TOP 5: The first of many

In my conversation class last week I explained Top 10s, 20s, 100s, etc. My example was off of a fellow Ex-pat's blog titled "The Top 21 things Koreans like." There were the obvious ones like kimchi, Korea, hearing foreigners say that they love Korea and then there were ones that made me laugh: old Friends episodes, Internet Explorer, Dokdo, fried chicken, German made cars, and canned music. Then of course there were the materialist things too: high heels, and skin-whitening cream. I wanted them to make their own top 10 favourite things about anything, but the class digressed into a very odd, and shocking, conversation about race, appearances and misnomers about black people.

So I figured I'd make up for the lack of top tens being made last week by pledging to do some Top 5s in the blog world.

Here are 5 words that have lost all meaning to me because I hear them to often.

5. EHHHHHH/ OI - After countless games of volleyball and the incessant cheering and hooting these EHHHs and OIs, I never want to hear them again. I doubt they had much meaning, if any, in the beginning anyways. 

4. Handsome - I could survive on compliments alone but when those compliments are also given to less-deserving faces (Rowan Atkinson) I've come to understand that Koreans believe for someone to be handsome they need to have a face with a nose two eyes and and a mouth that has minimal scarring.

3. Nice to meet you - Children who I have known the entire time I've been at this school still say this to me. They don't seem to understand its a one-time sentence. I wish I could spend a full day just teaching them other things to say such as "Good to see you." Who am I kidding though, this is something for their English Academies to fix.

2. Yes - I try to ask a lot of questions and typically that's the answer. Until my co-teachers realize what I've asked them and they go the round about way of taking back their yes.  

1. Fine - This is the by far the most vacant and common reply to the question "How are you?" It's the definition of an automated response even for the students who can't read they all know how to say I'm fine. I hate it, hate it, HATE IT.   

Dates, Plans, and Hazards of Love.

I feel really happy, and also kind of sad. I opened up to a complete stranger, and I'm overcome with giddiness whenever I think about her. The way she talks, she just pulls me in with stories and her laugh.

That was written a long long time ago and those feelings have faded into nothing. Now I've come to the conclusion that being single is very important for me. I have always treated this adventure as a sabbatical from real life. This lifestyle is a budgeted fantasy. I'm living my life with few restrictions and limits but I have to clean up my mistakes all on my own. I've forgotten where I read this or where I heard it but falling in love is easy, precisely why its called falling in love. My mind is at a point where it is eager to tumble into endorphins and continue living like it's the weekend. Tragically, that won't happen until this crash course is off my plate. Coincidentally, when my course is finished, summer time truly begins: Summer camp starts, then Mudfest the first weekend, then Ansan Valley Rock Festival on the second, and then I'm flying to Bangkok to meet THE craziest guy I know for a Hangoveresque time. Don't worry, Dad, I'll be careful :).  

The title of this post is because the fact I went on a date-date and two alternative albums I listened two them the following day on a chilly February desk-warming assignment. I remember the emotions vaguely but I have other reasons to be happy now after seeing the big picture. I'm one step closer to gaining some bilingual certification, ultimately returning home, settling in, and then I'll just keep my head up. Why you ask? So I won't see where I'll fall.

Catch-up Monday

OK here's my plan: I'll give you short concise summaries of the events that have happened over this week.

Monday was the first day of a volleyball tournament and also the last day for us. The atmosphere was off the hook, something I never expected from a bunch of middle-aged teachers representing their schools. But some of the younger female teachers from our school showed their support and were cheering the whole way through all of our loses on. It was really cool to be there with the cheers and the gasps at every play. I wish I had played a better game but we did the best we could've done considering our school doesn't have a gym and these other club teams practiced daily.

Another awesome thing about this event was watching other players run an entire game. The level of skill is peaks and valleys. Luckily, for those good-spirited teams with little talent, and in typical Korean fashion, there's an abundance of free snacks such as half-decent rice cakes, cucumbers, and watermelon. The principal who watched both our games took us out to dinner for some spicy octopus, shrimp and cow intestine. It was great.

And that was my Monday!

Busan Ultimate Tourney

This hat tournament was exactly what I expected and what I was told to expect: meeting new people, playing ultimate, learning plenty about the game, partying hard, shacking up in a love motel, and eating a copious amount of bananas, peanut butter, and bread - combined to make a hot dog that you can eat at any time without feeling weird. Despite losing 5 games in a row to end the tourney our team played well and I look forward to playing with and against all of them in the future.

The weather was excellent the first day with a big bright sun along with an ocean as far as the eye can see. Words can't describe the beauty of Dadaepo Beach, one of the natural beaches in Busan. I will go there again before summer is over and share some photos here. That night it rained which brought an even better overcast day, with little to no wind, which was perfect for hucking some disks.

The people on my team came from similar walks of life; some more involved and dedicated to Ultimate (and rightly better than me). One person was a tactician on the field  as well as on the sideline, which you would expect from someone who has played competitively for 8 years. Our actual captain was also a great leader and his sidekick was a hilarious party animal with spirit and swagger (but not necessarily gamesmanship) up the wazoo. It was a shame that we couldn't bring it all together, losing three games in the round robin by one point each time, one game was against the winning team. Nonetheless it was a learning experience and my game has improved as a player and teammate because of the people I've met here.

Parties are parties. I learned a new game/ six-word song that involves passing a bottle of Korean alcohol around in a circle until the bottle is done. During the party it started to rain and considering how there wasn't an ideal ratio of guys to girls I cut my losses and headed to a love motel and a spot on the sandy, sandy floor.

The weekend concluded with a Korean Barbecue Dinner and two long bus rides home. It was a great weekend, and now I'm back into the reality of the school week.

Also, the hat tournament was Game of Thrones themed so each team had a GoT name. Yeah, its kinda nerdy, but I've only recently started watching it, because the Leafs are done in the playoffs, AND ITS GREAT!! I never know what to expect and I feel that is the mark of a great show.

Baseball in Korea

No, it's not as strange as Korean Volleyball.

I went to a Lotte Giants (No teams are named after cities just companies) game on Saturday and it was lots of fun. The Giants played the LG Twins, I believe they are from Seoul. Of course the company makes the journey, not the game.

Some exciting things about going to a baseball game is tickets cost 7,000\ for outfield tickets. We had a little scare on a deep fly ball. No gloves in sight only Red Solo cups and beer cans. The last time I went you couldn't bring glass bottles into the game, but now security is forbidding anything with a higher alcohol percentage than beer. Two friends brought in a 26er of Vodka which was no allowed, so they poured it into water bottles and the rest is a blur. Six beers in 9 innings a couple of 1-2-3 innings can do that to you.

The game was an excellent predrinking option, obviously. One thing about Koreans is they have too much pride to heckle the opposition. Drunk foreigners do not. We had some Happy Gilmore moments near the end of the game.

The final score was 4-3 which we saw on the way out because there's only one Jumbo-tron. Gotta love Busch (or Cassuh in this case) league baseball.

Another odd thing is in the stadium there are 3 flags: an American Flag, an Australian flag, and a Lotte flag. For the national anthem they had the Korean flag waving on the Jumbo-tron -  or so I'm told.

As I burrow into my rut

Things are going quite splendidly since my last life update. I had a really good week with a day off on Wednesday where I went to Jagalchi market and saw some really gross stuff and some really awesome stuff. Stuff being numerous products of the sea. I went up to Seoul to see my guest of honour onto her shuttle bus to the airport back home. We stayed at a lovely Hilton Hotel on her dime and it was the best sober sleep I've had since I've been here. Sadly, we had to leave at 5am. I took a bus to Pohang (and the city's AMAZING field) where I played 3 intense games of ultimate. We lost two in universe point (overtime) but I felt I left it all on the field despite getting overly intense due to some opponents squabbling over bullshit things. We let the games get away from us but hopefully we'll redeem ourselves in the playoffs which are 3 weeks away, where hopefully we don't beat ourselves. I'm currently downloading the free trial of Microsoft Office so I can lesson plan at home and not have to deal with the nuisance that is selecting effects and transitions in Korean.

I've received my renewal contract and will compare and contrast it (in typical middle school fashion) with my old one. I doubt there will be any changes but a long time ago I applied to a camp job in the States and their contract had a bullet that went something like this: "If by any chance camp is cancelled be it under-funding, weather catastrophe, or acts of God staff will [blah blah blah]" I doubt that could happen but maybe "in the case of anticipated events" will but plugged in somewhere.

Either way, I'm really excited about the month of May. Summer is fast approaching and I CAN'T WAIT! I have these snap-button shirts that you can karate-chop open; a favourite thing for... guys... but maybe that'll switch over this year. Especially if I keep working out. I'm getting nice and nestled in these routines despite the little bump in the road. The FSL course I've enrolled in starts tomorrow which is another thing to keep me busy and out of trouble. After going to university I'm used to having that voice in my head saying "there's always something to do for school" and I'm trying to keep that up with this course and continue my lifelong learning. Fingers crossed this isn't a path to burning out. Busan's great and it's only going to get better in these next couple months.