I think I just trot in my pants. Twice!

My latest Korean discovery is trot (or "teuroteu"), which is according to the (brief) Wikipedia article on it, is "the oldest form of Korean pop music." Its name derives from "foxtrot," which it more or less resembles in its beat. It's vaguely analogous to swing, and particularly the "hot swing" of a few years ago (like Squirrel Nut Zippers and that clan).

My Fifth-Graders From Hell (who first made me aware of it) all hate it, because it's fogy music, despite all their favorite K-pop groups competing in a big "trot-off" a few months ago. I thinks it's the shit. But I would.

Park Sang-Chul is apparently huge trot stuff. You can tell because he's got more dancing girls than James Brown.




And this is Super Junior Happy, who may or may not be representative of the "new trot" resurgence, but are definitely fucking awesome. Nicole, this is your official postcard from Korea.

Never a dull moment at the Sehgyeh Wehgukwoh Hagweon, Special Thanksgiving Edition

First off, no flak about the "posting every week sweartagod" thing, alright? It was the end of the month again, with all of the work horrors of grades and tests and evaluations and the like, AND I posted twice last weekend, so that like, covers this week, okay?

Never mind. No one hollered, so like, thanks for that. In fact, speaking of thanks, I got a nice little note from Dad wishing me Happy Thanksgiving, if in a slightly snarky tone. To answer your question, Dad, no, I didn't have dried fish for Thanksgiving. I had turkey. Real turkey. With cranberry sauce. And stuffing and gravy and garlic mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and ham. An honest-to-god, real American Thanksgiving spread, courtesy of Andy and the Seamen's Service Union of Busan. It was probably the weirdest thing that's happened to me in the last five months.

Honestly, I don't know if I can explain it. We (Andy, me, Robin and Ian) walked in and were greeted by Linda, who's sixty, plump, blue-rinsed, and from Oklahoma, as is her husband Earl. As was, I believe, everyone in the dining room, which itself seemed to be sixty and from Oklahoma. It had wood panelling and yellowy curtains and smelled like a grandma. Thanksgiving dinner (well, lunch, really, since we were working that day, after all, and lunch was the only time we could get there) was laid out in a buffet on three tables, from slices of turkey in a warmer all the way to slices of canned cranberry sauce on a plate. Everyone spoke English -- hell, everyone spoke American, real down-homey "Yew want CoolWhip on yer pie, hon?" Murr'can. There was both salt and pepper. It was wicked eerie. It was like we'd walked through a door in Busan and somehow ended up at a Rotarian's dinner in Topeka.

It was just so weirdly normal. I guess after five months of Planet Korea, I was a little unprepared for such typical Americana. I've been avoiding Western food for the most part, partly because I'm, ya know, in Korea and want to eat what the locals eat; partly because I didn't want to rely on the stuff I already knew; and partly because Korean "Western food" is about as American as the Panda Panda Super Buffet is Chinese. I mean, I'm finally getting used to gimchi and rice with every meal, and suddenly I'm greeted with a pumpkin-and-dried-corn centerpiece and my mind's scrambling to figure out which end is up. I think it much akin to living weightless on a space station for six months, finally getting the hang of not barfing every time you wake up, and someone suddenly switches on the gravity for an hour and gives you a meal that you don't squeeze out of a tube.

A few days ago, it hit me again. When I hit stateside, I figured out what I'm going to miss most immediately. Gimbap. I don't think I've actually explained gimbap, so allow me to enlighten you poor deprived. Gimbap is, at its most basic, Korean sushi rolls. (Though it would be more accurate to say that sushi is Japanese gimbap. Koreans, I'm led to understand, actually invented the idea of rolling up rice with bits of vegetable and stuff into rolls of that papery seaweed. The Japanese just stole it, like they do everything. The Japanese, apparently, are like the Romans of the Far East.) But gimbap is far more than raw fish and rice. They roll up everything -- carrots and onions and greens and ham and crab and egg and tuna salad and cheese and pickled radish and odeng (fish cake) and whatever else they have lying around -- and slice it and sell it for cheap. It's perfectly portable and easy bare-hands food, like sandwiches. And considering that it's a daily staple of mine, I predict I will last precisely two days in the US before I start climbing the walls. The bitch of the matter is that, to my knowledge, no Korean restaurant in the US that I've visited makes them.

*sigh* I suppose this is what they mean by "reverse culture shock." All the things that make you go "What the hell am I doing back here?" when you go home.

*sigh again* And I suppose that was kinda the point in coming out here, wasn't it?

Happy Thanksgiving, kids. I need to go find some dried fish.

More dirty, dirty politics

I've been meaning to put this up for a while. It's a nifty little 45-minute flick called Money as Debt, which I find fascinating, primarily because I have always been bit baffled by the very concept of money and a whole whole lot baffled by the idea of credit, and now I know why!

Maybe it's all batshit liberal mindrot, but if it is, it's the really good stuff that gets even Ron Paul loonies excited.

Credit where credit is due: I found this (weeks ago) on Ashlee's blog (good on you, darlin'!). I highly recommend visiting; she is both a better writer and a far more frequent updater than I am.

Never a dull moment at the Sehgyeh Wehgukwoh Hagweon, Part 3

Jeez. You guys. You'd think someone whose already spotty update record takes a six-week hit might actually lose readership. You'd think a blogger who spends most of what he does write whining about how tired he is might, I dunno, alienate a few folks. You'd think that y'all had better things to do, what with the collapse of Western Civilization and all. But no.

Which goes to prove what I've said all along: all of you sweet and loving people are plainly out of your tiny minds.

Seriously, though, I'm touched. It's not difficult to lose contact, to wait for the next go-round and pick up where things leave off; god knows I've done it plenty of times. And I'm still convinced that these posts are a bit like some vacation slideshow, where you sit and watch and go "Yeah, I get it, you really were in Korea" (only less interesting, because it's not like I actually talk about Korea all that much). So it's a thrill (a kind of weird thrill) to know that you guys really do read this stuff and really do wait for more stuff to read.

Particular shout-outs to Dad, Jesse, Lauren, Rob (thanks for that; I hate Internet people just a little bit more now), and Ronnie who posted comments the day I posted. Extra-special super hugs to Claire, who somehow actually tracked me down on my work email that like, no one has to make sure I was still alive. Excellent job, kiddo. Best. Guilt trip. Ever.

And so, just so you know all that fresh, hot guilt isn't going to waste, I'm making a promise here and now to update every week. I'm not promising it'll be good, or even long, but I do promise to get something up here once every seven days, give or take, at least to prove I'm still breathing.

So, that. I guess now I should get on with the updatin'. There definitely has been news.

Things started mostly in September with Haseyo getting sacked. Now, I can't say I didn't see it coming, but it did go down in a fairly squirrelly fashion I'm not particularly comfortable with. Here's the deal: Haseyo is -- how do I put this politely -- a shameless letch. Seriously. Love the man, and he was a stout fella to me those first couple of months, but he's a bit, uh, single-minded, and -- more to the point -- not shy about it. This is not exactly an asset in a country so socially conservative that holding hands on a first date is considered trampy. Not surprisingly, he had a bit of a reputation, and of course, that's no good. I think, considering, that Andy was building a case against him since July or before. He actually pigeonholed me about it about three weeks in, asking me about his "one-night stands;" and later, when he was driving me to the hospital after my accident, he wanted to know if the student who had helped translate for me earlier was one of Haseyo's girlfriends. And, of course, not a word to Haseyo. The whole thing was, frankly, kinda creepy. Finally in September, the day before Chuseok, Director Kim got him in his office and fired him, ostensibly for falling class attendance.

I should say here, unequivocally, that Haseyo never schtupped a student. Of this I am sure. If he had, he'd have told me. Really, he'd have told me all about it.

I guess he's landed on his feet though. He got to stay out the month and look for new work. Andy (in one of his more "what the fuck?" moments) even wrote him a recommendation letter. And so now Haseyo's in Seoul teaching kindergarten, making more than the rest of us, with his own cubicle and computer.

And Hooker Hill in walking distance.

What bugs me is that this is probably the first you've heard about this.

Well, fuck me. I just can't run out of reasons why I'm so very, very glad I'm not in the United States right now.

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1 - Armytimes.com Article

Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1 - Militarytimes.com Forums

Not a joke, kids. Check the URLs. And then freak out and leave. Or consider taking advantage of your second amendment rights.

Christ, I hate being right.

Political Interlewd

Huh. Well. So some of my additional news (which I didn't get to over the weekend; sorry) was that I voted. Absentee and online, which probably means that whatever I marked, I voted for McCain and Palin. Well, as I've been saying a lot these days, gosh, I'm glad I'm out of the country. What follows is what began as a reply to an email I got yesterday with a couple of poliblog links. Good old-fashioned paranoid liberal mind-rot, which, in this day and age, means terrifyingly likely liberal mind-rot. I recommend reading the blog posts, because they're interesting and insightful political commentary, and ignoring most of my commentary, because it's not. Except for the bit about Obama and FISA. Call me nutty, but I actually think that's important.

--- On Sat, 10/4/08, D____ wrote:
From: D_____
Subject:
To: "T_____" , "C_____" , "Niko" , "J_____"
Date: Saturday, October 4, 2008, 5:27 AM

I am sending the links to these articles only to you four, unless I get
a bite from G_____ or U_____.  I should have the confidence of my
convictions, namely the guts, to send it to them anyway, but I don't. 
This is information you probably already have but, in case you don't, I
send these to read.  The stakes are very high this November.  We really
need to take back our country.  To me, that Congress passed the
"bail-out bill" is a very, very, very bad sign.


---D_____


http://themovingtarget.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/news-from-the-vp-
debate-the-mccain-palin-coup/



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/the-battle-plan-ii-
sarah_b_128393.html

As to whether to send these on to G_____ or U_____, I hesitate to say, except to consider this: the ideologies referred to in the articles, and the ideologies of the Bush/Cheney/Rovian cabal of the last eight (or fifteen, depending on when you want to start counting) are emphatically not traditional Republican concepts. Traditional Republicans are fiscal conservatives (remember the "tax-and-spend Democrats" of the eighties?), not $630 billion war-mongers or $810 billion bailout advocates. More importantly, traditional Republicans are mostly interested in limiting centralized (i.e., Federal) government, and advocate deconcentrating power by turning it over to the individual states. They certainly aren't interested in heaping it all in one wing of the White House. Republicans, all things considered, are relatively sane folks.

These psychos aren't Republicans (as G_____ pointed out to me a couple years ago, during what was, admittedly, our one and only conversation about politics); they're Neo-Cons. And Neo-Cons are, as far as I can tell, more or less indiscriminate power-mongers. What I find deeply upsetting about them is that they appropriate Republican language in order to further their own radical goals. "No tax-and-spend" became "No new taxes," which turned into tax cuts and deregulation (for businesses and the wealthy). And, since Republicans have always tended to have more faith in laissez-faire capitalism, there's your rationale. Even Sarah Palin kept going on and on about how government has to "get outta the way" of individuals (and individual businesses), which, amazingly, is why she's for expanding vice-presidential executive power.

And, of course, what fuels all of this and gives it legitimacy is fear, both realized and imagined. Both sides tell us America isn't safe, as though safety were all that mattered. (Here is where I digress and point out that one thing that I do not like about Obama is that he voted for the FISA bill this year. You know, that bill that grants immunity to all the telecom companies like AT&T who assisted the government in its illegal wiretapping? Yeah, Obama okayed that one. And apparently Joe Biden and I are the only ones who think that wasn't cool. Chill out, kids, I still voted for him.) I often like to suggest that security and liberty are a zero-sum game -- the more you have of one, the less you have of the other. Hey, the safest neighborhoods in America are Mafia 'hoods.

Another thing I like to suggest (with a certain gleeful self-righteousness these days) is that everyone go traveling. Of the vast myriad of things Americans are scared stupid of, one of the most prevalent, insidious, and long-lasting is "dem damn furriners," particularly the brown varieties. A little worldliness gives a little perspective and dispels a lot of one's extraneous, if systemic, racism.

I'm preaching to the choir, of course. And I imagine that I'm continuing to when I say that, despite my misgivings about Obama (he's really not that radical, he really is that inexperienced, and there's that damn FISA vote), and despite the apparent shallowness of saying so, I voted for him, and not in small part because he's black.

This is an interesting assessment of Palin succinctly articulating the lingering, not-quite-conscious fears people have about Obama. Hint: it ain't the "inexperience."

"Our opponent ... is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough, that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," Palin told a group of donors in Englewood, Colo....

In her character attack, Palin questions Obama's association with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground....

Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee "palling around" with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as "not like us" is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

So there you are. Obama, I strongly suspect, is not the messiah the lefties hope for. But I don't think he'll completely suck, either. And I'm pretty sure he isn't the smiley-faced spearhead of American fascism that Sarah Palin is. The thing is, as long as he doesn't completely bollix the job (and hey, even if he does, right?), we have at least four years to get used to a presidential face that isn't fish-belly white. We might be a little less terrified of "not like us." Next go-round, we might be willing to consider another one or two, or maybe a woman, or maybe even -- gasp -- a homosexual. Call me batty, but I think a little more flavor in the stew is a good thing.

Who am I kidding? 59 million Americans, remember? See you in the re-education camps, kids.

Never a dull moment at the Sehgyeh Wehgukwoh Hagweon, Part 1

Jeez. You guys. You'd think I died or something. I'm okay. Really. Dad, don't send the Red Cross after me. What I am -- what I have been for the past month -- is wiped the hell out. September has been monumentally busy. And, so you know and have fair warning, it's not getting any better this month.

I'm not really sure where to begin. Rather a lot has occurred. Really, kinda everything has turned upside-down in thirty days.

Okay, so, work. I'll start there, since that's about eighty percent of my life these days. I think I mentioned that the sked got all gnarly on me. It looked basically like this:

6.35 am: Pour myself out of bed and into a nice pair of pants. Try to remember if I washed my hair yesterday or the day before.

7 am: Intermediate conversation. I've got a book and 14 people to entertain with it. For an hour. At, I repeat, 7 in the morning. Thank god for the vending machine iced coffee. A buck for two, and I can at least feign coherence. Most of the time.

8 am: Three hour break. Go home, wash my hair (or not), and back to bed for another couple of hours until

10.35 am: See 6.35 am. Second verse, same as the first.

11 am: Adult beginners. A couple of absolutely darling ajumma (housewives). They complain about their neglectful husbands and tell me I'm handsome. If only all my classes were like this.

12 pm: Four hours for lunch. That's right, I have a 7 o'clock class, three hours off, an 11 o'clock class, and then four hours off. I guess this is to make up for getting to get up at 10 for two months. So, lunch, class prep, probably another nap. Or news, which I've been using to cheer myself up -- in the vein of "It may be rough, but at least I ain't in America." (Seriously, why are you worrying about me? Aren't you too busy hoarding gold and lynching Congress?)

4 pm: The Gauntlet. The way middle/elementary school classes work is that we alternate classes with a Korean teacher. So I have a main class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and a second class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It used to be that I only had to dread MWF, when I had my fifth graders, who were widely acknowledged as the worst class at the school. Now, with my new middle school class at five, I have probably the worst middle school class, too, albeit in a different way. Silent. Surly. And, thanks to Haseyo, from whom I inherited these kids, spoiled by the cash bribes he ended up resorting to. I've tried it a couple of times, but I always feel a little, er, dirty. Hasn't helped me anyway. Going to class feels like walking out to the parking lot at night and seeing five guys sitting on your car. Quiet, hostile, and expecting money. It is an ugly scene.

6 pm: TOEFL prep. Things have improved. I have some measure of rapport with them now. But the book is ridiculous, at least for a handful of thirteen-year-olds. It's proficiency tests for college, for god's sake. A lot of it is note-taking and outlining and serious essay-writing, and all (ideally) under a time limit. There's listening stuff, conversations and lectures and things, and they speak so fast it's hard for me to take notes. And it's mostly about boring college topics, too. It's all so advanced that I'm not really teaching English in there anymore, I'm mostly teaching writing -- stuff like taking notes and summarizing information. I've started bringing in a lot of independent stuff, articles and things. One day, we watched clips from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and I asked them to tell me what was going on. In some ways, I'm kind of back to where I was in June, winging it and hoping I can figure out what this class is supposed to be. But at least now I have some idea what I'm doing. Weirdly, this has become the class where I most feel like a teacher, not just giving information, but imparting knowledge. It's still rough; everyone in there is dog-tired and sick of class, and no one can write a decent outline (except me -- I've been getting a lot better at it), but it actually feels like we're getting somewhere, even if it is slow and exhausting. My dread fear is that one day I'll actually figure it out, and then my schedule will change, and the class'll go to some other teacher who'll have to start all over again.

7 pm: Adult beginners again. Thankfully, I end my day with a class I adore. Then it's take-home gimbap, maybe some downloaded American television (Battlestar Galactica is still the best thing on; Prison Break somehow keeps getting trashier and more entertaining; Fringe, the new J. J. Abrams show, blows white-hot chunks of suckiness, but I watch it anyway), maybe an hour or two of Spore, shower. Bed.

And this is every day. Jenn, you were right, this place is a boot camp. And this is just the schedule. This is not including the further drama, the girlfriend, the news, and what all. But these are stories for another time. Probably tomorrow.

Yes, I am a rotten, neglectful bastard. But you all knew that.

Hi. God. Sorry. No, the blog isn't retired, I'm just a bastard. A bastard with a load of excuses, for what that's worth. Okay, two excuses. Two lousy excuses. One, I have, as I mentioned, this girlfriend. I officially owe Jeremy an apology, because, even though I was kidding about his being lost in Girlville, I have since chucked my hypocritical ass into the very same gulch. Yeah well.

Two, that same ass is busy being kicked soundly by my new schedule this month. To wit, class at 7 am, and anyone who knows me knows what an absolutely lethal time that is for me. Add a total of three middle/elementary school classes, and the prospect of sitting down to write five hundred fascinating words about Korea twice a week makes my brain cringe.

I also still don't have pictures. Basically, I can't seem to get my camera's battery to charge because of the voltage difference or whatever. My solutions seem to be either to track down some sort of voltage-converting transformer box-thing, or get a new, Korean camera. My phone does take pictures, yes, and, yes, theoretically I can email them to myself and post them or something, but that takes, I dunno what, phone internet something which I don't have.

Upshot: I'm a slack-ass bastard. I'll try to catch up with emails at least in the next little while, and I'll be back on the blog with something proper soon here, I hope.

Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry. Really really. I had no idea it had been so long.

Special mailbag edition!

Hey, everybody! 'Sfunny. I had like, one or two comments a couple days ago, and, while I do like to respond to the fan mail, there was that poll, so I thought I'd wait a bit and address things altogether, and then like, everyone commented yesterday and I'm like, what the huh? and now I have lots of people to respond to. So, rather than write one long-ass comment on my own blog, and because I'm busy today writing a test for my fourth-graders (and too lazy to think of anything actually interesting to write about), today's post is dedicated to... you, my dear readers.

Hi Geb! Glad you could make it. No one, unfortunately, has asked me about vulnerable sector screening yet. How's Boston (transplant version)?

Claire, way to go...all the way into total blogspot anonymity. Thanks for the lengthy email update, by the way. I'm sorry I never wrote back. Not much to say, really, except thanks for the sympathy and the rhapsodizing about your new neighborhood. It was most entertaining, and I'd say you can add writing to your list of "whodathunk" talents.

Chris: Dude, anything is better than the jack-holes at the Fogg. A six-month dead, demonically reanimated, rabid baboon is better than those fuckers. Incidentally, my first paycheck totally vindicates my mad decision to leave behind that ten-grand buyout. I worked it out, and, hour for hour, I'm making literally twice as much as I made there. Tell Whitt. Please. I need to hear the "But still..." before I can properly gloat. Also, how's Boston (native version)?

Everybody: Uh, despite recent comments, my dear, dear friend Nichole is not actually hyper-violent. She's just, um, easily excitable. And a little protective. You'll a good Mama Bear, Nic.

Hi to David, too! Davey, I checked out the blog you have in your profile, and I gotta say, I'm not impressed. Three words, man: Smacks. Of. Effort. (Huh, three words...)

Ya know, Dad, it really sounds like you're hitting your stride with this whole retirement thing. Poetry festivals, camping -- camping? When was the last time you went camping? To be honest, I was a little worried while I was in Dallas that, while you certainly appreciated the rest, you might be getting a little, I dunno, bored? But this is now, what, like the fifth time you've gone out to L. A. since I left? Claire tells me you call her and go on and on about this week's concert and next week's opera and stuff -- I'm glad you're having fun, Dad, I really am. It's about time.

By the way, everyone, do y'all know Dad's moving in with Uncle Bill in California? Claire let slip in a comment a few weeks ago, but I wanted to get it all out in the open. This is, let me say, a ridiculously good idea. Yeah, "ridiculous" is the word I want, as in, it feels ridiculous that no one came up with this years ago -- except, of course, it didn't really make sense until like, last month. What I'm trying to say is that the only surprising thing about this news (to me, anyway) is how perfectly natural and sensible it sounds.

I hope you're not too embarrassed by the attention, Dad, but I think you deserve a public round of congratulatory applause.

Finally, thanks to everyone who answered the poll. Thanks Dad, for the time stamp analysis. I'm pretty sure that's what this poll thing was about. Sometimes the answers I'm looking for are different from the questions I ask. And to everyone who reads my stuff at work -- keep it up. Just don't forget it's your jobs I'm teaching Koreans to steal.

Wired again

Hey kids, ya know what I love? Really, really love? I love the Internet. I do. I just love it to bits. The whole friggin' goofy, irresponsible, everything-and-everybody mess of it. I just think it's grand. Ya know what else I love? My apartment. Yeah. It's tiny, it's weird, the dryer's tiny, and I'm plagued by mosquitoes, but hey, it's home, it's my own little (and I do mean little) sanctuary here on Planet Korea.

But what do I really love, I mean really, unabashedly, shout-it-from-the-rooftops, shiteating-grin, paroxysms-of-delight LOVE? The Internet in my apartment. Oh. My. God.

So like, guess where I am right now? I'll give you a hint: I ain't at the friggin' hagweon, that's for damn sure.

Dear god, it's nice. I'm sitting here in my shorts, with a mouth full of almonds and orange juice, Gershwin on my iTunes... and I can bitch and bitch and bitch about work without worrying about Andy glancing at it and deciding he hates me.

Andy, man. I told you there was some drama going down at work, right? Here's what happened: The week after my -- ahem -- "mishap," Ian Teacher came down with something. I come in one morning, Monday, and Ian's looking a bit poorly; his throat hurts, and he's rather pale. He thinks he has strep throat. Yikes. Turns out it's tonsillitis. Double yikes. And it's his bad luck that this comes at the beginning of the month, open house week, and we have to be looking all nice (like, in a tie and all) for new students. Short version: Ian works the whole week. Andy trucks him to the hospital once or twice, gets him some, I dunno what, pills, and tells him not to sleep with the air conditioner on. Wednesday, Ian, desperate and looking like Marley's ghost, comes in with a copy of the contract (detailing sick days) and a doctor's note. No dice. I told Andy he needed to send him home, and we'd work out coverage. Andy told me he was just as concerned about the guy as I was, but he was staying. Ian finally just gave up. He couldn't teach -- his voice was shot and he was delirious -- so he just spent two days playing Uno with everyone and trying not to die. He made it, toughed it out proper, but jeez.

Now, this has kinda become a turning point for me with the hagweon, or with Andy, at any rate. Now, when I broke my face, there was never a question about taking a day off afterward. America, even at my shitty Harvard job, I would've gotten a day off, no problem. But I'm willing to make an allowance for, ya know, cultural differences. But tonsillitis? And this is no "cultural difference," here. The Korean teachers, even the students were all a bit shocked that Ian was still there. And I've been having lunch with one of the teachers at a hagweon down the road, and she said people there don't usually take days off, but if it's serious...

There are two things about this that really piss me off. First of all, sick days are in the contract, and I kinda thought that if you have a contract, then you have to stick to the contract. That's, ya know, why they're contracts. But that's me being naive, of course. People break contracts all the time (though Americans at least try to find loopholes first). It's certainly easier to do when your employees are foreign and don't speak enough of the language to make any proper efforts to enforce them.

Secondly, Andy seems to have taken all this somehow personally. He's been busting on Ian ever since this whole thing. Every day, he has some "feedback" for him. And there are little bullshit things, too, like using the wrong pen for student evaluations (I'm not kidding). And Thursday, he called Haseyo and me in at the end of the day to tell us he was going out of town for the weekend and didn't want any "bad news calls." Like we're doing it to spite him or something. I dunno. I'm beginning to see why people don't stay here for more than a year.

At the risk of getting a bit preachy, I would like to point to this as one of those "learning experiences" I've been looking for out here. I don't want to be one of those sheltered pricks on the message boards who leave the country and moan when it's harder than they thought, but well, it's a little harder than I thought. And most of it is just being out of my comfort zone (which is, granted, fairly small). I mean, I've got a pretty decent job that pays pretty well -- probably better, all things considered, than anything I'd be looking at in the States -- and it wasn't even me who got sick. All the same, it's a bit alarming.

My point is that I have gained a wild new appreciation for immigrants. As I say, things are pretty decent here, drama aside. Beats being some poor Mexican who swims the river and hitchhikes up to Indiana for a lousy, cheap, dangerous job at a meat factory that pays squat and jacks his rights, and he doesn't even know what to fight for because he can't speak English.

So, be nice to immigrants, kids. Maybe learn a little Spanish or something. They're just people, and what they're doing is rough, believe me. Hell, it's hard enough just screwing around. I'd hate to have to do this for real.

Money can't buy happiness, but it does buy a little less suck

Okay, yeah, I've been slacking off with the posts. My bad. You guys definitely deserve more news, especially after that last blast of screed. It's cool, kids, it's cool. Things are turning around.

So, to the news. Simply, I got paid. Hot damn. I've never been one to really care too much about money -- and by "too much" I mean like, "at all," which, really, I consider something of a failing -- but man oh man, is it good to have a little black in the book. Poor I don't mind all that much, but when it starts cutting into basic necessities... Small wonder I've been so cranky this last while. But I got my 2 mil for the month, and I'm only thirty days away from another 2 mil, and things is okay. So I celebrated with a little chamchi jiggae at lunch (which is fish soup, and still cheap, but beats gimbap every day for a month), and a movie after work (Dark Knight, which Heath Ledger balls up, sticks in his pocket, and walks away with -- full review shortly on my other blog). And Sunday I went to MegaMart and dropped a hundred K on a new pillow and a vacuum cleaner and some friggin' groceries, and topped it off with a big ol' steamed bun straight out of Spirited Away, and a heavenly mocha bun and iced coffee at PappaRoti. Damn, it's good to have some cash.

I also got -- thank all the gods of bureaucracy -- my Alien Registration card (not to mention my passport back), so now I'm all legaled up. More to the point, I can now buy the important things like a phone and -- dear, sweet Jesus -- Internet. This, by the way, is kind of why I haven't written; I am completely sick at this point of hangin' at the hagweon, and I've been literally dreaming of posting from home, whenever I want, on a computer that's actually reasonably speedy (I swear, the cheap-ass hagweon computers are so old, they run on like, coal or something). I should be more or less modern by the end of the week, and I did kinda want to hold out until I could actually say, "Hey, guess what, I'm writing from home!" But then I had all these clamoring fans (well, Dad, anyway) that I couldn't disappoint...

There has been drama, it's true, but that can wait until I'm home and don't have to worry about being on a public screen. There are, after all, people here who can read English, specifically certain boss-type people that I'd prefer weren't actually watching me criticize them. So keep happy, I'll catch up with y'all soon.

All I want for Chusok is my two front teeth

Sorry I haven't written in a while, but it's been a difficult week. It's the end of the month, which means reviews, class progress checks, and student evaluations. You know, teacher stuff.

It's also the end of my first month here, which means (strictly unofficially, of course), my own evaluation, which, well...didn't go as well as I was hoping.

Things, by and large, are fine, but I have this one class. It's a prep class for the TOEFL, or Test Of English as a Foreign Language. This is the test that American universities use to evaluate foreign applicants' English proficiency. As you can imagine, this is of very great concern to hyper-competitive Korean parents -- and therefore of concern to the ESL hagweons that cater to them and to the teachers they employ who are all expected to be able to teach TOEFL prep.

My class sucks and I'm bad at it. I'll say that now.

Andy and I had a special little sit-down at the beginning of the month. There were textbooks and schedules and prep tests and such, and there were essays and oral exams and special evaluation forms. What there wasn't was any hint of what the reality of the class would be: nothing at all for an entire week, then two spindly thirteen-year-olds, bone tired from a full day of summer school and completely uninterested in talking, let alone poring over two huge TOEFL textbooks that, incidentally, they don't have. And there's some third book I'm supposed to be using that has fuck-all to do TOEFL or anything else. And I'm supposed to be giving essay homework over the weekends (weekends that are already packed full for these poor bastards with more school). TOEFL? Forget about it, they're not even going to be taking the damn thing for like, five more years. So I abandoned the textbook and spent day after day just trying to pry a little enthusiasm or at least three consecutive words out of these kids. Six o'clock: TOEFL prep. Seven o'clock: slit my fucking wrists.

And then one of the little bastards ratted me out to Andy, saying we hadn't done anything with the textbooks. Andy came down on me, wanting to know what's gong on. Long story short, I'm on something like probation with this class, with a strict schedule and daily reports back to Andy on what we did in class. To be honest, the class goes a bit better now that I know what I'm supposed to be doing. A bit.

I wouldn't really complain, except that Andy's tact in all of this is a bit...nonexistant. I'm willing to give some latitude to the inevitable insensitivity of another culture, but this is a little... Let me explain.

So last weekend, Haseyo and I went to Haeundae. A good solid day of insanely crowded beach, drinking in public, and the seriously kute and bikini-clad. There was a bandstand and some incomprehensible Korean hip-hop festival. I swam in the South Sea. Haseyo scared girls. It was great.

Roundabout nine or so, Haseyo had had enough and decided to head home. I wasn't quite ready to pack it in yet, so I decided to find this ex-pat bar someone stateside had told me about (O'Brien's, Ronnie, the place Jenn's friend Andrew runs). It took a little wandering around, and a train ride, but I turned it up. Decent place. Surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night, but I needed someplace a bit chill after the crush of humanity that was Haeundae. I was totally planning to hang out for a beer or two and then go, but then there was this game of pool and a game of darts, and an extra pitcher someone thought I oughta have, and the next thing I know, it's two in the morning, and it's Andrew and me and a couple of guys sitting around arguing about who fucked up the twentieth century more, England or America. Finally Andrew goes, right, I'm off, the bar's yours -- which I thought was really quite wonderful and irresponsible of him.

It is important that you understand that I was done drinking by now. I was too sleepy (as were my late-night compatriots), so I grabbed some couch time for a few hours and woke up a bit past seven in the morning, just in time to catch the train back home.

I am, at this point, about five hours sober. Hungover? Yes. Tired? Like a dog. Did these things contribute to the fact that, on the big-step/false landing thing halfway down the stairs in Gaya Station, I lost my footing and took an impressive header down to the bottom? Probably. Was I drunk? No, but I wish to Christ I had been.

I'm not entirely sure (as, I suppose, we rarely are when these sorts of accidents happen) how all this occurred, but the next thing I knew, the subway cleaning lady was picking me up off the floor, chattering concernedly in Korean and pressing a wad of Kleenex to my face. It kept coming away bloody, and I had grit in my mouth, which I figured out pretty quickly were chunks of teeth. Super. So I thanked the lady (in Korean, which I guess meant my head was okay) and rode the train home, through the transfer, all the while clutching a handful of tissues to what was undoubtedly, judging from the stares from all the Sunday morning commuters, a gnarly chunk out of my face. What a fucking morning.

And then I got lost on my way home. Fucking brilliant.

When I finally did get back to the apartment, I took a shower and took stock of the damage. Looks like I took the fall on my left side: I had a really nasty cut over my eye, plus some bruises and scrapes; two badly chipped teeth (though, oddly, no bloody nose or bit lip); a cut on my shin that bled freely, but on closer inspection wasn't very serious; and a very sore and probably dislocated shoulder. Fuckit, I said, and went to bed.

I got about two hours before I finally decided that something really ought to be done about my shoulder. And this is where the sobering reality of being in Korea really began to sink in. I needed to go to the hospital, but I needed someone, preferably Andy, to come with me, since I don't speak Korean, and I still don't have my Alien Registration card. I don't have a phone, so I couldn't call him, and it was Sunday, so the hagweon was closed. What ended up happening was I got hold of Haseyo, whose plans that day were conveniently canceled, and together we tried to call Andy. No luck, but Haseyo knew a student who worked nearby and maybe she could come with us and translate. She did, and she helped raise Andy, too, who met us at the hospital and eventually got me taken care of and patched up.

(I gotta say, though, Haseyo was a real mensch with the hospital thing. He stuck through until Andy showed up and I was well in hand. And I don't know what I would've done if he hadn't thought of getting Jessica, his student. I still call him Haseyo, but it isn't ironic anymore.)

All told, things are more or less okay. The cut took stitches (it's going to leave a bitchin' scar), and I'm in the process of getting my teeth capped. My shoulder turned out not to be dislocated, just badly bruised, and my brain isn't broke.

But Andy, man. I told him what happened, and I'm convinced he thinks I'm some sort of drunken reprobate. The TOEFL thing doesn't help. And after the hospital and stitches and everything, there was never any question about me not being at work the next day. I shouldn't complain, I suppose, given that he did, after all, come out (eventually) and take control of things. And I know sympathy isn't his job, but still. God, I'm sick of his shit.

Sick. Sick of Andy, sick of the hagweon, sick of teaching. Sick of wincing when I raise my arm, sick of not being able to bite things, sick of being stared at and asked what happened. I'm sick not being able to speak Korean, sick of speaking English like I'm talking to four-year-olds, sick of not knowing anyone, sick of gimchi with every fucking meal, sick of week-long laundry days, sick of losing sleep to mosquitos, sick of having no money and no ID or phone or TV or Internet so I have to spend my days off back at work just so I can answer my goddamn email. I'm fucking sick of Korea, all right? Joke's over. I miss you guys and I want to come home.

I don't mean all that, of course. But I needed to say it. I mean, I knew Korea wasn't going to be paradise forever. That was honeymoon, and this, for better and for worse, is real life. And I've got eleven more months of it, and while they won't be like the first month here, I also know they won't be as bad as this week was. I'll clean up all right, and I'll get teaching sorted out. And things will be a lot more tolerable once I get paid, which is soon.

So, sorry for the downer post. But I hit the Homesick Wall, and I needed a little therapy. I'll be happier when I have money and new teeth.

Haseyo and Beer Corner...scrivenage and superbug..."It's honey box!"

And here I am on the far side of the weekend. Which, lemme tell ya kids, was rough.

At least I didn't swim to Hawaii, right? Forget it, I didn't even make it to the beach. The farthest I got was Beer Corner. This was Wednesday evening. I figured, since I was looking at four days of cabin fever, I better go off and have a good time for a bit beforehand. Drinking is, happily, real cheap in Korea, and I could shave most of a day off with a proper hangover; so after class, I went and got the drink on with Stan Teacher, whom I call Haseyo. (Haseyo is a Korean honorific, a respectful address for strangers and elders. Stan doesn't know any Korean, but he's thirty-five, so he said I have to call him haseyo. So I do. I started when we had to go to Immigration and Stan had to go because he lost his wallet with his AR card and we left and he had to go back to his apartment because he forgot his passport which he ended up not needing and we were ten minutes late for our afternoon classes. "Good job, Haseyo," I said. I use it ironically, you see.) After a few bars, we ended up at Beer Corner, where I negotiated the purchase, semi-deliberately, of a truly gargantuan pitcher of beer. Mission accomplished.

The next day Haseyo had a date, which apparantly went well because, even though he lives across the hall from me, I didn't see a hair of him the rest of the weekend, since, as he told me later, he was holed up all weekend in his apartment getting laid from here to bejeezus. Beach? What beach?

And so I strapped myself in for a long weekend of scrivenage. How did it go? Well... Maybe I should be a bit more careful about grandiose claims like a complete ninety-page, two-part, first draft script in four days. But no one actually believed that, right? I mean, sure, I could pull out ninety-six hours of straight key pounding -- if I didn't eat or sleep and I had a bloodstream full of speed and a bucket under my chair. But, as anyone who's written a term paper over a weekend knows, all writing is fifty percent actual screen time and fifty percent, ya know, screwing around. So there was an appreciable amount of typey-typey, interspersed with repeated viewings of "Max" when I got stuck, video pinball when I got bored, ramyeon when I got hungry, and naps when I remembered (which was infrequently; my circadian rhythm's so jacked up, I think I might have actually given myself jet lag again). And mosquitos. Bloody fucking evil little bastard mosquitos.

If I may digress. Korea has some sort of fucked-up, gene-spliced, superbug mosquitos that are resistant to bug spray and are smart enough not only to get into an entirely closed off apartment, but to come out only when the light's out so they can make covert raids in the night. And here's the thing: they come one at a time, so I keep waking up at four in the morning with maddeningly itchy welts on my ear or small of my back, and I flip the light on and crouch in the corner of my bed, staring into the middle distance, waiting for a flicker in my focal range or a momentary telltale whine in my ear that I can hone in on and hunt down, but the little beast hides -- they hide, the cowards! -- and I'm back crouching and waiting and meanwhile it sneaks another suck off the underside of my arm and now I see it! -- and it's fat and slow from gorging itself and I smack it and it bursts like a ripe pimple and lies twisted and smashed with its broken legs and wings poking out from a blotch of blood on my arm, a disconcertingly large blotch of dinner that it paid for with its own violent and sudden end and now I can go back to sleep but the wily fuckers come back, one at a time, so in half an hour I have to get up and do battle all over again.

I'm a wee twitchy these days.

Yeah, so, where was I? Ah yes. So the result of this bleary weekend, goggle-eyed from the computer and undernourished from my instant noodle diet (Asians, I should say, are serious about their ramen. All sorts of things go into it, mushrooms and seaweed and fishcakes and dried squid and various unidentifiables not unlike pork rinds or shrimp chips or something -- you kids in the West are truly getting shafted in the pot noodle department.), was not a revolutionary Brave New World epic, but four or five solid pages of notes, a decent outline for the first several scenes, and a six pages of actual script -- good pages, even, until I wrote myself into a corner early Sunday morning, realized that I had misconcieved several fundamental conceits about the setting, shitcanned everything, and had to start from scratch. I am now beginning to understand why so many writers are appalling drunks.

The truth is, I'm not very good at this. I won't say I'm a bad writer -- partly because my dear readers are getting a bit sick of it, partly because I have dear readers to begin with, and partly because I do seem to be capable of turning out decent material on a more or less regular basis. But my talent, it seems, is in short pieces: the blog, corporate letters, the odd song -- simple, contained ideas, stuff that I can bang out in a session or two. I'm good at poetry, which is bit like saying I'm good at tiddlywinks. But this sustained narrative thing, man: characters, plots, settings, development... This is hard. I honestly don't know how the guys on "Lost" do it week after week. (But then, I guess they don't since they seem to burn out and call a strike every couple of years.)

I dunno. I guess it's hard for everyone. Doesn't make it any less frustrating for me, though.

By the way, no encouraging posts or anything, please (Ronnie, I'm looking at you). Not that it isn't appreciated, but, as my dear old Mum used to say, all I need right now is a little sympathy to make me completely miserable.

Anyway. You're not here for this crap, though, are you? You want funny things about those krazy Koreans, right? Can do. You want funny, you want Konglish. Nothing to give the English-speaking mind a twist like Korean attempts at the mother tongue. Virtually everyone here has some sort of English exposure. A lot of things are printed in both Hangeul (the Korean alphabet) and Roman letters, and often English as well, presumably for the benefit of stupid foreigners like myself, but mostly, I think, because it's chic or exotic or sophisticated or something. It's a little like the American fad of Chinese character tattoos, only everywhere. Actually, I'd say it's a lot like it, given that I know hardly anyone with a tattoo in Chinese that actually knows what it means, and I have yet to meet a Korean here who has any idea what his "Muff Diver" T-shirt says (Yes, I've actually seen this).

But the best place for Konglish is MegaMart. Shopping is a wonderful experience, especially when you're measuring the merits of products solely by what they offer in their fractured version of your language. Some are simple, if amusing, mistakes, like American Soft cookies: "Chewing!" they crow on the package, as though these cookies are happy to do all the work of eating them for you. Some are more elaborate, such as the grammatically correct, but decidedly audacious claims made by the Dream File and Binder:

"Dream arranges all kinds of documents conveniently and pleasantly.

Dream gives you satisfaction in quality.

Dream makes you more creative and intelligent."

Super. I'll take three. Maybe they'll help with the writing.

My favorite, though, is the logo I found inside a day planner, which I find attains a transcendent level of daffy poetry:

Cookie=Tong

It's honey box!

It certainly is, Cookie Tong, it certainly is.

Alien cowboy, me!

I'm posting earlier than I expected, but a couple things happened I wanted to tell you about. Yesterday Andy finally took me out to the Immigration Office to get my Alien Registration card. First we had to go to the hospital to pick up my physical exam results (which involved Andy making a creepy joke about AIDS which I'm just gonna assume was his way of saying things are fine), and then we drove all the way out to the docks where the immigration folks are.

My favorite part was when a long, loud announcement came on over the intercom -- all in Korean. In the, ya know, Immigration Office. Where we're all immigrants and probably don't, ya know, speak Korean.

My other favorite part was when they took my passport and told me I would get it back in two weeks with my AR card. No, wait, not "favorite." The other one. I mean that was the part that sucked.

So, aside from I'm broke and don't know the language and don't know the city, I also have no ID, so I guess I really am holing up in my apartment for the weekend.

The other thing that happened was that I have an official nickname at the school now. I'm "Cowboy Teacher." Yeah. It's no secret that I'm from Texas, but that's not it. (There is a reaction, but I found out it's because the Red Light District in Busan is called Texas Street. Because that's where the Russian sailors hang out. I know.) Those of you who saw me last month probably recall my extremely stylish straw Panama hat. Well, I wear that regularly here, too, 'cause I look friggin' awesome in it. But I guess they don't have Panama hats in Korea, because here it's a cowboy hat, and I am Cowboy Teacher.

I really am, too. Ian, one of the other teachers, had this conversation with a student yesterday:

"Ian Teacher, do you know Cowboy Teacher?"

"Cowboy Teacher? You mean Niko? That's Niko. Ni-ko."

"No Niko. Cowboy Teacher."

Yee-haw.

Know Future

Wow, shoot. It's been a week already, huh. Sorry about that. I'll have you all know, however, that it's difficult coming up with something entertaining every week. Despite all your flattering comments, I'm not actually a very good writer.

Which is too bad, because I have rather a project coming up this weekend. This is vacation weekend in Korea, and it means four days off from work. Now for most people (including me, in most circumstances), this would be cause for celebration. But, as I've said, I'm broke and effectively illiterate, and I live without basic necessities like television; so this is meaning four days of sweet f. a. for yours truly.

(Actually, I've been invited to the beach at Haeundae this weekend "to dip my toes in the South Sea." So I'll be doing that, I think. Unfortunately, since Korea is shutting down for the weekend, so will about six hundred thousand other people. I give it about ten minutes before the claustrophobia sets in and I go back and hide in my apartment. Or start swimming for Hawaii. If I don't post next week, you'll know which direction I went.)

Fortunately, I've sort of got my computer working again. I still haven't gotten the transformer I'm convinced I need, but I have pursuaded my plug adapter to work, finally. I'm still offline, of course, but I'm not entirely without entertainment. For one thing, I have the Spore Creature Creator, which is the second most entertaining thing in the universe. (The most entertaining thing will be coming out this fall.) The other wonderful thing I have is "Max Headroom."

I'm sure most of you have at least some residual memory of Max. This should help, I'm sure. Now, those of you who are my age or older may recall that Max had a TV show on ABC when we were kids. It came on after "Moonlighting." Max is a computer-generated simulacrum of an intrepid investigative journalist (Matt Frewer, who also played Max -- you young'uns will know him as the obnoxious neighbor in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids or the guy who gets bitten by the zombies in the remake of Dawn of the Dead and wants "every last second of it" when he dies before he turns into a zombie and Ving Rhames has to blow his head off), who works and lives in a hellish future where TV and consumerism are all that matters, and gigantic media networks rarely think twice about offing people if it means getting their ratings up. Ripping good 80's dystopian sci-fi stuff. Punks with scary hair. Computers with tiny screens and huge, blocky keyboards. Rollerdeathball -- with spikes. Tongue planted so firmly in cheek it's taken root and grown into a great, green Tree of Cynicism that blooms every spring and drops irony berries. Naturally, it got cancelled after twelve episodes. That show was some ballsy noise, and the surprising thing about it is not that a show that great came and went in under a season, but that a show that cynical and critical of TV was ever made in the first place, let alone shown on primetime, by a major network for as long as it was. I miss the hell out of that show. Turns out, there are a number of other people who do, too (Thank you, Dan).

So I've decided to bring it back. I've mentioned this to a few of you, the handful of you geeky, nostalgic, and bitter enough to care. I think we're all agreed that the last few years (Let's pick a random number liiiike...eight. For instance.) have been pretty shitty. Ecomony blah. Environment blah blah blah. Bad guys blew up New York, and we, ya know, didn't do anything about it. (Oooh, I know I'm asking for it with that one.) And you know my favorite thing to do is complain. I figure, times is ripe all over again for Max Headroom and a little snarky, self-righteous satire.

So I've been taking notes, and I'm gonna write me a pilot. Two-part miniseries. One of the things I'm wanting to do out here is write, and this weekend it's gonna happen. Do I know the first thing about writing a teleplay? Well, no, but I said the same thing about teaching, and I still have a job. I figure I can at least pound out a first draft.

And hey, maybe (maybe) it'll be good. Maybe (maybe) I'll shop it around. Maybe (don't bet on it) something ("something") will happen. Mostly, I'll just be pleased if it turns out I can write ninety consecutive pages about the same thing and it doesn't all suck.

Oh, also -- because I know you're all wondering -- I think I'm going to do some laundry. Like I said, I have four days off.

Dirty laundry

All right, I give. You got me.

It's true, I was warned. I was warned that things would be different. That the secrets of the East were many and profound. And I have kept an open mind and sought, if not to understand, then at least to accept and adapt to the new world around me. But this. This, man.

Seriously. For the love of god. Where is the friggin' lint trap?

Two weeks, and I found something that bugs the hell out of me. To be sure, there are a few things, minor things. There are no trash cans on the street, so if you decide to have a Coke outside, you gotta hang onto it all the way home. The public bathrooms are, shall we say, more public than I would like. There's that whole plug adapter thing. But I've got a year of struggle and hardship ahead of me with my washer/dryer.

The good news is that I have a washer/dryer in my apartment. It's kind of weird, because it's a single unit: you wash your clothes in it and then push a button, and dry them in it too. But hey, whatever, right? So the good news is that I have something more than a tub, a board, and some lye. The bad news is...everything else.

First of all, the thing holds three kilos. I'm still struggling with the metric conversion, but I think 3 kg works out to something like five and a half socks. Seriously, this thing is small. So I'm faced with washing my clothes every other day, or a fourteen-hour laundry marathon. That's the other thing. It takes literally (really actually literally) three hours to do a load of clothes, because it takes an absurdly long time to do anything. "Standard" washing time is over an hour. "Standard" drying time is an hour and a half. This, incidentally, does not actually dry your clothes; it just gets them hot and damp, like some tiny fat man went jogging in them for ninety minutes. Real dry, you're looking at two, two and a half hours, and it turns all your shirts into balled up newspaper. During which time, of course, you can't start any more laundry because there's only one damn machine.

And -- of course -- all the controls are in Korean. Natch.

Yeah, that was fun. I washed my sheets three times trying to get them dry before I caved and spent the next two hours translating all the controls on my console. Well, "translating." I figured out that the fourth cycle is the "agitate" cycle (or, literally, the "anger" cycle, as in you anger your clothes, which I like). But what are the spin-dry settings: "river," "standard," and "medicine"? And I understand the setting for "synthetics" but not the one below it for "noisy."

It's a good thing everything I own is cotton. And my place comes with an iron, which is probably the best way to get things actually dry -- and pressed, for that matter.

So I figured, this is how I spend my weekends. Two shirts at a time for six hours a load. Whatever. And then yesterday I spend two hours with a load in the dryer, and it comes out piping hot and soaking wet. So I throw it in for another hour. Nothing. So it occurs to me that I might need to clean the lint trap. Only I can't find the lint trap. There's a "drainage atmosphere" setting for "filter cleaner," but I can't get it to respond. There's a sort of a panel on the front, so it's probably under that. But I can't get the panel off, of course. So then I get worried, because aren't dirty lint traps fire hazards or something? I mean, it's one in the morning, and I still have a load of darks, but I need this thing clean, or I'm gonna burn down Korea.

I asked a teacher about it this morning, and he said, "You know, I don't think there is a lint trap. You probably just put too many clothes in."

Oh. Ah.

Well, another bout with that bastard, and I might just burn down Korea anyway.

I have no life, which is still pretty cool.

Weird. People are actually reading my blog. And commenting and stuff. I mean, I know I've been handing it out like I was campaigning for prom queen, but I didn't expect an actual audience. The pressure's on, I guess. I gotta be regular and interesting and all.

That's no problem at the moment, fortunately. Aside from work, I have very little to do. I don't have my Immigration Card yet, which I need to set up my Internet access and my cable. So I can watch one fuzzy channel in Korean, or doot around on my laptop, offline. And even that's been denied me, since my plug adapter went tits up a couple days ago.

Yeah, I bought this swanky, $30 plug adapter the day before I left. It's got, like, six different plugs for sockets in every foreign country you might visit EXCEPT Korea. Well, sort of. It has a European plug, which is exactly like a Korean plug, only the prongs are, like, two millimeters skinnier, which apparently means it fits the outlet okay and trucks along fine -- until a week goes by and it, I don't know, gets all awkward and shy and quits working. So I went to Mega Mart (which is like Korean WalMart -- I suspect it may even be WalMart), which has every damn thing you could want, like plug adapters that are also the wrong size. And none of my teacher friends here are any help, because they all bought computers here. (Joke's on them, though, if they ever leave the country and suddenly discover the world's outlets ain't interested in Korean plugs.) But I've been doing a little research, and I think I've found some electronics alley in Nampo-dong that carries transformers (no, you dork), which I think will work. In the meantime, much of my four-hour lunch break is spent here at the hagweon, checking email and updating the blog.

Furthermore, I'm also wicked broke, despite the shot in the arm Dad gave me. After the initial necessities-of-life outlays, I've got about $150 to last me until 10 August, and, while Korea is pretty cheap compared to the U.S., $150 doesn't make me king. Naturally, the solution to this is to go out drinking after work tonight, preferably at the pricy American joints around Busan National University. Yeah, fine, look. It's just for tonight. It's the first drinks-with-the-teachers night of the month, plus there'll be other Americans and stuff at the bar -- let's call it networking, a career move. After this it's gimbap and yoga for the rest of the month, promise.

Whatever. It's awesome and you know it. Halfway across the world and penniless, cut off from modern technology, surviving on cheap, unidentifiable local cuisine until I can teach my way into a paycheck? I'm so the hottest person you know, so don't even.

Okay, so sometimes I like pretending I'm hot shit, just to see what it feels like.

Even better than New Fine Arts

So observations are over, the training wheels are off, and I'm a day and a half into my new job. My cool new job. My new job which I -- gasp! -- like. Yeah, didja get that? One more time: I like my job. And you know why? Major reason: for once, I'm proud to tell people what I do. So, please, if you could all bear with me for a second while I introduce myself.

*ahem*

Hi, my name's Niko, and I'm an English teacher.


I'm going to get so ragged on by the other Americans here. It's true, I'm still fresh and starry-eyed and I still love all my students, and I'm sure I'll be jaded and grouchy and hate everything and everyone inside of a few months, 'cause it just ain't cool to like stuff, but for now, fuck cool. Fuck it, man, I'm having a great time, and I'm pretty much exactly where I want to be. This morning, I actually did that thing where you look in the mirror and go "I'm a teacher" and get all pleased with yourself and grin and do a little dance. And then I went to work (!) at the school (!!) where I'm a teacher (!!!).

I have six classes: 10 and 11 in the morning, and 4, 6, 7, and 8 in the evening. It's kind of a wonky schedule, I know, but I just pretend I'm in college (only now I stay sober if I have class in the morning). The age groups are all over the place: I've got college kids in the morning, 4th-graders at four, high school kids at six and seven, and a pair of retired bankers in the evening. And every last one of them is K - U - T - E, kute! 'Struth, kids, Koreans are wicked kute. You talk, and they nod and go "ok" and then it's their turn, and they get all shy and quiet and color up and mutter something brilliant or maybe just something goofy, and your insides just goosh and it's all you can do not to just scoop them all into a sack and take them home and set them on your mantlepiece.

Oh, Koreans. *sigh* They're like kittens, only people.

Across the pond

Guess what, kids? I really did quit my job and move to Korea. Like, here I am, good and proper, with an apartment and a job and all. It actually happened.

And I'm not completely insane anymore, which is nice. My last post was at, what, four o'clock the morning of my flight? Brain shattered with nerves, internal organs fighting over which one got to be the first to leap out of my throat, desperately trying to sort out one more way to keep from packing and making all of this real, sleep profoundly not an option... By six, it was pretty much all over. Mostly because I was too tired to muster the energy to freak out anymore. I just finished packing and took a shower and waited for Dad to get up. I got a lovely early morning call from Dave and Ashley wishing me off. And everything was just, you know, fine. Or at least I couldn't do much about it anymore if it wasn't, so screw it.

I had my worldly belongings crammed into four huge bags (which I had to pay extra for -- yet another way for the supposedly cash-strapped airlines to wring yet more money out of us), and stopovers in Minneapolis and Tokyo; so plenty of opportunities to lose everything I own on the way to Korea. Which didn't happen, but that, pretty much, was what I was allowing myself to worry about. It was nice to realize that, too: that it wasn't the "Holy Christ, halfway across the globe" freaking I'd been doing, it was the just the usual worries traveling anywhere elicits.

And then, eventually, sixteen hours, "Horton Hears a Who," and the International Date Line later, I ended up in Busan. Andy, my boss, met me at the airport and drove me home to my new flat, showed me around, gave me 20,000 won "survival money" (1,000 W to the dollar or thereabouts, so, like, 20 bucks) and told me to be at work the next day at two. So okay.

Andy, I should say, is great. I mean, airport, survival money -- plus, he got me set up with a local bank account the next day and took me to the hospital for my immigration physical, and he's going to help me with getting Internet access (I'm using the Institute's computers for the time being) and cable ("Yeah so like uh, here's the TV and like uh...." -- here flipping through channel after channel of fuzz -- "...two fucking channels man, we gotta get you cable.") and a cell phone. I mean, sure, he's hired me and all, and has a vested interest in my having a positive experience, but he really seems sincerely interested in making sure the teachers are taken care of. I'm sure it's all in the service of maintaining a good reputation for the hagweon (the language school), but, hey, no problem. Let me say unreservedly that the World Foreign Language Institute is a good school that takes care of its teachers, and anyone interested in teaching English in Korea should apply here (preferably through Madeline Moon at Teacher Tech in Albuquerque -- she kicks ass).

I probably should mention that I start my actual job tomorrow, so the endorsement above is perhaps a bit premature. Whatever. They've been pretty awesome so far.

One more thing (I'm observing classes this week, and I have one in about five minutes.): On Tuesday, after a long sleep, I got up for work. And yeah, I'm a bit nervous, and I've just spent my first night in Korea, with a year and a career left to go, and I gotta make a good impression and all, so I shower and put on my Nice Clothes, and step outside. And the first thing I get from Busan -- from Korea -- are two grade school kids going past my building, who, as soon as I step outside, spin around and shout, in unison "Hello!"

Cutest. Ever.

I think things'll be okay here.

Blind panic and you're all invited

Uh-huh. So.

I know, it's been a while. Well, ya know, there's been stuff going on. And I should tell you about all of it -- the surreal Boston-Dallas drive punctuated with rest stop catnaps and gas prices that bleed you like Civil War surgery; David and Ashley's amazing wedding with vows that quoted Mr. Show; my Kafkaesque adventures in visa paperwork that have taken me on day trips to both Austin and Houston and finally landed me a visa yesterday; Anxiety Dream Marathon Week -- I should tell you about all of this, and perhaps I will, but I'm preoccupied at the moment. See, in case you haven't heard, I'm moving to Korea. Tomorrow. Kee-rist.

Funny, ya know, 'cause I've been "moving to Korea" for a while, and I've been plenty anxious about it for a while. And I keep hearing the "Gee, that's coming up soon" and the "Wow, you're really doing it" and "That's far" and "That's a long time" and I know, I know, I know, but now I really freakin' am, and I'm doing it to-freakin'-morrow and it's not in quotes any more.

And I still don't know a friggin' word of Korean, or how I'm gonna teach anyone friggin' English, or anything else at all, frankly... but what the hell, right? No one knows anything anyway, and I'll figure it out somehow or another, right? Ya know, a few days ago I was checking out the ESL forums trying to get some tips on how to survive and coming up totally empty. On one site, I kept finding all of the useful questions had been dominated by some guy who kept posting notes on Korean fauna; another was just horror story after horror story of not getting paid or getting fired and how Koreans are corrupt cheats and hate us anyway. And then I found some blog by some African-American woman who was heading off to Korea (has gone by now -- the entry was a couple years old) and checking forums and had seen the same dispiriting stuff and had finally concluded that most of the posters seemed to be disillusioned white kids who'd never (surprise surprise) had to deal with cultural prejudice before. And there was a comment from another African-American woman who was teaching in Seoul and having a great time and turns out Koreans are really nice, even if you're black and a woman. So, there you are: no one knows anything, and I need to quit worrying.

Oh, and speaking of comments, I finally got one, and fuck all y'all, 'cause it's from some random blog junkie who likes what I have to say about capers and not anyone I actually know. So to Lorenloo I say, stay tuned, it's just going to get weirder. And to everyone else, write me back, fuckers, or you're just going to get more of this nonsense.

One more thing. Ronnie, so you know, I didn't give her the tape after all. She got a book, and it makes much more sense.

Home is where the bruschetta and clover honey is

Gurrh. I'm in a lousy mood, and I don't really feel like posting, but I don't really have anything else to do at the moment, and I'm overdue, so I might as well.

The pain of moving is over, by and large, and I now officially no longer live in Boston. After three days of sorting and packing and deciding what constitutes the disposable part of my previous life and what remains as the material (or materialist) extension of me, and another three days of a hell-bent driving tour of the Midwest (Boston to Dallas via my sister's place in Chicago), and another three days (or four, perhaps -- a major effect of all this relocation is that time has gotten badly melty on me) of a) Panic and Dread, of both the existential and concretely manifest kinds, and b) the resulting infantile, almost pre-social, hermitism -- after all of this, I say, I am here, in Dallas, at Home.

Not really home, though. I feel guilty saying it, but it's not. This isn't the house I grew up in, it isn't my house. Dad moved out of that one after my sister left for college. A lot of the stuff in it is the same, or rather, it's stuff I recognize, but it's not the same. The chairs congregate differently; they've formed new alliances now. The sideboard, the couch, the piano, are all different somehow, like they all came out or were born again or something while I was gone. There's no dog. I never liked the dog, but her presence was an anchor, and her absence is not entirely welcome. It's unsettlingly like a dream, the kind that takes place at "home" -- not real home, but some strange, semi-familiar house playing the role of home. But what bothers me most is that I'm treating it like it's sudden and jarring, when I know full well that it's not and it's just me, jangled and stressy.

Dad's still here, of course, and that makes up for a lot. He's been pretty game about driving me around for my errands, and he's still the modest genius of the kitchen. I was happy to discover the refrigerator is as eccentric as always -- no cold cuts or apples or leftover barbecued chicken; instead there are chunks of parmesan cheese, bottles of pesto, and today, no less than three jars of capers. Fortunately, there is bread, so as long as you keep an open mind about the definition of a sandwich, there's usually something for lunch.

Gosh, speaking of which. No more depressive rambling today, I'm hungry. Sorry about not actually getting around to a point. These days aren't lending themselves well to conclusions, I'm afraid. Oh well. Nothing that can't be fixed with a Gruyere-and-olive-tapenade melt. And capers. We need to use up those capers.

Dissemination...procrastination...relocation...panic

Well.

So last week I quit my job and now I'm moving to Korea. Of course, if you're reading this, you probably already know this. It's not like it's a secret, by which I mean it's something that I've been telling nearly every single person I know, and I've been disseminating this blog to everyone as well, just to, you know, keep y'all informed.

Not that I've been terribly good at keeping everyone informed. I had this grand plan to post the evening I quit, but, well, there was this party, and then there was recovering from the party, and since then I've been "busy": mostly busy procrastinating and screwing off and going to other parties and dinners and seeing people before I leave. But now suddenly I have to pack up all my shit and move in a couple of days, so now I am actually really properly Busy -- which naturally means that I have to finally sit down and ignore the piling boxes and write something.

What a way to procrastinate, too. I hate writing. Well, not so much hate it as just that I don't do very much of it anymore, and it doesn't really come naturally to me anyway, so it's slow and painful and usually dissatisfying. I know it's bad form to do this, but I'm going to apologize now for the low quality of this and most of the posts of the near future. I need practice, and I guess I'm just gonna practice in public. Hey, if it's good enough for stand-up comedy, it's good enough for me.

Enough moaning. Now for the news. So, yeah, I'm moving in a couple days. Not to Korea -- not yet. First I'm trucking my shit back to the homestead in Dallas, by way of my sister's place in Chicago. I'm poor as hell, too, by the way, so I'm blazing through as quickly as I can, stopping only for gas and sandwiches and rest stop naps (No hotels for me! Just a pillow and a blanket and a box cutter to scare off the crazies.). Sleep in the cab of the van, shower in Chicago, jam on down to Dallas (though I had a brief, wild notion of looking up an ex-girlfriend in Wichita -- but no time, no time! That, and I don't think she lives there anymore), unpack... And then it's visa paperwork, cheap (please!) plane ticket, learning Korean -- not to mention all dinners and parties and good-byes and a freakin' wedding... And after all of this, of course, comes The Move. The real move. The other-side-of-the-world, life-in-two-suitcases-and-one-carry-on, sink-or-swim, do-or-die, nothing-will-ever-be-the-same M O V E.

Jesus.

I crap full-grown bobcats just thinking about it.