KoreaLife

KLB - Goodbye Korea

2006-04-30T22:50:00.002+09:00

As most of you are aware, I am no longer in Korea. I have moved on and I now live in China. However, the archives here are great way to learn about living and teaching in Korea. Even if you already live or have lived here, you might find some enjoyment. There are a lot of photos and stories. I suggest starting from the first entry and working your way forward.

If you'd like, you can follow my new adventures in China by clicking here.

You can also order one of the two books I published about Korea. I recommend Korea Life Blog - Special Edition as it's 306 pages and includes all of the first book plus a load of theme-based material no longer on this site. Click here for more information and reviews.

This is a shot of the first box I received of the IOF books. I was so happy and excited that day.

This is a shot of KLB - Special Edition. At 300 + pages, there's lots of good stuff inside this book. I worked very hard on it and I hope you get a lot of enjoyment reading all the material.

Thank you so much for reading my website everyone.

Korean Food in China

2006-01-08T19:09:00.001+09:00

LingLing and I were staring at KFC and McDonald's, both of us not wanting to eat fast food but also not wanting Chinese food either, when we noticed this new Korean restaurant right in between the two. I, for one, was really excited. I've been dying for some barbecue!

They have all the usual stuff on the first few pages of the menu: kalbi, (beef) sam gyeop sal, (thick bacon) and on the next few pages, not so usual things. I don't think I'll be ordering the Roast Chicken Stomach, Roast Chicken Heart or Sliced Ox Tongue today. I ordered bulgogi and something for LingLing as she doesn't really like meat that much.

One of the differences between here and Korea, and I didn't find this out until the bill came, but they actually charge you extra for things like the coals, 6 Kuai (about 75 cents). It's not really a big deal, but why not just add the price in with the meat. I mean, who's going to order raw Chicken heart and not cook it? Then again, this is China.

Also, and I can't see this going over well with the Korean population - you have to buy kimchi for 8-10 kuai (over a dollar) and even the leaves are not free, another 10 kuai. My favorite extra charge was 2 kuai, for the dipping sauce which we dodn't order but came with the meal. We were shocked they didn't charge us when we asked for more garlic!

LingLing doesn't really like Korean food, to be honest. I can't blame her as she's only had it a few times and for most people it's an acquired taste. However, most of the places we've tried have been Chinese Korean style, which is much different. This is the first authentic place I took her and she really enjoyed it. Notice the change in her expression when she sees the food come...

She mostly likes vegetables and so this was a nice surprise for her: bimim bap, which is basically mixed vegetables with rice in a stone bowl. It's pretty much all I ate when I first went to Korea and hence why even now I can't eat it anymore.

Here it all is. You can see that 2 kuai sauce there in front. I think the soup was free, but I could be wrong.

Despite the pettiness of being charged extra for every little thing, the food and service was very good. They came to change the grill every 5 minutes. And even with all the hidden charges the total came to much less than it would in Korea. I think we paid 75 kuai, just under $10. In Korea all this would have been around $20. I guess the way they do it just seems sneaky, but as LingLing said to me, "In China, nothing is free." I'm just happy I found such a place to get my Korean fix of barbecue. I also found a Korean fried Chicken and Hoff place, too, which I'll have to get pictures of next time I go.

KLB - Checking

2005-09-15T20:49:00.002+09:00

I'm just stopping by here to say that I miss Korean food.

Site Access Problems

2005-08-17T11:56:00.001+09:00

It seems some people in Korea can in fact see Korea Life Blog. Some still can't. Some can see China Life Blog and not Korea Life Blog. Some can see both and some can't see either. Some people have passed out from the confusion. At least you have the proxy sites to try, listed in the previous post, but you have to deal with the advertisements and/or popup ads.

I guess I should make a post from time to time on this site since it seems people are checking here quite often. I check the referral log and KLB still gets over 1500 hits a day, though I'm not sure why. The only thing I can think is that people have the site bookamarked and they just come here then click on the China Life Blog link. Other than that, there's always a lot of people interested in teaching in Korea, so the archives eith all the photos and commentary may be interesting to those people. I'll keep everything online, of course, since Blogger is free anyway, and if I want to talk specifically about Korea, I'll do so here.

How is Korea these days, anyway? I find myself missing a few things, specifically the food. The other biggie is the public transportation system, especially the subway and T-Money cards.

KLB - Beijing (17)

2005-08-09T15:59:00.001+09:00

Introducing China Life Blog. The life of an average American in Beijing China:
China Life

2005-08-04T12:55:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (16)

To go along with my new life, I am going to start a new blog finally. Stay tuned for more details.

2005-08-02T14:17:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (15)

Here are some more of the pics I was too lazy to post last night as well as a sneak peak shot of the e-book I'm working on slowly but surely. It will feature lots and lots of photos and the usual inegenious commentary.

Now it's off to the visa center and over to Roline's place and then to her health club for some exercise and swimming again. Looks like I will be free until the beginning of September. Jake is working on getting me in at his Korean international school which has a nice schedule (9-2) and pays in US dollars. There's also a Korean hagwon down the street someone at my health club referred me to, as he is friends with the owner. I went there last week and they were surprised with all the experience I have and that I could speak Korean - they really got a kick out of that. They want me to work there from next week, but I told them I have to wait a bit to see what happens with this other job. Anyway, seems it won't be a problem getting a decent job/pay in this area. If all else fails, Jake says it will be easy to get a lot of private students. There are literally thousands and thousands of Koreans around here.

Oh, some people have been expressing that it may be too soon for me to jump into another relationship or at least too soon to talk about it online after Julie. Well, I don't see what the point is moping around or hiding. Our break up was a long time coming and on a mutual basis. I, at least, harbor no ill feelings at all and wish her true happiness. I am all but sure she doesn't read this blog anymore and last I knew she moved on with her life and met someone else, too. We just weren't meant for each other and that's that.

There's no need to worry about me either. I not only have a new girlfriend, but I also have many other things going for me, including many new friends. I pay rent now and so this is half my place. I'm studying Chinese, playing guitar a lot, writing and exercising and I also have those job prospects. I'm taking it easy for awhile in the meantime. Why not? Everyone should. Life is good and I welcome change. That's how I ended up in Korea in the first place. I don't have any regrets and I think I have a good spirit and outlook on things. I am happy with myself and with my life.

2005-07-18T21:36:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (14)

A sea of DVDs for sale. About $1.20 each. These stores are literally everywhere.
Because of this, I've become quite a movie buff lately and filled up a whole booklet so far. Tonight I will watch The War of the Worlds and The Longest Yard while chomping down on some dry squid that I picked up at the Korean mart. Thank God for living in Korea Town by the way. I thought my stomach would never get better, seriously. Almost 3 full weeks of the Chinese runs. But finally, after only a few days of Korean juk (porridge) and no meat or Chinese food I am back to my old solid self again. Never thought I'd be so happy to see a big turd before. That juk works miracles. That's the downside about the food here. It's delicious but it's full of bacteria us westerners aren't used too. Even Jake, after a year and a half still gets the runs often. Leaving unflushable floating vegetables in the toilet has become, well, a way of life...

In other news, Jake left for America for his 6 week vacation today, so I have his place all to myself. Nice and quiet. Nice and cool, too. His knock off Samsung standing air conditioner works like the real thing, except it only cost him $180. It must have been 95 degrees out there again today and 100% humidity. Just standing still, waiting for the car to come to take Jake to the airport we were sweating heavily.

I know the updates have been few and far between, but I have been plugging away at the e-book at least. It's just too much stuff to post here about China for a Korea blog and besides the Korean mart and some food there's not a lot Korean I can write about. I may have to start a new blog all together. Some news about that coming very soon. Hang in there and thanks as always for reading...

2005-07-15T01:11:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (13)

As promised, a pic of Korean style Chinese food ordered at a Korean restaurant here in Wangjing, Beijing. The jja jang myeong style is unique to this restaurant. The tangsuyuk, or fried pork, was as well. Awesome. Usually in Korea it also tastes pretty good but the pieces are small and there isn't much meat. These pieces are full of meat and the sweet and sour sauce is great: a little spicy and delicious. Very nice.

2005-07-10T12:20:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (12)

I finally made my way over to see The Forbidden City, which is across the street from Tianamen Square. The weather was a bit hot and muggy - not really a great day to go and take pictures, but here they are anyway.

Here is what you see coming out of the subway station. A nice view, except for the people. There are thousands and thousands of visitors here every day, especially in the summer.

Lying at the center of Beijing, the Forbidden City, called Gu Gong, in Chinese, was the imperial palace during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Now known as the Palace Museum, it is to the north of Tiananmen Square. Rectangular in shape, it is the world's largest palace complex and covers 74 hectares. Surrounded by a six meter deep moat and a ten meter high wall are 9,999 buildings. The wall has a gate on each side. Opposite the Tiananmen Gate, to the north is the Gate of Devine Might (Shenwumen), which faces Jingshan Park.

Construction of the palace complex began in 1407, the 5th year of the Yongle reign of the third emperor of the Ming dynasty. It was completed fourteen years later in 1420. It was said that a million workers including one hundred thousand artisans were driven into the long-term hard labor.

Probably the most common picture taken in Beijing besides somewhere out on The Great Wall.

And, of course, no trip to Beijing would be complete without this inevitable shot.

Further in, me in front of another building. All the buildings start looking the same from the get-go. And to think, there are 10,000 buildings inside.

Typical scenery inside The Forbidden City. Every time I type that it makes me think I wish I came from somewhere with that kind of name. New York sounds so bland in comparison.

Later...

Went shopping and picked up all this stuff. A couple more games, an outfit for the health club, a pair of Abercrombie shorts (never heard of it but I was assured this is a famous brand in America) and some nice outfits for teaching. Never thought I'd be wearing Dockers and Armani shirts in an ESL classroom, but never thought I'd be buying such outfits for $10 each either. Everything here cost me only $50 - thanks to Jake's negotiating skills. I started getting the hang of it myself. The woman wanted 160 RMB ($20) for the Jordan shirt and shorts set but I got her down to 60 (around $7.50) which is probably what she was hoping to get anyway, but still. All you really have to do is scoff and walk away to get a better deal.

Testing out the goods. Not bad at all. The only thing that didn't fit right was the belt, which needs a couple more punches. Also, I now have 8 pair of pants that need to be shortened. Gonna take care of that today, as a matter of fact.

2005-07-06T12:42:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (11)

Since I haven't done a good job of taking touristy pictures of Beijing (because I'm just not that interested in going to touristy places) I thought I'd post a link to a site with lots of information and pictures about the usual spots of interest in Beijing. Just pretend like I'm standing in front of all the nice places...

http://www.beijingpage.com/

http://www.beijingpage.com/#photo

Jake and I were going to take a 10 hour trip to Dalian where we planned on relaxing for 5 days, swimming and watching Chinese girls romp around in bikinis. However, my tourist visa is to expire soon. Jake also needed to buy a 6 month extension himself as he's finishing his job this week. We dropped off our passports, but cursed to find out they will take a full week to process.

Unfortunately, a foreigner in China can't register in any hotel without a passport as the communist government needs to know where everyone is at every moment. There's a chance some might let us stay, but it's also peak tourist season so they may be more apt to turn us away. Now we're stuck here in Beijing still, though it's not all that bad. I have a lot of things I want to do here yet. Maybe I will have to get out to some touristy spots after all. I'm semi-interested in seeing the Great Wall at least and maybe the Forbidden City. The weather has been horrendous, though, making it hard to do much. The avergae temperature has been between 36-40 degrees C (just below and just above 100 F) every day + humid as hell, which I can't figure out since most of China is a desert! It's hard to even breathe outside.

Well, I'm going to sweat my way over to the health club for now. By the way, last night I had the best Korean style Chinese food featuring tangsuyuk and jja jang myung, the best I've ever had. Wait until you see!

2005-07-04T14:35:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (10)

I woke up at 7:30 AM today by my own accord. I haven't gotten up that early without reason in a long time. It feels good, and I hope I can get in the habit. Not drinking helps, of course. I was drinking almost every day when I first arrived. Then I got sick on fake Carlsberg drafts that I had at one of the downtown bars the weekend before last. I had 6 or 7 mugs and wound up throwing up all the next day and felt run down a few days after that. Turns out several people Jake knows have gotten sick off the same beer. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise cause I haven't had a drink since. I tried to have a couple the other night when I was out, but they made me naseous. Maybe it'll be like the time I got food poisoning in America from chicken parmesan. That was 10 years ago and I haven't been able to eat it again since. OK, somehow I doubt that will be the case with beer, but it's a good idea to take a break anyway before it becomes a bad habit.

So what can I do with all my time this morning? I guess I will study Japanese and Chinese again before going to the health club. Oh, did I mention I joined one a few weeks ago? I figured why not while I'm here. It's a small, inexpensive place full of beefy Chinese guys, a few Koreans and several hot women! I met one Chinese guy who is married to a Korean. As he lived in California for 5 years years before moving to Seoul for a job, he can now speak fluent English and Korean. He and his wife are in China now because his wife couldn't speak a word of Chinese and so she is studying here. He uses the time that she's studying to work out.

I'm back with breakfast. More chow mien noodles and a bag of delicious Chinese dumplings called baozi. Total cost: 8 RMB, or about $1.15. This will fill me up until the evening.

Last night it was KFC. For some reason, perhaps because there is one on every single corner in this country, the KFC is much better here than I've ever had. You also get much bigger portions of french fries and cola than in Korea, though perhaps an American would still consider them to be small size. In Korea they give you about 8 french fries and a third of a regular cola.

As for the e-book, I've got the first 40 pages done. I worked on it all day yesterday. I'm aiming for 100 pages but the file size is getting big, so I may make it two parts. More on that soon.

Do I miss Korea? I can't say as I do. It's odd, but I haven't missed anything from there since I left. I'm sure it would be a different story if I was back in America now or if I couldn't just walk over to the store down the road and buy kimchi chigae in the Korean town. Probably the biggest reason I haven't missed Korea is because I don't miss teaching. Even though it got much much better when Cathy quit, 10 months teaching the same 50-60 kids will wear anyone out. Still, I don't want to be lazy too much longer as it just makes it that much harder to get going again. Thats why I'm trying to wake up earlier and study and exercise and keep up the writing, just to stay active.

Well, time to get off the computer and over to the health club. See you later. Hopefully I'll be up early again tomorrow. I seem more inclined to update in the mornings.

2005-07-04T14:33:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (9)

Interesting information about Beijing apartments:

1. I had wondered how all the cars look so clean around here. Jake knows why. Apparently the complexes have a car-cleaning crew. At 5 o'clock in the morning, they go out and wash everyone's car.

2. Every building has a couple of elevator women. In exchange for a room about the size of a closet and with no plumbing, they sit in the hallway and push the elevator button for you as you enter the building.

3. Guards. Every entrance in this place has a guard. These guys are no more than 15 year old boney kids that could be cut in half with a weak kung fu chop. It's very comical to see them when they have to run military style in a group while they're leader shouts at them.

4. Bills. With the exception of the phone, all your bills have to be prepaid. If you run out of credit, the power simply goes off. This has happened to Jake on a few occasions late at night. Fortunately there is a meter in the main hall where you can check the electronic number that counts down your credit. And to prepay, Jake just gives some money to his maid who runs over and pays at the local offices.

5. Heat. Thankfully this won't affect me. According to Jake, the government controls everyone's heat. They turn it on in your building remotely. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when it's on or off and, unsurprisingly, it's usually off.

2005-07-01T13:49:00.000+09:00

KLB - Korea Bound

Someone referred me to the following blog as there are a couple of short posts about the books. The author of the site ordered books and has the pics to prove it, including this one that cracked me up and made my day.

It's always nice to see someone out there that I don't really know making innocent Koreans pose with a copy of KLB - Special Edition! That made my day. Thanks, Mike. Very funny photo indeed! Now, if you can only get Tony Blair holding that thing, I'd be set for awhile. Are you ready for the challenge? Oops, wrong country. I guess Mike is not from England, but rather London, Ontario, Canada. I didn't know Canada had a London, but then again, I'm from Liverpool, New York. Well, I guess a new challenge is in order. Maybe Mike can get some of these famous people to hold it! Maybe even Peter North! By the way, I didn't know half the people on that list were Canadians, did you?

Anyway, make sure you check it out Mike's website here: Korea Bound

2005-07-01T02:20:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (8)

If you think it's all fun, fame and glory having a blog, think again. I already did this post and I swear, on the very last sentence I hit something by mistake and Explorer froze and crashed. Now I have to do it again!

OK, here it goes. This is what I got for lunch yesterday while Jake was at work. Chow Mien, da bao (to go). I also stopped next door while the food was being prepared and picked up another movie. On the way back I got that ice cold Coke just outside Jake's building at a little store. A mountain of noodles, a movie, a bottle of Coke - all for $2. Just noticed there's only one chopstick sticking out of the bowl? That's how talented I've become with them. I only need one.

Later, I met Jake and his friend Steve from England who took us to a restaurant with pictures on the menu. "Any place that has pictures on the menu in China is a place I frequently visit," he said. It was good, too. We ordered about 5 or 6 dishes. The one in the center is some kind of delicious fish soup. On the left is beef and onions still cooking on a stone plate. Everything was delicious, including the fruit with sweet custard sauce. Very nice!

Today, the stomach was a bit off again, go figure. A lot of bubbling and grumbling, so it was pizza. Ham and mushroom. Just down the road is a fantastic authentic Italian restaurant. Sometimes we eat there on the nice outdoor deck, other times we order for delivery. They have 25 kinds of pizza and an amazing...

Lasagna! This was the best lasagna I've had in Asia, and maybe ever, sorry Mom! It was excellent, even if it was a bit greasy. Who cares! I'm on no diet. With all the runs last week I've lost a few kilograms. (There's a bright side to everything!) They even give you the dish it's cooked in. Western food here is much cheaper than Korea, but still quite expensive for China. The large pizza was $6 and the lasagna was around $5. Worth every yuan to me, of course!

Finally, here is a picture of Jake and his girlfriend. She's 22, a university student, very pretty and has a really warm-hearted personality. Not only that but this girl thinks nothing about making dinner, washing the dishes (she feels bad leaving them for the maid), giving Jake, that slimebag, a long massage (and whatever else he wants!) every night she's here and just being sweet and kind to him in general. Now, let me clarify: she doesn't just do all these things because she's unempowered as a woman and hasn't seen enough Oprah yet. No, she simply is a sweet and gentle femine creature who genuinely enjoys selflessly pampering her lover. According to Jake, Chinese girls are just like that. Women of the world, take note!

OK, so I sound jealous. The truth is, I'm not. I'm not ready to dive into another relationship, to be sure. And, I'm actually very happy for him. After hundreds of girls and one or two relationships gone kaput, "I've finally found one I can actually think about marrying, dude," he said to me with a straight face. "She's a keeper." He's quite a character. I've been taking a lot of notes...

2005-06-28T20:10:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (7)

It's really a shopper's paradise in China - especially if you're into knockoffs and, let's face reality, who in China isn't? Here is a shot of some of the stuff I picked up the other day near the Holiday Inn. Though you can buy DVDs and CDs pretty much on any corner here, the areas near foreign hotels are the best for other things like Xbox games and "designer" clothes. And, as to be expected, the places are teeming with happy tourists.

Just to give you an idea, the DVDs and Xbox games are $1.15 (10 RMB) no matter where you go. The CDs are about $2. Everything else is negotiable. They start low and go way lower. After a year and a half in China, Jake has become an expert at bartering. He's so good at it that he makes me blush in awkward embarrassment. But he got me those Armani jeans for $15 (down from $30) each, and they have all the name brands: Levis, Diesel, Paper Denim, the works. The Samsonite computer bag, he negotiated from $12 to $7. I also got a really nice leather Polo wallet for $5, all the way down from $15 (Jake burst into laughter at that price). Personally I was ready to pay the first price on most things, but Jake gets a thrill out of arguing in Chinese, so I let him take charge. Anyway, I can't get over the quality of the imitations. The jeans are excellent, even after a few washings. They're pretty much the real deal as far as I can tell. The person who made them probably made the same amount as the person making the real ones, too, at the factory next door.

Everything looks like the orignal. Look at this video game. It's an exact replica, packaging and all, though you should ditch all packaging before leaving China or risk having your new collection confiscated at the airport. I guess CDs are OK. The last time I bought a fake movie in Korea it cost me 9,000 won ($9) and consisted of a poorly photocopied inlay, a regular plastic case, and a plain white DVD-R disk. Not in China, the shit is spot on. I guess except for shoes. They look good too, but according to Jake, they fall apart quickly. Everything is copied here. Jake's going to pick up a bag of Calloway golf clubs before going home for under $100, which I guess is a great price, though I'm no golfer.

I guess some of you have been pretty disappointed with the updating, but hang in there. Because of the sheer enormity of the pictures and material I have to write and post about which is all unrelated to "Korea" Life Blog, I have been working offline on an E-book. I will make it available in a few weeks for download from the KLB bookstore for anyone interested in all this stuff about China, which I have to say is quite interesting. It will have all the photos and all the commentary you're used to seeing here on KLB, but, of course, it will be all about China. Since I may even be here longer than I planned, (it's a damn good time here) it might wind up pretty thick in content. Hang in there and thanks for reading as always!

2005-06-24T12:57:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (6)

Here is a decent blog I just found about China, but without any pictures:

Talk Talk China

I like the story he linked to here.

If you are interested, check here for a decent list of China related blogs:

Misohoni.com

2005-06-21T15:23:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (5)

Everything is going really well here. No offense to Korea, but I'm having an excellent time in Beijing. No question about my stomach anymore. I'm now adjusted! The only downside has been the weather as of late. The average temperature has been a sickly 38 degrees Celsius, or between 95 and 100 Fahrenheit, which has kept me in the house for the most part the past week. Jake said it got up to 104 degrees today. Good thing he has an excellent air conditioner.

Anyway, despite the heat I've been having a lot of fun enjoying ice cold Chinese beer (about 15 cents a bottle), shopping all over town, feasting on a variety of delicious Chinese foods, hanging around with Jake and, when unable to get out of the house, watching some of my ever quickly multiplying movie collection. What could be more fun that this? A big Chinese temple? Maybe, but I don't think so. I haven't been to a single tourist trap so far. Jake says they're all a waste of money, as to be expected. I fell for that crap in Thailand. I guess maybe I should go hike the Great Wall, but not in this weather!

I think I could live here quite awhile, if I didn't have other plans, that is. China is huge and there is so much to do! It would be nice to go travel - especially in the cooler weather and preferably with someone who can speak Chinese or after picking up the basics myself, which I am doing already. I can safely say that Korean is the hardest language on earth to pronounce. I always thought I was just bad at languages, but that's not it. It seems so much easier to hear and speak Japanese, as I've been studying, and now Chinese. I picked up a lot already. I swear if I studied for a few weeks my Chinese would surpass my Korean, kapoa xing zao! just like that. I've been having mini conversations already. I guess it also helps that you pretty much have to speak Chinese here or you simply can't get by.

Well, I don't want to waste too much time in front of the computer, but here are a couple of teaser pictures to hold you over.

This is me about to eat some kind of spicy crayfish, shell and all! To hell with cracking and digging out the meat!

And this is one of the best Chinese dishes I've had. It's authentic Kung Pao chicken and it's delicious. The price? Less than a dollar. We've been eating here a lot, trying a bunch of different dishes, drinking a beer or two, never leaving with a bill over $5 total. I love China!

2005-06-17T02:28:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (4)

Sorry for the lack of updates and pictures, but come on, I'm on vacation. Actually I've been stuck in the house for the most part the past couple of days with the runs. "Welcome, to China," Jake said, with an evil grin. Apparently he lived for six months here before his stomach adjusted to Chinese food. Same with his prior roommate. I know mine sure hasn't! I've practically read a whole book on the crapper the past two days. Got a pizza tonight and will stick to western style for a few days...phew! Well, if you could see some of the stuff I've eaten, you'd understand why. It's all been pretty good, but there's been a few...oddities...

Other than that I'm doing really well. It feels good to take it easy after working for the past 10 months. You get a lot of miscellaneous holidays in Korea but never more than a week at a time, unless you're a university professor. Still, I can't complain. It's just nice that I am able to take some time off after a 10 month run with the same kids every day. On the other hand, the Chinese work 7 days a week from what I can see. Nothing closes on Sunday, including the banks and post offices. And that construction down below never stops, except between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. The sun comes up here at 4:30 in the morning. Jake told me that all of China has the same time, so that if you travel in the middle of nowhere, the sun may go down at 3:00 p.m.

I admire that Jake can speak Chinese so well. He struggled a lot with Korean, as do most of us. It seems, as far as speaking, Korean is the hardest of the three main Asian languages. Chinese is hard too, of course, but they use the same subject-verb-object structure as we do in English. Just forget ever being able to read it well. I've been studying speaking Chinese, too, though I still find Japanese to be easier to pronounce. Korean makes me want to back my head on a wall. I just can't hear it well and I never had the chance to study intensively at one of the universities and I always had a girlfriend who could speak fluent English, not to mention I don't have any male Korean friends. Excuses, yeah, I know. Tell it to Jesus, Shawn. Seriously, you really can get by in Korea only learning how to read Korean and being able to speak a little. After all, there are a lot of English words in Korean. A ton, actually. That's not that case in China - everything has a Chinese word. If you don't speak Chinese, you really can't get very far here. That may change the closer it gets to the 2008 Olympics, though...

Well, that's it for tonight. I know I promised some pictures but the last thing I feel like doing is using the computer all the time and there has already been so much to tell and so many photos that I don't know where to begin...stay tuned though. I may have a lot of free time on my hands if my stomach doesn't get any better.

2005-06-15T02:35:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (3)

I've had three misconceptions about Beijing already:

1. Internet. I thought it sucked. Wrong. It was my friend's 5-year-old Mac that was the problem. I've got my computer running now and the net is fast, pretty much as fast as in Korea. Still, it's a serious bummer that I can't see a lot of sites blocked by the government...

2. Pollution. The day I got here, the temperature was in the mid 90s and the sky was a strange white color. Stifling and depressing. I figured it must always be the same. Well, over the last few days it rained a little, a cool front came in and tonight I saw the prettiest sky I've seen in 5 years. Pics to come. Everything just cleared right up and it's like I'm in the middle of American countryside - except for the gigantic apartment complexes, wait until you see.

3. Dangerous. It seemed awful seedy when I first arrived. Hanging out with Jake, who I must say can speak Chinese far better than I ever imagined (he argued on the phone today for 30 minutes with his internet company) I got to realize it really isn't so bad. In a year and four months, Jake has never once been in a fight or robbed or in any trouble. Jake said the Chinese go to jail for fighting, maybe up to 5 years if they fight or otherwise harm a foreigner, so they don't bother him. Still, I haven't seen a single police officer myself. Wish they would enforce the traffic laws. The streets are crazy and dangerous to cross.

I've been having a blast, to be honest. In addition to just relaxing when my friend is at work, exercising, studying Chinese and Japanese, playing a lot of guitar, I've also been experiencing Beijing, China every night! It really pays to have a friend who can speak the language and who has been here for over a year. I'm not much into touristy places. Seriously, I've been happy just diving right into the local life. That's where the real experiences are anyway. So, I'm living like the Chinese do. Well, like the Chinese who aren't poor do, that is. Or like the Koreans who live around here making their riches off the Chinese. They're kind of snobby, says Jake.

There are construction workers working next door 16 hours a day or more on some new building and they live like slaves in "worker housing" with no running water. They make, according to Jake, about $50-$100 a month. They look damn haggard and tired when you pass them on the street. Really makes you think about how lucky you have it, in comparison. That's why I never fret about taking it easy in life and living like I want, working when I want, etc, because I am lucky enough to be able to live as I want, thank you America. I've been watching them and feeling a lot of pity but also appreciative for what I have and happy that I never had to suffer, nor chose to make myself suffer when I didn't have to just because everyone around me thought that's how you make it. You know what, I'm doing just fine in life. I'm the luckiest and happiest person I know right now. I'm very rarely depressed, compared to how often I felt miserable in America, ironically, going to work feeling like a schmuck in an office every day.

It takes a first hand look at real destitution to realize I have everything I want, everything I need, and, don't forget, chances - always chances. A lot of people in this world have no chances - or they buried their chances without realizing they even had them at all. I have so many chances, and for that I am truly grateful. That's why I can't denounce my country entirely, though I despise Americanism and most of what comes with that. We are given a lot of chances, no doubt about it, back there, lots of chances to get out and see the world, and that's where we are lucky. If you're Chinese you can't get out of China, unless you're rich or have connections. If you're a Chinese man, you really have to suffer. You don't have to as an American, that is, if you use your head a little.

Anyway, as for the "rich" American - I've had some excellent local cuisine including authentic Kung Pao chicken, some kind of delicious carp (who ever thought carp would taste delicious!) lamb on a stick (sounds gross but it's just as good - if not better than chicken on a stick) and shrimp and broccoli stir-fry which I made myself. A big bag of shrimp only cost me around $2.50. Eating here is dirt cheap, especially if you eat street food.

I had a lot of pics to go along with this post, but I just got connected today with the internet and now I'm getting tired. I just wanted to get this update out there for now to let you know how I'm making out here in China. Well, so far I love it. Stay tuned. There is so much to write about.

2005-06-14T02:59:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (2)

On the bright side, you can plug anything in the wall in China from America or Korea. It all fits in the sockets and the power is automatically converted. Unfortunately the internet in China isn't so great, and my friend has a 5 year old Mac that has never been updated, which doesn't help in the least. And we were unable to hook up my laptop through the router I brought because he has no idea what his auto-login internet password is. Everything is controlled by the government here, so Jake will try to contact one of the offices tomorrow and see if he can get someone out here to get my computer online, but it may be hard despite the fact Jake's Chinese is very impressive - you should see him bartering! Even if they do get me online, the internet is extremelely slow and a lot of sites are blocked, including my own website, though luckily I can still access Blogger to make updates. Rest assured some kind of updates will come. So far I've been having a lot of fun experiencing the awesome food and cheap Chinese beer!

2005-06-12T23:20:00.000+09:00

KLB - Beijing (1)

Goodbye, Seoul, Korea! Hello, Beijing, China. I'm here at my friend Jake's place. Stay tuned for some updates, including how we just ordered 24 large bottles of Chinese beer delivered for $3.50.

2005-06-11T00:46:00.000+09:00

KLB - Gangnam One More Time

The updates just keep coming lately. That's because John doesn't have a TV and the only thing I have to do is take pictures and post. Here are the last pics of Gangnam I took:

A fancy building and a Burger King sign. Hard to get a pic around here without some western fast food place in it. Just like America! Well, here are some better ones:

That day I was brave with the camera. I just stopped and took pictures of whatever. I love Korean street food and so it was nice to get some pictures.

Some place where people can eat the street food and drink soju (cheap Korean liquor) with it.

When I snapped a picture of the soju tent, the donut guy next door got jealous and asked me to take his picture too....

Another building. I guess it's not too special, but here it is anyway.

Another Gangnam subway exit/entrance. Another Samsung ad.

In Korea cellphones are for sale pretty much everywhere. Lots of nice ones here. As to be expected, all Samsung.

Back outside, more street food pictures. Here's a pretty young lady getting a plate of deok bokki (slimy rice cake thingies in firey red sauce). Good timing on the shot. Oh wait, that's someone else's hand, I think.

I guess these shots are out of order but I don't have much time to fix things. This is down inside Gangnam station again.

Back outside, more buildings. The big one further down is the Kyobo building. There's a gigantic bookstore on the bottom two floors.

I don't know how these guys get away with selling fake DVDs (burned onto DVD-R disks) in the middle of such an upscale area is beyond me. At $9 a pop they're a ripoff too.

Wow, more street food. I guess you're pretty sick of these shots by now...

Some side street near John's place. Not too exciting, but thought I'd throw it in for those who said they are moving here soon.

More westernization here. The ubiquitous McDs and some movie billboards.

The one thing about Gangnam is that all of the most beautiful girls in Korea (and maybe the world) live or hang out here. It drives you crazy, really. It's like Darwinism at it's best. And they don't like western guys either because, let's face it, we're poor English teachers - not rich Korean businessmen with nice cars and plasma TVs and loads of moola. I know a lot of you want to see pictures of the girls here, but come on, it's not easy to stand outside and snap picture of beautiful girls walking around. This was the best I could do before losing my nerve again and, as you can see, I didn't do a great job. Maybe in the future I could shoot a video - I guess that would make it easier, now that I think about it.

I haven't been to this club, but John and other people have said lots and lots of pretty girls hang out. The problem though is that it gets overcrowded and you can't even move.

Well, that's it. Check back again soon for an update. I'm leaving the country at 9:30 AM tomorrow. And I'm bringing John's camera!

2005-06-10T02:40:00.000+09:00

KLB - Goodbye Kids

This is Kelly, one of the most innocent, adorable kids I have ever had the privelege to teach.

My favorite boy, Sam, is a very nice, polite kid, too. Bye bye!

Another little girl. Korean kids are so damn cute. I want one!

Well, I am not so sure I will miss this little trouble maker...

I took this shot so you could understand what I meant by having a traditional drumming class right next door. I get to hear these kids whapping away on drums while I'm trying to teach all the time. Still, wish I had a cool class like this when I was a kid.

Kelly and Sam getting busy with the crayons. All kindergarten through elementary school teachers should thank God for crayons.

As I said before, my A class drove me nuts my last day there. You can see on the left C and D teams have the big black minus-star sign, which means I'll take stickers out of their books at the end of class. I guess you may also be wondering about that peculiar drawing...

Victor, Dean, and June - three little uncontrollable kids. I drew this picture to let them know how displeased I was with them, and also because I like making silly drawings on the board just because I can. Kelly and Sam got a kick out of this one. Believe it or not this kind of thing actually works. Kids hate when a teacher focuses the classes laughter on them.

Goodbye, Susie and Sarah, two sweet little girls I enjoy teaching.

Simon. This is one of those kids that drive a teacher crazy. An at-times off the wall trouble maker who is also one of your brightest students. You'll yell at him one minute, the next be blown away by his ability.

After awhile I got to be a seating-chart expert. Ideally I like two girls and one boy at every table. For some reason in Korea little girls are almost always good and little boys are almost always bad. This has been the case in every school I have taught here. This seems to change around middle school though, when all kids become a pain in the ass.

No, I don't make kids draw and color in every class, but on my last day there I took it easy. Simon was on his best behavior today, a little quiet as I have him sitting next to two little girls, hehe.

Bye, bye D class. There's Sarah on the right. She just keeps getting cuter and cuter and cuter. That boy there with the curly hair is Justin. Every sentence he ever speaks in English has something to do with me. Every story he makes is something like this: "Shawn teacher I home came. Shawn teacher me TV watched and fun. Shawn teacher the kind and fun teacher, funny haha!...(his English drives me bonkers). He has this weird obsession with me, always following me in the halls and outside to the bus. Then he even got a "Shawn teacher pama" (perm) as he calls it. Maybe he lacks a father figure at home or something. At any rate, he'll probably go on to be one of those creepy Korean guys that bother foreigners on the subway, but I like him.

2005-06-09T22:22:00.000+09:00

KLB - Ganghwa-do (3)

The last installment from our trip to Ganghwa-do, brought to you by KLB.

Nice shot of the temple here, ala John. Notice up in the left corner, way up there? Yes, that's right, the walkway and stairs go all the way up there.

A shot of me looking around in awe. This place was really nice. See, now what gets me is this. Look at that sky. You never see that kind of blue sky in Seoul. That's what is sad about living in a modern city, all the pollution. You convince yourself it's just haze and fog and humidity, until you get out and see this.

We hung around this level for awhile snapping pictures:

I'm probably committing some kind of sacrilege here, but it's a cool picture nonetheless. I always wanted a pet that looked like this.

OK, enough dilly-dallying, back to the steep climb. The hardest part is ahead.

Now here is where practices of old and new work in harmony. I've always admired the stone piles like these that you see around temples and trails, but I never knew what the significance was. Welp, back in the modern wolrd, fire up the computer, enter keywords in Google, and presto, the answer: "Along the trails in Korea you see piles of rocks. A prayer will be said as the rock is put on the pile. By attaching a stone to another rock's surface is a better chance of having your prayer answered. The stack of rocks can become very high." Wow, cool, so it's an ancient form of the game Jenga. So, what if you add a rock that causes the pile to tumble? I guess you're doomed to bad Karma for eternity.

And to think some of them start as small as this one. Ancient style Jenga was way cooler than the modern day version....

Here's John striking a serious photographic pose. Hi, Mom!

There's no perspective to this shot, but this resting Buddha figure was enormous.

Finally, up at the top, you come to this ancient stone Buddha sculpture. Again, no perspective, but it was very large and everyone was up here bowing and lighting incense and whatnot. Out of respect, we didn't take pictures of them.

I have no idea what this says, but I assume it says something very deep and meaningul.

You can see from this nice shot how far we climbed. Beautiful scenery. We really enjoyed the hike.

On the way down we stopped and, for a measly $10, we enjoyed the local dong-dong ju (unfiltered rice wine) and a few really delicious side dishes, the main being some kind of friend potato pancake that was awesome and very filling. We weren't hungry again until later at night. Apparently the rice wine from here is famous. It tasted really good and I ended up buying a jug for $5 before leaving the island, though it's still sitting in the fridge. It's not as much fun to drink with boiled eggs and tuna.

OK, I couldn't resist throwing in one shot of the flies infesting all the dried shrimp...that can't be healthy can it?

Anyway, we really wanted to continue exploring the island but unfortunately, there was one big drawback to the trip. The busses. For some reason we never did take any pictures of the gigantic lines, but the busses only came once an hour. We were supposed to go down to a famous beach, perhaps even take a ferry to another island, but after waiting nearly two hours in line, we decided we better get back on the bus from where we came. This was really too bad and we couldn't figure out why they wouldn't invest in better transportation on such a touristy island, especially what, with all the flub-dub in that video about how important the island is to Korea and the world!

John took a bunch of pics of the countryside through the door of the bus where we were squished like sardines.

Back to the ferry. That was one of the nicest parts of the trip anyway.
The cool breeze, the smell of the ocean, little kids throwing shrimp chips at seagulls.

If it wasn't for the fact that we didn't know where to sleep, and if it there had been a better public transportation system around the island (that was a real bummer baking in the sun for two hours waiting to be crammed on a bus) we may have stayed another night. But we stumbled upon a bus heading back to Seoul and decided to take it. While waiting in line we noticed a butcher shop across the street and mosied over. For only $7 we got a gigantic bag full of bacon-style pork which we were eager to get home and cook (coming next post).

And, finally, the last pic from our trip: a wonderful shot of the bus back to Seoul -and some happy looking ajumma.

Thank you for reading about our trip to Ganghwa-do. Stay tuned for more adventures, including a couple of pics from the last day at my school and information about where and what I will be doing the next month...

2005-06-08T19:44:00.000+09:00

KLB - Ganghwa-do (2)

Ah, the joys of keeping an online journal. You spend hours getting your pictures ready and writing your post, a little excited to share your adventures with everyone, hoping to bring some joy to your readers, only to wind up with comments like "You are gay! --Anonymous" or "Shut up loser! Nobody cares! --No Name Joe." Well, once again I don't have to worry about that anymore, so here we go. Back to the Ganghwa trip.

Oh, some of you were wondering how we decided on Ganghwa-do and where the hell is it, basically. We started by using this famous website among expats for travelling in Korea. Then I stumbled upon the Ganghwa-do page. We discovered it's not that far away and so we then checked the island's homepage. Next we watched the rather over-the-top, almost preposterous "cyber tour video" that you just have to see by going here and clicking on the link to the left. You'd basically think Ganghwa Island is the epicenter of the world after watching that, my favorite lines being, (you have to hear the narrator's dramatic voice and the background music to fully appreciate this): "It is a place full of hope for the future," and, "You can learn about the history of Korea and the origins of mankind!" No way! You got me sold!

Even though their directions to the island are horrible as they have you getting off the bus in the middle of nowhere, it's still a nice place, but man, that video is misleading! There was absolutely no English anywhere on that island. Even the tourist center woman in one of the bus stations couldn't speak a word! And, by sheer luck, we found another bus back to Seoul that made the trip in half the time and departed directly from the ferry terminal!

It wasn't until we left the next day that we had any idea what the hotel looked like. Well, turns out it looked kind of big and creepy. I forgot to mention in the last post that they turned off the power to the air conditioner and water tank during the night, so I woke up at 7 in the morning, sweaty and thirsty and had to drink warm water. I kept thinking maybe we blew a fuse so I went downstairs to complain. After waking up the ajushi, he acted annoyed and told me to open the window. "No air con!" I thought that was petty, but I guess most Koreans don't sleep with any kind of fan running, for fear of the infamous "fan death."

The sun was pouring in on that side of the building and there was no breeze. Fortunately, I did finally get back to sleep, though, and the guy was nice when we were leaving, giving us free maps and telling us where to go.

Walking down the side of the road, we got this picture of one of the many rice paddies. They are nice to look at, but this island must be hell with mosquitoes come August. That water is stagnant. Though, maybe it's all harvested by then, I have no idea.

We found our way to the bus terminal, pointed to one of the islands on our map and ended up on a bus.

Then we ended up on a ferry. The ferries were really cheap and convenient, coming every 15 minutes or so.

Ah, mountains and the ocean, this time up close. It was a really nice ferry ride, albeit short.

It was also hot that day, I was sweating even on the boat. This is kind of a nice shot though, with the mountain and the birds in the background. Hi, Mom!

After arriving in the middle of nowhere again we hopped on another bus and ended up here, in the middle nowhere.

Um, OK, I like fresh seafood and all, this stuff was still alive, but I hope there is more around here than this.

OK, over here: lots of old women selling stuff. Actually, this reminded me a lot of Koje Island.

Let's have a closer look. Hmmm, some dried baby shrimp, anchovies, mushrooms, ginseng and, well, weeds I guess. I decided not to post the picture of hundreds of flies buzzing about. John was telling me that flies poop through their feet...mmm! Fly poop!

What else is around here. Ah, lots of brown jugs. Can't get any more exciting than this...

I had to check. Yeap, all full of dwen jang, rotting in the hot sun. Man that looks good, and I'm not joking. I love dwen jang chigae. I wanted to buy this whole jar!

OK, at last we found the attraction. Lots of steps leading up into who knows where.

It wasn't an easy climb. It seemed to go up forever. That was half the fun, though, not knowing what we were doing or what we would see. So far we didn't do too bad. About halfway up we came across these nice temples.

Lots more pics of this place coming shortly, though I narrowed things down quite a bit. We left the island with a whopping 200 pictures. I think I will post about 15 or so more in the next update and end it there. Lots of other things to come too.

In other news, today was my last day at my elementary school, at least for the time being. It made everything a lot easier since I'm coming back (but you never know). The kids didn't take it too bad. In fact my A class was simply off the wall today. They really need to close the windows and get the air con working. It's just too hot in there for kids to study, not to mention much too noisy with kids playing and screaming outside and a traditional drumming class next door. I swear I couldn't wait for that class to end and I kept thinking I never want to go back there. That was until the next few class, when everything calmed down and the kids were much better. By the time D-class came I was sad. A bunch of the little girls started crying, and then I teered up myself. It would have been a rough day had they thought I wasn't returning - for them and me. Probably more so for me. I'm such a wimp with goodbyes.

2005-06-08T10:09:00.000+09:00

KLB - Misc Info

Day Date Page Loads Unique Visitors

Tuesday 7th June 2005 1,888 1211
Monday 6th June 2005 1,647 1080
Sunday 5th June 2005 2,090 1402
Saturday 4th June 2005 2,827 1998
Friday 3rd June 2005 2,089 1518
Thursday 2nd June 2005 1,654 1123
Wednesday 1st June 2005 1,624 1118

I'm not exactly sure why, but since Julie and I broke up the stats on my site have practically doubled. And, as to be expected, with the influx of readers comes the inevtible one or two internet stalkers (and John-haters) that love to leave all sorts of thoughtful comments under the guise of made-up IDs, for no other reason than to stir up trouble. I hate to do it, but my family and who knows who else reads this site, hence, for the time being, I'm going to moderate the comments section. So if you leave one and it doesn't immediately show up, you know why. I will approve any comment that isn't purposely abusive.

In other news: I will be leaving the country on Saturday for 3-4 weeks. Since I am just about out of copies of my book, and probably won't be getting more anytime soon - if at all - I've made both books available in PDF format through Lulu.com: (Click here for more info.) You can also order the paperback copies there, just not from me directly anymore, though What the Book? in Itaewon still had a few of the last IOF copies left, last time I checked.

2005-06-08T02:26:00.000+09:00

KLB - Ganghwa-do (1)

It was a three day weekend, something to do with the Korean constitution - I can never keep track of the many different Korean holidays. John and I woke up at around 3:00 PM on Saturday and decided to head off somewhere - anywhere. Just to get the hell out of Gangnam. In a mad rush we packed our bags and made our way to some island we never heard of. Gangwha-do.

We started on the subway. Here's John looking peculiarly shiny.

At the bus terminal we stopped and had some grub. I got dor sot bibim bap, rice and vegetables in a stone pot, yum!

John got ramyon noodles. This picture cracks me up. Look at the innocent expression on his mug...no, this guy didn't just rob a bank. No way!

*Disclaimer: no we are not gay, in case you were wondering. I'd better point this out to all the homophobic biggots out there, and my worried mother.

Here I am on the bus from Incheon to Ganghwa. I look happy. I'm happy as hell to get out of Gangnam. I hate it there, to be honest. In all my years in Korea it has been the least enjoyable place I've ever lived.

OK, so after a couple of long bus rides we finally got to Ganghwa-do, let off in the middle of nowhere at 10:30 at night. Think about that. We got off the bus in the middle of nowhere in Korea in the middle of a pitch black night. I mean it was desolate. So desolate and dark that we couldn't even take any pictures. We broke into hysterical laughter. It was the most fun we'd had in awhile.

After walking for about 45 minutes we stumbled onto a fried chicken/beer restaurant. Even in the middle of nowhere you can find these places. I was thrilled! I love fried chicken and beer. I love Korea! Yah!

After looking at a few really rundown "motel" rooms, we jumped into a taxi and made them bring us to the nearest decent place. This is where we landed. And we got the last room. We did "rocks, paper, scissors" for the bed and, as usual, I lost. Not the best sleep I ever got but not too bad either.

They even had a great selection of movies to choose from. I grabbed three!

Ah, after a few hours of wondering around Nowhereville, Korea, it was nice to finally relax. I really got into the movies. I can't deny it - I was into this trip and felt great! Who knows what tomorrow may bring!

John, too. Check him out...he's totally siked and into the movie...

A Bruce Willis film, can't go wrong. And wow, what a treat for my readers - a shot of my sexy leg! In all honesty, I felt good and alive and excited about the movie and the day ahead tomorrow. I love picking up and heading off to nowhere.

Have to throw in this shot I took of John's foot. I think he's been watching too much "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" as I have never seen such a groomed foot in all my life. I'd need a sand blaster to make my feet look anything even close to this.

Sunday morning! This is the scenery outside the hotel window. Ah, rice paddies, the ocean and mountains. Good riddens, Gangnam! We had no idea the night before where we were, so the view was a pleasant surprise. That was the beauty of the trip - figuring out exactly where we were and what we could do. Stay tuned - this is just the first of 4 or 5 updates to come...

2005-06-03T14:00:00.000+09:00

KLB - Koje-do

New! Visit the KLB bookstore to download the PDF version of Island of Fantasy - A Memoir of an English Teacher in Korea, the book I wrote about my experience on Geoje-do, Koje-do, Geoje, Koje, Geoje Island, Koje Island, South Korea.

2005-06-02T21:36:00.000+09:00

KLB - John Cooks Dinner

One of the things I was looking forward to about staying with John is that he can cook. He made some pretty good spaghetti for me and Julie before and a couple of other things. Unfortunately he's been on a serious diet for the past month and living on tuna and spinach. Tuna for breakfast. Tuna and spinach for dinner. Maybe a boiled egg for a snack and some beans at night. It's getting hard to watch him eat. Meanwhile, as per usual, I've been stuffing my face with anything I can get my hands on, especially gigantic sub sandwiches from Subway. The Subway in Gangnam rocks, by the way. The young guy in there loads everything up.

Well, finally we went shopping one night and got some fish, which John cooked up after having a few beers. Check it out:

Here he is telling me something or other about the fish. I wasn't listening.

"Yeah, man. If you put your finger in it like this, it feels all weird and squishy."

I never liked fish in America unless it was breaded and fried but nowadays I love it. John is an expert at preparing seafood as he grew up with a family in the seafood business.

Here it is almost ready. There's the inevitable spinach as well. I think John may have put tuna on his fish too, but I can't remember. Anyway, the fish was pretty damn good, even if it was naturally too salty. I should have brought my rice cooker. I like fish and rice, but John can't eat rice on his diet because he can only eat tuna and spinach.

I guess I'll throw in this pic of myself that John took. Something about the new Pantene conditioner I bought or the high humidity has been affecting my hair. The kids keep giggling that I have a "pama" (perm).

2005-06-01T19:40:00.005+09:00

KLB - Open Class

Any teacher's worst nightmare is to have to teach in front of parents. Especially if you're in Korea. Well, once again today was "open-class". That meant that all the parents of the children in all of my classes were free to come in and observe. I'd been dreading it for the past month. Just as I did the last time we had one. But like the last time, it turned out really good and it gave me an opportunity to show how how much progress I've made with their kids.

Can you imagine yourself teaching for 50 minutes in front of this crowd? Look at the serious expressions on their faces. It was really intense at first but after awhile I managed to get them laughing. At one point I almost teered up. The students were on their best behavior and did a fantastic job. I was so proud of them. After my A-class Bonnie remarked that my students are among the best she's seen. Yeah right! - she should be there on a Friday when no parents are around!

I didn't think it was going to be a good day, to be honest. I got to the school about 20 minutes before class and this kid was running all over and screaming. Then he ran up behind me and slapped my back as hard as he possibly could. It actually hurt! Bonnie and his mother just look on and smiled as if to say, "Oh, how cute." I was tempted to throw his ass out the window. He's bad 98% of the time, but fortunately today he was on his best behavior during the class - meaning he only acted like a twerp 50% of the time.

I was so prepared for this open-class I could have taught the kids for 2 hours. After the initial shock wore off, I started getting into it and even enjoyed myself. I felt really good about the progress I've made with them.

Here I am telling some kid to get out and never come back. No, seriously I'm teaching phonics in this pic. Look at these kids. They're totally involved in the lesson. Who's your teacher! Yah!

I taught every class a new song for today. When I first came to Korea singing in front of people terrified me. After awhile, however, I started to enjoy karaoke rooms and nowadays I'm always trying to drag people to them against their will. Kids in Korea love to sing and I teach them a lot of songs. I made each class line up in front of the parents and sing. I sang along too. The parents got a kick out of this.

Here I am meeting the parents after class. I was telling them how important it is their children practice English at home...I don't think anybody understood me, including poor Ally who was wishing she was anywhere but there.

Phew, one class down but three more to go. You can see I look so thrilled!

B class went just as well as A with a few minor interruptions from the usual two trouble makers. I'll get revenge tomorrow, hehe. Minus stickers! In this picture I am teaching phonics again. Like A class, this group can read and spell almost any combination of three and four letters. It took awhile and a lot of frustration, but I'm happy they can read an so are the parents.

Hey, help me out here kid - your father is giving me the evil eye. What am I doing here? Why did I decide to be a teacher? I wish I could go back in time and change majors and, whoa! - class is over. That wasn't so bad! I love my job!

Well, there you have it. Open-class. I'm glad I brought along John's camera. I had almost forgotten to do so. I also managed to take a load of pictures on the way home which I will post over the next few days. Stay tuned!

Oh, by the way, after class Bonnie thanked me over and over for doing a good job. Even though the parents looked so serious all day, they gave the thumbs-up to my performance and said a lot of nice things. Also, it turns out some of the parents were just there to see the program and, impressed, they signed their kids up for next semester.

You can imagine then why Bonnie was thrilled. She begged me to consider staying at the job. I told her I need to get out of the country for a month and she said it was no problem, that she would put in a replacement instead of another teacher if I promise to come back. She would cancel her remaining interviews. After thinking it over I agreed. That way I won't have to worry about my visa or anything like that and I'll have a sure thing lined up for when I return.

So, I'll take a month off then return to Korea and stay on until the end of the contract in September. That works out perfectly. Since I'm not jetting until next Friday, I also agreed to teach until Wednesday and she will pay me for the three extra days along with my month's salary. She was so happy she even drove me all the way back to Gangnam and promised to take me to the dinner of my choice before I leave. I can almost taste the lobster, steak and expensive wine...she also kept offering me all of these high paying jobs working for the Board of Education if I decide to stay in Korea after this contract. And to think, I had contemplated not getting off the train this morning!

2005-05-31T20:32:00.000+09:00

KLB - Gangnam (3)

Well, here are the last of the pics I took the other day. I'll have to get some shots of the nice modern buildings around the area soon. All of these shots of the immediate area. For some reason, of all the places I've lived in Korea, Gangnam has proven to be my least favorite - though that may be just because I'm not an upper class Korean to which the place is suited.

I told you these vendors get busy at night. This is the only area in the country where the street food is priced in a league of its own. O-daeng will set you back 700 won for one compared to 300-500 elsewhere, for example.

Here's a corner down the street from John's house. Surprise, McDonald's and Baskin Robbins!

Here's one of the only shots I managed to get of the modern architecture around here. One of the only good things about living in this area is that it's fairly clean and modern.

This is John's street. It's weird as you're in a quiet residential area like this one minute, then in the thick of the night life the next, all within a three minute walk.

This just pissed me off. Keeping a pig as a pet outside of your pork restaurant is tasteless and cruel.

I told you there are a lot of hip, trendy places to eat around here. Here's a restaurant selling post-modern egg dinners. Which set should I try...

Is it this one? Hmm...that mayonaise looks tastey....

No, no, it has to be one of these. I'm not sure who came up with the idea for this place but do people really find these appetizing? I didn't see anybody eating there when I passed, actually.

Well, that's it for now. I'll get back out there with John's camera to get some better pics than these...

2005-05-31T02:32:00.000+09:00

KLB - The Catcher in the Gangnam

Living in Gangnam has gotten me thinking about The Catcher in the Rye, one of my favorite books from my university days.

During his psychological battle, life continues on around Holden as it always had, with the majority of people ignoring the 'madman stuff' that is happening to him - until it begins to encroach on their well defined social codes. Progressively we are challenged to think about society's attitude to the human condition - does society have an 'ostrich in the sand' mentality, a deliberate ignorance of the emptiness that can characterise human existence? And if so, when Caulfield begins to probe and investigate his own sense of emptiness and isolation, before finally declaring that he world is full of 'phonies' with each one out for their own phony gain, is Holden actually the one who is going insane, or is it society which has lost it's mind for failing to see the hopelessness of their own lives?

2005-05-31T00:12:00.000+09:00

KLB - Gangnam (2)

A nice little place to eat a freshly made donut on the way to work.

I can't remember the last time I had a coffee at this place. While I prefer The Coffee Bean, I usually just have a free cup of Korean coffee at my school.

Here I am at Gangnam Station finally. It's about a 10 minute walk from John's pad.

I took these pics after work that day. These are kids playing outside the school. Almost all schools in Korea have a dirt playing field for soccer. I don't know why us Americans don't play soccer more in public schools. It beats standing in the outfield chasing foul balls for exercise.

A shot of the school. My classroom is on the second floor in the front.

Ally's been working hard on preparing for our "open class" so I treated her to a quick dinner at a "bun shik jeom" (Korean fast food joint). I got mandu (dumpling) soup and she got some kind of bibim bap (mixed vegetables and rice) minus the rice. I get along with her much better than Cathy, but I still would prefer not having an assistant.

At night Gangnam speeds up. You can see the crowds of people on the street.
All of those vendors get really busy when the sun goes down.

Just thought I'd throw in this shot of the Samsung 1GB "Yepp" player I picked up tonight in Yongsan for 250,000 won. I almost went with an iPod Mini, but the harddrive MP3 players are just too big for my taste. Also, I prefer a simple drag-and-drop interface rather than having to use iTunes. This thing also sounds much better, in my opinion, louder with more bass, and comes with a rechargeable AAA battery and charger and a case. I can't put the thing down, to be honest.

2005-05-29T18:00:00.000+09:00

KLB - Gangnam (1)

Here is the first post of three from my second day in Gangnam. I took all these while I was walking to work.

Some nicer cars in this area...here's some kind of roadster BMW thats always parked here...looks like that "sports" massage place is doing quite well.

Or maybe he's the owner of this octopus restaurant next door. Restaurants always have cutesy cartoon characters of the specialty on display. Awe, it's so cute that I just have eat it.

One thing about this area, there are lots and lots of hip new restaurants to try out. Here's a Japanese style place. I love Korean-Japanese food.

I'm not sure about this soup restaurant. Look at the first picture on top. There's a big fish head with the eyes still in it. Mmm...

This Irish bar down the street serves Guiness, as you can see. Too bad it's 12,000 won ($12) per pint. I like Guiness and all, but that's ridiculous.

It's been over 6 months since I've eaten fast food (besides Subway). Up until a few years ago, I used to be a junkie - especially when I lived on my own in America. Even in Korea I ate it a lot. Even though it never made me fat, it's still unhealthy. And after reading Fast Food Nation and watching Supersize Me, I made a vow to stop eating it for one year and to tell you the truth I haven't missed it at all. In America, part of the problem is that besides fast food, there are not many things to eat on the go that are cheap and healthy. In Korea you can eat so many healthy foods under $5. Still, whenever I see this strategically placed banner for a $3 lunchtime Big Mac set, the old craving comes back.

The street vendors are setting up for a long day selling o-daeng and deokbokki.

It looks like Manhatten in this area. Even the brainwashing is westernized...

A business man checks the newspapers at a kiosk...

And another, less fortunate soul, crawls down the road begging for change. I've never understood this style of begging. It's weird and creepy, but it's better than someone walking up to you and harrassing you as they often do in NY.

2005-05-25T01:34:00.000+09:00

KLB - I Miss Julie

I miss Julie. There, I said it. I miss my best friend. This has not been easy.

You can't imagine unless you were there. On that elevator. Trying not to look at each other. Down, down, in awkward silence to the basement where the moving van ajushi was waiting. There, in the cold sterile parking garage, we loaded my old bags into the van. Everything happened so quickly. I sat in the back seat, closed the door and looked at Julie through the window. There was no time to be sad - until the driver went up to use the bathroom, thereby leaving us alone together. I opened the door and we hugged, both of us shaking and crying. No matter how much you realize you're not meant to be with each other, when it comes time, it's still damn hard to say goodbye to a relationship. I haven't felt that sad in a long, long time.

The poor ajushi - during the trip, he kept looking in the rearview mirror as I sobbed and handed me tissues. At one point, perhaps to console me, he put in a CD. Some old sappy love song started to play and I went from sobbing to howling. He turned it off and handed me more tissues.

Dammit, she was my best friend. She believed in me and took care of me and made me dwen jang chigae once, and, well, I guess I'm rambling now...

Over the past year I haven't spent more than a day or two away from her, and it's been hard getting adjusted to my new life. If you haven't guessed already I'm staying here in Gangnam with my friend John for a bit. He has a really big pad, lots of space and a cranking air conditioner. He hasn't cooked me dwen jang yet, but he's making me feel much better by drinking a lot with me, at least. Poor guy had to go to work today at 11:00 AM for a meeting with a bad hangover. I didn't feel too bad, but I haven't been sleeping well lately, either. Still, had a decent day with the kids. I'm gonna miss them a lot.

Don't get the wrong idea. I still feel all this is for the best, and I'm getting a little excited about my trip, which I will talk more about soon. You can't expect a guy to just snap back to life, though I admit a twinkle is flitting about in my subconscious...

Stay tuned. I got John's camera to use, and will take some pictures around Gangnam in the near future. There's a lot to photograph in this part of the city. But for now it's back to listening to sappy songs, drinking Cass beer and dreaming of a better day, a better life, the new Xbox 360, a world where all cats have a home, that episode of The Smurfs when Gargamel caught all the smurfs but set them free when he realized he wouldn't have a purpose in life without trying to capture them, a flower in the spring...

2005-05-22T14:18:00.000+09:00

KLB - Moving On

After two years, Julie and I have decided to go our seperate ways. We made the decision a few weeks ago. It's time for us to move on.

I also put in my notice two weeks ago at work, and I will finish my job June 3rd. I need a break from Korea and I've made a plan to leave the country for at least a month. In the meantime I will be staying with my friend.

You can check in here from time to time for an update on my status, but it may be awhile before I update regularly again.

As for my book: I suggest picking up a copy if you haven't yet. It won't be available in Korea once I leave and I'm not sure when I'll be back. Thanks to everyone who has supported my writing and to all my readers. Keep checking in to see what I'm up to.

[Update]: I think I'll start updating soon after all. Now that I'm in a different environment I may have new things to talk about.

2005-05-08T23:00:00.000+09:00

KLB - 4 Days of Nothing

Spent the last four days doing pretty much nothing. We were going to rent a car and go camping again, but the weather was rainy and then it was cold. So, we basically hung around and just relaxed.

John came out again for a day. His IBM notebook crashed and then he messed it up doing something with Partition Magic. He has no CD-drive so he came out to use mine (I bought an external DVD burner a ways back) and my XP disk. We were going to meet him in Itaewon and then go to Yongsan together to shop for a camera, but Julie made me clean the apartment with her for John's arrival as it was a mess. That took us longer than we expected. Meanwhile John had already made his way to Itaewon. So, instead of waiting another hour for us to get out there, he went to Hannam market for us and picked up some Hungarian salami, cheese and German dill pickles. Nice! So we cancelled on Yongsan and waited for him instead. "Hurry up with that salami, man!"

I just downloaded Forza for the Xbox, a new racing game. After John fixed his computer we ended up playing that most of the night. Fun stuff. Julie hung out upstairs using the wireless connection to browse the net and she also watched a movie, The Day After Tomorrow. Playing the Xbox causes you to lose track of time. Before we knew it, it was 4:30 in the morning and we were hungry. We headed out to see what we could find. Sure enough, a fried chicken restaurant was still open - several groups of people eating. Only in Korea can you sit outside at 5:00 AM, drink a beer and eat piping hot fried chicken.

So we didn't get to sleep until around 5:30. At about 8:00 AM, poor John woke up to the sound of throngs of screaming girls outside the school down below our place. I heard it too, but it wasn't so bad upstairs. I fell back alseep. John tossed and turned before finally getting so pissed off he got up and left for home, leaving behind a note:

Sorry, Bro. Couldn't stand another second or 200 screaming middle school girls. Went to get some shut eye.

I'm not sure what the event was, something to do with church, I think, but it was pretty damn annoying, especially downstairs for John. He has no luck sleeping here. Plus he has a blind date set up for 10:00 AM, which I guess he was forced to postpone until later. I hope that goes OK for him. He hasn't had a date in months. He basically sits around his dark, empty apartment in Gangnam using the computer. He has no TV, even.

Well, as you can tell it wasn't too exciting a break, but still better than working.
I never did get out to Yongsan. I thought I might buy something at the Sony electronics shop down the road. When we went to check it out today, a 1,000 won shop was moving in. I'm no detective, but it seems the Sony shop went under.

2005-05-04T22:36:00.000+09:00

KLB - Weird Wednesday

Yesterday, Ally suggested we should have class today after all, thinking most of the kids would be too tired after their "sports day" events to come and we'd have an easy day and also get paid. I agreed, since we already have two days off for Children's Day of all things.

Well, it turned out to be a weird day. It started on the train. I knew it was too good to be true to get a seat so easily. Some creepy Korean guy came over and stood in front of me and tried to speak English. Every once in awhile this happens, but usually the people are nice and it's not too bad. Mostly it's just embarrassing because everyone watches. With this guy, I couldn't understand what he was saying. He was obviously a little demented, drinking a cup of coffee and chattering to himself in Korean. His teeth were dark yellow, some rotting.

The train was quiet and everyone was staring at us. Hoping he'd leave me alone, I pulled out the only thing I had in my bag - a brand new copy of my book. I pretended to be deeply absorbed in my reading. The weird man bent down and stared at the cover.

"Ireand ubuh Panties? Is it English book?"

"Yes," I said, sinking in my seat.

"Oh, English book! Wow! Good! Fantastic! Mumble, mumble, mumble."

I smiled and returned to my book, reading the same line over and over again, hoping this guy would take the hint and leave me be."

"Can I read your book?" he asked, smiling.

"I guess so," I said, trying to avoid a scene. Reluctantly, I handed him the book. A big mistake. He fumbled around with it leaving the cover full of dirty finger prints, wrinkles and creases. There goes another copy, I frowned. He pretended to read, mumbling incoherently. The whole situation made me frustrated. I took the book from him and said, "Bang hae hajimaseyo," (please don't bother me). That didn't work either. He kept talking. I got up and walked away, down 4 cars of the train thinking that was the end of it. Out of sheer luck, an ajumma stood up to get off the train and I got another seat. A few minutes later the creep walked in, now in a rage. Nobody knew the situation so it must have appeared bizarre to see this Korean man suddenly yelling at me in incoherent English: "Why you angry? Why you angry? Why? Why? Why? I didn't mean you angry! I didn't want angry!" His face turned fiery red.

The train fell silent, everyone gaped in awe. I pretended the guy was off his rocker by looking around and shrugging. That didn't work. He started yelling in Korean about what I did, probably making me look like a jerk. One guy across from me started laughing. Yeah, I guess it was pretty funny.

Now the creep was back in my face, pointing his finger and yelling curses at me in Korean, how foreigners are all sons of bitches and worse. I wasn't sure what to do. Was this it? Do I have to flatten the guy (it wouldn't have taken much) and jump off the train at the next stop? What can I do? Fortunately, sitting next to me was a very strong looking ajushi. He told the creep to stop making a scene and go away. When that didn't work he took hold of his arm and pushed him down the aisle. Finally the creep got the message and kept going, leaving me sitting there amongst stares and quiet murmuring, completely red with embarrassment, pretending to read a beat-up copy of my book.

When I got off the train I bowed to the guy that saved me from a possible fight. I told him in Korean I was sorry, that I didn't know that strange man. He said he understood, smiled and bowed as I exited.

As I said, it was a weird day and it didn't end there. Bad as the situation was, once off the train I felt better. It occurred to me that far worse things could happen in one's own backyard in America. I'm lucky something like this is the worst I have to deal with.

While waiting for my coffee latte at a little cafe in Geongdeok station, I struck up a conversation with a foreigner ordering a fried-egg sandwich.

"So, where you from?" I asked after a bit.

"New York."

"Oh, yeah? Me, too. Syracuse."

"Get out of here," he said, shocked. "I'm from Liverpool."

"Are you kidding? I'm from Liverpool!" (In addition to being a city in England where the Beatles came from, Liverpool is also a small suburb of Syracuse, NY.)

"I live on Bear Road!"

"I live on Taft road!"

So, on a day I wasn't even supposed to work, after being accosted on the train by a weirdo, I meet a guy who lives almost next door to me on the other side of the planet. All the way here in the middle of some obscure subway station in Seoul, Korea. What are the chances! His name is Steve and, as it turns out, he graduated from Liverpool High School just two years before me.

I was so shocked by all this that I lost track of the time. Steve, too. He almost forgot to pay for his food. We quickly exchanged numbers and I ran off to work.

On the way I called Ally and asked her to start class. I expected only a few students to be there. I arrived a few minutes late to find 25 of my students, kids from A, B and C class, singing "Hickory Dickory Dock," in horrible chorus. Since all other extra curricular activities at the school were cancelled, all the kids wound up in my class, some of them staying for 3 hours. Fortunately for me, Ally had prepared an activity: singing nursery rhymes and making pretty cards for Parents' Day which falls on Sunday, so it wasn't all bad. Still, by the end of the day I couldn't wait to get away from the noise.

No hassles on the way home, luckily. I'll have to give that Steve guy a call. I can't get over that.

2005-05-04T01:01:00.000+09:00

KLB - A B C D Class

A lot of my kids were absent that day, but here are pictures from April's "birthday party" last Thursday. As you know, my birthday was in April, so that's why I'm wearing that hat, in case you were wondering.

This is my A class. Half of them weren't there that day, good thing. They're mostly new students, with a few exceptions, and together they drive me crazy most days. Ally can't control them either and she's Korean. However, they're not the worst kids I've every taught, certainly better than a lot of the kids I used to teach in hagwons. I love that little girl with glasses and wearing a pink shirt. She's so smart, polite and cute. She's the teacher's pet.

I used to like this B Class but nowadays new kids have been thrown in and all the levels are mixed up. Some kids are much too smart, so they're bored and cause trouble. Two of them get into a fight every day. Ugh. As usual, all the girls are perfect angels - I kid you not. It's amazing.

This is C-class, my best kids. Notice the proud expression on my face. They're pretty much what you'd call honor students back home. It's amazing how fast they learn and how much they remember. Perfect students.

D-Class. As you can probably tell, there are all different age groups, from 8 years old to 12. There's the Fan Club-5 at the bottom. A bunch of cute girls. My favorite, Sarah, who's drawing is pictured on the homepage here, is, well, my favorite (note to self: reword sentences so they sound better than this!). She's sitting on the far left flashing the obligatory V sign. They are very cute, the lot of them, but sometimes they drive me batty with their constant need for attention. They swarm my desk and follow me around chattering and giggling non-stop before and after class.

2005-05-03T21:43:00.000+09:00

KLB - Finally

I finally got to Itaewon and dropped off the books and stopped by the small black market run by that nice little old lady. There were a bunch of things I wanted to get, but the prices are a put off and she only takes cash, of course. While I wanted a can of chili, a box of Captain Crunch, stuff to make tacos with, French Onion dip, etc., I only bought deoderant, which was 6,000 won, about $6.00, and a nice jar of Heinz Dill Pickles for a pricey 6,800 won, about $6.80. That's almost $13.00 for a stick of deoderant and a jar of pickles, but I was happy. It's next to impossible to find non-sweet pickles in Korea, though I heard you can get them at the Costco chain, but I live nowhere near one. And, finally I won't smell bad anymore when I sweat - I hope.

I'm saving up anyway for a trip to the Hannam Mart everyone keeps telling me about. I guess it's right in Itaeweon, but I had no time to try and find it today. I heard you can get real cheese, salami and pepporoni there. I'm guessing since the place is legit everything is even more expensive then the little old lady's shop because of taxes, but dammit! she ain't got no salami! She's got a surprising amount of goods, though including a variety of skin care products and medicines. Something for every foreigner, I guess.

2005-05-02T23:19:00.000+09:00

KLB - No Fan for You!

The weather is getting hot already. After the long trek to work, I arrived dripping with sweat. It's too early to use the air conditioning so I got the fan out from the back of the room. As I was attempting to plug it in, Ally yelled, "No, don't use that fan!"

"Why not?"

"It's dusty."

That's funny because for one, the last few weeks the air was full of dust from China. CNN kept showing the dust storm engulfing the peninsula on the radar. It was pretty bad for a few days there. For another reason, the gigantic dirt playground for the kids is right outside the classroom window and, with all the windows open, it's always dusty, especially on a breezy day. And finally, the fan wasn't all THAT dirty anyway. It looked fine to me.

Well, it was hot and the kids were also sweaty from playing outside so I continued to plug in the fan.

"Shawn, please don't use the fan."

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to use the fan. I'm hot. The kids are hot."

"Shawn, please don't. We don't have time to clean it."

This time I simply ignored her and turned on the fan. As I expected, it worked fine. Barely any dust blew out. I don't get what all the fuss was about, but I obviously pissed her off. She barely spoke to me for the rest of the day. Not that she really says much anyway. We have a lot of kids this semester who come in at different times because of schedule conflicts, so I have her teach them privately in the back of the room since they are in the wrong class and have no books. The rest of the time she just watches me and writes down everything I do - something I find annoying. I guess it's better than having a camera on you all day long as most hagwons have nowadays, but still, it's just weird.

At least she's given up on the whole "co-teacher" bit. I didn't mention it before, but I got into a heated argument with her about that one her third day. She kept telling me exactly what to teach, and in an ever irksome tone, "Please, understand our agency's policy, Shawn," over and over when she just started that week! I basically told her I've been there 8 months now and I know what I'm doing. I couldn't let it go on as long as I did with Cathy. And, since then, Ally has been pretty quiet, thankfully. I think I just don't like having an assistant. It's not nearly as nice having one as it sounds, at least not when they take their job too damn seriously. We have 64 students, up from 20 when I first started so relax a little - I'm doing fine.

Later in the day she told me we might have Wednesday off too, in addition to Thursday and Friday. I guess the school is holding some sports day activities and the kids will probably be too tired to study. That'll be nice. Three days off for Children's Day. God bless children!

Back home, I had a quick dinner and went to the health club for an hour. Chest and 20 minutes of jump roping. Tomorrow I will swing by What the Book? in Itaewon after work and drop off some copies of my book there. I also desperately need deoderant. I still can't believe you can't buy that in any store here. Koreans don't have body odor like we do, lucky dawgs, but still - they must stink sometimes in the humidity or after a workout.

2005-05-01T23:24:00.000+09:00

KLB - Weekend Fun

John came up again for the weekend. That's three weekends in a row in case you're counting. He likes hanging out with us and we like having him here.

Last night Julie went with her co-worker, Jen, from Canada, to see Paul Van Dyk, a famous German DJ. I guess he's famous anyway. Personally I've never heard of him, but it seems everyone else has. Then again, I'm usually out of touch with what's hip and hot, so that's no surprise. Since John and I aren't really into the dance scene (I dance like a deformed duck) we elected to go to a popular bar in Bupyeong. Alex, a Canadian guy I met at the health club, came along too. It was pretty quiet there - I assume everyone was worn out from "Club Day," the ever popular, once-a-month nightclub party in Hongdae (you pay about $15 to get a bracelet that gets you into all the clubs) on Friday, but we still had a decent time. We ate fried chicken outdoors on the deck of a packed restaurant at 3:30 in the morning then got a taxi home and had more drinks at a local bar until around 5:00. Alex took off, but me and John weren't finished yet. We got a bunch of lousy sandwhiches from a convenient market and a couple of beers and sat across from the police station behind my building eating, drinking and carrying on. It was a nice night to be outside and a perfect temperature. A lot of fun.

When we finally returned home, I was a bit sad to see Julie hadn't returned yet. I handed John the Xbox controller and went upstairs to crash. The sun was just about to rise. When I woke up, at around 10:00 this morning, I found Julie snuggled against me. Turns out she had a great time too. "The best DJ ever," she kept saying in her sleep. Squinting and rubbing my face, I looked downstairs to see poor John sleeping on the hard floor, soring loudly, sprawled out with no blanket or cushion, not even a pillow. Julie made my laugh, telling me how when she came home, John scared her a bit because he was sleeping with his eyes open, or at least with one eye open, and snoring like "an elephant," she said. His left eye was bloodshot and irritated all day long.

Anyway, after Julie made sure we were both awake, she went back to sleep upstairs. John and I stayed up and watched Roger and Me, Michael Moore's first documentary about GM's plant closings in Flint Michigan and how they basically destroyed the city. John kept having to go to the bathroom. He was suffering from the "fire chicken" he ate last night. Before we even went out yesterday, he picked up a package of pre-cooked chicken from Walmart. Turns out it was fiery hot, but John was so hungry at the time he ate it all. It basically sat like a lump of hot coals in his stomach until tonight. He went to the bathroom 5 times today. Of course, that couldn't have anything to do with the 5 shots of Tequilla he ordered at 4 in the morning...

Welp, despite our hangovers we still had a pretty good day. It was hot outside. Around 4:00 we sweated our way to Subway and picked up three subs. When we returned with the food, Julie was finally awake and showered. We feasted on the subs then I fell asleep watching John play a video game. Julie, too, claiming she was hungover (she had one shot of Tequilla last night) went back to bed yet again. John woke us up around 7:00, saying he wanted to go home. Then we all started talking and watching TV. About two hours later the group of us went shopping at Homeplus where we ate huge, delicious mandu dumplings. John finally got the bus back to Gangnam around 11:00 and was home by 11:45. Nice. The train would take forever.

I was supposed to do a few things today, drop of copies of my book at What the Book? in Itaewon, pick up some deoderant at the black market there, buy a camera in Yongsan etc., but, as you can see, I failed. I should be able to get all that done this week anyway, since I have Thursday and Friday off for Children's Day.

2005-04-29T10:38:00.000+09:00

KLB - Free Shipping Bananza!

It pays to read your e-mail once in awhile. I just found out Lulu.com is offering free domestic and international shipping on all orders over $25. That makes a big difference considering they were charging as much as $8 per book before. If you ever wanted to buy KLB - Special Edition but were put off by the shipping cost, now's your chance. This book contains the complete and most recent version of Island of Fantasy as well as 120 pages of theme based posts that used to be on the blog, loads of pictures, and a variety of bonus material. If you order along with the regular version of IOF (makes a great gift or at least a great coaster for drinks), you come out exactly eligible for the free shipping. What luck!

2005-04-28T18:58:00.000+09:00

KLB - Birthday Gig

I take back every bad thing I've ever said about Bonnie. She was very nice today and even gave me a bottle of Jacob's Creek Australian Chardonnay, which by coincidence is one of my favorite wines. I love Chardonnay.

The kids were plain terrible all day. A few times Bonnie said they need more discipline and they shouldn't speak Korean so much. What can you expect though when you're throwing a birthday party? Later she said not to worry, she knows she's the reason the kids were acting up and it was important they have fun today. That was nice of her. Personally the kids had me so crazy I almost snuck into the bathroom to down the wine. If only I had had a corkscrew with me.

Julie's having a belated birthday dinner with coworkers (is it me or does it seem our birthday celebrations just keep going on and on?) so I stopped off at Walmart and picked up some boneless strips of chicken breast, a package of mushrooms and some soy sauce. I'm cooking now and will eat alone. Then it's off to the health club. Going to do cardio today to work off this growing gut. I'm getting a little better with the jumprope but basically I have no coordination. Still, it's good exercise and it works for me. I can't stand running machines. Plus it gives me an excuse to watch the aerobics class, as the jump ropes are next to the window. Oh, in case you've been following, Julie never did sign-up. She's just too tired after work. Who can blame her? She leaves here at 9:00 AM and doesn't get home until 7 or 8 usually. At least she seems to like her job. That would drive me nuts - unless it was for a lot of moolah.

After the health club I will come home and watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with Julie. I never thought I'd get into a show with that name, but it is pretty good. Acually I don't like watching TV that much, but Julie does and I catch myself getting interested in the shows she watches just because they're on. Next thing I know, I'm hooked.

Julie usually hits the sack at around 11 these days. She doesn't have much free time during the week, poor girl. But we have 4 days off next week - something to look forward to. Since I don't get up until around 10:00, I usually stay awake until 2:00 or later using the computer, chatting to my friends and family (mostly my sister giving me a long list of reasons to never have kids) playing XBOX, then I drift to sleep watching a video.

Well, time to eat my chicken dinner. Thank you for reading this exciting post. Have a nice day.

2005-04-27T23:39:00.000+09:00

KLB - Laying Low

Laying low until I get my new camera this weekend. Nothing really new to report on anyway. Everything is fine at work for the most part. Bonnie will be there once again to watch me all day tomorrow. It's one of those "birthday party" days, meaning she'll hang around until the last ten minutes of class then give out cake to all the kids and little gifts to whoever's b'day falls this month. Maybe I'll get a box of pencils! Yipee!

Basically I hate this day. I mean, who wants their boss watching them teach? Also, the kids can't focus with boxes of cake sitting there and, with three adults roamining around the room, it's a little much. Then the kids make a mess eating and never finish on time and I lose my between-class breaks. Later I'll probably hear about the next "open-house" which is coming soon, hurray. Another day when the parents will sit in chairs in the back of the room and watch me teach their kids. You know, that is just a bad concept. I get the idea - the parents want to know what's going on, but it's contrived and unnatural, not to mention unnerving. Especially with me being a foreigner. It's so awkward and I can't even have a discussion with them after class. Haha, I just got a great - no, ingenious idea. I'll hand out a bunch of puzzles and sit at my desk and read a magazine that day. Half of the parents will yank their kids and I'll have smaller, more quiet and effective classes.

Like I said, most things are going good these days. I've been going to the health club regularly, something I feel very good about, but I've also been eating more than usual; so my arms and chest are getting bigger - but so is my stomach. Would help if I gave up beer, I guess.

I contacted some people about my book tonight and review is in the works for The Korea Herald and Pusanweb, a famous expat site in, you guessed it, Pusan. It's pretty hard and kind of degrading trying to self promote something you've written. I tried going the pay-route and bought some advertising including "adwords" on Google, the latter being a big oops. From them I got about 200 hits over 4 weeks and a bill for $90. I'm not sure how many of those 200 hits resulted in sales but certainly not enough to cover that kind of outrageous fee, so I cancelled. I guess I'm stuck grovelling for book reviews and whatnot and working on this other book geared for the Korean market. I certainly don't regret the experience of writing IOF, but if I could go back in time I'd write it with Koreans in mind, not foreigners, seeing as there are about a zillion Koreans for every foreigner here. That was kind of a bad idea, I must say. Anyway, we'll see. The new idea is something to focus on and keep positive about anyway...

2005-04-25T21:24:00.000+09:00

KLB - Happy Birthday To Me

With Julie's birthday last week and then the weekend, it feels like we've been celebrating for ages. But today it was official. I'm 29 again, yay! Julie took me to Outback Steakhouse tonight. She also got me a pretty ice cream cake from Baskin Robins, but we're too full to eat it.

All in all it was certainly a lot better birthday than last year when I sat home all day on a Sunday (after a brief trip to Taiwan) in Nowhere-dong Korea feeding stray cats. My good (and apparently only) friend John came up from Gangnam on the bus and spent the weekend with us again. We were all going to go out but we were unable to step away from the Xbox and ended up just staying here and drinking German beers and playing new games all night.

James, this guy who used to come out and visit once in awhile, didn't show up. He went to someone else's birthday gig instead, I guess. He's been acting a bit weird lately anyway, singing songs praising Takeshima and the Sea of Japan (it's actually Dokdo and the East Sea, if you ask any sensible person) and showing everyone his autographed Apollo Ono photo - you know, the skater that clearly lost in the last Winter Olympics to the Korean, Kim Dong Sun, who was robbed blind!

Julie woke John and I up at the crack of dawn yesterday. It took a bit of effort to get John up and going as he's used to getting up at 2:30 (when his cell phone alarm went off later). Once he got up, we went over to the department store and got some tall coffees from The Coffee Bean, and some chicken "kebaps" and giant mandu dumplings from the food court. Later, after ripping the Xbox control from John's clamped, sweaty hands, we all went out to Migliore in Myongdong. John knew of a shop there that sells perfect knock-off Diesel Jeans and other fakes. They look and feel exactly the same, but instead of paying $200, they cost just $38. Julie bought be a nice pair for me and I picked myself another pair of imitation Paper Denims for about $45. You really can't tell the difference. The only giveaway is a small tear-away tag on the inside of the pants that says Made in Thailand, or Hong Kong. Having been unable to find a decent (affordable) pair of jeans that fit in ages, this was a real treat. Then we went out for a nice pizza dinner and John headed home.

Bonnie sent me a message this morning to wish me a happy birthday, which was nice of her. I guess she made a note off my passport. She informed Ally who made all the kids sing me happy birthday each class. That was pretty cute. Especially the first class, an ear splitting chorus that sounded something like this:

Happy baday to ew
Happy baday ooh ooh

hakky mmmday mmm, mmm, mmm

ooh oh ooh ooh, ooh ooh.

Teacher, no cake? Party! Cake! I'm hungry! No Cake???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, back to shameless self promotion. I just ordered up another big box of Island of Fantasy books. Thirty will be available at Seoul Selection later in the week and I'll drop another 10-20 off at What the Book? in Itaewon. If we get around to it, Julie and I are going to try to contact more bookstores here and in other cities. So far I've only tried those two places, and they've not only stocked my book but have sold out several times. You can also order directly from me, the easiest option if you prefer Paypal or plastic, or if you don't live in Korea. By the way, this newest edition has chapter breaks, a few miscellaneous fixes and the cover is supposed to be printed on glossy white paper to make it brighter. They were using some off-yellow color before, for whatever reason.

Well, that's it for today. Thanks for all the e-mails from everyone. I'm surprised anyone still reads this without any pictures. I'm almost positive I'm going to buy a camera later in the week. Julie is insisting I get one before we take another trip next week. We both have another 4-day weekend and we're going to rent a car again and head into the country, or so we've been planning.

2005-04-21T18:23:00.000+09:00

KLB - Good Karma?

Maybe donating to the ASPCA has given me some good Karma because I had a great day today. It started with the train. For the first time in weeks I got a seat! Believe me, it makes a difference between sitting and standing during that hour on the way to work. I don't get a chance to sit at work or on the way home.

Then, my worst two students in A class were absent. Without those two little pencil case-dropping, "no" shouting rascals the class was much quieter. As a matter of fact, a lot of kids were absent today. And, of course, because of the smaller classes, teaching was a lot easier than usual. It's my opinion a foreign teacher should never have more than 10 kids in a class to be effective. Having smaller classes really does make a big difference. The kids that were there today definitely learned a lot more than usual.

Later Julie called me to tell me Seoul Selection wants to order 30 more copies of my book. Apparently they've been selling better than expected. That was nice to hear. I still haven't gotten around to doing any marketing for it. Maybe I should work on that. They won't sell themselves, I guess.

On the way home, the bus driver welcomed me on board with a boisterous "oso-o-shipshio" and when I got off he beeped, smiled and waved goodbye as I crossed the street. Usually the bus drivers just grunt and beep for you to get the hell out of the way.

Now it was two-for-two! I got another seat on the train! That never happens. I almost always stand both ways. The only downside was the guy next to me gagging and clearing his throat every few seconds.

Anyway, it was a nice day and it's not over. Julie, though she still hasn't joined the health club, is in a good mood after a nice birthday yesterday. We will go out and have a simple dinner together. Then it's to work on the new book I've started. See you later.

The news gets better. I came home to find out Jade Empire finished downloading - all 6 GBs. Since it was too big to burn onto a standard DVD-R disk, I extracted the files using XISO. Then it was just a quick transfer via ftp to the Xbox and I'm now playing one of the hottest, most anticipated games of the year without having to wait for it to make it's way to Korea. Bit Torrent is a life savor for those of us living abroad.

Julie's sound asleep. She's been crashing at 10:00 lately. I can't remember the last time I fell asleep that early, except for the night we stayed in the country a few weeks ago. While she's been asleep I worked for a bit on my new book project. I'm existed about it and have a lot ideas, and certainly enough experiences and material to draw on. Before I get too involved this time, however, Julie's working on a proposal for Korean publishers to see if they'd even be interested, as I'm aiming the material towards Koreans this time.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this but a couple of Korean publishers turned down Island of Fantasy because they felt the material would be offensive to Koreans. One guy with some connections even gave the book to a sample audience and several readers thought my actions in the book were plain rude, such as when I turned down an old woman who tried urgently to sell me boiled silkworm larvae. Not to mention my description of "Wonder School" and its owners didn't exactly please them either - I'm sure they just thought of me as an ungrateful foreigner. Maybe I should send the book to some publishers outside of Korea. I need to buy one of the big writer's guides to publishing. For now, at least I've done fairly well with self publishing. I never expected to sell that many copies on my own without paying for a lot of advertising.

Though I didn't think my first book was all that negative - it wasn't my fault my first job was a virtual hell, but I tried to contrast that with the mystery and beauty of Koje Island and the intersting experiences I had - with this new material I will focus on the more upbeat parts /experiences of the last few years. If you have any ideas or suggestions, feel free to send me an e-mail.

2005-04-20T19:01:00.000+09:00

KLB - Happy Birthday Julie!

It's Julie's birthday today. She's now 24 years old. My birthday is 5 days later, and so like last year we've planned to celebrate together this weekend but I couldn't help myself. I just ran over and got her a gift at the department store and will take her to a nice dinner when she gets home. As there are no really formal or romantic restaurants in Korea, I guess it's TGIF again or Outback Steakhouse. Happy birthday, Sweetheart!

2005-04-19T23:00:00.000+09:00

KLB - ASPCA

One of our favorite programs on TV is The Protectors on Discovery's Animal Channel. (I guess it's called Animal Precinct in America.) This show documents the animal police in New York city who rescue mistreated animals and, whenever possible, arrest the responsible culprits. Tonight's episode featured two dogs that were left in cages with no food or water in an apartment and abandoned. They were practically dog skeletons when the animal police arrived. Another day or two and the dogs would have died. It was sickening. Fortunately, the ASPCA was able to nurish the dogs back to health and after a few months they were like new dogs, full of energy, licking everybody and wagging their tails. The show is very touching. In the words of Helen Keller: Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

Anyway, after seeing the show so many times, I felt compelled to make a donation to the ASPCA and did so at their website. Click here. You can sign up to donate monthly or give a one time gift. You can also apply for the Chase ASPCA credit card (what a caring bank - just don't make a late payment) which you can read more about on the site.

As for Korea, there is also an organization devoted to the prevention of animal cruelty and they accept donations too, of course. However, the site looks sorely outdated. In fact they even have on there the last update was made in 2002. Perhaps my readers have more information or links to other related organizations in Korea.

2005-04-18T18:32:00.000+09:00

KLB - Yay Monday

After a nice weekend, I went to work in positive spirits today and it was a decisively better day than Friday. I like Mondays because I make new seating charts and therefore the kids, insecure about their new group mates, are usually quiet and attentive - until later in the week when they get comfortable and start chattering. Then Friday is always my worst day. Still, the kids are mostly good and you can't blame them for being sick of studying come Friday when they study day and night all week and even on Saturday.

Perhaps Ally was just putting on a show for Cathy last time because today she was very laid back and casual. The first impression I had of her eroded with each class. She basically sat at her desk and did some paper work, always smiling and helping out only when I asked. For example, whan I asked her to translate a few words, she simply did so. Cathy would have had a panic attack. "Shawn! We can't speak Korean!" I could almost hear her saying.

In fact, much to my surprise, Ally didn't interrupt my classes or say a word about planning. She even used the computer room to make a packet for phonics! I was shocked. Nice job! It also impressed me that at exactly 5:00 she declared herself finished and went home. I like that. Cathy never left before at least 5:30 or 6:00, unless she had a meeting downtown, and then she worked at home all night on various work-related paperwork. I never understood that and it bothered me how hard she worked for no real reason other than martydom, it seemed to me. I'm hoping that Ally will be less serious and more efficient as she appeared today.

Also on a postive note, as I was signing out in the main office the secretary, for the first time, struck up a short conversation with me. It was a bit awkward, but I pulled it off and made her chuckle with my goofy sounding Korean. Perhaps because the vice principal wasn't looming at his desk for once, everyone in the office seemed more relaxed, actually. I bet he's the cause of all the tension day to day.

Well, Julie just called. She's on her way home and is hungry. I just put on some rice and now I have to get the side dishes ready. Ajuma-Shawn's work is never done, phew. I bet you feel sorry for me. Well, it's not like I made the side-dishes. I bought them. Wait, actually Julie bought them. All I have to do is open the tupperware lids. As for the rice, just pop open the bap sot, dump in the cleaned rice and add water, close the lid, push a button and poof, 10 minutes later the rice is ready. Eating Korean style is fast and easy.

After a lot of encouragement on my part, Julie is finally joining the health club with me tonight - or so she says. She was supposed to joing Saturday, then yesterday it didn't work out. Now she sounds tired. We'll see.

2005-04-15T19:08:00.000+09:00

KLB - Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire?

It was quite an unceremonious end to Cathy's run as assistant today. We didn't tell the kids anything until the last minute of each class, a time when the only thing on their minds was jetting out the door. At the end of the day, I struggled for words. It was an awkward moment. She put her hand on my shoulder and said she really likes me and despite our difference she will miss me a lot, especially my sense of humor. "You, too Cathy. Good luck." And that was that. Basically, I felt nothing. Good riddens!

But, it appears I may be out of the frying pan and into the fire. Her replacement, Ally, started yesterday.

"You must be the new assistant," I said.

"New co-teacher," she interjected. "I am your co-teacher."

"Yeah, whatever," I should have said. "Can you run down and make copies of my middle finger? I have a lot of people I want to give them too lately. You can have the first copy."

She wandered around the classroom all day today, just like Cathy used to do. And she pissed me off, just like Cathy used to do. Especially during my third class, Class C. I had to check the kids' notebooks and I gave out an activity sheet to keep the runts occupied - a basic worksheet where they cut out labled household items and glue them in the respective rooms. I figured I'd let them finish before teaching the vocabulary, so I sat at my desk watching them, the first time I sat down all day.

"The kids don't know the words, Shawn," said Ally. "They don't know anything. What is the point of this? You have to teach the words."

After dealing with Cathy for so long, this almost caused me a heart attack. Already she's trying to tell me what I should be doing! I sighed and bit my lip. "Today is Friday. They've done a good job all week. I'm letting them relax and do this activity and I will teach them the words when they've finished. They're also pretty smart kids and I taught them phonics so they can read." Why do I have to explain this to her? Does she really see herself as a co-teacher?

"Oh, I see. I'm sorry."

During one of my breaks I went down to the office for a cup of coffee. As usual, despite saying hello in Korean, everyone in the office ignored me. They are such a warm bunch. Later I heard the vice principal complained that I forgot to sign out once last week. Is there a place where I can complain that he's a dick?

After school, as I was making a new seating chart for next week, Ally pulled up a chair next to my desk and started drilling me about my lesson plans for next week. "What will you be doing? What pages exactly? I have to know. Do you have a plan for theme day? What will you do? We have to make a plan. It's Earth Day this month. Bonnie said you have to do an Earth Day plan and blah blah blah," Oh my god, just go away!

She then handed me a syllabus that Bonnie put together. Bonnie said I should follow it exactly from now on. The funny thing is it includes a whole "new" daily phonics plan. What, she finally realizes phonics is important? I've been doing this the past 8 months!

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I can't use a book and have to do these themes and whatnot, yet, as usual, no materials have been provided. Once again, I'm not making materials in my spare time. (This is a part time job, in case you haven't been following, that provides a full time E-2 visa but pays by the class). I've been through this again and again. I'm especially not volunteering after this petty BS of combining classes this week whilst cutting my pay. And it's not as if Bonnie's not making money off this program. We have 60 kids. The tuition is 200,000 won per month. That's $12,000 in revenue every month with pretty much no overhead (no busses, kids have to buy the books, etc, etc). And this is only 1 of 8 school programs she runs. So what's with the pettiness?

Then I found out we have yet two more students starting on Monday. It used to be that kids could only join at the beginning of a semester. Now every few days it seems I have new kids. I say nothing, of course. I know it's all about money now. Still, would it hurt anyone to thank me for doing a good job and attracting so many new students? Hah! Right! Remember, they had a foreign-teacher program there before us that failed after a few months because the kids weren't learning anything. Here I am going on 8 months and seems to me I must be doing something right. Or am I? I really have no idea. This situation would make a fantastic episode of The Twilight Zone.

Actually I'm at my wit's end with all the BS. I don't know how I made it this long. I'm going to put in a month's notice on Monday and look into other options. Maybe I can get Julie doing what Bonnie does. That's certainly the better side of the stick, I would say.

2005-04-13T16:38:00.000+09:00

KLB - Half Day

There was a little mixup with payment for our internet connection. Turns out they weren't automatically debiting Julies account the last few months as we assumed, and so they cut off our connection yesterday. We called up and they gave us an account number to pay from the post office (you can pay most bills at the post office). After work today, I went down and forked over the dough. Now this is amazing. By the time I got home, 10 minutes later, the connection was back on.

I had a half day at work today and will have the same tomorrow. Turns out the school is taking the kids on a trip again, but as usual a few kids stay behind for whatever reason so I have to teach them. Now I wouldn't mind this if I had all 4 classes, but Bonnie decided to combine all these remainder kids into 2 classes. So, today I taught from 1 until 3 o'clock, two classes full of kids from different levels. Same thing tomorrow. Of course, I don't get paid for the missed classes either - though I'm absolutely certain Bonnie will get the same payment - and I have to travel 90 minutes one way just to basically baby sit, since I can't go ahead with my usual lessons. Oh, and I heard another complaint from Bonnie, who came in yet again last week to watch me, that our kids speak Korean too much. Yeah, of course they do. They're 8 - 10 years old (in the class she watched) and sit in groups for 50 minutes. It's a miracle they don't speak Korean more than what little they do each day. I swear I'm about ready to flip Bonnie the bird too.

I guess she said some other things too but Cathy, seeing me turn red, quickly changed the subject. Just as well. These kind of comments get to me because I have never worked so hard to teach English before and have never been so effective, yet I never get any positive feedback from Bonnie or the school (luckily I do from the parents sometimes) - just petty, irksome complaints.

Well, the sun is out and I'm home early. Now that I've finished A Civil Action, it's time to pick up a new book, so I'm going across the street to Rodamco Department Store.

Speaking of books, I've got a big stack I want to unload. No use keeping around books you're never going to read again. Any suggestions as to what I should do with them? I was thinking of selling them to a used bookstore, but for what little they're likely to give me, I may as well give them to a library or something.

2005-04-11T19:30:00.000+09:00

KLB - iPod Mini

Yesterday Julie and I went to Yongsan, the electronics shopping district, and she picked herself up a shiny new 4 GB iPod mini. She'd been planning to get one ever since Apple slashed the prices down to $200.

Now, I recently read in Time magazine that Apple controls 60% of the market share for mp3 players. You wouldn't know it if you live in Korea, that's for sure. I've personally never seen a single Korean using one. Still, I expected them to be readily available at Space 9, the new, huge electronics building connected to Yongsan station. Wrong. Though there were zillions of mp3 players for sale, hardly anyone carried iPods, especially the iPod minis - or so it seemed.

Julie started asking salesmen at random if they had them. It was weird. Some of the clerks said no outright and seemed almost offended we even asked. One guy, an arrogant asshole, reluctantly pulled one out of hiding, but immediately and vehemently pitched the iRiver as a better product. The guy wouldn't shut up. He almost had her convinced, but I kept telling her he was acting suspicious and to stick with the iPod which she came for. When she told him she had to think more about it, he actually scolded her for wasting his time. "If you leave right now after all the effort I made, that will be so rude." We shrugged and walked off. Later, out of desperation, Julie almost went back to him to buy the iPod. I wouldn't let her, though, after the asinine way he left things.

Such a friendly place that Yongsan market is. As we walked by a couple of other rude, aggressive salesmen, one of the jerks told Julie in demeaning Korean, "There are so many Korean guys - why you with a foreigner?" and started laughing. When Julie told me what he said, I was so pissed off I turned to him and stuck my middle finger in his face. He dropped his head and looked away, fortunately. I realized this probably wasn't a smart move on my part - what, with all my recent posting about not fighting. Damn, that made me angry though. What a way to make a sale, you idiot.

Finally we found a nice guy, more friendly and helpful than in-your-face, "Buy! Buy! Buy!" He calmly explained the reason behind the iPod anomaly. With all the price cutting Apple has done recently, there's little profit incentive for the salespeople. He told us straight out his profit on the mini would be just $10. That's why everyone is pushing other brands and not displaying Apple, though they still carry them because foreigners always insist on iPods. I have no proof to his claim, but it seems a reasonable explanation. He was such a nice guy and so polite to us both that we ended up buying the case and battery charger too. To our surprise he charged us $10 less for these accessories than the iRiver-pusher had quoted. I'll probably pick an iPod there up myself soon. I figured I may as well wait and test out Julie's first. So far we both really like it, though it's a little awkward having to use it through iTunes.

Well, time to go to the health club. Believe it or not, I'm actually looking forward to working out.

2005-04-11T18:41:00.000+09:00

KLB - Shopping When You're Hungry

My mother always said don't go shopping when you're hungry. Sure enough, she was right. Famished, I went to Walmart the other night and decided upon making a western dinner: fried chicken, asparagus, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh rolls.

I've never seen gravy here and was shocked to find it at Walmart, two lone cans of Campbell's Chicken Gravy sitting inconspicuously on the bottom of the soup shelf. That's what gave me to idea to make the dinner, actually. Then I decided I wanted premium butter - well, non-Korean butter anyway - for the potatoes and rolls, so I picked up a small tub of Australian Bega for a whopping $8. The can of asparagus was also expensive.

I got everything for dinner but kept throwing pricey western things in the cart and ended up with hardly any groceries and a bill for $50. I should have just bought a sandwich.

Anyway, I started getting excited about the meal. Julie's never eaten a chicken dinner of this style in her life, something that if my grandfather found out would probably cause him a coughing spasm and severe chest pain (in addition to being a master chef, he's 80 and smokes 4 packs/day). It even surprised me. Wait until she tries mashed potatoes and gravy and toasted rolls and butter and asparagus!

So, I made the dinner. You might guess where this is going. Julie, though she tried her best to indulge my enthusiasm, really didn't enjoy the meal. At first this bugged me. How can she not love this food? I felt let down. Then I remembered the first time I ate Korean food, kimchi chigae (kimchi soup), and how strange it was to me and the pressure I was under to express enjoyment and gratitude. I understood how she felt. I was also frustrated myself with the chicken dinner. It was good, but it didn't taste nearly as scrumptious as I had longfully anticipated.

Like Julie said later, all the butter and gravy with the mashed potatoes and rolls and the greasy chicken felt too thick and heavy. I agreed. It did seem too much. My stomach hurt right after from the shock of it all. "Do Americans eat like this every day?" Julie wondered. I thought back to my life before Korea - long before kimchi and rice - to when I ate meat and potatoes or some type of fast-food crap every day. "Yes, unfortunately we do. And I can't remember how I could have, now that I think about it."

Of course this wasn't the first time I realized my taste in food has severely changed (for the better I must say). When I went home two years ago I found myself laboring to eat the big meals my grandfather prepared every night like clockwork - always some thick kind of meat, ham, steak, hamburger, chicken and then, of course, potatoes and bread and butter - butter, always butter, and/ or gravy on everything. Having gotten stuck there for some months after breaking my arm and being unable to return to Korea - I slowly found myself re-adapting to that diet (not to mention gaining weight), but I still longed for simple Korean dishes.

Sometimes I would venture downtown, precariously driving my 5-speed Honda Civic one-handed down icy streets, to the Korean store and get some groceries to cook. While my mother enjoyed most of what I prepared - especially mandu guk (dumpling soup), my grandfather would have none of it, and seemed to take serious offense at the offer. He would let us eat and then cook something for himself. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks, I'm afraid," he would repeatedly say.

Well, as I was saying, the chicken dinner failed miserably and I won't be eating the likes of it again, probably, until I go home. Now, don't get me wrong - I still enjoy a good pizza and the occasional burger and steak. But for the most part I'm happy with my Korean diet of rice, soups and vegetables.

2005-04-07T20:58:00.000+09:00

KLB - Cheesey Update

There's nothing like a 4-day weekend. You go back to work on Wednesday and it totally feels like Monday. Then before you know it, it's already Friday.

Nothing really new to report. Been doing well at the health club. I feel great. That protein stuff really works - that and eating chicken breast and boiled eggs. I already put on 2.5 kgs (around 5 or 6 pounds) of muscle weight and my strength is improving quickly. Now, if only I could motivate myself to do cardio, then I could trim down my gut. I do a lot of situps but that won't work alone if I want the proverbial 6-pack.

While my upper body is fairing well, my legs - forget it. I did a few sets of squats without any weight the other day and I'm completely sore from just that. Oh well, at least I'm trying finally.

Julie and I stopped at Walmart tonight and I noticed they're now carrying a bunch of American-made cheeses, including blocks of Monteray Jack with jalapeno peppers and a nice looking cheddar and Monetary Jack in the shape of a thick disk - both much cheaper than any of the Austalian cheeses. I bought a block with the peppers, a jar of olives, a couple of plump tomatoes (a whopping $3 for two), and a small bottle of dark beer. That should make a nice snack tonight. Cheese must be the worst thing I could eat for toning up, but whatever - you can only eat so many boiled egg whites. Yuck.

Work had been on a role until today. It still wasn't bad, but first of all I got yet more new students - two of them. You just have to love how they throw these poor kids in the class after 3 weeks into a semester. Both of them sat there completely clueless. They don't even know the sounds yet and I'm almost finished with basic phonics. Argh!

Then Bonnie popped in again by surprise. She never lets us know when she comes anymore and she seems to have a knack for picking the worst possible times. I was using the first fifteen minutes of class to check the kids workbooks finally (you have to mark all the correct answers with a red circle in Korea basically so the parents know you're checking). So I was sitting at my desk, which I rarely do, calling up one kid at a time and the kids who were finished were taking a break and coloring their workbooks. They rarely color unless it's a theme day or some kind of project but I they had little else to do while waiting for me to start the usual phonics routine.

No matter, Bonnie ended up watching the whole class and didn't say anything bad. Of course she didn't bother to say anything good either, even though the kids, in B-level mind you, were reading sentences from a phonics packet Cathy and I made. Sentences like "The fat cat sat on the mat and had a nap," and "The sun is hot but the moon is not." I think that's pretty impressive, myself, considering how little they knew before. They barely even knew the alphabet six months ago beyond singing the first 7-10 letters (then trailing off into a desperate, mumbling, alphabet song imitation). Now they can read, write and understand simple sentences. If I had followed Bonnnie's planning they'd never be at this stage now. They'd simply be memorizing things without any real comprehension.

Well enough about that. In other exciting news, I'm just about finished with A Civil Action. It's one the first books I've read in awhile where I literally cannot put it down. I read it until 3:00 AM last night, woke up and finished a chapter, read it on the way to work and back, then was tempted to bring it to the health club to read in between sets. As a matter of fact, I'm going to cut short this action-filled update and get back to reading.

2005-04-05T13:42:00.000+09:00

KLB - 4-day Weekend

Korea must be the only country in the world where teachers and students, depending on the school, get 4 days off for Arbor Day (because it fell on Tuesday). I could understand it more if everyone was actually out planting trees, but I highly doubt they are.

I've been to busy enjoying the mini-vacation to update. Julie and I just got back from a trip. I got the notion that we rent a car. Julie looked online and right near where we live is a rental place. We got a basic car for $50 for 24 hours. They even deliver it to you. Unfortunately once Julie was faced with the reality of driving, she panicked. Sweat beaded on her nose. "I can't do it," she said. "Can you drive?"

I hadn't driven a car at all in the last few years and, except for the few times I've gone back to America, I basically I haven't driven since coming to Korea in 2000. "No problem," I crooned.

It actually went much better than I thought. First we stopped and got gas. Americans, stop complaining. We paid $30 for half a tank. I was shocked. Back home that would have filled my Honda Civic twice, though maybe not anymore.

Anyway, Julie ran over to a book store while I was getting gas and picked up an atlas. We jumped on highway 100, which is just down the road from here, and headed out of the city and into the country. The spring weather was very nice and it felt good to be on the open road. We drove towards Choon Chun, a city famous for dak galbi, (basically chicken and vegetables mixed with chili-pepper paste - see here for a picture -) and stopped after a while at small country town in the middle of nowhere. There, amazingly enough, was a Pizza Hut, the inevitable McDonald's and what the hell, an outlet center for Levis and Addidas, why not? I ended getting a good pair of sandals for half price.

We trudged along (sure wishing I had a camera with me) and out of that town and found some small back roads that twisted and turned through the mountains. Instead of going on to Choon Chun, and since we were so hungry, we decided to stay where we were. All of the back roads are spotted with pensions or minbaks where you can sleep. Pensions are basically houses that you can rent, while minbaks are one-rooms, usually with no bed but lots of clean blankets and pillows. The pensions are a good deal if you're with a big group of people, but since it was just Julie and I, we stayed in a minbak. The room, inside a large, modern styled building, was actually very nice and, because it's an unusual holiday weekend, we paid just half of the busy-season rate and were the only people in the whole place. The view outside was pleasant: a mountain, a rocky stream and, of course, the inevitable site of bags and bags of garbage. You think they could have stored them near the building instead of right by the scenery, but that's the how it goes, I guess.

I forgot to mention that we picked up a load of groceries in that small town before: sam gyeop sal, potatoes, mushrooms, garlic and kimchi. Of course, I got a large beer for myself. The sun went down and we sat outside near a barbecue and cooked up the delicious meal. It was dead quiet save for the crackle of fire and the gentle swoosh of water from the stream.

Though we only stayed one night, it was once of the best times we've had together. It was so quiet and peaceful. We went to bed at 10:00 and slept until 8:00 in the morning, at which time we woke up to the sound of birds. The air was cool and clean with the subtle trace of smoking firewood. We went for a nice long walk down the back road before hitting the highway again. Then we drove through some beautiful scenery - well, as beautiful as it gets here anyway (so many peculiar and unsightly buildings littering an otherwise fantasic view) to Choon Chun. We stopped an older man at a bus stop and asked for directions to the famous dak galbi street. The ajushi jumped right in the back seat. Turns out he was going near there himself.

I thought the meal was delicious, but Julie got pissed off. First of all, you'd think they were selling sex the way the restaurant ajummas hound you the moment you step on the famous street. "Come here, come here, hurry hurry," hoards of them shout at you in Korean. We picked the one restaurant that didn't come out to yell, but the ajummas inside were kind of rude in a different rite. They dumped the mixture on the frying pan, handed Julie the spatula and basically never returned until we asked for a bottle of Coke, even though the place wasn't crowded. That and Julie thought the dak galbi tasted like it does in Seoul but was nearly twice the price. Oh well, that's typical of what you can expect at any touristy place, I suppose. Still, I enjoyed the experience. I stuffed my face!

Finally we headed back toward Seoul. Julie, who had been unbelievably good at guiding us using the atlas (we basically drove all the way to the minbak based on her reading the maps) now had me turn the wrong way on highway 100. That's when we got into a mess. We had to pay a toll just up ahead and then we got off the highway and but couldn't get back on the right way. We had to keep going straight for about 20 minutes. Turns out we were headed for Seoul anyway, but on the city highway, not the nice expressway that goes around the city. Julie suggested we just push on. So, I got my first experience driving through the heart of Seoul. Let me tell you, it's maddening. If you are prone to road rage, never drive in Seoul. Basically nobody can wait a flipping second and they try in anyway possible to cut you off if they can get an inch ahead. Also, the traffic was intense, even at 3:00 in the afternoon. It took us over an hour - a tense, stressful hour - to drive what would have taken 10-15 minutes on that expressway.

Well, Julie has lunch on the table - rice, soup, and a load of side dishes - so I'll cut this short. All in all we had a fantastic time and will be renting a car again. The freedom of being able to drive exactly where you want was nice and we never would have enjoyed the scenery and found that secluded minbak location without one. The next time, however, we'll be sure to go make the correct turn on the expressway.

2005-03-31T21:18:00.000+09:00

KLB - No Alarms and No Surprises

Going on a week now without a single hassle at work. That must be some kind of record. The kids are great. Then again, I never have problems with them. My D-class students sound like native speakers now that they can speak in present and past tense. I have a lot of fun with them.

Came home and relaxed a bit, then went to the health club and did a lengthy tricep work out and a load of situps. Back home, Julie had dinner on the table. She's on a health kick herself, so we had boiled regular and sweet potatoes, broccoli, olives and kimchi. I ate mine with a glass of vegetable juice then followed everything down with a strawberry protein shake. Mmm...feeling pretty damn good at the moment though I can feel a faint grumble in my stomach, like the subtle roar of distant thunder.

Julie's stretched out on the floor reading Walden, by Henry David Thoreau (Korean version). I read it in college and remember thinking at the time I wanted to quit school, quit my job at the furniture store and build a hut in the woods myself - spend my days fishing and living off the land. In fact all that kind of inspirational literature, American Romanticism, had a great effect on me. That's half of why I'm so idealistic and unwilling to conform to the common, present day American way of life. Half of why I ended up in Korea. I could never work for a company or a corporation. Never.

Now Walden is inspiring Julie. She's on this kick where she wants us to live a simple life in the middle of nowhere, someplace like in the movie, The Way Home. She keeps asking me if I know how to farm. No, but if we bring our cell phones, assuredly some kind of delivery guy can find our hut - hopefully pick up some beer on his way.

Seriously, she's gotten me interested again, so I've been going through a few of the sections online at this terrific site: (click here). Especially living in a city, with its immutable noise, illimitable concrete, perpetual air pollution, and the never-ending scramble, you sometimes wonder what all this modernity had gotten gotten us - why we made our lives this way, why most of us blindly accept the calculated destruction of our scenery and our air. Wouldn't it be nice to quit your job and give up your complicated existence and go live that simple life in the country, in a small hut in the quiet woods, like that old woman in The Way Home - who, by the way, really lived in that hut and chose to stay there after the movie despite her new found fame and fortune.

All this reminds me of one of my one favorite song lyrics:

A heart that's full up like a landfill,
a job that slowly kills you,
bruises that won't heal.

You look so tired-unhappy,
bring down the government,
they don't, they don't speak for us.

I'll take a quiet life,
a handshake of carbon monoxide,

with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,

Silent silence.

This is my final fit,
my final bellyache,

with no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.

Such a pretty house
and such a pretty garden.

No alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises,
no alarms and no surprises please.

Anyway, something to think about. Walden will do that to you. If you're bored and unispired, check out that website.

Wait a minute, what's Julie doing now? She's put Walden down and is cracking up at Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Despite her love for a "simple life" she still loves TV. I'm going to snuggle beside her and read A Civil Action...an excellent read.

2005-03-31T11:44:00.000+09:00

KLB - More Cute Kiddie Pics

I can't get enough of these pics. Here's my nephew sleeping, awww, and another shot of him and my niece on Easter. They all look like they're having a blast in that one, including my poor, exhausted sister.

2005-03-31T01:06:00.000+09:00

KLB - The Apple

I brought home one of the CDs I use and ripped a couple of tracks so you can get an idea of what I'm teaching lately. These tracks are from Spot Light 4, which I use in B-class. The students generally like the stories and songs. Imagine a classroom full of cute Korean kids bobbing their heads merrily as they listen, repeat and sing.

The Apple.mp3 (Story)

The Apple.mp3 (Song)

Cathy cried today. The ever-kind vice principal gave her a new job. In addition to her highly detailed monthly plan write-ups (takes about 10 pages for each class), she now has to write up a full-page plan for each class every day. That means 20 pages of new lesson plans per week and, with the monthly plans, an unmanageable total of 120 pages/month. I feel sorry for her and for the tree that's cut down for that waste of paper. Keep in my mind she also has to write separate plans on different forms for the agency and you can see why she was crying and why she's quitting. At least she has a lot more time to work on things in class, now that she no longer roams around the room all day. I keep encouraging her to use the class time to get some work done.

The vice principal is just being an ass about everything. I can't imagine what it's like for a real Korean teacher at the school. Must be hell. Does he really need all that paper work? No, not at all. It's all pointless busy-work. Don't forget I also write up a brief daily plan for every class in English too. Our file folders are huge! Maybe if they get big enough I can use them to clonk him over the head with.

Well, Blogger was down almost all night and it's going on 2 a.m. I'm going to get some sleep...

2005-03-30T00:01:00.000+09:00

KLB - Comments are Back

I had another great day at school. Hope this can last through the week. Sure is nice now that Cathy sits quietly in the back and doesn't do anything unless I ask her. She's actually spent her time making useful materials for me lately, including, lo and behold, a word search puzzle about classroom objects that kept C-class busy most of the period. Nice.

Back home, I got a pot of sam gae tang (whole chicken soup) simmering before heading over to the health club. So much for going in the morning. Lately I've been staying up late reading my new book, chatting to my family in NY or watching videos with Julie. Oh well, it hasn't been too bad going at night. It's still not very crowded then. A couple of other foreigners have joined. I met a Canadian guy named Alex who has been in Korea for 10 years. He teaches at a high school down the road. His job sounds pretty hard. Only five classes, but he has to be there from 8:00 - 4:30 and has over 40 kids in each class. He gets good pay, sure, but not that much more than me. He does get free housing, but they stuck him in some old, gloomy apartment that depresses him. Anyway, we're going to hang out and get some beers soon, I guess. It'd be nice to meet some people who live nearby.

The sam gae tang came out pretty good. I'm trying to eat low fat foods that are high in protein like chicken and boiled eggs (minus the yolk). Though I haven't been back at the gym long, I feel better already, more confident and more energy. It doesn't take long. I just hope I can keep it up.

Finally, I'd like to apologize to a lot of people who have sent e-mails that I've never responded to. I read them all, but I spend too much time online as it is to write everyone back, though I do reply to as many as I can. So, what the hell, I decided to turn the comments back on and see how it goes. At least if I can't reply to everyone, maybe some other readers can give some feedback - but then again, maybe not.

2005-03-29T19:41:00.000+09:00

KLB - Michael and Sierra

My sister's sent me a bunch new pictures of my niece and nephew. She's getting the hang of using the new camera. I know this because in one picture she sent, I could see a bunch of photos she must have printed out and stuck to the refrigerator. That made me feel really good. Also, every time we "chat" now, she doesn't say anything. She logs on Yahoo messeger and just starts sending pics. No hello or nothing. Hmmph!

The photos make me homesick though. Look how cute little Michael is. I'm dying to see him in person. What a character. And the little girl, Sierra, looks exactly like my sister did as a kid. And apparently she's just as badly behaved, driving my poor sister nuts. My mother gets a kick out of this, of course. "Someday you're going to know how it feels," she would always say to her. She was right. Strange how things like that work out, isn't it? Karma, I guess. Little Michael, on the other hand, is turning out to be a quiet little doll, my sister said. Just like I was as a baby. Check him out:

2005-03-28T18:54:00.000+09:00

KLB - Mixed Bag Monday

My feelings about Korea are deteriorating rapidly from Saturday night's binge of sentimentality. With foreigners locked away for fighting Koreans who go uncharged, to locked up sex workers burning to death, to thick, stagnant pollution filling the skies lately, it's quite depressing.

Police did not rule out the possibility that the deaths took place because they were locked inside.

Luckily I had a great day at school. Cathy didn't bother me once. She sat in the back day all doing her paper work and preparing materials. A dream come true. I should have flipped my lid ages ago.

The kids were fantastic, as usual. Class A is rapidly improving. They know all the classroom language and are masters of the letters A-I. That is, they know the letters and, more importantly, the sounds. For example if I say, "Internet," they can recognize the first letter is I. They can also write in lower and uppercase form - though some need more help with that. My other classes are also moving along. Class B and C can read pretty much any 3 or 4 letter words. Class D is learning all the verbs in the past tense. Today I reviewed 25 verbs and focused on five they will have to try and incorporate in their diaries for homework.

It looks like the pollution is dispersing a bit. I've had to clear my throat frequently the last few days and it feels dry and scratchy. I thought I was getting sick, but if it's a cold it hasn't progressed out of my throat at all yet.

Time to down my protein shake and head over to the health club. I was going to go this morning but my triceps and shoulders were killing me. They feel a bit better now. I'm going to stretch awhile and then do my chest again. I know, I know - when am I going to do legs? I hate working out my legs, to be truthful. Especially squats, though I don't mind that machine where you sit down and lift your legs. Maybe I'll do that one. See you soon.

2005-03-27T22:11:00.000+09:00

KLB - Don't Fight

Another reason not to fight with Koreans:

Parents cut off from son in jail

No mention of the Korean party involved, but I'm assuming they went home that night scot free. After all, I'm sure it was all the foreigner's fault. He probably jumped the poor unsuspecting Koreans as they were innocently eating a bowl of noodles.

To put it simple, if you're in situation here that could lead to a fight, especially with a Korean, do yourself a favor and swallow your pride - avoid the fight if at all possible. It's not worth it.

My guess is this guy is fine and will be back with Mom and Dad soon. From what I've learned - I had a friend who went to jail briefly for another reason and gave me insider information - the usual sentence for fighting a Korean, not another foreigner (apparently that's OK), is 30 days and deportation. You get no access to any of your belongings - so goodbye computer and whatever else you've accumulated. You share a small cell with a number of Koreans and are allowed only a 7 minute visit once a week.

The worst part is that you have no access to the money you've saved here (can you imagine?) and have to file a petition to get it after deportation. In other words, good luck ever seeing that money again basically. Finally, you're not allowed back in Korea for 5 years - not that you'd want to come back after such an ordeal, I'm sure. Oh, and about lawyers. You can get one, but somebody has to pay the piper on your behalf. My friend's lawyer cost his parents $5,000 (and he had to pay them back). They can't change the sentencing and are pretty useless, he said. A total waste of money and a total nightmare.

Julie just pointed out how ironic the timing of this post is. "Where's your 'I love Korea blah blah, now?'" she said, waving her arms in the air. At least she's talking to me again. I bought her some coffee-milk (her favorite) and a package of facial masks.

2005-03-27T16:05:00.000+09:00

KLB - Last Night

With nothing else to do on this fine Sunday afternoon, I went through and reread a few weeks worth of posts. Though I actually laughed a little at some of the things I talked about, I found myself cringing over every poorly worded sentence and typo. When I write a post, I usually write it at one time, then push "publish" and that's that. I probably should leave it for a bit and come back, do a spell check, re-read and fix mistakes and then, finally, publish. On the other hand, that isn't as spontaneous and authentic. I don't want every entry to sound like a well crafted piece of writing - at least that's what I keep telling myself. The truth is I'm just lazy.

Why am I not out enjoying the day? Because I have a hangover. The first one I've had since the last time I hung out with John. That's right - it's all his fault. He forced them down my throat, every shot. Well, he always buys me shots of something and I have a hard time refusing. I should have stuck to beer.

The night started well. Julie and I felt like idiots because all this time we've lived here, we had no idea that right across the street there's a bus stop for a bus that runs directly to Hongdae (the party capital of Korea) no stops. 20 minutes. Until last night, whenever we went there, we had to take the subway which, with the transfer in Sindorim, takes over an hour. Thats partly why we rarely went. Upon this new discovery, I felt particularly bad because my friend James, who couldn't make it last night, used to live right where the bus drops you off at Hongdae station. I probably would have hung out with him a lot more, whether to have a bite to eat, a few beers or practice at the band room there had I known about the bus.

Anyway, to get to the point, Julie is mad at me now because I acted stupid after all those shots of tequila - go figure. At 4:30 AM, I pleaded with everyone to go to a norae bang (karaoke room - they are open all night and are everywhere) and/or restaurant and I wouldn't shut up about how much I love Korea. You see, John's friend, who's from Hawaii of all places, says she doesn't like it here. It's ugly. In fact, she referred to Korea as a third world country and she's hated the trip and never plans to return.

Being from Hawaii probably makes most places in the world look ugly, but for some reason, this pissed me off. I hate when people don't like Korea. In my drunkenness, I took her remarks personally. I wanted to show her the fun side. Where else in the world can you feast on delicious strips of meat in a crowded restaurant (kalbi) then go sing your heart out at a bustling karaoke at 5:00 a.m.? I guess I went overboard. John was up for it, great guy that he is, but his sidekick wasn't. She doesn't like karaoke, of course, and she wasn't hungry.

Then my mouth flapped on about things it should have shut up about in the taxi home, nostalgic rambling about nights in Koje-do and, um, oops, my first Korean girlfriend and those first times she took me to norae bang and how much fun that was. To top if off, when we got home, as if I didn't make an ass of myself enough, I wanted to go shopping at Walmart for munchies. At 5:00 a.m. I drove Julie nuts, basically, and she won't talk to me now. It's a real bummer when one member of your drunken group is dead sober - especially when that member is your girlfriend. Aigooo!

That was the first night I went out in months. Now that I'm getting a bit older, it's lost a lot of it's appeal. It's still fun, sure - I like to hang out with friends and listen to good music - but I always end up overdoing it and feeling like crap the following day. I hate the way I feel right now. I want to enjoy the day, go to the health club, but my record is warped and won't play. I should feel better in a few hours though. I'd better go buy something nice for Julie. It's pretty lonesome out here in the dog house. At least I have DSL in here, though.

2005-03-26T17:00:00.000+09:00

KLB - Waiting

It's early Saturday afternoon. I went to the health club already. I managed to get two muscle groups in: shoulders and triceps. I'm so happy about getting back in shape finally. It's the perfect time of year to do it.

Actually I have a paranoia about becoming too skinny again, as I was skin and bones until about 3 years ago when suddenly I put on a load of weight at a health club in Ulsan. Smartest thing I ever did was join a gym and drink protein shakes. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to when I was in college and force my ass to hit the weights. I probably would have felt much better about myself. Maybe dated some Playboy models.

So, I was relieved when I weighed in recently at exactly 80 Kgs, about 175 pounds, which is a pretty good weight for my height, 180 cms, or 6 feet. My goal is to tone up that weight for the summer. I bought more protein mix too and am trying to cut out fatty foods, something that is pretty easy here since I mostly eat Korean food.

While I was at the health club, Julie went to the hair shop. She's been getting free treatments for the past week after they blotched up her perm and left her with dead, dry hair (she cried about this for 2 hours and didn't talk to me for a day because it was all my fault. I'm still not exactly sure why it was my fault, but eventually I accepted the blame and now we're happy again).

At this moment, we're waiting around for James to finish soccer and John to finish shopping with his Chinese female friend from Hawaii. The lot of us are going to meet up for a nice Korean dinner, probably kalbi, in Hongdae, then possibly go dancing later - but maybe not. James is on call for work and can't drink and John's friend is flying out tomorrow. Still, should have a good time. James will likely have his camera along, so you can check out his site for an update after the weekend.

In the meantime, if you haven't already - be sure to check out this month's Seoul Magazine:

That's me on the left, in case you're wondering. We we're supposed to make it look like a warm spring day, but I think we failed. James' hat is kind of a giveaway. I should have worn one too. It was blustery cold and very windy. We were freezing without our jackets on, and we were outside for several hours. By the way, that's my new computer there. They asked us to bring our laptops as a prop.

2005-03-26T12:45:00.000+09:00

KLB - VIPs

Dinner turned out to be pretty fun. Julia's mother, let's call her Sally, insisted everyone get steak and the salad bar. The steak was the size of a hockey-puck, but good. The salad bar, on the other hand, was incredible - huge variety.

There was no mention of a private lesson. She simply wanted to tell me that she is amazed by how fast Julia is progressing. She realized it one day when Julia started reading a children's English story book out loud in a store. Then she noticed Julia's English diary (which I assigned) and, of course, she can read that too. She couldn't read anything before my class even though she studied English for the past three years. (This is why I think it's so important to teach phonics and why I do so even though it's not part of the program). So, the dinner was to thank me for doing a good job.

Before this, Cathy had spoiled the dinner a bit by telling me (once again) that she's still only sleeping a few hours every night because she has to do so much work for our class - which is the real reason she is quitting, she confessed. She's utterly exhausted.

Further to my chagrin, Bonnie told her yesterday that she is unhappy with our class again, which is bizarre since she just told me everything is fine. I don't know what the hell to believe. According to Bonnie, the school thinks our program is of poor quality - the asshole vice principal has complained about a bunch of little things again. He actually pointed out that I made a cross-out mark on one of my lesson plans instead of using white-out (which we don't have) or re-writing the whole page. What a dick.

The administration at this school is just amazing - they've never made us feel welcome, never say anything nice, can't make up their minds if we can use the copy/coffee machines, never even attempt to communicate with me with any friendly gesture whatsoever - and then complains about such meanlingless trivialities. Come on - as if they even read my lesson plans in English when Cathy types up a highly detailed Korean version for them.

Then, can you believe this, Bonnie pointed out the program before us had 70 students in three classes, but we only have 60 in four and she wants to know what we're doing wrong, Cathy and I. In other words, she's really not happy that we just got 20 new students. That's not enough. And of course the "problem" is not because of her awful planning for the past 3 months. It's all my fault. I think she doesn't want a part-time teacher, she wants a full-time master magician.

"Um, the program before ours failed," I pointed out. This is because the students didn't learn anything (which is completely obvious - my students knew nothing 6 months ago and I thought they must have never studied English before). Anyway, I just shrugged this off at the table, but now it's making me mad. So much conflicting information, so much BS. All I see is that I'm teaching kids English, the students are having fun and learning quickly and the parents are happy. Why does everyone else involved have to make it so miserable and complicated?

Even though I genuinely enjoy teaching these kids, put a lot of effort into making it fun for them, and have felt proud seeing the results, it's getting harder to rebound from such comments and harder not to take them personally. What's the point in trying so hard every day? I may as well revert to passing out word-search puzzles and twiddling my thumbs. Then they can really have something to complain about. I love these kids but that's becoming less and less motivation to stay.

2005-03-25T00:00:00.000+09:00

KLB - A Fight and Some Good News

I lashed out at Cathy again today, the worst argument yet. I won't go into great detail but basically it culminated with me yelling things like, "Don't interrupt my class, don't try to teach my class, and never tell me what to do ever again! Just sit down while I'm teaching and do your paperwork and don't bother me!" Then, later: "Listen, this is a part time job. You don't have to take it so damn seriously. You don't have to work 10 hours a day. Use the class time to get your work done and then go home and relax for once. I'm tired of hearing that you sleep three hours at night. You don't need to be constantly worrying about every little thing. Come to work, do your work, go home and forget work until the next day, OK?"

I felt bad, but these things needed to be said. I let it go on too long. It actually paid off. She sat there the rest of the day quiet as a mouse. It was nice not seeing her roaming around, focused on me, interrupting to tell me I have to do something, that I should call on so and so, suggesting I spend less time on something and more on another, reminding me when to start class, when to finish, etc. I am completely confident in my teaching ability right now and I have total control of these kids and I know what I'm doing. All I wish she would do is make materials and do the Korean paperwork. Even is she sat there working on her university assignments would be fine with me.

In some regards I think she envies me and is frustrated by the fact that, despite my laid-back attitude and relaxed work ethic, I'm still a surprisingly effective teacher. After all, the kids love me. They hang all over me, vying for attention. They follow me through the halls and write me love letters and bring me candy and gifts. They draw "Shawn teacher" faces all over their notebooks. It's almost sickening the relationship I've developed with them. At the same time, they listen to me. I can say, "Attention!" and poof, silence as of the grave. They respect me. This must aggravate her to no end.

At the end of the day Cathy said to me, "I just can't angry with you because you're so nice to kids and so funny." Yes, I felt bad too. Once again, I know she's not a bad person and it's hard for me to stay mad. I tried not to back down this time, but, like a weakling, I ended up apologizing for yelling. Even so, hopefully she won't bother me for awhile.

I finally called Bonnie for the first time and told her what's going on. I'm glad I did. Get this: Cathy will be quitting next month anyway! I had no idea! She never said anything. Turns out she has to take some teacher's classes during the day to finish her MA degree. Bonnie also told me she knows Cathy over does it. She's told her before that it is my class and not to bother me. I'm not to worry, though, everything is fine. Everyone is very pleased with me, and she asked me to endure a little longer.

What good news! Thank God!

After school, the little girl's mother who is taking me to VIPS tomorrow, came in again to chat a bit. I found out she owns her own business, a trading company that supplies the food to restaurants such as, you guessed it: VIPS. She's planning to set up an office in New York within a couple of years. Cathy told me she's rich. I figured it already since her daughter, utterly adorable (she's one of my favorites despite being so spoiled) wears fashionable clothes and carries a brand new Samsung camera cell phone that must have cost $500. She's ten years old. Anyway, her mother wanted to verify the plans for tomorrow. After hearing how rich she was, I feel uncomfortable now. I wonder if she's planning to proposition me at dinner to teach Julia privately. If you don't know it, private teaching is illegal in Korea. Basically you're not allowed to earn money as a foreigner outside of the job that sponsors your visa. It's good money but to me it's not worth getting deported over.

Regardless, I figured I should bring a gift to dinner, so I went out and picked up a few things: a bottle of Chilean Red Wine for the mother and her husband and a bunch of things for Julia (as is she needs anything): crayons, stickers, a cute notebook and some colored pencils. Even if she's spoiled, she'll be happy. Her two little girlfriends, Sarah and Grace, will certainly be jealous too. All three of them sit out in the hall until I go home and then follow me to the bus stop every day. Maybe I'll split the gifts up for the three of them, since Cathy is also planning to get something for Julia.

2005-03-23T22:41:00.000+09:00

KLB - Moving Along

I managed to get up early again and hit the health club. That's two days in a row. It's much better to work out in the morning. Hardly anyone is in the place, save a couple of older women on the treadmills. Also, it's just nice to get it out of the way, go to work and then come home finished with everything for the day. I used to hate going after work. I managed to do so for about 6 months in Nowhere-dong before giving up, but I never liked it much.

Julie's sick. She missed work today. It took about 5 phone calls back and forth with her school before she got the clear. It's never easy to call in sick here. They kept asking her if she could come a little later, as if a few hours of sleep is all anyone needs to get over the flu. Her voice is gone and she sounds pretty cute. After work, I stopped off near Homeplus and picked her up some piping hot juk, which translates as Korean traditional porridge. It's pretty much rice that's been cooked then boiled and vegetables added. Kind of thick and slimy, but very healthy. Koreans usually eat it when they are sick. Their equivalent of our chicken soup. It seems to have worked, that and the Tylenol. Her fever has come down and her voice is already returning.

I had a typical day at work. Cathy pissed me off again, but it's the same old story so I won't mention it anymore. Everything is great with the kids. Damn good kids, I can't say it enough. Got two new ones again today, which is starting to worry me. It's up to 15 in each class now. That may not sound much to an American or Korean teacher, but for a foreigner teaching Korean kids, that's a lot of students. Still, I like all the kids except one, and even he's coming around already. I've never had a job where I've adored all the kids like this. Even the boys are growing on me more and more.

The books have really helped lately. Unfortunately I'm only allowed to use them twice a week according to our new syllabus. I have to teach a "theme" unit once a week again - ugh! Another day is supposed to be for story books, but we only have story books for one class - typical. Then Friday is "game and activity" day - which is fine. I asked Cathy if she could get together some kind of game guide. In my opinion, that would be better than her roaming around the room all day and bothering me. I keep telling her to sit down but she never does.

I know a handful of games that work well with kids. As a matter of fact I came up with a good one today. I called it, "I Made You Laugh!" First you split the kids into two groups, A and B. The two teams stand facing each other. Group A then tries to make any of the group B kids laugh. If they succeed, they yell, "I made you laugh!" and earn a point. Then B teams tries to make A laugh.

I like playing games and doing fun things with the kids, of course. Usually things like that game just pop in my head as I'm teaching and I do them. I love the spontaneity. I hate having to follow some pre-made time-table that really doesn't benefit the kids at all. So much wasted paper. I wish I could just do a variety things every day, say 15 minutes of phonics, 15 using the books/story books, 10 writing in the workbooks or notebooks, and the last few minutes some kind of activity worksheet or game. That's better than doing a different thing each day. For example, now I can't use my books again until next Tuesday, meaning the kids will probably forget what they've learned and I'll have to review - basically teach the same lesson all over - before moving on. Oh well, at least this way these precious books will last awhile. I don't want to have to try to get new ones again.

I guess that's it for today. I'm going to take care of Julie - tuck her in and make sure she's asleep before turning on the Xbox. Hah, just kidding. She's already asleep. Slept about 15 hours today. I'll probably read. I just finished Sex and the City, the book, which was better than I thought it would be. Now I'm starting A Civil Action.

2005-03-22T20:17:00.000+09:00

KLB - A Smurfy Day

As per usual, it's an up and down cycle here. Today was fantastic, and after a brief hiatus, I can give the thumbs-up sign to teach in Korea again. So get re-packing!

Let's start with the morning. The health club has actually reopened after all - at least the weights/machines room. The new Yoga/dance room and jim jil bang (multi faceted sauna) - all of which Julie is waiting on - won't be finished until next week. Anyway, I got up early and worked out, a solid arm routine which felt very good. Then, after a relaxing shower, I skipped off to work in a great mood. I love spring.

At second glance, the new books aren't nearly as bad as I thought. My first impression, of course, had been tainted by the crap Cathy mentioned upon giving them to me. They are actually pretty good. I used them for the first time today and the kids like them too. The included CDs and workbooks, which we didn't get until today, are especially good.

Now imagine this: the kids (for the most part) are in the right level classes and they have books. Wow - guess what? I'm a good teacher again! "You had the passion," Cathy pointed out after school. "Today I'm so happy."

"Well, when things are organized and we have books, it's amazing what a teacher can do."

It's true. I started each of the first three classes with phonics then used the books for the last 20 minutes of class. It was one of those days when I really enjoyed being a teacher. Because I was in such a good mood, the kids were happy and responsive. I had them rolling in laughter one minute and shouting "Me! Me! Me!" the next with every question.

We also got a couple of new students this week. That makes 23 new kids. Most of them are adorable little girls too. I swear I have a fan club throughout the school. Lately a lot of mothers keep stopping in to check the class out too, which is also cute in a way. Yesterday one of my favorite girls' mothers came in, decked out in designer clothes, a load of makeup and strong perfume. She comes in often and speaks English rather well. "Whats up?" she always says. She invited me to dinner with her family this Friday at VIPs (TGIF kind of place). I politely said no a few times but she was persistent and, so, I eventually accepted. Unfortunately Cathy overheard this, said she envied me in Korean, and then the mother (somewhat reluctantly I noticed) invited her too. Yay!

Well, time to chow down a couple of turkey subs I picked up from Subway on the way home for me and Julie. Mmm. Then it's time to watch The Smurfs DVD Volume 3, which just came in the mail. I also pre-ordered volumes 4 and 5 which are set for release the same day later in April. You should order your copies today, as international shipping is only a few dollars. Also, you never know if they'll ever be released around the world. Now may be your only chance to get them. In fact, looks like volumes 1 and 2 are already sold out.

They take between 1 and 2 weeks to arrive (got mine in a week). Keep in mind the prices are in AU dollars too, which means they are even cheaper than you think (around $15 USD). They are region 4, but you should be able to play them on your computer if you have DVD Region Free software, or on your home player by using one of the easy codes to make it region free: Check here... (For example, all Julie and I had to do is open our DVD player drawer and hit 9999 on the remote to choose "region 0"...

I sure love this series. I have 18 smurfy episodes now. They all have Gargamel in them too, the funniest cartoon villain ever created.

Bonus screenshots of Gargamel in action taken with PowerDvd:

2005-03-19T12:08:00.000+09:00

KLB - Everyone Should Have a Blog

I tell you, every time I vent about my job on my site, I get off the internet and I feel so much better. The blog is like having a therapist. Believe me, when you live in Korea you wish you had a therapist sometimes. That's why so many people go out and vent together. It's not that they hate it here - though some do and they should just go home - but they need a means to get it off their chests and out of their systems.

It's a conflicting existence in this country. So much to appreciate and enjoy - so much to curse and complain about. I just prefer to do my complaining online and relax and have a good time afterward - but that's just me. That's pretty much my personality though. I'll fly off the handle over something then when I'm threw, I get over it - usually 15 minutes later. Women, on the other hand - and I won't mention any names - whoa, can they ever hold a grudge!

Of course, I forsee more difficulties and frustration at my job and I don't think I'll be able to make it through until August - but who knows. The problem is that almost every teaching job here is a pain in the ass in one way or another so there's no great alternative. I guess if I'm going to be miserable, however, I may as well do it "full time" and get a salary and housing money along with it. And I'd never have to see Cathy again in my life. That will be almost as great a day as when the job in Nowhere-dong ended and I said goodbye to Windy. Like Windy, Cathy is not a bad person and I'd probably like her if I didn't have to work with her, just as I liked Windy outside of teaching her at the hagwon.

I'm seriously considering putting in my notice and taking a brief trip overseas, say for a week. I want to visit my friend who lives in Beijing anyway. I'm not sure Julie will be able to handle not seeing me use the computer and playing video games for that long though. Maybe I'll leave a cardboard cutout of myself wearing sweatpants and holding an Xbox controller. She'll never know I'm gone!

Well, it's Saturday morning. I guess I should do my best to get out there and enjoy the weekend. Looks bright and sunny. Spring is coming. I'm going to take Julie to lunch - maybe some don cass - and check out some cameras or something. Have a great weekend!

2005-03-18T18:33:00.000+09:00

KLB - I Spoke too Soon Again

I hate my job. I've been trying to convince myself it's not so bad, but it's going straight downhill again. I'm a fool for not quitting when I had the chance. Fuck.

It started today at 2:00 when I asked Cathy, "Are we definitely getting books on Monday?"

"We can talk about this later. Right now it's 2:00 and you have to start class."

"Yeah, well, I'd be happy to start class on time if we had a book, Cathy."

"I see. Can you take attendance now?"

I looked at my cell phone. 1:59. "Cathy, it's not 2:00 o'clock. We don't have to start class exactly on time like robots, you know." As usual, more than half the kids hadn't arrived yet either.

Anyway, that's the same BS I deal with everyday. Now back to the topic: books. Get a load of this. After class, to my surprise, Cathy came to my desk with copies of the teachers' books for three of the four classes. Well, great, I thought. Finally! Before handing them to me, however, she struggled (and she should have just said nothing) to explain how she got them. "You have to know Bonnie is so busy these days. I'm suffer from the stress. The other teachers [she means the other teachers' assistants] yelled at me about my ask for books for you."

"What? Who yelled? What are you talking about? You said we're getting books on Monday. I didn't ask for them."

"Because I know you want using book. If you have a book you teaching better and easier. I think so. So I ask Bonnie many times and the other teachers scolded me."

"The other teachers don't have books?"

"These days, nobody use books. Except you now."

"What? Are you kidding? What do the other teachers do every day?"

"Phonics and activities and games. I think that's good. They spend the time making good plans. But you need book, I know."

Imagine me as I sat there listening to this frustrating, insulting spiel. I've spent the last 3 months basically with no real book, teaching phonics and games and activities - and doing a great job of it I might add seeing as we got 21 new kids to sign up - all the while looking forward to finally getting some real books. The nerve of me!

Then, get this. Cathy went on to suggest that I actually call Bonnie and thank her for the books. "She's kind, I think. She's so busy but she came here today to give these to me. You are lucky. I had to come here 11:00 because of you need books."

A few months ago I may have bit my lip and shrugged this off, but these days I find myself snapping quickly and half-yelling at her. "First of all," I started, "I don't understand what you're telling me. It sounds like I'm making some big problem around here because I want a book to teach with. What kind of English program doesn't supply kids with any books? That's ridiculous! And you're the one who told me we're getting new books on Monday. I didn't know that was a problem for you. I don't get it! Why did the other teachers yell at you?"

"I asked Bonnie about the books many times. They told me Bonnie's so busy and I shouldn't ask for books. I didn't know that before."

"You know what, Cathy. I don't care that Bonnie is busy. This is her program and her job. She has to supply me with books. That's common sense. I'm tired of teaching class with no materials. We couldn't even use the damn copy machine until this week. Why do I have to thank her for giving me books? She should call and thank me for teaching with no materials." [I realize I should be telling this to Bonnie - hell, I should have called her during class time and reamed her out and then stormed out of the building into a fiery sunset].

"You should to make the curriculum and materials, the other teachers said."

"I don't care what they say. I am a part-time teacher. They are full-time. They get a salary. They get paid to go in and make games and materials. We don't. I've been doing the best I can with no books and pulling it off. You think it's OK to work for free and that's fine. You do what you want. But I'm not going to make activities, games and materials in my free time. I might if I didn't waste 3 hours a day travelling back and forth, but that's the way it is. I don't think wanting a book is an outrageous request is it? Forget it, I don't want to talk about it anymore. All I know is I have new books finally and that's good."

Seriously, she should have just given me the books and said nothing about it. To make matters worse, the books are inane. I'm not making this up. It's as if Bonnie picked the worst possible ones just to spite me. I wish to hell I had my camera to show you. Just picture full size pages with one item on each page such as a classroom object. A full page. A picture of a pencil. 50 minutes.

I tried to shrug the frustration off again, but on the way home I felt very depressed. What am I doing with my life? I love living here, but I hate teaching here. What can I do? What are my options? If only money grew on soju bottles...sigh. I found myself getting annoyed easily on the train, too. People kept bumping into me and pushing me out of the way. A group of older women, whom at one time I may have considered charming and sociable, were chattering obnoxiously loud and I almost told them to shut up. Later, on the Songnae bus, I nearly fell as the driver slammed on the breaks and wailed the horn. Finally, I passed by the health-club and it looks like the untimely remodelling will never be finished by Monday.

Lately I've decided I'm going to stop recommending people try teaching in this country. Don't come here. Don't even think about it. Read my book, the three of you who bought it, but only focus on the worst parts of my experience. That's the way it really is. There's no Island of Fantasy - so keep dreaming. Don't let it take you four years to make the realization.

Even when you love teaching the kids, as I do at my school - they are the main reason I stayed - there's so much stupid BS that ruins the experience. It's good money, sure, but it's not worth it. Not at all. Though not for everybody, living in Korea is a lot of fun. no doubt about it - especially if you have a lots of friends or a girlfriend - but teaching in Korea is an utterly horrendous ordeal. Every job I've had here has been a nightmare, now that I think about it. Even the easiest of schedules/jobs bring about the worst of stress. I think I need a break - and soon. For now, time to crack open a beer. Phew.

2005-03-16T19:09:00.000+09:00

KLB - New Class

Well, I got my new class today. It has 12 students in it. There's something about starting a new class with new kids that is inspiring. You can totally take charge and lay the groundwork for a smoothe class. I set the tone today by introducing classroom language: stand up, sit down, raise your hand, stop and listen, take out your pencil, etc. They went from running all about the room at the beginning of class to being virtual puppets of mine by the end. We finished with a fun game of Simon Says. Tomorrow I will start phonics. The rest of the new kids have been dispursed throughout the other levels. It was actually a very good day, despite having no books. I think I can manage until the end of the week anyway. Maybe I'm just in a good mood, but it dawned on me after school that I just made $110 teaching from 1-4:50 with three ten minute breaks. When you think of all the people working their fingers to the bones for a few dollars a day, I have to consider myself a lucky person. Sometimes I lose site of that and bitch and moan about the BS, but deep down I do know I'm fortunate.

Cathy, on the other hand...once again she informed me today that she slept just two hours last night. I asked why - a big mistake.

"I was at the office until 2:00 AM."

"What? Why?" [don't ask questions Shawn]

"First I had meeting. Then I had to call the parents, then do the paper work and organize and..."

I've stopped feeling any pity for her, not that I felt much to begin with. I still think she enjoys being a martyr and that she could stand up for herself if she wanted. After living with Julie so long, this "I have to do like this - I'm Korean" crap doesn't cut it with me. Learn how to be confident - or at least efficient. Why does she work 12 hours/day for a job that pays her for 3? That doesn't call for pity, admiration or respect. It's just stupid. I mean come on, she has more education than I do. She's just a few classes away from her MA degree in English Education. Assuredly she could do better. Then again, I guess she will be doing better once she gets the degree. No. I know her - she will always suffer at work no matter what job it is.

Tonight I stopped off at the grocery store downstairs in Hyundai Department Store. I wish I had my camera so I could snap some pics of the delicious meal I picked up for Julie and I: some fusion noodles and rice dish and 2 giant stuffed mandu dumplings. She should be pleasantly surprised when she comes through the door in a few minutes.

In other news, I finally beat Ninja Gaiden the other night and plan on taking a break from the Xbox - maybe. I don't have much to do these days actually. I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I joined a health club. I worked out for less than two weeks, busting my butt, and then they closed down without warning for remodelling. They have been closed for nearly three weeks. So nice of them to have told me that when I signed up. And it's not because they can't speak English either - Julie was with me. Anyway, they will finally be reopening on Monday and I'm pretty sure my three month membership will renew at that time. It makes me mad though because I could have had a month under my belt by now. Now it's like starting for the first time again.

Well, Julie is just about here so I'm going to get things ready for dinner. See you soon.

2005-03-15T22:58:00.000+09:00

KLB - Seoul Magazine Interview

I forgot to follow up about the interview/photo shoot with Seoul Magazine. You can get a brief feel of what it was like here at James' site. It wasn't a lot of fun due mostly to the whipping cold, but not too bad and we all walked away with box sets of 7 Korean DVDs (photo should go here if I had a camera). A really nice set, actually.

You will see, depending on what they publish, the difference between first and third place bloggers. For example, Question 1:

"Are you a kind of celebrity in the cyber world among expatriates in Seoul?"

James:

Not a chance. [struggles desperately to recall some recognition, then:]
I occasionally meet people in bars around town who've seen this site- the conversation normally goes like this-

Bloke:"Aren't you that guy?"
Me: "It wasn't me, I was at home playing cards the entire time, you can ask anyone"
Bloke: "'Getting Lost in Seoul.com' or something right?"
Me: "Oh the website, yeah that's me- do you read it?"
Bloke: "Not really, I just look at the photos."
Me: "Oh right, so do you like..."
Bloke: "Is that Sam girl here?"
Me: *sigh*

Shawn:

"Well, it's not as bad as it was a few years ago, but I still can't walk down the street without someone shouting, 'Holy Jesus! There's that Korea Life Blog guy!' Same in Japan."

2005-03-15T13:16:00.000+09:00

KLB - The Roller Coaster of Work

OK, here you have it: yesterday, a Monday of all days, was officially the last day of our program's semester. In case you haven't been following, the school's new semester started a week and a half ago. The change in the students' school schedules seriously affected my classes. Everything has been in disarray - mixed levels, no books, students showing up 10, 20, 30 minutes late.

On Friday Cathy informed we would be having a party Monday (today) and not studying. Thank God, I thought.

So I skipped in today in high spirits, expecting a relaxing, playful day with the kids. Wrong. Cathy had prepared a small party for the end of each class and told me I had to teach until then. Great.

At exactly 2:00, when only 2 out of 6 kids had shown up, she began her, "Shawn, please take attendance," routine. [She's switched from taking it herself to telling me to do it since Connie told her it's my class and my job]. As you can imagine, this pissed me off. However, I kept my cool by telling myself things will be on track soon. I ended up reviewing for tomorrow's level test for 40 minutes.

Then again at 3:00 Cathy told me again to start the next class. This time, however, only 4 of 17 kids had arrived yet. I told Cathy we could wait a bit and to stop worrying. We have no books or materials anyway.

"No, Shawn. It's time for study," she said again. "Play a game or do something."

This time I just ignored her. I was so pissed off at her acting like she's my boss. Just to spite her, I opened the English Time book, stared at the pages and ignored her. She stood in the back, watching me like a police officer. I had all I could do to keep from blowing my top. A bit later, she took her phone and snuck out of the room. While she was gone, the students started arriving and so I started class by reviewing for the level test. Then Cathy came back and interrupted me, saying Bonnie was on the phone for me. Now picture all the kids watching me take the phone and staring as Bonnie tells me this:

"The vice principal just called me and said you are late starting class and reading a book. Actually a parent complained about it."

"Are you kidding?"

"No, are you reading a book? What's going on there?"

"Listen, I'm standing in front of the kids and trying to start class. Can this wait until after school?"

"Well, not really. This is an emergency."

"Is Cathy the vice principal? I know she just called you - I saw her!" I started getting loud and turning red. The kids were dead quiet watching me. Looking back I should have taken the phone into the hall but it was all such a shock at the time I was dumbfounded. As I got angry, Bonnie started to back down and told me not to worry and sorry to bother me, everything is fine, etc. Wtf? How ridiculous. I hung up with her and started yelling at Cathy. "What, am I stupid? What is your damn problem?"

"What? I didn't do anything wrong. She called me and said there was a problem and she wanted to talk to you."

"Whatever. If there's a problem, don't hand me the phone in front of the students. Tell her to call me after class next time."

I didn't talk to her for the rest of the day. In fact, I felt so pissed off I couldn't even teach. I just let the kids do whatever until Cathy finally started the party. Way to ruin a great day.

That was yesterday. Today things calmed down a bit because of "level testing." Can you believe this? Our program has just gotten a whopping 21 new students. Apparently I must be doing something right as a teacher, but you wouldn't know it the way everyone acts.

If you noticed, I enclosed "level testing" in quotes because all of the new students have already been assigned to a level. I got the new attendance list before the tests even began.

"Then why are we doing a level test today, Cathy?"

"We have to know what the students levels are."

"But you already planned the classes."

"Bonnie want us to do like this."

In other words, today was all a big waste of time as usual. I sat there all day doing level tests with kids who have already been placed in levels. There was a bright side though, if you can call this a bright side. Almost all of the new kids know absolutely nothing. Sounds bad, but it occurred to me that all my students had been like that at one time. I had forgotten what that was like. It was kind of funny when I was interviewing them. The new kids would stare at me blankly as I asked simple questions while my students whipped off phonics, read small passages, and answered a variety of questions with complete sentences. Yet the only feedback I get for my work is "are you reading a book and not starting class on time?"

To add insult to injury, at the end of class Cathy told me we won't be getting any books until next week. So I have 4 classes of 15 kids each to deal with and no books. I'm starting to wish I quit when I had the chance. Ugh. Teaching in Korea really sucks sometimes.

2005-03-15T11:45:00.000+09:00

KLB - I Spoke too Soon

Had a blowout with Cathy at work yesterday. I don't have time to write about it now. I just got the computer up and running and updated, etc. Yesterday it wouldn't boot up right and this computer doesn't boot into safemode the usual way. So I brought it over to the shop where I bought the computer to ask how you do it - bad mistake. They said "no problem" and told me they would fix it and to come back in a little while. Great, I thought, Unfortunately what they really meant was, "No problem, we'll reinstall Windows for you." Everything was gone. Oh well. I didn't have much on it really. Everything is on the Xbox or on DVD disks. So the computer is pretty much back to where I had it before. They did a bunch of tests too, I guess, and said everything is fine with the disk. At least that's something.

So stay tuned until later to hear about what happened at work. At least then you'll get the story and the follow up as well.

2005-03-13T13:51:00.000+09:00

KLB - First Shot

Well, it took a few days but my sister finally figured out how to use the camera (she had been using the disposable kind) and send pictures to me. Here is the first shot I got and the first time I've seen my nephew, Michael, who is named after my father. I must say he is adorable. My sister is completely excited with her new camera and I'm happy for her. It also makes me miss having one of my own. If I don't order one from the states, maybe I'll have to break down and get one from Walmart or something.

2005-03-11T17:54:00.000+09:00

KLB - Friday...Finally

Finally it's Friday and the weekend is here. Too bad the weather turned cold again. Not a lot to report on, really - as you can already tell by my reference to the weather. I'm waiting for Julie to come home so we can go out and eat some kalbi or sam gyeop sal or something. We may or may not go out afterward. I don't want to have a hangover tomorrow when I go to have my photos taken for Seoul Magazine. I look horrible enough as it is in pictures (but super handsome and cool in real life, of course).

Speaking of photos, my sister got her camera today, or I should say last night. Only I can do something so stupid as to have it sent to her previous address, which Amazon.com had kept on file from when I ordered her some books and toys for her kids. The UPS tracking said it had been delivered yesterday, exactly on her birthday...which would have been perfect, doh. I just realized what happened today when we were trying to figure out where it was. She didn't know what I got her either. I had told her to be on the look out for a gift in the mail, but kept downplaying what it was. But when I realized what happened I had to tell her. So, at 10PM her time, she trekked all the way across town to her old house. Sure enough the package was sitting right there on her old doorstep (apparently you don't have to sign for UPS ground packages anymore?), outside right by the sidewalk. Anyone could have taken it, but luckily nobody did. Turns out nobody is living in the house yet. Once she figures out how to use it, hopefully I can get some photos of my niece and nephew and shots from around exciting Watertown, NY. Won't that be a treat!

Well, I've been sitting and staring at the screen for the last 10 minutes trying to figure out what else to write about. Work has been pretty ordinary. I kind of miss the days when I'd come home heated and worked up over something, but everything seems to have mellowed out since I said I'd quit. Nobody bothers me lately. Cathy seems to have really calmed down finally. Who knows what's to come, but for now it's been nice.

The kids are as cute as ever - especially those little girls. I feel like a rock star the way they follow me around. Damn cute. I hate to say it, but when I have kids - I'll be somewhat disappointed if I don't have a girl. Maybe it runs in my family. My father was always closer to my sister than me, except when it came to sports and fishing. My mother ways preferred me over my sister, and with good reason. My sister was a handful growing up compared to me - and my father was at work most of the time so he didn't get that part of her. I was always very shy and quiet.

Anyway, I'm kind of looking forward to the new class I have starting next Wendesday. At that time the kids will be in the appropriate levels again and we're getting real books again finally too. I've ignored the new "books" all I can and stretched the English Time books as far as they will go. That's not such a bad thing, though. I've learned it's better to use one book for a very long time. They know all the material inside and out and probably won't forget what they've learned as they would if I hurried through the series. It still amazes me how much they have retained. Of course the most important thing I've taught has been phonics. It's a nice feeling when your students can read because of you. I never thought I'd care about something like that, but I do. All this talk about loving kids and being a good teacher - yikes! What's happening to me suddenly? I guess I'm growing up. Well, time to get off the computer and play some Xbox games. Gonna watch The Smurfs DVDs later too. Whoo hoo!

2005-03-09T21:08:00.000+09:00

KLB - Three Witnesses

Today I went into work to find three women standing in the back of the room. They're from another program and watched my classes. I just love how almost every week someone or other comes in to watch me all day. However, it's getting so that I'm so used to this that it barely bothers me anymore. I just smiled and introduced myself then went about the usual teaching routine. I didn't even cringe when Cathy started taking pictures of me.

Afterward the women told me how handsome I am and how kind I am to the kids - so it wasn't so bad. I'm going to get an ego working at this school.

Good news on one front: I emailed Bonnie and she called and said I don't have to write the report cards again. She didn't know we just did them two weeks ago, because - guess why? Cathy didn't bother to tell her. I guess when Bonnie had told her we should write them, Cathy simply agreed without mentioning that we just did them two weeks ago. Bonnie thanked me for telling her.

Julie and I had a nice dinner at TGIF tonight. We go there about once every three or four months, I guess. And every time we leave there I think about how I could have eaten big meals like that on a regular basis when I lived in New York. The food seems so big and we felt completely stuffed. She's about ready to fall asleep now and I'm about ready to flip on the Xbox.

Oh, I forgot to mention that a couple of us bloggers will be doing an interview for Seoul Magazine this weekend. According to Julie, who handled the phone call, we will be getting our photos taken somewhere on Saturday and will be featured on the cover of the next issue. I know one of the other guys is this year's third place winner for best Korea blog, Mr. Swiss James, over at Lost Bowls. I'm pretty sure that, according to traditon, the third place winner is required to buy dinner and lots of beer for the first place winner and his girlfriend and then put on hanbok and bow three times before handing over the prizes (digital camera and mp3 player). I'm not sure if he's aware of that yet though. Somebody better tell him quickly.

2005-03-09T00:52:00.000+09:00

KLB - The Excuses Continue

I've gone through phases before where I don't update the blog regularly, but the difference is I'm feeling less and less guilty about it these days. To be honest, I just don't have all that much to say. Nothing really interesting that I can write about has been going on. However, I do forecast things will pick up soon now that spring just about here - as long as I get a camera soon, that is. Or if I change jobs.

The job is going fairly well. The principal must have felt guilty because she told Cathy yesterday we can use the coffee machine and copy machine too again. I don't know, though. It's nice of her, but I haven't rushed downstairs to the office yet.

One thing pissed me off today. I just filled out 50 report cards less than 2 weeks ago, so when Cathy handy me a new stack to fill out again today, I was, of course, less than thrilled. Apparently Bonnie wants me to do 50 more for the end of the semester. I told Cathy that I'm not doing them because nothing has changed in the past 2 weeks and I'd just be writing the same comments again. As you can imagine, Cathy panicked and said I have to do them because Bonnie said so. I'll call Bonnie tomorrow and personally tell her to forget it. Maybe I'll wait until Friday, since Thursday is payday.

As you can see, there's not a lot to report on. Keep checking in though because at any given moment you may stop in to find the update of a lifetime.

2005-03-04T19:23:00.000+09:00

KLB - Shame on Shawn

I got several e-mails today criticizing me for my recent posts about piracy (as well as several more wondering what sites/software I'm using) including one from a guy who highly detailed how my downloading The Simpsons hurts the little guys that make the show. The little guys include the company that animates the show here in South Korea, he noted.

I guess he didn't take into account the possibility that, despite being fond of the cartoon, I'd never buy a whole season on DVD. I'm just not that big of a fan. If I was, I really would buy them because I'd want the real thing. For me, especially living in Korea it's nice that I am able to see some episodes for free though - since I don't get them on TV through Skylife. Anyway, I think some people have me confused with the people creating the problem and the pirates that profit from their evil-doing.

Some other people e-mailed me wondering what happened with the coffee-set I got. One Korean guy even strongly urged me against doing it!

I decided not to give the gift set, actually. I realized I would be doing it for the wrong reason. If I really did feel badly and wanted make it up to them, it would be fine. But I'd just be doing it to make them feel guilty and that's no better than the petty way they've treated me/Cathy.

Speaking of Cathy, she had to go to her weekly meeting at the agency again yesterday and was there until 12 a.m. again. Then she had to go to the school today early in the morning for a meeting with the principal. She puts in 40 hours a week for a job that pays her three hours/day. She also has to go in next week for the level-testing and won't be paid, she told me. "I have to work two days for free," she said. I'm not sure whether I pity her because she has to work so hard for nothing, or because she is to weak to protest against it. After all, doesn't her acceptance just perpetuate the problem and make it easier for her to be taken advantage of even more?

I know Julie wouldn't put up with that. She didn't at her last job - when her boss started shady practices, she simply quit. Now she's at a school that is so much better, by the way. This school pays her for extra work and pays her on time. She's really happy now. Had she put up with the way her previous boss was treating her, she'd still be stuck there with the others miserable teachers.

Again, I don't know how to respond to her when she tells me things like this. All I could say was, "You work so hard. I don't know how you do it."

It's really annoying, but not hard to believe. Bonnie, without guilt or shame, exploits Cathy's blind, uncomplaining, Confusianistic devotion to authority, and she does so at every opportunity. It's no wonder many Koreans resent foreigners here. If I were Cathy, I'd probably hate me. We're guests in the country yet are often given better opportunities than they are. Bosses resent us too, because unlike someone like Cathy, we don't put up with being shafted on things like being overworked and underpaid. Julie is a rarity, I guess, because she has had a lot of western influence (too much Oprah!). Too bad every place can't be as fair to both sides as is the case at Julie's school, though. Everyone is treated fairly there, she says. The pay is high and on time, and she always gets paid for extra duties. That makes her happy and she really works hard and enjoys her job now. That's the way it should be.

In other news, I bought a digital camera - nope, not for me, for my sister. Her birthday is next week. As I said, I can't believe how cheap they are getting in America. I got her this model here: Kodak digital Camera as well as a 128 MB storage card, extra batteries and a charger. I wish I could be there to see the look on her face when she checks the mail. I also can't wait to finally see new pictures of my niece and my new nephew! That's a pretty sweet little camera for the money. I wish I could get deals like that here. I guess I could just order something and have it shipped here, but then with shipping and the import tax, what would be the point? I'm still not sure exactrly what I want anyway - no surprise. It took me a year to decide to buy an Xbox. Someone offered to help me get a camera for a good price from one of the army bases. I'll have to follow up with him sometime soon.

2005-03-03T19:24:00.000+09:00

KLB - More Piracy to You

In other news, I realize what the problem was with the Ninja Gaiden disk. It turns out the bootleggers cut out some of the Japanese movie scenes so the data could be fit on a standard DVD-R disk. I had switched the langauge to Japanese, and therefore when the movie clip was about to play after I beat the level, the gamed failed. I guess that's what you get when you don't pay for what you play - but so far that's the only problem I've had, and it's not much of a problem at that since I just downloaded the game again (I have no will power). The problem would have been avoided had I bothered to read the info file that clearly tells you this.

Speaking of that, really - how much longer will piracy last online? Either that or how much longer before some change happens in the media world as a result of this?

For example, before I went to work today, I started to download The Simpsons Season 3 from a torrent off Torrentreactor.net. Less than 6 hours later when I came home, it had finished. In other words, in that short time I downloaded 24Simpsons episodes that look and sound perfect. A quick transfer to the Xbox, and I can watch them through the TV as if they were on DVD. Not only that, but every season in avaialable. Actually, it seems like every movie, show, video game and software that you could ever want, new or old, is readily available on P2P. I tell you, once more and more people finally convert to DSL in America, the industry is going to have to change...hopefully by making their products cheaper.

There's already a multitude of arguments going around for and against piracy. Yes, it's bad, sure. To start with, though, I guess I share the general poor guy's opinion that all record/movie companies are plain evil and greedy and I am happy I can download things for free. Of course there's more to it than that. To be honest, it's kind of like a cheap thrill. Like most others, I try to justify it by saying I'd never buy what I download anyway. Usually that's true, though assuredly there are a few things I might have bought - such as Ninja Gaiden. But I honestly do purchase my favorites. As a matter of fact, I got the best things I ever ordered: The Smurfs Volume 1 and 2 on DVD from Australia a few weeks back. (In case you're wondering, Volume 3 is being released next week.)

I do want to say that I think pirated goods are beneficial to poor people in developing countries. Think about these poor guys who bust their asses at tortuous jobs for peanuts. It makes me glad to know that if they want they can pick up a movie/music CD for less than a dollar on the street. God bless them. It's just plain wrong that they would have to spend $25 to own a movie. For them, there really is not a chance in hell they would/could pay such a price.

Well, that about does it for this topic again. It's time for me to watch The Simpsons...doh!

2005-03-03T18:27:00.000+09:00

KLB - The Joys of Teaching

The joys of teaching continued today. In a great stroke of planning, our program's semester doesn't change until the week after next but the school's semester changed today. Therefore the students' schedules have changed and in turn all my classes are mixed up. I didn't find this out until the beginning of class today either.

So I have level A students in my B class and B level kids in my C class and general chaos and confusion. My first class has just 5 kids now (down from 12) and the next two have nearly 20 in each. Of course, and this is no surprise, the kids who changed up a level have no new books and they won't be getting any. Several of these students are quitting at the end of our program's semester for various reasons - so they have no incentive to do anything except stare vacantly into space. On the other hand, a bunch of new students will be replacing them and and I guess I'll have a new class too, as I said before.

Basically I'm stuck in limbo between the school's change and ours and I have to wing it until our semester changes and we do level tests next week. It's not going to be easy, though. I didn't know what the hell to do today about the poor kids thrown into advanced levels with no books or comprehension of what's going on in the class. Argh! As a teacher, winging it is not easy in such circumstances.

Today actually stirred up some bad memories. Most of these problems occur on a regular basis in poorly run hagwons. I certainly don't miss that experience and can deal with this for a week until things get back on track. It just never fails to amaze me how stupid some of these education programs can be here and, among a mountain of other things, how much focus is put on trivial things like meticulously detailed paperwork and not enough on effective education of the kids.

2005-03-02T18:25:00.000+09:00

KLB - No Coffee for You!

Yesterday (Korean Independence from Japan Day) was the first time in ages I didn't touch the computer or Xbox (except to watch a movie off the harddrive). All I did was hang out with Julie. It turns out she had been getting fed up with my new obsession. Apparently my sitting hours unend transfixed in front of the TV smashing a controller and muttering incoherently wasn't as much fun for her as for me - go figure. It's OK though because I had already flung Ninja Gaiden out the window a few days back. I'm not kidding. That is one of the hardest games I've ever played. I was on the second to last chapter and just after an impossible battle (in which I died 100 times) I finally beat the level boss. As I was cheering, the screen went blank and an error message popped up that the disk was dirty. Well, that dirty disk is probably still soaring somewhere over the Korean landscape as I write.

That's the thing I don't understand about games. They make you incredibly frustrated yet you keep playing them. I guess it's just like any other addiction. I'm not downloading Ninja Gaiden again right now, I swear. I'm not going outside to look for the disk either.

Today I went off to work in a good mood that lasted through the first class. Then as I was about to get my usual paper-cup of coffee from the school's office, I was told by Cathy we are no longer allowed to drink the school's coffee.

"What? Why not?"

"The principal told me today."

"Yeah, but what's the reason?"

"Because we don't pay for that."

"Well, that's no problem. I'll be happy to pay."

"No, we can't pay either."

"Why not?"

"She said it's not our right to use the coffee machine."

"Are you kidding? That's ridiculous."

[To understand this reaction, you have to know that the "coffee machine" is an old, usually broken, portable paper-cup/coffee dispensing machine like the ones that charge 100-300 won (10 - 30 cents) per cup in restaurants.]

Though Cathy thought nothing of this, it made me feel very awkward and embarrassed. For the past month I've been going down to the office once/day. For one, I enjoyed the coffee - but that wasn't the main point. I thought of it as a chance to be sociable, a good excuse to pop my face in and say hello to the principal and other teachers every day. I thought they appreciated that. I had no idea that behind their smiles they were secretly annoyed that the foreign guy was drinking their coffee.

To top it off, this situation got worse. Cathy saw my face turn red and thought I was angry because I couldn't drink coffee. In a frustrating display of madness, she zipped about and dug up a package of instant coffee mix and a paper cup. At that point I didn't even want coffee anymore. And so the whole thing put me in a bad mood. Yes, sometimes I'm sensitive - but this (and other things) makes me realize once again that we're outsiders and not a real part of the school. As I said, it's not just the coffee. Many things like this have come up in the past. For example, we can't use the copy machine anymore. Can you imagine being a teacher with no access to a copy machine. Well, if I want anything copied I'm supposed to tell Cathy. Of course I never do because she would have to (on her own time) trek to the agency's office in Gangnam (about an hour away) to make them. I also never said anything about this and tried to understand the school might be on a tight budget.

But then it gets petty.

Last week our pencil sharpener broke. Once the extra pencils couldn't be used anymore, I asked Cathy where I could sharpen them. In fact, I wondered why she hadn't sharpened them herself already. "We can't use the school's pencil sharpener," she said meekly. That time I must have turned red too because the next day I was embarrassed to find she went out and bought a pencil sharpener with her own money (which led to another awkward moment where I wasn't sure if I should offer to pay for it). She said that Bonnie doesn't want to pay for things like that either. I already knew that though. Basically if we don't buy it, we don't get it. I buy the pencils and erasers because if I don't, half of my A class students would be unable to write.

I really don't get this pettiness of the principal/school. They just renewed the contract with Bonnie and obviously they and the parents want us there, so what's with the cold shoulder treatment these days?

So this is my plan. I bought a nice coffee gift set from Walmart and a card. I'm going to write this in English and Korean: "I'm very sorry for drinking the school coffee. Please accept this gift and my apology." I'll sign it: "The Foreign Teacher" and put it in the office. That's going to be funny.

2005-02-25T23:05:00.000+09:00

KLB - Xbox Heaven

I just found out (I'm a bit slow) that the Xbox can be used as a media center. All you have to do (besides getting a mod chip) is connect it to the computer and transfer over the XBMC application made by a bunch of aspiring geeks. Now in addition to being a DVD player, the Xbox can also display photos, play mp3s, Divx, Xvid and AVI movies - and whatever other format you want right of its harddrive. All you do is transfer over the media files from your computer using an FTP program and there you have it. I wondered why they tried to sell me a 160 GB harddrive for it when I bought it in Yongsan. I had no idea what purpose there was for such a huge amount of space. Now I see. And since it's only about $130 for the drive, that's really a storage steal of a deal. What a machine!

2005-02-24T18:02:00.000+09:00

KLB - The Good Gets Gooder

Bonnie, the boss, came in again today - surprise (after all it's been almost a week since the last visit) for the monthly birthday party ritual. I hate this day because the kids are distracted by the presence of cake and cola sitting in the back. The parties are only for 10 minutes at the end of each class (but of course run through every break time). Also I hate it because Bonnie sits there and watches me teach all day. Yay! Today I laughed a bit though. By coincidence the principal popped in (after all it's been a week since her last check too) with the Korean version of a superintendent of schools all suited up and official looking - just as the kids were noisily stuffing their faces with cake. I got a kick out of watching Bonnie and Cathy squirm at this.

Well, somewhere along the way Bonnie took me aside and urged me to reconsider the Board of Education job, telling me how easy it is for the money and how they really want me because of my degree/experience, etc. Apparently they can't find any teacher with the relevant degree. She got me thinking again, but I said no. Overall all it does sound like a good job - especially the pay, but I can't just can't take it without housing since I have a reponsibility to half the cost of the office-tel here in Songnae - not to mention poor Julie's broken heart. Living with me has been the joy of a lifetime!

Anyway, since I was adamant, she gave up and moved on to news about my current position. After the recent tribulations you've been reading about, I couldn't believe this luck. She said she knows I haven't put a lot of extra work into this job because it's part-time. Well, she's arranged an extra beginner-level class to start in March, making the job technically full-time, and will be upping my pay accordingly! That means I will make 2.2 million/ month for just 4 classes from 1-5 PM! Whoo hoo! However, she will expect me to arrive at least 15 minutes early now and she hopes this will be incentive to put a "little more effort" into preparation (not really but it will give me more incentive to make it seem like I'm preparing more! muhahah!).

All I could say is, sure, no problem! To think, if I had just accepted her original e-mail I'd be stuck with the same job/pay but with extra work and a feeling somewhere between contempt and worthless inferiority. Now look at the outcome! Someone give me a (delusions of grandeur) medal! The best part is I can continue to teach these great kids without feeling guilty I that should have a better job.

Then the good got even gooder. I picked up a newspaper on the way home and saw the headline: "980 Won Equals 1 Dollar." (See here). Sure, for the past several months the dollar has been falling, but this is better than I ever could have anticipated. If you haven't lived in Korea you have no idea what that means or why that is the best news you can read as a foreigner in Korea. To make it simple, for awhile last year I had to send home a disheartening 1,350,000 won to get home $1000. Now I only have to send 1,000,000 won since the dollar/won is about equal now. That is just awesome. Since the average teacher's salary is 2,000,000, that means we're all making around $600 more a month than just a year ago, that is if you think in USD send the money home like I do. If not, then it doesn't really matter.

I was a bit disappointed though. I just sent home $2000 last week. If I had waited until today, I would have made an extra $100. Oh well - you never know how it will work, but it made me think how easily rich people can get more rich. Simply buying a million dollars of Korean Won a year ago would net you a cool 300 grand now. Can you imagine making money that easily? Sigh.

Not only that, but the news went on to say the Korean currency is expected to get even stronger in coming months. What a great day!

2005-02-24T02:42:00.000+09:00

KLB - Ryu Hayabusa

Listening to: Keane - Everybody's Changing, and Muse - Time is Running Out.

I am no longer Shawn. I have become Ryu Hyubusa, Master (Ninja Gaiden) of the Dragon Sword. Simply put: In order to become the Xbox, you must be the Xbox.

In other news, after some negotiation, I will be staying at my job. Nobody will bother any more and I'm basically free to do as I please. Cathy has been ordered to calm down and relax.

Standing up for myself paid off. Besides, I like taking the train so long everyday - I'm up to lesson 25 of Pimsleur's Japanese 3.

Nothing else new - still exercising and drinking protein shakes. Getting in shape for the summer. Everything is really good actually.

2005-02-17T18:28:00.000+09:00

KLB - The Meeting

Today was pretty funny. I got to work at the usual time: 12:55, toting a coffee latte in one hand. Bonnie was waiting for me, but it was time to start class. I planned it that way actually. The kids swarmed me as usual when I arrived. I got things in order and taught a great lesson. The kids were on fire, answering all the questions so eagerly. About 30 minutes later Bonnie asked Cathy to take over so I could meet with her. This is where it gets funny.

Basically she started kissing my ass. She said she was "overwhelmed" by the progress the kids have made. She also said she read my letter and that she is sorry for everything. "I like you. You're a good person and you have a great personality. I see now how much the I kids love you. I gave the wrong impression. Everything is fine..." blah blah blah...

Then it came: an offer to either stay at the school as is, or another offer - a full-time job working for the Korean Board of Education in Seoul starting in early March. What the hell? I couldn't believe it. I expected this terrible, awkward meeting, perhaps ending with me storming off the school grounds in a rage - but here she was complimenting me, urging me to stay or take a higher paying job.

The pay is fantastic, but it's kind of a bizarre job. The schedule is 9:00 - 3:00. In the morning I would report to a different elementary school every day and teach the same lesson all week. An hour for lunch, then I'd go back to the office and teach Korean teachers for two hours in the afternoon. All I can think of is what another ridiculous program that's destined to fail. I mean, how ineffective a system is that? Instead of just spending the money to get a foreign teacher in every school, they're obviously looking to save funds by having one teacher go to all the schools in a district. Talk about spreading your resources thin! They certainly can't expect the kids to learn much from that - and if they do, that's a lot of pressure on the teacher.

Then, to top it off, that same super-hero teacher has to teach loads of teachers from the district too - most of whom probably just want to go home for the day not sit there with a foreigner for two hours.

In fact, because it's a new program, the contract is only for a 6 month probationary period with an option to renew at the end.

Bonnie says wants me there because I have a degree in English Education, a requirement. As I said, the pay is great: 2,800,000 won/month (about $2700, or $2600 clear after taxes!). Housing is not included though, but that's still good pay. There are several problems of course:

1. I'd have to move to Seoul by myself as Julie works near here.

2. Teaching 20-30 Korean teachers two hours/day sounds like hell - but I'm not sure. Maybe it would be fun, maybe not. I taught a large class of adults before at Samsung in Ulsan and it was pretty fun. They liked to take me out all gthe time. I don't know how Koreans can drink so much and get up for work at 7:00 - it's amazing. I guess that wouldn't happen so much with teachers. They're probably mostly women anyway. Women don't usually get smashed here with the "one shot" ritual like men. Anyway, this class isn't the biggest worry.

3. I'd be working for the government, meaning if I screw up I may as well forget teaching in Korea again.

4. Dealing with 15 other teachers every week (since I'd be teaching 3 different classes at 5 different schools) - I forsee some problems with that.

5. (This is so typically Korean) I have to make the decision by "early" tomorrow morning.

Problems 1 and 5 are the big ones, of course. I hate having to make a decision so quickly - but in Korea it's either do it fast or lose out to the next guy. That's damn good pay for a job that finishes at 3:00. Too bad it's all the way on the other side of the city...ugh!

2005-02-16T23:08:00.002+09:00

KLB - My Reply

Since I've lost pretty much all interest in this job I had no qualms about writing this reply:

Listen, the reason I didn't complain to you about the materials is
because I don't like complaining to my boss. I complained to Cathy,
but I thought that was in private. That she reports everything I say
and do to you makes me not want to talk to her at all.

I don't even know what the problem is because I have taught 95% of the
material in the new books - with some exceptions with difficult
readings. Now, you seem to imply that part of that problem is my
students ability level is lower than other schools. That makes me
angry because these kids are fantastic and I feel pride when I see how
smart they are and how much they have learned. They are far above
average for their age group and that is because I supplemented the
sub-standard materials you gave me with interesting, exciting lessons
in phonics, conversation and writing. Have you ever seen kids so
excited about learning? Well it isn't because of your curriculum -
that's for sure.

I'm sorry but the books your agency made are nothing but a
bunch of random photocopied pages from other books bound together.
Perhaps your other teachers haven't had a problem becuase they don't
want to complain either or their assistants haven't told you
everything as mine has. You know what? I have a degree in English
Education from a State University of NY and 5 years teaching
experience in America and Korea - when I say that these are the worst books I've ever used, I mean it. However, this is the point: I didn't complain
to you before and I still taught the material because that's my job.
So what is the problem here exactly? Maybe the problem is I didn't
teach everything 100% on schedule, but that's because it's important
the kids learn the material before moving forward. I'm sorry I didn't
call you and tell you exactly what my thinking was...

The only other material I've been having trouble with is the
Rainforest Theme. It's a big waste of time teaching kids about obscure
animals that even American adults don't know the names of. And without
being able to use Korean in the classroom, it's next to impossible to
teach about the science of rainforests. It's also not very exciting.
I'm sorry again I didn't report that to you, but I didn't want to
complain about these bad ideas.

I'm sorry, but I just don't have free time enough to make extra
preperations. If you wanted to pay me a few more hours a week to come
in and prepare, that would be fine. I would happily do so without pay,
even if I lived only an hour away. But as it is, I spend 3 hours/day
just to get to and from work. That's a big waste of time and has
prevented me from finding part-time work. I haven't complained to you
about that either - but I don't think you should expect more from me.
Yes, I agreed to this, but if you recall, you needed a teacher ASAP
and I had to make a quick decision. The reality turned out to be much
harder than I expected.

As for Cathy - I understand she is a very hard worker and so serious.
I often feel sorry for her that she has to work so hard for so little.
If she worked for me, I would never make her work that hard. She tells
me that she sometimes stays at your office until 12 AM! Sometimes she is
so stressed out that she gets blisters on her mouth and she tells me all
the time that she sleeps just a few hours every night. I don't understand
why everyone has to take work so damn seriously. Maybe it's a cultural
difference, but that's over the top.

Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow. To tell you the truth, I'm not
looking forward to it. I've made up my mind I don't want to deal with
these headaches over a part-time job anymore. That's a shame for both
you and the kids. I know for sure they will really miss me. I know I'll
be very sad to say goodbye to them, too.

2005-02-16T21:03:00.000+09:00

KLB - Bonnie's Reply

I got a reply from Bonnie. What a load of BS this "part-time" job comes with. Sometimes I think without being able to unload my thoughts on my website, I may just blow up like a balloon and pop. This and the health club are great stress relievers. So sit back and enjoy her reply and my added commentary:

Dear Shawn,

Thanks for your reply and I really appreciate your honest comments. [Has she been taking diplomacy lessons from Condoleeza Rice?]

First of all, don't get me wrong. I wanted to keep you at our classroom
because everybody was enjoying your class including myself. I always felt good whenever I visited the classroom [OK, then - it sounds like everything is terrific. No need to bother me anymore!] and I tried to compromise your lateness [she means my not coming in early enough - I've only been officialy late once. I would definitely go in early if I lived even just an hour away...] with the quality of teaching you have given to us.

However, as time went by, I kept getting repeated feedback and obviously it
seemed you did not enjoy the variety of curriculum I gave to you. [The variety? I have one book for each class made up of a bunch of random, poorly photocopied pages from equally random books - it's the worst book I've ever seen with no continuity. One minute I'm teaching about the food Kangaroos eat, the next about how little Johnny lost his baseball cap. They should have just went on to the next English Time!]

As I said before, you did not have to follow everything what the book has
but we needed to have prior conversation before skipping some parts of the
curriculum. [Even though the book stinks, I only skipped a couple of things - some ridiculously difficult readings and the equally silly rainforest theme. I'm supposed to teach that one class a week. All the materials she gave me for this theme are photocopied pictures of obscure rainforest animals with bizaare names like Cock of the Rock (did I tell you I found a new name for 'little Shawn'?). I did try to teach it a little but obviously Cathy reported that I didn't teach it enough.]

Without knowing the problem, I could not escape from pointing out thing
needed to be resolved. [Yes, that's because I've learned in Korea it's better not to complain and to do your best with what's given. I bitched and moaned on this site and to Cathy - which I though was in confidence, but obviously it wasn't...] Otherwise, you need to develop or find other stuff to supplement the book I have given you but I did not think that worked either. [Earth to Bonnie - that's why I've been teaching phonics, conversation, games and writing! Hello?]

I did not have any problem at other schools in using same curriculum [this tells me that either the other teachers are nitwits (highly liklely) or that they have assistants who don't report every detail of what's actually going on to the boss] and I do understand that some parts of the book does not meet the level of classes at your specific school. [This really pisses me off. She has implied several times that the problem is my students ability. That's BS because these kids are fantastic for their age and I have been very proud of how much they have learned already. They know English Time inside and out, all the conversations, vocabulary, songs, etc., and a lot of other things I've taught including how to read and write and also grammar (Class C). The problem is definitely not their level - it's this poorly planned book! Also, in a perfect world, Cathy would spend her time making useful materials and supplemental lessons rather than interfering with my class and wasting time writing minutely detailed paperwork for Bonnie - I'm sorry but I don't get paid to go in on my free time to prepare materials. But that's not really the reason, either. I would gladly do extra things if she did some things back such as paid a sick day now and again. She gets the same pay from the parents if I'm there or not anyway. In fact, she probably likes it when the teachers are sick because she ends up pocketing that money! Maybe she put the flu in my coffee cup last week!]

The point is that I really value your quality of teaching. Most of all, your
class is very enjoyable overall. [Here we go again!] However, not only you judge the class but many different sources are involved in there including students [Can you repeat that please?] They do not want to waste time during the class [the only time that's wasted is time teaching the new books! - I really don't know what Cathy is telling her but I have never taught so hard before and been so effective as a teacher - what the hell does she expect?] and my role is to listen to everybody's opnion and find the best way to keep this running well [the best way is to not be so involved. We have not had any kids quit with a few exceptions, and those were kids whose parents never paid the tuition. I have the same number of students I started with so what's the problem?]

I really wanted you to stay until the contracted time in finding the best solution for everybody. [Then you should have butted out]. I know Cathy is not a fluent speaker but I need her to be there for taking care of children and doing paperwork to satisfy school requirement - which is also important to me. She is a very hardworker and serious [she sure is!]

If you made up your mind already, it is not a problem to prepare all the
necessary paperwork for you. [Phew - good news!] But I would like to speak to you tomorrow to discuss anything make this situation better for both of us, I will be there at 12:30 pm and wait for you [oh boy! I'm looking forward to that so much!]

And sorry for the salary payment, I did not try to cut anything from you,
insteady, I need to be fair for everybody. [translation: if a teachers misses a day - she actually makes more money by not paying them] If I do not have the restriction
on sick or any personal days off, I will be more difficult to maintain [translatuion: she will make less money].

I know your are commuting from distance, but please understand I am supporting
part of your transportation even thought it would be very little for you. [I don't know what the point is here. Is she saying this is some great benefit? The reason she is paying this fee is because she was in desperate need of a teacher at the time. Remember, she hired me a few days before the job started. She gave me no time to consider the job. I acted skeptical about the travelling and that's when she added the travel fee.]

Anyways, thanks for reading and replying my long letters [yes - they sure are long. What a lot of time and hassle you would have saved yourself would had you not written in the first place!] and hope to see and sit down with you to have a little conversation tomorrow. [Great - a conversation that is sure to piss me off right before I have to teach again.]

Please let me know if I could assist you in anything. [OK - you can assist me by brining the paperwork and not bothering mre anymore].

Thanks,
Bonnie

Stay tuned to see what transpires tomorrow. It should be interesting.

2005-02-16T18:16:00.000+09:00

KLB - An Odd Day

Today I snapped at Cathy for the first time. I just had a great lesson with the Class A kids. They're finally back on course after a rocky start after the vacation. I was impressed by how much phonics they've retained, even with the time off. Almost every kid can recognize every letter and sound and also spell all the simple words (sit, hot, sat, set, pin, pet, car, cup, nut, far, etc). That is serious progress considering before they didn't even know the basic alphabet yet. It's really amazing. They also remember every part of their English Time 1 books and can sing all the songs too. So, I was very happy with them.

At 1:47 I stopped class to hand out stickers and get the kids ready to go. It always takes at least 5 minutes to get them out the door. Sure enough, Cathy interjected. "Shawn!" she exclaimed. "We have four minutes. We have to teaching more!"

"Cathy!" I snapped. "Don't tell me what time it is because I'm not stupid. I know what time it is. I have to hand out stickers and they have to clean up. Stop bothering me."

She turned beat red and started apologizing. Normally I'd feel bad but today I didn't. I didn't talk to her for the rest of the day and took full charge of every class, as it should be. At the end of the day she said, "Shawn, I think I pissed you off today. I'm sorry."

Something about her choice of words and the way she said it made me chuckle and things immediately lightened up. Then she asked me about Bonnie's e-mail and if I decided to quit. "If you quit, I have to quit too, I think."

"Why's that?"

"Because we're a team. I want to working with only you this school."

Is she for real? I thought, looking at her oddly. What is with this misguided creature. She wants to work with me yet she seems to be complaining to Connie about everything. So I told her I made the decision to quit. I said it was mostly because of the distance and also because I need regular pay and benefits, etc. I also mentioned what Bonnie said in her e-mail.

"No, please don't quit, Shawn. I think you really like the students so much. It will be big problem too. The girls, I know they going to cry if you go. They always tell to me about you. They love you. It sometimes amazes me."

"I love the kids, too. But Bonnie said that's not enough. She doesn't think I'm a good teacher. I think the kids are learning a lot. That's what is important, isn't it?"

"Sometimes Bonnie makes me angry. You have to stay here, please. Will you reconsider? I don't want to work with another teacher. No, it will be bad situation. You're a good teacher, I think so. That's why the school wants the program to continue. You know the last prgram here failed so quickly. That means we're doing good job, I think. Sometime I feel the pride about that."

"Well, you tell that to Bonnie instead of telling her that I read a book and sit down sometimes. That made me angry, Cathy. I don't want this situation where I have to worry what you tell to my boss every week."

"No, no, no. That was my mistake. If I talk to Bonnie will you reconsider? Please?"

"I already made my decision. Bonnie can talk to me if she really wants me to stay, but she will have to make a good offer to change my mind."

Hehe, I wonder what will happen now. Maybe I'll end up with a sweet deal - or maybe not. Still, I realize now if the kids find out I'm leaving they will moan and groan to their parents, I'm sure. Especially the little girls. Leaving the kids would be the worst part about quitting, for sure. It's amazing how much you can become attached to other people's kids.

2005-02-15T23:42:00.000+09:00

KLB - Response

Well, Cathy told me that "Bonnie" is waiting anxiously for my e-mail reply, so I finally took the time to put my thoughts into words. Here for you is the exact letter I wrote her and sent. Think what you want of me, but I'm proud of myself that I don't cower to employers and that I never will. Luckily I haven't been brainwashed by my American upbringing yet.

In a day and age where we've been convinced into accepting the system, into feeling guilty when we don't strive to be excellent employees, I'm surprised that still - I just don't care. The only things that important to me are my health and well being. To me all other ills are imaginary. Stressing yourself out over your job - what's the point, really?

I'm sorry for the delayed reply, but I needed time to think about your e-mail.

As you know and have kindly pointed out, I really have been enjoying
teaching these kids. I don't think I've ever had classes of children
so excited about learning English, and that is because of the great
relationship I established with them. Our classes are so much fun and
the atmosphere is excellent. However, as you pointed out, that alone
isn't enough at this school. It's a sad day when the focus of
education is not the children but rather the perceptions of the
parents and administration, but unfortunately that's the day we live
in.

So, after reviewing your e-mail and discussing it with Julie, I have
decided I will resign after all. This will enable me to find a
full-time position with a regular salary closer to my house and for
you to find a teacher who, hopefully, lives nearby and needs a decent
part-time job.

The things you ask for are not unreasonable. I think, however, that
if you want your part-time teachers to do a better job, you should
provide some incentive such as a paid sick day/vacation day once in a
while. Especially when they have to pay a lot for the visa trip
and other expenses. And this: "Regarding to the payment for 1 hour
what I missed in the last paycheck was replaced to the hour you missed
this month" [I didn't include this in my last post, but it was in the payment letter. Basically she shorted me an hour's pay a month ago and I called her on it - this month I happened to be late once about 30 minutes and Cathy told her, of course, so apparently she decided it was OK not to pay that hour's wage] is petty and doesn't inspire me (or anyone) to work harder. It seems you want the responsibility and extra duties that come with a salary - yet you pay by the hour "with no exceptions" [she used these words before] and no benefits.

As for Cathy's role - you should also make it clear in the beginning
exactly what the assistant's role is to avoid confusion. I still don't
understand what her role is except for calling parents, bothering me
and reporting my actions to you. She may be great at paper work, but
she's poor at working with foreigners - which is the main aspect of
her job.

Finally:

Even though the contract between you and I was dated for 6 months, my
contract with the school/E-2 visa is dated for one year. Therefore I
will need a "release letter" from the school so I can get another job.
I don't think my performance was so poor that you can't get this for
me.

Since I will have worked there 6 months, I would also like to use you as a
reference. You don't have to say I was a perfect teacher because I
know I haven't been. You could say I did a decent job, was good with
the kids and that the distance to work created some problems for me.
In exchange I will gladly help you find another teacher and say good things about your program. I think that is fair.

Thank you for your time,

Shawn

That should do just fine. If I don't find another job right away, at least I will have some time to travel or visit New York again.

2005-02-15T10:48:00.000+09:00

KLB - Back to the Grind

Back to the grind yesterday. That's the worst part about vacation - going back to work. The long trek usually doesn't bother me but yesterday I found myself out of breath and my heart racing as I trudged up and down stairs and hills, etc. That's what a week and a half of lounging about will do. I left extra early, with good intentions, but still arrived just a few minutes before class. Class A was awful too. They were quiet when the class was in the morning. Now it's back to 1:00 when they're blazing with energy.

I wasn't a total bum over the break. My home workout plan was failing miserably so I actually joined the health club next door finally, paying for a three month membership. I went three days in a row and now my body feels like someone hit me all over with a baseball bat. Feels good! Huk ergh rarr! (manly grunts).

It's my plan to get back in shape for T-shirt weather. I miss my body from last summer. I always do that. I work out for 6 months, get into almost great shape and then quit going. At least I have retained a lot, though. I was skin and bones until I started lifting several years ago in Ulsan. Back then I weighed just 65 kilograms (about 140 pounds). I weighed in at 79 yesterday (175 pounds) which is perfect for my height (181 cms, or 6'0). I just need to tone up a bit.

As far as the job, I still haven't made a decision or written Bonnie back. It seems a lot of crap to put up with for a part-time job with no benefits. I'm almost sure I will be leaving. I'd like to get a full time job again with all the benefits and hopefully nearby. I'm also considering a trip overseas for awhile or possibly back home to visit my family and friends (do they still remember me?).

I don't like my job much anymore, actually. Yesterday it was all I could do to stay friendly with the spy. I could see she was aggravated that I didn't come early again and will probably inform Bonnie. The kids were good (B and C class), but they hate this book I'm forced to use. It sucks. I miss English Time. I don't even have time to do phonics now either.

So the kids half-learned how to read. Instead of continuing the process, now I'm teaching random units on such things as Rainforests and how they effect the ecosystem. Yeah, they get it - they totally understand and will retain that knowledge - right. One of the animals I was teaching about was pretty funny though. It was some kind of bird called "Cock of the Rock." Imagine a class full of little Korean kids repeating that over and over.

I finally finished the Xbox game Fable last night, though you can still play after beating the game - going around the kingdom as the Hero who conquered evil, marrying girls and sleeping with them (really - and kill them afterward, if you're so inclined!), buying houses, decorating, selling/renting them, finding treasures, fishing, digging, solving puzzles, killing monsters, etc. What a great game, even if the main quest was too short and easy.

Later I'm going to start NBA Street Volume 3 which was just released last week but already made it on Bit Torrent sites and, needless to say, onto one of my DVD-R disks. How much longer will the BT sites be able to get away with this stuff? That's just amazing - though every other day one or two get shut down after being sued by the movie industry. But those are just in the states. Anyway. for now, life is good. So many great games and movies, so little time.

2005-02-09T14:28:00.000+09:00

KLB - Pay Day!

Bonnie from the agency e-mailed me today about a couple of things. First the good part, my pay statement:

S T A T E M E N T

Name : Shawn Matthews
Account # : Hana Bank 462-910069-49207
Date of Payment: February 8, 2004

-Salary Amount W3,520,000 (Korean Won)
-Income Tax : -116,160 (3.3%)
-Residential Tax -11,616 (10% of Income Tax)
-Transportation : +50,000

Total : W3,442,224 (Korean Won)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a hard month, mostly because of my assistant, but it was really worth it. That equals $3,225 net by today's exchange rate for a month's work. I think I'd have to make at least $4,250 in the states to bring home that much in a month - if not more. I wish I could have that scehedule every month (minus Cathy!).

Now the bad part. Included in her e-mail was a letter responding to mine. I had written her to let her know I would continue to work there for the second half of the year (remember I have an option to quit after 6 months in my contract). I didn't say anything at all about the grievences I experienced in the past 5 months, either. To my disgust, I got this back:

Thanks for making the decision to stay at the same school, however, I feel
that I have few things to be changed in keeping our classes successfully.

1. You are sitting on your chair during class. I want you to check students
to check if they are following you well and writting things down correctly.
2. You are reading newspapers or books sometime during class.
3. You are the main teacher and you are responsible for 100% teaching during
class. I am little worried about Cathy's involvement in leading activities.
4. I expect more preparation for the class.
5. Teachers are usually get the school at least 15 minutes to 30 minutes
prior to the first class. I know you are coming from the distance but that's
why I made additional tranportation arrangement.

I truly know that you really like children and amazingly good with them, and
I really appreciate that. However, my position cannot hold the things to be
fixed to make our class go on for a long time.

It would be wonderful to have you keep the contract for another sememster in
accepting my suggestion just because students love you in class. But at the
same time, I need to keep the quality of learning and class that I promised
to school, students and parents.

In summary, I would like to keep you at the same school with some changes or
I need to replace this position from the next semester. Maybe the whole thing is caused from the long distance but it was your decision to work at that school and my decision to work with you.

Please tell me what you think by mail sometime this weekend since I won't be
available this week at all. It will be so much work to replace and train
somebody new again but I am paying you the highest pay rate than everybody
else but I am having problems.

As I read this, I wasn't sure whether to be angry or to laugh out loud (after all I was still giddy about the pay statement.)

Obviously Cathy's main function (besides annoying me) is to spy and report back to Bonnie. I am not sure how I will reply to the e-mail, but it will probably be a simple, polite "resignation letter" - that I've decided not to work there after all. Not because her demands are unreasonable, but because I hate working with someone in the room who reports everything I do to my boss.

For now, here is my side of things briefly:

1. You are sitting on your chair during class. I want you to check students
to check if they are following you well and writting things down correctly.

I have no idea where this is coming from because I rarely sit down. Sometimes, after the long trek to work (90 mins with no seat) and teaching 2 hours per class, I did sit down when the kids were working independently. My legs were tired! However, since most of my class has been phonics and speaking, 90-95% of the time I was on my feet. You have to be.

2. You are reading newspapers or books sometime during class.

I've already gone through this. When the kids were taking tests or busy I would glance at the newspaper or a book - mostly during breaks. I personally find nothing wrong with this, but I did stop doing so because of Cathy's reaction. Obviously Cathy had reported it already to Bonnie. Sheesh! Anyway the verb should be past tense ("were").

3. You are the main teacher and you are responsible for 100% teaching during
class. I am little worried about Cathy's involvement in leading activities.

Nobody ever told me exactly what Cathy's role is. Once in a great while she teaches a game by explaining directions in Korean. She never teaches lessons - ever. So, again, I don't know what this is about unless it's because Cathy complained about having to teach games sometimes? - or perhaps a student told their parent how fun Cathy teacher is? Who knows but it's ridiculous.

4. I expect more preparation for the class.

This is typical. I get paid by the hour to teach and don't get paid when I miss class, but I'm expected to go in on my time for free. Simple solution: pay me an extra hour or two each week for preparation time. Or at least give me a day off with pay now and again.

5. Teachers are usually get the school at least 15 minutes to 30 minutes
prior to the first class. I know you are coming from the distance but that's
why I made additional tranportation arrangement.

The additional arrangement she's referring to is the 50,000 won transportation bonus. It costs me almost double that. It still takes me 80-90 minutes every day to go to work, same to get back. That's a lot and I refuse to leave any earlier than 90 minutes before I work. I get there 5-10 minutes early on average. I think Cathy is capable of greeting the kids as they come through the door. What else does she have to do besides spy on me?

Well, I let that out. Thanks for reading. Now it's back to counting my moola and playing Prince of Persia. As Julie said, I have to calm down and relax awhile before I respond to that e-mail. My first reaction was to write back 5 of my own requests, including even higher pay (just to be funny) and a new assistant, a ride to work, etc..

I truly know that you really like children and amazingly good with them, and
I really appreciate that.

She should have just left it at that...now for her "it will be so much work to replace and train somebody new again"...wait until that new person works awhile with Cathy. And the poor kids. They really enjoyed my class because I make learning fun. Maybe they will get lucky and the next teacher will be good at teaching and also at work-place politics, being able to balance the two. I'm good at teaching, I've realized, but I've long known I can't tolerate a lot of the BS involved with it.

2005-02-08T13:06:00.000+09:00

KLB - Slow Days on the Blog

I'm back, sorry for the delay. I woke up in the middle of the night on Wednesday with a bad fever. It knocked me out. By morning I was shivering and sweating and it felt like a truck ran over my body. Because of how quickly it came on, I thought maybe I had food poisoning - but I didn't really feel sick to my stomach. I just had a bad fever. Man, that's the worst feeling. I kept poor Julie awake half the night. In my delirium I started ranting about all the poor people who suffer in the world and how I am such a selfish person, and then I felt guilty about my family and on and on. Phew.

All in all I missed work for two days. That's a lot in Korea - but I had Julie call so she could explain in Korean just how sick I was and to add legitimacy to it (doesn't it always feel like you're lying when you call in sick even if you aren't?) Cathy took it well. The fever actually broke on Friday morning but I was too weak to travel the long trek. Plus I probably wouldn't have been able to make it through the day. I ended up feeling weak and run down until yesterday. Now, luckily, I feel great again!

Today is Tuesday. In Korea this week is So-lar, the Chinese New Year, and we have the week off. We were going to go out to a rented house in the country but we had to cancel. I guess we're not going to be doing much as far as travelling because Julie actually has to work one day on Friday (isn't that ridiculous?). It doesn't bother me that we're not doing anything as I'm just happy to be healthy. It's amazing how quickly you can go from feeling fine to feeling like you want to die to feeling normal again. Having a fever makes you appreciate your health more.

I've downloaded, burned and tested the following games for my Xbox:

Mercenaries
Tiger Woods 2005
Prince of Persia - The Warrior Within
SSX 3 (Snowboarding)
Rocky
Rocky Legends
X-Men Legends
Fable
Star Wars KOTOR 2
The Incredibles
Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance 2
Kingdom Under Fire - The Crusaders
Ninja Gaiden
Dungeon and Dragons Heroes
Lord of the Rings - The Third Age

I can't believe it either. With DSL, E-donkey and Azureus (Bit Torrent) I got all these games within about a week. The problem I had before with them not working was because of the burning speed (you should burn them at the slowest speed possible).

I don't feel as guilty for copying games in Korea as much as I would if I lived back home. Here almost every game is over $50 because of taxes, whereas in America I could get most of them for half that. I would like to actually buy Rocky and Rocky Legends to support the maker, Ubisoft, and I promised myself I will if I see the games here. As you know, I'm a huge fan of Rocky 1 (not the sequels) and being able to train with Mickey (the chicken chase is hiliarious) and see recreated scenes from the movie, etc., is very enjoyable for me. Also, they ingeniusly icorporated the inspirational theme music "Going the Distance," which comes on just before you're about to either get knocked yourself or knock down your opponent. If you don't remember, that's the music that comes on when Rocky goes down in the 14th round against Apollo Creed, when Micky tells him to, "Stay down! Stay down!" - a quick shot to Adrian in the back as Rocky claws his way back up - ("Apollo can't believe it!")- and it's pure movie magic. That's possible the greatest scene every created in film.

Anyway, as you can see I have my hands full with all these games. My favorites so far besides Rocky are Mercenaries and Ninja Gaiden, but I haven't really had a chance to play the others much.

Another reason I haven't been blogging so much, besides the fever and now having so many games, is because I sold my camera. It's not as fun blogging with no photos. I can almost see potential readers clicking to my site and clicking away - turned off by the seeming sea of text, unknowing what a rich resource of pics lay in the archives.

I kind of regret selling it because it's not as easy to get a new camera as I planned it to be. I just have no idea what model to get and how much I should spend -whether I should get a decent one for now or hold off and get one with good video functions down the road. After buying the laptop, DVD drive, and now the Xbox I feel guilty buying anything else too. I guess it's psychological - seeing that I spent the same amount on the Xbox as I got from selling the camera and the same amount on the laptop + drive that I got from selling the PC. I haven't actually spent anything extra yet - plus the Xbox games have been free. Still, for some reason, I just feel buying a camera at this point is going over the top. Weird, isn't it?

Just in case - if any of you are going to be coming to Korea soon and have the means to pick up a camera for me from the states (they are much cheaper than here) and would let me pay you for it when you arrive, send me an e-mail. It would be nice to be able to post pics again.

2005-02-02T08:34:00.000+09:00

KLB - Wednesday Morning

Just a quick note: everything is fine at work. I had a heart to heart with Cathy finally and she really doesn't want me to quit. She knows we have a language barrier and that she is sometimes too strict. She has been laying off since then and letting me do what I want.

I went and picked up our new Xbox last night in Yongsan. I bought one with a mod chip, two controllers, surround sound cable and no games. I had burned 5 copied games myself, but for some reason only 2 worked. I think the problem is the cheap disks or the burn speed. I'm going to try again. Fortunately, one of the ones that works is Mercenaries, the game about a war started on the Korean penisula by North Korea. Can't wait to start playing. Julie was just excited the machine's mod chip comes with an SNES emulator so she can play Mario Brothers.

2005-01-31T13:02:00.000+09:00

KLB - From Good to Bad to Ugly

Today started great. I skipped off to work looking forward to teaching the kids. Then of course, no sooner did I arrive then Cathy started annoying me again. At 9:55 she started class.

"Cathy, I will start class today. I'm early. Just sit down."

She said OK, but then a moment later continued to start the class. "Take out your books! Hurry! Take out you pencils. Hurry. Hurry!!!"

Later, as I was teaching, she kept zipping around the room fixing the kids' postures and scolding the poor runts over every minor infraction. I asked her to sit down again, and she said "No, that's OK. I'm fine."

I looked at today's lesson in the new book and all it said was: "Page 25-26, story." On the page is a long story about "wants versus needs" that even my C class would not understand. The next page consists of questions that ask things like, and I'm not kidding, "What is the main idea of the passage?" This is what I'm supposed to teach to 6 and 7 year old Korean kids for 2 hours. Forget it. As usual I passed over the new book and went back to English Time, an appropriate book for teaching English to Korean kids, and phonics. I could already see Cathy getting nervous as I did this.

Then, once again, the agency boss popped in. Every other damn day somebody is coming in the room to watch me...the principal, a parent, the agency, it's ridiculous. Why not just put a camera in there and hook it up to the internet so everyone can watch?

It probably wouldn't bother - actually nothing would bother me if Cathy wasn't my assistant, to be honest.

After the ten minute break, Bonnie, the agency woman, took me aside. Rather than say anything like, "Wow, good job," or whatever (I mean, I had these kids dancing on their toes for her) she says, "Shawn. I have to talk to you. We are so behind."

"We?" I replied.

"Yes, this includes me and Cathy. We're all a team."

"You and Cathy are behind? I don't know what you mean."

"With the books we are so behind."

"No we're not. Can you be specific? Show me exactly where were behind."

"I know we're behind. I read the weekly reports and talk to Cathy."

So, Cathy also doubles as a spy and reports everything back to Connie about how I haven't been teaching the book enough and spend too much time on phonics (is that possible?) and English Time. I started to get pretty defensive and I couldn't hold back: "You come here at random times unannounced and you think you know everything that's going on. We're not behind. I can't always teach that book because it's too hard for the kids. However, I think we're doing a great job. These kids are so much better than back in September."

Sensing my anger, she immediately backed off and started to say, "Yes, yes, everything's fine don't worry, I'm not complaining." Then she goes on to say how she wants me to teach there all year because the school really likes me and nobody wants me to quit in March. As we were talking so long, Cathy was forced to teach. You think she could just do that? No. Five minutes later she taps Bonnie on the back and points at the clock, saying I have to go back to teaching! UGH! Bonnie agreed.

So then all that just put me in a pissed off mood in front of the kids. I couldn't even focus on what I was teaching. Meanwhile Cathy and Bonnie stood in the back watching me.

Isn't it right that too many chefs spoil the soup? I want them to just leave me alone and let me teach for crying out loud. I think I will have to quit in March after all - but for the wrong reasons!

2005-01-30T21:07:00.000+09:00

KLB - Reader Mail

I've been getting a lot more mail than usual lately for some reason and have been having a hard time keeping up with replying. Sorry if I have been short with a few of you. Please know that I do read and appreciate everyone's email. I thought I would let you take a look at some recent mail:

1.
Dear Shawn,

I've already decided that I'm secretly in love with you. Your apparent love of Radiohead already means that you're a decent human being. Well, actually--I'm being highly dramatic b/c it's sometimes hilarious to do that (but only if people don't take you seriously). but, in any case--I someday dream about spanking your immensely cute bum. hahahaaa!

grain of salt, my friend.... grain of salt.

okay, so a few things. Firstly--you should log onto friendster.com and check out my profile under "Sumi." I don't want to continue enumerating things on my (most likely) irrelevant list of things I'd like to imagine that you would actually check out. So, these are in random order.... Yes, kimchi is highly addictive and yes--its chock full of lovely sodium. However, unless you have some sort of rare allergy or condition, it won't really effect you--save for the occasional pummeling to your bloated ddonk-bae by Julie (she rocks). You should check out "The Man Who Ate Everything" by Jeffery Steingarten. I'm a foodie at heart. I graduated from the French Culinary Institute in SoHo and worked at 'cesca for a few months on the upper west side. My passion for food is only slightly overshadowed by my love of writing and art and film. I'll be starting my program at the NY Film Academy in February. yay! =) Of course, nothing is really more powerful than a food craving--except when you want to spank someone. hard. with a truly professional-like flicker of the wrist. deft. quick. lovely. that might prove to be more urgent. I would also like for you to watch the movie, "Tampopo," by Juzo Itami. Simply Amazing. One of my most favorite movies. Its about his social commentary about the Japanese culture of food. food as sex, competition, sport, excess, family, power and control, class structure, taboo, etc., etc., etc. And yes, I own "The Way Home." bought it last year. It's a beautiful story--even more beautifully filmed and performed. glad to know that you could appreciate it for being more than, "that's cute."

alright, I can already see that you're starting to back away from this email--hands up--palms out...tiptoeing ever so slowly out the door. well--STOP! I know you want to read more. At least, let's pretend that you do.

I don't like all of the pictures of Korean girls draped over cars, dancing the hoochie-mama in the middle of the street in sweet, sunny moments of the day, and whatever else they do. It truly makes me feel the deepest pang in the heaviest part of my heart. unexplainable horror and sadness fill my emotions and I'm left profoundly disgusted. I can't help my pity. I don't want to pity them, but--understanding the superficiality of the Korean community supercedes my desperate attempts to dissuade these notions of radical feminist female-empowerment. I don't believe that these girls just don't have the same sort of strength that girls in the same type of profession might be able to attain here. They just don't have the guts and balls and, I'm sure, don't see the glory in possessing something powerful and special in their "femaleness." I can only hope that there are exceptions--that I'm totally wrong--that the sometimes-alienating, often-crude, coarse and harsh nature of Korean opinion will possibly change sometime soon. I try not to see these girls as weak. But, being born into even a Korean-American family, as a girl, with female genitalia, and all of the Korean (men's) connotations associated with that...it's extremely hard not to. Even so, my optimism persists through my dissonance. I'm SURE it's really not as bad as I'm perceiving it to be at the moment. I can recognize that Korean feminism has come a long way. But, not neeeearly enough to make me feel comfortable. Neither has their relationship to American GIs...but that's an entirely different chapter I don't want to get into right now. sad.

your friend don is cool as all hell. I know you already know this. but I had to give the man his due respect. the only way to do that was to mention it to you. he's a keeper. it's so nice to hear that there are still lots of decent people out there. I've been through a lot (but who hasn't?), and seen a lot for my time...but I can't help but remark on the good nature that kind people inherently possess. I'd like to think of myself as one of these people. At the same time, I think it somewhat odd and strange for me to make a donation to your cause...for the moment anyway. I'm not exactly sure what this correspondence will bring me, you understand, as it is my very first time writing you. I don't really have expectations. If anything, this email might just be a sounding board for me. Although, I hate the thought of using a stranger to do this. I hope you don't think that this is my intention. I hope you are not offended, but I doubt that your good nature would actually allow this. Even so, my constantly self-deprecating nature makes it necessary for me to apologize to you in advance.

I love the photographer side of you. The sheer volume of food pictures is enough to get me off, but I also admire the observations that you make. your open cupboard. the beggar. the ajummas sitting on crates. your friends (eating or drinking things). the silkworms in the box on the back of the moped(retch!) your students and their crazy lessons and homework and artwork.

um. as a professional in the food industry...? buying meat off the TV makes me cringe. but then again, Koreans are obsessed with Spam. We Americans introduced Spam to Korea in the 50's when the war was starving everybody. Koreans are obsessed with salt. Koreans like excess fat in their meat. Koreans love "meat." Koreans have an addictive nature. I think that's why Spam is so much more popular in Korea than in other (mostly) Asian populations. The Hawaiians hold the trophy in Spam addiction. But then again, there are lots of Korean-Hawaiians. In any case--my mommy used to make me Spam and kimchi bokkeum-bap with fried eggs. mmmmmmm!!!!! yes, I'll savor raw Malpeque oysters swimming in a vodka "mignonette," served up in a martini glass and toast with a glass of lovely Chateau Margot...but oooohhHHH GOOOOOD!!! you must try this. lawdy, lawdy! Lawd, have mercy! Hallelujah. Amen. but then again, you probably know about both of these little tidbits I'm attempting to share with you.

mmmmmm.... nummy nummy num nums in my tummy tummy tum tums!! =) heeeeeee....!

eeeeewie. I just read your Nov. 21. ddong-chim is foul, vile, and should never be done or mentioned ever again. but in any case, I thought this to be directly correlated to my feelings on Korean mens' scewed mindset when it comes to women. now. no more. sssshhh!

the pictures of the terrible conditions of those computer game addicted boys were very painful. It's strange how Korean parents would ignore and dismiss that as either nothing or as "laziness," or being "bad," instead of a true cry for help. hm....

anyway, I want to have a drink with you at the ugly bar! I want to see what's inside. =) but, of course, I would need to take at least and hour and a half to doll myself up. yes, I'm that self-conscious and self-deprecating. am I'm such a girly-girl! in a very robust, healthy, sunny American sort of way. not in that waifish, ghostly white, "I'm too weak and slightly anemic" sort of strict Korean way. but in any case--my point is that I'd still be self-conscious...even at the Ugly Bar.

you should buy me a "Pama" Puma-rip off shirt. I would totally pee myself. okay--so there really wouldn't be damp denim involved b/c that's a horrible idea. but--it's freaking hilarious. halmunnee's are obsessed with black pama/Korean Gerry-curl. I don't get it.

okay. what-heifer! <---- That's the former valley girl in me. I was born and raised in Southern California LA/Orange County. I'm one of those rare Koreans that actually doesn't really like to live there. Except for Santa Cruz or San Francisco--Northern Cali.

in any case. the truth is you probably don't care, and probably won't read this. I must admit--I stopped reading after a while, but read off a decent chunk of your blog. I took my time in studying the pictures.

So, I just wanted to thank you. I enjoyed it. =)

Sincerely,

Sumi

2.
I've been reading your blog and it's so interesting. My latest 'obssession' is korea and your blog certainly keeps my appetite satisfied. :) I want to be an english teacher there but i'm not taking up educations...too bad. I'm taking up Communication Arts and i'm hoping to get a few units in education so maybe i could venture into teaching. I just think korea is soooo cool! :) i'm even self-studying the korean language. i can write and read (very slowly) korean writing but of course, i don't know what it all means. :) plese continue writing about korea okay? oh and i read that you've been to the philippines. i live there. :) it might not be the greatest country but gotta love what you have right? :) i'm a fan! :)

Love Lots,
Acel

3.
Hello Shawn and Julie,

As a semi-regular reader of your Korealife blog, I was
amazed to do a Google search today on "Malamute +
Seoul" and have your website come up.... so now I am
kicking myself that I was not a more regular reader...

Anyway, long story short, but still a long shot.... my
partner and I are Malamute lovers and would be more
than willing to take in any Malamute rescue
puppy/dog... so, if you are ever in a similar
situation, or know of someone who wants to "get rid"
of a suddenly-very-large-and-not-so-cute-and-fluffy
Malamute, please feel free to contact me and we will
happily take in a new family member. We have a good
house and small but reasonable yard here in Seoul, and
will be moving back to the more open space of
Australia in early 2006.

As I said, I realise that your September Malamute
encounter was probably a one-in-a-million chance
already, but hey... if there is a Malamute out there
in Seoul looking for a loving home, we want to know
about it!! We have already (in Australia) "rescued"
two Malamutes, both of which have sadly passed on
since (cancer, and snakebite). We have been holding
off getting another Mooty until we got back to
Australia, mainly because we figured that the city of
Seoul was not a place to raise a big dog BUT - if our
current place could still offer a Moot a more
comfortable existance, then we would love to have
another fluffy addition to the family.

Thank you for your time in reading this email - I
realise this must seem a bit excessive, given that you
have only posted a few cute photos on your site, and
almost six months ago at that... but anyway, if there
is even the slightest chance that a Malamute will find
a better home out of this email, it will be worth it.

I greatly enjoy reading the Korealife blog and will
certainly continue to check back even after our return
home - best wishes and, please, keep posting!

Kind regards,
Sian

4.
Hi there Shawn!

I'm guessing that you've heard this before, but thank you for posting
your life in Korea online. I've been looking to begin some sort of a
career in ESL in Asia for a while now and you have been a great
inspiration to me. I've just finished reading your entire online blog
today and am seriously considering ordering one of your books. Your
adventures(or is it misadventures?) have been enlightening,
educational and entertaining for me. Thank you for spending the time
that you do posting your life for the world to see. I mean that.

I'm currently in the process of finding my own teaching job in Korea.
As is the case with so many others(it seems), I've decided to start my
own blog. It's mainly for my family and friends to see what I'm
doing, but also to put my experiences on the internet for others to
possibly read in the same way that you have posted your life online
for others. If you're at all curious, the URL is
www.mrcheslock.blogspot.com. Of course, this e-mail isn't meant to
promote myself to you, but to thank you so much for what you have done
for me.

Thanks for all that you've done, whether you know it or not,

Blake

5.
Just a note to say I enjoy your blog. I'm thinking about teaching in
Korea and your site is invaluable. Whether I do or don't come to Korea,
though, KLB is a great way to learn about Korean culture.

Nelson
Skowhegan, ME

PS. Coincidentally, I went to school in Syracuse, so I know well the
upstate NY area that you mention occasionally.

6.
Dear Shawn:

Just finished reading your book, I loved it. I read it cover to cover in three days. It brought back a lot of great and not so great memories of my time in Korea.

Once again, great job and I look forward to the sequel!

Ian

My favorite quote from the entire book:

" I took a deep breath and a sip of the hot coffee. A whole world of mystery lay before me, and this was just the beginning. I couldn't remember the last time I felt so excited to face a new day."

A lot of the stuggles people have is that they don't do enough to inspire these types of feelings. They become trapped, bitter and angry at those around them. My mom can't understand why I like change so much...I should share this passage with her and then she'd know. Keep up the great work Shawn and thanks for making me feel good about my Korea experience all over again!

Ian

7. (This one is quite funny...)
Hello shawn Mathews,

The first thing I must say is thank you. I found your web page to be extremely informative! I'm planning on taking a trip to makati city. Possibly sometime in may. I will be travelling alone as you did. Except I will be meeting a girlfriend of mine that lives there. I only know her through communicating on the internet from a dating site called asianeuro.com. I am trying to be as careful as possible. So I have been learning as much about her and about where she lives as possible. If you could please, I would like to get your taxi drivers phone# and the # of any other nice taxi driver that you have used. Also if you have any safety tips for me it would be greatly appreciated. I origanally grew up in new york all my life , but now I live in the southern part of jersey. So I think I wouldn't feel to bad being in makati. It reminds me of a bad part of brooklyn were many times I was the only white guy in a 8 mile radius.

I'm curiuos to know, What was the name of the girl on the right in your picture that you were interested in. The reason I ask is because she has a striking resemblance to the girl that I am going to see in may. Also what freaked me out was the fact that the girl that I am speaking to also has a contract with a promoter in japan. And this promoter provides her with a visa and she has also mentioned to me that she has done group performance dancing there as well. Also, What type of enternaining job did this girl have over in japan?

Sincerely,
Shane carlson

8.
I stumbled upon your blog and thought it was very interesting... How long have you been in Korea? I always found the summer seasons there really irritating. Too hot, humid and full of mosquitoes, too. But it's good to know that you are having a good time there. I've heard from couple of friends who visited Japan that the students there do the weirdest things to teachers... like a thing called "Kachou" which is putting your fingers against each other and direct them into someone's anus... And it's also weird to see how many people seem to have weird/demented ideas towards foreigners... like "they smell like meat" (popular Japanese myth, I hear) or they are sex-crazed maniacs like you mentioned... one of the arguments I've even heard was that these "foreigners" have a differnet hormone altogether... Go figure... I don't know about those kids, but when I myself was there, I remember that lots of the kids had a pretty good impression about foreigners... They didn't have any of those weird ideas, haha. Well, wish you a happy new year in Korea, though it's very late... haha, it was fun reading your entries.

Sincerely,
Joseph

2005-01-29T17:04:00.000+09:00

KLB - Still Alive

Sorry for a lack of updates lately. I crashed the new computer pretty badly after doing something stupid (installing drivers from a disk that was only needed for Windows 98). Then I just compounded the problem by forgetting how to boot in "safe mode" (pressing F8 during start-up) and deciding to reinstall Windows. Somehow, when I reinstalled Windows, the other copy of Windows was still there. Basically everything was screwed up, but I managed to get to the old files and back them up before doing another install. Now everything is back to normal, but it took a few days to get it that way.

In other computer related news, I bought an external DVD-RW drive in Yongsan. Actually it's an internal DVD-RW drive inside an external case. It's pretty nice. I've already burned a bunch of DVDs and Xbox games from bit torrent files. Man this is a great service: Torrent Spy. If you don't know what to do, you can start by installing this cool and easy to use client: Azureus. Of course, if you enjoy the DVDs and games you should buy them immediately. Being in Korea, it's nice to be able to download whole seasons TV shows like CSI from back home and watch them on the DVD player for free.

We don't actually have an Xbox yet, but we will be buying one in the near future. I'm still contemplating whether or not we should get one, because I know how much time will be wasted. However, I waste time on the computer every day anyway, so what's the difference. I'm dying to play Rocky Legends, the coolest boxing game ever and a few others like Tiger Woods 2005, Star Wars KOTOR2, just to name a couple of the ones I've burned. I hope they work. If not, I understand that in Yongsan, when you buy the Xbox and mod-chip, you can pay 3,000 won for each copied games they install on your machine.

I finished 3 of 4 weeks of the long schedule at work. It started getting stressful this week. Not because of the teaching, but because of you-know-who being so serious and trying to control everything as usual. Oh, well. Only one more week, and then we have a week off for vacation - Chinese New Year. Julie does too. We're going to stay in a rented house called a "pension" in the countryside and relax. No computer, no internet, no TV, no noise, no nothing for a change. Fresh air and barbecue. I will try to get a camera by then, but I'm not sure. Shopping for a camera is pain in the ass here and irksome when you know the same cameras are so much cheaper in the states. Ideally I'd like a camera that I can use to take photos and make short documentaties with - but I may just settle for a decent, small size digital and save for a video cam down the road.

After the vacation, I'll go back to 3 hours/day until March 10 when I have the option to quit. I may or may not quit depending on whether I can get a new assistant - one that makes copies and teaching materials, not roams around the room frowning and and monitoring every action. I'll be really sad to leave the kids. They are a great group.

Well, we're off the the cell phone store. I haven't been able to use my phone in over a week because I used up the credit and haven't had a chance to add more.

2005-01-24T19:25:00.000+09:00

KLB - Lunch Blues

Coming off a pretty uneventful weekend. With this TV-out feature and wireless internet I've been pretty much watching movies whilst downloading new ones. As soon as I'm finished watching one, two more have finished downloading - and the vicious cycle continues. I've also been using Nero to back the ones I like up on disk, using the DVD encoder to make VCDs that will play back on our DVD player. You can even add your own custom menus, which is cool. Before starting Meet the Fockers, which I just burned for example, you see a picture kimchi in the background of the menu screen and chapter options. What a modern-day internet pirate I'm becoming! At least I won't be sued any time soon living in Korea I hope. I still think it's important to buy the movies or music that you really enjoy at least. Software, well - I'm sure I would never buy any software anyway, so I don't feel too badly about that.

Well, today started pretty badly but it turned out OK. I woke up on time, but for some reason it took me longer than usual to get out the door. When I was on the train, knowing I would be late, I got a message from Cathy that some Korean teacher from another program would be there at 10:00 to watch my classes all day. Great. I just love how at any given time, someone can come watch me, be it a parent, Bonnie from the agency, the principal (she comes in once a day!) and/or other teachers from other programs. I'm starting to get used to it though. It's not as bad I once thought.

In fact, it turned out I actually enjoyed showing off for this woman. I have all three long classes down to a science. I enjoy teaching them so much now that I lose track of time and have found myself teaching into break times without caring. The kids even moan and groan when it's time to stop. Even then, it's not much of a break for me. All the little girls swarm around my desk and ask me a zillion questions, or draw me on the board, or give me candy, etc. This is actually very weird for me. I have never had so much attention from kids at any hagwon. That I work in a public school, teach the same kids every day, and have such a good spirit while I teach, these things have made all the difference - though sometimes the constant attention drives me batty.

We've been getting along well, Cathy and I, as I've been saying - so much so that today I just laughed off her antics at lunch time. First of all, I asked her and the woman, Sun, who was watching me, if they wanted to eat lunch together. I didn't really want to (I like to relax quietly at lunchtime) but I thought I should ask. I think nobody understood me because they said yes, but then they kept sitting there. So I waited and then asked again. Cathy acted confused and said they had to stay there and talk. Another awkward moment of miscommunication before I hustled off.

I wandered around and ended up buying a sandwich from a bakery. It was relatively warm outside today so I sat down on a bench to eat. Well, Cathy and Sun had decided to eat out after all and had made their way to the restaurant where I usually eat. They were looking for me. When Cathy spotted me (the bench happened to be across from the restaurant) she came running outside saying I have to join them. "Hurry! It's too cold outside."

"No, no, I'm fine," I chirped. I really did just want to relax and eat alone and read the paper.

"No, you have to come in," she yelled from across the street.

"I'm fine, Cathy. It's no big deal. Enjoy your lunch! I bought a sandwich!"

"Shawn, no. You have to eat with us. Come here, please. We want."

"Um, Cathy, I have this sandwich. I'm fine."

"Please, Shawn, you have to come here." She was just unable to comprehend that I actually preferred to eat alone outside on a bench and maybe thought they had hurt my feelings - though trust me, they didn't.

"I'm fine, Cathy."

"Shawn! Come here, please! Don't do this."

Sigh. So, now I'm inside the restaurant with my thick, freshly made, egg-salad, ham-and-cheese sandwich, milk and newspaper, looking like an idiot to every Korean person inside the small place.

"Can I eat this here?" I said. It looked big and tasty and I was very hungry.

"Oh, no!" piped Cathy. It's cold out. You must to eat the hot food." (Koreans don't consider a sandwhich to be a meal, no matter how big and thick it is. That's why the Subway Sandwhich franchises usually do poorly in Korea).

"Well, I want the sandwhich, but OK, I guess. I looked at the menu and under intense pressure (everyone in the place seemed to be hanging on my order) I finally decided on kal gook su , a kind of tasty, piping hot Korean noodle soup which I had there before. As I waited, I realized it was already 12:15, and that lunch would end at 12:30. I also realized Cathy was eating just a 1,000 won (95 cent) roll of kimbap and nothing else.

"Cathy, you told me I can't eat my sandwich and I have to eat something hot, but you're eating kimbap."

"Yes," she said, not getting the connection. I think Sun did, as she kept chuckling. She was eating spicy tofu soup (sun dubu).

Again, I shrugged this off and chuckled myself. Well, the food didn't come out until 12:20, and it was boiling hot. I tried my best to eat quickly, but it was near impossible. You can see where this is going, right? Cathy starts chomping down the kimbap while checking the clock every 6 seconds. At 12:27 I had eaten about 1/3 of my food, but she and Sun had finished all of theirs. Like a punctual, mechanical robot, Cathy paid for the food and stood up and waited for me and Sun to do the same. Lunch time was over, to be sure. It was time to go teach again. Hut, two, three four. Sun followed suit immediately, of course. She's also Korean. I followed too, but much more reluctantly. What a waste of food! Also, I was damn hungry still. It takes a lot of energy to travel so far and teach all day. Argh I sighed as we left, wishing I had just been able to eat my egg sandwich in peace. The big, thick sandwich and milk went to waste.

Now it gets better. Walking back to the school, Cathy started mumbling in Korean that we have to hurry. Sun and I kept walking a regular pace. Perhaps we would be 15-30 seconds late. Then suddenly Cathy burst into a sprint, leaving us behind. She ran all the way to the building and up to the classroom. I just chuckled again and shook my head. "She's so worried about the time," I said to Sun.

"Almost all Korean teachers are like that," she said. And I guess that's the point of the matter. She's just the way and I have to accept it or drive myself nuts letting it bother me.

Upstairs Cathy was panting and yelling, "Time to study," to the kids, half of which hadn't arrived yet.

Class B was plain awesome. Sun was taken aback by how excited the students were in class. It really is amazing. Almost every kid (especially the girls) wave their arms about wildly in the air no matter what I ask. They are doing so well. About ten minutes before the end of class, one of the girls' parents came in to watch too. She sat in the back and kept laughing out loud as I asked kids questions like, "Do monkies eat kimchi chigae?" (answer "No they don't. They eat bananas.") etc. After class the woman told me in pretty decent English that she was curious why her daughter loves my class so much and that now she knows why. Sun heard this too. I was glad she was there. Now I'm sure she will tell "Bonnie" from the agency all this at the meeting they had to go to later in the day.

Just waiting for Julie to get home now. I've prepapred our dinner: tuna ssam - (tuna, garlic, kimchi, rice, chili pepper sauces and fresh leaves). After we eat, we're going to watch Meet the Fockers and a Sex and the City Season 3 episode.