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.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
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!!!!!
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!!!!!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
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.
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.
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