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.