things

i am unlucky. and also lacking in common sense. there are many situations in recent memory to corroborate such statements.

before i start that, i should mention that i never did go see basement jaxx. bummer. but i guess it was nice to not throw down 40 bucks just to get in.

okay, back to me being an idiot...

the most obvious illustration of my shortcomings comes in gloved form. for my birthday i received a beautiful, girly pair of women's gloves from my co-workers. lined with fur and everything. i like the word "fur." keep in mind, my birthday was less than a month ago. my co-workers made sure to inform me of said gloves' priciness, which i thought of every time i squeezed my large man paws into them. unfortunately, the night i decided to stay out at the club until the wee hours of the morning, my gloves didn't make it home with me. i was very sad, mostly because i knew that my co-workers would notice if i didn't have them. so i bought another pair exactly like them. after dropping $50 on a pair of gloves i would never have otherwise thought to purchase for myself, i realized the next day that these gloves were black, when the birthday ones i lost were brown. fuck. i spent about 5 minutes, turning these black gloves in the light, trying to convince myself that they were actually brown. before i even had a chance to take them back and exchange them, i mysteriously lost one. so now, i've lost the second pair, or rather, half of the second pair. i'm forced to acknowledge my own stupidity every time i look at that lone glove sitting on my kitchen table. i'm still optimistic and am officially labeling the other glove "misplaced" for now. we shall see....

more evidence of me being real dumb: a few weeks ago i was at the coex mall. i went to an atm. when the time came for me to buy movie tickets, i realized i had no money. i'd removed my card and the receipt, but left the money in the machine. idiot. magically, the money was sucked back up, so it didn't really hurt me at all financially. however, there was another human present, who got to witness the whole panicked, hungover scenario (yes, the same coex mall that i barfed in. same day, actually. class act.). not my proudest moment.

also, i trip a lot over things both real and imagined.

on an unrelated note, i forgot to mention a memorable taxi ride, one of many i've had here in the korea. i was in a cab with two other foreigners and the driver was pretty excited about clayton's korean speaking skills. they got to talking and the driver wanted to know what "oh shit" handles were called in english (i don't remember the korean phrase). so the driver started exaggerating his turns so we'd grab the handles yelling "oh shit!" good eats.

in more recent news, i had a pretty good weekend. had a killer cold for the majority of last week, snot oozing continually and an attractively-chafed nose. but by saturday, i was ready to drink free alcohol at my school's christmas party. it was mostly for all the korean teachers, but we foreigners were invited as a gesture of good will. i've found that "free beer" and "good will" sound remarkably similar...so i went to work on saturday, then sat around waiting for the other teachers so we could practice the requisite skit for our branch of the hagwon. it was pretty cool that they involved me in it in the first place. even if it was to read an uber cheesy quote from the movie serendipity. whatever. it all turned out well....

got to the party around 6, then started pounding down beer with the few other foreign teachers who decided to show up. whatever, i'll travel an hour and a half on the subway if the pot of gold is actually a pint glass full of good german beer. at some point shots of tequila entered into the picture, not sure if that was before or after my school's skit. before i'd seen any of the other branch's performances, i was pretty confident in ours, as it told a story and then ended with some cheesy stuff about love. but these other branches weren't fucking around with their skits. lots of choreography and magic. who'd've thunk?

after i sprayed fake snow in an innocent bystander's eye, i knew i was ready for my big moment as an angel spreading christmas cheer in an aerosol can. shortly after the skit and after drinking many more tequila shots, decided to leave the party with some of the other foreign teachers. regrettably, i didn't say goodbye to any of my teachers (keep in mind, there are literally 100s of korean teachers there and about 6 foreign teachers). but i was pretty lit at that point and didn't want to embarass myself. made the bad decision to go to itaewon. it was fine. i really liked the people i was with, but it's always the same reaction as soon as i get there "oh yeah, i remember why i hate this place" (same reaction when i rang in christmas in itaewon). i got a guilt trip about leaving on monday, which i only took a little seriously. my coworker said "we're sposed to be a team." it's a nice idea, but i'm kept out of the loop about so many things that i'm a little skeptical of the team spirit angle.

next day i got drunk in the afternoon, ate copious amounts of meat, went bowling with friends, and watched american gangster. all in all, a pretty great sunday.

on christmas eve i didn't have any plans but decided at the last minute that getting drunk in itaweon sounded like SOMETHING to do at least. so met up with some friends. eventually ended up at a club until the wee hours of the morning. something that's happened, astonishingly, twice in the past month. i'm really a terrible dancer, and yet there i was, dancing like an idiot for an extended amount of time. it was good. after we left the club, some nerdy, drunk foreigner felt like starting a fight with us on hooker hill. of course we avoided it, but only narrowly. i don't even remember what he said that started it all. just some drunk, belligerent guy, like every other drunk, belligerent guy in itaewon.

on christmas i worked from 4:30-10:30. and i was amazed at how many kids actually came to school on christmas. it's a holiday here, too. and there are just as many overzealous christians here as in america.

last triviality. i made a pretty cool discovery. after already exploring the flavor of "banana milk" i branched out yesterday and have stumbled across a drink that tastes exactly like the residual milk in an eaten bowl of captain crunch. raspberry milk. hells yeah.

i believe i can fly. also, it snowed today. hooray.

so i have some things to talk about. nothing too exciting, but notable as actual qualitative events have recently dotted the otherwise bland horizon of my life. always good to start melodramatically...i'll attribute any forthcoming wordiness to the caffeine. i've noticed that i tend to be a lot happier in general whilst highly caffeinated. that's the nature of addiction, i suppose. yes, my bout of insomnia ended a while ago, so i'm back on the juice. which is why i'm awake right now.

last weekend was a crazy one, at least seen/felt through the eyes and insanely dancing limbs of this not quite old person. firday night i did the usual round of teaching and wanting to pull my chalk-laden hair out by the end of it all (yes, we have ACTUAL chalkboards, which i thoroughly enjoy. something about a whiteboard makes the whole teaching experience less authentic. but yeah, chalk + long hair + light facial perspiration don't mix).

it's been really hard for me these past few weeks to adjust to 4 days of a light work schedule and then teaching 6 hours in a row (out of a book whose vagaries don't really inspire too much confidence) on fridays. i love all my elementary school students, but it requires an energy that i'm not really required to muster too much the rest of the week. yes, i'm complaining about having to actually apply myself. sometimes i'm just not in the mood, particularly when autopilot mode for the middle schoolers is so, well, automatic.

anyway, back to weekend shenanigans. i really should find another word for "shenanigans". i've become too attached...

saturday afternoon after teaching, decided to meet up with a friend for some culture. because cultural things totally fucking rule. first things first when planning any sort of outing: afternoon beers to motivate and mentally prepare oneself for the sensory experience of said culture. after liquid motivation, made our way to the van gogh exhibit. i've mused before on the spectacle that is an art museum in korea (monet and what appeared to be a play date organized by all the mothers of seoul). van gogh wasn't really too different. super crowded, people using their purses and children to nudge others out of the way. and just so those guilty parties know, there's nothing discreet about your maneuvering. i'm privy to your methods.

post van gogh, went to a hookah bar in hongdae. we were the first people there. i guess 8ish isn't universal hookah hour. i don't know what or when the hip kids do [things] these days. still learning...

after hookah went foraging for food. my friend who is a smoker informed me that our chosen order of events was faulty. apparently, eat first, then hookah. next time. we eventually ended up at a chinese place. it was a good way to test my korean skills when the server brought out a dish that i didn't order. a dish that made my face feel like it was melting off. i like spicy food, but for fuck's sake! this is a point where i should edit myself. does anyone really care what i ate for dinner last saturday night? if you do, please let me know. i'm genuinely curious...

after that i assumed the night would end at a drinking establishment of some sort. after an adventurous taxi ride in which we foreigners were fucked over to the tune of 10 bones, met up with my friend clayton (who likes it when i actually use his name when i reference him). drank more beer and ate fondu-ish fruits. i've found that fondu is a good side when drinking copious amounts of alcohol. actually, that makes it sound like i've ever eaten fondu prior to this occassion. i'm a liar. clayton thought a club might be a good idea. fudge a dudge.

so we ended up in gangnam outside "club mass." i had a phase in college where i enjoyed going to these kind of clubs and listening to house music and jungle music and other music that usually really annoys the shit out of me now. i also wore extremely baggy pants with lots o' zippers and made many a bad decision that it's best to only vaguely reference at this point. i'd like to think i'm good at that (vague references).

so we end up at club mass. i walk in and am instantly greeted by the bowel-shaking beats of some long-haired white dj. it was at this point that i said to myself "fuck, what the fuck am i fucking doing here?" so maybe those weren't the exact words, but you get the idea. i'm not really a dancer, but at a place like this you can't just stand there. so i bit the bullet and danced my arse off. to the tune of really regretting it later. hindsight embarassment is 20/20? i guess i didn't really do anything too laughable besides dance in the first place. and i think it's true that there always is someone worse at something than i am. middle of the road is precisely where i best function.

so we were ultimately at the club for about 6 hours. it goes without saying that sleep was in order. so i slept until 5 pm the next day. shitballs, i haven't done that in a long time. tried to salvage the evening, so went and saw "michael clayton", but not before barfing in a random bathroom in the coex mall. classy lassy, all the way.

so that was the good weekend. i believe i'm set for some sort of repeat tomorrow night. going back to the same club to see basement jaxx. that sure takes me back to the raver days of yore. once again, those baggy pants and questionable activities...ahhh, good times.

in other news, i would be remiss not to mention the highlight of my day on wednesday. these days at work i have this special 2 hour speaking class that i really really hate. sometimes 6 kids will show up. sometimes 2. and in my all too real nightmares...1 student. this was a 2 student day. and i decided that "special speaking class" really means twister and teaching my kids how to play spoons. so i brought in twister and played with these elementary school girls. as the younger of the two kids was flailing helplessly on the floor, she started singing, ever so earnestly, "i believe i can fly" at the top of her lungs. and that, in all its innocence, was the highlight of my day. shit, maybe even the highlight of the week. tomorrow something amazing has to happen to top it.

dudes, this is boring. a nice, glowing endorsement there...

i think this is the third week in a row where i've had to be at work, but not actually working for 4 of my 6 days of work. so it means a lot of sitting around (6 hours/day, to be exact). and yet i got to spend all of sunday--my one day off--being paraded around in front of the parents of potential students at our academy, or rather, another branch of our academy. i've been at work so much lately, not really doing anything for most of that time. i think that ends next week and i get to pretend to be a teacher again.

anyway, at the end of sunday, managed to duck out a little early to go get drunk. seriously, i'd already been there for 6 hours doing absolutely nothing. they seemed offended when i didn't want to stay for the grand opening and then some sort of meal afterwards. i really like everyone i work with, but when i hang out with them outside of work, or inside of work on a day off, it can't help but feeling...well...like work. so yeah, beer was required. went to the same german beer haus (i just like typing that) where i saw an awesome filipino band before. this time i ordered a beer that came in a glass a meter long. that could be the happiest i've been in recent memory. and then a filipino band did take the stage. but it wasn't the same one. these chicks seemed to show a lot more flesh, much to the chagrin of everyone in the audience. or maybe that was just my immediate reaction. is it not december? last i checked winter wasn't leather daisy dukes and bustier weather.

same deal on tuesday, when i was told i had to go to kintex. kintex is a monolithic convention center in ilsan, representative of the continuing economic development in this relatively affluent suburb of seoul (hey, we've got a "chinatown" in the works too. not sure what that means...) i was told there would be around 500 parents there. so i went, stood around for several hours, feeling sort of underutilized and pointless. oh yeah, there were also some jazz hands involved, whilst wearing white gloves, no less. reminded me of my brief stint playing handbells at first baptist church in jeff city. carol of the bells owned!

anyhoo, had to briefly and awkwardly address a room full of people who couldn't understand a fucking word i said, all for show. but at the end of it all i got a free lunch, so i guess it was worth it to stand around all day and feel useless.

the best part of that day was when i got to take a nap on the floor of a bulgogi restaurant with all my other co-teachers. i'm not exaggerating either. this was a full-on nap. at least 30 minutes of snoozing on a heated floor, next to my other co-teachers. it was a nice way to kill time before work. i never think to sleep directly on my floor at home, but this experience planted the idea in my brain for future reference. i'm warming her up as i type this.

nothing of huge significance to report. i joined a gym. but i didn't go at all last week, on account of being hungover most of that time. or just tired from all this work bullshit. of course i still like my job, but i hate being underutilized, especially considering all the things i could be doing were i not at work. art museums, temples, pagodas, bars, mountains. all the things i've yet to see...

i'm losing my vocabulary. how to combat this. i'm not sure. today i bought a little notebook to write down definitions. only definitions. words i don't know. words i used to know but have since forgotten. words that need further explanation. i shall carry it with me at all times. my resolve is strong. as is this resolution.

more birthday shenanigans

my birthday this year was a lot less depressing than last year, mostly because i was too drunk for 3 straight days to dwell on the fact that i was spending it away from the like dna. which is not to say that last year was totally depressing. it wasn't. it was just the first time i'd ever been away from jules on our "special" day. even when i lived in texas i made it home so we could imbibe together. what can i say, i'm committed (to drinking, not to julie).

day one festivities (birthday eve eve):
there's a korean man who lives in columbia that i tutored when i first considered coming to korea. i met with him regularly the whole time i was trying to get over here the first time, then briefly between korean stints. he's one of my favorite people, hands down. anyhoo, he's in korea now for about a month, so i got to meet him on sunday last weekend. it was sort of surreal to be in korea seeing a "familiar" face from columbia, missouri, which meant seeing a korean. actually, two of the most recent familiar faces from home have been korean men that i knew in columbia. strange.

we met in gangnam, after some miscommunication about time and place. ate some korean food and drank a bottle of soju a piece (that's good for me, since i hate soju and have significantly lowered my alcohol intake since i moved to ilsan from suncheon). then we looked at pictures on his laptop for a while. good times.

after that we went to a restaurant that his sister owned. i think she was sick, or maybe her voice just naturally sounds like an 80 year old chain-smoking man. round two of eating and drinking. not sure exactly what i was eating, but it was slimy and came from the sea. mr. kim (my friend) kept saying his sister was a good cook, which confused me as things weren't so much "cooked" as they were plucked from a shelled creature. but i guess even that takes a prowess i don't have. drank some baeksaeju (sp?) and beer. this was a little awkward for me as 2 other women, in addition to his sister, showed up. of course he had lots of catching up to do with them, so there was a lot of semi-drunk korean speaking. but i used that time to just drink silently.

a little while later another man that i knew from chuncheon met us. this was a guy i used to meet for dinner once a week. he tried to help me, jules and rory when all the immigration shit went down the first time (www.shakespeareseast.blogspot.com). so it was also good to see him, despite the fact that he gave me a lukewarm reception. perhaps that's being generous...

after this it was time for the norae bong, which i admittedly hate. hate hate hate the norae bong. and yet, i was one of the only two people who sang the whole time. that's what happens i guess when you starting doing "bomb" shots of whiskey dropped in beer. great.

after the whiskey themed norae bong outing, moved to a gamjatang place. 3rd meal. i didn't need to eat anything the next day. nor could i, on account of the aforementioned bomb shots. good gad. i really don't drink too much these days (compared to shakes or suncheon), but my brain sort of forgets that sometimes and tries to channel my inner drinker. and then that same brain (no, my other brain?) pays for it the next day.

so that was birthday eve eve.

day two festivities (birthday eve):
hadn't really been planning anything, especially in the wake of the whiskey induced brain pain. but then i got to work on monday and my korean co-teachers said "we're going out later." yikes. for as much time as i spend at home living like a hermit, this was one day when i was really really looking forward to being that recluse after work. no one thought to call me and tell me during the day either. i hate making plans, but i also hate not knowing something ahead of time. yup, quite the contradiction, i know i know.

so i hang out at work for 6 hours, not even teaching any classes, just reading and grading essays (note: this is not a complaint. i'm cool with getting paid to be bored on occassion). then we go eat korean barbeque until 1 in the am.

i thought that would be it, then i heard murmurings of a disco/night club. yikes. i was not wearing my party boots that night. so we go to this nightclub called "shampoo," where it was obnoxiously loud, obnoxiously neon, all manner of obnoxious in general. particulary when some uniformed man tries to pull you, rather forcefully i might add, from your table to go to some strange, private room full of men. i'd heard about these places before, but i was underwhelmed. the worst part was that it was a monday night/tuesday morning, so there were hardly any people there. but there was this sprawling, empty dance floor and djs who looked out of place in their business suits, standing immobile at the helm of a futuristic neon altar.

at one point in the night there was a break from the djs to have these hip hop duo "perform" onstage. these guys dressed like twins, dancing and rapping. and then they took each other's shirts off. nothing sexier than two dancing dudes undressing each other. i think that's what justin timberlake does to attract the ladies, gets another dude to strip him down. there's a picture of me with my hand on one dude's overly-toned abdomen.

this nightclub excursion was another firsthand manifestation of korean collectivism, as none of us were allowed to leave until we all wanted to go. they practically had to drag me there in the first place. i'm sure there were tears in my eyes when i heard the first "disco" utterance. so we didn't leave until about 4 in the am. despite the fact that the majority of chicks at our table are just sitting there looking at the empty beer bottles that had accumulated. i was thoroughly annoyed by the end of it all. it meant another wasted day on tuesday, recovering from the debacle that was "shampoo."

day three festivities (birfday, woo hoo!):
went to work. when i got in the elevator, there was a sign that said "happy birthday jamie." got to the 5th floor and all my korean co-teachers ushered me into a room because i was too early. about 5 minutes later i was told to follow the arrows taped to the walls, where i was directed to a dark room and presented with a birthday cake. and of course i cried, because i'm a fucking sentimental fool. they smeared icing on my face and presented me with gifts. all in all, it was a great beginning to my day. even better was that i got to just sit around for the next 6 hours (kids preparing for middle school tests means jamie's not needed). i got a lot of reading done. so that was a nice, productive thing to show for my day. various students also presented me with gifts and donuts. the best being when two of my favorite students giving me two heart shaped donuts, and then asking if they could have one back. of course i said yes.

at the end of the night, went to gangnam to meet some friends from high school. i was surrounded by dudes on my birthday, so that wasn't a bad thing. drank beer and soju, ended the night eating chicken assholes. i guess there's no better way to ring in 29...

shampoo

rang in my birthday at a night club here in ilsan called "shampoo." one of those places where dudes come and try to drag you from your table into a back room no doubt full of lusty korean businessmen.

more details forthcoming.

pastry politics

my school is in the same building as a dunkin donuts. during the summer all the teachers here went to dunkin donuts religiously, particularly for the tasty and refreshing grapefruit coolatas. i hadn't really noticed the steady decline of d.d. patronage until today, when a co-teacher came back to the school with a bag from the rival bakery that just sprouted up across the street, paris baguette.

then i heard the co-teacher bad-mouthing the d.d. ajuma (shopworker/keeper). the harsh reality of korean pastry/educational politics was driven home today as i was informed that the dunkin donuts owner, who has academy-aged children, sends those kids to another english institute. not ours, the school that showed its coolata loyalty during those trying summer months. so we have, in effect, boycotted dunkin donuts and its traitorous owner.

i just thought it was funny. i'm still buying my hot choco from dunkin donuts. because as far as i can remember, it was at a dunkin donuts on the "boulevard" in jeff city where i spent a few angst-filled hours of my senior prom, reject that i was, and not at a paris baguette.

the face of the earth, and how i've fallen off it.

i sort of feel like i've fallen off the face of the earth. i guess i should have taken preventative measures... i think i'm living a different, extremely isolated version of korea than most other foreigners, most notably when one considers the fact that i live in a suburb of seoul, thus having lots of foreigners with whom to associate, should i take it upon myself to do so. but i have definitely failed in that regard. i guess 6 days a week as the only foreigner at my school would be a logical place to point one of my two pointer fingers, but beyond my job, i just haven't felt very social as of late. the only people i see with any regularity are my students. is this totally pathetic or totally cool? i think i know the answer...

the idea of "trying to make friends" as a 28 (almost 29) year old human just seems really fucking lame to me, very high school. it sort of felt that way in suncheon, too--cliquey. i guess i need an attitude adjustment, but i'm not really into those, either. hmmmm...

i should note, i feel completely ambivalent about my antisociality. it makes me neither happy nor sad, as it is a mere fact in my brain right now.

oh, i went to a palace today. it was quite possibly the coolest thing i've seen in korea. also, it was really fucking cold outside during my touristy excursion. jacket weather is over, party people. we've moved into full-on coat season.

excitement! well, not really...

this past week could arguably have been the most boring week of my entire life. i guess that's easy to say now, since i'm still in the thick of it. anyhoo, this all due to some minor problems at my school which it's probably best that i don't disclose in detail at this point.

that said, it was really strange to go from working 6 days a week to having an unforseen amount of free time, not knowing when i'd be cleared to work again. i really didn't know what to do with myself to occupy my time. i've found that if one is going to have an impromptu vacation, it's best to have large reserves of money (oh, and having friends who just happen to have an impromptu vacation fall into their laps at the same time is also good). but, given the very nature of this vacation and its unpredictability, i happened to have absolutely no money. for some reason, maybe to doom this here vacation, i sent more scratch home than usual this month. so here i've been, totally broke, with more free time than i've had since i went to tibet last year for christmas. and i won't get another significant chunk of time off until sometime after the new year. and there's this shitty feeling that i've totally squandered my free time. i guess i don't really have a lot to show for myself besides prison break, basketball, some light (very light) reading and a couple of lame friendship bracelets. now i just need to find some "friends" to give them to. easier said than done...

i was motivated to actually pick up the basketball for the first time in ilsan after going to the outback steakhouse and watching some korean women's teams battling it out on the tv. it was really really strange to observe professional athletes shooting a basketball with two hands. they also just seemed to run a lot, set no picks, run no plays and breathe triumphantly for no apparent reason. also lots of missed free throws. the next day i was out on the court, smiling smugly at my very nice arch and the fact that i could still shoot nothing but net, despite the fact that there was no net to begin with and i hadn't touched a basketball in damn near 7 months. the court is charmingly "sparse", if that's the appropriate qualifier. thin pieces of plywood splintering at the edges, trembling with each gust of wind. not the best of facilities, but i'll take what i can get. it's also fun to try to dodge the little kids simultaneously playing soccer, their flat ball constantly threatening to twist one or both of my ankles, thus ruining my lucky i-haven't-broken-a-bone-or sprained-anything-in-my-entire-life streak (excluding, of course, my janky back. but that shit's hereditary).

lucky me, i had to go to the immigration office earlier in the week. to kill time before i met my "escort" i tried to find the closest kimbap joint. no kimbap, but i did find an uber-zealous ajuma eager to practice her english skills and push her kimchi jjigae on me. fair enough. she was so damn happy to see me in her modest little restaurant. we both practiced our very limited knowledge of each other's native language, both botching it, but managing to tell each other that we were very smart and beautiful and that we could both speak said botched languages very well. before i left she asked me to write down how to ask someone if they wanted more food in english. so i wrote down "do you want some more?" but she couldn't read it in english, so i wrote it in hangeul. the whole situation was very comic, but also endearingly earnest. it's those small, innocuous encounters that make me exceedingly happy these days. a noticeable shortage of them as of late.

in other news, my own stupidity was revealed to me last week when i finally realized, after about 4 months, that my fan death proof fan doesn't have to shut off every 2 hours. there's a function on it where it actually stays on all night. so the triumph of that discovery was countered, ever so soberingly, by the fact that it took me, a full-grown adult with all her wits and faculties about her, 4 months to think to switch the fan to that mode. i'm an idiot.

last weekend i went to some german-esque brew house here in ilsan. there was a filipino band. they were amazing. i went onstage to dance with them (their request). i got my moment of fame, but then security came and told me to leave the stage. i guess "my science was just too tight", as young folks nowhere say.

so that's all. pretty ho hum these days. i need to go hike a mountain or something. gain some perspective and get my ass (and lungs) kicked by nature. seems like that was something i should have done with all my free time. it's official: i'm lazy.

halloweenies. i think i used that same subject line last year in a halloween-related blog.

so i've been busy lately--lots of editing, writing and drawing/painting shitty pictures that entertain me waaaay more than logic should allow.

i do, however, have one relatively significant nugglet to report: i paid off a credit card yesterday! as someone who stresses about money every single day it was quite the warm and fuzzy feeling to go to my bank website and see $0 in the current balance section. 1 down, 1 to go. and then only $23,000 worth of student loans to tackle. sounds like a lot, but here in the korea, i can actually pay that off by the time i leave. i was sure able to survive in columbia on significantly less. i remember the days of shakespeare's pizza with only $10 to my name for two weeks. my $10 drinking budget.

i've gotten a lot of emails lately from peeps asking me if korea has pretty fall foliage like missouri, or elsewhere in middle america. and the answer is yes. the trees here turned ruddy and brown, seemingly overnight. fallen leaves clinging to the curbs and drains--quite the pleasant view on ilsan's tree-lined pedestrian streets, despite the smell of raw sewage likely wafting out from the depths....

summer here seemed mild and tame in comparison to the horrific, hell-like conditions i heard about back home. and then fall just sort of happened. there's a crispness now that only fully materialized this week. things escalated from mere jacket weather to jacket AND scarf weather, a transition i wholeheartedly welcome (unless yer a fashion over function person, and then it's always scarf weather.).

my daily walk to and from work has become pleasant again, reverting to the good old days when ilsan was new and beautiful to me, and the near canopy over the pavement was new and beautiful to me. i do declare, i am officially out of my funk.

this isn't to say i don't miss missouri. in my mind it will always be the most beautiful place to witness the changing seasons. but i guess my scope is pretty limited. oddly enough, fall makes me miss football. i don't even like football, but i miss seeing it on tv at a bar and resenting the fact that i was forced to watch it and feel some sort of team allegience.

my school had a halloween party on sunday. the preparation leading up to the big shindig was both annoying and impressive. i guess what i've learned from my co-teachers is that they don't really do anything half-assed. which is to be admired, except when it's a saturday and i've already taught for 6 hours and feel obligated to spend the next 7 hours of my free time hanging out at work, helping with decorations. even when i left on saturday night, the rest of the korean teachers stayed, as more work needed to be done. i don't think i was ever actually that involved in halloween at home, so it's hard to muster any sense of dedication to so insignificant a holiday.

so on sunday, i rolled into work with a pretty sorry pirate costume designed for a small child. i didn't bring my halloween "a" game. but i guess you only really need an eye patch, heavy eyeliner and some pirate spirit, whatever that means. i think i had all three. but i was greeted by a witch, dracula, a zombie, a werewolf, some creepy old woman and what appeared to be a professional makeup artist (okay, i'm exaggerating that last part a bit. she was just someone's friend. but i'm trying to reiterate, there was nothing half-assed about it). the entire academy was filled with balloons and dry ice.

my official position that day was pumpkin carver. i had never actually carved a pumpkin before, so i was a little uneasy about wielding two brand new, extremely sharp knives around a bunch of little kids. but i managed to carve two pumpkins, with little peeps joyously scooping out the insides. and i didn't even really fuck the pumpkins up too badly. although one didn't have a lid.... beginner's mistake.

so it was great to see lots of happy little kids, who were thrilled that i was there. of course i'd be there, it's my school, and i'm sort of required. but i don't know that i've ever been happier to go home. sundays are my only day off, so no matter how fun the halloween party, i was still pretty bitter that i'd had to sacrifice some of my already scant (and desperately needed) personal time. there are weeks when i feel like i live at this school. this is one of those weeks, and it's only tuesday.

things that suck...

being late and public speaking. those are two things that suck. particularly when the forces of nature conspire against you and they happen at the same time. combined with the fact that i've been feeling sort of vulnerable and shitty in general as of late.

friday i had a meeting scheduled in seoul at the main branch of my hagwon, in daechi dong. we even had homework to take to the meeting! a job description. i guess that wasn't too difficult, but it was still an excuse for ridiculous amounts of stress. anyhoo, when i first started this gig, i was commuting back and forth via subway, bus, or the combination. in my [brief] history of comings and goings to daechi, the longest it's ever taken me to commute is 1.5 hours. seems like no matter how much time i ever allotted for the commute, it always took about 15 minutes more than i had allotted. there's some foreshadowing there.

so on friday morning, amidst the chaos that is rain + old korean women + their umbrellas, i boarded the 9700 bus to yangjae station, at which point i would have to transfer to the subway. it was 9:15 in the morning. at 10:45, i text messaged some higher ups to let them know i was going to be late. there's no worse feeling than sitting on a bus whose whereabouts are unknown, watching the minutes tick by on the digital clock above the dashboard. unless you're jules and you saw a dead man face down in a pool of his own blood on a road in china (read her blog). i guess that's a worse feeling than being late. come to think of it, i can imagine lots of worse things--drowning, catching on fire, being stabbed repeatedly, shark attacks.

i actually got to my meeting that started at 11 at 11:40. usually i feel really really guilty whenever i'm even 5 minutes late somewhere. i also have a propensity towards undue tears, the ol' red face, staring at the floor and generally feeling very small. but shit, 40 fucking minutes is really REALLY late. so i quickly found a place to sit in a room full of 25 or so other foreign teachers, mostly strangers, and waited for the red face and urge to cry to subside. before i was allowed that luxury the head boss called me to the front of the room to give some sort of speech. i honestly don't believe i'll ever get over my fear of public speaking. i really just hate being the center of attention. i'm not even saying that to appear overly humble or self-effacing, it's actually an "issue" i think i have. because apparently all humans have these. issues i mean.

i walked up there, still fighting back tears, and my voice actually changed. but again, it was a room full of relative strangers, so i'd like to believe they couldn't hear the difference. and then the next 30 or so seconds (that's being generous) was group awkward time while i stood there dispensing words that i hope formed coherent sentences. or at least phrases. somehow i doubt it. it was just awful. and everyone in the room knew it. but after the longest 30 seconds of my life i got to sit down and i tried to will myself into invisibility. so showing up late didn't make me look very good, and neither did my rousing speech.

people can say nice things to you like "it wasn't as bad as you thought it was" not just in this situation, but in any mildly unpleasant situation. i fucking hate it when people say that. somehow it diminishes the validity of what i'm feeling, even if i don't like the feeling. the point being, you can't argue emotions or mental state. if i feel shitty and embarrassed, then it doesn't matter whether anyone else feels such feelings are warranted or not. because it's true that that's how i feel.

the next few hours of this "workshop" i just felt really shitty and self-conscious. one of the other teachers asked me if i'd overslept. which made me feel crappy because i knew that every other teacher in that room just assumed i was the irresponsible one. shit, the monikers for me that had to have come out of that meeting--the girl who showed up really fucking late, the girl who looked like she was going to cry, the girl who sucks at public speaking so how the hell can she teach a speaking class. hey, that's a valid point. so i'll explain. there's a big fucking difference between hamming it up in a room full of little korean kids who adore you (and know your name. and you know all of their names) and intentionally making a fool of yourself. in a way it's suspending my own disbelief. i'm just not able to pull that off in front of a group of other foreigners. i know how judgemental i am, i would certainly not want to stand in front of a room full of jamies. perhaps i should have more faith in mankind.

there was a cool part of the day. an old timer korean who used to work for the korean government got up to give a speech. i still don't know exactly what his relation to the big boss is, but i didn't care. his speech was about motivating students to realize they're in control of their lives, their destiny, etc. sure, it's cheesy high school valedictorian speech fodder, but somehow it's different when it's this really endearing and earnest old korean guy. so he talked about how he grew up in the mountains in gangwando: "like a bushman in africa. i had no shoes." that was the running analogy, like a bushman in africa. again, very cute.

so he has 4 brothers and sisters, and none of them ever even went to school beyond elementary school. they just had no desire, as they were resigned to the prescribed life ofcountry/mountain folk. but when he was given the choice, he went to middle school. apparently he had this teacher who basically changed his life (and who, notably, is still alive. making this particular teacher over1000 years old). and after that he spent his whole life in the pursuit of learning. when he moved to seoul, he just had the money for the train ticket. then was a shoe shine for american troops. begged his way into college in seoul. decided he wanted to study abroad, so he wrote a letter to the king of denmark, who granted him a full, open scholarship to study anything he wanted in copenhagen. this was when he was 37 years old. he learned danish in 3 months. then he studied sociology. then he decided he wanted to study in israel. wrote a letter to someone in israel. was granted a full, open scholarship there. learned hebrew in 4 months, got his phd in 4 years and then became a professor at the national university in israel, teaching sociology in hebrew. so yeah, a fucking incredible life story.

rest of the day was sort of pointless and unproductive. seems like having all the foreign teachers of this particular branch in the same room would be a good time to exchange ideas. but when it came down to this part (which i considered the most fundamental), we were only given about 20 minutes for our teams to make and present little speeches on varying topics. so lots of rhetoric, but no real ideas as to how to practically apply anything we were talking about in the classroom. talked a lot about what to do, but not how to do it.

i just realized how incredibly boring everything i've typed up to this point must be. sigh. whatev.

um, i realized today that i have jesus christ superstar in my magical cable box. holy shit it was a happy day! my neighbors have to hate me...or they love my god-fearing soul. singing about jesus at the top of my lungs. also got to see stranger than fiction (watch this movie!).

other than that, lame weekend. friday night was okay enough. played darts, drank beer with people i don't really know. comfortable enough. but when so many of my days are just okay, i really invest a lot of hope in my weekends-- this feeling that maybe something impossible and fantastic is going to happen. and yeah, it rarely does. and then i'm disappointed in people (myself included) for no real reason[s] at all. i guess just because they are (and i am) human.

let me just lighten the mood by repeating: JULES SAW A DEAD MAN IN A POOL OF HIS OWN BLOOD!!!!!

ol' twitchy arm

yup, my right shoulder done been twitching for a solid 12 hours. i don't know why this happens. seems to never happen to the left side. sometimes my eye will twitch too, mostly when i'm tired, and that's the right eye too. hmmm.

as my last blog post suggested, i'm both highly inactive these days and mildly depressed. nothing to be too concerned about i guess, simply another bout of the funk that's made several cameos in my life over the past year. homesick, bored, lacking tangible goals for the future. you know, the shit that i like to tell myself all other 28 year olds (30 year olds, if you're in the korea) worry about. the same shit i've been talking about for the duration of this here blog. but hey, at least i'm consistent.

moving on. i forgot to mention that i saw some familiar faces from co, mo last weekend. my former boss from the asian affairs center, sang, was in town with another person from aac, dr. herde. it's not unusual to see sang in korea, actually, but it was a very pleasant surprise to see dr. herde. just to see people who've known me for a what seems like a lot longer than most people in korea have known me. and who know columbia.

it sucks to constantly have to explain your references, allusions, context. so much so that you eventually stop explaining those things altogether. sometimes it feels like if i talk about elements of my background too much--my family, my life in missouri, life in austin, past relationships, former cars, dead pets--they become less real, more removed from my current reality. i guess i don't really know any of the significant or insignificant events that formed the character of any of the people in whose company i spend the majority of my time. and i don't know why this makes me so sad. it just does. to not really know anyone outside of myself. i guess that's the big issue i'll have to wrestle with when it comes down to determining what to do next in my life. of course the allure of travelling and getting paid is all-consuming. but it seems like the big compromise there is a life of transience and half-formed, flimsy relationships (both friendly or otherwise). i honestly don't know how long i'll be down with that. and now, segueing out of self-fulfilling prophecy mode...

sang had arranged a lot of dinners for former mizzou peeps to meet, greet, eat, drink. unfortunately, because i live in ilsan and not actually in seoul, i couldn't go to either of the two formal dinners. but that meant i got to hang out on saturday, minus a large entourage of people i don't really know. so me, clayton (friend from high school), another dude from mizzou, sang and dr. herde all met, ate dakgalbi, and just generally made merry. that included drinking some liquor that tasted uber ginsengy. after that, dr. herde ducked out early to go to sleep (she's not much of a drinker). which meant dude party, and jamie.

first we went to a canadian microbrewery place. it's always a treat to drink something besides hite/cass/ob etc. after that we ended up going to the bar at the hyatt. this is probably the swankest hotel i've seen in korea. just because i'm so used to your standard, utilitarian love motel. not that said motels aren't without their perks--sex toy vending machines, free drinks and toothbrushes. hot damn!--but this hyatt was the real deal. so we went to the basement where the bar was. there was a shitty band o' foreigners playing a lot of cover songs. it was funny to see these hardcore looking dudes and a chick, replete with tattoos and hip clothing, so earnestly singing "total eclipse of the heart" and "video killed the radio star." i'm sure it was the culmination of all their rock star fantasies. dudes, we've made it! we're playing the hyatt in seoul! yup, i'm going to hell.

the bar was full of all these middle-aged white dudes in suits hitting on middle-aged white chicks, also in suits. business trip yuppies hitting on business trip yuppies (is yuppie gender neutral? i dunno). gross.

but the best part of the whole evening was when i went to the bar and ordered 4 shots of tequila--the least i could do, since sang had paid for everything up to that point. 60,000 for four fucking shots (that's over $60, folks). and they didn't even fill them to the top. the lemons were also sub-par (notice, i said lemons. apparently limes are like gold here. hard to find). jeebus.
anyhoo, at the hyatt they had a dance floor packed with lots of sweaty people. i'll be honest, the dance floor is where i really shine. not that i'm a particularly good dancer, but i am a particularly good molester. but one can only molest for so long, and then even that gets boring. so that's when we decided to go to...itaewon? fuck. i hate itaewon. but for some reason (remember, i'm with 3 dudes) everyone wanted to go to itaewon. i mean, i like russian whores, belligerent military and civilian foreigners and general drunken debauchery as much as the next person. but i could only tolerate the douchebags and emaciated (and incredibly young looking) prostitutes at the "sky bar" for so long. taxied it home at 4:30 in the am. and still managed to pull it together to do some more drinking the next night. i'm a trooper. a starship trooper.
so i guess the point is, it was good to see sang and to hang out with peeps i knew. itaewon just always sort of kills the mood for me. unless i'm there in the daytime eating mexican food at a restaurant whose name i can't remember. then it's okay.

but back to more recent events. today (after sort of freaking out at work yesterday and kindly requesting permission to go home), i decided to take action against my aforementioned funk. do something productive. leave my fucking apartment!

granted, yesterday's impromptu all day sleeping, bad pizza eating, movie binge was not a total loss. my life is certainly richer/more traumatized now that i've seen xanadu. you know, for a muse who practices skating as much as she says she does, olivia newton john sure wasn't that great a roller skater. i nodded off for part of the movie, but then woke up to people skating in circles, clapping and looking sort of maniacal in the glare of overabundant neon lights. it wasn't the best visual to wake up to. i have reached the conclusion that xanadu is probably what hell looks like. and my friends and family are probably sick of me mentioning xanadu, as it seems to be the only thing i've talked/emailed about for the past 24 hours. haunting, pervasive shit.

but today i went to a bonafide palace! in seoul. changdeokgung. it was a very pleasant surprise for me to realize that a lot of the significant cultural locales in seoul are actually [relatively] close to me. and it also felt really productive to set out with a purpose for my day. the initial plan involved a lot more activities, but the only way to see this place was on a guided tour, so i had to conform to their time schedule. fair enough. at first the place was just the usual sort of korean temple/hermitage looking thing that it seems like you can see in any city in korea. i dunno, you've seen one, you've seen them all. but the coolest thing about this place was that it had these secret gardens. and for the first time since i've been in korea, it didn't really bother me too much that i was sharing this very serene and tranquil natural environment with 100s of other people. it also didn't hurt that i was listening to my mp3 player the whole time, as the only tour i could get in on at the last minute was the korean language one. so i probably appeared to be very rude. i still pretended to listen to the woman in the traditional korean clothing.

but it was downright pleasant to wander among/along all these seemingly hidden stairways lined with huge, mossy trees, lily ponds and other good-smelling nature bits. it sort of felt like i was floating in a dream. which would be a unique thing indeed, as we tend to dream the most when we sleep, and i've been dealing with some very real insomnia for a while now. anyhoo, for a whole 2 hours or so i wasn't thinking about money, or my students, or being homesick, or generic existential angst, or stupid things that annoying people say or any of the other bullshit that's been logging my brain recently. so yup, the palace served its purpose. and at the end of it all, i wanted to punch myself for not having ventured out sooner, both earlier in the day and earlier in my past months living in ilsan.

so that's that. other notables. i think i have an opera singer living above me or next to me. i heard her pleasant voice floating through my walls as she was warming up, doing scales. and later when she was singing something really, i dunno, operatically. at any rate, it sure beats the yippie dog whose room is adjacent to my own sleeping quarters.

also, i got a surprise package in the mail the other day from my old homey at new west records. i'm now acl dvds and cds richer. that was a total surprise. now i just need a dvd player, as my computer is a piece of shit (albeit a free piece of shit...).

i've been listening to rogue wave and twin atlas non-stop since ganking the shit from jules and rory. good fucking eats.

very low key on the profile

i guess it's probably worth mentioning that i'm about 50% out of the funk i found myself in post-vacation.

other than that, not much to report. really, nothing at all. oh, except that people are annoying. and say stupid things. i'm sure i don't need to explain that. perhaps today someone annoyed you and/or said something stupid. in fact, i'm sure of it.

anyone who reads this who might happen to live in/around ilsan, south korea: please give me some idea of what to do/where to go in my spare time. i'm not talking about drinking. i'm not talking about la festa. something that doesn't give me a hangover and makes me feel refreshed or some shit like that. please and thank you.

i went to china. also, brevity's for pussies!

whoa hoa, china grove!!!! Well, here it is. My trip to china in a long-winded nutshell.

I guess a bit of a preface here. The chuseok holiday in korea marks a solid year living abroad. I haven’t seen my family in a while. I have a twin sister who lives in weihai, china with her husband, rory. Weihai is in the Shandong province of china (famous for peanuts, I learned while I was there), and the closest city anyone’s ever heard of is either dalian or quingdao (beer city!). despite the fact that lots of folks haven’t ever heard of weihai, there are millions of peeps there. Also, last year for Christmas I went to Tibet. Spent not a lot of time in Beijing watching hbo in a hotel with western toilets and a free breakfast, so mainland china is still really a big unknown to me. there’s some background.

day one (Sunday, September 23rd):
I took a shuttle bus to the airport from ilsan. I’m stupid. That takes about an hour and a half with normal traffic. i almost missed my flight to weihai by showing up at incheon international airport during chuseok (the largest korean holiday) a mere half hour before it was scheduled to depart. Let me just mention that the last time I took a flight it was at gimpo airport, domestic flight to gwangju, and I literally showed up 15 minutes before it left with no problems. Anyhoo, this time around, my flight was at 5, and I was still standing in the increasingly long check-in line at 4:30. I asked a man to help me and pointed to the time on my little e-ticket. he laughed and let me cut in front of everyone else in line to go to the priority counter. a smug Korean woman told me it was too late, that my gate had closed at 4:10 (I think all airline check-in counter people are smug and immediately defensive. not just koreans). of course my rationale was “it’s only 4:30. I know that plane’s still here!” some crying, shaking and general scary behavior on my part ensued, which convinced the woman to get me an escort and get me on the plane. It really pissed me off though. Granted, I was totally at fault for showing up so late, but so many people in any sort of service industry force you to be complete assholes to them before they’ll actually do something. This has been true with any of my airport mishaps. I hate that the worst part of you has to be revealed to get any sort of reaction. If I had been polite and just said “oh, that’s too bad” then I would have had to take a flight on Monday. But as it was, I was a total psychotic bitch and then she responded. I guess that’s the protocol and that’s why her job requires her to be such a raging cunt.

Anyhoo, i thought they were going to send for one of those little carts you see sometimes, but nope. my escort was an asiana airlines chick in beige high heels, and we sprinted through the airport to what felt like the farthest departure gate in all of icn. i literally got on the plane and then it started taxiing away from the little arm thing that attaches to it. When the woman told me it was too late, i actually felt myself sink a little bit. I haven’t felt a feeling like that in a long time. complete panic, like my life as I knew it was ending, a family member had died or something. shaking and sweating. The thought of having to delay seeing my family. it was bizarre. compounded by feeling like a complete idiot. I should have known better. seasoned traveller i'm not, i guess...

even on the plane the whole time I couldn’t relax. Hands still shaking and chest heaving from the most physical activity—sprinting through an airport—I’ve had in a long time.

During the flight, it was really nice. There was a Korean child and his mother sitting next to me. And every time they ate gum or got a drink, they would hand whatever they were eating or imbibing to me too. And they took away all of my trash. I just smiled and said thank you. their kindness helped calm me down, I think.

It started raining mid-flight. And I remember thinking the rain looked like snow as it hit the outer layer of the 3-ply window and rolled off. I pressed my hand to the glass, expecting to feel an immediate chill. But it didn’t feel like anything. I suppose this is only noteworthy in that I remembered how the rain looked. Which means I’ve either never noticed the weather outside mid-flight, or there was no precipitation any other time I’ve flown. But that seems highly unlikely. So I guess I was supposed to remember this precipitation.

arrived in china 1 hour later (less time than it took me to actually get to the airport) to jules and roar, the tallest people in the airport receiving area. Fucking surreal. i think part of the reason I haven’t been sleeping well for the past couple of weeks has been due to the excitement of seeing someone from home. Someone actually related to me by blood. It’s strange to go without that for so long. I also remember thinking rory looked particularly tall, despite the fact that jules was towering above me in heels. a welcome sign reading "mccunt" made the whole scene a little more concrete, and rory captured it all on video as jules and i hugged and cried for a spell.

China is fucking hot and humid. Just thought I’d make a note of that. In all the pictures I took, we all just look sweaty and dirty. It was sort of liberating to not really have to worry about appearances though. Especially after having just come from korea, the vanity capital of the world.

after shaking a little bit and crying a little more, got ourselves on a shuttle bus to weihai. Let the eating and drinking tour of weihai begin! it was then that jules revealed her new "jamie" tattoo to me—featuring my name on a banner and lots of drawings/doodling I used to do when I wrote notes to her in high school (and yes, even in college). i'm soooooo not worthy. she must really like me, i guess. made me think i need to start drawing and painting more. I’ve been sort of lazy about that.

anyhoo, got off the bus somewhere in weihai, then caught a taxi in the deluge. China’s not fucking around with their rain. headed to jules and rory’s dorm room and their school. Both were actually a lot nicer/bigger than i expected. high ceilings made their dorm room appear bigger. nice squatter toilet. we exchanged gifts and they showed me all the cool things they've picked up along their travel—kites, fans, jewelry, just mysterious eastern things.

china is bizarre. there's a real tangible sense of history to it, probably due in part to the fact that so much of it is far behind other modern societies. Conversely, korea really isn't too much different from america in a lot of respects. Regular toilets for the most parts, vestiges of western influence dotting every street, hip fashionable people. the one glaring difference between korea and china is that korea doesn't seem to have so many poor people. and that was a huge difference between korea and china. And sometimes you need to see how the other half lives, I guess, in order to truly appreciate all that you have. I couldn’t help but feel like a big, rich American the whole time I was there, abusing the city with my vulgar amount of spending money. With regards to poverty, the poorer parts of weihai didn’t seem too much different than some parts of Tibet that I saw. And that’s what made china’s lack of modernity more tangible to me. I thought Tibet was like national geographic, but the reality is that a lot of china is. And this is the world’s next superpower? I find it hard to believe when the gap between the rich and poor is so deep and wide, becoming more so every day. But then again, I’m a chick who doesn’t really know too much about global economics, poverty, or anything, really. But I can sure quote a lot of random poetry that doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. uh … moving on.

got settled in a little bit and then went and ate hot pot with rebecca, julie and rory's chinese co-teacher. live crabs and a crapload of veggies and other meat just thrown into a boiling pot. Video is up in my video section. ate and drank for a long time. there was a surprise bottle of champagne. Everything was delicious. A nice change from the Chinese food I had the last time I was there. Let’s just say it’s not nice to have stomach/digestive issues in a country with lackluster sanitation. went back to the dorm, i got my own dorm room for less than $2/night. now that's cheap lodging! crashed.

day two (Monday, September 24th):
shopping!!!!! went and got fitted for a traditional chinese dress. jules got a long robe with dragons on it. i still can't believe that i own something hand tailored. it cost so little and fits so perfectly. Mine is blue and has little village scenes on it. I’ve always entertained the notion of going to a tailor, so why not go to one in china.

we went to lots of other random stores. Ate japanese food that was great. drank beer and sake in an extended lunch. talked about girl shit while rory was at work. In a lot of ways it was no different than how jules and I used to spend time at home. But this time instead of shopping at maude and drinking blue moon beers at teller’s before biking home, we’d been custom fitted, the beer was Japanese, and a little car with three wheels was taking us “home” to a dormitory in weihai, china.

went back to the dorm, chilled for a little while. got purtified to go eat meat skewers at a place we had planned to eat at the night before, but didn't because of the rain. these peeps were expecting me, so that was cool. ate outside on a patio, for all the people to stare at us as they walked by. long side note here: in korea people stare and point and whisper at/about me all the time, which gets really annoying because there are soooo many foreigners here. there's no way i'm the first foreigner they've seen. but in china, jules and rory are probably the only foreign people some of these folks will EVER see. so three of us together is quite a sight. this dinner was also my first run in with baijo. Honestly, I was expecting worse. Which is not to be confused with me liking it. I was just expecting something more like mao tai, and it wasn’t like that at all. Can’t remember if this was the night we drank the liquor made with animal penis extract in it or not. But with liquor comes the need to use the bathroom. Which, at this restaurant, included a sink and a drain in the floor. So yeah, squat and piss on the floor. One thing I learned from my bathroom experience in china, is don’t wear anything with long pant legs, unless you have a desire to mist said clothing with your own urine. And footwear is a calculated effort too. Perhaps that’s too much information, but I’m just keeping it real, yo. Anyhoo, after dinner, went to some different area of town with night vendors and street stalls and strange street food lined up. chicken heads on skewers. Mmmm. met their british friend simon. Didn’t really get a chance to form an impression of him.

went to a bar called the tomato bar. drank a guiness. There was a live band playing. Hotel California. headed to this crazy, neon dance club called seven. sexy, scantily clad chinese dancing girls (rumor has it, they rented their clothes from the club. These weren’t even elaborate costumes, just jeans and bikini tops), midgets, and many whole beers drank in one gulp. fucking crazy. like so much of china. don't really remember going to sleep that night. but it sure felt early when jules woke me up the next day.

day three (Tuesday, September 25th):
watched 3 of julie's classes. chinese children are so cute. it's pretty interesting to hear the difference in the chinese english accent and the korean english accent. The first two classes were great. Little Chinese and Korean bodies earnestly dancing and singing these english songs projected on a large screen at the front of the room. And they were all so eager to please Julie. Opening the blinds, turning on lights, moving chairs. jules' last class was full of Korean students, who were all shitheads, used to getting what they want as the rich kids on campus. so i said mean things to them in Korean and generally tried to make them feel bad. I hope it worked. after that we watched the group calisthenics that the whole school does together. i'll be honest, i was pretty hungover. went to do more shopping. but i couldn't really function well because i had to make myself barf all day in the disgusting public toilets of weihai, china. let's just say it didn't take too much to make me blow chunks.

went back to the crib, watched part of knocked up. Took a nap, then went out again. we took a taxi drive along the coast, stopping at all the beaches. Beautiful. tranquil, not bustling like any beach in korea would be. we weren't sure if the weather would hold up enough for me to actually go to the beach the next day or not, so that's why the taxi. It was also a very visible tour de classes in weihai. Around the beaches were all the rich, fancy buildings and restaurants, but as soon as you got away from the water, it’s the styx again. There were constant reminders of that. Jules’ school, for example, was out on the very edge of town, so to get to it you really got to see the poorest parts of town, farming areas and villages. And then there’s this gated monolithic, imposing structure (their school), a very visible emblem of everything to which the poor people will never have access.

for dinner this time it was pizza and then we visited the same street vendors we saw the night before. went to another bar similar to seven called 2046. sexy dancers, but no midgets. Damn. it was cool, we were just all tuckered out. went home and finished knocked up. watched lots of youtube funniness (from snl: macgruber, a letter to my sister, astronaut jones. I highly recommend all of these. Also the Michael showalter showalter), ate cheese and drank beers. just like old times. Sigh.

day four (Wednesday, September 26th):
more shopping! i got a winter coat and lots of souvenirs for my co-workers. ate breakfast at mcdonalds. that was cool. the first western toilets in 3 days! woo hoo! Not that I’m really that particular. after mcdonalds walked around to more vendors and different areas of downtown weihai. then we made our way to a really awesome,organic restaurant out in the middle of nowhere, nestled at the foot of some mountains. little did we know this would turn into a full on afternoon drunkfest. This restaurant was so cool. Unlike any place I’ve ever been. There was a room you went into, full of meats, vegetables and bugs on shelves. You just point to your items and specify how you’d like to eat them—in a soup, fried, stir fried. There was also a dead wolf on the floor that they’d killed to serve up to anyone willing to fork over the cash. There was a little drop of blood near the wolf’s body. after eating donkey dumplings (yes, i'm serious), were invited to some other room of taiwanese and chinese company workers. lots of one-shots and photos ensued. told some guy i'd be his third wife. he said i was too pretty for him. ha ha. i also have no dowry to offer. Uh, bad joke. taiwan doesn’t require a bride price, I don’t think.

went back towards jules' hood, bought some baiju and a purse i don't need. picked up our dresses from the tailor. The woman stripped me down my under things to try the dress on. Modesty’s usually the name of the game for me, but I couldn’t really object, so I just went with it. She liked my tattoo and called the other woman working in the shop over to look at it. Yikes. As long as we don’t start calling people in off the street, I guess it’s cool.

dinner that night was at a place close to their school. good eats. I was very surprised that i didn't have any problems with my stomach over the course of my vacation, despite the fact that i was eating Chinese food (that has given me problems before), was eating more meals than I usually do, and was drinking more beer than i have in a really long time.

at this point it had started to rain really hard once again. Part of me wanted my flight to be cancelled the next day due to rain. But it wasn’t.

day 5 (Thursday, September 27th):
the next morning, got up super early to take a bus to where taxi’s would actually be. Then went on the craziest, most dangerous, most exhilarating taxi ride I could ever hope to have. Don’t get me wrong, it was kick ass, but if I never have a driver like that again, it’s probably a good thing. For one thing, it’s pouring down rain. Plus people don’t really use the crosswalk in china. Herds of people just sort of wander, lane to lane, across the busiest lanes of traffic in the city. So it’s raining, visibility is low, these people are meandering in and out of traffic, dude’s FLYING through this rain. At one point we were behind a bus that slammed on its brakes, going full speed, another car in the passing lane. But instead of us slamming on our brakes, dude sped up to within inches of the now stopped bus and then swerved over into a tiny opening on the left hand side. Perhaps the closest call I’ve ever been in. but the driver just had this triumphant smile on his face the whole time. ok, it was cool. i was convinced there was no way my flight would still be taking off, on account of the rain. it's not that it rains more there than in korea, but there just doesn't seem to be any drainage whatsoever. it rains a lot in korea, but someone thought about drainage. another backwards about china. they have all these ideals of modernity, but it gets lost in the details. but hey, it’s charming. these great 4 lane roads, but no one thought about where the water can go when it rains. so more standing water on the roads than i've ever seen.

jules and i chilled for a while drinking tea in the airport café before i had to catch my flight. let's just say that's the saddest I can recall having been in recent memory.

I sat in the weihai airport, waiting to board the plane, sobbing uncontrollably (inconsolably) into cheap Chinese tissues. jules and rory live in a totally fucked up, backwards country, but I’m completely jealous. Because china gets to have them, not korea. and they have each other. i'm here, and I have some acquaintances, but i don't really KNOW anyone. So this is what that independence I so fervently craved feels like. Great. The people I communicate with the most frequently fall into the 8-14 yr. old age bracket. And jules and rory’s backwards country is still affording them this sense of glitter, something I lost a long time ago. i don't like things once the shiny outer coating wears off. be they cities, boyfriends, jobs, etc.. This, on the heels of several blogs lauding ilsan’s merits. I’m nothing if not wishy washy.

on a more positive note, i was thoroughly impressed with jules and rory and just how well they've adapted to their surroundings. something not as obvious to them, because it's their daily life. but to me they're these giants, conquering china, speaking survival chinese and just living in a reality that is so far removed from and lacking the basic, easily overlooked comforts of the one I live in. every day for them has to yield this huge sense of accomplishment, simply because it’s not as easy as korea. I covet that feeling. So fuck yeah, i was proud of them.

So that’s that. A great trip. But also terribly sad as soon as it began. As soon as I saw her in the airport, it was tears of joy, but also of impending sadness.

“I felt happy—or some weak, pretty feeling centered in my stomach, brought on by beer—at the sight of the fading blue sky tormented at its edges with heat lightning, and at the crickets and the shouting over the water, and by Jackie Wilson on the radio, but it was a happiness so like sadness that the next moment I hung my head.” That’s pretty much how I felt the whole time (minus the Jackie Wilson, and beach setting). there was a tragedy in seeing my family, just to have to leave them again. And the uncertainty of when I’ll see them—or anyone else who truly knows me—again is devastating. The post-vacation doldrums are that much harder when you’re leaving your family. I guess I’ve cried more in the past 4 days than I have all year. But I guess It’s nice to feel every once in a while. Sometimes I think I forget how to do that with my life in korea being so simple and easy. I also wonder when I’ll ever return to a sense of normalcy. And what does “normal” even mean. And if I knew what it meant, would I actually want it anymore?
So, this is long. These details are for my personal record-keeping, and there’s a lot of emotion to sift through after going a whole year without seeing anyone who really knows you. I used to think that admitting I was homesick or lonely was admitting defeat, or weakness, or some other noun with a decidedly negative connotation. But I guess the bigger picture is that it’s more about honesty, which is never a bad thing. So I guess this was me trying to be honest.

so it's raining. what's new.

it's typhoon weather here in the korea, and elsewhere in asia, i guess. which means lots o' heavy rainfall, minus a feeling that i'm going to die. so i guess it's good to NOT be in a life threatening rainstorm. i honestly don't mind too much. gives me and excuse to not really do anything besides read or drink cheap wine on my excuse for a balcony, or to try and do both at the same time. but that falls into the realm of multi-tasking, and i've really just proven to be a horrible failure at that.

last night i had the second of hopefully many work parties. i have to be honest though, the first work party sort of blew. it included approximately 13 koreans and me. of course, being the one person who doesn't speak too much korean (enough to order food, get home in a taxi and perform basic, menial errands) i was a little left out of the whole 2.5 hour dinner. at that point, no one really made any effort to include me, either. but it was okay, something i tolerated because i had to for the sake of perceived manners and respect of cultural values, but it wouldn't have upset anyone, least of all myself, if i just hadn't been there at all. plus we went to the norae bong, which i hate. i really do. it's not a cultural thing, but i hate karaoke in america too. add all the smoke machines, bongos and plush stuffed animals you want, but it's really hard for me to perform in front of people (in many realms), unless extremely intoxicated. so while i appreciate the gesture of being handed a welch's grape soda, i need something a little stronger before i belt "dancing queen" to a room full of relative strangers. the best part of the last party was when the ringleader of all the teachers made us all give little speeches about the summer intensive program and say what we liked about all the other teachers. even if it's forced, i like that someone is making me think postive thoughts. i know you can't tell tone in written form, but there's no sarcasm here. sometimes i can't be optimistic unless someone makes it clear that there is no other recourse. dude, that's profound.

anyhoo, i survived the first party, so i had mentally, emotionally, physically prepared myself for the second one, which took place last night. we went to the restaurant for dinner at around 12. yup, midnight. show up at the restaurant and all i see is a big tank of fish. grreeat. i hadn't eaten all day (stupidity on my part), and this was what i was going to feast on--raw fish. but it actually wasn't terrible. with enough alcohol, i'll pretty much eat anything--bondaegi (silkworm larvae), octopus, squid, pig intestines. whatever, when in korea, do as the koreans do. i take that back, i won't ever intentionally eat dog. i won't be judgemental about it either, i just don't wanna. so i ate octopus last night. i ate a lot of octopus down in suncheon, but last night was the first time i ate it while it was still writhing in agony. one of the suckers stuck to my tongue for a while. that was a strange sensation.

so we ate and talked a lot. and i was completely included in all aspects of the evening. i guess it just makes a difference who you sit next to. but the people i work with are great people. great ladies. great koreans. because the two of the first korean women i ever met betrayed me so horribly, i think it took me a little longer than normal to warm up to a whole posse of korean women that i work with. but they're all so diverse in their styles (fashion and teaching), backgrounds and life experience, that i really just feel privileged to work with so many good, non-annoying humans. and because i'm the only foreign teacher at my school, i've got this huge sense of ownership and pride. it's a feeling i'm not wholly familiar with. i'm still waiting for something bad to happen. but in the meantime, i work hard because i feel like people are counting on me. being the only foreigner there, i think i'm inadvertently held more accountable for my actions. as a foreigner i'm already under the microscope. but as the only foreigner, there's no one else to divert attention. i like this. it also means my kids think i'm a celebrity. so if another foreign teacher ever comes along, my bubble will definitely burst.

around 2:30 we roll out of the fish restaurant. unfortunately one of the other teachers starts to yak as soon as she steps foot outside the restaurant. in front of all of us other teachers. so i felt bad for her. i was just glad it wasn't me. everyone else didn't seem to care too much. i don't know if it was on account of said barfing, or just because peeps weren't feeling it, but there was no norae bong. hallelujah! i'll eat bondaegi all night if it means i don't have to go to the fucking norae bong.

so that was my night.

in other news, i haven't been sleeping so well. it could be my anti "fan death" fan that automatically clicks off every two hours, but i think my body is now somehow attuned to these two hour cycles. at any rate, it was really difficult to get out of bed today at 1 pm. i wake up so much at night and then it takes hours to get back to sleep. maybe it's stress, but my life is actually pretty stress-free right now. maybe there's actually something physically wrong with me. i dunno. i just feel real tired-like all the time.

moving away from boring sleep anecdotes, i go to china on sunday. flying out of incheon at 5 in the pm. needless to say, i'm pretty fucking excited.

old people frighten me

i spent a lot of time on the subway today, which means i saw a lot of old people. and yes, i think they're scary. call it ageism. but i just prefer to call it fear. this applies to old peeps in america too. not just in the korea. i guess here i'm just around old people with more regularity than i ever was in america.

the particulars:

shoes. particularly on the women. these orthopedic/jellies hybrid shoes that remind me of old, shitty lattice work. the lattice work that adorns trailers--you know, to hide the underbelly. but the skin struggles against the confines of the shoe and bubbles out of each little hole. you know when you play with play-doh and you can squeeze it through this plastic contraption to make spaghetti? yeah, same deal. but there are also the ankle high stockings they wear, and again, the flesh is struggling against it so that it triumphantly bubbles over the top, unsightly ankle not quite hidden under the hem of probably pastel, highly-zippered polyester pants.

teeth. there's malice in them teeth! maybe it's not so much teeth as it is strange jawlines and underbites--a result of removed dentures and, well, age.

smell. this one could be unique to korea, as most of the time it involves the combination of those oh-so-korean elements of soju, kimchee and ginseng. ewwww. for the rest of my life, when i think of the subway, more than anything this smell is what i will immediately call to mind.

make-up. i tried to think of a nicer way to put it. but i guess i have no choice but to go with "garish." the face is a different color than the neck, and it looks like chalk. throw in some overly penciled eyebrows and some bitchin' lipliner, and you're set for a day at the market!

so that's that. and someday i'll be old and some young whippersnapper will be writing an arguably mean-spirited blog about me. i guess i just wonder when the switch happens. when do you actually become old. when do you start thinking like an old person? when do you first say, "hey, i think these tan-colored orthopedic shoes, polyester pants and floral top would make a pretty sweet ensemble"?

i guess old people scare me because aging is inevitable. in one of my classes the other day, the topic was "seize the day" (yeah, i know, we make the elementary school kids get really profound-like at my academy). but in their reading, it said that the average person lives until they're 68. which isn't even really that old. but we spend 1/3 of that time sleeping and are ultimately left with roughly 45 solid years of conscious life (the book had a misprint and said 23. 23's way more depressing than 45, i guess). and i found that so depressing. i mean, it is, isn't it? "what are our days of awe, and how shall we know them." (yeah, i know, i've already used this quote in a prior blog. but whatever.)

as the above paragraph might suggest, feeling sort of melancholy lately. i guess it had to come around again. first time i've felt that way in ilsan. changing weather, but no change in my life. "this day, cut from the sameness of days." i think i'll always equate fall with change of some sort. it's always seemed to be a very proactive season to me, tempered with an unplaceable, bittersweet undertone (i guess the latter only manifest if the former is lacking). growing up, fall always signified the start of something--out with the old, in with the new. new clothes, new semesters, new obligations. but where is the new now? anyway...

i got a new hoodie today. so maybe that's all i really needed. new goals would be a good idea...

oh yeah, forgot to mention, rereading some raymond carver. that could explain the funk as well. he's got a real depressing way about him...

i'll throw in one more quote for good measure. that's just the kind of gal i am. from what we talk about when we talk about love: "i could hear my heart beating. i could hear everyone's heart. i could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark."

yet another reason i like my job...

there are inspirational quotes everywhere, most notably, in the bathroom (stalls and walls). and i'm not talking about the melodramatic "perseverence" or "determination" posters that you see in all the cubicles and guidance counselor offices of middle america (sorry, dad, i think you might have one of these posters).

my korean job has graham greene, rainer maria rilke and bertrand russell quotes hanging on the walls, translated into korean. i like the idea of one of these impressionable elementary or middle school kids stumbling upon any one of these authors while pissing/pooing at their english academy. seriously, i think it's great.

that's all.

just a regular night out in ilsan

so this weekend marked a first for me. my first night actually going out in ilsan. i guess i made a pretty good impression.

i met up with a friend i met through myspace, actually. i've been really good about making plans to meet this dude and then cancelling them. i'm nothing if not dependable...but saturday night ended that. after drinking some wine with my deener and a beer on the walk to his friend's apartment, i was excited to spy actual beefeater gin on the table. so we drank some gin and tonics, then vodka tonics while dancing around to 70s tunes and watching the friend's green birds fly across the room, plucking straw from the blinds to fortify a nest. it's weird to see living things here--aside from humans or tiny dogs with unnaturally dyed hair (although there is a pig at the pet store down the street). seems like i never see other living creatures here. where are the squirrels?


after drinking there, went to a bar. i dunno what the name of the bar was. i was already pretty drunk at this point, but i guess i think i'm superman or something. fuck, i can drink anything in any amount. so i had some beers and a shot (i think). anyhoo, it was all good clean fun for a while. dancing, molesting some innocent korean men. then there was some other chick dancing around a lot. she seemed to be the only other person there dancing. i can't pinpoint exactly how we ended up making out in front of a whole crowd of strangers in a well-lit bar, but we did. much to the pleasure of many a camera phone! great. but i guess we made out a lot. sloppy and stumbly. good times. man, it's been years since i kissed a girl! i don't know her name. i don't think she knows mine. whatever.

i'm not sure how i got home. i don't remember if i walked or got in a taxi or what. although i certainly like the idea of me trying to speak korean to a taxi driver when i was that fucking drunk. i seem to recall a lot of near falling down. which leads me to believe that i walked home. but la festa's (bar area) pretty fucking far from me. and judging by how sick i was when i got home, i can't imagine walking that far without yakking all over the place. actually, i think i did walk. anyway, it doesn't matter. i got home somehow. and yes, barfed a lot. yesterday may have been the worst hangover i've had in korea (besides the one where i yakked at the folk village in suncheon).

but yesterday at around 11 am, i got a call from the family i used to tutor in missouri. we had made plans to hang out on sunday afternoon. so i thought i had at least a couple more hours of total misery to get it together before meeting up with them. i was wrong. they were already on their way to come get me and i had to call and cancel. of course i hated doing that, but as the rest of the day easily proved, there was no way i could have made it through any sort of activity. i didn't finish barfing until 11 pm yesterday. i couldn't even sleep through it because as soon as i laid down i had to yak. as soon as i stood up i had to yak. with every breath i had to yak.

so i guess there are a couple morals here: 1) don't mix your alcohols 2) i will make out with anyone. both valuable nuggets of information.

i ain't dead.

well hell. it's been awhile. no major events i feel like revealing, so i'll share some minutiae.

the other day as i was waiting for the subway, sweating my balls off, some old man came up to me with a rag and starting wiping my back with a towel. and then he ever-so-gently stroked my damp, tattooed skin saying "pretty" in korean. and somehow that didn't cross the oh so fine line between tender and pervy.

i guess that's all. i get to see jules and roar in less than one month. i'm fucking stoked! it's been almost a year since i've seen those assholes. we will conquer china, or at least the shandong province, one disgusting bottle of mao tai at a time. i should [fingers crossed] get a bitchin' case of alcohol poisoning while i'm over there. it's still a month away, so expect many more random outbursts like this leading up to my departure.

bungee disappointment

so i didn't go bungee jumping. that's why i'm still alive enough to type this, i guess.
the night before i went, met up with fike, my suncheon chingu, in itaewon. yeah, yeah, i know, itaewon sucks. but whatever. getting drunk is getting drunk. we came up with the brilliant plan to just not go to sleep and stay up until we had to catch our bus at 7:30 in the am to go rafting and bungee-ing.

so we drank. and drank. and drank. at one point we were at a bar called gecko's. there was some crazy slamhound looking chick who appeared to be talking to herself, sitting alone at her table. these other slamhound/pussycat dolls rejects were sitting at the bar. anyhoo, me and fike started talking shit about the slamhound sitting by herself. yeah, whatever, that's what we judgemental humans do. so we're dicks. eventually she realized we were making fun of her, so she got up and left. then the pussycat dolls (who claimed to be her friends), came up to us and said we were assholes because we said their friend was fat, or some shit like that. i don't even remember. no, we didn't say she was fat, she just looks like a stupid, crazy whore. but a SKINNY stupid, crazy whore. is that better? anyhoo, the leader of the gaggle says "you ruined our friend's night, so now we're gonna ruin yours." um, ok. how? it was never revealed just how they would ruin our night, although the talk of the intent to ruin our night went on for way too long. instead, they gave fike and i a new inside joke. assah! i sure do loves me some girls who are fucking idiots. moving on...

we drank for a long time. around 4:30 or 5 we started to get a little sleepy. hey, it's natural. so we decided to sleep in the itaewon subway station on the ground until it opened. i woke up to some random korean man sort of nudging my shin to tell me to wake up. okay. get on the subway, go to our destination, and then we still had an hour and a half until the bus came. so we slept on two benches out in the open. woke up at 7:15 and there was the bus, a mere 20 feet away. assah!

got on the bus, expecting to sleep, but it was someone's bright idea to show the film masterpiece cliffhanger at full volume on the bus. fuck, dude. showed up at the rafting place 2 or so hours later. not in chuncheon, like i thought. some other korean city that starts with a ch and ends with an eon. did the rafting thing. that was pretty cool. it was nice to be in water in the summertime (aside from being caught in the rain, which is the only happy fun summertime water exposure i had had prior to the rafting trip). the scenery was beautiful. and i wasn't even crazily tired yet. the rapids were nowhere near life-threatening. i guess i'm just too extreme for my own good. there's a stupid no fear hat somewhere that says "if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space." true dat, mr. no fear logo thinker upper.

after rafting, ate some grub and moved to the bungee place. this giant orange bridge was so cool. and as we drove up, i wasn't even really too freaked out about hurling myself off of it. at this point, i was pretty f-ing tired, and looking forward to getting home at a relatively early hour. the bus was sposed to leave around 5, according to the itinerary. nevermind the fact that 30 people wanted to bungee jump and there was a rain delay. so yeah, turned into almost 5 hours of waiting. ultimately, a group of people decided not to do it, hoping that enough of us backing out would get us back to seoul in time to get home. that was sort of my rationale. or maybe i just pussed out. i don't know. i can be a pretty impatient b-yotch when it comes down to it. but fike jumped. so that's cool. got the whole thing on video.

we left there at almost 8 pm, and didn't get back to seoul's express bus terminal until after 10 pm. keep in mind, i'm still going on what little sleep i got from the itaewon subway floor and random park bench in hongdae. so still on the bus, and i get dropped off at hongdae again. at this point it was nearly 11, so i said fuck it and took a taxi back to ilsan. an expensive taxi, but i was so damn tired.

so that's it. that's my underwhelming bungee jump that never was story. oh yeah, there were lots of families and very small children who were bungee jumping there. also, sometimes the guide person at the top (the one who straps you in) would push people off if they were being pussies about it (including one terrified 10 year old girl). i'm thinking maybe that's different than how they do it back en los estados unidos.

i have a french press.

so i'm officially a lot cooler than you. sorry.

this is going to be another one of those "my job is fucking awesome" blogs. so tune out if you're sick of my recent bout of optimism.

the owner of my academy decided to pay the ilsan branch a surprise visit yesterday. i've been around dude-man on numerous occasions already, so it should have been no problem, but here he was at my school where i'm the only foreign teacher. so my nerves were a little unstable, compounded by the espresso-like sludge yielded by my wonderful french press earlier in the day. i felt a little shaky.

my boss didn't really observe my class, but he did take the time to ask every single employee what they thought of me in individual private meetings with him. so i was pleased to hear that i had gotten a glowing review. what's also cool was that he didn't tell me i was doing anything wrong. this wasn't just to be polite, i don't think. because in the past he's commented on lots of little things he likes or dislikes (for example, when i was giving a speech a month or so ago, he said he didn't like the way i stood). he has no problem being blunt. so that was pretty cool.

then he took all the teachers out to lunch and forced each of them to talk for 30 seconds about what they liked about me as a teacher and as a human. the general consesus was that i'm great, i don't complain, the students love me and i'm the hardest working foreigner they've ever seen. i think i don't deal well with compliments, never have. i always get embarassed and become overly humble--compliments have even been known to make me cry. or when people do really nice things for me for no apparent reason. i'm so used to ulterior motives that it's shocking when there aren't any. anyhoo, i realized yesterday that accepting compliments doesn't make you an asshole, and you don't always have to downplay your strong points--something i've done for far too long.

went drinking on tuesday night with my friend sunghee. i think it would be an understatement to say that some long overdue craziness ensued. i'll keep my exploits vague at best in this here blog. but i will say that the night involved lots of alcohol and a pink bowtie...

raindrops keep falling on my head.

well, not exactly. for starters, i'm sitting at a computer at work, totally sheltered from the outside world. but i do think an umbrella has magically fused itself to my left arm. seems like it's been raining in korea for longer than i've been alive. i don't remember when i saw sunshine for more than 20 minutes.

so yes, the rain continues, but i must say, i don't mind it one bit. i like the way it looks when the drops hit an already formed puddle. i like the way it smells, or what the smell reminds me of--eminence, missouri, family reunions and the backwoods demeanor of random derelict cousins on my mom's side. or swimming at stephen's lake in the wee-est of morning hours, cans of piss-warm stag orbiting me like satellites. i like the way it sounds. shit, ran out of metaphors. i guess rain sounds like rain, and that's purty/nostalgic enough. i particularly like all of these things when i'm walking home from work at 7:45 pm protected in the bubble-like cocoon that is my mp3 player, navigating the dark sidewalks and streets. this just might be my favorite part of the day. but sitting on my "veranda" looking at the plant that i have somehow managed not to kill is pretty swell too. small victories.

ilsan has this air of newness about it (and i am, in part, referring to the actual air in this city. seems cleaner than regular air). everything is lush and green, almost preternaturally so. so it's nice to smell the wet dirt and the plants and see the earthworms plugging away at some vague journey. a reminder that the rain is real. this damp-smelling earth is real. the cacophony of the cicadas is real. seriously, has anybody else noticed how fucking loud they are? there have to be a million of them hovering in the trees and bushes at any given moment...plotting. and, finally, the happiness yielded by such minutiae is perhaps the most real of all.

shitballs, it feels like it's been a while since i blogged.

this is my last week of summer intensive courses here at my jobby job. next week back to teaching 6 hours/day m-s. that's a routine i feel like my body's actually accustomed to. when i worked at shakes--the longest running job i've ever had--it was always that late afternoon into the nighttime shift. my body is calibrated to such a schedule. nothing but utmost productivity for me during these hours. but i guess that was back in the day when productivity was measured by a ratio of shots of jameson/hour. hopefully it's still my peak performance time. all i know is that i can't think of anything worse in the world than waking up before 7 am. i absolutely hate it. every morning as soon as "old ringtone" goes off on my cell phone at 6:30, my first instinct is to shed a little tear for the atrocity that is having to wake up that early. moving on...

weekend shenanigans. let me first say, i am not dead from bungee jumping. that's because it was postponed until this weekend. so that gives everyone a week to tell me how much of an impact i've had on their lives and how they always were secretly in love with me. hell yeah i'm fishing for compliments! sunday's cancelled bungee jumping and rafting excursion was intended to mark two significant events--my first return to chuncheon since the fallout of over a year ago, and my last chance to see miss erica stief (my suncheon chingu) before she left for america.
but instead i found myself en route to the seoul gimpo airport at 8 pm on a saturday night. from there i headed to gwangju (i actually thought the plane was just going to drive me to gwangju, as it seemed to taxi on the runway for a lifetime). took the bus from gwangju to suncheon, rolling in to the favorite drinkery at 11:30 pm. it felt really amazing to be back in suncheon, honestly. that makes me sound like i'm a soldier, returning from the war or something like that, tearing up at the local fish paste stand. i've only been gone for a little over a month, but it was a bizarre feeling sitting on the bus as it navigated these same streets that i used to navigate with such regularity. perspective is a great thing. i guess the very nature of the word is a revelation to me. stepping back and seeing things as they truly are, not getting caught up in the details. i dunno. going back made me realize that maybe i wasn't as miserable there as i tried to tell myself. i think i get in these moods where i can't function unless i go through some period of imposed melancholy. the only way i can appreciate any happiness is to make sure i'm clearly not happy first. then snapping out of it seems so clarifying and life-affirming. sort of a shitty deal though...

anyway, met up with erica and fike and the gang. drank a lot. it was nice to be a social being again. seems like i haven't been that way in recent memory (aside from japan. but it was nice to sit and talk with people i know. and to feel funny and vulgur and like myself. not that i haven't felt like myself lately. but yeah, i enjoy being anti-social sometimes. but being social ain't a bad deal either.

drank until 4:30 ish in the am, woke up to realize i was covered in donut bits on account of some minor war the night before, with dunkin donuts the weapon of choice. it would require some real brutality to murder someone with a donut, i guess. but there are worse ways to go.

i guess this is all for now.

oh, i miss having persons of the male persuasion to harbor feelings for. there's no one here i get to lust after. don't get me wrong, i still have plenty of lust in my, uh, heart. but it sort of sucks when it has no focus. yup, random. whatev.