dmz and general life update

i think i should mention my two drama classes first, as i am currently sporting a huge headache. my class was Monday, but the brain pain lingers. i have a korean "helper" for each of my classes. for my beginner class, my "helper" is an older woman who herself doesn't really speak much english. which means i have 21 children and 1 old woman, none of whom understand the majority of what i'm saying for the 2 hour class. the helper also thinks she gets to be a part of the decision-making process--what play, which characters--but I really just want her to try to discipline them. she's failed me thusfar. last week she showed up to class 30 minutes late because she overslept (class is at 4 pm). this week she didn't show up at all. but she did send me a 5 page script for the ugly duckling. 5 pages for 21 children. the kids vetoed it. so peter pan it is! nevermind the fact that we'll have to somehow figure out how to make these children fly when all our props are made of cardboard. somehow I don't see the library springing for a cables and pulley system suspending children from the ceiling. maybe they'll surprise me though. i'm mostly excited about having a bunch of little girls dressed as pirates, replete with eye patches, parrots and mentionings of scurvey.

Monday's class was a nightmare. i have absolutely no control over these kids for 2 hours. they know it. I know it. they know I know it. i don't even have the power to be condescending or in any way intimidating when these little bodies don't understand english. i am truly powerless. it's a crappy feeling. there is one student in my class who was in the last english play, so she did her best to scream at the other kids, but it was all a joke to them. since koreans typically sit on the floor, there are all these little pillows stacked in one corner of the room. add to that a very slippery wheelchair ramp in the middle of the auditorium and they envision some sort of luge course as soon as they show up. even as i'm yelling at them and the korean woman is yelling at them, they're riding their makeshift sleds down the ramp. seems sort of cruel--a mockery of those who might actually need this accessibility--even without any handicapped folks there. there is also all sorts of av equipment on stage, behind the stage. the kids make a beeline for it and start playing with it, banging it, generally destroying it. and then there are random instruments laying around. it's a playground to them. with very very expensive equipment.

though i feel helpless now, i know that i felt the exact same way last time but still managed to pull it off. we shall see. as soon as i have the script written, it should be all gravy, smooth sailing, etc. my advanced drama class should be okay, but i have to somehow find the time to write the play before friday. i keep putting it off. i guess i could be working on that now...

after the drama class on friday, i felt like i wanted to shoot all the kids and then shoot myself, so i was very eager to hop on a four hour bus to seoul to simmer down and pass out. went there with 2 of the other suncheon teachers. arrived in itaewon around 1-ish and went searching for a love motel. slim pickings in the itaewon area. ended up at a love motel on "hooker hill". the rooms smelled like piss and the sheets left some sort of film on my skin. but the shower was hot and i had my own room. it also sort of made the experience more authentic. seedy motel on a hill full of prostitutes. it just felt right.

what was the most interesting about the whole situation was that the first time i went to seoul with my back-stabbing co-worker from the hagwon in chuncheon, we stayed in the exact same area. i saw the bar where someone stole $100 from my wallet (ironically called "club U.N."). i saw the bar where said co-worker picked up two dudes, one of whom tried to molest me later. but instead of feeling really pissed off about it all, it was sort of a fond memory. just because in retrospect everything that happened to me makes a great story. i'm pretty damn sure i didn't feel that way then. but now, I can admit that there was some humor in all that. as long as there was no actual physical harm done, i guess i've recovered. of course when i go back to chuncheon, being there, seeing my apartment, seeing the hagwon, seeing the people who were actually nice to me for no real reason might be overwhelmingly sentimental. I suppose most things are.

saturday morning on limited sleep, me and the dudes got up to go shopping in itaewon. itaewon in the morning hours is a testament to all manner of debauchery. the prostitutes are still advertising, and there are people still buying. folks are drunk at 11 in the morning, somehow never finding the self-control to call it quits the night before. it's interesting, for lack of a more all-encompassing word. there are lots of military folks, lots of esl teachers, lots of prostitutes, lots of students, lots of tourists and just generally an odd mish-mash of people. it's not my favorite place in seoul, despite its "diversity" (just seedy in general, and lots of douchebags reminding me of frat boys back home). but we americans are bigger folks, so seems like itaewon is one of the few places to find clothes that fit. i didn't even buy any clothes though. bought a backpack (the piece of shit i bought in beijing didn't even last 24 hours. walking around tibet with my shit falling out of ripping seams and compromised pockets. excellent.), got my boots shined for too much money, bought a silk jacket for rory that has an embroidered dragon on it (very karate kid).

after itaewon, went to the myeongdong area as we had decided to change our lodgings. not that we didn't want to be surrounded by filth and hookers, and filthy hookers...we ended up staying at an actual apartment that had two rooms, 4 beds, a kitchen and a living room. it was a spacious oasis in the midst of the cramped hustle and bustle of the big city. next time i'm in seoul with lots of people, we're staying there. when we looked out the window, we could see the namsan cable car steadily climbing the mountain, as well as the inumerable lower class houses dotting the mountain's base.

at 5:30 we went to a fancy hotel to have a mizzou asian affairs center reunion. sang was there, epac teachers were there, epi students were there, tesol students were there. all the people i worked with in columbia on campus were there. it was quite surreal to be surrounded by all these people in their home country. the most interesting part was getting to meet all these people who knew julie from the past tesol program, but had no idea who i was. it's weird for people to know her but not know me. lots of staring and giggling. it was almost as if they didn't believe I was a real person, I was merely a decoy sent there to confuse them.

we drank free beer and ate free food, then went out dancing and norae bong-ing and drinking until the wee hours of the morning. a great idea since there was the dmz tour starting 8 am on sunday. of course I wasn't thinking about the dmz tour as I stared at the 3 liter beer tower in front of me. anyhoo...i've gotten into this habit lately of dancing like a complete idiot. usually it involves making people feel uncomfortable while I molest them. this night was no different. yikes.

bright and early Sunday morning we woke to make our way to our dmz tour. apparently, on sundays the amount of things you can actually go see is quite limited. I was actually looking forward to a sobering, somber experience where I felt the heartache of those separated from their families, and just some general heaviness brought on by the harsh reality of the gravity of the situation. I wanted to see soldiers pointing guns at each other and feel the remote, yet apparent, chance that my life was slightly threatened. boy was I disappointed! the whole experience felt like a carnival ride. as a matter of fact, at the freedom bridge (lots of flags and notes written on a monumental wall), there was a big ol' pirate ship carnival ride, a la "the buccaneer" at six flags. so this was what the historical significance and the very real clear and present danger had been reduced to: an amusement park ride complemented by a glossy, compact, overtly sentimental 7 minute film that basically sums it all up. the film showed lots of images of a little girl crying while rifle shells fell around her, and ended with a butterfly landing on her finger. good stuff. but we did go down into one of the tunnels, via monorail. I took a rock from the tunnel. if I had to pick one part of the tour that I felt was actually worth the $58, i'd say it was this (the tunnel, not the rock). there was something quite bizarre and surreal about getting to the door at the end of the south korean side, approximately 200 meters from where our monorail "docked". there was some impotent looking barbed wired (sort of looked like christmas lights) haphazardly blocking a door, with a camera focused on it. a window to the left of the door revealed a large, vacant room behind the wall. then perhaps 50 feet away was another door denoting the beginning of north korea's portion of the tunnel. on the other side of the door across the room, there were probably some north korean tourists doing the same thing, peering into that room wondering what lay on the other side of the door. very bizarre. very low security. again, very surreal.

so that's it. next time I go to the dmz, i'm doing it big. feel like this is an abrupt ending to the blog, but I guess it's already pretty long.

the end.

hospital and whatnot

a long time ago, whilst riding the cramped, claustrophobic number 59 bus home, i encountered a korean man hidden amongst the throng of middle school students packing the bus. i guess i must have been pretty new to korea, as i remember i got off at the wrong stop and had to walk a bit to get home. anyhoo, this korean man decided to walk with me. fair enough. i've endured many an akward walk with broken english speakers. he stuttered and stammered during the whole exchange as tiny globules of white viscous foam accumulated in the corners of his mouth. it was only seconds later that one of said globules was launched directly into my left eye, projected via the stammering. though i had already declined his offer of coffee and dinner based on the fact that he was a complete stranger to me, the spit in the eye sealed the deal. unfortunately, i had already given him my phone number. you might ask, "why didn't you give him a fake number?" it's a good idea, except that koreans constantly have their phones with them. the one time i tried to give a fake number, i was literally called on it. so that's not a good tactic of evasion. my phone now contains lots of numbers attributed to "creepy" (he actually text messaged me today) or "don't answer"--taxi drivers, bus folks, bar patrons. anyhoo, we parted ways, his spit still in my eye. he called me for many months after that. but i never returned his calls and eventually tried to forget--almost succeeding!--about the spitting man.

on tuesday i was at maegokdong teaching my last children's class of the day. i was excited to meet erica to go to the gym. with 20 minutes left, a strange, eerily familiar man walked in and sat down on the couch. we must remember, the only classes at this community center are for kids. he was clearly misplaced as the only adults who come there are women whose kids are in my classes. i kept wavering back and forth between accepting that it was bus spit man and denying it was bus spit man. just as i had decided there was no way that it could be him, my class was finished and he was approaching me. shit. it was bus spit man. but now there was a new characteristic, immediately surpassing the spit and stammering. it was poop breath. i expected actual pieces of fecal matter to fall out in hunks with each laborious word he chose to utter. somebody had to have taken a shit in his mouth! and such a smell even from 5 feet away. as he approached me, conversations i'd had with mike and erica about some of their students came to mind. i had always heard stories about mr. lee and a man named cage. according to my sources, cage stuttered a lot and was just generally annoying. it was then that i realized that this man--creepy bus spitting poop breath man--and the elusive cage were one and the same. he gave me some nasty, stale cookies, recorded me speaking about what i studied in college, and asked me again if we could "hang out sometime." great. i have the sinking feeling that tuesday was not his last visit to me. fuck fuck fuck.

yesterday was white day (and my mom's birfday, coincidentally. if you see ma mcgeorge, give her a shout out!). valentine's day was only for the dude's to receive treats. white day is a day for the ladies. for some reason, the girls are given sugar, not chocolate. so i am now the proud owner of a large bag of multicolored suckers. nice-uh. that's certain to fill the void of having no significant other in this completely passionless country [nervous laughter].

yesterday was a bad day, physically speaking. i couldn't stand up straight. i don't know what i've done to my back now, but it hurts. a lot. i've been very fortunate with my back troublems here. i don't know why. only been to the doctor before for some questionable "therapy." but no one ever diagnosed me or paid attention when i told them i had a bonafide disease. i was going to go to the doctor yesterday, as my coworker said she would go with me at 5, but the chick who said that was passed out at her desk. i felt it would be wrong to wake her (i know you can't stand and actually can't speak today either, but we really need you to finish storytelling before you go to the hospital. just like last time). storytelling for 3 hours is difficult when you lost your voice screaming at 21 little bodies in your drama class 3 days prior.

that's a funny story. my korean helper who can't speak english has all these ideas about teaching the kids the vocabulary in these fairy tales we looked at on monday. i want to make sure she knows that i can either teach the kids lessons, or they can do an english play, but i don't have the time or the patience to do both. and i believe the library is expecting a play in 3 months, so we're sticking with that. they actually are going to write the play this time. i want them to feel complete creative control of their play. i'm really only there to faciliate. we'll see if that happens. i've got the funny feeling that, just like last time, no one will bother to do their homework and i'll end up writing a play that serves to only humor me and make use of impractical esl language. seriously, the phrase "bee's knees" is of little value in the classroom or in a play.

back to my janky back. i took a sick day today and went to the hospital. it was actually a very streamlined, cheap and quick process. quite the contrast to america. and i spoke a lot of korean. anyhoo, the scene at this korean hospital was very interesting. or maybe not particularly interesting at all. i saw amputees, old women clutching their arthritic backs, newborn babies, little kids seeing doctors without the accompaniment of their parents, x-rays hanging all over the place for everyone to view, nuns in their habits--crosses dangling from side to side. but i also saw these two older men who looked like what i imagine confucius looked like--long, grey beards, wide brimmed straw hats, and the traditional korean countryside hanbok clothing. it looked like halloween at the hospital. they seemed to be doing laps around the first floor, waiting for their turn with the good doctor.

anyhoo, i waited for a long time after i got my ticket. then i saw someone i used to work with at the library, she informed me that i was sposed to give some woman at another counter my ticket. then she pointed to the sign that said it (in korean) and looked at me thinking "silly girl, it says it right here" i guess forgetting all the awkward lunches we had together where we didn't communicate because i can't speak korean. but i met the doctor and it was good. he seemed amused that he got to use his english. but that was a plus. he asked me what my issues were, i told him that the l3-l4 and l4-l5 discs were problematic and i don't think he actually believed i knew what i was talking about, so then i said i wanted some x-rays.

x-rays took maybe 10 minutes to process. x-ray man also seemed amused by having to speak english. and i was embarassed because my legs were really hairy and i had to wear these little shorts and curl up in a ball on the x-ray table. according to the x-ray, the problem area is...wait for it...l3-l4 and l4-l5. disc degeneration means a bulge (like squeezing a balloon) which puts pressure on the nerves or something like that. whatever. pain. plus, apparently i have scoliosis now. so that's a nice development. i am inclined to believe that this curvature of my spine is temporary as my body tries to compensate for the pain on the left side. dr. man didn't dismiss this theory. so his diagnosis of me was exactly what i had told him prior to the x-rays. told him i had done "physical therapy" here a few months ago but felt like that was actually a waste of $3. and he said, "no, you need medicine." hallelujah! i'm from america, i like pills! so i am many now muscle relaxers and anti-inflammatories happier. woo hoo. i got home, drank a beer, popped some pills and passed out. best sick day ever. too bad my cable isn't installed until this

weekend....oh yeah, the doctor actually said "you have the spine of a 48 year old person." quit rubbing it in, man.

i am now the proud owner of a cd with my x-rays on it. if i can figure out how to post it, i will.

other thoughts. of late i'm having to make a concerted effort to try to see the beauty in the mundane. 5 months ago that was my "mantra" (i fucking hate that word), but how easily we forget our mantras. and it's not even that i'm not seeing things the same way, i just allow these beautiful details to be more fleeting than they should be. because it's not new anymore. for example. last week on the playground, i saw a dead fish. time was, i would see that and think, "wow, never in america would i see a random dead fish (someone's meal, no doubt) splayed awkwardly and inappropriately on the playground." it was such a decidedly korean moment, yet i gave it no other mentioning until now. i took a picture of it, so perhaps not all is lost.

i read about jules and rory's life in china and am jealous of the sense of glitter pervading their days right now. china is new to them,and will be for a long time. the honeymoon phase when everything is looked at with wonder and reverence and cultural openmindedness and a genuine desire to discover. how do i get back to that point here in the korea? i dunno. i should probably get out more on the weekends. explore my province more. it's funny though, i make much more money here than i made at home. i don't have to pay my rent, the cost of living is cheap. yet i still feel like some sort of slave to my credit card. i make substantial payments every month, dutifully wiring money back to my american bank. but this debt still haunts me, just like it did in america. gosh, maybe someday i'll be financially responsible. wouldn't that be nice. this will be another unadventurous weekend, as i can't afford to do anything. but i guess i'll be going to china soon enough.

"i been walking the streets at night, just trying to get it right..." week update

i started at a new office this past week (after taking my first sick day on monday. sick days suck when you don't have cable. now i know for future reference. got to watch some stupid korean vampire movie and play solitaire. i'm a real party animal). i now go to maegokdong twice a week, near old downtown. i originally thought i would be teaching 4 classes--1 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon. but now i'm teaching 5 50 minute long classes in a row in the afternoon from 1-6. my first class is actually across the street from the community center where the rest of my classes are. so i have to take sort of a short lunch to be at the school by one. then at 12:50 i have to literally run across the street --crayons, flashcards, bag, papers in tow--to be at the community center on time for my next class.

my first class on tuesday had about 15 students. but i was told that there will be 30 students next week. i guess "told" is too generous of me, i was sort of made to infer (through hand gestures and the dry erase board). great. the more non-english speaking hyperactive children, the merrier! second class had 7 students. third class had 1. fourth had 2 (twins. my first class has twins in it too. they didn't believe me when i told them i was a twin too. just like people don't believe my name is jamie). last class had 2 peeps. so it wasn't really too demanding. of course since i just started i'm feeling quite optimistic and motivated--highly ambitious lesson plans with lots of copies, coloring, games. at some point i'm sure the lesson plan will just deteriorate into uno, go fish, and bingo.

okay, i wrote all this earlier in the week. by my last class thursday, the kids were demanding games and being increasingly rude about the fact that i didn't want to spend the whole 50 minutes playing tic tac toe and hangman. dude, i'm a native speaker and those games are boring. and i'm so sick of uno, or "one card-uh" as the younguns here call it. guess it's too much to teach them a spanish word when they still refuse to say the colors or numbers in engrish. i tried to find a website that will ship board games internationally--i would kill and/or maim to get my hands on twister--but no luck. but next week i'm cracking the whip. we'll play games, but the games that i want to play. it was also interesting because 4 of my classes are in a tiny joke of a library that anyone may frequent. so people are milling about while i'm trying to get the class' attention. muy distracting. i had more moms in the classroom on tuesday than children, all judging me and asking me about my materials. the kids can also choose whether they would like to lounge around on the couch reading korean comic books or sit at a table and feign interest in me and my crazy foreign language. this is only really problematic with the teenagers. i suppose if i were their age and i was just beginning to understand the concept of free will, i too might choose to read a comic instead of learn another language.

because i am now at maegokdong twice a week, i'm only at the miracle library for 3. this is actually great. the sitting around not doing anything but thinking about how useless i feel has now been compressed into a sunny and manageable 3 days instead of a passive aggressive yet soul-crushing 4 days. on monday i didn't really do anything except organize the yong-o books. you don't even alphabetize them or do any sort of dewy decimal system, they are grouped by book size and whether they're hardcover or softcover. sweet. skewed interpretations of organization rule!

wednesday was storytelling. for some reason, i felt very proud of myself this week. whether i feel like a real teacher or not sometimes (most of the time), there are moments of clarity when i realize that being here has effected some very real changes in me. the confidence i have now in front of groups of complete strangers (okay, only little kids. i'm still about as socially awkward as i've ever been) is nothing short of astounding. i remember how paranoid i would be in my first weeks here just sweating and stressing out over english storytelling hour. all the eyes of the little people focused on me for one hour. a lot of pressure to be entertaining, which i've never purported to be, especially to the esl demographic. surprisingly, both the epiphany and the resultant pride carried on throughout the rest of the week.

anyhoo, english game hour at the liberry had been on thursdays, but because thursdays i'm at maegokdong now, they moved english game hour to friday morning. so all the regulars who normally come on thursday (last week i had about 20 tiny bodies and their respective mothers in various circles playing uno, scrabble, go fish, war and boggle) weren't there. instead i had maybe 3 parents and their kids of all different ages sitting around sighing and otherwise audibly expressing just how "jamie obsoyo" (not fun) these games were, while getting the chocolate they're not supposed to have in the library all over my go fish cards. if they had any idea how difficult it is to find games here, they'd afford a little more respect to my "n is for narwhal", etc. cards. one of the mothers even said "this game is a little bit boring." sorry, lady. all the other kids that i actually like go ape-shit over these animal cards. get out of my english game room, and take your damn baby with you! yup, i said it just like that. actually, i just laughed nervously and apologized. what do you want me to do, you and your infant are both too incompetent and/or young to play any of the games or listen to accompanying explanations. even children's scrabble, where the words are spelled out on the board for you. it's just like matching shapes, but these shapes happen to be english letters.

anyhoo, after english game hour i went on my lunch break and ran into a woman who used to be a helper in the library. one of the most genuinely nice people i've met here so far. she orchestrated my birthday lunch in which i blew out candles on an actual cake and ate spaghetti with my library friends. her daughter also made me two playdoh pictures that are framed and currently hanging proudly on my apartment wall. anyhoo, she saw me in the kimbap place i had sworn off (they still tell me the correct way to eat, but are less preachy about it now as i'm a constant source of entertainment for their young children wandering haphazardly around the restaurant). 20 minutes later she reappears with a large thermos of coffee and some rice cakes in foil. i thanked her profusely and went back to work. you cannot walk into an office here with any visible food items without people swarming you or all eyes immediately going to the food (i tried this once with chocolate. a nice, one person portion for myself. i ended up with about a square centimeter. i hate sharing. i'm not a child). such was the case with my rice cakes.

a lot of times my coworkers don't even say hello or goodbye to me because they're embarassed about their english, but as soon as i walk through the door with something wrapped in foil, interest is piqued enough to stumble through such niceties and inquire. so i tell them it's a gift, i don't think they understand. i drink all the coffee and leave the rice cakes sitting at my desk. at 6 pm when i finished my new drama class, i come back to my desk and only the foil remains. they didn't even throw it in the trash, they left it for me. great. i should just bring that tuna that they gave me for lunar new year back to the office and then i don't have to worry about what to do with it. but i actually like the rice cakes, so that was a bummer. same thing happened with bag of candy i received after my plays. i came back over the weekend and the bag had been stripped of all the chocolate gems, leaving only the crappy korean taffy in its wake.

so my first new english drama class on friday (beginners begin tomorrow). i have an hour break in between "english cafe" (1-3 pm in the coffee shop/bookstore. not a single human came in during that time. i got a lot of reading done), so i got together the materials to make nametags and looked at the class roster for the first time. 20 students. holy shit. and 21 on monday. holy holy shit. my coworker told me i was exceedingly popular after the last performance. ha! in a regular class, this would actually be a blessing, a nice contrast to the bleak numbers i'm predicting for my days at maegokdong. but for a drama class, that's a lot of fucking students! let the games begin. but at least this time around i have korean helpers (granted, one old girl ain't so great at engrish herself). one of my last drama classes had 15 students and it was so difficult to come up with that many characters and lines for them. but now 20 and 21. yikes.

anyhoo, the korean helper shows up with her infant child strapped to her back and things were going swimmingly. again, the confidence i mentioned from earlier in the week was flowing. i actually made a lesson plan and stuck to it. that so rarely happens. i make lesson plans but then throw them out the window as soon as i'm presented with the reality of bodies in a classroom. but not this time.

anyhoo, students are broken into groups figuring out the plots and characters of some fairy tales and the korean helper and her baby are walking around barking out commands. baby starts crying in baby speak "feed me." so during class, homegirl goes to the back of the room and starts breastfeeding in the class. only in korea, i suppose. assah! friday was a good day, besides my rice cakes being eaten and being told my games weren't fun.

in other news, a mother and who i presume to be her son live on my floor at sidae. this man is probably in his 20s. occassionally i see him and his mother waiting for the elevator on my floor. anyhoo, he's a grown man. it is muy importante that this fact is established. each time i see them together, she is fawning over him somehow--picking lint off of his jacket, tying his shoelaces, straigtening his tie, even picking dandruff out of his hair, all while whispering sweet nothings in his direction while he blushes awkwardly and self-consciously. but this past week mommy dearest outdid herself, because--much to his horror and my not-so-easily veiled laughter and judgement--she decided to pick the kimchi or whatever breakfast was out of his teeth, all in full view of a complete stranger. ha ha ha ha ha ha. it's one thing to live with your parents into your late 20's, i can respect that i guess, but it's completely different to have your mother pick your teeth or wipe your ass when you're that age (which i don't think it would be a stretch to assume). especially when you have all your wits and faculties about you. which he appeared to have. he seemed like a nice, fully capable young man.

yesterday was a busy day. erica, fike and i wanted to climb a mountain, so we went to jiri mountain (jirisan). it's the second highest mountain in korea. perhaps this is something we should have taken into consideration when we didn't arrive at the park until 3 pm, replete with north face clothes and fleece and some naive ambitions of hiking for a few hours. the smallest hike was an hour, but you didn't really get to see anything. maybe we should have expected to hike for at least 5 hours, but koreans tend to exaggerate everything. our food is too spicy for you, our alcohol is too strong for you, our mountains are too big for you. so if they tell you it's the second largest mountain in korea, that statement doesn't have any real weight to it. but i suppose this time they were right. damn! since we'd gone to the trouble of taxi, bus, and another bus we figured we should see part of this high mountain, whatever it took. so we paid $25 and had a taxi drive us to the top. that's some funny shit.

fike had been making fun of erica and i for wearing all these layers of clothing when the weather down at the bottom was downright pleasant, but then we got to the top and it was 12 degrees. sooooo cold and so windy. i was convinced these small children would be carried away with each violent gust of wind. alas, they all stayed grounded. then a cloud descended on the peak and we were surrounded by snow and whatever else one includes in a listing of cloud contents. the only viable recourse in this situation was to sit inside and drink beer while looking through dirty glass at the belated winter wonderland unfolding before us. it was quite pleasant.

later that night erica and i took a bus to gwangju to go to the foreigner bar there where a foreigner band--"i wanna know what love is..."--was playing rockabilly music. so we show up a little late and they weren't kidding. it was indeed a foreigner bar. like juliana's, but on crack. the czech beer was only $4. the music was good, but there was something really unpleasant about the whole scene. i dunno. sometimes being surrounded by people that you undoubtedly have things in common with (hey, you're foreign, so am i! hey, you drink beer, so do i!) and who you should probably be able to relate to on some level feels more crushingly isolating than being surrounded by people who don't speak the english. quite the conundrum. coming to this conclusion with increased frequency as of late....i think i have a sort of crippling perception of myself as someone possessed by an inherent un-relatability. i don't know if that's a word. this is only exacerbated by my already seemingly aloof character. great. anyhoo, erica and i stayed in a french countryside themed love motel. she is the quietest sleeper in the world. i thought she might be dead. but i wasn't concerned enough to check her pulse. i suppose that makes me a bad friend.

other things.

koreans are impatient. i touched on this briefly in my last post, but dealing with ticket stands and buses only reinforced it over the past two days. i'm standing with money in my hand speaking to a woman behind a counter, and people just wiggle their way in front of you. it's like if you saw a dog on the street and it was blocking your path, you would sort of nudge it out of the way with the toe of your shoe. when i was going to actually board the bus, there was about a 4 inch space between me and the bus door. homeboy sort of pushes through that space to get on the bus. i just don't get it. and i will continue to ask the question, how do you not think that's rude? anyhoo, it's becoming really fucking annoying. and it's everpresent. atms, food counters, buses, etc. anywhere where you would expect there to be some sort of order. i wonder what would happen if there were a fire in my building. maybe best not to think about that....

i'm in the middle of what is the what by dave eggers. ordered it from amazon a long time ago and then forgot about it. but it showed up on my sick day (thank you, jesus!). for someone with an admittedly short attention span when it comes to reading, i am overwhelmed by how much i like this book. lots of other people who use big words and write for newspapers and magazines said good things about it with big words for their respective newspapers and magazines. with each page i'm increasingly incredulous (hey, that's a big word!) at just how good this book is. so there. that's my endorsement. i would tell you what it's about, but you could just look that up elsewhere on the internet[s]. i'm sure dave eggers would be very grateful to know that i, jamie leigh mcgeorge, give his book a stamp of approval. congratulations, senor eggers.

one last thing. i'm wholly aware that i say/write "anyhoo" too much.

holiday-hay. celebray-ate

yesterday was a holiday. fudge a dudge! i don't know exactly what holiday it was, but shit, it meant a day off work. and when you have days off, there's really not much to do around these parts but drink.

wednesday night began at juliana's, as per usual. i was the only girl for a while. not that it felt any different than being one of many girls. just something i noticed. then more ladies showed up so more going away festivities for kirsten, and everyone felt like imbibing lots of alcohol. the past couple times i've seen kevin (juliana's proprieter and barkeep) he's been fucking hammered. wednesday night was no different. everything was normal, but then my former boss showed up and we kept punching each other. so both of my arms now have nice bruises, plus my left upper thigh. he knew exactly where to punch/knee for maximum discomfort. we have good times.

speaking of violence--always a great segue--there was some brazilian dude there who had commandeered the computer, playing shitty house music (i should note, "shitty house music" was just my personal opinion. i don't speak for the masses). so this other dude who's a regular decides to change the music. brazil dude didn't like that. so they threaten to fight each other for a long time, and ultimately the only violence inflicted was on the pillar in the middle of the bar. the brazilian dude kept kicking it repeatedly. he could sure get his leg up there! that was really the only thing running through my head at the time. "wow, he's flexible!" anyhoo, people fight (or threaten to fight) for a lot of stupid reasons, particularly when they're drunk. this was one of those times.

after juliana's, made our way to the black club for more molesting of korean dudes. but i wasn't really even there long enough to harass them. when i drank enough to want to make bad decisions, i decided it was probably a good time to get out of there. ate a chee-juh don-cass-uh night cap and got home around 4 am. so an early night.

the next day i told myself i was going to climb the sidae mountain. didn't happen. what i did do was eat a bunch of overpriced fried food at the outback steakhouse and regretted it later. watched miami vice and called it an early night.

something about miami vice (maybe gratuitous violence) reminded me that i saw rocky balboa a couple weeks ago in seoul. it was great. i particularly liked when he referred to adrian's "woman cancer." nice one, rock! there were honestly a couple times when i found myself compelled to raise my arm to cheer for him, even in the awkwardly quiet korean movie theatre. of note: sylvester stallone's getting up there in years, but his body's ripped. he had particularly gross and protruding veins though. yikes.

earlier today, my co-worker saw my tattoo through my shirt (sort of see through. yup, like to dress sexy at the children's library. you know how i do.). and she slapped my back. so i thought she didn't approve, but then she said "oh yeah!" (there's a certain way koreans say this. jules and roar know--the way the agimas at the norae bong would say it). so i guess that's as close to an endorsement as i'll get at the miracle library.

i had my first experience at the post office today (first time in suncheon, i should say). what a fucking nightmare. koreans seem to be lacking any inherent sense of order. i'm standing there at the counter, waiting my turn. she hands me boxes and forms, tapes one of the boxes, then helps these other customers who are all jostling for position in front of me, looking at me like i killed their children. sorry, i thought this was where i came to mail things. my bad. it's like we're at a concert trying to get into the front row, and the star we're trying to ogle was some random korean lady with a particularly butch haircut and a bad lipliner job. fuck an a, assholes, i'll just wait. but the concept of turn-taking or line-forming is completely lost on koreans. when you're trying to get off the elevator, people just rush right in so that when you finally do get to exit, the door starts to shut on you. and it's the same jostling for position on the bus, people just butt in front of you. i guess it's most aparent when you're driving or are a passenger. so many near accidents because everyone and noone has the right of way. good system. and there's no sensor telling them that maybe it's rude, not just because you're breaking what should be the inherent turn-taking rule, but because you're invading my personal space. i guess that's another thing lost in translation. anyhoo, the post office took an hour. not because i can't speak korean (all i had to say was miguk and point to some boxes), but because the woman kept helping other people in line behind me or answering the phone. "maybe if i keep pretending she's not human, she'll go away." i'm actually not human, i'm some sort of pet that has been let out into the wild so people can see how it interacts with its environment: wow! that foreigner mails stuff to people somewhere just like we do, that foreigner eats food just like we do, that foreigner wears jewelry just like we do. ha ha, those crazy foreigners!

anyhoo, it's friday. i've gotten out of my funk. hopefully the good times will last. i start the new round of english plays next week and i start teaching at a new office--more kids, woo hoo!-- which means my hours of sitting around doing nothing should significantly decrease. assah!