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.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
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.
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.
Friday, September 21, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
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."
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."
Saturday, September 08, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, September 03, 2007
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 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.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
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...
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...
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
o, fortuna
last night i went to a production of carl orff's carmina burana here in the ilsan. it was simultaneously amazing and disappointing. and how is that possible? fear not, i shall explain.
i randomly saw a poster for the production earlier this week. i don't know when the first time i heard carmina burana was, but i seem to recall it came from alicia (my older, musically inclined seester) in tdk cassette tape form. this was back in the days of me and jules making mixed tapes that featured nelson, u2, and songs from sister act, all on the same compilation. notice i had to mention julie too, so that i'm not the only one incriminated here. i am very pleased to say that our musical tastes have evolved, which is not to say that we no longer appreciate nelson, u2 or sister act (I and II, back in the habit), but maybe just not all together. you know, sensory overload.
my other musical outings in korea have been dismal, at best. this doesn't include rock bands i wrote about before, i'm talking about musical/theatrical endeavors. they always tend to have a korean bent to them. i believe the last "production" i went to was subway line 1 in suncheon. and that was fucking terrible. just terrible. so i didn't have high hopes for this performance. despite that, i splurged on a $30 ticket after finishing work last night. the venue itself was amazing, monolithic and modern. richardson auditorium it was not. i guess i forget that i live in a suburb of not only the largest city in korea, but one of the largest cities in the world.
i went in, bought a program, found my seat. i wasn't sure what to expect (i think i say that about a lot of things over here...), but the program said there was a ballet also. oh. ok. cool! i really wanted to be both a ballerina and a mechanic when i was little. so it's not surprising that now, in my old age, i don't know shit about cars and i can't dance. it's probably for the best, as i would have made one very awkward ballerina. i'm graceful like a giraffe. but i do enjoy watching ballet.
onstage there was an interesting set featuring a large wheel (yes, of fortune) and the ruins of what appeared to be a courtyard. the choir was wearing monk/abbey looking robes (just like the ones on the new belgium abbey beer labels), as were the dancers. they eventually wore more traditional ballet garb--second skin pants for the dudes, flowy dresses for the chicks. so the production began and the orchestra was amazing, the set was amazing, the dancers were the most amazing, the choir was amazing, the large video screens with the english and korean translations were amazing. what was not amazing was the fact that they were singing all the songs to this beautiful latin opera in korean. i'm going to go out on a limb and say i'm not the only person who thinks the korean language isn't a thing of particular beauty. if anything, it's what comes to mind when you try to think of something that is distinctly NOT beautiful. nasal and whiney. i really have no idea why they sang the whole thing in korean and not in the original latin. even the choir who performed before the actual production sang a whole program in latin. so it's not that they couldn't do it, it's that they opted against it for some reason. i dunno. if you're going to an italian opera in new york, you probably don't expect the people to sing it in english. so the korean language definitely took away from the whole experience. there was no "dulcissime" it was turned into "naaaeeeee-ggggaaaaahh.!!!!" granted, the soloists were AMAZING, but it just would have been so much better had they sung in latin. and of course, the jamie who is continually down on korea thought oh, this is just another way that koreans are ethnocentric. "why would we want to perform this outdated opera in latin, when we are koreans? koreans sing in korean language." but it definitely made some parts of the production sound more like traditional nasal korean songs, than old, beautiful latin songs. like in the lemonade commercials here. yes, i realize how few people have any idea what the fuck i'm talking about when i mention korean lemonade commercials.
the highlight of the show, besides the vocal acrobatics of all the soloists, was the song "Cignus ustus cantat (The Roast Swan)". these two robed dancers came out carrying a pole with another dancer hanging from it. he was dressed in some sort of loin cloth/feathers ensemble. but as they hoisted this pole up and down, this man dressed as a swan-man did pull ups, one armed pull ups and other various acrobatic feats on this bar. but it was all done with the fluidity of motion of ballet. it was sort of unbelieveable. my jaw dropped. and i didn't have to worry about anyone next to me seeing my jaw drop, as the ticket lady made sure to give the foreign chick an entire row of seats to herself, lest the korean people have to sit next to me.
and yes, i went to the show by myself. i pretty much do everything alone these days. i have no problem with that, but so many other people don't understand why i don't want to surround myself with a posse or something. i don't think my self-sufficience should be a pitiable or enviable thing. it just is.
but anyway. overall i was thoroughly impressed with the majority of the production.
and that's that. busy, yet boring days for jamie leigh mcgeorge.
i randomly saw a poster for the production earlier this week. i don't know when the first time i heard carmina burana was, but i seem to recall it came from alicia (my older, musically inclined seester) in tdk cassette tape form. this was back in the days of me and jules making mixed tapes that featured nelson, u2, and songs from sister act, all on the same compilation. notice i had to mention julie too, so that i'm not the only one incriminated here. i am very pleased to say that our musical tastes have evolved, which is not to say that we no longer appreciate nelson, u2 or sister act (I and II, back in the habit), but maybe just not all together. you know, sensory overload.
my other musical outings in korea have been dismal, at best. this doesn't include rock bands i wrote about before, i'm talking about musical/theatrical endeavors. they always tend to have a korean bent to them. i believe the last "production" i went to was subway line 1 in suncheon. and that was fucking terrible. just terrible. so i didn't have high hopes for this performance. despite that, i splurged on a $30 ticket after finishing work last night. the venue itself was amazing, monolithic and modern. richardson auditorium it was not. i guess i forget that i live in a suburb of not only the largest city in korea, but one of the largest cities in the world.
i went in, bought a program, found my seat. i wasn't sure what to expect (i think i say that about a lot of things over here...), but the program said there was a ballet also. oh. ok. cool! i really wanted to be both a ballerina and a mechanic when i was little. so it's not surprising that now, in my old age, i don't know shit about cars and i can't dance. it's probably for the best, as i would have made one very awkward ballerina. i'm graceful like a giraffe. but i do enjoy watching ballet.
onstage there was an interesting set featuring a large wheel (yes, of fortune) and the ruins of what appeared to be a courtyard. the choir was wearing monk/abbey looking robes (just like the ones on the new belgium abbey beer labels), as were the dancers. they eventually wore more traditional ballet garb--second skin pants for the dudes, flowy dresses for the chicks. so the production began and the orchestra was amazing, the set was amazing, the dancers were the most amazing, the choir was amazing, the large video screens with the english and korean translations were amazing. what was not amazing was the fact that they were singing all the songs to this beautiful latin opera in korean. i'm going to go out on a limb and say i'm not the only person who thinks the korean language isn't a thing of particular beauty. if anything, it's what comes to mind when you try to think of something that is distinctly NOT beautiful. nasal and whiney. i really have no idea why they sang the whole thing in korean and not in the original latin. even the choir who performed before the actual production sang a whole program in latin. so it's not that they couldn't do it, it's that they opted against it for some reason. i dunno. if you're going to an italian opera in new york, you probably don't expect the people to sing it in english. so the korean language definitely took away from the whole experience. there was no "dulcissime" it was turned into "naaaeeeee-ggggaaaaahh.!!!!" granted, the soloists were AMAZING, but it just would have been so much better had they sung in latin. and of course, the jamie who is continually down on korea thought oh, this is just another way that koreans are ethnocentric. "why would we want to perform this outdated opera in latin, when we are koreans? koreans sing in korean language." but it definitely made some parts of the production sound more like traditional nasal korean songs, than old, beautiful latin songs. like in the lemonade commercials here. yes, i realize how few people have any idea what the fuck i'm talking about when i mention korean lemonade commercials.
the highlight of the show, besides the vocal acrobatics of all the soloists, was the song "Cignus ustus cantat (The Roast Swan)". these two robed dancers came out carrying a pole with another dancer hanging from it. he was dressed in some sort of loin cloth/feathers ensemble. but as they hoisted this pole up and down, this man dressed as a swan-man did pull ups, one armed pull ups and other various acrobatic feats on this bar. but it was all done with the fluidity of motion of ballet. it was sort of unbelieveable. my jaw dropped. and i didn't have to worry about anyone next to me seeing my jaw drop, as the ticket lady made sure to give the foreign chick an entire row of seats to herself, lest the korean people have to sit next to me.
and yes, i went to the show by myself. i pretty much do everything alone these days. i have no problem with that, but so many other people don't understand why i don't want to surround myself with a posse or something. i don't think my self-sufficience should be a pitiable or enviable thing. it just is.
but anyway. overall i was thoroughly impressed with the majority of the production.
and that's that. busy, yet boring days for jamie leigh mcgeorge.
Monday, July 30, 2007
jobby job
i've been in ilsan for a little over a month now; but the first 3 weeks of my new job were spent commuting to and from seoul or other areas relatively far away from my home for work each day. despite the fact that i spent a large amount of time on the subway every day, it was okay, masturbation trauma and odd vegetable/soju combination smells aside. i sort of miss having a reason to take the subway every day. it made me feel important for no particular reason. i would spend my whole day trying to figure out just what important meeting/appointment/agenda was weighing me down. turns out, it was just my mode of transportation, and i'm not really important. damn.
so my first week in ilsan consisted of lots and lots of consecutive teaching. i believe i actually taught 10 50 minute classes on one of the days. plus i taught 4 two hour classes on saturday. this sort of schedule will only continue for one more week though, as it's summer intensive time right now. my students are actually technically on vacation, which really means no sleeping in or playing in the park it means happy fun english hagwon time! so one more week of this heavy schedule, and then it's back to 6 hours/day teaching in the afternoons/evenings. this is a schedule i actually really like. i'm looking forward to joining a gym and having productive mornings. maybe even getting into the habit of eating breakfast again. weird. i might even get a hobby i've been entertaining the notion of buying an easel and some paint or something to that effect. i wouldn't know exactly how to begin, but whatever. i've seen lots of art that looks like a 4 year old created it. i suppose you have to start somewhere. i'm pretty good at drawing bicycles and trashcans?
but back to my job. a lot of people might think i've got a shitty deal in korea, but most people haven't been so totally fucked over by their first gig in korea (chuncheon), so to me every job is a step up. suncheon was better than chuncheon. and now ilsan's better than suncheon. it's pretty easy to get teaching jobs here where you don't have to do much. and i don't want to sound like a self-righteous asshole, but i actually enjoy working hard, provided my efforts are recognized and adequately compensated. i hate sitting around not doing anything. there's nothing that makes me feel so small or useless. moments you can never get back, wasted on absolutely nothing but sitting and killing (however passively) time.
i guess i have a pretty solid work ethic. that probably comes from my parents. or maybe years of playing basketball. hmm, high school. funny. perhaps all that verbal abuse from coach jones and coach thompson actually did affect me in a long-term sense. i mean, besides my continuing and unfailing 3-pointer prowess and inability to take criticism without crying incontrollably in front of all my cunty teammates. good times. i'm digressing here, but my dad used to come and sit in the bleachers sometimes during practice. so any time coach jones was particularly rough on me, i could see him up there and feel a little better about myself, not die running one more suicide. fuck! high school basketball drama. jamie reed's fried blonde hair and her unjustified vendetta against me and jules. not being able to afford the shoes that the rest of the team was buying. some other cunt knocking the wind out of me at practice and laughing while i laid on the floor choking and crying. of course i cried. that's all i seemed to do at practice.
that whole part of my life feels so foreign to me, probably because it was 12 years ago. and yet it was so integral. i guess only the physical, tangible events of that time seem foggy. but there's definitely a part of me that can recall and revisit, with a sort of comforting clarity, the range of emotions i felt 12 years ago. i think a lot of those unresolved high school issues in my head never left me. i'm oddly grateful for that. i don't know why. i'm still as awkward as i used to be, but now i drink, so somehow that counteracts/diverts any potential devastation. i'm still not exactly a part of the cool crowd. always relegated to the periphery. i still dress as though i'm homeless (in the words of my high school crush. how very high school of me indeed...). the things that hurt me or delighted me in high school--words said, deeds done--still resonate. i don't know if that's good or bad. so many people tend to dwell on the "glory days" (note: college had no glory days for me. that was an uphill battle every fucking day in every fucking aspect--financially, socially, educationally. i fucking hated college.). i'm sort of one of those glory dwellers, i guess. but i've done enough significant things in the 10 years since i graduated that i don't feel like high school was "it" for me. but it was definitely a defining part of my life, and i do like to think about the me of high school. the uncertain, awkard me reading the balcony scene of romeo and juliet in mrs. thompson's 9th grade english class. the awkward me that had no idea what the fuck was going on in my trigonometry class. the really good stuff like geography club, field trips, son volt and chert. hmm. insert nostalgic emoticon.
back to my new rad-tastic job. there are maybe 9 or 10 other korean teachers. i teach all of their students one hour per week while they see them repeatedly. so the traffic in my classroom is pretty constant. that's the only part that sucks. i only see each individual student 50 minutes/week (aside from the special weekend classes) so i don't get to foster any real sort of relationship with them. but the cool thing is that i actually am teaching essay writing and debate. each class has a different book (that all the students actually have! a definite plus and a HUGE step up from suncheon and chuncheon ...). every two weeks there's a new topic. for example, my youngest kids had to discuss why fur coats were good this week. next week they have to discuss/write about why fur coats are bad. other topics this week were corporal punishment, organic foods, and elective classes in high school. i get to teach my students proper essay-writing format. so that's very very cool to me. seems to have been my forte back in the day.
i've also spent a good deal of time interviewing students to decide which class they belonged in. after doing this at one of the other branches of my hagwon, two of the teachers there told me i had a really great talent for understanding kids. then they both asked me to please not leave their school. even more than teaching effectively and the praise that came with that this past week, people saying that i can really relate to kids was the best possible compliment.
i truly feel that for the first time in my life i have a real job, with real responsibilities. not that pizza maker, ice cream scooper, set designer and chauffer to asians weren't all real jobs in themselves, but this is different. i'm an integral cog in a wheel, which is something i've never actually been before. my school actually cannot function without me. it's exhausting, but so validating, which is all i've ever really wanted.
my korean co-teachers adore me and think i'm a great teacher, and i feel really energized and even cocky about the fact that i know i'm doing a good job. i have the utmost confidence in my abilities. and that, too, is a completely foreign feeling to me. for all the korean things i complain about, i do have to remember that as far as my actual person goes, korea has done as many great things for me as it has bad. of course i only tend to dwell/expound [up]on the negative, but i think that's just my nature. maybe not everyone's nature, but definitely mine. i've become more self-sufficient and genuinely confident in my abilities (in the teaching realm, not in any other areas. i've probably actually digressed socially. but the cool thing is that it doesn't bother me as much as it used to).
as for other parts of my life, i don't really do much. i've sort of just sequestered myself, taking a break from a social life and the drinking and the bad decision making. i'm probably the only person in the world who would want to be quarantined with my thoughts, so it's in everyone's best interest. which is not to indicate that they're particularly profound or psychotic thoughts i'm having. they're just mine. but i've read a LOT in the past month and i've not really spent a lot of money. it's good. things are very calm right now. i'm sure at some point i'll crave some more excitement in my life. but right now i thoroughly enjoy shutting myself up in my awesome apartment (or starbucks. yeah, i know, lots of people have problems with starbucks. i don't give a fuck.) and not talking to people for hours, even days. some people might find it hard to believe that a person could enjoy not having any social interactions, but right now i feel incredibly free, good and (gag!) introspective. i don't owe anyone any conversation, i don't have to pretend to be interested in anyone but myself. sounds selfish, but i guess that's just how i roll.
oh, i'm going bungee jumping soon. that should be interesting.
so my first week in ilsan consisted of lots and lots of consecutive teaching. i believe i actually taught 10 50 minute classes on one of the days. plus i taught 4 two hour classes on saturday. this sort of schedule will only continue for one more week though, as it's summer intensive time right now. my students are actually technically on vacation, which really means no sleeping in or playing in the park it means happy fun english hagwon time! so one more week of this heavy schedule, and then it's back to 6 hours/day teaching in the afternoons/evenings. this is a schedule i actually really like. i'm looking forward to joining a gym and having productive mornings. maybe even getting into the habit of eating breakfast again. weird. i might even get a hobby i've been entertaining the notion of buying an easel and some paint or something to that effect. i wouldn't know exactly how to begin, but whatever. i've seen lots of art that looks like a 4 year old created it. i suppose you have to start somewhere. i'm pretty good at drawing bicycles and trashcans?
but back to my job. a lot of people might think i've got a shitty deal in korea, but most people haven't been so totally fucked over by their first gig in korea (chuncheon), so to me every job is a step up. suncheon was better than chuncheon. and now ilsan's better than suncheon. it's pretty easy to get teaching jobs here where you don't have to do much. and i don't want to sound like a self-righteous asshole, but i actually enjoy working hard, provided my efforts are recognized and adequately compensated. i hate sitting around not doing anything. there's nothing that makes me feel so small or useless. moments you can never get back, wasted on absolutely nothing but sitting and killing (however passively) time.
i guess i have a pretty solid work ethic. that probably comes from my parents. or maybe years of playing basketball. hmm, high school. funny. perhaps all that verbal abuse from coach jones and coach thompson actually did affect me in a long-term sense. i mean, besides my continuing and unfailing 3-pointer prowess and inability to take criticism without crying incontrollably in front of all my cunty teammates. good times. i'm digressing here, but my dad used to come and sit in the bleachers sometimes during practice. so any time coach jones was particularly rough on me, i could see him up there and feel a little better about myself, not die running one more suicide. fuck! high school basketball drama. jamie reed's fried blonde hair and her unjustified vendetta against me and jules. not being able to afford the shoes that the rest of the team was buying. some other cunt knocking the wind out of me at practice and laughing while i laid on the floor choking and crying. of course i cried. that's all i seemed to do at practice.
that whole part of my life feels so foreign to me, probably because it was 12 years ago. and yet it was so integral. i guess only the physical, tangible events of that time seem foggy. but there's definitely a part of me that can recall and revisit, with a sort of comforting clarity, the range of emotions i felt 12 years ago. i think a lot of those unresolved high school issues in my head never left me. i'm oddly grateful for that. i don't know why. i'm still as awkward as i used to be, but now i drink, so somehow that counteracts/diverts any potential devastation. i'm still not exactly a part of the cool crowd. always relegated to the periphery. i still dress as though i'm homeless (in the words of my high school crush. how very high school of me indeed...). the things that hurt me or delighted me in high school--words said, deeds done--still resonate. i don't know if that's good or bad. so many people tend to dwell on the "glory days" (note: college had no glory days for me. that was an uphill battle every fucking day in every fucking aspect--financially, socially, educationally. i fucking hated college.). i'm sort of one of those glory dwellers, i guess. but i've done enough significant things in the 10 years since i graduated that i don't feel like high school was "it" for me. but it was definitely a defining part of my life, and i do like to think about the me of high school. the uncertain, awkard me reading the balcony scene of romeo and juliet in mrs. thompson's 9th grade english class. the awkward me that had no idea what the fuck was going on in my trigonometry class. the really good stuff like geography club, field trips, son volt and chert. hmm. insert nostalgic emoticon.
back to my new rad-tastic job. there are maybe 9 or 10 other korean teachers. i teach all of their students one hour per week while they see them repeatedly. so the traffic in my classroom is pretty constant. that's the only part that sucks. i only see each individual student 50 minutes/week (aside from the special weekend classes) so i don't get to foster any real sort of relationship with them. but the cool thing is that i actually am teaching essay writing and debate. each class has a different book (that all the students actually have! a definite plus and a HUGE step up from suncheon and chuncheon ...). every two weeks there's a new topic. for example, my youngest kids had to discuss why fur coats were good this week. next week they have to discuss/write about why fur coats are bad. other topics this week were corporal punishment, organic foods, and elective classes in high school. i get to teach my students proper essay-writing format. so that's very very cool to me. seems to have been my forte back in the day.
i've also spent a good deal of time interviewing students to decide which class they belonged in. after doing this at one of the other branches of my hagwon, two of the teachers there told me i had a really great talent for understanding kids. then they both asked me to please not leave their school. even more than teaching effectively and the praise that came with that this past week, people saying that i can really relate to kids was the best possible compliment.
i truly feel that for the first time in my life i have a real job, with real responsibilities. not that pizza maker, ice cream scooper, set designer and chauffer to asians weren't all real jobs in themselves, but this is different. i'm an integral cog in a wheel, which is something i've never actually been before. my school actually cannot function without me. it's exhausting, but so validating, which is all i've ever really wanted.
my korean co-teachers adore me and think i'm a great teacher, and i feel really energized and even cocky about the fact that i know i'm doing a good job. i have the utmost confidence in my abilities. and that, too, is a completely foreign feeling to me. for all the korean things i complain about, i do have to remember that as far as my actual person goes, korea has done as many great things for me as it has bad. of course i only tend to dwell/expound [up]on the negative, but i think that's just my nature. maybe not everyone's nature, but definitely mine. i've become more self-sufficient and genuinely confident in my abilities (in the teaching realm, not in any other areas. i've probably actually digressed socially. but the cool thing is that it doesn't bother me as much as it used to).
as for other parts of my life, i don't really do much. i've sort of just sequestered myself, taking a break from a social life and the drinking and the bad decision making. i'm probably the only person in the world who would want to be quarantined with my thoughts, so it's in everyone's best interest. which is not to indicate that they're particularly profound or psychotic thoughts i'm having. they're just mine. but i've read a LOT in the past month and i've not really spent a lot of money. it's good. things are very calm right now. i'm sure at some point i'll crave some more excitement in my life. but right now i thoroughly enjoy shutting myself up in my awesome apartment (or starbucks. yeah, i know, lots of people have problems with starbucks. i don't give a fuck.) and not talking to people for hours, even days. some people might find it hard to believe that a person could enjoy not having any social interactions, but right now i feel incredibly free, good and (gag!) introspective. i don't owe anyone any conversation, i don't have to pretend to be interested in anyone but myself. sounds selfish, but i guess that's just how i roll.
oh, i'm going bungee jumping soon. that should be interesting.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
day off.
well, not really, i had to teach one class. big sigh. yesterday i taught 9 classes. it's sposed to be summer intensive classes for the next two weeks--denoting reaaaallly long days--but my schedule doesn't really seem too intense. tomorrow i was sposed to have the whole day off, but i have to go in and level test the childrens for my weekend class. yes, i meant to type childrens. it just sounded cute, and since i'm drinking a beer at 4:07 pm, i feel like being cute.
some things. i got a desk. a computer desk. it's real nice. so my computer is no longer sitting on the floor, requiring me to lay on my stomach and type. that was a bit uncomfortable.
here are some things i am currently in like with:
-lists. i feel like i haven't been making very many lists lately. and now that i've started this one, i realize how much i missed them. a list is a nice thing.
-my landlord, mr. kim. when i came home at 6 in the morning the other day, he wasn't judgemental he just wanted me to tell him exactly how many bottles of beer i'd consumed so he could decide if i was as good a drinker as he is. i remember my first night in this new apartment, i asked him where the nearest grocery store was and he walked me to the lotte mart by my apartment. then he made me buy him 2 bottles of soju for the trouble. that set me back a whole $2 or so. he has a wonky eye. and i wonder how one's eye becomes that way. was this a natural part of his aging process (yes, he's old. and also very short). was there some accident in recent or ancient history that made his eye that way. was he born that way. i'm curious. he sort of looks like a turtle, his neck and head sinking--pitched forward ever so slightly--under the bulk of a dirty blue uniform shirt that is 3 sizes too big for his seemingly shrinking stature. he wrote my address for me on a yellow, aged piece of paper in both korean and english. i can't imagine how long that took him. his self-assigned homework. he is always passed out in his little landlord booth in my apartment lobby at 3 in the afternoon, and when he comes to he excitedly yells hello and waves to me as the elevator doors are closing, his greeting abruptly muted. he's a funny, pleasant old korean man. and he says i am his friend.
-the dirty three and blonde redhead. i've been listening to both of them for a few years now, but i guess just not paying attention. many the lengthy subway commute under my belt now, and i have been listening to these two bands over and over and over and over and over....you get the picture.
-my new job. i normally work 6 days a week, but when i'm actually doing my job, it's so easy to be an effective teacher. i'm busy the entire time i'm at work and i feel like i'm valued as both a human being and an english teacher. the korean teachers at my school work infinitely harder than i do and seem to genuinely enjoy their job and my presence. though other foreign teachers seem to complain about basic tenets of their job that they are expected to honor, i have no complaints thusfar about any aspect of my actual job. i'll be honest, the commute was starting to suck, but now it's done. always nice to quit doing something before you reach a breaking point you know exists somewhere.
-ilsan. i really don't know it that well yet (still...this is the first week i haven't had to commute to seoul for some work-related reason). it's very clean. my apartment is great, and there's a nice tree-canopied walkway that runs parallel to the street my hagwon is on. walking under those trees today felt like i was in an urban jungle of sorts. well, not really. but i like the idea of it seeming like an urban jungle, no matter how remotely. things are green. it's muggy. there are several playgrounds (just like in the jungle, right?). no monkeys or other jungle animals, but lots of bikes to dodge, mothers and children haphazardly navigating the pavement together. the pace of life here seems relaxed and lazy. lazy with the good connotation. people, make a note, i'm saying positive things about my life and about korea.
-beyonce. i dunno, she's just cool.
i guess that's a decent-sized list. i had a good weekend. worked on friday and saturday, but saturday night i actually went out and about drinking and whatnot. seems like i haven't done that too much lately (aside from earlier in the week last week when i went out with clayton and co. and ended up doing tequila body shots off another female teacher i work with. NEVER buy the whole bottle of tequila). but back to saturday. met a friend from columbia in the hongdae area. we actually hadn't hung out too much back in missouri, but based on our brief interaction, i knew he was cool as hell. went to a place called skunk hell. didn't actually go in, but hung out outside. something about drinking warm beer outside a punk rock venue made me feel really happy and really comfortable. i know i don't really look too punk rock, but it's comforting to see people who have escaped the traditional sort of roles assigned to them by korean society. if someone had shown me a picture of this place and the clientele, i wouldn't have believed it was in korea. lots of suspenders, pompadour haircuts, tattoos, piercings, plaid. and all on korean ladies and gents. foreigners too, but that's nothing too shocking. i would have expected this sort of vibe in japan, but never in korea. i was pleasantly surprised.
also went to a couple other places. one of which was a dancey sort of place where i sweated my balls off and danced like a fool. the other place had a bunch o' bands playing. i'm never optimistic about live music in korea. i've seen some foreigner bands before, and they tend to be shitty cover bands, as well as painful reminders of the wealth of unique, live music that was at my disposal back in the america. the venue itself was sort of uncomfortable. i guess not the place, but some of the people there. they just seemed condescending, and not even for any real reason. it was a party to promote some indie rock magazine. and yet, at the punk club where the people should have been intimidating and cold, they weren't. anyhoo, only two bands were really notable. the first band was galaxy express, a korean punk band. they were fucking amazing. i was totally blown away. i did not expect to hear these guitars and that sound from these three dudes (incidentally, they were korean. only really notable because they tried to say some things to the mostly english speaking audience, but had some difficulty. it was charming though). the best part was that they played kick out the jams as their last song. a lot of people probably don't think that's too notable, but again, you would never EVER hear mc5 in korea. i don't know how they fucking knew that song! the other band was we need surgery. all foreigners, sort of like clinic i guess, very danceable. i was impressed to see musicians who weren't tools and who actually didn't suck.
there was this other band that was sort of ridiculous. they were a "funk" outfit. but the lead singer/guitarist you would have never guessed could play guitar. so they'd be in their song, where uber-white lead singer is sort of scatting and then he'd just break out into this gratuitous guitar solo that went on for 5 minutes. don't get me wrong, he was very talented, but it all just seemed so random. he was clearly a dude in korea because he couldn't get any pussy at home. and surely that guitar solo was going to win him some points with the throng of adoring [asian] ladies? fair enough.
at the end of the night, went to a park nearby, where lots of different demographics of people were just hanging out, drinking, swinging, playing music, whatever. it felt very comfortable, very familiar. and it was a healthy mix of koreans and foreigners. most of the time in korea you're accutely tuned in to where you are by something that you perceive to be either slightly skewed or totally fucked up. it's not really easy to forget where you are and to not label things as korean or not korean. but on this night, things were just so easy. labels were stripped. people were just people. bands were just bands. the park was just a park. korean, foreigner, it mattered not. i guess that's what i would define as comfort. being able to do things without feeling obligated to put some sort of label on them to either justify or condemn them. i do that all the time and i hate it.
it was nice to come home without the burden of that familiar sinking feeling, the physical manifesation of desperation to which i've been accustomed on many the occassion. i have this habit of staying out way too late, waiting for something amazing and life-affirming to happen. i did it in columbia. i did it in suncheon. haven't really done it too much here. saturday when i got home, i was exhausted. but i wasn't drunk, and i felt like some part of me had been satiated. a sense of satisfaction that's been missing from a lot of my social ventures.
so yeah, got home early in the morning. sun coming up. refreshingly sober. it was a good night. i felt like i had something to show for my weekend, and the past couple of months in general. the music and everything sort of woke me up, jolted me out of this apathetic funk i've been in for a while. apparently there's a music festival in incheon this weekend. haven't decided if i'm going yet, but i think i really have no choice. i owe it to myself and the rest of my time in korea to see whatever limited musical offering there is.
some things. i got a desk. a computer desk. it's real nice. so my computer is no longer sitting on the floor, requiring me to lay on my stomach and type. that was a bit uncomfortable.
here are some things i am currently in like with:
-lists. i feel like i haven't been making very many lists lately. and now that i've started this one, i realize how much i missed them. a list is a nice thing.
-my landlord, mr. kim. when i came home at 6 in the morning the other day, he wasn't judgemental he just wanted me to tell him exactly how many bottles of beer i'd consumed so he could decide if i was as good a drinker as he is. i remember my first night in this new apartment, i asked him where the nearest grocery store was and he walked me to the lotte mart by my apartment. then he made me buy him 2 bottles of soju for the trouble. that set me back a whole $2 or so. he has a wonky eye. and i wonder how one's eye becomes that way. was this a natural part of his aging process (yes, he's old. and also very short). was there some accident in recent or ancient history that made his eye that way. was he born that way. i'm curious. he sort of looks like a turtle, his neck and head sinking--pitched forward ever so slightly--under the bulk of a dirty blue uniform shirt that is 3 sizes too big for his seemingly shrinking stature. he wrote my address for me on a yellow, aged piece of paper in both korean and english. i can't imagine how long that took him. his self-assigned homework. he is always passed out in his little landlord booth in my apartment lobby at 3 in the afternoon, and when he comes to he excitedly yells hello and waves to me as the elevator doors are closing, his greeting abruptly muted. he's a funny, pleasant old korean man. and he says i am his friend.
-the dirty three and blonde redhead. i've been listening to both of them for a few years now, but i guess just not paying attention. many the lengthy subway commute under my belt now, and i have been listening to these two bands over and over and over and over and over....you get the picture.
-my new job. i normally work 6 days a week, but when i'm actually doing my job, it's so easy to be an effective teacher. i'm busy the entire time i'm at work and i feel like i'm valued as both a human being and an english teacher. the korean teachers at my school work infinitely harder than i do and seem to genuinely enjoy their job and my presence. though other foreign teachers seem to complain about basic tenets of their job that they are expected to honor, i have no complaints thusfar about any aspect of my actual job. i'll be honest, the commute was starting to suck, but now it's done. always nice to quit doing something before you reach a breaking point you know exists somewhere.
-ilsan. i really don't know it that well yet (still...this is the first week i haven't had to commute to seoul for some work-related reason). it's very clean. my apartment is great, and there's a nice tree-canopied walkway that runs parallel to the street my hagwon is on. walking under those trees today felt like i was in an urban jungle of sorts. well, not really. but i like the idea of it seeming like an urban jungle, no matter how remotely. things are green. it's muggy. there are several playgrounds (just like in the jungle, right?). no monkeys or other jungle animals, but lots of bikes to dodge, mothers and children haphazardly navigating the pavement together. the pace of life here seems relaxed and lazy. lazy with the good connotation. people, make a note, i'm saying positive things about my life and about korea.
-beyonce. i dunno, she's just cool.
i guess that's a decent-sized list. i had a good weekend. worked on friday and saturday, but saturday night i actually went out and about drinking and whatnot. seems like i haven't done that too much lately (aside from earlier in the week last week when i went out with clayton and co. and ended up doing tequila body shots off another female teacher i work with. NEVER buy the whole bottle of tequila). but back to saturday. met a friend from columbia in the hongdae area. we actually hadn't hung out too much back in missouri, but based on our brief interaction, i knew he was cool as hell. went to a place called skunk hell. didn't actually go in, but hung out outside. something about drinking warm beer outside a punk rock venue made me feel really happy and really comfortable. i know i don't really look too punk rock, but it's comforting to see people who have escaped the traditional sort of roles assigned to them by korean society. if someone had shown me a picture of this place and the clientele, i wouldn't have believed it was in korea. lots of suspenders, pompadour haircuts, tattoos, piercings, plaid. and all on korean ladies and gents. foreigners too, but that's nothing too shocking. i would have expected this sort of vibe in japan, but never in korea. i was pleasantly surprised.
also went to a couple other places. one of which was a dancey sort of place where i sweated my balls off and danced like a fool. the other place had a bunch o' bands playing. i'm never optimistic about live music in korea. i've seen some foreigner bands before, and they tend to be shitty cover bands, as well as painful reminders of the wealth of unique, live music that was at my disposal back in the america. the venue itself was sort of uncomfortable. i guess not the place, but some of the people there. they just seemed condescending, and not even for any real reason. it was a party to promote some indie rock magazine. and yet, at the punk club where the people should have been intimidating and cold, they weren't. anyhoo, only two bands were really notable. the first band was galaxy express, a korean punk band. they were fucking amazing. i was totally blown away. i did not expect to hear these guitars and that sound from these three dudes (incidentally, they were korean. only really notable because they tried to say some things to the mostly english speaking audience, but had some difficulty. it was charming though). the best part was that they played kick out the jams as their last song. a lot of people probably don't think that's too notable, but again, you would never EVER hear mc5 in korea. i don't know how they fucking knew that song! the other band was we need surgery. all foreigners, sort of like clinic i guess, very danceable. i was impressed to see musicians who weren't tools and who actually didn't suck.
there was this other band that was sort of ridiculous. they were a "funk" outfit. but the lead singer/guitarist you would have never guessed could play guitar. so they'd be in their song, where uber-white lead singer is sort of scatting and then he'd just break out into this gratuitous guitar solo that went on for 5 minutes. don't get me wrong, he was very talented, but it all just seemed so random. he was clearly a dude in korea because he couldn't get any pussy at home. and surely that guitar solo was going to win him some points with the throng of adoring [asian] ladies? fair enough.
at the end of the night, went to a park nearby, where lots of different demographics of people were just hanging out, drinking, swinging, playing music, whatever. it felt very comfortable, very familiar. and it was a healthy mix of koreans and foreigners. most of the time in korea you're accutely tuned in to where you are by something that you perceive to be either slightly skewed or totally fucked up. it's not really easy to forget where you are and to not label things as korean or not korean. but on this night, things were just so easy. labels were stripped. people were just people. bands were just bands. the park was just a park. korean, foreigner, it mattered not. i guess that's what i would define as comfort. being able to do things without feeling obligated to put some sort of label on them to either justify or condemn them. i do that all the time and i hate it.
it was nice to come home without the burden of that familiar sinking feeling, the physical manifesation of desperation to which i've been accustomed on many the occassion. i have this habit of staying out way too late, waiting for something amazing and life-affirming to happen. i did it in columbia. i did it in suncheon. haven't really done it too much here. saturday when i got home, i was exhausted. but i wasn't drunk, and i felt like some part of me had been satiated. a sense of satisfaction that's been missing from a lot of my social ventures.
so yeah, got home early in the morning. sun coming up. refreshingly sober. it was a good night. i felt like i had something to show for my weekend, and the past couple of months in general. the music and everything sort of woke me up, jolted me out of this apathetic funk i've been in for a while. apparently there's a music festival in incheon this weekend. haven't decided if i'm going yet, but i think i really have no choice. i owe it to myself and the rest of my time in korea to see whatever limited musical offering there is.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
mudfest and masturbation. ho hum...
let's start with the masturbation first, always a good icebreaker. i had to catch the subway very very early this morning to make it to work by 8. still commuting whilst training. starting to get old, but i won't dwell on that. it's good productive time for reading and listening to some jammy jams, provided i can stay awake long enough to make the most of it. something about all forms of transportation makes me really sleepy.
so this morning i pass out. nothing out of the ordinary. zooming along. i wake up two stops before where i need to depart (notice how i decided not to say "get off..."). i was sitting in the very corner of one of the rows of seats. across from me was the very end of the other regular seats, with the doorway and then the handicap seats. some really old man was dozing in and out of consciousness in the old peeps section, but we were both awake enough to see the middle-aged man masturbating not 5 feet from where i was sitting. quite the shock in the am to see a korean man's penis on display in my mode of public transportation. so needless to say, i wasn't quite sure if i was seeing what i was seeing. i sort of just saw his profile (all things included), and then he turned toward the sliding doors, his back to me. the doors opened, so i assumed he was going to exit the car, but he didn't, he just kept jerking off while the doors opened and closed inches away from him. then he turned back towards me, eyes sort of glazed over and looking up at the ceiling. and there's his dinkus in his hand, excitedly poking out of his shorts. so then i turned away, horrified. the old man in the handicap seat and i made eye contact and we both stood up and walked away.
i can sort of make light of the situation now, x number of hours later, but at the time i was really fucking freaked out--this, yet another bout of sexual misbehavior i've been privy to in the last year. i'm all for sexual harassment in jest, but when it comes down to the real deal and a situation being out of my control, i don't deal well. actual sexual perversion and deviance freaks the living shit out of me. unless it's hot and consensual in the bedroom. but a subway car in seoul is not my bedroom (not to mention the fact that it would never ever be a middle-aged korean man with a small dong in my hot, consensual world), and i definitely would not have agreed to be a witness in his scenario. i foggily stumbled up the stairs to get the fuck out of that subway station, trembling and actually nauseaus. i still haven't shaken that imagery from my brain. i dunno. just what if there had been kids on the subway? that would have been horrifying.
in other news, i went to the monet exhibit at the sorry excuse for an art museum that's in seoul. i dunno. i'm just glad i had my mp3 player. in japan, there were hardly any people there, it was a rainy day, it was perfect. here, it was a national holiday, so everyone and all their children were at the art museum. the regular rules of no rules or discernible turn taking or general decency applied. people pushing and shoving, kids and adults (some with corn on their fingers)getting way too close to the art while the aloof girls who were supposed to monitor that shit sighed audibly and stared off into the distance, clearly distressed by their assigned roles. art lovers, all of them, i'm sure (yeah, yeah, like i'm one to talk). what should have been a serene and potentially reflective environment looked like a "play date" organized by all the bored housewives of seoul. and hey, young people, here's some art to play with. plus the inherent whininess of a room full of small children. so yeah, me and the dirty three took in some monet. what i realized, besides the reiterant disappointment in/ confirmation of several stereotypes about koreans that have held true in any public setting, is that i actually like monet more than i thought i did. so that's good i guess. i think my whole day was sort of bound to have a downward, pessimistic slant after the events of the very early morning. had the masturbating man not materialized, i might not have had such a negative impression of my afternoon. moving on...
it was mudfest this weekend, where it was dismally revealed to me that douchebags transcend gender, culture, race, etc. don't get me wrong, i had a great time, but your average foreigner here in the korea is a total fucking alcholic (myself included) who thoroughly enjoys making an ass out of him/herself, much to the chagrin and already arguably heightened judgement of koreans. sure, they should be happy that their festivals are a way for foreigners to spend lots o' money in korea, but it's a double edged sword of sorts. we spend lots of money, but ultimately display a lot of totally regrettable, irresponsible behavior in the process. yes, korea, we are what military personnel and english teachers look like. seems to exacerbate what already seems like a pretty superficial layer of cultural tolerance on both sides. we do stupid shit that begs scrutiny, and then we resent the scrutiny that inevitably ensues. and shit, see the prior paragraph about my complaints. i hate that i've been reduced to this judgemental, culturally insensitive asshole as my very judgment and cultural insensitivity make me the exact same kind of asshole that i silently loathe (i'm not talking about very obvious legit reasons like subway masturbation, i'm talking about my general, everyday sentiments that i try not to speak of because they make me feel guilty, despite their increasing prevalence. i guess i spend a lot of time feeling guilty for not being as culturally sensitive as i would ideally envision myself to be). oh yeah, but a bunch of fucktards kept saying shit when they walked by me on the beach like "yeah, i'd totally fuck you." hey, chad, i speak english. fucking alpha males. so yeah, foreigner alpha males and public masturbation. good times for a gal here in korea. i guess i could argue this whole situation in circles. seems like i've done that since i've been here. problem is, admitting any guilt doesn't make things any better.
anyway, parts of mudfest that were fun...drinking with fike and erica, getting muddy (albeit for a very brief amount of time), hazily navigating my way back to seoul on sunday, with the help of a dude who was a lot smarter than me. oh, and always that initial, startling taste of salt when you wade out into the sea after so much time has passed. the beach at night, being honestly and decently flirted with (aforementioned tactless douchebags aside). so those were the good things.
fuck, i sound negative. i know that, at least today, all my bad vibes should be borne on the shoulders/penis of one guy on the seoul metro.
so this morning i pass out. nothing out of the ordinary. zooming along. i wake up two stops before where i need to depart (notice how i decided not to say "get off..."). i was sitting in the very corner of one of the rows of seats. across from me was the very end of the other regular seats, with the doorway and then the handicap seats. some really old man was dozing in and out of consciousness in the old peeps section, but we were both awake enough to see the middle-aged man masturbating not 5 feet from where i was sitting. quite the shock in the am to see a korean man's penis on display in my mode of public transportation. so needless to say, i wasn't quite sure if i was seeing what i was seeing. i sort of just saw his profile (all things included), and then he turned toward the sliding doors, his back to me. the doors opened, so i assumed he was going to exit the car, but he didn't, he just kept jerking off while the doors opened and closed inches away from him. then he turned back towards me, eyes sort of glazed over and looking up at the ceiling. and there's his dinkus in his hand, excitedly poking out of his shorts. so then i turned away, horrified. the old man in the handicap seat and i made eye contact and we both stood up and walked away.
i can sort of make light of the situation now, x number of hours later, but at the time i was really fucking freaked out--this, yet another bout of sexual misbehavior i've been privy to in the last year. i'm all for sexual harassment in jest, but when it comes down to the real deal and a situation being out of my control, i don't deal well. actual sexual perversion and deviance freaks the living shit out of me. unless it's hot and consensual in the bedroom. but a subway car in seoul is not my bedroom (not to mention the fact that it would never ever be a middle-aged korean man with a small dong in my hot, consensual world), and i definitely would not have agreed to be a witness in his scenario. i foggily stumbled up the stairs to get the fuck out of that subway station, trembling and actually nauseaus. i still haven't shaken that imagery from my brain. i dunno. just what if there had been kids on the subway? that would have been horrifying.
in other news, i went to the monet exhibit at the sorry excuse for an art museum that's in seoul. i dunno. i'm just glad i had my mp3 player. in japan, there were hardly any people there, it was a rainy day, it was perfect. here, it was a national holiday, so everyone and all their children were at the art museum. the regular rules of no rules or discernible turn taking or general decency applied. people pushing and shoving, kids and adults (some with corn on their fingers)getting way too close to the art while the aloof girls who were supposed to monitor that shit sighed audibly and stared off into the distance, clearly distressed by their assigned roles. art lovers, all of them, i'm sure (yeah, yeah, like i'm one to talk). what should have been a serene and potentially reflective environment looked like a "play date" organized by all the bored housewives of seoul. and hey, young people, here's some art to play with. plus the inherent whininess of a room full of small children. so yeah, me and the dirty three took in some monet. what i realized, besides the reiterant disappointment in/ confirmation of several stereotypes about koreans that have held true in any public setting, is that i actually like monet more than i thought i did. so that's good i guess. i think my whole day was sort of bound to have a downward, pessimistic slant after the events of the very early morning. had the masturbating man not materialized, i might not have had such a negative impression of my afternoon. moving on...
it was mudfest this weekend, where it was dismally revealed to me that douchebags transcend gender, culture, race, etc. don't get me wrong, i had a great time, but your average foreigner here in the korea is a total fucking alcholic (myself included) who thoroughly enjoys making an ass out of him/herself, much to the chagrin and already arguably heightened judgement of koreans. sure, they should be happy that their festivals are a way for foreigners to spend lots o' money in korea, but it's a double edged sword of sorts. we spend lots of money, but ultimately display a lot of totally regrettable, irresponsible behavior in the process. yes, korea, we are what military personnel and english teachers look like. seems to exacerbate what already seems like a pretty superficial layer of cultural tolerance on both sides. we do stupid shit that begs scrutiny, and then we resent the scrutiny that inevitably ensues. and shit, see the prior paragraph about my complaints. i hate that i've been reduced to this judgemental, culturally insensitive asshole as my very judgment and cultural insensitivity make me the exact same kind of asshole that i silently loathe (i'm not talking about very obvious legit reasons like subway masturbation, i'm talking about my general, everyday sentiments that i try not to speak of because they make me feel guilty, despite their increasing prevalence. i guess i spend a lot of time feeling guilty for not being as culturally sensitive as i would ideally envision myself to be). oh yeah, but a bunch of fucktards kept saying shit when they walked by me on the beach like "yeah, i'd totally fuck you." hey, chad, i speak english. fucking alpha males. so yeah, foreigner alpha males and public masturbation. good times for a gal here in korea. i guess i could argue this whole situation in circles. seems like i've done that since i've been here. problem is, admitting any guilt doesn't make things any better.
anyway, parts of mudfest that were fun...drinking with fike and erica, getting muddy (albeit for a very brief amount of time), hazily navigating my way back to seoul on sunday, with the help of a dude who was a lot smarter than me. oh, and always that initial, startling taste of salt when you wade out into the sea after so much time has passed. the beach at night, being honestly and decently flirted with (aforementioned tactless douchebags aside). so those were the good things.
fuck, i sound negative. i know that, at least today, all my bad vibes should be borne on the shoulders/penis of one guy on the seoul metro.
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