Lori Teacher

A snake got loose in COEX!

2009-07-10T13:36:00.003+09:00

I asked some of my second-grade students to write a story about a snake getting loose in COEX, the giant underground mall near our neighborhood. This is what Luna came up with for the second part of her story--with all the cute mistakes intact, of course!

I am glad to see you again. Now I am anaconda! I still live in COEX.COEX is good place. But still everyone run away from me. Thousands of people tried to catch me, but their fear is more bigger then thinking of catching me. So, I am, living behind cloths store. Soon, someone see me. He was frozn like ice. After four hour, he called 119. [119 is the emergency police number in Korea, like 911 in the US.] After all, many people was frozn like ice. So I slithered and wiggled slowly. I went to the aquarium. One crazy shark (the biggest shark) came out from the aqurium. I was 12mt, so I ate it. [I have no idea what "12mt" is--maybe 12 meters long?] It was very tasty. I want to be free. I will be free!

I have been free! My wish is cometrue! Someone gave me a house like jungle. I love this place. Because everyone likes me. Execpt, one person. He is police. Every day police chase me. He chase me because when he catch me, he hate snake. So I went to the theater. Movie was starting now. The name of the movie is 'The little mermaid.' I was looking for Lori. Soon, I saw Christine [another student in the class]. The next person I see, he was Jimmy! But Jimmy couldn't seeme because there was a lot of people. I found Justin to! I went to justin. Soon, he numbed and scream like frog. He said, "It is boa constrictor!" Justin knows I'm boa constrictor. But true is I'm anaconda! Ha,Ha,Ha!

One more time: "awww!" (But for another reason...)

2009-05-29T16:32:00.002+09:00

Title: My grandfather died

(a picture diary)

by Dannypants [once again, the last part was appended by me!]

Today my grandfather died. So we went to a funeral hall. This is how grandfather died. First, he is 95 years old. Second, he is sick. Third, he is died. I'm so sad. That mean I can't meet him anymore. I thought in sky country My grandfather will be okay. And he is very old. (Not that Julian's grandmother. She is 97 years old!) Do you think my grandfather will be okay in sky country?

All together now: "awwww!"

2009-05-29T16:20:00.004+09:00

Title: Baseball

(a picture diary)

by Steve-o [the latter two characters were appended by his teacher; he has since adopted them. Score!]

I played baseball with my father. My father great played the baseball. My father hit the ball and ball is homerun. I thought he is power ful. me too. ^.^ He helped me when I studied. He is very kind. I love him. I love baseball.

Mexico peoples is bad.

2009-05-15T14:14:00.002+09:00

Title: I look Mexico peoples

(a picture diary)

by Alex

I look Mexico people. They play mexico instrument. This is very bad. Because sing is very big and bad. trumpet is very big voice And Mexico peoples has pig influenza. I don't like mexico an annual tide

"These kids today," declares kid

2009-04-29T13:51:00.002+09:00

I have a hunch that Ann has been listening to lots of grumbling adults lately. What do you think? Submitted into evidence: her picture diary from this past weekend. :c)

Title: About Leonardo da vinci

Leo borned in 1452. He lived in Italy. He was an artist, an inventor, a mathematician, a scientist, and a psychologist. He drew 'MonaLisa' and 'the Last supper.' And he invented an airplane, a helicopter and lots of farming muchines and weapons. why aren't a person like Leo today? Long time ago, there wasn't computer and internet games. But, today lots of students play computer games or internet. I want students don't play and study hard and become a famous person like Leo.

Incidentally, I'm super-impressed by Ann's writing. To show you the contrast, here's the picture diary of one of her classmates:

Title: Today teacher give test paper.

Today teacher give test paper. The test is very difficult. I hundred is math and Korean. I don't like souial studies. Because It is very difficult. But science is commonness. In my class everyone didn't had a hundred.

Yay, human rights.

2009-01-13T22:57:00.001+09:00

I'm glad to see that freedom of speech is alive and well in South Korea....

My Irish eyes are smilin'!

2009-01-05T13:07:00.006+09:00

I'm an Irish citizen!!!!

A little backstory.

Both of my paternal grandparents were born in Ireland--one in modern-day Northern Ireland, and one in the modern-day Republic of Ireland (although both were born before the split). They both emigrated to New York as adults, where they met and got married. My dad was born there.*

Two and a half years ago, I mentioned to a co-worker of mine that two of my grandparents were Irish. He told me that I could apply for Irish citizenship through them, but it seemed improbable. Then, about a year ago, I was bored (okay, FINE...I was procrastinating) so I googled it. Turns out he was right! According to Irish law, my dad's already considered a citizen because he was born to Ireland-born citizens; he just wasn't on the books as such. I, being born to an Irish citizen (albeit one born in the States), was eligible to apply for citizenship. Which would then give me EU citizenship. Hot DANG.

Starting this past March, I began assembling the documents required for my application. Basically, they included birth, marriage, and death certificates (as applicable) for me, my dad, and whichever of his parents I chose; I had to prove that my grandparent was born in Ireland, that my dad was his/her son, and that I'm his daughter. I also assembled official copies for my sister and for my dad's Irish passport application. The process probably cost me over a hundred hours worth of work, mainly due to my grandparents' elusive marriage record. Also employed in the effort were my dad's fabulous cousin Dorothy, who hunted down my grandmother's 1910 birth certificate for me in Ireland (thanks, Dorfee!), and my sister and father, who dutifully copied and notarized and mailed whatever I required. And my dad financed all that document-gathering. Because he is wonderful and generous, not to mention handsome and charming!

Fast forward to about a month ago. Finally, eight months after I began the whole effort, we had a complete little army of stamped and watermarked certificates. I asked my dad, who was back in Atlanta, to photocopy the whole shebang and send it off to the New York consulate, where it would take up to a year to process--and once I had my citizenship, I could apply for a passport. That time frame was less than ideal, since I'd ideally like to teach in Germany once my contract in Korea runs out in July, and it's approximately 34,927 times easier to get a job in Europe if you're a European than if you're an American. (Thus, most of the basis of the appeal for me of Irish citizenship.)

Then, my dad had a brilliant idea: I live in Seoul now, so couldn't I send the application to the Irish embassy in Seoul? Surely they received far fewer citizenship and passport applications than the New York consulate did; maybe Seoul could process it more quickly than New York could. I e-mailed the embassy and told them about New York's up-to-one-year waiting time. The response was even better than I had hoped: not only was I allowed to apply through the Seoul embassy, but I could do my citizenship and passport at the same time--and it would take eight or nine weeks for both. My dad mailed me all my documents the next day.

Before I left Seoul for Christmas vacation, I subwayed over to the embassy and delivered all my documents. They told me the website where I could check on the progress of my passport application, and I wrote down my application number. Today, two weeks after that, I got home from vacation and saw the note with my application number. I went online to see if the passport office in Dublin had received my application yet, and this is what I saw.

Application Number Entered: 10126664624
Status: Application approved on 02/01/2009. Passport will issue to your Local Office within 10 days.
Issue Date: 05/01/2009
Last Updated: 02/01/2009

Not only have they received my application, but it's been approved! That means that my citizenship application has already been approved, too! After all that work, I'm finally an Irish citizen!!!!!

This is great news, and not only because of the employment opportunities it opens up for me for next year. My grandfather died before I was born, but my grandmother lived close to us almost my whole life and was a constant presence in it. She died two and a half years ago--actually, it was the same summer that I learned that I could apply for citizenship. (She was almost 96 years old!) Since she died, I feel like I've really been getting in touch with my Irish roots, as hackneyed as that sounds. First there was her memorial service in Atlanta; then, four months later, we drove her ashes up to New Jersey to bury them next to my grandfather, which included another little memorial service with lots of extended family and live Irish music. And eight months after that, my dad took my sister and stepmother and I to Ireland, where we spent time with tons of extended family and even got to see the houses where both of my grandparents were born! Pictures can be found here.

That trip was really great for me. Finally, I felt like I understood a bit about the context from which my grandparents came, and I felt so much more in touch with my Irish roots. That was June of 2007; the following March, I began the citizenship process. And today, I found out that my citizenship was granted. I couldn't be prouder to say that I'm Irish.

To commemorate the occasion, here's one last picture. My sister and dad and I are standing in front of my grandmother's one-room schoolhouse--did I mention that she was born in 1910?! The schoolhouse is still there!--reenacting an old-timey class photo, complete with serious expressions and painfully upright posture.

This year's Saint Patrick's Day is going to be a fun one FOR SURE. :c)

*Over the course of my research, I noticed that my grandparents got married in July of 1952, and my dad--their only child, born when they were both in their forties--was born in January of 1953. When I realized the brevity of that interval, I asked my dad if he knew what that meant. And he, ever the witty one (he learned it from me), acknowledged it. "I was a premie," he said with a sideways smile.

Teacher's pet or domestic slave?

2008-12-17T14:06:00.002+09:00

Dear, sweet Andy--one of the kids in my Monday/Wednesday/Friday first grade class--once wrote his weekly "picture diary" about helping his mom clear the table and wash dishes after dinner. I told him it was really nice of him to help out his mom like that.

That was about two months ago. Since then, all of Andy's picture diaries have involved manual labor and the sheer glee it brings him. I figure either he's kissing up to me because of my erstwhile praise....or he's a modern-day Cinderella. Or Cinderfeller.

Picture Diary

Andy, 12/12/08

After I finished my homework I fold the laundry. I fold the towel, underwear and panties. It was very fun.

No laundry-folding until you finish your homework, and I MEAN IT!

Stupid snot-faced kids.

2008-12-17T13:39:00.004+09:00

I forget if I mentioned this on my blog, but a couple months ago my boss was really riding me for about three or four weeks. One of my classes happened to have a high concentration of parents who Really Care A Lot About Their Children's Supplementary English Education....and observed classes and commented ALL the time. I only started teaching these wee-wahs in September, but apparently they've nitpicked every teacher they've had at my school, asking for little tweaks and complaining about curriculum changes until the counselor--the Korean who serves as an ambassador between the teachers and parents--quits. Seriously, there have been three or four counselors who have quit in recent months, and they've all had this one class. The kids are totally fine; it's just the parents who are.....involved. Ahem.

Anyway, for a while there my boss was talking to me every single day about little things she wanted me to change. She started observing my classes, requesting changes in my syllabi, and all that. It all ended okay; after a while, she was satisfied and moved on to some other poor teacher. She has a habit of doing this; she'll focus on one foreign teacher at a time, heap criticism on them until they're drowning, and then move on. The majority of her advice and requests are legitimate and helpful; it's just the quantity and frequency--and often, the style of delivery--that can make being in her hotseat so unpleasant. Poor Roommate Kyle is currently in the hotseat. I make him lots of cups of sympathy tea when we get home.

Anyway, the heat is off of me for now, and I haven't heard a peep from the parents of this one class in weeks. Woohoo! I'm writing about them now because I just graded a spelling and vocabulary test I gave them. For being in first grade, they're pretty advanced in their English ability. They're certainly nowhere close to native speakers, but they do pretty well. Plus, they actually do their homework. I can't tell you how much easier that makes my job.

For their weekly spelling-and-vocab tests, they have twenty words they have to spell, and they have to match definitions with eight of those words. Plus, I'm a complete stickler for capitalization and punctuation; if there's a dash missing or a lowercase letter where there should be an uppercase letter, I take off half a point. On this particular test, they had words like leather, brighter, Indian reservation, the Rocky Mountains, and--the piece de resistance--the Mississippi River. (It was mentioned in one of our textbooks.)

And do you know what? Out of seven first-graders, ONE missed that word. She forgot one of the "iss"es. The rest of them nailed it--capitalization and all. In fact, with two bonus words, my little rockstars had an average grade of 100.

WHO ARE THESE MUTANT CHILDREN???

New pictures (with stories!) on facebook!

2008-12-13T01:51:00.002+09:00

Go look! You don't need to have a facebook account.

BILLY JOEL CONCERT AAAAAH!!!!!!!

2008-11-20T01:49:00.002+09:00

On Saturday, I went to see Billy Joel in Seoul. It was EPIC. And I really should type out the whole story for y'all, but honestly, I don't feel like it. Sorry! HOWEVER, I put up pictures on facebook and captioned them copiously, so you should check out that album. You can look at the pictures even if you don't have a facebook account. I hope you'll go check them out! It truly was an amazing experience, and I have some really fun pictures from it.

Enjoy!

Adventures in Grading: part epic punishment.

2008-11-19T01:13:00.003+09:00

Picture Diary

by Polly

Today my family sat on the sofa. We watched on TV. It was very fun. I was looking for it many hours. I watched and watched. Then my father came with my younger brother. I said that I had to watch on TV. My mother was angry to me. "Polly, you must be nice to your father!" I was so scared. I had to go out of the house. I walked slowly outside. Tac... Tac... Tac... I cried and thought, 'I don't know how to do.' 2 minutes went by. I jumped 5 times on the ground. My nose was cold, and my ears were cold too. I wanted to go in. Soon the door was opened and my mother said that I could come in to the house. I was so sad in that time.

Sympathy for Korea's high school seniors.

2008-11-13T12:57:00.002+09:00

Today is the college entrance exam. High school seniors all around the country take this exam, which determines which college they will get into, which determines what jobs they'll get, which determines their quality of life for the next....oh, seventy years. Korea puts a LOT of stock in credentials, and this test is one of the most pivotal things that a Korean citizen does in his or her entire life.

An excellent post on Roboseyo details the exam and its impact on society. There's also an embedded video by SeoulGlow, wherein Michael Hurt, a celebrity blogger in Seoul, interviews high schoolers about their feelings on the exam. The post and the video are quite compelling; I hope you'll take a look and let me know what you think in the comments.

Korea is trying to kill me.

2008-11-10T21:48:00.003+09:00

A few weeks ago I had pinkeye. A little over a week ago I caught a cold that made me hoarse and hack-y and snotty, and I'm STILL coughing so much at night that it keeps me awake for an hour. Then, on Friday, I ate some pizza at Costco and got a wicked case of food poisoning. I'll spare you the details, except to say that my body turned itself inside out trying to get rid of whatever was in that pizza. I spent almost the whole weekend shuttling back and forth between the couch and the bathroom.

I'm pretty sure Korea's trying to kill me.

It's a good thing my immune system is so committed to its job, because I have Big Things coming up. Well, one Big Thing in particular: BILLY JOEL. I'm going to a Billy Joel concert (in Seoul!!!) on Saturday! I forget how much I've told you all about that whole situation, so in case I'm being redundant, here's the short(ish) summary.

1) Tickets were kind of expensive.

2) I couldn't find anyone who liked Billy Joel enough to pay 88,000 won for the cheap seats.

3) I did a search for people who like Billy Joel on facebook.

4) I sent a bunch of people messages, asking if they were interested in going to the concert.

5) Several of them replied ecstatically and wired me 88,000 won.

6) I now hold tickets for me and 12 strangers to go see Billy Joel on Saturday.

How awesome is that??? It's a bit of a social experiment; I hope these people turn out to be as cool as they seem from their facebook messages. :c)

Adventures in Grading, part Creep-tastic

2008-11-03T23:48:00.002+09:00

Picture Diary

by Polly

Today I washed my mother's feet.First I'd like to wash my younger brother's feet, but my mom said "Polly, please wash my feet." I didn't want to do it but I did it. My mother's feet feet were beautiful but too big. I want to have big and beautiful feet as my mother. I will drink milk and do exercise to be like my mother's feet. I want to go to the park after my feet are changed.I also want to swim in the river after my feet are big!

What the poo?! I showed this to Kyle, who was seriously disturbed by it. I pointed out that this was probably part of a foot-washing ceremony at church, but then Kyle noted that the picture that goes with the journal is definitely of a bathroom, complete with toothbrushes and a shower. So Polly indeed seems to have been required to wash her mother and brother's feet. But hey....if she's lucky, at least she'll end up with giant flipper feet when she's grown up!

....?!?!

Willpower: 1. Creeping obesity: 0.

2008-10-29T11:57:00.002+09:00

I consider it a personal triumph that for the past month and a half I have walked past Paris Baguette, our local bakery, on my walk to and from school but didn't give in until today.

I win!

Incidentally, the chocolate croissant was delicious.

Korean marketing gimmicks are brilliant.

2008-10-26T21:42:00.004+09:00

Last night, several of the teachers at my school went out for an wine buffet. For 15,000 won (which, right now, is $10.78), we drank as much wine as we liked. It was EXCELLENT. It was an evening of sparkling conversation, quality people, and copious amounts of the loveyness that red wine always brings.

On our way there, we passed a dancing coffee cup. It was dancing to the Wonder Girls song "Nobody," which is popular here to an unholy degree. Not to say that I don't enjoy it, because I totally do. (I can't help it! It's INFECTIOUS.) The video I linked to takes two minutes to get to the actual song, but the backstory is kind of cute, too.

Anyway! Dancing coffee cup: check. Naturally, I stopped to take a picture and a video.

The best part is, I didn't know that Jess and Eric were going to start dancing with the coffee cup! And they didn't know I was taking a video! Perfect serendipity, no? And when the coffee cup starts air-humping Eric (I mean, who can blame it?): simply priceless.

Then, we drank some wine!

It was lovely. If you'd like to see more pictures--and there are lots of great ones--you can see them here.

After that, we went to a noraebang! A noraebang is an establishment with private karaoke rooms, and it's a staple in Korean entertainment. You pay 15,000 won (or so) for an hour, choose your songs, and make a fool of yourself in front of your friends. It's really quite brilliant.

Jess and I did most of the heavy lifting when it came to singing. Kyle mostly spectated, occasionally rolling around on the floor or pretending to sing (then getting angry when we changed the song). Fun was had by all! I'd post a video of Jess and I singing ABBA, but I like Jess too much to do that.

I WILL show you pictures, though!

Strangely wonderful.

2008-10-26T19:52:00.004+09:00

A couple weeks ago, I had an interesting adventure. Carla, the then-newest teacher, and I volunteered to have our pictures taken on a Saturday. One of the Korean teachers knew someone who was a photographer and wanted a couple foreigners for a day trip photo shoot, so we woke up bright and early to get in a car with strangers for a couple hours. :c) The lady who arranged it turned out to be the grandmother of one of my students, the lovely and adorable Lilly. (Incidentally, Lilly's grandmother escaped from North Korea at the beginning of the Korean War, when she was four years old. Crazy!) There were about six people, including the teacher, whose day job involves intelligence with the Seoul police force. (How cool!) They took us down to Daejeon, and we visited a military (and police and firefighter) cemetary; it's similar to Arlington Cemetary in the States.

Most of the pictures involved Carla and I standing solemnly in front of graves with or without the teacher, in his dress police uniform, pointing out various things on the graves. After a couple hours of that, we went to a grassy area and set up a little picnic with milk and cookies, then another one with vitamin C-and-ginseng energy drinks. We smiled and laughed gaily while the Koreans took pictures. It was....strange. We found out halfway through the energy drink picnic that the pictures were for two photo contests; the milk company and energy drink companies were looking for pictures for a new ad campaign, and the prize is a lifetime supply of that product. (Sweet!) So Carla and I just might be appearing in an ad...haha. Unlikely, but who knows!

All the photographers were between the ages of 50ish and 75ish, which provided Carla and I with an interesting and informative experience. I've been reading a lot about traditional Korean values and ways of thinking, but since all the Koreans we know are either kids or twentysomething teachers who've spent time abroad, I hadn't interacted heavily with anyone who carries the old-school Korean mindset. This group of photographers, though, finally gave me some exposure to that. For instance, Carla and I were treated like royalty. We were honored guests, and the whole day they treated us with deference and respect. It was a really long day; we woke up at 7:30 and didn't get home until about 8pm, and it was quite exhausting and strange to have our pictures taken and be so formal for that long. But despite that, it was really edifying to have the opportunity to interact with an older generation of Koreans in such a meaningful way. They were extremely gracious hosts, and I came away feeling like they considered us to be dear friends. In fact, Lilly's grandmother called me today and invited us to her house for lunch next Saturday.

The experience was really...well, strange. Nothing quite compares to being asked to drink things and emote exuberantly while several people clamber around snapping pictures. It was also quite a mental exercise to stay alert for cues about how to conduct myself with propriety. But being brought into these people's world with such candidness made the experience really special. That day was bizarre, fulfilling, taxing, and edifying; in short, it was exactly what I came to Korea to experience.

I PROMISE I'm not bribing them to write this stuff.

2008-10-21T22:54:00.004+09:00

I got another complimentary writing assignment today. I realize that I look completely vain by posting TWO of these on my blog, but they kind of crack me up, so I don't care. :c) The assignment was to choose a topic, write a topic sentence, then write detail sentences.

Lori teacher is beautiful. She is beautifull because she have golden hair. She has preety eyes. She has long hair. I like her very much. She has white skin. She looks likea butterfly.

I must admit that I'm kind of enjoying my boost in perceived attractiveness in Korea. Because I have very fair skin, light-ish European-shaped eyes, and light-ish hair (well...in comparison to Asian black hair), I'm already at an advantage in the looks department. I'm not gonna lie: it's a nice little ego boost that a couple strangers I've interacted with--cashiers, et al.--have commented that I am "very peautiful." Again, I emphasize that 90% of that is because of my European features and coloring...but hey, a compliment is a compliment! I'll take it.

Luna's laudatory writing assignment brought up one other interesting phenomenon in the life of Lori Teacher. Several Koreans have mentioned my "blond," "yellow," or "gold" hair! My hair is red. If anything, it gets mistaken for brown hair, but definitely not blond. But in the same way that it's often hard for a Westerner to tell different Asian ethnicities apart, I think it's just harder for Korean eyes to see the differences between blond, brown, and red hair. And I'm sure it doesn't help that "red" hair looks nothing like a "red" crayon.

I tell you what, though. I feel somehow vindicated that my extreme paleness is actually an attractive thing in Korea. Score! "She looks like a butterfly," "she have golden hair," "she is sweety smell"....hey, I'll take it all.

I am SO butter-up-able.

2008-10-15T22:10:00.005+09:00

My second-least-favorite class is really small. It had six students, but the best student switched hagwons two weeks ago, so now there are just five. Unlike my first-least-favorite class, who I dislike because they're dreadfully lazy and never do their homework, my second-least-favorite class actually has pleasant students. But with them, the trouble is that they're very shy, they have very quiet voices, and they're much lower-level than they should be. I think these kids must have started out in bigger classes where they could shut their mouths and skate by because the teacher never heard how little they were capable of saying. Of course, now that all the silent low-level kids are in my class together, I'm forced to cheerlead and play charades until they understand. And once they understand, getting them to speak audibly is a whole other mountain to scale. It's EXHAUSTING.

The most redeeming part of that class is one tiny, lovely first-grader named Lilly. Lilly just joined the class in September, and she's the sweetest creature you'll ever meet. Plus, she's one of those kids who adores school and adores her teachers, so her presence in my class definitely massages my ego.

To wit: Lilly's "first day of school" diary, which I just graded. The assignment was to write about the first day of school, but Lilly seems not to have understood that. I don't care, though. She's a card-carrying member of the Lori Teacher Fan Club, so she can write about whatever she wants.

The First Day of School

I like favorite game.

I like my Lori teacher.

Because I give to special sticker. [She meant "because she gives me special stickers."]

I like special sticker.

And I am on the strainacontest. [That was supposed to be "I'm in the speech contest."]

Because the story long.

But I can do it. ^.^

I am very on the stainacontest.

I am very love Lori teacher.

Because Lori teacher is sweety smell.

good buy ~ ~

- from -

- Lilly -

She followed me home.....can I keep her?

The line between solidarity and jingoism.

2008-10-15T13:15:00.008+09:00

I just watched a really interesting documentary produced by Al-Jazeera about everyday life in North Korea. I applaud Al-Jazeera for taking such an objective approach to the subject--at least, inasmuch as one can be objective. I thought it was great how the documentary had no narration, but showed only snapshots of people and allowed the viewers to draw their own conclusions. There's footage from a government boardroom, a factory fighting to make quota despite the frequent nationwide blackouts, and one family's apartment. The most quietly shocking part, I thought, was in the last couple minutes, where an old man describes American bomb raids on his house and school...and the "kill the American dogs" sentiment he's taught his tiny granddaughter because of it.

Honestly, I can't really blame him. He's had little to no outside news during the sixty years since the Korean War, and the government has fed him a steady diet of propaganda. And...well, the Americans did kill his father, brother, and classmates. In his situation, what would you believe? And what would you teach your grandchildren?

* * * * * * * * * * *

That documentary got me thinking about a class I had a few weeks ago. Somehow, Kim Jong Il came up. A few kids said that he was a really bad man, but one girl was sympathetic to him. "But he's still Korean," she said. "He's still one of my people." Despite his horrible actions, she couldn't completely condemn him; he shared the same blood and the same heritage.

When I told Margaret about that conversation, she made an obvious (and completely cogent) point: "Charles Manson was American, but does that earn him any sympathy in my mind? Of course not!" That disparity--between how Margaret thought of her evildoing countryman and how my student thought of hers--highlighted for me a unique quality of the Korean mindset.

In traditional Korea, family is of the utmost importance. Following from that, loyalty to one's in-group is highly valued and expected; each person sticks by his or her family members, schoolmates, co-workers, and countrymen with all the Confucian fervor he or she can muster. (I should, of course, offer the very large caveat that Korea is westernizing at a dizzying rate, and that the old Confucian values are followed to greater or lesser degrees from person to person. What used to be quite universal is now anything but.)

As I discussed with Margaret, my student saw Kim Jong Il similarly to how a mother would see her son who had killed someone. "I hate what he did," she might say. "But he's still the son I raised, and I'll still go see him in prison. You don't turn against your own family, no matter what they do." From what I've read about the traditional Korean mindset, I have the impression that fellow Koreans are seen as extended family in a way that doesn't exist--or rarely exists--in the American mindset.

Korea has a long history of being conquered, oppressed, and abused. Surrounded by China and Japan, Koreans call their country a shrimp among whales..."and when the whales play," they aphorize, "the shrimp gets its back broken." Understandably, the economic and political boom South Korea experienced in the second half of the 20th century brought about a tidal wave of national pride. As longtime victims who finally gained true autonomy, of course Koreans are proud, and of course they feel solidarity toward each other.

But is there a line? Is my student's reticence to condemn Kim Jong Il too forgiving? Granted, she's in third grade; at that age, probably 90% of her political opinions come from her parents. Perhaps this particular example is not the best discussion point for the appropriateness of ethnic solidarity, given her age and the immaturity of her critical thinking skills. Still, the broader question has gotten me thinking.

Like so many viewpoints I've experienced in Korea, I find myself questioning whether my distaste for the viewpoint is valid (and supported by ideals such as critical thinking and human equality), or whether my distaste is ethnocentric--and merely a product of my American-enculturated brain encountering something different (yet still "correct" and "valid"). Was my student showing an acceptable level of solidarity, or was she being jingoistic?

What do you all think? Where's the line?

Adventures in grading, part 4ish.

2008-10-14T22:24:00.003+09:00

I wish I had a scanner....I really do.

I was just grading some summaries for my third grade science class--the one I've written about a million times. And Aiden, who's one of the two smartest (in a class full of smart cookies), had quite a bit of fun with his summary.

He wrote it on tiny paper; it's from a little spiral-bound pocket notebook. I hate that, because the paper is so easy to lose. But this time, he had two pieces of paper stapled together, and the top one had a little button drawn on it. The button said "summary now start," and little arrows informed me that I should press the button to see his summary. Sure enough, after I pressed the button (....and turned the page), his summary was there waiting for me.

I adore this class, as I've already said a million times. A lot of it is because they're so high-level, which makes it easier to talk to them, as well as making things like humor possible. (Joking around with first-graders who have been learning English for a year is a completely futile endeavor.) But more than that, they actually enjoy being there. They're friends with each other, and they approach the class like it's a fun part of their day. That attitude means that they do their homework, they're in a good mood, and they actually get creative and have fun with their homework.

What a spiffy bunch of kids. :c)

Bathroom demons and televisual bliss.

2008-10-09T21:57:00.004+09:00

I've been living in my new apartment for a week now.

The highlights:

--Living with Kyle. Kyle is awesome.

--Not living with a school administrator. Kevin was a very courteous roommate, and he was super-helpful with the language and cultural barrier while I adjusted...but being roommates with one of the higher-ups at your job is a bit awkward. Not that it kept me from being comfortable or anything; I just always had a slight feeling of "I need to be on my best behavior." It's nice to be completely at ease when I'm at home.

--HAVING A TV WITH MORE THAN TWO CHANNELS. AND A COUCH IN FRONT OF SAID TV. Oh my lord...I mean, everyone knows I'm a TVaholic, but I didn't realize the extent of it until I moved into an apartment with, like, 70 channels after a long dry spell. I've hardly been able to pry myself away. It is glorious. More on that in a minute.

The lowlight (only one):

--OUR BATHROOM. It is......blargh. Something inside me dies every time I think about it. First of all, you must understand something about many Korean bathrooms: there is no specific shower or tub area. There is only a shower head and a drain in the middle of the floor. You shower in the whole bathroom. And in the case of our own bathroom, the shower head is attached to the sink, and you turn a little dial to switch the water back and forth between the shower head and the faucet. (An added bonus to this system: if someone uses the shower and forgets to switch the water back to the faucet, the next person comes along to use the sink and gets blasted in the chest by the shower head. SWEET!) Also, like many Korean bathrooms, ours contains the washing machine. And again, as is the case with most Korean households, the washing machine drains out onto the floor instead of from a pipe directly into the sewer system.

So, to recap: our bathroom has a sink, a toilet, a washing machine, a shower head attached to the sink and hanging on the wall at stomach-height, and a drain in the middle of the floor. When you take a shower or run the washing machine, the whole floor gets flooded, which means that walking in afterward (to go to the bathroom or hang up your wet laundry) gets your feet all wet, so you track muddy footprints into the rest of the apartment. We have some designated bathroom flip-flops to help with the situation, but it's still disgusting. And I'm someone with a high tolerance for filth. Oh--and the height of the shower head holster-thingy means that you always have to hold the shower head while you're taking a shower. Awesome!

Despite all the obnoxious qualities I've already mentioned, the worst one is still unspoken.

Y'all. There's something screwy with the way our drain pipe is set up; Kyle says there's no S-curve (or whatever those things are called). Because of that, the stank sewer gas below floats up into our bathroom, and there is a permanent stench. It's hoooorrible. Our two lines of defense against the smell are both flawed; we leave the window open--which makes the bathroom cold in the morning when you want to take a shower--and we leave the door closed--which means you never know for sure if someone is in there. I know I'm being all Whiny McWhinypants about this, but if you had to use a similarly crappy bathroom, I'm sure you'd be cranky too. :c)

This concludes my bathroom-related whining. But I'm not finished! The aforementioned televisual bliss must be shared!

Because I am feeling particularly list-y today, here is a rundown of the wonders I have discovered on Korean TV in the past three days. All of them filled me with glee. I may have squealed once or twice. (Okay....maybe thrice.)

--CSI: Miami (this just in: David Caruso is still a terrible actor)

--Law & Order (YES YES YES YES. Even though it's usually my least-favorite L&O flavor: the one with the dude from Sex and the City. You know the one.)

--Mythbusters

--the movie Two Weeks Notice (one of my all-time favorites!)

--a Korean TV show named Franceska, whose titular character is disturbingly Morticia Addams-like and is involved in a complicated web of unrequited love (also involving her fake-husband, her daughter, and a schizophrenic pop star). Oh, and she happens to be a vampire. Of course.

--a commercial that informed me that BILLY JOEL WILL BE PLAYING IN SEOUL ON NOVEMBER 15TH. OH MY LORD OH MY LORD OH MY LORD. And may I repeat: OH. MY. LORD.

--America's Next Top Model!!!! (Thankfully, no marathons; I love me some ANTM marathons, but they have swallowed entire weekends of my life.)

--The Office. DUBBED OVER IN KOREAN. When I stumbled upon that last night, I sprinted across the apartment, grabbed my laptop, frantically skyped Margaret (who, thank goodness, was online), and showed her about 5 minutes' worth with my webcam. It was amazing. And hilarious. And a testimony to why best friends exist (clearly, it's so that you have someone to watch crazy TV with over a webcam).

My own little economic crisis.

2008-10-08T00:51:00.003+09:00

I just read a friend's facebook status, and it mentioned the plummeting value of the Korean won. Curious, I looked up the exchange rate....and received the first of many, many pieces of bad news.

When I left for Korea less than three months ago, one dollar was worth 1008 won. Today, one dollar is worth 1269 won. My first reaction upon reading this was frustration that the easy "lop off three zeroes and stick a dollar sign on it" price conversion no longer worked. ("So, this movie ticket is 7,500 won. That's....not $7.50 anymore. It's....um. Less than that. Or more. Definitely either less or more than $7.50.")

My second thought ran to my salary. "Hey self," I said to myself, "we should pull out some math wizardry--cross-multiplying and solving for x, what-whaaaat!--and figure out how much our salary has changed. In fact, just out of curiosity, let's see how much our current salary is worth today as compared to one year ago." And Y'ALL. I now make SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS AND THREE CENTS LESS EVERY MONTH THAN I WOULD HAVE MADE ONE YEAR AGO TODAY. LET ME REPEAT: $600.03 LESS EVVVVERY MOOOOONTH. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH CAPS LOCK KEYS IN THE WORLD TO CONVEY MY SHOCK AND DISMAY.

My poor, poor salary. And here I'd been, all "ha HA, you dastardly Wall Street crash, you! You can't get me over here in Korea! Not too badly, anyway! Nanny nanny boo boo!" Meanwhile, the won was in the throes of sympathy pains, determined to suffer just as much as its American buddy. Such compassion it has! It's inspiring, really. Someone buy the rights to that movie, STAT.

Would you like a visual aid? No problem! I am nothing if not accommodating. (Also: aid-y.)

This lil ski slope represents the value of the won against the dollar over the past four months. Just look at it, soaring to new heights! Being all it can be! Climbing Ev'ry Mountain! [Incidentally: why did the writers of The Sound of Music feel the need to apostrophize the word "every"? It was already two syllables! No apostrophe necessary! Anyway.]

Even compared to the day I left for Korea--and again, that was less than three months ago--my salary is now worth $405.79 less each month.

Clearly, the won has been listening to far too much Tom Petty lately.

A resourceful little bugger.

2008-10-06T13:02:00.002+09:00

Sorry for all the "kids say the darndest things" grading-related posts lately, but....well, grading has kind of been my life. :c) That said, here's another one.

In one of my classes, where the kids are in first grade, I've been having them write sentences with the vocabulary words for homework. I just got to Andy's sentences, and I have a slight hunch he's been using an English phrasebook or something for help. What do you think?

false: Be false in word and deed.

welcome: I welcome your criticism.

hero: No man is a hero to his valet.

I mean, he TOTALLY could have come up with those sentences on his own! Maybe I'm just not giving him enough credit.... :c)

A passel of telescope designers

2008-10-06T01:00:00.002+09:00

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I adore my third-grade science class. They're my highest-level class, and they're always full of energy and giggly and fun. Here are a couple of their writing assignments; they're learning about telescopes, so their assignment was to draw and describe a telescope of the future. (I wish I could show you their drawings too....they're awesome.)

My Future Telescope

by Aiden

My future telescope is the "Good magical Super Duper Telescope." It is 60 centimeters long if you stretch it and 30 centimeters if you fold it. It has a sponge inside that cleans the monicules ["molecules"] on the screen so we can see space very well like the Hubble Space Telescope. The sponge's name is the "slave sponge". Also, there is a sword's blade inside. When there is an enemy, you had dig, you need to cut something, etc, you can press the {SWORD} button, the sharp blades comes out. The last thing is, there is a monitor and some buttons. There are the letters, numburs, and the arrow buttons. You can also see the {Sword} button. At the monitor, you can see the sky and it tells you the constellations and the imformation of the stars, meteors, planets, moons, etc.

My Future Telescope

by Bill

My future telescope's name will be A.F.S.I.T (Alien Finder Star Information Telescope). A.F.S.I.T is a home telescope that has a little radio telescope in top of it and one on the leg. This telescope has lazer blasters. The lazer goes to space and hits a star. Then the lazer comes back to the telescope with information. The speaker tells the information, and you can see the star the lazer bounced off. You could look at the star 1~3 minutes. There are three buttons that says (1) (2) (3). If you press a button, you can see the star the lazer bounced off for that much minutes. Also, there is a reflector. This reflects lazer when lazer hits the wrong place. In one second, lazer moves 3 trillion miles. There are three flashlights on A.F.S.I.T. You can take these flashlights out.

My Future Telescope

by Jane

This is a telescope that can do 5 thing! I will tell the 5 things all. The (1) thing is that we can see the star very closely and we can see the space! We can look at the sun closely. The (2) good thing is that we have to send telescope and settlelight's to the space but it cost a lot and with a spacecraft. The telescope makes the settlelights and the telescopes into the space. When they go to the space they get pictures some mystery or speical thing and Some creature, they get the picture or take it to Earth. And other is (3)!

The (3) good thing is cool! It makes a light go to the planet and make the light come back it's the same thing as number (2)!

Last, the (4) is a little bit impossible because the telescope get's bigger and bigger gets to the space or a planet and put a little scientist robot and make it study.

I freaking love these kids.

Psychology...set to MUSIC. Ooooooh.

2008-10-01T03:00:00.004+09:00

One of my lovely TIP students from last summer (hi, Mikayla!) sent me a facebook message with a link a few days ago. I was in the middle of my end-of-the-month report-card-writing syllabus-making stress-inducing sleep-depriving forgetting-to-eating stupor, so I didn't get a chance to watching it until now. (Okay, granted...I'm not really out of the aforementioned stupor just yet, but at least I slept last night! Woohoo!)

Anyhoodle, I needed a break just now, so I finally watched the video she sent me. And Y'ALL. It's a SONG about PSYCHOLOGY. Well, okay...not the whole discipline. (That'd be a crazypants-long song....and probably in the frenetic montage style of "We Didn't Start the Fire." [Note to self: WRITE THAT SONG.]) But it was about my favorite classic psychology experiment, the Milgram obedience experiment from 1961. In the song, Dar Williams writes from the point of view of one of the subjects, who followed orders and inflicted pain (or so they thought) on other subjects. If you're interested, I'd recommend checking out the previous links first, then listening to the song (and here are the lyrics).

It's a pretty awesome find if you're a total psychology dork. (And even if you're not, I think it'd still be pretty compelling.) Enjoy!

Kim Jong Il is the new Chuck Norris.

2008-09-30T23:15:00.004+09:00

Check out this AWESOME (and historical!) video from North Korea.

Of course, they left out the part about how the tsunami a couple years ago was caused by Kim Jong Il farting and sneezing at the same time. (It's a bit of an embarrassment to the Dear Leader.)

Ironic toilet paper.

2008-09-30T21:21:00.002+09:00

I've never been able to find paper towels in Korea. Not anywhere--and I've looked. Instead, Koreans use toilet paper (well....they call it "tissue") for everything: as toilet paper (duh), as napkins, as paper towels...everything. In our bathrooms at school, there's even a big roll of toilet paper for you to dry your hands with. And that works REALLY well, of course...as long as you don't mind little bits of wet toilet paper clinging to your hands.

Yesterday, we were running out of toilet paper in the apartment. I mean, we were getting REALLY close to the end of the last roll. I'd been avoiding buying it because I bought the last pack, but I didn't want to be caught without toilet paper, so I went out and bought some. And a couple hours later, the next time nature called, I opened my new pack of toilet paper--AND IT WAS PAPER TOWELS. They were even the short, half-sheet kind! My favorite!

Of COURSE: when I finally find paper towels in Korea, what I really want is toilet paper. Figures.

Adventures in Grading, part....3? 4?

2008-09-29T03:54:00.002+09:00

Around school these days, the hulking, insidious figure of the Kangnam Speech Contest is looming before us. Every student has to prepare something: the most upper-level students will write essays, the babiest of the babies will answer interview questions and talk about their current storybook, and there are various gradations in between. When I wrote my September syllabi, I didn't know the speech contest was imminent, so the last week or so has been a super-fun (.....) omelet of rearranged schedules and overstuffed class periods.

My third-grade science class, which is one of my favorites, prepared the first part of their speeches and turned them in to me on Friday. I was just grading one of them--Christopher's--when I had a laugh-out-loud grading moment. I've reproduced it exactly; homeboy did a bang-up job. I'm not gonna tell you which part made me laugh, though; see if you can guess. ;)

Hello, my name is [redacted, yo]. my English name is Christopher. I am in third grade. I have been studying English for four years. I went to the US with my family. [ed. note: I just found out--like, a week ago--that he lived in Chapel Hill last year. An hour and a half from me! Crazy! Anyway...onward.] I learned English a lot there and made American friends.

My hobby is reading books. I always read books when it is rest time. One of my favorite book is Series of unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket.I like it because it is adventurous, risky and odd. If you want to be unfortunate, read this book but you will have fun.

Time: so noted.

2008-09-27T22:34:00.012+09:00

Every year since I was about 13 or so, I've been marking three particular days in my mind. It's become a bit of a private ritual for me, and it helps me perceive a bit of perspective and rhythm in the passing of time. On each of those days, I get a bit reflective and appreciative. For me, the rest of the year pivots around those three anchors; they keep me mindful and re-engage me in the meta-experience of life.

* * * Spring * * *

The first of those special days usually falls in late February--at least, it does in Atlanta: it's the first day the daffodils bloom. I've adored daffodils since I was a little kid, and for several very good reasons. I love that they're the very first vestige of spring. The weather begins to warm, but you don't think about it. It seems like just another temperature fluctuation, and you don't recognize the weather's springward vector. Then one day you leave the house, and WHAM--it's the daffodils' opening day! That moment, for me, feels like an army of four-year-olds rushing at me and hugging my knees in a fit of rapturous abandon. GORGEOUS.

Some years, I happen to notice the buds poking out of the ground a few days before the big moment. In some ways, it disappoints me; it takes away some of the magic of the big reveal. But at the same time, it provides me with a different kind of warm-and-fuzziness. It's like sitting in the audience five minutes before the lights go down and catching a glimpse of the little kids you've come to see stealing nervous glances around the side of the curtain. When the buds reveal themselves to me prematurely, I feel like I've been made privy to a thrilling secret by an excited little kid who--let's face it--didn't have a prayer of keeping the secret much longer anyway. It charms me to the core.

Whether or not the buds spoil the surprise, the first day the daffodils bloom is absolutely magical to me. And the very best part is that there are more of them every year! You plant some bulbs once, and every successive year, even more beatific little cups-and-saucers appear, as if ready for a tea party. They require no maintenance; they're just thrilled to show up to work each spring, and they'll stand there grinning and waving at you for weeks. Supposedly that proverb about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb came from the locations of Leo and Aries at that time of year, but I don't care. In my mind, the proverbial March lion has an exuberant six-pointed mane and a trumpeted orange snout.

Good LORD, how I love daffodils.

* * * Summer * * *

The second day every year that stands out for me is the first day I see fireflies. Where I come from, those drunken little lanterns start stumbling around on Mother's Day, plus or minus a week, and they too signal the turning of the season. But they also ride in on the breeze of another equally magical change: twilight. Have you ever noticed that? You never see the first fireflies of the season at night; it's always at twilight. At that time of year, the weather has been warmish for a couple weeks, but you haven't gotten to enjoy most of the best parts of the summer. It's not hot enough to swim yet, the school year is still in its stressful final throes, and vacation seems like a privilege that--for drones like you--exists only in fantasies. But oooh, those summer evenings, with their zaftig twilight.

The planet plods steadily along its orbit, and by the time the fireflies have fully slept off last year's hangover, the vernal equinox is six weeks in our past. Six weeks! Somehow, daylight has been trumping darkness for six weeks already; maybe it's just been too rainy for us to notice. But sure enough, as the earth chaînés toward the summer solstice, the days grow longer, and a curious thing befalls us. Well...it befalls me, at least. And it never fails.

Sometime during the winter, the sunset becomes my productivity Zeitgeber. Every day, I'll spend the late afternoon slacking off...but inevitably, my dull-as-a-dishrag supervisor, sunset, comes sniffing around my cubicle. And begrudgingly, like most disgruntled employees, I decide that gainful employment (well...in my case, it's education) is something I probably ought to hang onto. So I heave a pained sigh and resign myself to my work. Such is my pattern all winter.

But long about March, my supervisor-slash-slavedriver begins to make his rounds a little bit later every day. Accordingly, I enjoy a couple more minutes of procrastination each day before darkness and his shrewish wife, cold, show up to ruin my fun. But soon enough, there comes a day when I notice that--how did that happen??--suddenly it's 8pm, and I haven't even thought about that paper due tomorrow. Whoopsie! While I wasn't paying attention, my dull supervisor has morphed into a cranky toddler. And that toddler...well. Her bedtime is An Event. The ritual begins later every night, and it it lasts longer, too.

By the time we flip the calendar page to May, sunset has become its very own segment of the day. No longer a discrete barrier between daylight and darkness, sunset is now best characterized by the romantic (and completely diva-licious) term twilight. We've taken three-quarters of a perisolar journey since summer, and we've forgotten just how lovely twilight can be. To wit: inspired by the mild temperature and pleasant heaviness of the air when they arrive home from work, people do silly, antiquated things like eating dinner on their porches (gasp!) and taking evening walks with their families (egad!!). It's then--somewhere near the halfway point between equinox and solstice--when the cold and the day-swallowing darkness finally admit their defeat and allow themselves to be stuffed into trunks in the attic. For a few months, anyway. The only thing is, when the last chill is over and we're in the home stretch toward summer, I never seem to notice it.

But you know who does notice it, of course.

The fireflies.

That's why the first fireflies of the year thrill me like they do. For the most part, all the things that make spring spring and summer summer bleed into each other so seamlessly that I don't even perceive the balance shift. But when those long-dormant fireflies rub their eyes, smack their sleep-sticky lips, and lift drowsily into the air--right then is when the passage of time becomes salient. That's when summer becomes imminent.

When the fireflies first take to the air, most of the festivities that make summer so deliriously delicious are still a few weeks off. "But"--with a nod to a felicitous treatise by history's greatest philosophers, Olsson and Zuko--"oh, those summer nights." In most people's schemas of "summer," the most prominent characteristics are probably the highly photographable ones: vacations, fireworks, pool parties, and so on. But whence cometh the joie de vivre required to finance such photogenic frolicking?

I contend that it comes from lovely, syrupy summer twilight. And lest we be too busy or stressed or cranky to notice the glamorous yearly makeover of twilight, there are whole herds of arthropods with glowing butts who are there to herald it. How painfully wonderful is that?

* * * Fall * * *

My third anchor day--the third day each year when the passage of time is pungently salient to me--happens in late September. September might be my very favorite month, as it's saturated with all kinds of good things: playgrounds, birthday parties, fresh starts, nostalgic endings, bouquets of freshly-sharpened pencils. But my favorite thing about September is its sense of promise and anticipation. Nineteen years as a professional student have molded my life into a permanent circannual rhythm that begins when the school year begins; consequently, the ninth month feels much more like the first month than the first month does. From my current perch, September 28th, I can see for miles ahead of me. There's something about the limitlessness of that future that makes me overflow with contentment. You know what I'm talking about...that sitting on the front porch, glass of lemonade, watching the sunset kind of contentment.

September holds all kinds of promise, and that's enticing enough. But beyond that, it also happens to straddle my two favorite seasons. If I had my way, every month would begin in the summer and end in the fall; it's really quite a perfect arrangement, don't you think? And that exact moment when summer reclines into fall, as I'm sure you've guessed, is my third little anchor.

It's probably the smell of rotting leaves; I don't know for sure. I suppose it's a bit macabre that the smell of death fills me with such bliss. But whatever the actual molecule is, the first time it alights on my nose's chemoreceptors, I nearly pee my pants with excitement. The smell of fall! The smell of swingsets and trick-or-treating and fireplaces and pumpkin pie and back-to-school sales! That smell is like the soundtrack (smelltrack?) to my favorite movie: it's the plot, the characters, and the setting that I fell in love with, but it's been boiled down and concentrated until it's so potent that the tiniest hint is all I need (and, under the right circumstances, it's almost all I can bear). It's so potent that for a split second, it commands all my attention. Every year there's a particular day when it first smells like fall, yet every year, the experience almost knocks me off my feet. For me, that first fall smell--and the crisp wind that brings it--are the perfect harbingers of fall and its attendant excitement.

So far this year, two of my three time fulcrums have come and gone. I don't know if fall in Seoul will have the same smell to it--there are far fewer trees here than anywhere else I've lived, and they're of different varieties--but I'm anxious to find out.
Two days ago, we had the first chilly morning since I've been here, and it arrived quite suddenly. It was one of those mornings where you open your front door, say "good lord!" and retreat inside for a costume change. (Well...that's hyperbole. But it was quite surprising nonetheless.) And today, I spent the remarkably beautiful afternoon outside grading papers...but by the time the sun set, my beflip-flopped toes and holey-jeans-clad legs were screaming at me to go inside already. Y'all, it was COLD! I hope that familiar smell of fall comes to Seoul, and I hope it comes soon. There's a swingset I've had my eye on for weeks, and decaying foliage filling my nose would provide the perfect circumstances for trying it out.

* * * Winter * * *

In case you were wondering, there is no prototypical moment that I mark for winter. The reason is probably a combination of the insidiousness of its onset and, of course, its utter lack of redeeming qualities. (Another potential reason: my vitriolic hatred of winter and its stupid, stupid cold weather. That might be related...)

* * * * * *

Time is inevitable and adamant in its progress, of course. (Bob Dylan told me so.) I can't fully understand the scale of time, let alone control it. But despite that, three times a year, I'm blindsided by a wonderful opportunity: the opportunity to be boosted out of my myopic vantage point and glimpse the passage of time on a grander scale.

The first day the daffodils bloom, the first day I see fireflies, and the first day it smells like fall have become little treasures I collect each year. Those particular days are sentimental for me, but I don't think their selection is entirely idiosyncratic. Change is acutely tangible on those three days. They lie tangent to the march of time.

I gain a bit of perspective on those three days, and that perspective becomes richer with each additional year that I undertake this little mind exercise. Being mindful of those days somehow makes me feel centered. It invites me to pause for a minute and just observe...observe and connect. And that mindfulness has taught me to be more appreciative of the beautiful little moments that bloom in the cracks of daily life.

My lovely walk to school

2008-09-27T11:52:00.003+09:00

I'm moving this weekend...hopefully. I've got syllabi and report cards to write (I LOVE the end of the month! PSYCH), plus various other things to do, so I may not have time to move until this coming week. But no matter when I get around to it, I'll soon be leaving my temporary apartment and settling into my new place. Woohoo!

I'm looking forward to living with Kyle; we're two peas in the same dorky pod. I've written about him before...he's the one whose nerdiness is strikingly similar to my own nerdiness. And it'll be nice to be settled in for the year so I can start putting up pictures on the walls and generally domesticating my living space. That said, I'll also miss my current apartment. It's a .3-mile walk to school (as opposed to maybe .6 miles--OH THE HUMANITY), but the biggest reason involves the things I see on my walk to and from school everyday.

About two-thirds of my walk involves winding my way through my complex of high-rise apartment buildings. Due to the amount of foot traffic, people set up booths and sell things almost every day. I've seen furniture, produce, socks (a whole booth full of them!), shoes, bedding, raw seafood, clothes, and cooked meals. As I mentioned recently, it's really quite delightful to step out of my building and find out what's for sale today.

Since I'm moving soon, I realized that I needed to take a video soon of the daily mini-market. I'd been contemplating how or whether to capture it, since I didn't want to be that rude person who walks by video-taping you. As a trade-off between that concern and wanting to share that lovely slice of morning with you all, I took a short video with my camera held near my belly-button as I walked. It's a bit shaky and poorly-aimed, but I hope you can get the idea. There's more market-ness further along, but I just got the first part.

Enjoy! :c)

I'm going to Estonia in my mind....

2008-09-26T10:51:00.003+09:00

I woke up from quite a vivid dream this morning. I don't often remember my dreams, so remembering it at all was an event in and of itself...but oooh, there was so much more to it! In my dream, I had been on my way somewhere (I can't remember if I was flying or taking a train or what), and I woke up and was in this old raggedy city built onto a hill. I thought "I THINK I was going to Estonia....right? This must be Estonia. I think. Or maybe Bulgaria? But I think Estonia."

So I'm wandering around the street, trying to figure out where I am and what I should do next. And I run into this other native English-speaker who's talking really loudly (as native English-speakers in foreign countries are wont to do) and he says he'll help me out. I don't actually remember what we talked about, but there was this apartment thing with gold steps (!) across the street, and we were sitting on a little covered walkway in front of a building next to some giant kettle thing. Then this lady came over holding a giant smoldering coal in some tongs, and she reached over me with it (eek!) and stuck it into a lantern hanging on the wall. She went around the rest of the street lighting the lanterns that same way.

A little bit later, we got up (for reasons I can't remember) and started walking down the street and down the hill. And we passed ANOTHER house with gold steps! I'd thought that the first one must belong to the prime minister or something, but apparently the occasional person in Estonia-or-maybe-Bulgaria just happens to have gold steps. And there was a wooden door to the alcove/porch thing of the house, and everyone who passed knocked a couple times on the door. Oh--and all of us were walking down the hill, by the way. So we get to the end of the street and there's a set of stairs, and we go down those...and it turns out we're going down to the sea! Aah...that explains the steep hill. On the second-to-last step, the letters ESTONIA are painted in white. So that solves that mystery! Thanks, totally unnecessary painted step!

Then, someone said that we all needed to wade across this shallow cove to the opposite shore, although I'm not sure why. And it was cold, yo! And I was wearing sneakers, which were going to get all wet! But I did it, and when I was almost all the way across there was a sudden drop-off, and I was in up to my chest. My giant orange purse had been unzipped, and all my stuff dumped out of it into the murky water--aack! But my native English-speaker friend helped me collect the purse, most of the contents of which were still inside, and we spread it out on a rock to see if it was all there. My passport was there (although I'm a safety queen and always wear a money belt...unless I'm dreaming, apparently), as was my digital camera (still works!) and my laptop (also still works--but again, why the poo was I carrying it in my purse in a foreign country?!) But my wallet was missing! OH NO! Plus, my new friend said that he didn't see my "very favorite possession in the world," which I had apparently showed him earlier, though I couldn't remember what it was. So I started frantically searching the cold, murky water for my wallet and my very favorite possession....and then I woke up!

WHAT THE POO?

(Incidentally, I have heard positively glowing reviews of Estonia from several friends who went there a few years ago. It's supposed to be extremely friendly, extremely beautiful, and extremely cheap to travel in. Yet in my dream, it was extremely gray, extremely depressing, and extremely foreign. Go figure.)

Star Wars Episode III: Backstroke of the West

2008-09-24T21:53:00.003+09:00

I came across a story about some deliciously bad subtitles on a Chinese pirated DVD and I just HAD to pass it along to you.

People who will especially love it:

--fans of Engrish

--fans of Star Wars

--fans of anything amusing

People who will not love it:

--people who cannot read

--people who don't speak English

--sourpusses

Please click accordingly. :c)

So you want to teach English in Korea?

2008-09-24T12:32:00.005+09:00

A friend of a friend e-mailed me this morning to ask about teaching in Korea. She's thinking about coming here and was asking for my expertise. (And o, how extensive that expertise is! For I have spent two whole months here. I pretty much know everything there is to know about this place. Except, you know, the language.)

Anyway! I thought it might be useful to post my reply to her on my blog. When I was researching Korea and TEFL, I happened upon several blogs that had useful information. So for anyone who happens to...um...happen upon my blog in their quest for knowledge, I thought I might offer up a little advice. Plus, it might be interesting to my loyal readers back home to know how my thoughts about this job market are running these days. Or not. But maybe! Or maybe not. We'll see.

For the purposes of Google searches, I shall now say many meaningless things that might make this entry more find-able for someone who could use it: teaching English in Korea, what to pack for Korea, things to bring with you to Korea, TEFL in Korea, TESL in Korea, advice on living in Seoul, teaching abroad, thinking about teaching abroad, teaching ESL in Korea, teaching EFL in Korea. Ok, there...done!

Here's the e-mail. Enjoy! Or maybe don't. :c)

Hi!

How exciting that you’re looking into coming to Korea! It is quite an interesting place, for sure. I have a lot of work to do this morning before I teach (it’s 10:19am right now), but I wanted to at least give you a quick reply while I was thinking about it. I’d be more than happy to have a longer conversation(s) with you about it, though.

Some thoughts.....

My reasons for coming here were sort of similar to yours. I’d studied abroad (in Germany) and loved it, so I wanted to travel again on a grand scale. Teaching English is a good way to finance that, and Korea has lots and lots of jobs with good pay and pretty decent benefits. Plus, I’d also never been to Asia, so Korea fit my dual criteria of “kind of far-flung and different” yet “unlikely to force me to dodge bullets on a daily basis or import basic food supplies from the States.” That was the initial attraction, but once I put my ear to the ground about Korea, I started learning about how it’s in such an interesting position right now. It’s hugely modern in a lot of ways—home internet access, global business, robot-like cell phones and skyscrapers are all ubiquitous—but it’s also a very, very old culture (the second-oldest continuous civilization on earth, in fact), so those two faces of Korea often intersect in strange and interesting ways. For instance, business relationships are highly Confucian-based, with lots of formality and hierarchy and deference, but the pop culture is really really sugary and seizure-inducing. Korea’s only existed as a democracy for about 15 years, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds...but there are also some not-so-awesome vestiges of the past. Like extreme national pride bordering on jingoism and an ugly amount of racism. (I wrote a blog entry about that.) So at times I adore Korea, at times it frustrates me, and at times it’s normal and comfortable...but it’s always interesting and edifying.

A couple “before you come” ideas. There are some great books out there that I’d recommend, especially “Learning to Think Korean” by L. Robert Kohls. I’m actually partway through it right now, and it’s been fascinating and extremely useful to me. He talks about the way Koreans think, contrasts that with the way Americans think, and recommends ways of conducting yourself (particularly in a business situation) that will give you the most success in Korea. The insights are absolutely invaluable. It was published in 2001, and much of the author’s experience with Korea is from several decades ago, so I sometimes get a sense that modern Koreans have traveled quite a bit further on the Western trajectory than he describes them, but the insights are useful nonetheless. (I’m also working with lots of people who have studied or lived abroad, so that probably gives me a skewed sense of how Westernized the average Korean is.) A couple other indispensable resources for me were some podcasts. (If you don’t listen to podcasts now, they’re easy to get and free; just search for them in iTunes. You can listen on your computer or on an iPod.) I listened to Seoul Survivors for about a year before I came; it’s discontinued now, but it was a great podcast where two or three English teachers in Seoul would get together and chat about teaching, living in Korea, and the Koreans. It was frequently funny and always useful. Now, two of the Seoul Survivors alumni are doing a podcast called (creatively) Seoul Podcast; I haven’t listened to that one much, but it seems to be less teaching-focused and more life-in-Korea-focused. I’d highly recommend both of them; they’re great (and free!) sources of information on Korea as it stands right now—and it’s truly a moving target, so any book more than a few years old will be at least a bit out of date. Oh, and speaking of which....don’t spend too much time on Dave’s ESL Café (known as “Dave’s Negative Circle-jerk” by one of the costs of the Seoul Podcast). The expat community in Korea can be really complain-y, and the forums on Dave’s tend to make teaching in Korea sound like the worst decision you could ever make. It’s true that some people have bad experiences, but there are far more people who have good experiences...you just won’t hear from them nearly as often on those forums. So take everything with a grain of salt, or else don’t use that website as a source of information at all.

Oh man—I gotta wrap this up! Ok, as for things you need to bring with you: the main thing everyone says is deodorant. Koreans don’t wear it, so it’s hard to find; before I came, everyone told me to bring several sticks of it. As for other toiletries, you’ll have no problem whatsoever finding them here, and probably in the brand you use at home, so don’t waste a lot of suitcase space on stockpiles of shampoo and eyeliner. (Incidentally, someone told me that Korean tampons are weird, but I haven’t had to buy them yet, so I don't know. There’s always Costco, though; you can get lots of stuff there that you’re used to, and memberships are cheap.) I’ve found it useful to have a couple of those seven-pocket accordion file things at school for teaching, so you might want to bring a couple—you can get them at Target—though they’re by no means necessary. I’m also really glad that I brought a ton of stickers, because they’re great for keeping my kids motivated in class. I got a box of 2000 stickers at the dollar store, and the kids love them because they can’t get those exact stickers in Korea; I’d recommend bringing some stickers with you if you’re gonna teach, but don’t waste your money on fancy ones. Hit up the dollar store if you want to bring some. Movies are also good; I brought a CD sleeve thingy full of DVDs. And books! I’d plan on bringing about 5 books you haven’t read yet. There are some good English bookstores here (though you might have to travel a bit to get to them), but the prices are elevated. Check out the websites for What The Book, Bandi & Luni’s and Kyobo to get an idea of the prices of English books and decide how many you want to bring with you. Definitely don’t plan on buying a digital camera or computer here; everyone thinks they’ll be so cheap since Korea makes a ton of electronics, but for whatever reason, they’re not. You’ll get a better deal back home. And once you get a job, ask about what people typically wear to teach. I brought too many clothes, especially dressy clothes; I usually teach in jeans and a t-shirt or casual cotton top. Skirts are good, though, for hot days; I can’t wear shorts to work, so it’s nice to have a couple skirts when it’s particularly hot. Your school’s dress code may differ, but again, just ask. I thought I’d have a hard time finding clothes in my size (I’m a size 8 jeans and a medium shirt), but apparently Koreans aren’t as tiny as Chinese people are; I haven’t really had trouble. Plus sizes are really hard to find, I hear, but standard small-medium-large kinds of sizes aren’t really a problem. Koreans DO have smaller feet, though; I wear an 8.5, and I’ve been able to buy sandals that are a bit short but okay (probably a size 8 American--it was a 250 Korean), but that was the largest size available. I’ve only bought shoes in subway stations—subway shoe-shopping is one of my favorite things about Korea—but it’s possible that larger sizes are available in actual shoe stores. Itaewon is the international area of town, and they have the most selection for larger American sizes of clothes and shoes, but if you wear a large-ish size in either thing, it might be wise to pack accordingly.

Ok, I need to run. (Well, I needed to run about 45 minutes ago, but I’m hopelessly long-winded.) Feel free to add me as a friend on facebook, Skype me, and/or send me your phone number so I can call you sometime. I hope this has been helpful! Let me know if I can answer any other questions for you. :c)

--Lori

P.S. Oh oh—one more thing! Calling the States from Korea (and vice-versa) is way cheaper than you’d think, which might be useful information to have before you come. You can get a monthly Unlimited U.S. subscription with Skype for $5.95/month that will let you call any US phone for free....and with that, you get voicemail and a SkypeIn number, which is a US number that someone can call and it’ll ring your Skype. Mine’s 678 [REDACTED--way to go me, being smart!], so someone in Atlanta can call that, and I can answer on my Skype...and it’s free for me, and like a local call for them. Also, I have a Korean pre-paid cell phone (I got the cheap one for $40, plus about $10 of pre-paid minutes every three weeks or so), and I set up Skype to forward to my cell phone if I don’t answer within ten seconds. It costs me 2 cents per minute for call forwarding, but it makes it so that my friends and family can call 678[redacted AGAIN!] and talk to me on my cell phone, halfway around the world, for free (for them) and 2 cents/minute (for me). You can’t find a better deal than that! You can also pretty much plan on getting a cell phone here; everyone has them, and the general consensus is that pre-paid is the best way to go for foreigners. If you end up in Seoul, just go to Technomart (in Gangnam); it’s easy to get one.

Your daily Engrish, part...3? or so?

2008-09-24T12:24:00.003+09:00

Oh man....I wish I could have gotten a picture of some shoes I saw today. As I've mentioned before, there are often market-like booths set up along my walk to school, and they sell different things every day. One day it'll be produce, the next day it'll be handbags, and the next day it'll be flowers. It's become a small pleasure for me to find out what's on offer every morning.

I've gotten some of my most classic Engrish products at this one booth that seems to rotate between women's clothes, handbags, and shoes. (My 5,000 won "I [heart] CRAP" shirt was from there, and it's also where I found those "romantic pussy" shorts.) Today, I was poking around the shoes and noticed one with a particularly interesting brand. You know how the brand names of shoes are often written inside, where your heel goes? Well. I saw a pretty little pink and white sandal with the brand name BigStank on the heel.

For realsies.

I almost peed myself, I was so excited. What a find! I would have whipped out my camera right there, but the proprietress was eyeing me pleasantly, waiting for me to inquire about her wares. I could have taken a quick picture and slinked off, but I didn't wanna be That Person. So y'all will just have to use your imaginations.

Incidentally, I think that whomever sells that lady and her husband their merchandise must speak English fluently and be pulling the best prank ever, because some of the Engrish on that stuff is too good to be accidental. How I wish I could find that person and shake his or her hand.....

HEATWAVE! This is my island in the sun [oi oi]

2008-09-13T13:38:00.003+09:00

Sunday is Chusok, a Thankgsiving-like holiday when everyone in Korea takes to the roads and the air to visit their families. Seeing as how my own family is on the other side of the planet, I'm going on vacation instead! I'm headed to Jeju Island, which has been called the Hawaii of Korea. It's down on the south end, and it's got a big ol volcano and other cool stuff. I'm hoping it'll be warm enough to go to the beach, too! I'm going with my friend and fellow teacher Amanda, and it should be an awesome time.

Gotta finish packing....eek! Happy Chusok, everyone....be back Tuesday night! :c)

Adventures in Grading

2008-09-11T22:43:00.002+09:00

Just when I'm wrapped up in the monotony of grading--which is much more monotonous and frequent these days, since I'm teaching such high-level classes with LOTS of writing assignments--I'll come across a paper that makes me laugh out loud. This was one such assignment.

WEEKEND JOURNAL

Think about what you did this weekend. Please pick one thing and write about it. Please write five or more sentences.

I Play piano concert. And I wore a strange dress. I play the piano. I don't like my Piano music. only my piano music is strange, and my mother wore strange dress to me. And I cried.

Perfection...in a stank little package.

2008-09-10T19:37:00.004+09:00

The most wonderful thing happened to me today! My grade 3 super-elite class was taking a science test, so I caught up on my grading. That class might be my favorite class; they're a lot of fun, they're really smart, and their English is really good. They still make plenty of mistakes, but they've got great vocabularies and pretty good grammar, too.

While they were working, I was grading their chapter summaries--they're reading Charlotte's Web (in their second language....because they are rockstars)--and I came to Bill's summary. It was typed and had a little clip art picture (aww). Bill is younger than the rest; he skipped a grade both in his regular school and at our private language school, and sometimes you can see the age gap in his behavior. He's kind of outburst-y and can't seem to sit still and be quiet when he needs to be. In fact, I've had to take off points from every test of his so far because he talked during the test (and one time even gave away the bonus question!). But despite his lack of self-control, sometimes he knows the answer to a question when none of the other kids know it, and he generally does well.

Anyway!

I got to Bill's summary. It was a paragraph long (about 8 or 9 sentences), and...y'all. There were no mistakes. NONE. Not a single mistake! So I figured he must have had the help of his mom or a tutor or someone; still, though, it was great. But after they turned in their tests, I asked him if anyone had helped him. And it turns out he did it all by himself! I NEVER thought I'd see a paper with no mistakes. It made my lil heart sing.

Of course, Bill also farted his way through the test and almost killed me with the smell. This happened several times: we'd all be sitting there silently, and a wave of stank would smack me upside the head. "BILL...?!?!" I'd say. And his little 8-year-old voice would say "sorryyyy!" So I suppose you have to take the good with the bad. :c)

White boys rapping...about Korea!

2008-09-10T01:43:00.004+09:00

Just came across this YouTube video, called "Kickin' it in Geumchon." Geumchon is up north of Seoul, near the DMZ, and this cheesefest pretty well captures the experience of being waeguk (foreign) in Korea.

Higlights:

--the ahjumma visors

--excellent Konglish ("Drinking Cass-uh! Drinking Hite-uh! Feelin alright-uh! Drinking all night-uh!")

--the brief-yet-still-disturbing reference to dogmeat markets

--the shout-out to Family Mart....oh, sweet Family Mart.

Enjoy!

And 10 kilometers later, I took a glorious shower.

2008-09-10T00:47:00.003+09:00

Tonight I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to go for a run on the streets of Seoul. (Smog-filled Seoul, you ask? Yes! The same!) So I changed clothes, put my hair in knobbly little bun-pigtails, tied my key into my shoelaces, got my iPod and pepper spray, and was ready to roll. I told Roommate Jake where I was going, as well as a timetable about when to start panicking if I didn't return. "If you're not back in an hour or so, I'll just call your cell phone," he said.

Hmm. Cell phone. Good point.

So I got my cell phone, too. But now I was carrying my iPod, pepper spray, and phone. And that's kind of a lot to carry. "Ooh...and what if something happens? And I need to have some money? And my ID?" I thought. So, being the street-wise safety queen (read: paranoid overpacker person) that I am, I threw everything in a small clutch purse and headed out. Road, you are MINE!

I decided to head toward COEX, the huge shopping mall/convention center in our area. I figured that if I could get to COEX and back, someone should give me a medal, because a) I am woefully out of shape, and b) it's about a ten- or fifteen-minute cab ride from my apartment to COEX. But there's a lot of stuff in that direction, so I figured I'd at least start running that way.

"Run, run, run," I thought. "Running! Okay, but now my asthma's acting up. Walking. Walk walk walk. Feeling like an idiot, what with my bun-pigtails and short shorts and tank top and sneakers, yet with no runningness to give purpose to such fashion absurdity." [Y'all. Did you know that Seoul-ese women dress up ALL THE TIME? They always look awesome! I'm pretty sure they sleep in high heels.] So I ran and walked, alternatingly (attack of the made-up adverbs!!!) for a while. And I found a Starbucks and a Coffee Bean, quite close to my apartment! Who knew? (There also was another Starbucks and a Holly's Coffee between me and COEX. Geez, Korea!)

So I ran some. And walked some. And noted the interesting little restaurants and businesses along my way. And it was lovely! Except: no COEX. COEX is Really Kind Of a Huge Place, so there were two possibilities.

a) It was farther away than I thought.

b) I went out the wrong subway exit, thus accidentally turning a corner, while going underground to cross the street. BOLLOCKS.

But after I ran some more, I decided that it must have been b), because: STILL NO GIANT BEACON OF CONSUMERISM. Eventually I came to a curve in the road, no way to cross the (very busy) street, and what looked like an overpass around the curve with unfriendlily-narrow sidewalks. (SECOND attack of the made-up adverbs!!!) I walked around a little hut/kiosk and found a man that worked there. Well...from my perspective, I found the man that worked there. From his perspective, he was snooken up upon by someone holding SOMETHING DARK IN THEIR HAND AAH A GUN I PUT MY HANDS UP oh. It's just some red-faced waeguk girl with a purse and bun-pigtails.

Once he realized that I was not, in fact, trying to rob him, I sign-languaged and grunted my way through an inquiry about how/where to cross the street. He laughed at me, pointed back toward where I came from, and smacked me on the arm playfully for being such a dolt. So I decided that then would be a good time to turn around and head back.

The other side of the street was also interesting! Among the most noteworthy sights:

1) A gaggle of high-schoolers, just getting out of school. AT TEN THIRTY PM. Because the Korean education system is INSANE and SLAVE-DRIVERISH.

2) Some establishment called "Greece." Excited that I might have happened upon a Greek restaurant near my apartment, I tiptoed down the stairs and poked my head into the restaurant. It was kind of fancy, and there was just one guy (who looked like a waiter) sitting within my line of sight. So I speed-tiptoed back up the stairs before he saw me and tried to seat me. I didn't want to be spotted...after all, I was a crazy, red-faced waeguk girl with ridiculous bun-pigtails. (Have I mentioned that?)

3) FREAKING COEX. I somehow missed it. I clearly need to watch more Burn Notice; my super-spy observation skillz are somewhat lacking.

After climbing, Rocky-like, the 13 flights to my apartment, I settled into Google Earth to figure out how far I'd gone. (I'd been gone quite a while; it was even past Jake's prescribed "send a search party" time. Way to look out for my safety, dear roommate. GAH.) I had noted the name of a big hotel near where I turned around, and...y'all. Apparently I ran ALL THE WAY TO THE HAN RIVER. That is 3.1 MILES AWAY from my apartment. And THEN I RAN BACK. (Again: walking intermittently, but no matter. There were hills! Also: I am slow! I can hardly be faulted. So hush up, Imagined Voice of Judgment.)

So apparently I did a 10k today. By accident! Amidst all the smog! After not having gone running for....actually, it's really not important how long it's been! Also, I did NOT get lost! Despite being....myself! This is clearly an occasion, if ever there was one, for gratuitous exclamation points and phrases parading as complete sentences. I WIN.

Dirty (uh...I mean ROMANTIC) Engrish

2008-09-08T01:45:00.002+09:00

Some shorts I found at an outdoor market-like booth set up on my walk home from school the other day.

In related news, all this awesome Engrish is turning me into an excellent surreptitious photographer. Probably I should become a private investigator.

Korean nationalism--and my big "but."

2008-09-01T22:05:00.010+09:00

Today one of my students came up to me before class and said she was angry. (She said this with a faint smile on her face; I think many of my students don't quite grasp the heat of the word "angry.") I asked her why, and she said she was angry that on Friday I said that Michael Phelps was a very good swimmer. She didn't like Michael Phelps, she said, because he beat Park Taehwan, Korea's superstar swimmer and most cheered-for Olympic athlete. When I pointed out that Michael Phelps was undeniably a very good swimmer, she became petulant. "I don't like America!" she proclaimed. "I only like Korea!"

From what I've seen, the Koreans have some serious national pride. To be fair, Korea has had a bit of a sad and abused history. Most recently, the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 until 1945 has left a powerful sting. I've already made two visits to Seodaemun Prison, the infamous hellhole in Seoul where Japanese forces starved and tortured Korean freedom fighters during the occupation. (I've been meaning to blog about that, but I have Kind Of A Lot Of Thoughts, and I haven't found a 12-hour block of time yet.) Plus, Korea is an infant democracy and has become a global power very quickly. So a bit of national pride is certainly in order.

Still, it's a bit disconcerting to hear outright hatred of the Japanese, references to Thais as "dirty Asians," and all the rest. In fact, this morning wasn't the first time--probably not even the fifth time--that I've heard a student say that they dislike other countries and only like Korea. (Disclaimer: obviously, not every Korean holds this sentiment...and among those who do, it seems mostly harmless. It's mostly a self-love rather than an other-hate kind of deal, as far as I've witnessed it.) But--and there's always a but!--it's still a bit off-putting.

In this case, as with many bits of the national character, I find myself comparing Koreans with Germans. During my time in Germany, I was surprised to find out how anti-nationalistic Germans are. One of our teachers, who has blond hair, even said that when she goes abroad, she hopes other people will think she's Scandanavian instead of German because she doesn't want that "tag." She's proud of being from Cologne, she says; she just doesn't exactly want Germany's reputation to precede her. And that's understandable. But the reputation is patently ridiculous, because modern Germany is a prosperous, extremely well-educated, considerate citizen of the world. It has behaved very, very badly in its recent history...but that was three generations ago, and I have found that most modern Germans regard that ugly spot in their past with all the contempt and repentance that it deserves. In fact, they often swing to the other extreme, going light on parental discipline lest it be too harsh and Nazi-like, and refusing to display German flags because to do so might seem overly nationalistic. (Well...sometimes they wave flags during big soccer games. But those are dire circumstances! And even so, you see far fewer German flags than flags of the opponent's country.)

In relief against the Germans, Koreans seem almost dangerously nationalistic to me. I don't exactly expect to see it develop into ethnic cleansing like it did in Germany--although exactly who would be ethnically cleansed? Only 2% of the people in Korea are foreign, and a majority are temporary residents--but...again, that "but." The hyper-nationalism is disconcerting.

Korea is shockingly homogenous. To wit: 80% of Koreans have the surname Kim, Park, or Lee. I mean, DANG, right? They also are one of the oldest continuous civilizations on Earth. Those roots run deep, yo. Add a dash of kicked-puppy fortitude from the Japanese occupation, plus a heap of recent financial and political success, and it's no wonder the Koreans have rallied like they have. So I suppose I'm not offering a rebuke; just making an observation. I'm interested to see whether (and how) my perception of Korean nationalism changes as I get to know the language better and as I make more Korean friends.

I found a YouTube video someone shot of the museum at Seodaemun Prison, and although the camerawork is a bit frenetic for my tastes, it might be interesting to some of you. In particular, beginning around 4 minutes and 15 seconds, you can hear a reenactment of torture with an almost laughably evil Japanese voice-over. It's almost laughable, that is, because that portrayal of the Japanese as evil is hard to ignore at the museum. Again, I must qualify that: the museum is exceptionally well-done...and besides, the Japanese guards that ran the prison were kind of evil. But...well, you know. "But." The Japan of 2008 is not the Japan of 1928.

To end on a light note, I found another YouTube video that displayed the same Korean nationalism, but in a satirical and fun-loving way. It's two Korean-American college students dressed up as two ornery ahjushi (Korean men) giving a lesson on Korean history . And it is HILARIOUS, for two reasons: the way they poke fun at the aforementioned Korean pride, and the way they imitate Koreans speaking English. AMAZING. I give it three thumbs up. Korean noodles numbah wUuUuUn!

To quote the dumbest album title ever (I'm talking to YOU, Pink):

2008-08-19T22:00:00.004+09:00

I'm not dead.

Promise!

I've been busy like whoa. And right now it's 10pm AND I'M ABOUT TO GO TO BED. Yes. This is a very fortuitous event! Please check back later for more exciting news. More exciting than my aliveness, that is.

(I'm alive! See?)

Korean kids say the darndest things!

2008-08-14T14:03:00.004+09:00

My first morning class is adorable.

After me they have Jake Teacher (known aliases: Roommate Jake, Jake Who Grew Up Only Four Miles from Me but Whom I Didn't Know Until Korea). In Jake's class, they've been learning how to write letters. Jake was just grading some of their assignments, and he read a couple to me. And....y'all. THESE KIDS ARE AMAZING. Have I mentioned that? Here are my favorites.

August 8th

Dear Jake,

I am writing this letter because you are great teacher. You are sick today. Why are you sick? Because of James or Jason? Don't be angry. I will make you happy. Have a nice day ~ [heart!]

I like you ~ [heart!]

Sincerely

Angela

(Those are Angela and James. HOW CUTE ARE THEY?)

Dear Goldilocks

Goldilocks I think you are bad child. you brake little bears chair and you mess mother bear and father bear bed. you have to good to your baby or your friend. ok? you are so bed. you have to promise me.

Good-bye

Stephanie

[Stephanie is the monkey-faced one in the first picture]

Dear Goldilocks,

I'm writing this letter because I am not happy with you. you messed three bears all things. you are so so so bad. How come??? You doesn't asked someone??

I said that's bad thing.

You have to respect someone's things. you have to learn this. Ok? ok? I want to make you better then that.

Good-Bye

Christine

[back right, pink shirt]

Christine, hon...you can't fight people's battles for them! Goldilocks will NEVER CHANGE. You need to cut her out of your life! :c)

Ooooh, the irony.... :c)

2008-08-13T17:17:00.002+09:00

The first day of school
by Simon
August 12th

My first class is math I lik math teacher because I like math . I don't like English because spaling tast is herd

I MET A GERMAN!!!

2008-08-13T14:07:00.002+09:00

Last night, I was highly spontaneous. It was a school night, but I hopped on the subway at 7:15 and headed across the city to see a couple of cool-looking free shows that were part of the Hi, Seoul festival that's going on this week. (More on the actual shows later; I don't have my pictures with me at school.)

To my chagrin, the park and stage weren't right near the subway stop, so I ended up having to look for them. In fact, the website told me the wrong subway stop! Thanks a LOT, website. But the evening still turned out fortuitously.

After asking a Korean man which way the river was, I was waiting to cross a busy street so I could catch a cab heading in the right direction. As I waited, though, I figured it'd be prudent to ask a second opinion. I spotted a white guy and went over to ask him--but I had a suspicion that he wasn't a native English speaker. (His shoes just loooked so....not-native-English-speaker. Or: not-native-English-sneaker! HA!) So I asked, and he answered with an accent. The rest of the conversation, which began in the crosswalk and finished on the other side of the street about five minutes later, can be summarized thusly.

--He was German.
--I was thrilled.
--We started speaking German, chatting about where we were from, why we were there, etc.
--I mentioned the festival events I was going to see.
--He looked interested.
--I asked if he wanted to tag along.
--He tagged along.

So we got into a cab, introduced ourselves (haha), and went to see the shows. It was SO GOOD to speak German! It'd been way too long--especially if you don't count talking to Margaret as "real German." We exchanged phone numbers, and I think we're going to hang out sometime soon. Yay for new friends!

I need help! What sounds like "Soo-sung?"

2008-08-13T13:35:00.005+09:00

At the beginning of every class, I write all the kids' names on the left side of the board. Every time a kid talks or asks a question, I put a mark next to his or her name, and whomever has the most points at the end of the class gets to choose a "super-special sticker." (They're colorful and say things like "Way 2 go!" and "Awesome!" I got them in the States before I left for Korea.) The other kids get to choose a regular sticker, which are still pretty darn awesome, if I say so myself. The names/points/stickers system is used in some form by most of the teachers in the school, and the school has sheets of stickers for us to give out. They even have special sticker books! These stickers are highly valuable currency; they'll mug each other in the halls for them. Hence, my sweet American stickers are a pretty powerful motivator. I even brought my non-super-special stickers from the US, and there's quite an assortment. Because I am an awesome teacher. In case you didn't know.

Anyway!

I always start class by writing the kids' names on the board. In one of my classes a couple days ago, on a whim, I wrote "silly names" instead of their normal English names, and it was a HUGE HIT. To come up with a "silly name," I took their normal English names and expanded them to be the title of a movie, a character from a book, or whatever. It ended up being a creative lesson in American culture! I even employed YouTube and Google Image toward that end, because of COURSE the kids wanted to see pictures of their namesakes.

Today, I decided to make up silly names for my second morning intensive class. As is generally the case at my school, most kids have an English name they use in class, but some kids use their Korean name or an anglicized version of it. The ten kids in that class are:

Sabina
Zinna (pronounced ZEE-na)
Peter
Jason
Alice
Soo-Sung
Becky
Annie
Shone
Sarah

And with a little bit of creativity, I came up with these names:

Sab(r)ina the Teenage Witch
Xena, Warrior Princess (OBviously...thanks, YouTube!)
Peter and the Wolf
Jason and the Argonauts (explaining what an "argonaut" was = SUPER-easy! NOT.)
Alice in Wonderland
...
Aunt Becky (from Full House)
Little Orphan Annie
Shaun of the Dead (explaining "zombie" = also fun)
Sarah Brightman

Did you notice something in there? Namely (PUN!), a glaring hole right where Soo-Sung's silly name should be? Y'all. I couldn' think of a THING for Soo-Sung. Not even a slant rhyme! Not even something close, like I did for Sabina and Shone! It's understandably difficult to come up with an American cultural reference involving a Korean name...but surely there's SOMEthing! I ended up telling Soo-Sung that I'd think about it and give him a silly name tomorrow. Help please?!

[UPDATE: see the comments to find out what I decided!]

A good museum is like porn to me.

2008-08-11T22:46:00.005+09:00

Yesterday I spent a few hours at the National Museum of Korea, and it was LOVELY. I'd never really realized the extent of it before, but y'all: I LOVE MUSEUMS. When I walked in, I felt this surge of excitement that kind of surprised me. Apparently this sight makes me positively giddy:
Aaah...can't you just feel the cool air circulating? And hear the murmuring echoes? Simply WONDERFUL. The museum moved into this big new space in 2003, and it's really well done. It's got an archaeology section (there were Neanderthals in Korea...did you know that? This place is OLD, dude.), plus art, history stuff, and religious exhibits. More on that later.

I got my free ticket and some green tea ice cream--I'd been dying to try it--and set off!

I took a billion pictures, but I'll just show y'all my three favorite things. The first was a super-old crown and matching belt-thingy found in the tomb of a queen. It's from the 5th century (!!!), from the Silla kingdom, which was one of the dominant kingdoms in Korea at the time. How fabulously ostentatious is this thing?

The second part I really liked was quite a surprise to me. There was a whole room on the first floor devoted to maps, and I planned to walk right through it--but I ended up spending a good amount of time there. It was surprisingly interesting! Exhibit A: this printing block from the Joseon period (1861, to be exact). It was for making a portion of a map of Korea. Korean cartography, it turns out, was quite advanced.
I was also transfixed by the following 15th-century map of the world. (Yes, the whole world.) According to my handy audioguide--thanks, audioguide!--the peninsula on the right is modern-day Korea, and below it is Japan. (Not too shabby!) The giant phlub of land in the middle is China; its size and placement are quite telling of Koreans' opinions of China. (It's in the middle, it's huge...basically, at that time they looked favorably upon their big brother and trading buddy.) And over on the left there are Europe and Africa. Hehe! The Americas and Australia are missing, of course. How interesting: a graphical representation of the Joseon dynasty's worldview. Who knew maps could be so interesting? [Except for Holly McWegglestein, of course; she knew. Hehe.]
Finally, I visited the part of the museum I was looking forward to the most: the Buddhist sculpture section. I took a class on Buddhism during my last term in undergrad, so the room full of buddha and bodhisattva statues was my favorite.
Notice the scale of the buddhas. My favorite was the huge one on the left in the picture above; I estimate that it was about seven feet high. Quite imposing!
There was also a really cool, almost European-looking 14th century statue of a bodhisattva named Avalokitesvara. Avalokitesvara is probably the best-known bodhisattva, especially in Korea. Knowing a little bit about the religion made the statue so much more meaningful...as did my trusty audioguide. :c)
A bodhisattva starts out as a human who has lived a completely righteous life. Through that life, they earn the opportunity to become a buddha, which would be their ticket out of the material world and its angst-filled cycle of rebirth. But rather than taking that opportunity, a bodhisattva chooses to stay behind in the human world and help other people reach enlightenment. So as buddhist figures go, a bodhisattva is like a hero that runs back into a burning building to save other people, rather than staying clear of the danger.
His thoughtful pose was really striking to me; the audioguide pointed out that it's a similar pose to that of Rodin's The Thinker, which I'm sure you've all seen pictures of. What better way to depict such a noble character as Avalokitesvara? I can think of none.

As a sidenote: a wonderful book I read a few years ago compared Christ to a bodhisattva. The book was a fanciful (and at times irreverent) account of Jesus' teenage years, and it has him going on a grand quest to figure out how to be the Messiah. One of his teachers on the quest is a Buddhist monk who tells Jesus that he will be a great bodhisattva. It was quite thought-provoking when I read the book, and this arresting sculpture made the comparison even richer for me.

The museum staff kicked me out at 7pm, and I left contentedly. It was a lovely afternoon of reflection. My stomach, however, was not so content. Luckily, there was a nice lady with a food stand in the subway station. :c) In exchange for $1, she took a waffle, spread half of it with three kinds of ice cream, folded it in half, and presented me with a delicious ice-cream-waffle-taco-thing. YUM.

A perfect end to the perfect afternoon!

Your daily Engrish

2008-08-11T07:33:00.003+09:00

Mysterious as the dark side of the moooon!

2008-08-07T18:48:00.002+09:00

During the twenty-minute break between morning classes, many of the kids congregate in the auditorium/gym. (It's really just a biggish classroom.) One of the teachers puts on the Disney movie du jour, and the kids sit on their heels and watch and giggle. I teach in the gym just after the break, so at first it was a bit of a nuisance to have to wade through a sea of wee-wahs in the dark while trying to set up. But this week I've found a new perspective.

Have y'all ever seen Mulan? If not, go out and rent it right now. It's a fabulous movie--no, seriously. And if you can get ahold of some, I'd recommend watching it with about forty Korean six-year-olds.

Y'all, these kids pull on my heartstrings. Last week they watched Aladdin, and they loved it....but Mulan is seriously their kind of hero. She's an Asian chick! Kicking butt! In an AMERICAN MOVIE! Today while I was setting up, I looked around at their faces and got such a spark of joy from it. And their giggling....oh man. It's easy to become overwhelmed with the constant amount of noise when you teach kids, but this morning, hearing the choruses of laughter brightened my whole day. Kids are kind of awesome.

All this was kind of an incoherent string of thoughts, but there you go. Little kids laughing = melodious and beautiful. Mulan = awesome movie. And me = now much more observant and content during that lovely twenty-minute slice of morning.

A charming summary...and a valuable lesson.

2008-08-05T22:46:00.005+09:00

One of the most important lessons I've learned from teaching the Koree-wahs is always to keep in mind that they are, in fact, children. Who are learning a foreign language. One which is very, very different from their own. For example: Korean doesn't have any plurals, nor does it have articles (articles are "a," "an," and "the," by the way, for the less grammatically nerdy people). Understandably, forming a sentence with correct syntax, content, and pronunciation takes a bit of brainpower.

Given those circumstances, I'm learning how to speak simply, give one direction at a time, and not expect eloquent prose out of them. Buuuuut....I wasn't always so keenly aware of the challenges my students face. To wit: on my fifth day of teaching, I asked them to write summaries of the book we had just read, but I didn't give them much direction. (Well....I wrote out instructions, but now I realize that they might as well have been in Elizabethan English.)

The summaries were full of errors. FULL of them. A good portion of that was my fault; I know now that asking them to free-write full paragraphs was too ambitious for their level. But one summary in particular was such a good effort and so ridiculously charming that I just had to share it with you all.

The title of this book is "The Big Balloon Race."

The Author's name is "Eleanor Coerr."

The setting is outside.

The character a Carlotta, Ariel, Bernard the Brave, Mr. Myers and a mayor.

One day I was the big balloon Race.

On that Race carlotta and Mr. Myers are went on the Race.

But carlotta's daughter Ariel sleep at the air balloon.

So she go to Race too.

Carlotta and Ariel arrived.

When they arrived where the race is starting, there was many crowd.

Soon the race start.

Ariel and carlotta Solved many problem.

So they won the race.

I think carlottar and Ariel are brave.

And the thing is, Carlotta and Ariel DID solve many problems! (Granted, they were plural problems, but...baby steps.) They dodged a bumpy raincloud, a church steeple, a town, and a farm. And this little girl pulled all that together into one sentence--and she said it in a way that I hadn't taught her. Well done, Grasshopper! Way to be in the right ballpark despite your teacher's inexperience and vague directions. :c)

The Koree-wahs who cried wolf

2008-08-04T21:47:00.004+09:00

When I teach, I hear a constant chirp of "TeachUH! TeachUH! TeachUH!" in the background--especially when I turn my back. No classes at my school have more than ten students; my kids may be few in number, but they're mighty in persistence. The chirping gets louder when I turn my back, to write on the board or whatever. And in every case, the pleading peals never end up being anything important. An example.

[I turn around]

--TeachUH!

--Hang on a second, Jason.

--TeachUH! TeachUH! TEEEACHUUUUUUUUH!!!!!!

--What? What what what?

--What page are we on?

Dear lord.

So today, I'm pointing something out on the overhead projector. "Explain," I say. "Talky talky. Important things. Wisdom, platitudes, et al." And then it starts.

--TeachUH!

--Just a second. So if the big hand is on the twelve...

--TeachUH! [a second voice joins in] TeachUUUH!

--Just a minute! Please don't interrupt. If the big hand is on the twelve, and the little hand is on the three, we say "It's three o'clock." Okay, what is it, Moon?

And then I saw the blood.

Turns out Moon had a bloody nose. And in the time it took me to finish making my point, he'd managed to bleed all over his shorts, the floor, his hands, and his face. Awesome! So I sent him running to the "counter teachers" (the three Korean ladies who rule the roost and purvey books, Post-It notes, and--occasionally--emergency medical supplies). And after class I had to wipe up the trail of blood leading down the hall.

What was that story about that...boy? Who cried....fox? Or something? :c)

I'm not caught up yet, buuuuut.....

2008-08-04T21:28:00.003+09:00

....check out this fabulous website that Lizzypants sent me. It's fabulous. :c)

http://www.oddee.com/item_96156.aspx

The Seoul Museum of Art: quite well done!

2008-08-02T17:48:00.008+09:00

On Wednesday of this glorious week of vacation, I set out early to get my alien resident card (ARC). This involved an hour-plus subway trip, plus all the number-taking and waiting-room-waiting and paperwork-filling-outing and passport-surrendering that my little heart could handle. But I was done with that little chore early (woohoo!), so I hopped back on the subway--I am SO cosmopolitan--and rode over to the Seoul Museum of Art.

SeMA, as it likes to be known, was small but pretty cool. And it cost just W700; in case you haven't learned the conversion yet, that's 70 cents. Hot dang! All the art on display was modern, which suits me well. And the special exhibit going on right now has the theme of optical illusions, which was really cool. (They didn't call it that, but that's essentially what it was: art that your brain interprets differently than what your eyes literally see.)

Some of my favorites include a room filled with mesh orbs and mirrors:

...a wall full of carefully-arranged Post-It notes (click on the pictures to enlarge them):

...and a huge, wall-sized piece with tons of little shelves which were piled with tea leaves. The first picture is the whole wall; the second picture is a close-up. The dark parts of the artwork are just clusters of tea leaves on the shelves; I hope that makes sense!

I also really enjoyed this piece, which was made of thousands of little white pegs facing different directions. There were also lights placed all around the piece, which faded on and off in succession, highlighting different pegs--and thus, different shapes. Quite a clever concept.

I wasn't such a fan of the permanent collection, unfortunately. And for some reason I don't understand (maybe it's a Korean thing?), most of the paintings came in sets of two. There'd be a reddish one and a similar bluish one, or whatever. Hmm.

Another excellent part of the museum--though it probably sounds ridiculous to say this--was its umbrella stand outside. Seoul is in the middle of its monsoon season, so every time you leave the house you need to carry an umbrella. (Unless you're Roommate Jake, of course, in which case you are a total idiot and NEVER bring an umbrella. Despite the advice of your sweet, kindhearted roommate.)

As you can see, the umbrellas are locked up in their own little compartments. There was even a little attendant man to help you out! And when you lock up your umbrella, you take a little key-tab thing with you (you can see it in slot number 366) and use it as your claim ticket to get your umbrella back. Brilliant! Korea's been full of clever little innovations like that, and they fill my little heart with glee. :c)

Gongju: an interesting town. For about three hours.

2008-08-02T14:32:00.010+09:00

First of all: sorry I'm so abysmally behind on my updates! And this week is my summer vacation, too, so I've been doing lots of blog-worthy things. Of course, that also means I've been too busy having adventures to update you guys. Sorry. :c)

Backing up to Tuesday now! As I mentioned earlier, I went to Gongju for the day. (Which is not to be confused with Gwangju, a much cooler-sounding town. Gwangju used to be the capital of the ancient Silla kingdom, and it's got a bunch of super-old and super-awesome stuff. Or so it sounds.) I called 1330, a wonderful Seoul phone number which foreigners can call to ask any question about anything: bus schedules, museum hours, restaurant recommendations, or whatever. In this case, my inquiry regarded the express bus system. The helpful lady on the other end told me a list of bus stations I could use, and off I went.

The express bus terminal (on the orange line--my line--about 8 stops from me) was a wonder to behold. It looked more like an airport than a bus station. In what I'm coming to recognize as the uniquely Korean kind of vigor, there were buses scheduled to depart for Gongju every thirty minutes throughout the day. Keep in mind that a) Gongju isn't very big, b) there are at least two other bus terminals in Seoul also sending regular buses to Gongju, and c) these buses were direct, even though there are a couple big cities that are closer to Gongju than Seoul is. Such a schedule seemed a wee bit like overkill, but...oh man. I reaped the benefits.

My ticket cost W7600 ($7.60) each way, and for that measly price I was treated to nice air conditioning and seats that rivaled those in first class air travel. (They reclined waaaay back and had kick-out footrests, and there were only one-and-two seats in each row, allowing for a wider aisle and wider seats than the standard two-and-two bus seat arrangement.) And, thanks to the frequency of the bus routes, there were only about four of us on the bus! So I dozed comfortably for the 1.5-hour ride, occasionally stirring and marveling at the beautiful Korean landscape.

Once I got to Gongju, I took a taxi to a little hotel Lonely Planet recommended. I got my room key and went upstairs to check out the room. To my shock/delight/disgust, the upstairs hallway contained a vending machine stocked with supplies (for only W1,000!) to make your stay more pleasant. Obviously I took pictures...but I'll spare y'all the close-up. (However, if you're curious, you can click on the picture--or any of these pictures--to make it bigger.)
I took my key and headed off to "Gongsangseong Fortress, shrouded by the silky waters of the Geumgang River!!" (according to my map of said fortress). I hoofed it up the mountain.

Then, I saw a bunch of interesting little pagodas, like the one that was built to commemorate King Injo's brief stay duing an invasion. There were also four gates and a handful of other structures, almost all of which had been reconstructed sometime in the last 100 years or so (even though the fortress was first built about 1500 years ago...if I remember correctly). They all were in the Joseon dynasty style of architecture. And unfortunately for me....they all looked almost exactly alike.

Cool, yes. But after clomping all over a mountain in the 95-degree heat and billion-percent humidity, I was in no mood to appreciate the subtle differences in their stories and structure. Sorry, Gongsangseong.

Grouchy as I was, I was determined to make Gongju worth my while. I consulted the brochure that Madame Gatekeeper had given me and found out that the tomb of King Muryeong was located in Gongju. Thinking that sounded pretty spiffy, I hailed a taxi. (Sidenote: my ten-minute ride cost $2. I love this country.)

The tombs ended up being pretty cool. In the 1970s, an excavation of a couple tombs in this burial ground accidentally found a king's tomb, and there were over two thousand objects in it that have been really interesting to historians and archaeologists. (The find was especially important because the other tombs had already been robbed.) King Muryeong died in 523 AD, so it was a slightly big find. It's still inconceivable to me how old this country is.

The burial grounds had a nifty little museum built into one of the hills, as you'll see above. Seven of the 13 (I think?) tombs have been excavated, but you can't actually go into any of them. There are exact replicas, though, which are built into the museum. And you can look through glass at portions of the real tombs.

A diorama in the museum showed workers arduously building the king's tomb. So arduous, those workers! Plus, who doesn't love a good diorama? (Tip: click on the picture to enlarge it and get a good view of the dude working/doing the running man dance in the front.)
This is the replica of tomb number five, but it looked nearly identical to King Muryeong's tomb. Not a bad place to chill for eternity.
This picture is from the king's tomb. The little alcove is one of five; they originally held lamps, which were lit in the hopes that the dearly departed would be reincarnated before the lamps went out. (After all, wouldn't it suck to be reincarnated and wake up in the dark?) You can also see little lotus flower symbols in the bricks; those represent....something. Heaven, I think. Dang....I knew I should have been taking notes!

So the tombs were pretty cool, actually, and the museum was well done. That said, you KNOW I didn't go walking around the burial grounds; I'd already gotten enough sweaty beflipflopped exercise for one day.

At that point, I'd been in Gongju for about three hours.....and decided I'd had enough. So I cabbed it back to my hotel, gave the key and an apologetic smile to the man there (I hadn't yet paid), and went back to the bus terminal. (In Korean: "bosu toh-mee-nol." Awesome.)

I ended up eating both lunch and dinner in Seoul, so it was a short trip, but any longer and I think I might have wrung someone's neck. Gongju was interesting, although I'm not sure I would recommend it to someone--unless they were in Korea long enough to see Gongju in addition to the cooler/more important places, such as Gwangju. Or unless they really, really like tombs. Or humidity. Or x-rated vending machines.

I'm alive! And doing interesting things!

2008-07-31T01:28:00.002+09:00

I'm sorry y'all haven't heard from me in a day or two! I had a wonderful (and wonderfully educational) day at the Seoul Museum of Art and Seodaemun Prison today, but it's currently 1:30am and I have to be ready to go to the beach at 8am tomorrow....so I'll tell you about it after that. :c) Tomorrow some of us are heading to Muuido Island, which is near Incheon, which is near Seoul; we're spending the day and the night, then heading back Friday morning. I'm excited! I'll tell you all about it when I get back. :c)

I found the name of the ice cream monstrosity!

2008-07-29T21:48:00.003+09:00

Apparently Kyle's crazy Froot Loop-tasting ice cream dish (from Thursday night) has a name: patbingsu. According to another blogger ( http://english.visitseoul.net/visit2007en/aboutseoul/whyseoul/whyseoul.jsp?cid=46&sid=1654 ):

"There isn't a café or restaurant in Seoul that you can't find this crushed ice and red bean dish. It has evolved from the simple (crushed ice, sweetened red beans, roasted bean powder, and some rice cake) to its current iteration, a monstrosity of shaved ice, fruit (kiwi, strawberry, peaches, watermelon, and tomato), ice cream, corn flakes, sweetened condensed milk, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and (the essential) candied rice cake (duk: 떡). The formula might change a bit, but it's like iced bibimbap. You take it all and mix it up. My favorite game is duk hunting. You get a couple of people together and fish around this delicious concoction to find the candied rice cake. The winner gets to bask in the envy of the other competitors."

So there you go! Here's another picture of Kyle's version of it:

What's up, Gongju?

2008-07-29T11:11:00.001+09:00

I'm about to head off to the bus station to go to Gongju! I decided I was going to go about an hour and a half ago...haha. Yay for a week of vacation. :c)

I'm not sure if I'll stay the night; I've got my toothbrush in case I decide to do so, but I'm just going to play it by ear once I get there. There are some cool temples and a fortress and stuff; I'm sure I'll have a lot to tell you guys about once I get back. Wish me luck!

Extreme temperatures, nudity, and fish chewing on my feet? SIGN ME UP!

2008-07-29T10:38:00.002+09:00

Yesterday was WONDERFUL, y'all. I spent Sunday night at Jess and Katie's apartment, chatting and hanging out with all the other "left behind" teachers (most of the teachers are gone on vacation right now). I was up laaaaaate--partly because of the party and partly because I came home and talked on Skype with Mark until about 5:30am my time (oopsie!). So I slept super-late yesterday, which was wonderful. And then I joined some friends for a trip to a jjimjilbang.

Y'all. Oh my goodness.

A jjimjilbang is a spa...sort of. It's also a public bathhouse...sort of. Basically, it's uniquely Korean, and uniquely wonderful.

Fabulous Canadian Amy had been to several jjimjilbang and took us to her favorite, which was about 10 subway stops away. We got there, paid our 7,000 won ($7), and put our shoes in little baby lockers that were assigned to each of us. Then we took the locker keys to another bank of lockers, where we changed into the t-shirt and short uniform thingies they gave us and locked up our clothes. Our first stop was the downstairs part, which was co-ed.

Downstairs, there were four sauna rooms, each with a different decor and set to a different temperature. We started in one that was a little cooler than room temperature; I can't remember its Celsius temperature, but it was probably about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. After a while in that room, we went into the next one, which felt like it was about 85. We lay and relaxed, chatting a bit and generally enjoying the warmth and mood of the room. (Like the others, the room had a low, domed ceiling, was made of rocks and wood, and smelled pleasantly earthy.) Next, we moved to the hottest room. I wish I could remember its temperature, but I would guess it was about 115 Fahrenheit. And in this room, there was--inexplicably--a TV playing a kids' show in the corner (because nothing says "relaxing" like singing puppets), as well as little beds of rocks. And y'all, this was one of my favorite parts of the whole jjimjilbang. They were laid out almost like a row of coffins (!), and each was filled with little marbles of adobe...or something that looked like it. So we lay in them, scootching around until the marbles conformed to our body shapes. And they were warm, which was lovely. So we lay there, relaxing and sweating, for about ten minutes....until we wussed out and moved. :c) The next room was a bit cooler, but still the second-hottest.

Also downstairs were a little restaurant, a water cooler (which we visited frequently), a nail salon counter, a workout area (including those fat-jiggling belt machines from the 1960s--AWESOME), some painful massage beds....and the best part of all. The doctor fish.

For an extra 5,000 won (such a steal!), you can put your feet into a tank of water. And in that tank of water are a few hundred fish, all of whom will happily nibble on your feet until all your dead skin and callouses are....well, fish food. It sounds crazy, and it looks crazier--but it was nice! After I got used to it, of course. :c) I wish I could have taken a picture for y'all, but I would have felt crunchy if I'd brought a camera. Anyway, the doctor fish tickled my feet SO BADLY at first--I was practically having a seizure, I was laughing so hard--but then I got used to it, and it started to feel like me feet were tingly from being asleep. After about 5 minutes, Jen, Jess, and Katie came over to join me...and they were all flabbergasted that I was so calm! They were wriggling and giggling while I sat there, all Zen or something. Muahaha! They got used to it, of course. And now our feet are all smooth and soft!

After we were finished downstairs, we steeled ourselves for the weirdest part of all: the upstairs. (I know: weirder than the doctor fish, you say? Yes. Well....as weird, at least.) Upstairs, everyone gets naked (!), but it's separated by gender at that point. There's a big room with four warm tubs, two cold tubs, a shower area, a sit-down shower scrub-down area, some massage tables, and some crazypants-hot saunas. We started in the warm tubs; the hottest was about as hot as a jacuzzi, and the coolest was lukewarm. Then, I did a couple rounds of hot tub-cold tub-hot tub-cold tub, which made my skin tingle all over. (I'd read in a guidebook that jumping back and forth from hot to cold is the quintessential jjimjilbang experience.)

Meanwhile, Amy, Katie, Jen and Jess all got scrub-downs. I didn't spend the extra 15,000 for it (although I probably will next time). Basically, they lay naked on massage tables while Korean women with exfoliating mitts scrubbed them and slapped them from head to toe for about twenty minutes. (I'm not sure what the slapping was for, but they did it exuberantly.) According to the ladies' reports, the scrub-down kind of hurt, but they felt super-clean and fresh. And Fabulous Canadian Amy said that her scrub-down lady seemed particularly fixated on her tattoos and scrubbed at them extra hard; the poor lady was probably confused, since Koreans don't really get tattoos (unless they're gangsters, of course). :c)

The saunas upstairs were INTENSE. The hottest one was 90 degrees Celsius; by my estimation, that's about 190 or 195 degrees Fahrenheit. (Is that right, Daddy? I'm sure you know.) It was SO HOT, but it felt wonderful...for about five minutes. :c) And right afterward, I pushed the button for the turbo pressure-wash cold shower next to the cold tub, so I certainly cooled down quickly! I also bought a bottle of black bean tea to help with the cooling down. (As you might suspect, it tasted NASTY--albeit healthy.)

We spent about three hours or so at the jjimjilbang, subjecting ourselves to all kinds of inventive torture. Yet at the end, I was the most relaxed I've ever been. As we ate dinner at the Japanese place next door, we laughed about how every bone and muscle in our bodies felt like wet noodles.

My time at the jjimjilbang was foreign, wonderful, a bit frightening, and completely fulfilling; in short, it was exactly what I came to Korea to experience.

Oooooh yeah...the main attraction in Dongdaemun

2008-07-27T18:06:00.004+09:00

I forgot to post pictures of the main thing in Dongdaemun district: Dongdaemun itself, which is an old city gate. (Haha...silly me, distracted by all the shopping!) Unfortunately, we couldn't get up close to it. But it's still cool-looking!

Oh yeah....and we also saw a HUMMER. In ASIA. I almost died of shock.

Dongdaemun and good conversations

2008-07-27T17:33:00.013+09:00

Yesterday Kyle and I went to Dongdaemun, an area of town with lots and lots of market-type places and stores. It's kind of hard to describe; it wasn't a market like I've seen them in the States, but there were similar things for sale. I'll start with a video of one of the main markets:

People were seated at the little food stalls eating, and the sights and sounds and smells were quite interesting. Unfortunately, we ate at a little restaurant before we found this market, so we didn't get to partake. The main dish seemed to be green bean pancakes (I can't remember their Korean name), and they looked tasty!

Instead, we had some kind of steaming stew for lunch; we don't know what kind of meat was in it, but I guessed quail or something. The stew also had ginseng and dates in it!

The area was divided into districts. We saw such themes as custom tailors, gardening, weddings, books, raw seafood, camping/outdoor gear, and produce. It was quite the assortment! Being nerds, Kyle and I especially liked the book district. In one store, there were used English books available, and they were (curiously/amusingly) sorted by color rather than by topic. But how else are you gonna sort books that are in a language you don't speak?

The market part itself was quite fun to go sightseeing in. And it was PACKED. (Even though my pictures don't really convey that.)

My favorite part of all was the seafood section, which had lots of ooky things on display. AWESOME.

We also saw lots of ginseng!

Afterward, we came back to my apartment and ate kimbap (my first! and it was HEAVENLY) and watched the new episode of Burn Notice. We also mixed some soju, Korea's national liquor (made from sweet potatoes), with Chilsung Cider, a yummy Sprite-like soda. And y'all, it was GOOD.

Kyle has quickly become one of my favorite people here. Over the course of the day, we talked about everything from religion to politics to philosophy to the Muppets. And it's absolutely uncanny how similar our frames of reference are! One of us will mention something like Plato's Allegory of the Cave, or the law of diminishing returns, or Swift's A Modest Proposal, or Hobbes' versus Locke's view of human nature....and the other one knows that reference too. It's bizarre; it's like we had perfectly identical educations. It makes intellectual conversations that much easier--and more interesting!

Here we are in front of the dancing fountain in Dongdaemun. Aren't we cuuuuuute?

Excellent Engrish t-shirt numero dos!

2008-07-27T17:26:00.003+09:00

Today I got an AWESOME Engrish t-shirt in Itaewon, and it makes me happeeeee. I was there to buy an iron, ironing board, hair dryer, and hair straightener from a Canadian girl who was leaving town. (By the way: my hair? Is apparently curly now. It is the STRANGEST thing ever. It used to be straight as a stick, but since I've been here it's been like POOF, BEEYOTCH. So weird.)

Anyway: the shirt! It's amazing. It looks gray in the pictures, but it's actually lavender.

Feast your eyes on THIS.

(Across the top it says "SOMEONE WOULD...SEND ME ENERGY")

Mmmmm....kalbi!

2008-07-26T12:28:00.007+09:00

On Thursday night, a bunch of the teachers went out for kalbi. One of the Korean teachers, MJ, is leaving for a month to bum around Canada, so we went out to dinner to send her off. (She actually didn't end up getting there until about 10:30. Because apparently she is South American....or something. Hehe.)

Kalbi is basically big hunks of beef, cooked over an open flame. The tables are low to the ground and you sit on the floor. Each table has two grills built into it, and the food cooks in front of you. There are also lots of kinds of kimchi (basically, pickled cabbage...or sometimes radishes) and various other side dishes. You take a leaf of lettuce and pile it up with pieces of meat, some kimchi, onion, yummy brown bean paste stuff, whole cloves of garlic (!), and whatever else you like. Then you make a little lettuce wrap out of it and chow down! In this picture you see the grill (obvi) and a bowl of warm kimchi.
Jess and Kyle, pre-engorgement. Notice the conspicuous emptiness of the tables at this point; that wouldn't last long. (Hey Furmanites: doesn't Kyle look a little like Mark Overcash?)
The restaurant. I took this so you could see how the tables are situated. And do you see the bookshelf thingies in the corner? Those are for shoes; when you come in, you take off your shoes. Fabulous. Oh, and the basket of lettuce leaves is also in this picture.

Hot, bubbly cauldron of egg stuff. I never caught its name. It was steaming like fajitas when they brought it to the table! It was yummy.
Kimchi!
Another kind of kimchi!
Bowl o' raw onions and brown liquid they brought us. Looks weird, right? And anyone who knows me knows that I'm not exactly the world's biggest onion fan. But Y'ALL. IT WAS REALLY GOOD. Who knew?
Kyle's ridiculous/awesome dessert thing. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS THING WORKS. It is kind of terrifying. I mean, the top part is ice cream; check. But the reddish-brown stuff? IS BEANS. Seriously. And they're sweet. (?) And the clear cube things, Kyle and I decided, reminded us of "a cube inscribed in a spheroid" of a grape....because we are nerds. Anyway, they're grape-like in texture, but sweeter. On the bottom was shaved ice with some kind of flavoring. And there were crispy flaky things sprinkled throughout. And somehow, the whole thing had a pervasive Froot Loop-like taste. HOW CONFUSING IS THAT???

Anyway. I was lovely! Oh, and eventually, MJ came. How adorable is she?

This is me trying to be a serious blogger.

2008-07-26T12:11:00.002+09:00

For my next trick, I shall......POST A VIDEO! I hope!

Let's see if this works. Cross your fingers.

My Koree-wahs. Well, some of them.

2008-07-26T11:47:00.003+09:00

I love my second morning class. There are ten of them, and they're quite smart and energetic. Some of the boys can be a handful at times, but the class is super-adorable, so of course I can't hold it against them.

On Thursday, I made up a game for them. We'd just finished reading chapter three of a book called The Big Balloon Race, so I made up slips of paper with things that happened in the book on them, and the kids had to put them in order. (They're learning how to write summaries, which is more difficult than you'd think; imagine being nine years old and having to understand a story in your second language, then say it in different words. It's hard! But they're getting it.)
Becky and Annie, hard at work!
Hehe...hi, Peter! Also pictured: Jason, Soo-Sung (not "Susan," as I first thought he said), and....Sabina. I think. It could be Zinna. (They're twins.)
Shone, with some awesome kicks. Who has lions on the bottoms of their shoes?! Shone is a quality individual. And that's Sarah in the background.
Oh man....one of my favorite things about this job has been coming up with team names for the games we play. This was my first attempt: Team Hot Dog and Team Hamburger. I was such an amateur! Yesterday, I had Team The Office versus Team Burn Notice versus Team America's Next Top Model...and for another game, I had Team Jim versus Team Pam. The kids have no idea where the team names come from. All they know is that if Team Simon gets another question right, they'll be tied with Team Alvin--but at least Team Theodore is four points behind. :c)

BTdubs: read the comments!

2008-07-26T11:37:00.002+09:00

Hey by the way! I thought I should point out to y'all that I often reply to comments y'all post. Sometimes I clarify things or answer your questions--and for the rando chantyman story, I posted an update! Y'all DO want to know who that guy was, don't you??

Anyway, just thought I'd point that out in case anyone was interested. And I don't know if you get an e-mail tell you when I reply to your comments, but if you don't, maybe check back in a couple days. Y'all make some insightful comments, and I've enjoyed the feedback!

assorted, themeless photos!

2008-07-24T19:40:00.004+09:00

I haven't posted pictures in a while. Do y'all want some pictures? Are you sitting at your computers, your little pea-pickin hearts simply PINING for some pictures of Korea?

I'm sorry! I didn't know!

This is COEX, the glorious Mecca of consumerism that I visited on Tuesday. It was a magical experience.

And this is the view from my balcony. My building is a carbon copy of these, which made finding my way home very difficult for the first couple days. It was like wandering through some postmodern concrete jungle of high-rises. In the distance, though, there's a mountain! It's quite unexpected on the horizon; it looks like a curious chubby kid poking his head into the frame of a picture. I hope I'll get a chance to go check it out soon.

And this is the street where my school is! I was on my way back from COEX, and I'd just come out of the metro. See that neon cross on the building up ahead? And the red and white text just above that? The red text says "SLP," and the white text says "Sogang Language Program" in Korean (I assume). That's my school! We're on the seventh floor. Other tenants in the building include a grocery store, a noodle shop, a little salon, a few flea-market-style clothes shops, a bakery, two (!) other English-language schools, a bank, a pharmacy, a couple doctors' offices, and a chicken restaurant.

It's quite convenient; if I need to make a withdrawal from my Korean bank account, I just elevator myself down to the second floor. If I want a tasty 85-cent lunch, I go down to B1 and buy some ramen a la Cup-of-Noodles. If I want some yummy and nutritious kimbap for a dollar, I head to the first floor. It's a pretty sweet set-up, and it's inspired some fruitful fact-finding missions (fruitful and alliterative, apparently). Some days after school I'll go wandering around the building, smelling the perfume testers on the first floor or perusing the three (three!) different kinds of soap dishes in the grocery store. I've already discovered some treasures and beacons of weirdness; both kinds of findings are supremely satisfying.

rando chantyman

2008-07-24T19:18:00.002+09:00

Every morning around 8:30 or 9am, some guy wanders by our apartment, chant-groaning something indiscernable. It freaked me all the heck out the first morning here. I think he walks up and down each floor of our building (we're on the 13th of 15 or so floors). Since the building is outside access--in other words, the hallways are outdoors--I first heard him in the distance. I couldn't tell what the noise was, or even whether it was human in origin; it was just a faint droning, so I didn't think much about it. The apartment isn't air-conditioned, so all our windows were open. In fact, I'd propped the apartment door open to help with the air circulation. (We're at the end of the building.)

And then the droning grew louder.

Just as I decided that the noise was definitely human, I also realized that it was coming from my floor. ("And the call was coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE." Dun dun dunnnn!) Whoever it was was getting CLOSER, and LOUDER, and the door was wide open. Y'all, I almost peed myself. Senor Droneyman got all the way up to our door--as close as possible without actually being in the doorway--and then turned around and droned his way back toward the elevator.

WHAT THE POO.

He came back the next day too, and the next day...and every day since. I talked to Roommate Jake about it, and we think he might be blessing the building? Or something? The droning sounds vaguely chant-like, so we think he might be performing some kind of Buddhist ritual. I've been meaning to ask Roommate Kevin (one of the Korean school administrators) about it, but I rarely see him. Half the time I don't even know if Kevin's here, since he keeps his door closed. I've gotta find out, though; I'm really curious!

gym class, minus the stinky uniforms

2008-07-24T19:03:00.003+09:00

On Tuesdays this month, I'll be co-teaching the pre-schoolers' gym class. At SLP (my school), gym class is an hour-long period after lunch where the pre-schoolers (age 5 or so) play games and stuff, but it doesn't involve changing clothes or copious sweating. At first, I was kind of indifferent about teaching gym class; I didn't think much about it.

But then I started to make a list.

During one of my observations today, I started writing down ideas for gym class activities. Drawing on my extensive P.E. and youth group repertoire, I came up with some pretty sweet ideas, including:

Mother, may I?
where the wild wind blows
the winking game (my personal junior high youth group favorite)
bull wrestling (holla, Katie Snow!)
a challenge whereby two teams brainstorm to come up with a way for 8 people to support themselves with only 5 feet total on the ground....then 4 feet...then 3...then 2... (that's from my post-high-school Jamaica mission trip)
some variation on TV tag (animal tag? English-words-starting-with-S tag?)
blob tag (another highlight of my junior high youth group experience...especially when it involved linking arms with a cute boy. SCORE!)
duck duck goose (which, incidentally, is called "duck duck grey duck" in Minnesota...did you know that? it is! Minnesotans are kind of wackadoo.)
car, dog, fire hydrant (again, a junior high youth group brainchild; it's an adaptation of rock, paper, scissors--except that it involves your entire body)

Y'all. I am getting so excited about teaching this gym class. What does that say about me? I'm pretty sure it says I have a very refined sense of fun.

German Konglish! Er....Kongman! Gerlean?

2008-07-24T18:55:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I saw a student's mom wearing a t-shirt that almost killed me. It was in German....kind of. It had received the same Roman-letters-look-cool-so-we-don't-care-what-it-says treatment as English often gets on Korean t-shirts; accordingly, it made my day. Possibly it also made my life.

I didn't catch one of the words, but I whipped out my notepad and wrote down the rest of it before I forgot it. It said:

DIE KUNDE

IST ETNE

______ DES TEUFELS

which translates to:

THE CUSTOMER

IS DUKC

______ OF THE DEVIL

(The German word for "duck," Ente, was misspelled.)

Y'all. IS THAT NOT AMAZING? I'm so disappointed I couldn't see that one word; I really want to know what was of the devil! Was it the duck-customer? Or was it something else entirely? The world may never know!

So Chinese sounds like that to Koreans, too!

2008-07-24T18:46:00.002+09:00

The funniest thing happened today in one of my classes. (I was observing it; I'll be taking over in a couple weeks.) Diana Teacher, one of the fabulous Korean teachers, was leading a discussion that involved subjects in school. One of the kids mentioned taking Chinese, and another kid started imitating a person speaking Chinese. He was all "ching cha ya chong" in a nasal, sing-songy voice--basically, he sounded exactly like an American imitating Chinese might sound.

I had to force myself not to laugh out loud. To me, Korean and Chinese don't sound all that different; Korean sounds a bit "ching cha ya chong" to my ears, even as I'm getting more accustomed to it. I wanted to go "uh, Charlie, you say that jokingly, buuuuut.....that's kind of what you sound like when you speak Korean," but I don't think that would have gone over so well. :c)

What's up, Whitey?

2008-07-24T18:34:00.003+09:00

On my way to COEX on Tuesday, I crossed paths with another white person. We were in a crowded subway station, and I saw him before he saw me. He looked up just before he passed me, and his double-take and astonished expression almost made me laugh out loud.

It's been quite interesting to be a minority for the first time in my life. I mean, I lived in Germany and all, but I spoke the language and looked more or less like everyone else, so I didn't really draw any attention. Here, though, I always feel highly--what's the word--noticed? It's not that people stare; I'm just less anonymous. It hasn't really made me uncomfortable or anything. It's just.....interesting.

I keep running into people. No, I mean literally.

2008-07-24T18:30:00.002+09:00

Did you know that Koreans walk on the left side (of the sidewalk, of the stairwell, etc.)? They do. Well, that's actually not true....only about two-thirds of them do. WHICH IS SO MUCH WORSE. Add to that the fact that I forget and walk on the right about half the time, and you end up with a lot of narrowly-avoided collisions. Oh--and it's monsoon season, which means it's rained four or five days out of the past week, so people are walking around with umbrellas and looking down. THAT certainly helps the situation. :c)

I'm thinking of building a floating guardrail around myself. And I might add some flashing lights and beeping noises. Maybe THEN I'd stop running into everyone ever.

Resident alien

2008-07-23T13:34:00.002+09:00

One thing that's been really salient to me since I've been in Korea is my utter cluelessness--and, as a counterpoint, my good intuition. When I studied abroad in Germany, I'd already taken five and a half years of German; I was quite comfortable getting around, asking for what I needed, conducting my business, and getting to know people. Here, I don't know anything. Y'all, I don't even know how to say "hello." Or "thank you." When I buy something or order food, I'm reduced to a mime....and a bad one, at that. Such utter cluelessness of the language is uncharted territory for me. And it's WEIRD.

[Sidenote: I'm planning on devoting more time to learning Korean...just as soon as I settle into school a bit. I'll let you know how it's coming along.]

The first observation--that being so clueless is raw and new for me--has led into a second observation. Y'all, I've been surprised at my own intuition. For instance, when I sign a credit card signature pad, I don't know which button is "ok"/"accept"/whatever, so I just press one...and it turns out to be the right one. Or yesterday, when I was working on my lesson plan on the school computer, I was able to easily find my way around Microsoft Word even though all the pull-down menus were in Korean. Ok, that second example is probably more recognition than intuition, but you get the idea: I've been surprised at how often I'm correct when I guess at something I don't know.

It's only my sixth day in Korea, and already I've returned something at a store, filled out forms, gotten an x-ray taken, asked for directions, and done lots of other things--all without speaking a word of Korean. It's amazing to me how much I've been able to figure out--and how I've been able to communicate to other people. Being here has forced me to think outside the box a bit; it's been an interesting exercise in self-knowledge.

"When I go to COEX, I like to buy Lori Teacher colorful pens."

2008-07-23T13:30:00.002+09:00

Today in my second morning intensive (my smartest-yet-squirreliest class), I told the students that I'd gone to COEX (the aforementioned giant shopping complex) for the first time yesterday. So as a warm-up, I had them go around the room and say what they liked to buy when they went to COEX. And one of the students said "when I go to COEX, I like to buy Lori Teacher colorful pens." How very sweet....plus, and excellent use of an indirect object! Lori Teacher was very proud on both counts. :c)

Ahjummas everywhere

2008-07-23T13:20:00.003+09:00

In Korea, I see lots of ahjummas (grandmotherly women) out and about. I'll run into them in an elevator, working in a restaurant, walking on the sidewalk, or riding the subway.....they're all over the place. Germany has a similar proliferation of old ladies out and about, and today I realized that in both countries that proliferation stuck out to me. Why is that?

Is there some quality that Germany and Korea have in common that increases the autonomy of little old ladies? Or, put differently, is there something about the US that keeps old ladies from going out to conduct their business or to work...at least, to the same degree that Korean and German old ladies go out and about?

Or is it just that American old ladies are usually with American old men?

Or are there a similar concentrations of old ladies in public in the US as there are in Germany and Korea, but for some reason the numbers appear different to me? (And if that's the case...why does it seem like there are more of them here and in Germany than in the US?)

Anyway...I was just musing over that. Ideas?

2008-07-23T00:40:00.000+09:00

Haha...I meant HTML, not HTMP. I win!

um.....riiiiiiight.

2008-07-23T00:38:00.002+09:00

Not sure what I did to the HTMP in the last post to make it turn black at the beginning. In fact: if anyone knows how to imbed a picture in the middle of the text, please tell me. The way I've been doing it, I upload pictures and they appear at the top, so I have to cut and paste the HTML lower; that's how the black text thing happened. Also, because I have no idea what I'm doing and shouldn't be allowed on the internet without supervision.

Help, anyone?

Konglish is deliciously hilarious

2008-07-23T00:08:00.005+09:00

I found some awesome Konglish when I was out shopping today. For those of you who don't know, Konglish is the Korean version of the Japanese sensation of Engrish. Both involve the use of English words in a foreign country in a way that is amusing to native English speakers. (Some textbook examples are a Japanese t-shirt that says "I hate myself and I want to die" and a menu item called "mud crap pizza.") In the case of t-shirts and such, Engrish and Konglish often aren't intended to actually be correct; they're just stylistic. A similar practice would be Americans' fondness for getting tattoos of Chinese characters because they look cool. You get the idea.

Anyway, I found some juicy incidents of Konglish today, which filled me with glee. The first is a napkin; it bears the name of the restaurant where I ate (a delicious) dinner. Margaret, I dedicate this photo to you.

So close! The restaurant paid enough attention to detail to put an umlaut over the "u" in Hansel, as it should be in correct German...but they whiffed it on the "s." Apparently, Gretel's friend is not a strapping young German kid, but a Baroque composer. Who knew? :c)

I saw this sign at COEX, a giant (and awesome) shopping complex thingy. I didn't know until now that trade hatches from eggs! :c)

Hehehe....not explanation needed! Except to say that there's a giant question mark on the back of the shirt as well. You know, just in case the shirt wasn't amusing enough on the front.

Okay okay okay: WHOADANG, right? I'm sorry the picture's not very good, but I was in a store and didn't want to arouse suspicion, so I had to take it quickly. The shirt says WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE RNSLANG ALTRNTV ANY WAY? I would also like to know the answer. (Let me know if you find out.)

And finally, the piece de resistance--of which I am now the lucky owner: a fantastic t-shirt I bought for 9,900 won.

aaaaaand let's go in for the close-up!

"Alterhate reality" sounds like a fabulous name for a death metal band, don't you think? And the rest of it....well. It just doesn't make any sense. WHICH IS FABULOUS. It's modeled after the front page of a newspaper, but the "articles" are all "talky talky, newspaper words, blah blah blah." They're clearly taken from actual news articles, but there are words capriciously added and subtracted, ensuring that the t-shirt makes no sense at all.

It is glorious. I cannot wait to wear it.

omigod: shoes!

2008-07-22T23:38:00.003+09:00

[Preamble: if you don't understand the title of this post, feast your eyes upon this.]

Now then!

My second day of teaching was today, but I don't feel like going into all that. Well, actually, I'll give you the quick version: I'm beginning to hit my stride, it's difficult to keep my vocabulary simple enough for the kids to understand, my favorite (and smartest) class was strangely rambunctious today, and it turns out my morning classes' curriculum is way over the kids' heads (we were "beta testing" the curriculum, if you will) so we're scrapping a lot of the original syllabus--which makes my job easier. And I got to leave at 4pm today! Woohoo!

I decided to go shopping this late afternoon/evening. It was awesome. More on that later! Including pictures!

***AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED DISCUSSION OF SHOES***

As I was sitting in the subway tonight, admiring my pretty new notepad, I decided to start jotting down little observations I have. Hopefully I'll write quick little blog entries about some of those observations, in case someone other than me finds them interesting. :c)

For my first post of that nature, I noticed a theme among my ideas: shoes. Now, I'm not really a shoe person; I pretty much wear flip-flops just about every day of my life. And I own a reasonable number of shoes; I'm not one of those crazy shoe women. But since I've been in Korea (soooo...for the past 5 days) I've found myself noticing and admiring Korean women's shoes. I tell you what--these women wear some ridiculously cute shoes! I hear myself saying that and it sounds so....not me, but seriously, you'd think the same thing if you were here.

Apparently I'm becoming a shoe person.

I discovered today that Korean women have an excellent reason for wearing cute shoes every day: they are CHEAP. (The shoes, not the women. Although who knows? Maybe the women are too!) In fact, Korea has a glorious and brilliant practice of selling shoes in the subway stations. Racks and racks! Of shoes! Cute ones! FOR NINE THOUSAND WON. THAT IS NINE DOLLARS. FOUR AND A HALF DOLLARS FOR EACH SHOE. AMAZING. I CANNOT CAPITALIZE THAT SENTIMENT ENOUGH.

Perhaps actual stores sell shoes for eleventy thousand dollars a pair; I don't know. But the subway shoes are cheap! I love this country. Check out the pair I bought tonight! Did I mention that they only cost nine dollars? They only cost nine dollars.

You can't really tell from the picture, but the straps are white and a really pretty shiny blue. (They look kind of navy blue here, but they're lighter and shinier in person.) But seriously! How cute are they?! And how silly do I feel getting this excited over a pair of shoes? ("Very silly" is the correct answer.)

Bless you, Koreans-who-sell-shoes-in-subway-stations. Even though you make me feel like I have giant feet.

Saturday > Friday

2008-07-21T06:49:00.002+09:00

Saturday was so much better than Friday, y'all. I still woke up crazypants early--at about 5am, after going to bed at 2:30--but I put some soft music on my iPod, put on my eyeshield thingy, and forced myself to go back to sleep....and it worked! I woke up at about 10:30, then went into school for some more training with Jenny, the [basically] principal of the school. We went through a lot of information about the curriculum, the school, and what I'll be teaching; it was a lot to remember, but it helped clear some things up for me. Yay!

In the afternoon, I watched some Office with Jake, my temporary roommate. He'd never seen it, but he really liked it. Yesss...a convert! Then, I took a nap (darn jetlag....) for a couple hours, and got up and got ready to go out. Most of the teachers at my school were going to Itaewon that night, which is an area of town with lots of nightlife. It's near the US military base(s), so it's kind of a hub for expats. It's also got kind of a reputation for skuzziness, though....I've heard it referred to as "Shitaewon."

Most of the teachers were splitting cabs over to Itaewon, but Jake wanted to take the subway because it'd be a few thousand won (a few dollars) cheaper, so I tagged along. I've pretty much been tagging along with Jake this whole time, and I wanted to try out the subway with someone else the first time, so it seemed like a good idea. Before we went, we stopped at this little 24-hour noodle place downstairs from our school (and near our apartment), and it was really good! I had ramyan, which is what Americans know as ramen, and it was quite tasty. It also had two dumpling things in it, which were delicious. I tell you what, though....it is REALLY DIFFICULT to eat ramen with chopsticks. I kind of suck at it, y'all. And Korean chopsticks are metal, which makes them extra-slippery, so there was lots of slurping going on. Bye bye, American table manners!

When we got to Itaewon, we arrived at the pub, Wolfhound, about half an hour before everyone else. And I made a couple new friends! Well, actually, I was already facebook friends with one of them...haha. A few weeks ago I posted some question on a facebook group for expats in Korea, and this girl Hayley replied, so I added her as a friend. Then, when I was sitting in Wolfhound, I looked over and had that itching "do I know her from somewhere?" feeling about this random girl sitting one table over. And finally I figured out that she looked like Hayley's facebook picture, so I went over and said "um.....are you Hayley?" And she was! So we chatted quite a bit. She had a friend named Stefanie who was there, and she's cool, too. Hayley's from London and has the COOLEST ACCENT EVER....and better yet, she seems to know the whole expat community. She's very social and upbeat, so I was glad to get to know her; I'm sure it'll be nice to make friends outside of my school.

Once the rest of the teachers got there, I really enjoyed hanging out with them. Plus, there was a guy who used to teach at our school and is now teaching public school--his name's Eric--who is ridiculously awesome. So we all hung out for a couple hours, then left to go to...um....Hangdo? Or something? I can't remember the name of that section of town...dang it. But anyway, we went to this place called Jane's Groove, which had a dancefloor, so you KNOW I was happy. It was almost completely Westerners in there, as was the case with Wolfhound...kinda crazy! Dancing with the other teachers was a lot of fun, and it helped me feel better about them than I had the night before. I think my suspicion was correct--that they're essentially cool people who had just had a hard week at work and were letting off steam on Friday night. Oh, and there were a couple people who hung out with us on Saturday night that weren't there on Friday, like Kyle. Who deserves his own paragraph.

So I think that Kyle might be the male version of me...haha. He actually reminds me a bit of the other male-version-of-me, Mark, a good friend from Furman who I also kind-of-dated last year. Kyle looks a little like Mark and has a vaguely similar personality, so all night I was like "mmmm, Mark....WAIT NO IT'S NOT MARK IT'S SOMEONE ELSE!" Ha ha....my brain was confoosed. But anyway, Kyle is awesome, partly because he justifies my nerdiness. Jake has been making fun of me for being a nerd, but Kyle is nerdy in the same ways! It's AWESOME. We were geeking out about statistics at Wolfhound, which was fantastic. And he also likes art museums and stuff. I'm sure we'll be hanging out a lot. (In fact, once Jake and I got home, he was making jokes about Kyle and I making a cute couple....but I think Jake's jealous that I was hanging out with Kyle more than him. Hehehe.)

Anyway, so Saturday night was SO much fun, and Jake and I didn't get home until about 5am. Going to bed while the sun came up was quite interesting! Then, on Sunday, the two of us got up around noon, and Kyle came over at 2. We'd talked about going to a place called Technomart to get some stuff, so the three of us set off on the subway again. And....y'all. Technomart is.....insane. And also amazing. And also kind of a zoo. But also undoubtedly amazing. It's about 10 or 11 stories high and about the size of a grocery store on each floor, and it's essentially a giant shopping mall of electronic stuff. Kyle and I agreed that it seems like people rent space, kind of like at a flea market, and sell stuff individually; and the floors have different themes. They had really nice LCD flatscreen TVs for super-cheap--we saw one big one for 400,000 won ($400) that would have sold for $2000 in the States. (But Daddy, I'm glad to say that they had my camera for $220, so we got it cheaper in Atlanta. Woohoo!) Some of the stuff seemed to be priced similarly to American prices, and some was cheaper; but you could bargain with the sellers! And let me tell you, bargaining is fun and interesting when the buyer and seller speak two different languages. There's lots of pantomiming.

I bought some speakers for my computer and iPod for 21,000 won. Jake and I tested them out last night, and they were AWESOME. [Sidenote: to ask the salesman whether they had good base, I pointed to them and went "BOOM ba ba BOOM ba ba BOOM....good? Is okay?" and it seems to have gotten the point across!] I win! I also bought a couple outlet converters for 8,000 won together ($8), plus an awesome fan that made sleeping last night SO MUCH more pleasant for 25,000. Poor Jake had to listen to me being excited about the fan for, oh, about two hours straight. But I told him he'd change his tune when he had to go sleep in his hot, stuffy room without a cool, luxurious fan. I told him that when he (inevitably) came knocking on my door at 4am asking to share my fan, I'd make him be Big Spoon.

Last night, Jake and I spread out all our teaching materials and puzzled over what we were supposed to be teaching...haha. He's only been here a week longer than I have, and intensives (classes in the "high season" for our school) start today, so we're both teaching new classes. We kind of figured it out, though.

This morning I woke up at 6:30am--so my jetlag is abating, which is good. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up to my alarm! Woohoo! :) The nice thing about getting up early is that I can check my e-mail, have some coffee, and update my blog before I have to trundle off to school. I'm hoping it doesn't rain today, because I'm hoping to wear my favorite dress; it IS my first day of school, after all! It pooooured yesterday and the day before; Jenny (the principal) said it was monsoon season, and I'm not sure whether she's kidding or not. So I'm about to embark on my first week of teaching.....wish me luck!!!

some very redeeming things about yesterday

2008-07-19T10:39:00.005+09:00

I totally forgot to post some awesome pictures from yesterday! Oh man....these are awesome.

First, from the morning: the parking lot below my temporary apartment.

I mean....how do the regularly-parked cars get OUT? The double-parked ones are all up in their Kool-Aid! [note: I later learned that people push the double-parked cars out of the way. Or else call the phone numbers displayed in their windshields to get people to move them. Seems totally inefficient, but....whatev, you silly Koreans!

Second: my first squatty-potty experience!!!!

How awesome is that? It was at the hospital--in fact, I had to pee into this thing, INTO A CUP. But I'm a good squat-pee'r; I've got a whole summer's worth of peeing-in-the-woods experience. Thank you for that, Phoenix Outdoor.

And finally, third:

Korean chairs! I know that thing looks kind of crazypants, but when you lean back, the two panels swivel a bit and cup your back. So your spine isn't pressing against your thing, and the chair back is kind of conforming to the shape of your back. They're AWESOME. (Hey, it's the little things, right?)

Okay, I'm off to take a shower and go in for a little more training. Then, a little shopping jaunt. Yay! Today's going to be much more fun; I'll see to it. :c)

longest. day. ever.

2008-07-19T00:58:00.003+09:00

Just finished my first day...and it's 1am. As I mentioned before, I woke up more or less around 4:30am, so this has been a reeeeeally long day. First, the other newbie (Jake), a girl renewing her contract (Nancy) and I were taken to the hospital to go through our health screening that's part of the visa requirement. Some of it made sense--like the blood and urine tests, presumably for drugs. But many employers require that, so no big deal. But they also tested our vision and hearing! I'm not sure what that has to do with the ability to teach English--unless you're completely deaf--but whatev. And they even measured our chests! Nancy and I were like "....what the poo?!" The nurse lady just whipped out a tape measure, asked us to raise our arms, and went to town with our lovely lady lumps. It was...curious.

Then, I went to the school for the first time. It was surprisingly small! But probably part of that is due to the compactness of everything in Asia. The school is on the 7th floor of a building that also has a bank, a grocery store, a few little restaurants, and some kind of Christian organization (or maybe a church). The latter tenant actually makes my life a lot easier, because there's a giant neon cross on the side of the building--which, of course, makes it easier to find. Thanks, giant cross!

My first impression of the school is that it was LOUD. There was a constant din of kids hollering in unison and teachers bellowing over them. Apparently, teaching at my school involves a whoooole lot of shouting! The curriculum heavily emphasizes repetition, so the kids spend a lot of the classtime yelling various sentences in unison. It seems like the kids stay interested when they bellow the answers, so it's fine....it's just gonna take some getting used to.

I spent the school day observing classes (both in person and on video), learning about my schedule and the curriculum, and meeting people. And good LORD are there a lot of people to meet! I'm usually pretty good with names, so I think I remember most of them, but I'll admit that it's hardest to remember the Korean teachers' names. They use English names, but...well...they look alike to me. Although to be fair (to....whom? myself?), I interacted a lot more with the Western teachers than with the Korean ones--and as for the Koreans I DID talk to at length, I remember their names. The day was kind of overwhelming, especially because they were trying to cram an entire orientation into one day, but at least I feel more capable now than I did about halfway through it. For a while there, I was having a hard time understanding and retaining things--and I have to teach on Monday, so it was a bit nervewracking! I feel better about it now, though.

Basically: this coming week starts the Korean public schools' summer break. Hagwans (which, including my school, are private supplementary English schools that students attend after their normal school each day) go into overdrive during the public schools' breaks. Instead of just teaching classes in the afternoons, when school gets out, my school (and all the hagwans) hold extra morning classes as a kind of English-learning day camp. Those classes, called "intensives" are above and beyond the teachers' normal workloads. Lucky me gets to start teaching at the beginning of intensives....SCORE. At least I got what sound like good classes, though. And I've got veteran teachers who'll be helping me out the first week.

During my second week here, the whole school shuts down, and all the teachers get our first of two weeks' vacation for the year. (The other begins around Christmas.) I just found that out yesterday, and I'm pretty bummed about it, to be honest. Since I only get two weeks off a year (plus the occasional national holiday), I really wanted to use that time to travel someplace cool, like Laos or Japan or Thailand. But apparently it'd be expensive to buy a plane ticket only a week ahead of time; and plus, I haven't earned money all summer, so I'd be going further into debt before my first paycheck. So it looks like I'll be spending my week in Seoul, with a possible sidetrip within Korea. It's not ideal, but I'm hoping I can get in some good sightseeing within Korea; at least there's plenty to see here.

At the end of the workday, I hit a wall. The jetlag hadn't gotten to me all day, and suddenly I was absolutely drained. I drank four cups of coffee, but I still had no energy through dinner. Then, a bunch of the teachers came and joined Jake and I (who had gone downstairs for Korea's version of chicken wings) and started drinking. I got a bit of a second wind, but it was still really rough to be out among people. And inevitably, as often happens when co-workers socialize outside of work, there was ample griping. It wasn't any more negative than most conversations of its kind, but I was in no mood to sit through it.....but unfortunately, I had no idea how to get home. I hadn't gone directly from my (temporary) apartment to school yet, so I stuck around until about 12:45, when Sam (my future roommate) offered to take me home. (To everyone's credit: I'm sure someone would have walked me home if I'd asked, but I never asked.)

So, all in all.....it was a ridiculously long day. And it was overwhelming--in chaos, new people, poking and prodding, noise, jetlag, and good ol' fashioned fatigue. (Oh--and the first time I ate in Korea wasn't until about 2pm today. Perfect!) But at least I'm up late now, so I hope to be on Korean time tomorrow. I've got a couple hours of training starting at noon, and afterward I'm going to strike out into the city, start getting oriented, and run a couple errands. I'm going to try to get a cell phone and a new outlet adapter (because NEITHER OF MINE FIT)....and some other stuff that I'm forgetting right now because my brain is friiiied. I wish some of my lovely stateside friends and family were here to give me a hug! I know I'll feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed soon, but for now....well, at least my first day is over.

ohmagrooness I'm really heeeere!

2008-07-18T06:43:00.005+09:00

It's currently 6:43am, and I've been up since 5:30....which my body, conveniently, thought was actually 4:30pm the previous afternoon. Awesome! Wish me luck that I don't crumble into a jet-lagged, comatose puddle by dinnertime.

So I made it to Seoul! I left Atlanta at 12:20pm on Wednesday and arrived in Incheon (near Seoul) at about 9pm on Thursday. Taking into account the time delay and our time-warp across the international date line (SO COOL), plus my taxi ride to where I'm living, I was traveling for 22 hours. Dag, yo. But it was uneventful, which was good! Here are some highlights.

**On the plane from Atlanta to Detroit, I sat next to a lady wearing a Dunder Mifflin t-shirt. We chatted a bit, and she even laughed at my joke about buying my sister a Hello Kitty backpack so she could come to my house and steal it. Score! (Yay for The Office!)

**I sent my dad and Margaret a text message just before I left Detroit that said "see you in Toky, yo." HA! I'm hilarious.

**On my Detroit-to-Tokyo flight, I was shoehorned in coach between two other people, and Window-Seat Lady got up and crawled over us twice before we could even take off. (Joy!) But then the flight attendant asked if I'd like to move to an empty bank of seats in the middle of the plane, so I did. And Y'ALL. I had four seats, in a row, all to myself. And I had their pillows and blankets at my disposal, too! So I was able to completely stretch out and sleep, which was a blessing on that 14-hour flight. Thanks, flight attendant lady!

**In the Tokyo airport, I changed my last $10 of American money into yen so I could buy a lil souvenir. I was hoping for the aforementioned Hello Kitty backpack for the aforementioned sister, but alas...they were too expensive. So I bought a pretty hairstick instead. My mom just taught me--like, three days ago--how to put my hair up with one, so now I'm all set!

**While I waited to board in Tokyo, I watched sumo wrestling on TV. And it was AMAZING. Did you know that sumo wrestlers grab each other by their little thong/loincloth thingies in order to get each other off balance? Which requires reeeeeaching around behind your opponent and kind of fondling his butt a little before you find purchase on his thong? It's true.

**Seen on a tourism advertisement in the Seoul airport:

Oh man...that REALLY makes me wanna go to Jeonbuk. :c)

Okay....off to get dressed and have my first day at school! I hope the other kids like me.....

moving to Seoul!

2008-07-18T06:19:00.000+09:00

Hello innernets, and welcome to my blog! I think this means that I officially have a big ego. :c)

I just moved to Seoul--as in, seven hours ago--so I thought I'd keep you lovely people updated on my life here. I'll start by re-posting a facebook note I wrote a couple weeks ago that explains why I'm here. Happy reading!

This is how the last couple weeks have looked like for me.

me: "la la la, when I leave for Korea, la la la blahdy blah"
everyone I know: "whatwhatwhat? Korea? for realsies??? when/where/why?"

Okay, so maybe I'm in the only person who really says "for realsies." Well, Margaret does too, but that doesn't count, seeing as how she and I have joint custody of a single vocabulary.

[Get to the point, Lori!!!] Anyway, so I'm going to Korea. Yes! I just got a job (um...last week? ish?) teaching English in Seoul--Gangnam, to be specific. (That's a neighborhood of Seoul; it means "south of the river." Guess where in Seoul it's located?) The plan is to teach there for a year, do something else somewhere abroad for another year, then return stateside for my Ph.D. after that. I'm still planning on pursuing clinical psych, which was always the plan; I just decided that if I was ever again going to take a big chunk of time to travel, now would be a good time. So off I go!

I don't know just yet when I'm leaving, but it sounds like it'll be a couple weeks. My visa documents (including my Wake Forest diploma...gulp) are currently somewhere over the Pacific; once my school gets them in a few days, it shouldn't be much longer before I've got a flight and an official departure date. I still have to interview at the Korean consulate in Atlanta, but everything else is pretty much worked out.

Y'all, I'm so excited! I'm already starting to learn the language (I can mostly read Korean letters now. Hi, I'm a rockstar.), and I've been learning about Korea and the teaching of English for about a year now. My wonderful and generous father ordered me the Rosetta Stone and a bunch of books about Korea for graduation, and yesterday I bought 2,000 stickers. (Hey, I'm gonna be teaching elementary school kids....a girl needs stickers.) Also, everyone has told me that deodorant is a precious commodity in Korea, so I'm thinking of bringing a 10-year supply and starting a black market among the expats in Seoul. If I get a corner on the deodorant market, I'm pretty sure I could finance at least a year's worth of weekend trips, don't you think? ;)

To be honest, my first choice was to teach middle schoolers or high schoolers; it just seemed like it would be easier and make for better QoL (that's "quality of life," for all you non-psychology kids). But then I saw a facebook album of the school's head teacher, Terry, and...oh lord, y'all. Those kids are so stinking adorable. If y'all know me at all, you know that I'm a sucker for cute little kids. Thus, because I am a creepy, stalking, picture-stealing type person, I will share some of Terry's pictures with y'all. Even though I haven't *technically* met the man. Hi, Terry! My name's Lori; I'm a creepy, stalking, picture-stealing type person!

Thanks to all of y'all who have been asking about me and my upcoming 7,000 mile, 13-time-zone jaunt. I'm excited, although it'll be sad leaving all of you lovely people so far behind! Thank Baby-Jesus-in-a-sombrero for that miracle called the aeroplane, because y'all need to come visit me. All of you. Maybe not all at once. But maybe so! Maybe y'all could charter a plane and come see me TOGETHER, and there would be love and adventure and sightseeing and danger and intrigue and spontaneous musical numbers.

Y'all get on that.