Jobs in the US? Do we still make those?

It’s high time for me to look for what I will do when I go back to the US at the end of August 2010.  I have some cultural complaints about living in Korea.  But leaving the job, the money, the lifestyle, my friends.  Damn.  That is going to be hard.  

This job is fun, undemanding, rewarding, and I’m guessing better than anything I will get back home.  But perhaps I guess too cynically.  

Conflicted? Aye aye, captain.

Scrumptious: I love their buttery buns

Oh Korea.  The King of Buns.

(Parenthetical Activity)

Because I live in Korea, I will go see any movie if it’s in English.  I have to say that first before I tell you that I saw Paranormal Activity.  I believe I heard that the movie cost sixty bucks to make.  Maybe seventy.  It couldn’t have been more.  If only they had the cash to hire actors and writers.  

The actors were good at convincing me they were freaked out, but crap at acting naturally or being engaging.  I am assuming there wasn’t a script, and they were told to improvise most of it.  Lame.  Let the bad actors do the writing.  Brilliant idea.

My friends were flipping out.  Katie said she was so tense she could vomit.  I told her that if she did, she would be repaying me for my movie ticket.  Alas, I was not reimbursed.  Near the end Katie tried to clutch at Shannon’s hand because she was so afraid, but instead grabbed her nose.   

Personally, I don’t like horror flicks, and if I am suckered into seeing one (i.e there is nothing else to do) I will writhe with the most nervous, nail biting of them.  (Though I haven’t bit my nails in months, and let me say how lovely they are.)  But usually it’s all horror pornish (oh, look at that hot chick writing in pain) and I hate that they always have to murder the protagonist ghoulishly.  

I’ve been watching a lot of movies in my second year here.  Yup.

(What if I started out a paragraph with parenthesis?  Could my university revoke my English degree?)

Robot Dance

The other night three of my friends and I grabbed some expensive and delicious Indian food.  Molly and I split the most expensive meal on the menu.  There was salad, samosas, chicken tandori and prawn tandori, chicken makhani, nan, rice, drinks and a dessert.  Like I said, the most expensive meal.  Katie and Jessica ordered reasonably.  But when it came time to pay, the Korean waitress (it was mainly staffed by foreigners, maybe Indians) gave Katie and Jessica a bill that was 30,000 won more than mine.  Between Molly and I, the bill was 52,000 won, but they were asking Katie and Jessica to pay a total of 70,000 won.  Katie and Jessica obviously wanted to find out what the glitch was, because the amount was absurd.  Katie borrowed the Korean waitress’ calculator and added up all of the items.  The total, via the calculator, was accurate.  About 40,000 won.  But the calculator didn’t convince the Korean waitress.  At this point I would have been tearing out my hair and spitting on the waitress, but Katie has the patience of a saint, or an elementary school teacher, which she is.  I don’t know how many times Katie added up the items and the amount came out the same- 40,000 won.  Now, I should probably say that we come to this restaurant fairly regularly, and you can just tell that this waitress isn’t attempting to scam anybody.  This is how the people work in Korea.  You are taught one way to do something, and one way only.  You charge people the amount the computer says, conflicting evidence and reality be damned.  Jessica, who speaks the most Korean of all of us, tried to convey as much as possible to this waitress that the total just didn’t make sense.  It probably took fifteen minutes to get it all sorted out.  And I thought I was bad a math.

It’s an example of the frustrating way this culture has taught its people.  And it teaches the hell out of them-they’re in class from 8 in the morning to 10 at night, or later.  They are churning out robots at an alarming pace.

Here are some more robots: outside of the five stores that have about seventeen floors of repetitive and intense retail stalls, there are stages.  Outside of every one of them.  Sometimes on these stages there are DJ’s and teenagers or twenty-somethings who volunteer to be a part of a dance contest.  They play the five current k-pop songs and the super shy dancers (didn’t they WANT to do this) copy the dance from the music video.  I witnessed it last night.  I bought some pants at one of the stores, Doota, bless them with their small but still existent stalls for larger sizes, and Molly and I watched these shy dancers.  So weird.  On more than one occasion I’ve seen stages that have been erected for the soul purpose of having singers do covers of the latest k-pop songs blasting from every store.  Weird weird robots with bad music.  

As much as I like to disparage this kind of crap, Korea is one of a kind so far.  Starting after WWII they built themselves into a world power out of nothing.  Nothing.  Sure, Japan and Germany had to build themselves back up.  But they’d already been world powers.  They had people who knew how to do it.  Go Korea.

At my favorite coffee shop…

…and listening to the music they are playing reminds me of this: never ever remake Beatles songs.

Rolling in the Won

I was paid when I expected.  I checked my balance at the bank, and I was so pleased  that I withdrew 50,000 won and promptly left the money in the machine.  (The ATMs in Korea have a compartment that opens up to give you your money.  You have to reach inside.)  I didn’t lose a large amount or anything, but it’s still 50,000 won I’d rather have had myself.

I played darts five times this week.  That was about three more times than necessary.  And when I say played, I mean played for many hours straight.  I’ve been staying up till dawn or not far from it.   I could carry home groceries with the bags under my eyes.  Molly is my accomplice, and my enabler.  I shall not play darts six days, at least.  Though on my fifth day a guy we play darts with was kind enough to give me his old ones.  So now I have my own.  I think that makes me look kind of cool.  The tiny Filipina bartender at what has quickly become our bar of choice to play darts was looking for some too.    I tried to give her the ones he gave me because she said she wouldn’t ask any of the military guys there because then they’d think she owed her something.  (Koreans love the hell out of pool, but they don’t seem to play much darts, and I haven’t been able to find any.  After playing that bartender this week I mentioned I wanted my own, and she asked that if I found any to pick some up some for her. )  Anyway, she wouldn’t take them, and god knows what she thought I’d think she owed me.  It was sad.  They’re just used darts, and I can get on an American military base to buy my own.  

Last night I helped my friend Annie sell raffle tickets at her friend’s fundraiser.  It was for this school for poor and orphaned children in Cambodia.  Her friend is going to be working there in a month.  I liked doing it.  Ah, taking people’s money.  Delightful.  I revisited my service industry days, except I got to imbibe.  Annie raised over 500,000 won in prizes, though we made less than that from the raffle.  I took a very disrespectful photo of myself holding up the cash we’d raised.  Classless.

My nails are so long that it’s sick.  Tonight they die.

Broke is me

There were four days when I thought I could go to Hawaii for winter vacation.  I vowed to be a thrifty hermit to get myself there, but even that wouldn’t have stretched my paycheck far enough.  Instead I am spending my vacation playing darts and drinking.  I’ve played darts for hours (hours!) a total of four days this week.  I’m a little tired of it now.

Today is the 22nd, and payday is the 24th, but the 24th falls on the weekend.  According to our contracts, if payday falls on the weekend we are paid that Friday.  It is that Friday, and I’m crossing my fingers and hoping to see my month’s paycheck in my account at 6pm.

Living in Seoul the way us English teachers do is so far from the real world, or at least the financial world that awaits us Americans when we return home.  I’ve never taught myself any financial responsibility.  Woe is me, woe is me.

She’s a dart board wizard

Some people have religion, I have darts.  I stayed up after 4 a.m playing.  

Some people have lives, I have darts.  

Give me a couple more weeks and I’ll beat anybody.

Get some baby powder to go with my pampering

I met Molly at our favorite brunch place in Hyewha, Comfort Zone.  Despite the sporty kind of name, the place is decorated all in jewel colored fabrics, exotic and arty.  The word brocade comes to mind, also satin.  I would need my friend Maria there to name and number the textiles.  The place is two floors. There are lots of couches, and small chandeliers and some cool photography on the walls.  Based on the knick-knacks the owners have either traveled a good deal, or there is a Korean sort of World Market I haven’t found.  But personally I think they’ve travelled.  You can tell when Koreans have had some sustained contact with other countries.  Moving on. Brunch is delicious and only costs 5,000 won, though they only cook the eggs scrambled.   The owners are adorable and they speak English quite well.  It’s usually very slow for brunch, which blows my mind, but is also good for me because I can always sit where I want.  

Yesterday was my second day of freedom from teaching for the next two months.  TWO.  I really recommend the public school system for anyone looking to teach in Korea.  But I digress.   Molly and I pampered ourselves in Hyewha, as is our custom.  After brunch we got our bangs trimmed.  I got a wash and a blow dry because now that my hair is healthy, the damned thing can’t absorb oil the same way it used to and it has  to be washed everyday.  Gross.  I’ve been growing my hair long.  I’m having a hard time digging it right now.  I think it makes me look like a little girl.  After the salon we went and got more coffee at the best god damn coffee shop in Seoul, De Chocolate Coffee.  I inflicted some of my goofy videos on Molly, a la the ones I post here, and in them I had short hair.   She agreed that I did look good in it.  She also got a tad bit bored looking at my videos.  Some people have no taste.  

More pampering in the form of shopping happened.  I lost a lot of money on the deal.  Instead of getting a manicure, our oringinal plan, we opted to see a movie.  Because really, we do have to look after our money.  Ahem.   We saw half or more than half of Little Ashes, the embarrassing docudrama about a young Salvidore Dali and his unrequited romance  with a Spanish poet and revolutionary.  I can’t remember the guy’s name.  Why they cast wooden, British, beauty queen Robert Pattinson of the Twilight movies as Dali I can’t guess.  It was so cringe worthy.  The clandestine romance between the two young artists was totally devoid of any any any sexual tension.  What the hell?  Two hot dudes and not a spark. Bad accent from Pattinson, boring script (lots of covert looks and smoking and imbibing of beverages), the sense of time was way off, the background paintings were cheesy, there was some sort of civil war going on, but you wouldn’t tell from the story hardly.  It sucked.  It also starred some startling hair, ie Pattinson’s pubes, plus a really atrocious wig in the beginning.  If there is one thing that gets my goat in movies, it’s goofy fucking wigs.  Good on Korea though for bringing an art-house, gay romance to their mainstream theaters.  

We tried to soothe our bad-movie inflicted pains by playing darts.  There are lots and lots of billiard rooms in Seoul.  The first one we went into every table was full, there weren’t any darts, plus some young asshole saw two foreign chicks enter a room where only young Korean men were playing, and he blatantly was pointing us out to his drunk friend and laughing.  I was super rude to him, stared him down, told him hello in the impolite form.  In general it is my rule that it’s okay to threaten Korean men.  They are small and they back down from anything.  Also my time in the classroom is spent having authority over teenage Koreans, and frankly these dudes in the pool hall don’t look much older.  The next pool hall had only tables without pockets, and you get four balls I think.  We had no idea what that was.  The third place had darts, but it was some fool electronic darts.  It was decidedly stupid, so after playing one game we high-tailed it to the foreigner district Itaewon.  I thoroughly whooped Molly, mostly because she’s competitive and she was getting too worked up.  She said she was bad, but I think she has it wrong.  I’m just very good.  

We got a late late dinner of gyros.  Some very drunk and very ghetto military came into the little gyro joint.  I’ve heard less cussing in a Tarantino flick.  They also sounded really aggressive with everybody.  Kinda freaked me out a bit.  Makes me appreciate how we make the Koreans feel, as we are hands-down louder and more confrontational.  

Yeah, so that is what I did yesterday.

There are a lot of serial killers in Miami

Not only did winter camp end today, but I finished watching the only four seasons available of Dexter.  I miss them both.  And with both done, I’ll get more personal chores under way.  

Generally I eschew television, believing it’s all crap, which it mostly is, and pretending I was designed for loftier pursuits.  Dexter is excellent though.  The third season dragged in the middle, and the flashbacks with Michael C. Hall (Dexter Morgan) as a younger man in a wig were kind of goofy.   But otherwise,  fucking awesome.  The setting of Miami is perfect too.  No noir, brooding metropolis here.   I don’t usually dig violence, but  the premise is dark, absurd and hilarious, and the show thankfully spares us a lot of gore.  Not to mention it doesn’t play into the horror porn genre, which is disgusting and why when I go on and on ( and on and on) about this to my friends they aren’t more repulsed and enlightened I can’t figure out.  

The show also has me yearning for Cuban food.  That isn’t a likely find in Seoul.  At least we have Mexican restaurants.