Ten months is closer than it seems

Life in Korea is sweet.  I go to a swanky gym, I have good friends and more money that I know how to save.  I really dig living by myself.  I am keeping up some study, and enjoy most aspects of my job, and I keep a nice daily schedule.  Things are good, but things aren’t third year worth.  I leave in August, but the first year went past so fast, and so far this year is keeping up the same pace.  I’ll have to and want to leave this zone of contentment, because honey, my life and career prospects and education aren’t going to go far here.  

For a month or two I really believed that, if accepted, I would go into the Peace Corps.  After going on summer vacation, that idea went cold pretty fast and it hasn’t been resuscitated.  With research, something pretty will show up.  

 

Opposite of Bum Gloves

Jongam Middle School Halloween Party

Telling the students a scary story at our Halloween party

A gaggle of cutesy first grade students

Story time continues. That orange balloon is my baby.

Your Chaos is like a Vacation

Work has been chaotic due to Seoul’s panic over HINI, which still is only as deadly as our typical seasonal flu.  Two teachers have been out sick.  Sick with what, I don’t know.  Instead of hiring subs, the administration has rearranged the schedule, which meant that Wednesday was my busiest day with a total of three classes.  Three classes is usually my lightest day.  My classes are usually levelled, and they are not now, so I’ve been showing movies.  For some reason today and Friday we only have morning classes, and when I asked why the Babysitter had no explanation.  Yesterday the gruff groundskeepers came and sprayed a mysterious white gas into the office and at our desks which I was told was to disinfect the office because one of the teachers who went home sick works in this office.  There is lots of talk of schools closing for a week or two weeks to stop the spread of the virus.  There have been a lot of false alarms.  News from one of the English teachers changes from one minute to the next.  Generally things are last minute and in constant upheavel, but honest this feels like a holiday.  An incredibly light schedule, plus it’s cold outside.  I linger over lunch in the teacher’s room, just enjoying the company, especially of the older women.   Hey, when you miss a community and a family, you’ll take what you can get. 

The ginko trees have bright yellow leaves, and half are on the ground now.  I can smell them. I want to pile them up and jump in them, which always leaves you damp.  A neighbor of mine in college saw me doing that and said there’s probably dog shit in there.  

I haven’t been to the gym often this week, which makes me a little on edge.  Tomorrow morning, dark and early, I’ll go.

Never Has Instant Coffee Meant So Much

I brought a big plastic bottle of Folger’s instant coffee from the states a year ago.  I don’t dig instant coffee.  It was a purchase of survival.  Coffee is a staple of the Brianaistan.  My people live on it, yo. 

Of course, between then and now I was lured by the shamefully sweet Korean instant coffee, which they have in abudnace, and eventually I weened myself off of it.   I brought my Folger’s instant coffee to work in the case of emergencies.

Well, woe was fucking me today when I found that someone threw it out.  You assholes.  It was an AMERICAN brand.  Who in the office would you have needed to ask, if you wanted to clean up the desk?  The ten Koreans, the one Chinese teacher, or ME.    The god damned AMERICAN. 

To calm my ire the Babysitter has given me chocolate.  She is wise.

Speaking Test

The easiest speaking tests to grade are for the students who didn’t do any of the work.  Your zeros save my time.

Slow Sunday, boo

I’ve taken my before picture, which I will post with an after photo in 60 days.  (I’ll say this now, my apartment’s lighting did not flatter my knees.)

It’s been a slow Sunday.  I did a little grocery shopping.  Before that I watched this movie I’d never heard of called New York, I Love You.  It was over-the-top, melodramatic, and without an ounce of comic relief.  Apparently most everyone in NYC is a caucasian artist type.  There was about a minute of a non-white taxi driver speaking, and there was a segment that did feature a man I’m going to say was Indian, but other than that, so so white and so so tortured.  I left the theater about three quarters of the way through.

To steal the internet I have to keep my window up

Even though it sounds cool, do NOT drink two cups of black coffee and go lift weights.  Hello heartburn!  (This is advice I give from personal experience)

Went to see my friend Amanda’s first belly dance performance at a bar in the foreigner district, Itaewon. It was below ground and everything was painted black.  My first drink was a whiskey sour.  Amanda looked really beautiful. I don’t really care for belly dancing, though.  I liked to watch Amanda dance, but the rest of it was a snoozer because hey, I’m a straight chick, there is only so long I can watch sexy girls do sexy, undulating dances.  That doesn’t exactly hold my attention, especially when they were dancing to recorded music, not live music.  Amanda said I was snarky for that remark.  One of the girls in Amanda’s troupe fire danced, which was badass and totally held my attention. 

Before, in the afternoon, I got a manicure and a pedicure.  Who am I?   

I’ve been a lot more focused on my body recently.  That feels good.  I have a lot of scrubby good smelly things, I keep up a decent diet and exercise regularly. I listen to a lot of podcasts and keep my room very tidy.  This is also new and feels good.  So far I’m doing what I intended with my second year in Korea, except for that pesky business of lining up my next gig.  Well, it’s only October.

Oh yeah, did I mention I’m still a non-smoker?  Since January  I’m so proud.

Seriously, is this how you treat your friends? And other reasons why Koreans need to treat their bodies with more care

I had a bit of a lousy day at work.  I walked out on one very very very rude class, leaving my co-teacher to deal with them.  I’ve been teaching here for a little over a year, which admittedly doesn’t make me very experienced, but I can say that this small class of D level girls is the worst, rudest class I’ve ever had, and that these girls snide attitude is increased by my co-teachers total oblivian to about 80% of their behavior.  There are several girls who even the best of Jongam’s teachers can’t control, and thos three infects the other students.  I don’t feel like they deserve time with the native speaking English teacher, also known as me.  I don’t think I will be able to convince anyone else of that, either.

Last week I’d had a big problem with the same class, though the real problem was with my coteacher, the notorious Ms. Kim, aka Guppy Fish.  Three girls were mocking a handicapped student, and I flipped my shit on them just a wee bit after class.  Ain’t nothing that’ll make me more angry than watching the stronger pick on the weak.   To solve the problem of the ineffectual coteacher and the bad students, I was told that I can just send the bad kids to the second floor classroom.  Sometimes I forgot.  So instead of, for instance, sending the student who called me an idiot in Korean to the second floor, I sent myself to the lunchroom.  Whoops.

See, I didn’t remember about the arrangement we’d come to about how to handle students in that class because mostly I was distracted by the way my co-teacher handled the incident.  I watched three girls mock the movements of the handicapped girl, and I wanted steps to be taken to stop the behavior and punish them or threaten them with punishment.  Guppy Fish spoke to the students, reported to me that the students said they weren’t mocking the handicapped kid, so she didn’t want to punish them.  Naughty little teen girls were believed over me, their teacher.  So while losing my fucking head over this incredible nonsense by the most air-headed teacher at our school, I forgot about the second floor bullshit.

Anyway. Fuck.  

On my way to my last class today, a class of 15 year old boys were hangingo outside of their locked classroom and beating the crap out of each other.  Even more so than what I’ve seen to be normal for Korea.  And Koreans have a way higher tolerance for play fighting, which is totally distressing to me at times when I can tell that some people on the receiving end aren’t really having fun, or when it disrupts the classroom.  I walked through this out-of-control class, and kept going down the hall.  They were so out of control, I was afraid I’d get hit.  I turned back to make sure they hadn’t broken anyone’s neck, and they were dog piling on each other.  It had to be about ten kids in all, and more coming, and there, unlocking the classroom door, smiling serenly and totally not giving a fuck, was their teacher.

And then I lost it. 

Last Friday, late at night, a college student had his dead-drunk friend in the middle of the street.  He was trying to move him by kicking him in the ribs, dragging him across the pavement, pulling him up by his wrist and letting him fall back to the pavement, his head smacking the ground.  I’m a teacher, and I’m also a bit drunk on rice wine, and I yell at him.  Is this how you fucking people treat your fucking friends? 

There are so many drunks here, and nobody is looking after them.  They are so drunk they can’t walk straight, it’s like their made of rubber.  These people are always so close to falling in the street.

What the fuck?  So I didn’t teach my last class, because the pressure got to me, and I had to cry for a few minutes. 

Holy shit Korea, I dig the ondol heating and your public transportation and the way you share food, but teach your kids to respect other kid’s body’s, look after people a little, even if they aren’t in your close circle.

Eventually my friends and I convinced the asshole college kid to take his really drunk friend to the taxi, and by that I mean coach Dan lifted this drunk fuck  and carried him across his shoulders to a taxi.

Weight Lifting is Good / Why Coach Why?

It’s amazing how fast my body has changed and my strength has increased after less than a week of weight lifting.  And cardio.  And taekwondo.  Feels good.  

On Friday night Katie and I grabbed a drink with our Canadian taekwondo coach, Dan, and his Korean girlfriend, Yumi. We were drinking a Korean rice wine.  After taking photos of us all wearing the blonde wig Katie had just bought for Halloween and drinking several cups of delicious rice wine, Dan started telling me about how he believed in Planet X over this Jesus stuff. Of course, I’m a staunch athiest, so why I’m getting this lecture is a bit beyond me.  What’s just as likely, he said, is that out there in this orbit perpendicular to ours is a mysterious planet called Planet X or Nibiru, and we are the genetically altered slaves of the planet’s super intelligent lizard-beings, and that every time Nibiru passes our orbit there is near apocalyptic devestation, which will happen in 2.5 years.  Also he told me a lot about Tesla.  I could tell that the dates he said Tesla was experimenting were off, but of all the things to correct, why that?  He said Tesla transported a ship Star Trek style to another point, and the sailors on it were terribly mangled.  There were eye witnesses and everything, according to the story, but no one would believe them.  I’m not sure how Tesla relates to Planet X.  The Lizard Kings want to repress our technological advancement to keep us happy/submissive drones?  Luckily Katie changed the subject.

Does a belief in alien overlords discredit his fitness advice?  He is strong and fit, so no.  (You should have seen the way Yumi went dead silent when the lecture of Tesla and Planet X began.  Looks like a point of contention.) It was certainly a surprising topic, even for someone like him who is proudly politically incorrect and out-spoken.

I just keep telling myself how pleased I am to have a community through my taekwondo class, and how I’m glad to be getting back into shape, and that I do know how to keep my mouth shut, which I did.

Shush shush, I tell myself, and think of Occam’s razor.