Weddings: What's Not to Like?

I hadn't been sick in well over a year. When 2010 rolled in, bringing with it my first bout of the flu since first moving to Korea, I was due. Cold or flu? Whichever, it was my turn. I have no qualms about starting off the year on my ass. Again. It happens.

I've been very accepting of the fact that sometimes, even I get sick, since I woke up with this last Saturday. I've been very patient. I slept away the entire weekend, took vitamins, ate soup, and even enjoyed the down time a little bit. Not that this did me any good. My cold, flu, or whatever has stretched its way through another weekend. This time, I'm not enjoying the down time quite so much. As I took in episode after episode of The Sopranos today (Season1 - I'm new to the series. Apparently I wasn't around last decade), a friend of mine was getting married in Daegu.

I absolutely love weddings. Good food. People looking slightly better than they usually do. Happiness. Hope. Me, drunk. What's not to love? I will never understand how anybody could hate weddings. I'll pass on lengthy ceremonies and picking up the tab, but the rest? Yes, please.

As much as it bothers me that I had to miss it, I'll take this moment to be less self centred than usual and realize that the wedding surely went on gloriously, even without me hiding in the back corner; I can be happy knowing that some folks I know just had one of the best days of their lives.

Congratulations to Diana and Min Gi!

Happy New Years to Your Face

I'm staying in tonight to eat cheesecake and catch up on Season 5 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. If the mood strikes, I may also start Deadwood; I just finished Sons of Anarchy Season 2, so I'm due for another drama. As far as I'm concerned, this is a pretty excellent way to bring in 2010.

Happy New Year to all. Let there be none of this:

I will likely write some reflective drivel tomorrow, as I do; it keeps my sleep regular.

It Must be That Time of Year

I've reached that point in my stunted emotional development where I start to think that coming back would be a good idea. It really wouldn't be. At least, not without trying something else first. I know that. Still. It would be nice if what is best would coordinate with what is easy for once.

Nata Tat and The Ajusave

Aside from my weekend trip to Jeju Island, which I will post about later this week, nothing of note has happened to me lately. Something of note did happen to a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, so I'm going to tell her story, in the way that I tell all stories - by making them all about me.

About a year and a half ago, I was nearly involved in a violent incident on the subway. I like to think that I was this close to just Ending some drunken scum who harassing me, but in reality I was likely closer to either getting my ass kicked or arrested. Thankfully, there was a magical Super Ajumma to save me from both myself, and that tragic waste of carbon and oxygen that was the Soju Man. Since that day, ajummas have pretty much been my favorite people (that is, until I moved to Seomyeon and started hating absolutely everybody).

While I've read quite a few horrific stories of this sort (and worse) on the Internet, until a couple of weeks ago my subway encounter was the worst of this nature that I'd heard first hand. Then, a friend of mine decided to put my weak look-what-almost-happened version of events to shame. I'm going to call her Nata Tat, because she totally digs that.

Nata Tat was riding the subway to Hadan (which may as well be on another planet) from Seomyeon (which shouldn't be on any planet). This usually takes her something like 45 minutes, calls for a book, and is an uneventful ride. Unless Drunk finds you.

Around 1pm, a charmingly drunk fellow stumbled into Nata Tat's subway car, cause that's just how some folks like to start their day. Personally, whenever drunk garbage stumbles into my space, I'm immediately on edge, with clenched fists and a readiness to break. Consider this the result of two years of regular harassment at the hands of random drunk men. Or an unhealthy reaction stemming from my broken psyche. Whatever it is, Nata Tat and I don't do crazy in the same way. She probably would have barely noticed him and continued with whatever thought it was she was having at the time, had Drunk not decided that she had a target on her cheek.

When the charming drunk fellow stumbled over to Nata Tat to scream in her face and follow it up with a full arm white trash style smack across the cheek, her reaction was what I would expect from most - shock. The man was set to continue berating her, when out of nowhere jumped in Super Ajumma, ready to save the day. With her gigantic purse, Super Ajumma whacked the man into submission, following it up with a verbal assault that had him in tears. Before Nata Tat could even piece together what the crap had just happened, she was being ushered into the special seating by the Super Ajumma, who's purpose in life is, seemingly, to make ours just a little bit safer.

Sadly, Nata Tat did not have a black eye to back up her story. Her word was enough, of course, if for no other reason than absolutely none of her tale was even remotely unbelievable. Of course there was a repugnantly drunk man on the subway at 1pm. Of course he decided to target the only foreigner on the train. And of course there was a wonderful, strong woman willing to stand up for what is right and smack the shit out of his pitiful existence. This is where we are.

The Ajusave. It's a thing. Cherish it.

Korean Music is Not Compatible With Ecstasy

This has been the best Monday ever, and it's not even 2 pm yet. I almost want to go to bed and call it a day. It can only go downhill from here. There have been at least three great moments of quality what-the-Hell-just-happened for me so far today. This was just one. We were discussing anti-smoking regulations in one of my favourite classes this morning. It went something like this:

Barbie: Does anybody have any vocabulary questions from the article?

Sober Student: I just want to know... have you ever had marijuana.

Barbie: That's not... okay, yes. Yes, I have. Before coming to Korea. I quit a few months before arriving. This is less of a big deal where I come from.

Sober Student: What does marijuana feel like?

Not Sober Student: Marijuana is too soft! Like cigarettes.

Barbie: Like cigarettes?

Not Sober Student: Yes. Too soft.

Barbie: You're clearly not getting the right stuff.

Not Sober Student: Ecstasy is better. Marijuana, cigarettes, too soft. But ecstasy is good.

Sober Student: Barbie, have you...

Barbie: No. I haven't. I -

Not Sober Student: Ecstasy is good, but no good with Korean music. Korean music, too slow. Korean music and ecstasy are not compatible.

The class just moved on with the lesson at that point, because really, what more was there to say?

Having Watched You Fall Over, I am Now Titillated

I was out and about on the weekend. I've been doing more of that lately, now that my face has mostly healed up. It's never going to entirely, which is probably just as well; I can make amazing pissy faces now that my left eyebrow doesn't have quite the range that the right does.

Late Saturday, the group I was with insisted on going to a bar which I have declared too gross to enter. It's not, really. I'm being completely irrational. It's like my fear of gigantic stuffed animals (they're creepy), except that I actually used to go to the bar in question, and even had a good time there once;I have absolutely not ever spent time with gigantic stuffed animals.

Not wanting to make a fuss, I said something to the friends about being tired anyways, and they set off on their way. A good time had already been had, and I was not itching to stay out all night. I was content to have an out.

Going home without two wraps from the kebab guy seemed like a bad idea. As I was deciding which kebab guy to go to, a very one-sided fight stumbled into one of the stands. So far as I could tell, words were quickly exchanged, then one guy hit the other, who bounced off the stand before falling into a car. The victor walked off, presumably because his statement had been made and he was now bored. Understandable.

As I waited for my wonderfully delicious food, the guy who had just bounced off the car approached me at the stand. He wanted advice on whether or not to pursue the guy who had hit him. By virtue of being in a fantastic place at the wrong time, I was the go-to person for these things.

Me: Did he have a reason to hit you?

Car Bouncer: Uh.. yeah. But..

Me: Can you take him down, or are you just looking to get your ass kicked?

CB: I probably can't...

Me: Then why would you?

CB: That's a good point.

Me: Isn't it? Running after guys that can and will crush you like a bug is never a good plan.

CB then introduced himself to me all proper-like, told me that I was very wise (true) and asked me to join him for a drink. I politely declined, and wished him luck with the whole not-getting-his-ass-kicked thing. As I walked off, he took his cause to the kebab guy, in search of a second opinion as to whether or not he should be a completely self destructive disaster.

I did not stay to see the result.

Heat: Who Needs it?

I'm going to preface this post with the two following points:

1) I have a tendency to label everything that I don't understand as dumb. Flawed, but this is how I'm wired.

2) All of the other people that I know in Korea (three) are able to heat their apartment whenever they please.

Onward:

It went down to 2 degrees Celcius the other night. For those of you not familiar with how Busan works, this qualifies as mother fucking cold. Essentially, Busan waited until the 1st of November to turn on Autumn. Just last week, I was wearing a skirt and no sweater. Last week.

Being mother fucking cold, I decided that it was time to retire the air conditioner and turn on the heat. Having a heated floor is more or less my favourite thing about Korea. Unfortunately, my floor's failure to cooperate killed my buzz. Six hours and no dice; it was still mother fucking cold.

Anger began to set in. I cursed at Korea in my head several times before doing the productive thing and whining about it on facebook. I then contemplated cursing at myself for not knowing what the words on my heating control mean (really, there's no excuse for that at this point), before retiring that idea on account of absurdity (it's never my fault). Finally, I made a last ditch effort to push all of the buttons on heating control until presto! It worked. It turns out that I had left the shower-timer on and could have avoided the anger phase entirely had I known that was what that button did.

This is how I do Tuesdays.

The next day I spoke to a friend of mine, who was complaining about the heat in her building. It turns out that she's not an idiot, and the her building is actually broken. The rules, which apply to every unfortunate apartment in her broken building, are as follows:

1) The heat will only work between the hours of 4-6am, and 8-10pm.

2) If you wish to preset the heating control so that it is ready to go at those times, should you not be home or alert when it's time to flick the switch, you must pay for gas during the time that it wasn't actually working.

3) If you aren't available during the 4 hours that the building allows you to heat your apartment, and you don't preset the heating control, you may as well open all of your windows and hope that a warm gust of air blows in, because your apartment is going to be mother fucking cold. Buy a hat.

"That is too dumb to be true", was the only possible response. Part of my brain died as she explained that her fiance, who is Korean, had argued the matter at length with the building manager, to no avail. Not only is it true, but it's not just a matter of Random Foreigner Not Getting It (as is occasionally the case with yours truly).

Since hearing of this, I have made a point of complaining about it several times a day. Frankly, I don't have any of my own shit to complain about this week and don't feel entirely whole unless I do. This serves as an appropriate substitute until trouble finds me again.

Swollen Face, Tired Hair

As opposed to simply telling me that I looked like I hadn't slept in three days like they usually do, a couple of my students decided that today was the day to get creative. The first asked me why my face was "swollen", and the second advised me that I had "tired hair". The first laughed at the second and informed her that the hair comment was rather rude. The swollen face comment? Totally acceptable, apparently.

Honestly, being told that I look like an exhausted bag of crap every day, even on those rare occasions that I don't, doesn't really bug. It bores. I do often look like a tired bag of crap. Given how little I try to appear otherwise, I'm quite okay with this. I just wish that I could train the few students that are still stuck on this point to say more interesting things. As it is, they mean well, so I smile and nod; a boring response.

Sometimes, Korea is Magical.

As I posted the other day, I lost a couple important pieces of plastic over the weekend. I suspect that they fell out one of the times that I clunked my wallet on the bar Friday night, or possibly when I was throwing it around in a taxi shortly thereafter. Either way, dumb.

I don't ever lose things.

I've never lost my passport.

Or my driver's licence (largely because I don't drive).

I've never lost my cell phone.

Or my wallet (except for those two times that I left it at the library. I was 14 and a world away, so this doesn't count).

I've never lost anything that matters.

This was out of character. I'm tempted to say that this is kind of carelessness is why I stopped drinking in the first place, but really, I didn't lose a single personal belonging that time that I fell on my head, and that was much stupider. I don't lose things. I just don't. It's a control thing. Or maybe I'm possessive; it's true, I don't even take my purse off at work. Let's just say it's some form of Crazy and let it be.

While the bank card is the less important of the two, they wouldn't issue me another unless I showed them my Alien Registration Card. Fair enough. Seeing as I didn't have that either, this was inconvenient.

Then, magic happened.

Late this evening, I received a text from work that my bank card had turned up in Sajik. I was nowhere near Sajik. Somebody found my card, either in a taxi, a bar, or wherever, held on to it all weekend, and took the time to turn it into my bank the next business day. Then, the bank used the card to pull up my file, contact my school, and detail how I could go about retrieving it.

Of course that happened.

Much thanks is owed to whichever individual or business is responsible for this. I'll add this one to the Things That Would Never Happen at Home file.

My Contract Extension: is it March yet?

I feel like pizza, but the closest pizza place to my apartment is a 10 minute walk. 15, if I miss the lights, which I would. If I hadn't been too lazy to brush up on my pizza-ordering vocabulary, I'd order in. Of course, I was. I'm contemplating relearning it. The pizza hole that is my stomach will undoubtedly desire to be filled at least a few more times over the next four and a half months. Still, lazy. I need more incentive.

This is the week that I'm supposed to sign my contract extension. This is the weekend that I lost my Alien Card. These are not compatible events. I seem to think I need one thing for the other to process. It will work itself out, as these thing do.

Why extend my stay in a place where I have previously stated that I no longer want to be? The alternative, Ontario in January, is balls. Cold. Inhospitable. Few places hiring. Even the temp agencies are dried up at that time. March. I can tolerate March. It will probably still snow, because Ontario's bitchy like that, but it could be worse: January. My most hated month comes to Busan, too, so this isn't my only reason. There's also the obvious: I don't actually hate it here. I merely hate many, many things about Here. That's the story Anywhere.

The Plan is to return to Ontario in March. For a month. Then, once I've properly healed, I'll be ready to resume a love-hate relationship with Somewhere Else. I'm thinking Japan, Turkey, or Oman.

Select Weekend Musings

• Faces are hard. Don't hit them. Should you insist on hitting one, and it belongs to a drunk fellow, make sure that he stays down after you hit him. Otherwise, whoops.

• A family holiday spent in the back of a packed bar, in the company of near-strangers, is roughly as unstimulating as I imagined it.

• It's easy to make friends here. Making friends that not only accept every last neurotic characteristic I have to offer, but realize those are the things which make me Me? Less easy. It sucks when people leave.

• I spent two years trying to redefine myself, only to realize that there was nothing wrong with the original definition. Regression or growth through acceptance? To be determined at a later date.

• If I believed in that sort of thing, I'd be thankful to the guardian angels who were looking over me this past weekend. As it stands, I will just thank the stars instead.

Happy Chuseok.

Why is Jesus Wearing Hockey Pads?

On the way out my friend's door last night I noticed picture taped to the door. The dog ear on the upper left corner was drooping so much that it covered half of the drawing, indicating that it had been hanging there for a while. Despite spending most of my Monday evenings in that apartment, watching trashy TV programs, I hadn't noticed it before. Or perhaps I previously noted and had since forgot; This seems more likely.

The drawing was made on white printer paper with a single blood-red marker. A lonely stick-man was depicted, in a scene that looked suspiciously like the crucifixion. He hung from a single plank of wood, which his arms were spread out on. Blood gushed from the stick-man's arms and fell into pools below him. Large rectangular objects appeared to be attached to his legs - This part didn't quite fit.

"Uh.... why?" I pointed at it.
"A student gave it to me. I ... don't know."
"You didn't ask him for an explanation?"
"I'd really rather not know," the proud owner of the piece explained.
"It looks like the crucifixion of Jesus, except this time he wore hockey pads. Why is Jesus wearing hockey pads?"

My friend glanced at me in disgust and pointed out that the "artist" was an elementary student, who couldn't possibly have thoughts like this; that only my 27-year-old mind would come up with something that demented. Usually true, but this time not. This piece was clearly inspired work, by a child who didn't realize that hockey wasn't really a thing back then.

I have no problem believing that children can be that demented. I was one once.

Sorry, no photo. I thought of asking my friend to take one but figured that he'd boot me out once he realized I wanted it for internet purposes. I may try to sneak one next week.

I'm Out There, Somewhere.

After three months of getting to sleep in until 9 or 10am, I'm back on the barely-morning shift. Getting up before the clock hits 6 isn't as bad as it sounds. Though I'm out early enough to see the drunks keel over into their vomit on the corner, I'm home again before the morning rush hour has even begun. It's not all bad.

Last time I went this long without posting, a couple of folks from home expressed concern. They do this. That's why I keep them at home. So, let it be known that I'm out there, somewhere, doing just dandy. No better or worse than usual, really. I just forgot to post any of the things that I wrote this month. It happens from time to time.

Hate at First Sight

Every month, I walk into my new classes and I hate them on sight. It's not personal. I just hate everybody that I don't know; those in the classroom are no exception.The feeling usually passes once I share a few words with them and am forced to accept them as people, but up until that point? Hate.

Okay, hate is a bit strong. I'm exaggerating, as I do. Hate indicates a degree of caring, which doesn't exist in this case. Apathy or, at worst, distrust would be more appropriate. Whatever it is, while I follow something resembling the social code which I was taught (holding open doors for people, not cutting in line, and other such blah), people that I don't know don't really register as real people.

Midway through the second day of class, once I've attached names to faces and seen a glimpse of personality, I come around to the idea that my students are real people. By the end of the first week, we're all pretty tight, such that I can cater my lesson plans to each of their individual learning styles and personalities. By the end of the month, I can even imagine that some of them exist outside of the classroom; this is in part because they insist that I have a drink with them, an invite which I rarely decline.

When classes come to a close each month, all the names, which went with faces, most of which had personalities, move on. A new sea of nameless faces, which I hate on sight, then grow to see as people, and finally like, maybe just a little bit, replace the old.

It's an exhausting process.

I Wanna Be Your Dog

Saw a t-shirt with this wonderful combination of words screaming from it.

Want this t-shirt.

Everything else is bad.

It will pass.

This is Why I Should Learn More Korean

Knowing very little Korean has served me well in some situations. Less so in others. I don't actually condone refusing to learn the language of the cow you're milking. It is undoubtedly more advantageous to be able to communicate effectively in your own backyard than not. Even if you have zero interest in communicating with the locals any more than is absolutely essential (odd, but this level of social retardation does exist), then wouldn't it at least be nice to have the satisfaction of knowing that your taxi driver understands that you think he's a nutless fuck weed for taking an unnecessary detour?

I stopped learning Korean because I'm lazy. Yes, Korea, you heard right: the primary reason for my having embarrassingly little knowledge of your language after almost 2 years has nothing to do with you! Once I acquire what I believe to be a reasonable understanding of something, I move on to something else. What you and I consider to be a "reasonable understanding of something" probably differs. Feel free to do whatever it is that you do. After learning to read Korean, count, say some useful phrases, and have a gist of what somebody was saying about 10% of the time, I moved on to something else. Then, something else after that. Probably not productive things, but things, nonetheless.

Every now and then I consider studying Korean again, only to realize that my motivations for doing so are less than pure. Once you realize that the only phrases you wish to learn in a language are insulting ones, then the world is better off without you knowing it. Or, so I thought. As it turns out, I really probably should have learned a variety of Korean insults, words for genitalia, and other such things.

The other day, my afternoon writing class was working on an essay. I had to put them in teams; they get fussy if they have to do solo writing too many days in a row (God forbid independent thought flow freely). Obviously you can't be a team without a team name, so the students were asked to come up with a snappy name for their pair. Unfortunately, they weren't very forthcoming with ideas on that. They rarely are. Being lazy and uncreative myself, I decided to combine the first syllable of each of their names. Hence, Teams JoKa (John and Kate) and JaJi (Jake and Jinny) were created.

Nobody really responded to Joka, which I was quite amused with because I thought it sounded like "joker". This really isn't funny at all but sometimes, when I get bored, these are the things that keep me going. While I was busy amusing myself by saying Joka, I noticed that the class was still snickering over Jaji. Having no idea why Jaji (Korean: 자지) was so funny to them, I made a point of calling them by their team names for the rest of the class, just to elicit giggles.

At the end of class, one of the guys hesitated on his way out the door. "What's up?" I asked, in language slightly more professional than that. "Barbie, you know... you know that jaji has... maybe kind of a bad meaning... right?" Blink. It hadn't even dawned on me that my random combination of syllables meant something in Korean (in hindsight, it should have and I'm a tool for not realizing this). In short, yes, as you probably already deduced, I had in fact been referring to half of my class as "Team Penis".

Apparently the students assumed that I knew what 자지 meant, thought I was being funny, so nobody told me to cut it out. While I did think I was being funny, it was because I think that random syllables sound funny together - not because I had any idea that 자지 actually meant something. I apologized to the student and explained that (knowingly) making jokes of that nature is completely inappropriate and unprofessional, so of course I had no idea what I had been saying. I addressed the issue again the next day at the beginning of class for those students that weren't there when I owned up to my ignorance. They had a good laugh at my expense, while I pretended to be above Penis Jokes (not a total lie; in the classroom, sexual humour is a no-go zone).

I haven't told my supervisor yet, though I suspect that when I do he'll laugh in my face for a while, like my other coworkers did. This, followed by "you're an idiot", is the appropriate response.

Teacher-Student Attachment Issues

Whether or not I like my students is unimportant. Some of them are good people; some of them are bad people; most of them just sort of are. Wherever they fall, they're all the same once they walk into the classroom. Good or bad, sometimes they say absurd things. One time one of my students proposed that "Western people are lazy because they demand overtime pay, unlike Koreans, who have excellent work ethic". Had I taken the time to process that, break it down, and explain to her that this was absurd, I would have sprouted a few white hairs in the process and she'd still think the same thing. It can be difficult for me not to out students as complete fucking idiots when they utter things like this, but instead either silently accept that they are idiots and move on with the lesson, or accept that perhaps they're not idiots and that various factors which are beyond their control have contributed to what I perceive as a demented World view. Whatever it is, it is what it is, and I consider it part of my job to accept it, ignore it, and just teach English.

Students, whether they are good people, bad people, or somewhere in between, occasionally ask more of me than what I consider appropriate. This is largely a cultural thing. With very few exceptions, I find it bizarre to socialize with my students outside of class - even though they're all, technically, adults. I do it from time to time, because I tend to just roll with the punches here, but I don't love it. Hanging out with students generally makes me feel like I'm working on my free time. Once I've thrown somebody into the Student Box, it's very, very difficult for them to crawl out and find their way to the Friend Box. As evidenced by recent events with a former student, boundaries are a good thing.

The first day this student walked into my class, I didn't like him. It wasn't anything that he had done, yet; it was that I immediately hate almost all old men here on sight. While this is surely the result of numerous incidents over the last couple of years in Korea that involved poorly socialized (by my standards, of course), repugnant old men, I have no issue acknowledging that this is completely prejudiced. In truth, I teach many older gentlemen, and they tend to be no better or worse than the rest. Rationally, I know this. Yet, I continue to hate them on sight, and eventually get over it once I get to know them as individuals. I am what I am.

After a couple months of this particular student walking into my class, he still rubbed me the wrong way. I dealt with it, because one-on-one lessons are good money for the school. It's my job to teach English; it's also my job to make sure that students continue to want me to teach English. I dealt with it, because while he seriously creeped me out, it's not important that I like my students and he hadn't really done anything truly inappropriate. Yet.

Over those couple months, Creepy Married Student's behaviour got progressively weirder. Some of this was the result of how I perceived his behaviour, due to cultural differences. Some really was him being fucking weird. First there was his request to call me his daughter. Then there was the never ending flow of gifts. English lessons interrupted by his sharing of family photo albums. Setting up dinners with his wife on class time. Trying to give me an envelope of cash as "allowance", like I was actually his child (while I refused to take it, I probably wouldn't think less of somebody else if they took it). The weird emails about family values, how to live a beautiful life, individualism is bad, and a bunch of loopy hogwash that I can't be bothered to repeat, which he undoubtedly found on some cult website somewhere.

In the beginning, I visited my supervisor and alerted him that this student was more than just a little bizarre. I made it clear that I wasn't trying to get out of the lessons; the student had already told me that he was going to quit if he had to deal with another teacher. I was merely sharing that this guy was seriously weird. I followed this up by reporting every other bizarre thing that this guy did. His behaviour became a bit of an inside joke between the supervisor and myself.

Then the student got needy. I hate needy people. Their constant need for approval. Their inability to do anything without reassurance. Useless. Creepy Married Student noticed my refusal to move him out of the Student Box and questioned why I couldn't return the "family love" which he was apparently extending. I wrote him back to inquire if he wanted me to correct the English grammar mistakes in his email, seeing as that is actually part of my job and all. Creepy Married Student responded to this by getting increasingly needy (Hate. So much Hate), writing creepy poems, and finally confessing that he previously had romantic feelings for me which he had pushed aside for the more appropriate, "family love". He didn't seem to see anything wrong with writing this, and proceeded on with another poem about "beautiful life" and a request that I please correct his English in my response.

Fuck That Noise. Class over.

After immediately forwarding the email which officially crossed the line, (as well as all of the other borderline ones which work was already aware of) to my supervisor, I made it clear that I could not teach this guy again. It wasn't even a choice. The second I read that email, I knew that the jig was up. I could no longer put on the Yay, This School Rocks, Show Us the Money show that I'd been performing so well, and he could no longer contact me.

Within about 12 hours management completely sided with me, canceled the class, and advised me that if he tried to contact me again they would take care of it.

Boundaries are beautiful.

Saving emails is always a good idea.

As is informing your superior of any peculiar behaviour from your students, long before there may be a real problem.

If you're never anything less than completely professional, people will be less inclined to question your character.

More than anything, I was lucky. If I worked for a sham hagwon with a sham management team, they could have insisted that I continue teaching the class. There probably wouldn't have been much that I could have done about it. I would have put my foot down and job on the line over this. I did all the right things, but still needed to be lucky.

It was a good month.

I Am Fat Expat. Hear Me Chew.

Where a torn hoodie, faded jeans, massive white tennis shoes, and barely brushed hair still manages to elicit compliments, why bother?

I did my hair last week for a birthday party. This was boring; I don't intend on making a habit of it. One of my coworkers, who I have known for about a year and a half, remarked that when he knew me last year, I always looked nice like this. What happened? "Oh, I just stopped trying", I responded. He was perplexed, not quite understanding what I meant by that. Further explanation was required.

There is stereotype about female expats in Korea that you see floating around the Internet and uttered in corners of drinking holes, by people that I couldn't possibly want to have less sex with. If it is to be believed, it follows that female expats tend to be fat, loud, opinionated, ugly, bitches who are completely unmarriable. Obviously this last bit is the most damning of all insults, since the entire raison d'etre for any woman is to find a handsome man to marry and produce babies with. The richer the better. Working is for ugly chicks! Oh, fucknuts.

"You stopped trying what?", my perplexed coworker wanted to know. Wasn't it obvious? "You see", I explained, "today, I decided to brush my hair and wear blush. Last year, I did this every day. At the moment, I can't be fucking bothered. I'll brush my hair again when I go home".

There was a point sometime during my first contract where I realized that, within reason, it didn't really matter what I did. I could wake up half an hour earlier to straighten my hair and put on my best outfit, or I could pin my hair back messily and wear an unflattering sweater with slacks. As long as I showed up to class on time and brought the correct book, nobody cared.

"What about meeting guys?" my now less slightly less perplexed coworker wanted to know. I laughed at this for what I considered an appropriate period of time and started up again: "Well, Brad, I've done the expat 'dating' scene thing. Been there, done that, got bored. And I'm so negative about Korea lately that I have little interest in learning the language any more than I have to at this point; a failing attitude for breaking into the Korean dating pool, if there ever was one".

My coworker was going to break into a tirade about how the problem with female expats is that they don't get enough sex, but them he remembered that he is intelligent and doesn't actually have thoughts like this. The conversation moved to food soon after. This was excellent, since we were at a buffet and there was a lot of food to talk about.

My Wired Hiatus

A few weeks ago, I discovered The Wire. From then on, until I ran out of episodes, time that would have otherwise been spent reading, updating this blog, or writing elsewhere, was spent glued to the computer screen watching episodes, analyzing them, and reading reviews. It was a very sad period for my social life, but an enlightening experience as a TV fangirl. Not that anybody asked, but Season 4 of The Wire is the best season of television that I've ever seen, and while I'm at a loss of what the Hell to do with myself now that I've run out of episodes, I can't bring myself to start on another show just yet.

(How exactly somebody who claims to be a TV dweeb went this long without watching The Wire is beyond explanation. I'm a bit of a farce.)

In between episodes of The Wire, life has just sort of happened. The eclipse came and went, though the combination of cloudy skies in Seomyeon and my digital camera of questionable quality resulted in poor evidence of this. I've lifted the following photo from my friend Melisa, who had a better view in Minam (my old stomping ground). Also, probably better photography skills.

I tried to blame it on the camera, but compared and found that our cameras are of similar quality. I now suspect that my camera is faulty, and thus, still largely responsible.

My failure to notice when the eclipse was actually happening may also have played a role.

Eclipses Are Exciting.

I've been a big old bag of crazy lately and it's been leaking out in the form of general crankiness. Boo hoo. It will pass. Apparently, so will the moon. Between the sun and the earth. Over Korea (and much of the rest of Asia, but who cares about them). Tomorrow, between 930 and 1130am. I'm just geeky enough that this snapped me out of my funk and gave me something to look forward to Wednesday morning, but only after I wondered why none of my students had mentioned it yet. Surely some of them are dweebs? Hopefully none of them stare directly at it, though I suspect that at least a few will.

I'm suddenly reminded of that episode of Heroes where the eclipse caused everybody to temporarily lose their superpowers. This resulted in several meaningless plot points, which ended with as much predictability as the writers could have possibly fathomed. In other words, it was just like every other episode of Heroes, but with an eclipse. Thank goodness for hiatus.