Don't have a "Good Day"

Today I was walking from the library to my office as the children file out and run off to their hagwons and adventures elsewhere.
"Bye teacher"
"Bye, have a good day, kids"

Then my mind started ticking:


https://files.nyu.edu/nc994/public/types_of_soju.html

"Good Day" is a type of soju. I have been encouraging students to drink soju subliminally! Not only am I a horrible teacher I'm a sell out:

  
http://www.ourthursday.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/reebok-garth.png

^ Now I want to watch this movie...
Have a nice day everyone!

When there's no last call

Friday night I went to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and it was mesmerizing. Aesthetically pleasing would be an understatement. Before watching this movie I had no desire to go out afterwards for even one beer. Smaug's beauty, fitted with Benny Cumberbatch's eloquent British tongue, along with an excellent fight scene along the riverside where elves and dwarfs battled hordes upon hordes of orcs revitalized all of my senses! With a bounce in my step I decided to go out with an Ultimate friend for drinks at a bar called L-Zone. Apparently they were having bottomless drinks, a Friday night staple.

When we got there I met some other new people through my fellow movie-goer and walked up to the bar.
"What time does the bottomless drinks special end?"
"1am"
"What time is it now?"
"11pm"
"Here's my ten thousand won, I'll have a rum and coke, please."

After countless drinks and just as many sunken cue balls 1am had befallen L-Zone and, without a doubt or itch of hesitation, we moved the party elsewhere. Once we got outside into the bumping district of KSU the neon lights overwhelm you with 24/7 barbecue spots, convenience stores and bars that stay open until 6 in the morning. These differences separate Korean and Western night-lives by miles. With the opportunity to eat food at almost every other restaurant and continue drinking cheap bottles of soju and beer: you can't complain especially when its dirt cheap!

I remember leaving bars in the frozen town of Thunder Bay at 2 am after they ring the bell at the bar. Wired off the company, brisk air, and energizing jager-bombs and there's no where to go. With nothing to do we would all cab to someone's house and continue the nightlife in some gross college living room with shitty seating, warm beer, and frozen fish sticks or worse. Usually random textbooks and clothes were scattered around the floor too, reminding us that we have sunday mornings that require research and trips to the library. Sometimes the music was okay, but other times it was country music or house music. Either way it put you on your back ready to pass out in no time because there was nothing to stay up for once the city shuts down. No one expects the night to last past last call.

Now that I've been exposed to Korea, and the concept of the 6am subway ride home from Blue Monkey I don't think I can go back to the bell toll at 2am. Even 3am could be a stretch. Maybe when I get back that means I'll have to grow up. It took this quiz and although I was caught in the middle with some of them this website said I'm mentally a 19 year-old. I honestly blame the country I live in. I'm not stressed unless its over something trivial like my CTs being difficult, or me just losing things. I'm saving money, I love most aspects of my job, and I'm active enough outside my job to avoid boredom/ depression.  I can't take the Korean life seriously anymore. This is a vacation at the worst of times. I probably could take on more responsibility... but that'd take away from this experience.

Bar hours are one of the many things Korea has going on that not many other places could sustain. There's a lot of respect for everything and everyone in this country and that's why people have the privilege to go out until 4 in the morn because they won't rob, rape, kill, or vandalize anything or anyone. I wish there was a way Canadians, and Westerners as a whole, could achieve this sense of community and respect for everything, but for now its only a pipe dream. Just to clarify, I'm not converting to some pro-Korea-anti-Canadian ideology: I just think there are tons of really special things in this country and you don't have to dig very deep to find them. With news about Rob Ford, and gang violence its difficult to see a city, let alone country, that's banded together to support each other, and that's something that everyone wants deep down: a place where we all stand together and can join hands with family, friends and strangers of all walks of life and know we have each other supporting one another as we party safely until the sun rises.          

The Korean Planner

Today I purchased my last morning coffee of the year. Because I have a earned enough e-stickers to get a free planner from Starbucks. I did this last year and I absolutely loved having it with me on my desk to organize my life at work. It's not as awesome as buying a $40 hat or t-shirt and getting a free case of beer (most people look at it the other way around, I choose not to) but it's free. And everyone loves free!

I opened it up to find the monthly calendar pages at the front like the old one so I started penciling in my vacation dates and when my parents are coming to Korea. I kept flipping through and noticed that there are no week by week pages! It's thirteen full calendar pages and then the rest is blank paper, lined paper, and historical facts about Starbucks. I guess it's my fault for not looking inside the sample book, at the same time it should have been called a journal, not a planner. Then the second half of these not pages are dedicated to sketches even though there's a faded line going across the pages. Super bummed about this investment. This might be a little exaggerated, but I imagine it would feel like doing a scavenger hunt, winning the scavenger hunt and receiving a keg of beer... "Oh wait, it's empty."    

I'm just happy I've lost an eagerness to organize my life in a notebook. That might change with the new school year, even though all the other player remain the same, but at the same time, it's Korea, I know I'm shipping out in August I just don't know where yet. All in all Starbucks has really let me down.

Maybe this is karma for that post about Friday the 13th being just another day on my monthly calendar. Mid-morning breakthrough! At least I didn't order someone to kill an innocent woman that would, presumably, rat on me since I'm accountable for distributing unregistered automatic weapons, one of which was used in a school shooting killing four children, this woman's son being one of them, Jax Teller. That would lead to some pretty intense karma you would think.

On that note: If you haven't started watching Sons of Anarchy already, start now. With some patience, you won't regret it. Hooray for streaming! Netflix in the US has it too.                

Erection Day

That's how one student, and several teachers, say election day. How can I resist a title so hilarious? I advised them all to say "the voting time" it comes out poting time but I don't need to worry about the pleats in my pants when they say that word.

The school has their elections tomorrow to determine who will be the next president and vice president of the school year starting in March. It's just like back home where a student will come into a classroom disrupt everything by promising ridiculous things that don't make sense (honestly, I just ignored them, they could have said something logical). The candidates also bring in two sign carrying blokes the say some sort of cheer for the peer they're supporting. Very supportive and very Korean.

The two candidates that I know by name are completely polar from one another. Kyoung-Ha is completely insane and an egotistical class clown. In class he always has his hand up because I'm 90% sure he just wants to hear his own voice. Usually he doesn't know the actual answer but has a long "umm" or a joke that most often proves he's completely off the rails. I don't want to discredit his intelligence, because he is a super smart kid, but he'll be making personal announcements over the PA every hour if he gets elected. Yoorim, on the other hand, is just a hard working girl with the personality of a potato, homework, study, homework, study, eat, play violin, study, go to school at 8:00 am, and she just keeps going. You get the picture. She'd be a great admin person but she's not this approachable person at all. Even I'm intimidated by her. Yeah, she's taller than me.

The other kid seems to have this band wagon of the degenerates of our school which can't bode well if  the faculty has anything to say about it. I will consider him a dark horse in the race.

There very well could be others as well. I'm excited to here the results whenever that may be. Fact this is the most I've ever looked into any election ever. It's because I don't want this to happen to anything ,anywhere, EVER.

Going Coastal in Korea

After having shoulder surgery and things going smoothly it'd be really nice to pretend like I'm normal again and go travel around Asia for my vacation. However, the cautionary cow inside my head moos, "Stay here and find some greener pastures in Korea." Alright, cow, I'll give it a try.

So far with my morning off I've looked over several tourism sites in Korea and there are so many interesting things to do and places to see. Ideally I'd like to go hiking/ exploring the west coast or south coast but that's proving to be more difficult than I thought it would be because I want to work my trip around a rail pass. If I buy a rail pass for the week it measures out to 22,000W a day with infinite train rides which is pretty awesome. Exclusive to foreigners, its a great way to promote Korea in all of its beauty gliding from city to city and site to site on a warp speed cloud.

There are a lot of natural sites I  want to see but since all the railways branch out from Seoul I'm going to have to pick and choose where I travel to make the best of my seven days. There's the lovely Northeast, prime for ice fishing and winter activities; Taean National Park, under Seoul; then further down more national parks; and the town famous for its mud, Boryeong. The South is really enticing with all the isles and lookout points, but the train tracks go north and south in this country so I'd be on a bus if I took this route. The alternative is climbing up and down on the train to hit each spot. This will probably be what happens. If I run out of days and I'm just going to take a monster long bus ride back to Busan.

I'm obviously packing light bringing along a camera, notebook, a phone, respective chargers, enough underwear for the journey (and the necessary extra one), and recycle through my warmest winter gear. I might be eating even lighter: Winter is the soup season and man'o'man do these Koreans know how to make a good soup. Looking at the travel websites made this seem really intimidating considering the mountain of things to do in the window I'm giving myself, but this will be my first adventurous back-packing (with a gym bag) vacation I've ever had.

This might become a brainstorming/ mapping out spot to list the things I want to see as well as the routes I'll be taking. My co-teacher said that Suncheon is a good place to go, so I'm looking into that as well right now. Currently though everything is up in the air and it's 75% likely to stay that way until cabin fever strikes (like my plan, I have no date(s) planned either).

I remember going out for dinner with this one person who talked about this memoir about a woman who wandered through the Appalachians all by herself for a month or longer on her own. Although I don't plan on doing something that isolating, I am going to try my best to only speak Korean and when someone speaks to me in English I will reply in French. This winter vacation isn't shaping up to be a typical vacation of searching for a beach or a cold beer but one of those Into the Wild explorations where (I haven't seen the movie or read the book) you soul-search, kill some stuff, eat it, bath in a stream, build a log cabin, whatever, I know it's going to test me, and I'm excited about that. I will also need to get a real pair of running shoes too.      

  

What do you want to be? A top 5

We had a test day today. I had no class while students were tested on each subject with a new written/ multiple choice examination every forty minutes. In between 3rd and 4th period my co-teachers are bombarded with newsprint covered with the right and wrong answers of the past three or four English lesson from our textbook.

Because the Grade 6 teacher has more classes than any other grade I take four classes off of her plate to round out the workload. She gives me a perfect test she's already marked and sends me on my way. Would you believe it there is a question that involves having some sort of outer thought beyond the textbook? I certainly didn't. The last question on the test prompted the students to say what they wanted to be when they grew up. There were lots of answers some more bizarre than others.  Here's the bottom top 5: 1 being the most discouraging.

5. Animal doctor: There was a student who wrote veterinarian so I have to give this student props for wanting to do something I was hell bent on doing until I met my colossal bitch of a science teacher in middle school. You need to remember that consonant-vowel pattern until the end of the word, kiddo.
4. A toy doctor. I don't know what this would be.
3. Spot Preson: Uh oh, here comes a kid who can't spell and is riding on the likelihood that he'll be an athlete some day. Boody Miles Kim?
2. Touusst: This was also this student's answer for every written question. I know exactly who it is too and she never comes to my phonics class even after I tell her teacher to tell her! Moral of her life: You get what you put in.
1. Model: Really? You just want to look pretty not actually have a ... skill? ... Good luck I guess.

A lot of others wrote baseball player, teacher, astronaut, lawyer, diplomat, designer, fashion designer, singer, soccer player, programmer (NOT pro-gamer, I hope). It was really nice to see their aspiring goals coupled with 90+ test scores because my personal aspirations are sliding a bit these days (Resolution time'll save me though!). No one wanted to be a cop or a fireman though.

They're still managing to drive my pet peeves wild with Vs and Rs and Fs and Ts. There's always something to work on with kids, that's what's great about them .
Keep dreaming kids!!!
AND PRACTICE YOUR PRINTING!!!  

The Last Time I will Eat Mini-Stop Chicken

Whenever I have Mini-Stop chicken I'm unbelievably upset with myself, like a single girl with a sad movie and bucket of ice cream. It's my quick fix for dinners if I don't feel like making, or even waiting, for actual food. Simply go up to the cashier in the Mini-Stop and point to the skewered, deep-fried nuggets you wish to eat. Sometimes they warm it for you other times they don't. Either way it's deep-fried so its obviously cooked right.

SPOILER ALERT: IT DOESN'T!!

Yesterday, feeling peckish after some pick-up Ultimate (such an awesome time) and knowing that my sink was already jammed with dishes I accepted the fact that I would have no motivation to wash dishes and then make food. I had too choose between doing two arduous tasks or eating the chicken on a stick. I took the chicken, at the counter I impulsively ordered two skewers. The cashier put them in a bag and held out his hand.
"Oh, you're not going to heat it, that's okay because it's already been cooked and battered. What could go wrong anyways? Here's your 2,400 won."

I walked out of the store and across the road into my building pulling off one nugget at a time. While waiting for the elevator I pulled off a rather large nugget of warm, delicious meat from the skewer. It was so big, "How big was it?" it was a two-biter. Then it all went downhill. I looked at what was left in my hand. A crusted outside and a pink middle:
WHAT
THE
HELL
I spat out the gob of raw meat back into the bag it came in. I could feel my stomach turning. Rage building. How can this happen? I don't care to find out. But I'm gonna tell you flat out that I'm never eating Mini-Stop chicken again. Now it's ramen or nothing. So say goodbye to that marginalized single girl eating a gluttonous amount of ice cream while watching The Notebook burrowed inside me.  She's dead. But don't mourn, celebrate! Because it is one more step on the road to accidentally becoming a vegetarian. healthier person.