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Frankenstein's monster wears Jimmy Choo

This is my week off and all I want to do is relax and watch movies. One truly annoying thing about my building is that there is absolutely no insulation from sounds in the hallway. It's not the people talking as they stomp their way up and down the stairs, it's that they do it at 2 in the morning while wearing high heels and feel the need to walk up and down a few times before they find the floor that they want. Many times I will be awakened by someone trying to open my door (sometimes with a key, sometimes just trying the handle) or knocking and ringing the doorbell again and again. I try to have a little respect by getting some clothes on before answering, but they are usually gone by the time this happens (remember, it's the middle of the night!!)

Being loud and rude is just a cultural thing here (so to them I guess it isn't rude) but at times it gets annoying. I can overlook the spitting and the nosepicking, but really annoys me is the way they can't walk in a straight line. When I first got here I was constantly having to avoid misguided little Asians from plowing into me. Now I have learned to just go with the flow and not move out of their way. It helps that I am a foot taller than most and have a bit more solid of a frame. Sometimes I get this short-lived feeling of excitement when I nearly body-check a particularly rude looking Korean man [I assume he is looking this way because he has just seen an incredibly handsome weyguk (foreigner) ] but then quickly realize that everybody is doing it to everyone else and I am the only one noticing that this is not normal (for me at least).

The only positive is that I don't grab for my pockets every time I do feel a bump (like I would in Czech) and if I do feel like picking my nose, no one will look on in disgust.

Big disappointment today. I was planning on taking trains from China all the way to Czech but I found out that a Belarus transit visa (just to go through the country, not stop and visit) costs 5 times as much as it does for any other nationality. So I am going to boycott Belarus and take a plane from Moscow to somewhere else (which will cost as much as the transit visa to Belarus!)

A pleasant surprise

I was invited out to dinner with the teacher in the video (Dec 14th post) below and his family. I was quite nervous about it as his English is not very...understandable.

It started with him driving me to the beach to see the sunset (no family in sight) and then drove me to an outdoor market. After that we went to his apartment (still no family) and he kind of yell-talked to me. I think he only has one volume, loud.

Finally his wife showed up and she couldn't have been more than 4 feet tall. A few minutes later his 2 sons trickled in and the whole family was there staring at me. They all spoke English at one level or another so if one didn't know a word then another would. The oldest son was pretty good so he helped out a lot.

At one point when Mr Joh (the teacher) stepped out they asked what I thought of him. By stepped out I mean he was having a cigarette 10 feet away. I said he was very nice and was always laughing at work. They all got this strange look on their faces and told me that at home he is always yelling at them and is always drunk and rarely at home. They told me he was a bad husband and father...ok.

Lucky for me today was his day to be a good husband and father and he took us to eat at a nice little restaurant where they told me a guest is supposed to stuff himself as a sign of thanks, I am never one to be rude and not show my thanks.

After we went back to their home, had some wine and I helped them with their English. It was a surprisingly good time and really glad I went. I heard that it is really rare to have Koreans invite strangers into their home (I barely new him before last night) so I am happy to have had the experience. Thanks Joh family!!!

raw raw raw raw raw ra raw raw raw raawww

My co-teacher had the great idea of teaching a class Silent Night. It wasn't as bad as I thought but I couldn't stop laughing.

colon space lowercase "L"

The school gave me an interesting offer yesterday. I was given the chance to live in the "guest house" at the new school which we will be moving to at the end of the year. I went to see this "guest house" and wow. It has no sink, no shower, no cooker, no room, and it is called a dorm room where we are from. They want to stick me in with all the students, share a toilet, shower, and washing machine with all the students. This will give them the chance to know when I leave and when I come home, how often I visit the toilet, and even have me patrol the halls.

After careful consideration I declined their kind offer and they were shocked...
SHOCKED(!!!) that I didn't want it. Why wouldn't I want to eat only at designated times (at the cafeteria) and be surrounded by 700 teenagers 24 hours a day? Oh, and the nearest shop is 10 times as far away.



On another note, I was invited out by the discipline team to have dinner and shoot the breeze. It was a lot of fun and we ate piles of raw fish and soju (Korean whiskey). The lead disciplinarian offered me the chance to join the team. I agreed and next semester I will have the power to beat the students!!! (I am pretty sure that I won't be beating anyone though.) They must have been impressed with my mobile phone confiscating skills.

Grrrrrrr....

Only 2 more weeks of school then I get a month and a half holiday. I was supposed to work at a camp this January for some extra money but wa told last week that I wasn't needed. I am disparately looking for another job but the outlook isn't so bright. 6 weeks is too much time to be off especially since my only reason coming to Korea was to make money. My secondary goal is finding something to do during my extended break. Any suggestions? Leave me a comment about what I should do.

Just in

I just got this picture from another teacher. It was taken during our picnic. Obviously they've never taken pictures of tall people before. Too lazy to use the scanner.

So cold

I moved to Busan because it is in the south and I thought it would be warm. I was wrong, it is cold as hell. The big problem is that the school has no central heating, only small gasoline fueled heaters throughout the school. The one in my classroom keeps a corner warm but the rest of the room is freezing.

I know most of you have never experienced a Korean bathroom but let me tell you right now that you aren't missing a thing. They all stink horribly and our school hallways reek of feces sometimes. The men's room smell so bad, even to Koreans, that the windows are all left open. That was fine during the fall but now it is just plain shitty. There is one upside to all this... the $300+ toilet seat. This wonder of technology washes you (a teacher nearly flooded the stall trying to show me what the buttons do) and even keeps your bum warm! That's right, the bad boy is heated! There is nothing like having a warm tookus while contemplating the meaning of life.

I went to visit my friend Steve in Yeosu this past weekend. It was good to get out of Busan for a couple of days and nice to meet other no Koreans.

One negative thing Korea has brought on is that I am again susceptible to motion sickness. I get car sick now with little effort. On the bus ride back from Yeosu I was miserable since the bus was kept at a constant temperature of hot as hell and the bus driver felt that subtlety with the gas and brake were beneath him. I am shocked that I didn't get sick all over the bus. Now if I am in a car or anything for longer than 2 minutes I get nauseous.

The other week we had an "English Festival" for the students. Part of that was having a group for each class perform a skit for the entire grade. I never heard so many "shits" and "fucks" come out of students mouths before. They know these are bad words but they're sailors, so shouldn't they talk like them? Some of the skits were pretty funny though.

Other students had to give "speeches". There are 8 classes and each class had one student give a "speech". It was more of a memorizing lines things than a speech, but oh well. The problem was the the teacher in charge of this only chose 3 articles/poems to choose from. So the students had to sit through 3 versions of Sermon on the Mount, 3 of The Giving Tree, and 2 of some article out of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

I bought a new computer last week. I've gone mac. When my co-teacher saw it she asked why I got a woman's computer. The little webcam caused quite a stir though and everyone soon decided that next computer would also be a mac. I think Mr. Jobs needs to send me some sort of commission.

Not an interesting post this time. I am sick and don't feeling like writing much. I've spent the weekend in bed watching "The Wire", Fox News, and the occasional Korean channel. While waiting for English football to start (around 1:30am) I was flipping through the channels and came across the gem at the bottom of this post. My goal now is to find where this happens and go immediately to watch. One of my big regrets is not seeing it in America (yet!!!), though I have been to a monster truck show! Sorry for the bad quality, I was using my new camera and haven't figured out how to make it look nice yet. They really do make contact, I can't believe I watched it for an hour (and missed most of the soccer game).

"Cricket...Cricket..."

I am currently sitting in the teachers’ office completely alone getting high off of gas fumes. All the teachers are some sort of workshop and since it's in some language I don't quite have the grasp of yet, I decided to skip it. While the teachers are out students are refilling all the heaters with what looked like gasoline (and smells like!)

I had a very boring birthday last week. I didn't even remember it was that special day until I was halfway to school. When I got there I found a cake on my desk and a few of the teachers gathered around and sang a pretty bad version of "Happy Birthday" with rhythm losing clapping the whole time. Everybody was really nice so it wasn't too bad. The cake was made from new potatoes. After school I went to TGIFridays to have a $14 hamburger then headed home to cry in my pillow. A friend did give me a book on learning Korean; I don't think I'll be getting to deep into that one.

Went to Pra...let's start over...Went to Seoul this weekend to buy a camera and see some good (and my only) friends. We had fun and got full on food and booze (and received a $25 discount because the waiter liked my toosh!)

The camera...Seoul has a special area of the city just packed with electronics. Anything you want you can find it and usually damn cheap (in Korean standards that means USA price +10-20%) I went shopping around in regular stores and saw the camera I wanted for an obscene amount of money. Went to the electronics mart and it was almost 50% of that!

I took the slow train there and back, so 11 hours in travel time for less than 24 hours of Seoul time. Well worth it!

My pick me up

I am reading a good book about a teacher's experiences throughout his career and made me think of my brief stint in the realm of public schools. Overall it was a good time and I learned a hellofalot about myself that needed changing. I have gotten much more relaxed over small matters like talking in class or other minor infractions of my laws but still have a long way to go.

I still keep in contact with a couple of my original students from Mart, TX and they say I wasn't all that bad but they could just be lying. I did have a couple of students that I had a tough time with though. We were always going back and for at each other (usually for some nitpicky thing or other) and I thought they hated me. Then one day for an English assignment the students had to right about who is important in their lives. The English teacher (there where 60 or so students and 3 teachers shared them) told me only one student wrote about a teacher and that it was my enemy number 1! I read this when I need to have a smile. This is what the student wrote (spelling errors are the students.)

You can trust MR Smith he is very good at being a friend He keep secret's and very funny he is very special when I'm around him I feel like I can tell him anything that's making me mad or sad he really helps me with my problems that's why he sow special he is like the other MR Smith but younger he is very smart. MR Smith is like My Friend but he is older he is really good with kids but I know one other thing he wont have know kids of his own. Everyone thinks Miss. truss is more then MRS. Smith Friend I wonder what MRs. Smith looked when he was nine years old that would be funny.He's funny that's why he is really special but I think Mrs. Smith first Job he was a clown cause he make kid's laugh and he wear them big brown Clown shoe's and every time you see him he is in a good mood or have a smile on his face and he is a great teach teacher.

To answer your question, no, Miss Truss was NOT more than my friend.

Grrrrr Rabbit!

Okay, Korea bitching time!

I am exhausted. The past 2 nights I was woken up by some idiot ringing my doorbell throughout the night. I spent last night awake waiting for the shit to do it again and everytime I heard footsteps I'd go to the door to pounce on his/her ass. Of course they didn't come back, but I'll be ready tonight. It's strange, they ring mine, run upstairs and ring someone else, run downstairs and rings mine again, then they run away.

I think they have a problem with somebody but are not sure which apartment is the right one. I don't think Koreans know how to read numbers. I always get people trying to key into my room or just try opening the door! I am glad that I have it locked all the time. One idiot kept knocking and ringing the doorbell and trying to open the door while I was trying to get out of bed and get a bit dressed before I opened it. As soon as he saw me he said sorry and took off to only comeback a few minutes later doing the same thing! What the hell?!

After tonight I am going to take the batteries out of the doorbell, the only person that rings it is the pizza guy.

Another thing to bitch about, Koreans can't seem to walk up and down steps without stomping their feet as had as they can. I can hear people go from the top floor all the way to the bottom and seem to just walk up and down nonstop. Pick a floor and stay on it!! Oh, and stop slamming your doors at 3 in the morning!

Okay, I'm done for now.

Tact

I never know if I write stuff or not. I think about it but don't remember if I actually do it, so if this is a repeat, sorry.

I have never been known to have much in the way of tact. My way with the English language and my easy at putting my foot in my mouth is infamous. But here in Korea, I pale in comparison to their tactlessness.

My co-teacher will come up to me and introduce a student, "This is Kong, the students call him "Horse" because he looks like one, isn't he ugly?", or "This one is called "Pig" because he's so fat. Isn't he fat?!" I am not sure how I am supposed to answer these. I try to be diplomatic and say how handsome they look or how athletic. My co-teacher had another teacher tell her she looked like a hospital patient because she didn't wear any makeup. I think it's because she has a huge head. I was told that I have monkey legs because they are hairy. I am just wondering how they reacted to my brother who is many times hairier than me.

Another Korean was teasing me about how we think of our pets as part of the family. You should see the way they treat their pets here (when they aren't eating them)! Most are little tiny things that they dress up in outfits and dye their ears and tails blue and pink. Maybe they just like to humiliate them before throwing them in the oven.

We did an exercise this past week where I would give them a situation and they tell me what they would do, for example; if you were Georgey Bushy, what would you do? I had to teach commit suicide to every class. I also asked what they would do if they were invisible, after that I had to tell them the difference between women's restroom and women's shower room (like in a spa). Thank g-d they aren't Japanese, who knows what perverted answers I might have gotten.

On the other hand

I may have seemed like I was bashing America on the last post. I wasn't trying to, I was just pointing out some of the differences. This past week made me a bit homesick. I was turned onto a way to watch tv from the internet and was able to watch SportsCenter for the first time in years. I also got to watch the OSU-Illini game this morning (woke up at 5:30 to watch it).

I do miss my friends and family and expect to see you all within the next year. Not sure if/when I may be moving back to my motherland, but I do look forword to a visit. I can't wait to try my dad's cheese dip again, and have meatloaf, go to the barn, and maybe find a way to have a few Ninfaritas.

Ok, enough of that... I had a day and a half off last week and decided to visit the Busan Aquarium. It was more of a chance for me to realize I can't take pictures than anything else. It was pretty small but looked nice and it got me out of my flat. It's located right on a beach, so I was able to walk through some pretty cold water for a few seconds...

Hmmmm...Can't do it anymore (well, at least today). My mind is empty and the juices aren't flowing. I'll pick this up again tomorrow, maybe I'll even bitch some!

Differences

There have been a few things that I have noticed while living outside of the US that are quite different and that I really enjoy. Much of it would be ridiculed or vilified in America, but out here it's just normal.

First Czech. It is a much more open country than the US. On one tram there is an advertisement for a cartoon and right next to that an advert for some bathtub with a woman's nipple visible. I can just imagine the outcry of rage from some if that were to be seen in my native country. They sell nude calendars in normal markets where anybody can see them and children are not standing around gawking at them because it is so normal and nobody cares. Going to the beach is the same, naked people everywhere! No one is going on a rape rampage or fiddling little kids (who are naked as well). I do have to admit I felt uncomfortable when one of my students showed me pictures of his family’s' trip to the beach. There were quite a few pictures of his kids, age 6 and 8, running around nekkid.

In Korea on the other hand, when I went to the beach here everyone was completely covered except for the fat Canadians. If girls wear miniskirts then they are prostitutes. Girls have curfews of midnight even if they are 27 years old. They have the "love motels" to get around this, even the teachers were telling me the rates for motels for a couple hours use (about $20) and they thought nothing of it. What I am wondering is why they know this; they have all been married for quite some time. Hmmmmm...

During some lacrosse tournaments in Czech they would have a sort of halftime show in between some of the matches (yes, I know that is not halftime). There would be the ugly baton twirlers (the players still gave cat calls and what not just to make the girls feel good) but there were also teenage boys doing some dance stuff while wearing very flamboyant outfits. Everybody, even the testosterone filled American teams cheered them on. I can just imaging if this happened in the US, lots of booing and gay comments. Even during the sports day last week a group of students performed a traditional dance and played some pretty interesting music during intermission and the students cheered wildly.

I am not trying to say America is no good, I am just pointing out some of the good things about other cultures, and public nudity of Eastern European girls (women) is definitely a plus!!

I went to a pro soccer game yesterday. The stadium was maybe 5% full. I was told that Busan fans are crazy but after this and the nearly empty baseball game I am not impressed. I did somehow manage to sit in the players’ family section and was offered lots of free coffee. I love hate coffee.

Slow motion

This week has been relatively easy what with the picnic and sports day. We were supposed to wear "athletic clothing" for sports day, so I showed up in shorts and a t-shirt. Seems "athletic clothing" means slacks and a polo shirt.

Anyway, the day started out with group stretching and then an 80 meter sprint. I raced once with another teacher and some students but in the middle of the race I came across a dilemma. I was getting farther ahead and I didn't want to embarrass the other teacher (he is young and athletic) but I didn't want to look like I was slow either (damn you pride!). I decided to kind of slow down like maybe I was tired or something, you know how we Americans are all fat and out of shape. Well, my acting wasn't so good since I had a couple of teachers after ask me why I slowed down. My question is why was I winning when I hadn't run in 4 months and when I did it at 75% I was still beating kids who ran everyday? Well, didn't matter, I won and was given a nice pair of gray socks.

After there were a couple over games (tug-o-war, human bridge) then we had the big event, teachers vs. students soccer match!!! It was fun because every time I touched the ball the students cheered and I didn't make too many mistakes. We won 5-2.

The field trip the next day was pretty boring but we got to ride in a tiny speed boat. While the students where out getting soaked, we teachers played some strange card game that I won. If only Kim Jung Il could have seen the American dominance then maybe he'd think twice about all this stuff. I need some Amerigasm Toby Keith style!

Picnic time

I thought this was going to be an easy week. Tuesday picnic, Thursday sport's day, and Friday field trip. The picnic was a bit more than I thought.

First I had to get up an hour earlier than normal than ride in a car with other teachers for an hour or so until we got to what I thought was the picnic spot. It was there that I found out we had to hike across a mountain ridge (only 600-700 meters high) for quite awhile until we were at the picnic spot. It was pretty hard going a lot of the time and was jammed with people. It was really just like walking down some crowded street that had lots of giant boulders in the middle of it. It was not peaceful in the slightest. I didn't expect much with 200 odd high school students, but all the others (maybe 200-300 more) just made it too much.

What was good was that a lot of the kids wanted to speak (something they usually don't do in class) so it kept me busy and entertained. The food was pretty good kimbop which is my favorite Korean dish. It is like a seaweed burrito with rice and other stuff.

We finally arrived at out destination 4 hours after we began and I realized that it was at the one and only temple that I have already seen. Come on people! I have done so little in the way of travel here and you take me to the same place I've been?! I was hoping that we were all going home after that but the teachers had other ideas.

We went to some restaurant nearby and had what I think was duck (but they may have been saying dog) and I tried my hardest to not look bored as they all spoke in Korean for the next 2 hours. Finally everyone got up and was so ready to just go home and shower and take a nap. We walk down the rest of the mountain into town and everybody quickly walks into a building. Shit. It is a karaoke bar. They have these rooms (see my pictures) that you rent and sing till your hearts content. The teachers' musical taste is nothing to be desired. They picked some real crap English songs (most of which I had never even heard before) and expected me to sing along. I finally got the courage and sang a horrible rendition of "Born in the USA". All was going well until I got to the line about "killing the yellow man"...after that the wind blew out of the song. After a couple beers and countless crap Korean songs I made it up for one more song and impressed everyone with a jaw dropping "Sweet Caroline" that ended our session on a good note.

Finally we all went home and after eating some pizza I passed out in my own not so comfortable bed.

Oh, I almost forgot! Went to Gwangju to see some friends and stay in a grotty hotel that one friend successfully made even grottier. Good times were had by all! I posted a few more pictures, so have a look and click "PICTURES" on the right!

Also, here is something to make you happy!

Moving on!

I have decided to make this my new Internet home. I think it will work better and everyone can comment on it if they feel like it. I'm going to play around with it and see if I can make it more user friendly than the other site.

I've brought over all the old posts so you can reread everything if you want to!