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.