ornate buildings, a hint of inner peace. things that weren't cool: monks with headphones and nikes driving vans and cars and honking at you. tons of people taking pictures and buying "monk wares" from the gift shop. the norae bong and love motels near the base of the mountain. i dunno. for some reason this all took away from what i naively thought was supposed to be the vibe of this place--a place with real, live monks!--serenity and all that crap. part of the allure of being a monk, or at least what i hope the allure of being a monk is, is giving up worldly things to focus on becoming closer to nirvana. seems like you get an ipod, a car, some nikes and a tourist attraction and that's kind of like cheating. where's the self-sacrifice that warrants me actually bowing to you out of respect and admiration for what you've given up and what you're pursuing? why aren't these monks acting like the monks I want them to be? it was a little disappointing. more like going to a zoo than a holy-ish place (unless you think the zoo's holy). except these animals get to walk around amongst you and dress alike.
the most uncool thing about the temple was getting on the bus to come back into town. i didn't know where the bus stop was, but it just so happened that i was at the front of the line to get on. i thought everyone was just sitting there because it was the only place to sit. so i followed suit. so when the bus rolls up right in front of me, all these old men and women are pushing to the front and yelling at me to go to the end of the line. and i wanted to just say "fuck you! i wasn't butting on purpose." but instead i just stood there looking confused as to why complete strangers were being assholes to another complete stranger. it's not like there were 20 of me pushing people out of the way and stealing all the seats on the bus. as it was, i didn't take the seats that were still available (some nice old ladies let me cut in front of them), but i stood patiently the whole 45 minutes back and now my lumbar region is wondering why it hurts so much. but i bought a yoga ball and did some stretching whilst watching "the rock" star in "the scorpion king." good flick. solid acting.
one last uncool thing. korean fashion. it's not that the actual clothing is bad, but there seems to be no happy medium between fashion and function. nowhere was this more apparent than at a temple on a mountain. there were either people dressed in head to toe northface hiking gear--replete with walking sticks, or girls in stiletto boots and miniskirts. what the hell?
and that's the end.
yesterday...
originally posted Wednesday, October 25, 2006
was an interesting day. i was nervous because of the aforementioned observation of my class (last blog post), but i had prepared relatively thoroughly so it wasn't sposed to matter too much as long as i had time to make copies (alas, i have no copy machine or other means of reproducing paper in my apartment). since i normally show up at 9 and don't have to do anything until 1:50, i thought i would have plenty of time. but no! i immediately was whisked away to palma stadium/auditorium to watch the haeryoungmyun sports dance team compete against other able-bodied hula hoopers. or at least that's what i was told i would be seeing. at any rate, i was still excited about this prospect of witnessing something bizarre in south korea. i get into a car wth some woman from my office who speaks no english, but who likes whitney houston, beyonce (crazy in love, in particular), and people who cover the righteous brothers. we pick up another korean girl named inna. when inna gets in the car and starts talking, i realize, "hey, she speaks fluent english." she grew up in the states and went to ucla. now she's here visiting her grandfather and studying to take her cpa exam. so it was very nice to have someone fluent in korean and english to hang out with. anyway, off to the dance contest. electric boogaloo, korean style.
it was actually some sort of festival (they're big on those here) to promote health among the elderly. and the two main contests were dance and sports dance. so not only was i witness to some arguably scandalous bellydancing by girls who didn't necessarily need to be baring their midriffs, i got to see agimas waltz and quickstep. it was pretty funny. especially when all the teams lined up on the floor--most of them were color-coordinated with track suits or t-shirts. then you see the chicks who were bellydancing wearing these slutty costumes. i just wonder what was going through the collective mind of the other teams participating. i got some video on my phone, but don't know how to transfer that stuff to computer yet. when i figure it out, maybe i'll indulge everyone with some of my home videos. midway through my time at the competition, the teacher of most of the dancers there (some of whom actually were young, virile seeming, good dancers) came and sat next to me. he spoke very good english. he told me about how he had gone to law school and how his father really wanted him to be a lawyer, but all he wanted to do was dance. and i told him "if you feel like you can't live without dancing, only then are you a dancer." and then i said "the only person you need to be is yourself." actually, i didn't say either of those things...
but i didn't actually even get to see my team compete. we had to go eat lunch (some sort of mushed up fish soup that i had to choke down while lying and saying "mashketah") and then i had to go be ogled at by the all male administrative team of my school/office (not everyone i work with is male, but the males seem to be the only ones around when i actually go to the elementary school to teach).
teaching was okay. dude observed the class with 26 kids in it (that's one letter of the alphabet for everyone though). the punisher did his thing and made a kid cry during class. i think his method was that he actually flicked the kid in the head really hard. well, what a good method it was, because that kid actually was sobbing. before i 've just seen them laugh as a reaction, but not this time. at least i didn't make him cry. i did, however, sweat my proverbial balls off and feel incredibly red-faced. once the school peeps knew someone was coming to observe, they all wanted to try it too. but i survived and won't have to endure the red-faced sweating for a while hopefully. i could probably insert something vulgar here (and there too, "insert"...), but i'm going to refrain. i don't know why, i just am.
anyhoo, end of day, my supervisor (who already has been deemed "sort of creepy" by myself and others) decides to ride along with the driver while he takes me home. we get near my apartment, and they say "we want to see your apartment." hello, awkward! but it's one of those situations where i can't say no, because then i'll be seen as rude. so now my creepy-ish boss knows my building and my actual apartment number. both he and the driver seemed confused when they saw my bed. "why do you have two pillows? are you sleeping with another person?" actually, i'm trying to get gang banged every night, and in that situation, 2 pillows are not nearly enough...
then my boss says, "come with me." he tells the driver to drop us off at kim's club (department/grocery store) because he wants to eat dinner. so instead of us all eating dinner together (which i'm fine with. last week the driver got me a bulgogi burger from lotteria because those three words 'bulgogi burger lotteria" are the only things we had in common), dude buys me dinner and says "i'll be back." so i sit there eating this giant vat of clam soup and he's gone for 20 minutes. then he reappears with a bag of groceries, sets them down at my table and takes off in a rush. what the hell? he said "your refrigerator is empty." so yup, whole lotta awkward going on. oh yeah, and then there were the emails--"i think you're a woman sent to me by god" and "one can think of you for hours after seeing you." yikes.
so i guess in summary, i would like to say that yesterday covered a lot of things: korean bellydancing; old people dancing/jump roping to cher, "it's raining men" and "the roof is on fire"; classroom observation; creepy boss and non creepy driver asking to see my apartment; creepy guy buying me gifts that i eat.
hmmm.
today was storytelling day at the miracle library. i just wasn't feeling it. i wasn't too entertaining. even eric carle couldn't help me. seriously, what will i do when i 've read through all his books?
was an interesting day. i was nervous because of the aforementioned observation of my class (last blog post), but i had prepared relatively thoroughly so it wasn't sposed to matter too much as long as i had time to make copies (alas, i have no copy machine or other means of reproducing paper in my apartment). since i normally show up at 9 and don't have to do anything until 1:50, i thought i would have plenty of time. but no! i immediately was whisked away to palma stadium/auditorium to watch the haeryoungmyun sports dance team compete against other able-bodied hula hoopers. or at least that's what i was told i would be seeing. at any rate, i was still excited about this prospect of witnessing something bizarre in south korea. i get into a car wth some woman from my office who speaks no english, but who likes whitney houston, beyonce (crazy in love, in particular), and people who cover the righteous brothers. we pick up another korean girl named inna. when inna gets in the car and starts talking, i realize, "hey, she speaks fluent english." she grew up in the states and went to ucla. now she's here visiting her grandfather and studying to take her cpa exam. so it was very nice to have someone fluent in korean and english to hang out with. anyway, off to the dance contest. electric boogaloo, korean style.
it was actually some sort of festival (they're big on those here) to promote health among the elderly. and the two main contests were dance and sports dance. so not only was i witness to some arguably scandalous bellydancing by girls who didn't necessarily need to be baring their midriffs, i got to see agimas waltz and quickstep. it was pretty funny. especially when all the teams lined up on the floor--most of them were color-coordinated with track suits or t-shirts. then you see the chicks who were bellydancing wearing these slutty costumes. i just wonder what was going through the collective mind of the other teams participating. i got some video on my phone, but don't know how to transfer that stuff to computer yet. when i figure it out, maybe i'll indulge everyone with some of my home videos. midway through my time at the competition, the teacher of most of the dancers there (some of whom actually were young, virile seeming, good dancers) came and sat next to me. he spoke very good english. he told me about how he had gone to law school and how his father really wanted him to be a lawyer, but all he wanted to do was dance. and i told him "if you feel like you can't live without dancing, only then are you a dancer." and then i said "the only person you need to be is yourself." actually, i didn't say either of those things...
but i didn't actually even get to see my team compete. we had to go eat lunch (some sort of mushed up fish soup that i had to choke down while lying and saying "mashketah") and then i had to go be ogled at by the all male administrative team of my school/office (not everyone i work with is male, but the males seem to be the only ones around when i actually go to the elementary school to teach).
teaching was okay. dude observed the class with 26 kids in it (that's one letter of the alphabet for everyone though). the punisher did his thing and made a kid cry during class. i think his method was that he actually flicked the kid in the head really hard. well, what a good method it was, because that kid actually was sobbing. before i 've just seen them laugh as a reaction, but not this time. at least i didn't make him cry. i did, however, sweat my proverbial balls off and feel incredibly red-faced. once the school peeps knew someone was coming to observe, they all wanted to try it too. but i survived and won't have to endure the red-faced sweating for a while hopefully. i could probably insert something vulgar here (and there too, "insert"...), but i'm going to refrain. i don't know why, i just am.
anyhoo, end of day, my supervisor (who already has been deemed "sort of creepy" by myself and others) decides to ride along with the driver while he takes me home. we get near my apartment, and they say "we want to see your apartment." hello, awkward! but it's one of those situations where i can't say no, because then i'll be seen as rude. so now my creepy-ish boss knows my building and my actual apartment number. both he and the driver seemed confused when they saw my bed. "why do you have two pillows? are you sleeping with another person?" actually, i'm trying to get gang banged every night, and in that situation, 2 pillows are not nearly enough...
then my boss says, "come with me." he tells the driver to drop us off at kim's club (department/grocery store) because he wants to eat dinner. so instead of us all eating dinner together (which i'm fine with. last week the driver got me a bulgogi burger from lotteria because those three words 'bulgogi burger lotteria" are the only things we had in common), dude buys me dinner and says "i'll be back." so i sit there eating this giant vat of clam soup and he's gone for 20 minutes. then he reappears with a bag of groceries, sets them down at my table and takes off in a rush. what the hell? he said "your refrigerator is empty." so yup, whole lotta awkward going on. oh yeah, and then there were the emails--"i think you're a woman sent to me by god" and "one can think of you for hours after seeing you." yikes.
so i guess in summary, i would like to say that yesterday covered a lot of things: korean bellydancing; old people dancing/jump roping to cher, "it's raining men" and "the roof is on fire"; classroom observation; creepy boss and non creepy driver asking to see my apartment; creepy guy buying me gifts that i eat.
hmmm.
today was storytelling day at the miracle library. i just wasn't feeling it. i wasn't too entertaining. even eric carle couldn't help me. seriously, what will i do when i 've read through all his books?
ho hum
originally posted Sunday, October 22, 2006
on most days, i tend to wear too many layers and i get hot within 10 minutes of leaving my apartment. today i didn't wear the supplementary layers and now i'm cold, compounded by the fact that i wore (as per usual) a shirt that's a little too small in the arm area. so i have to keep the sleeves rolled up. the relative chilliness would be downright pleasant were i wearing the sweater or sweatshirt i wear every other fucking day. aaarrgghh.
back at work again after a decent weekend. i got here at 10 (it's 11:32 now), and i've already run out of things to do. i've even exhausted two of my sure time killers--drinking coffee and going to the bathroom. plus i made lesson plans for tomorrow, which means that i'll have to find something else to do to kill time tomorrow. wait, i can type the lesson plans. that takes time. i'm not complaining though...my job now is surely some sort of karma for the chuncheon debacle.
tomorrow at the place where i actually teach 3 classes, i think i'm being observed by a superior. me no likey. i'm already painfully self-conscious and worried about the fact that maybe i'm not necessarily perceived as "fun" by the 6-11 year old crowd. 40 minutes per week is not enough time to build some sort of relationship or even know names (this will be my 3rd week). i'm sure i'll be fine, but i'll have to be extra chipper. if you know me, you know i'm not chipper. but having a guy in the classroom who i shall deem "the punisher" (i.e. he swoops in and smacks the unruly kids, though i don't believe any of them are unruly enough to warrant physical intervention, but whatever) sure keeps things interesting.
weekend babble: friday night met up with some epi kids and their dog. it wasn't a communal dog, just the dog of an epi kid's sister. we drank, they left, i drank some more with scott, mike and erica. made mandu and dokk bpoki (sp?). ended up breaking into the jameson bottle that i was sposed to save for some friends in chuncheon. the good news is, jameson in suncheon is not too outrageously expensive. went to sleep around 5 am (i didn't realize this until later on saturday when i was trying to piece the night together. i haven't stayed up that late since the days of "the party" 2 summers ago. ouch.). at noon thirty the next day i went to play basketball. i was impressed and surprised by the lack of a hangover. and then i walked onto the basketball court and thought i was going to yak. running is not a drunkard's friend. being out of shape is not a baskeball player's friend. put them together and you have a train wreck--a nauseated, out of shape train wreck. good gad. those things considered, i'm confident i wasn't the worse player out there, and that's saying something as i was the only girl out there. next time i'll at least bring my B game.
saturday night=more drinking until the wee hours of the morning. well, not too wee, but in light of friday night, it was a rough 2 days. on sunday i invited myself along with erica and mike's korean family. ate some samgupsal (sp? a lot better here than it was in chuncheon. actually tastes like meat instead of salty fat), did some driving in the rain, went bowling. that was pretty interesting. i got some video on my phone of the young korean kid's technique. it didn't really work per se, but it was sure cute. he would sort of take a running start and then stop and roll the ball directly into the gutter. like a granny shot in basketball. good times. all the holes in the ball were really small though. not just the circumference, but the depth of the holes. so i got my hand in the ball up until about the first knuckle, but no further. made things a bit awkward. but bowling was good, and it sure beat staying at home watching ocn "number one channel". later that night ate spicy chicken with another epi guy. good times. all in all a pretty good weekend. but i think i need to go out of town soon. the inherent adventure of riding a bus/train elsewhere in a foreign country is looming. getting paid helps too.
on most days, i tend to wear too many layers and i get hot within 10 minutes of leaving my apartment. today i didn't wear the supplementary layers and now i'm cold, compounded by the fact that i wore (as per usual) a shirt that's a little too small in the arm area. so i have to keep the sleeves rolled up. the relative chilliness would be downright pleasant were i wearing the sweater or sweatshirt i wear every other fucking day. aaarrgghh.
back at work again after a decent weekend. i got here at 10 (it's 11:32 now), and i've already run out of things to do. i've even exhausted two of my sure time killers--drinking coffee and going to the bathroom. plus i made lesson plans for tomorrow, which means that i'll have to find something else to do to kill time tomorrow. wait, i can type the lesson plans. that takes time. i'm not complaining though...my job now is surely some sort of karma for the chuncheon debacle.
tomorrow at the place where i actually teach 3 classes, i think i'm being observed by a superior. me no likey. i'm already painfully self-conscious and worried about the fact that maybe i'm not necessarily perceived as "fun" by the 6-11 year old crowd. 40 minutes per week is not enough time to build some sort of relationship or even know names (this will be my 3rd week). i'm sure i'll be fine, but i'll have to be extra chipper. if you know me, you know i'm not chipper. but having a guy in the classroom who i shall deem "the punisher" (i.e. he swoops in and smacks the unruly kids, though i don't believe any of them are unruly enough to warrant physical intervention, but whatever) sure keeps things interesting.
weekend babble: friday night met up with some epi kids and their dog. it wasn't a communal dog, just the dog of an epi kid's sister. we drank, they left, i drank some more with scott, mike and erica. made mandu and dokk bpoki (sp?). ended up breaking into the jameson bottle that i was sposed to save for some friends in chuncheon. the good news is, jameson in suncheon is not too outrageously expensive. went to sleep around 5 am (i didn't realize this until later on saturday when i was trying to piece the night together. i haven't stayed up that late since the days of "the party" 2 summers ago. ouch.). at noon thirty the next day i went to play basketball. i was impressed and surprised by the lack of a hangover. and then i walked onto the basketball court and thought i was going to yak. running is not a drunkard's friend. being out of shape is not a baskeball player's friend. put them together and you have a train wreck--a nauseated, out of shape train wreck. good gad. those things considered, i'm confident i wasn't the worse player out there, and that's saying something as i was the only girl out there. next time i'll at least bring my B game.
saturday night=more drinking until the wee hours of the morning. well, not too wee, but in light of friday night, it was a rough 2 days. on sunday i invited myself along with erica and mike's korean family. ate some samgupsal (sp? a lot better here than it was in chuncheon. actually tastes like meat instead of salty fat), did some driving in the rain, went bowling. that was pretty interesting. i got some video on my phone of the young korean kid's technique. it didn't really work per se, but it was sure cute. he would sort of take a running start and then stop and roll the ball directly into the gutter. like a granny shot in basketball. good times. all the holes in the ball were really small though. not just the circumference, but the depth of the holes. so i got my hand in the ball up until about the first knuckle, but no further. made things a bit awkward. but bowling was good, and it sure beat staying at home watching ocn "number one channel". later that night ate spicy chicken with another epi guy. good times. all in all a pretty good weekend. but i think i need to go out of town soon. the inherent adventure of riding a bus/train elsewhere in a foreign country is looming. getting paid helps too.
"why my job rules" a short essay by jamie leigh mcgeorge
originally posted Wednesday, October 18, 2006
i got to spend the first two hours of my day at work coloring, cutting, taping and glueing together a fake washing machine for the english play the library munchkins will perform later. the rest of my day has been spent dicking around on a computer, some online bill paying (i'm responsible!) and studying korean. for all the studying i say i do, i sure can't speak for shit.
i got a hand-uh pone. and i did it all by myself, botched konglish and everything. it was expensive, but i don't care. i gave the guy who helped me a giant persimmon as a token of my gratitude. but it had been given to me earlier in the day by a co-worker, so i felt a little bad about giving my own gift away. but honestly, what was i going to do with a giant persimmon?
nothing new. the weekend is coming up, so maybe something extraordinary will happen. fingers crossed....
i got to spend the first two hours of my day at work coloring, cutting, taping and glueing together a fake washing machine for the english play the library munchkins will perform later. the rest of my day has been spent dicking around on a computer, some online bill paying (i'm responsible!) and studying korean. for all the studying i say i do, i sure can't speak for shit.
i got a hand-uh pone. and i did it all by myself, botched konglish and everything. it was expensive, but i don't care. i gave the guy who helped me a giant persimmon as a token of my gratitude. but it had been given to me earlier in the day by a co-worker, so i felt a little bad about giving my own gift away. but honestly, what was i going to do with a giant persimmon?
nothing new. the weekend is coming up, so maybe something extraordinary will happen. fingers crossed....
furdge a durdge
originally posted Sunday, October 15, 2006
dude, i had just written this amazingly thorough blog then i deleted the whole fucking thing. i am a fucking wee-tard. so i guess this is the re-creation (as opposed to the recreation). i apologize for it lacking the depth, wit, and pathos of the post it is replacing.
so i think i've calmed down a bit after the initial hakwon news. saturday afternoon (after i got the email from jules) felt like a dream state. i really was in shock. and all i wanted at that point was to party til' i puked with jules and roar. sort of difficult since they're in missouri. i ended up wandering around the old town of suncheon with mike and scott, which was fun enough. but i really wanted to celebrate, and no one here understands the significance that was this email from jules. i dunno. ultimately saturday was just depressing. i'm still not used to the idea that i don't get to see my two favorite people on a regular basis. i'm not homesick even, but i definitely wish i had some effortless friends here. but soon enough jules and rory will be living in china which is a lot closer than missouri and we will retroactively celebrate by drinking something potent--mao tai? soju? the blood of a virgin?--and it will be good. god this all sounded so much more eloquent in the blog i deleted.
i ended up making really awkward conversation with some koreans i didn't know--replete with pantomiming and truncated engrish/botched konglish. and what i learned from that is that i really enjoy things that are low maintenance-- relationships, friendships. i realize i sound like a bitch right now. but it's the truth. i like to tell myself that the beauty of some things is in the struggle and in things being difficult and trying, but i think maybe i just had a lazy week. or just a lazy saturday. and yes, i realize i'm not making much sense right now. i'm tired. not that being friends with koreans is something i am not willing to put any effort into, but just making friends in general requires an effort that i'm not sure i have. i'm really not good at it. i prefer to be sought out, not to do the seeking. there are lots of foreigners here and we all live in the same cluster of apartments. and i guess we should feel some inherent comraderie as we are all strangers in a strange land. but what if there's not that comraderie? and there are lots of mizzou people here, which means we all hang out. which is good and bad. i'm glad they're here but it gives us all an easy out. it allows us to not have to test ourselves as much, and a big part of the reason i came here the second time was just to prove that i could. i think it's going to require a consistent effort on my part to make sure i pursue authentic korean things and don't just gravitate to the easy foreigner things. eating and drinking, for example. i must go eat with koreans and drink soju with koreans. it's imperative. and, yes, i know i'm contradicting myself because i know going the foreigner route is the easy way, yet i want to go the difficult way. i know. ramble ramble ramble.
anyhoo, back to the hakwon. that whole experience made me really nervous about going to visit chuncheon and even about coming back to korea in general. my reputation there was ruined and there are a lot of people who would never admit it, but judged me because of the accusations some korean asshole had thrown at me. i didn't even unpack my bags from korea when i got back stateside until two months later. unpacking seemed like an all too real reminder that i was back to the doldrums of my columbia, mo existence. it also seemed to reinforce my defeated feeling. i must note that i'm a person who thinks everything is symbolic. even relative insignificants (like say, the unpacking of suitcases) i tend to weigh down with meaning. and i enjoy making myself cry. romanticized melancholy, or whatever. i was quite content to be depressed and inconsolable for the first few months after chuncheon. life in korea is very simple, despite the language barrier. it's an easy (and profitable, i might add) way to push those larger issues--what am i doing with my life, what do i want my future to look like, what's the big picture, blah blah blah--off to the wayside. coming back from korea early, i wasn't prepared to face those looming existential issues, which made the shock of the situation even more shocking. so now i'm back, and happy to admit that i am again avoiding the big picture, content instead to just revel in the daily minutiae. so that's that.
besides the good news of saturday, friday was my best day in korea. and it wasn't because of work, or drinking, but it was because of motorbikes. i had the extreme pleasure of riding two different motorcycles. and the whole time i sat there just grinning like a fucking idiot. a fucking idiot who "lacks poise and grace" i think were the exact words. no matter. i would like to gracelessly and poiselessly ride motorcycles in south korea many more times.
i learned a new word the other day, in the same vein as schadenfreude. the new word is "der weltschmertz." it means world ache. them's good eats.
okay, i give up.
dude, i had just written this amazingly thorough blog then i deleted the whole fucking thing. i am a fucking wee-tard. so i guess this is the re-creation (as opposed to the recreation). i apologize for it lacking the depth, wit, and pathos of the post it is replacing.
so i think i've calmed down a bit after the initial hakwon news. saturday afternoon (after i got the email from jules) felt like a dream state. i really was in shock. and all i wanted at that point was to party til' i puked with jules and roar. sort of difficult since they're in missouri. i ended up wandering around the old town of suncheon with mike and scott, which was fun enough. but i really wanted to celebrate, and no one here understands the significance that was this email from jules. i dunno. ultimately saturday was just depressing. i'm still not used to the idea that i don't get to see my two favorite people on a regular basis. i'm not homesick even, but i definitely wish i had some effortless friends here. but soon enough jules and rory will be living in china which is a lot closer than missouri and we will retroactively celebrate by drinking something potent--mao tai? soju? the blood of a virgin?--and it will be good. god this all sounded so much more eloquent in the blog i deleted.
i ended up making really awkward conversation with some koreans i didn't know--replete with pantomiming and truncated engrish/botched konglish. and what i learned from that is that i really enjoy things that are low maintenance-- relationships, friendships. i realize i sound like a bitch right now. but it's the truth. i like to tell myself that the beauty of some things is in the struggle and in things being difficult and trying, but i think maybe i just had a lazy week. or just a lazy saturday. and yes, i realize i'm not making much sense right now. i'm tired. not that being friends with koreans is something i am not willing to put any effort into, but just making friends in general requires an effort that i'm not sure i have. i'm really not good at it. i prefer to be sought out, not to do the seeking. there are lots of foreigners here and we all live in the same cluster of apartments. and i guess we should feel some inherent comraderie as we are all strangers in a strange land. but what if there's not that comraderie? and there are lots of mizzou people here, which means we all hang out. which is good and bad. i'm glad they're here but it gives us all an easy out. it allows us to not have to test ourselves as much, and a big part of the reason i came here the second time was just to prove that i could. i think it's going to require a consistent effort on my part to make sure i pursue authentic korean things and don't just gravitate to the easy foreigner things. eating and drinking, for example. i must go eat with koreans and drink soju with koreans. it's imperative. and, yes, i know i'm contradicting myself because i know going the foreigner route is the easy way, yet i want to go the difficult way. i know. ramble ramble ramble.
anyhoo, back to the hakwon. that whole experience made me really nervous about going to visit chuncheon and even about coming back to korea in general. my reputation there was ruined and there are a lot of people who would never admit it, but judged me because of the accusations some korean asshole had thrown at me. i didn't even unpack my bags from korea when i got back stateside until two months later. unpacking seemed like an all too real reminder that i was back to the doldrums of my columbia, mo existence. it also seemed to reinforce my defeated feeling. i must note that i'm a person who thinks everything is symbolic. even relative insignificants (like say, the unpacking of suitcases) i tend to weigh down with meaning. and i enjoy making myself cry. romanticized melancholy, or whatever. i was quite content to be depressed and inconsolable for the first few months after chuncheon. life in korea is very simple, despite the language barrier. it's an easy (and profitable, i might add) way to push those larger issues--what am i doing with my life, what do i want my future to look like, what's the big picture, blah blah blah--off to the wayside. coming back from korea early, i wasn't prepared to face those looming existential issues, which made the shock of the situation even more shocking. so now i'm back, and happy to admit that i am again avoiding the big picture, content instead to just revel in the daily minutiae. so that's that.
besides the good news of saturday, friday was my best day in korea. and it wasn't because of work, or drinking, but it was because of motorbikes. i had the extreme pleasure of riding two different motorcycles. and the whole time i sat there just grinning like a fucking idiot. a fucking idiot who "lacks poise and grace" i think were the exact words. no matter. i would like to gracelessly and poiselessly ride motorcycles in south korea many more times.
i learned a new word the other day, in the same vein as schadenfreude. the new word is "der weltschmertz." it means world ache. them's good eats.
okay, i give up.
so this is what vindication feels like
originally posted Saturday, October 14, 2006
i'm sitting in a pc bong shaking, crying and sweating profusely. my old school that fucked me over was shut down (see www.shakespeareseast.blogspot.com for the lowdown).
holy fucking shit.
i'm sitting in a pc bong shaking, crying and sweating profusely. my old school that fucked me over was shut down (see www.shakespeareseast.blogspot.com for the lowdown).
holy fucking shit.
worky worky (sort of)
originally posted Wednesday, October 11, 2006
i am very close to finishing my first week of work. and it's been pretty easy. yesterday was the first day at a children's library. i got here at 10, but didn't have to actually do anything until 2, at which point i read to little kids and their moms for one hour. then i got to "take a rest" and read for another hour at 4. that's it. the rest of the time i get to email lots of people and look at my good friend video dog on salon.com. everyone here looks so busy, but no one knows how to tell me what they want me to do. i would be happy to check out books to people and just work as a librarian in a korean children's library, but i don't know how to tell anyone i want to do that. time to call on my good friend altavista babelfish. it's amazing the conversations you can have with the aid of an online translator. everything i say becomes something convoluted and poetic. unless that's just how i speak anyway.
i ate lunch with all my coworkers yesterday. the food was great. i even ate some fish that turned out to be very very good, despite the fact that some little pod things squirted in my mouth (heh heh). but it was very very awkward, not only because no one spoke english, but because there were 6 korean girls-all college students-who just gave me the evil eye the whole time. and i'm pretty sure they were making fun of me. sometime koreans sort of snarl at you when they speak, girls more than boys. but then they would laugh and look at me. i dunno. i think i want to eat lunch alone until i learn to speak korean.
random: on the tele last night as i was falling asleep, i heard something familiar. some tiny korean voice was singing "i have a mandolin. i play it all night long. it makes me want to kill myself." i was already shocked when i heard the magnetic fields in a dog food commercial stateside, but in korea? what the hell? i don't know what it was advertising, but i will buy whatever it is as soon as i know.
i was eating dinner last night when my door rings (my doorbell sounds like those rape alarm things some people put in their purses where if you pull the string it emits a shrill, obnoxious eardrum piercing sound). and there was a man standing there who just said "sopa" (sofa). so he propped my door open and then two dudes carried in a giant sofa and chair. so now my apartment is packed with furniture. honestly, i don't need a sofa and a big chair, but hell, if it's red-ish leather and brand new, why not. another note about the doorbell, yesterday morning my doorbell rang and there was a man standing there saying "hat." so i just opened the door and he walked to the back of my apartment, onto my balcony where his hat had fallen. 20 minutes later he came back and gave me a bottle of tea. so that was nice.
anyhoo, more later. i think i might actually get to do something now.
i am very close to finishing my first week of work. and it's been pretty easy. yesterday was the first day at a children's library. i got here at 10, but didn't have to actually do anything until 2, at which point i read to little kids and their moms for one hour. then i got to "take a rest" and read for another hour at 4. that's it. the rest of the time i get to email lots of people and look at my good friend video dog on salon.com. everyone here looks so busy, but no one knows how to tell me what they want me to do. i would be happy to check out books to people and just work as a librarian in a korean children's library, but i don't know how to tell anyone i want to do that. time to call on my good friend altavista babelfish. it's amazing the conversations you can have with the aid of an online translator. everything i say becomes something convoluted and poetic. unless that's just how i speak anyway.
i ate lunch with all my coworkers yesterday. the food was great. i even ate some fish that turned out to be very very good, despite the fact that some little pod things squirted in my mouth (heh heh). but it was very very awkward, not only because no one spoke english, but because there were 6 korean girls-all college students-who just gave me the evil eye the whole time. and i'm pretty sure they were making fun of me. sometime koreans sort of snarl at you when they speak, girls more than boys. but then they would laugh and look at me. i dunno. i think i want to eat lunch alone until i learn to speak korean.
random: on the tele last night as i was falling asleep, i heard something familiar. some tiny korean voice was singing "i have a mandolin. i play it all night long. it makes me want to kill myself." i was already shocked when i heard the magnetic fields in a dog food commercial stateside, but in korea? what the hell? i don't know what it was advertising, but i will buy whatever it is as soon as i know.
i was eating dinner last night when my door rings (my doorbell sounds like those rape alarm things some people put in their purses where if you pull the string it emits a shrill, obnoxious eardrum piercing sound). and there was a man standing there who just said "sopa" (sofa). so he propped my door open and then two dudes carried in a giant sofa and chair. so now my apartment is packed with furniture. honestly, i don't need a sofa and a big chair, but hell, if it's red-ish leather and brand new, why not. another note about the doorbell, yesterday morning my doorbell rang and there was a man standing there saying "hat." so i just opened the door and he walked to the back of my apartment, onto my balcony where his hat had fallen. 20 minutes later he came back and gave me a bottle of tea. so that was nice.
anyhoo, more later. i think i might actually get to do something now.
my apartment rules
originally posted Tuesday, October 10, 2006
yesterday was a busy day. i thought it would be my first day of work, but i ended up getting to spend three hours reading an entire book whilst sitting alone in my office, then going to do some logistical bullshit for a couple hours, then getting to move into my new apartment.
in chuncheon, my apartment was cool, simply because it was the first place i had ever occupied all by my lonesome. but the new place actually has a hallway. i have my own apartment in south korea and it has a hallway. plus there's a kitchen that an actual table and microwave stand can fit it. yesterday felt like i had gotten married or bought a new house, or any other event that warrants the unveiling of tons o' kitchen and household items. there's really no finer feeling than peeling plastic off of a brand new refrigerator/washing machine/bed/ironing board/wardrobe/dvd player. after all this, i barely even noticed the dead roach on the floor. i celebrated by drinking scotch. every time i drink scotch, i'm most tickled by the fact that i am yet again attempting to be someone who drinks scotch. i'm just not. it takes me 2 hours to drink less than a shot. i know yer sposed to sip it, but come on.
anyhoo, today was my first official day of teaching. so i went to my office early in the morning and got to dick around on a computer for about 3 hours. then i got a long patronizing lecture on how to bow correctly and how the way i left my bowl after eating lunch was rude. i really don't have any problem with these subtle cultural nuances--in fact, i have wholeheartedly embraced them in the past--but when i'm addressed like a 5 year old, it makes it a little irritating. but then i went to teach and was greeted by at least 25 1st and 2nd graders. sweet, vonage! the first thing i did was have them try to locate los estados unidos and south korea. no one knew. it was very funny. there were some kids that didn't believe me when i said that no, we weren't in tanzania. so if you want an activity that will really stump a whole classroom, just take out a map. oh yeah, and everyone kept calling me mexican. i think that's pretty funny. they wanted it to be offensive, but offended i was not. dude, selena was hot.
anyhoo, so far so good. i think some soju drinking is long overdue. i must tend to that.
yesterday was a busy day. i thought it would be my first day of work, but i ended up getting to spend three hours reading an entire book whilst sitting alone in my office, then going to do some logistical bullshit for a couple hours, then getting to move into my new apartment.
in chuncheon, my apartment was cool, simply because it was the first place i had ever occupied all by my lonesome. but the new place actually has a hallway. i have my own apartment in south korea and it has a hallway. plus there's a kitchen that an actual table and microwave stand can fit it. yesterday felt like i had gotten married or bought a new house, or any other event that warrants the unveiling of tons o' kitchen and household items. there's really no finer feeling than peeling plastic off of a brand new refrigerator/washing machine/bed/ironing board/wardrobe/dvd player. after all this, i barely even noticed the dead roach on the floor. i celebrated by drinking scotch. every time i drink scotch, i'm most tickled by the fact that i am yet again attempting to be someone who drinks scotch. i'm just not. it takes me 2 hours to drink less than a shot. i know yer sposed to sip it, but come on.
anyhoo, today was my first official day of teaching. so i went to my office early in the morning and got to dick around on a computer for about 3 hours. then i got a long patronizing lecture on how to bow correctly and how the way i left my bowl after eating lunch was rude. i really don't have any problem with these subtle cultural nuances--in fact, i have wholeheartedly embraced them in the past--but when i'm addressed like a 5 year old, it makes it a little irritating. but then i went to teach and was greeted by at least 25 1st and 2nd graders. sweet, vonage! the first thing i did was have them try to locate los estados unidos and south korea. no one knew. it was very funny. there were some kids that didn't believe me when i said that no, we weren't in tanzania. so if you want an activity that will really stump a whole classroom, just take out a map. oh yeah, and everyone kept calling me mexican. i think that's pretty funny. they wanted it to be offensive, but offended i was not. dude, selena was hot.
anyhoo, so far so good. i think some soju drinking is long overdue. i must tend to that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)