Fuck You Bill Gates

God DAMMIT. Last week I started a blog post in the Dongdaegu station while I was waiting for a train back to town. Stupidly, I tried to write it as a "blog post" in Word instead of a regular Word doc, and apparently because I wasn't connected to the internet and I hadn't previously saved my blog's info in Word when I tried to save Word just decided to delete what I was writing. So, I guess I get to start over now. Like I said… FUCK YOU BILL GATES.

There's a news doc on right now in the station about May 18^th. My knowledge of Korean history is spotty at best but apparently today is the anniversary of the beginning of some violence and street protests that eventually led to democratic elections in South Korea in the '80s. Being here now, it's hard to imagine that only thirty years ago Koreans were fighting each other in the street for the right to have a representative democracy. Sometimes I forget how much I take for granted coming from the United States, where we've had a peaceful (well, at least domestically, mostly) democracy for over 150 years.

Where do I begin, since I can't remember much of what I wrote a week ago? Well. May has been, and will be, an interesting month, to say the least. The first week of the month was midterm exams at my school, the second week there was a two-day co-teaching conference in Gyeongju, this week we have Friday off for Buddha's Birthday, and next week the first years are off Tuesday to Friday for their class excursion and the second years will be at Jeju Island from Wednesday to Friday. What that all adds up to is, I won't see my Friday kids all month. I guess it's a good thing Friday is mostly my weakest students, so they probably wouldn't have learned that much anyway. (I'm kidding of course. Well, half-kidding.)

May 1^st I went to Pohang for a birthday party. Those Pohang kids really know how to party. HARD.

Children's Day was May 5^th, so I went with Mo to Busan. I like teaching in a rural area (it keeps me out of trouble and minimizes distractions from the online courses I'm taking right now) but It was nice to spend some time in a fairly big city where there were actually things to do. We went to the Busan Auto Show (note: for those of you who think you can't customize a Hyundai, you're wrong and I have photographic evidence) and later we met up with my roommate from orientation and went for a boat ride, followed by samgyeopsal and some quick drinks at one of the local waeguk watering holes. Good times.

The co-teaching conference in Gyeongju was both rewarding and fun. After the program ended on Thursday night most of the foreign teachers (a.k.a. the Westerners) walked across the street from the conference center to the nearest Family Mart and spent most of the night drinking by a nearby river. It was kind of hilarious, like we had managed to transport a Nebraska high school beer blast to Korea (minus the high school kids, pickup trucks and meth). Had a good time, although I would have had a better time if I had met some more single ladies. Am I being negative? Maybe I'm being negative.

Korean class has been going well, although my level of speaking and understanding Korean is still pretty elementary. We've reached the point where I should be able to say what time it is, if I could remember the Korean-Korean number system. (I've got the Chinese-Korean system that the locals use for math and big numbers down pretty well, but the Korean-Korean numbers that they use for counting numbers under twenty still elude me. I got "Hana, dul, set" down pretty quickly from posing for pictures, but there's only so much you can do when you can only count to three.) I am finally getting to know some of the other folks in the class, who are from Daegu. Two weeks ago when I showed up I was the only guy, with eight women. "Score," I think. After class we all went out and the girls decided to go shoe shopping. What I thought at that point was… well, it was clearly not "score," to say the least. In fact I would say that the English language needs a saying or phrase that's the exact opposite of "score" to cover such occasions. Actually, I think "shoe shopping" might be exactly the right phrase to fill that need. ("So, Barry, what did you do last weekend?" "Well, Tad, I went to the club but it was all dudes. It was total shoe shopping.") Afterward we met a bunch of other foreign teachers drinking beers outside the local 7-Eleven. (Sound familiar? I'm starting to feel a little bit like Lloyd Dobler only there are girls around and we're still all at the Gas-N-Sip for some reason. By choice.)

Hmm, there's a lot of cursing and unchaste talk about partying and female relationships in this post. Do my parents and family still read this blog? Hi, aunts and uncles!

Last week, other than the Gyeongju trip, pretty much sucked. At the beginning of the week I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. They don't seem to like window treatments too much here. The windows are all frosted in my apartment, but head of the bed is in a direct line with the only windows so now that it's getting light earlier here the light is right in my face in the morning. One of these days I really need to get a metric tape measure, size up the windows and head to HomePlus or E-Mart for some curtains and an expandable rod. I did recently figure out that if I leave the wardrobe door open it blocks some of the sun, so I've been sleeping a little better this week. I was also working on a midterm exam for most of the week, which really sucks when you haven't slept much and you're going to be out of town for two days. I did end up getting it done and I got an 85% on it, so I guess all's well that ends well.

This weekend promises to be interesting. I've got some work to catch up on but one of the other foreign teachers, Julie, is going back to the States so I'm sure there will be some get-togethers to attend before she leaves. Next week while my kids are off on their excursions I'll be visiting my friend Gareth in Manila. Not sure what all there is to do in the Philippines besides lay on the beach and drink San Miguels, other than stuff that's immoral and/or illegal in Korea, but I'm sure we'll figure out something. Gareth is a big pussy (and I say with the utmost respect and affection for the man) so I'm sure we won't get into too much trouble.

I know the blog posts have been infrequent lately but I've been a little unfocused as of late, so I'm hoping I'll make the time to post updates more often from now on. Maybe next time I'll regale you with more cooking adventures. I'll also try to update my Flickr account again soon. Those of you who have been asking for more photos of Korean trade show models will probably enjoy the set from the Busan International Auto Show.

Oh, and I finally bought a scale. I'm down at least one belt size but once I did the metric conversion I figured out I'm still over 206. How fucking fat was I when I left the States? Did I top 220? Fucking chili cheeseburgers. Why are they so good?

Hi Mom and Dad!

저게 창문이에요!

Hello, hello. I’m writing this from the train station in Daegu. I’m taking Korean classes at the YMCA here on Tuesday nights and, because the only trains back to town on weeknights are at 9:00 and 10:30 and my class ends at 8:50, I usually end up with about an hour and a half to kill at the train station on Tuesday nights. Usually I bring my TOEFL certificate homework with me but I was a little behind schedule handing it in last week so I haven’t received the new units yet. I was going to use the free internet at Starbucks to work on my online accounting homework but I couldn’t get it to work. (I don’t know if the problem is Korea or my HP netbook, but the two really don’t seem to like each other when it comes to WiFi hot spots.) I could pay for internet access here, but there’s only about 40 minutes until my train so I don’t think it’s worth it today. So, lucky you, you get a blog update and I get to do my homework later in the week.

Korean classes are going well, albeit slowly. Right now we’re on the same sort of lessons we did in 3rd grade French. (“What is that?” “It’s a pencil.” “What is that?” “It’s a window.” To this day “It’s a window” is one of the only phrases I know in French, although I can’t spell it or pronounce it correctly.) It’s a fun group, although most of them are EPIK teachers from Daegu who all know each other already so it hasn’t been as easy to people as I was hoping it would be. One of these days I’ll get brave enough to elbow my way into one of their conversations, give me some time…

By the way, for those of you who think the American government is fucked up (What the fuck is up with Arizona? “Let’s get rid of the immigrants by forcing our police to resort to fascist harassment tactics or else we’ll sue our own communities.” Good job, Arizona. Where’s Chuck D when we need him?) I heard a great story tonight about the government here. One of the members of our class is a guy from the Netherlands. Tonight in class we were talking about our jobs. When we asked him what he’s doing in Korea, he told us that he came to visit a year or so ago and the Korean government suddenly decided that he had to serve in the Army. Apparently he had never carried a Korean passport or anything – he doesn’t even speak Korean, which is why he’s in our class – but somehow Korea decided he’s a citizen and therefore he has to do his compulsory service. In the process he lost his job back home, among other things. (He didn’t go into detail about what happened to his stuff – all he said was, “You can imagine what happened.”)

Work has been going better. After the lesson I attempted two weeks ago that blew up in my face I got a little smarter about gearing my lessons to my students’ abilities, so things have been going smoother. Next week is some sort of big test for three days (that’s right, three straight days of testing) and Wednesday is Children’s Day so I don’t really have to even complete a lesson this week. That’s probably a good thing since Friday we have open classes and I’ve been using my time to prepare for those. “Open classes” mean that parents get to drop in and observe a class. I appreciate the transparency and everything but as you can imagine the pressure is on to make the lesson look good so that none of my co-teachers end up looking bad. Again, I shouldn’t say too much about the details because I don’t want to embarrass anyone or share too much. I guess it’s nice that the parents care enough that they want to see where their educational dollars are going, but you know how it is, nobody likes having to work with people peering over their shoulders.

Whoa - I think I just saw one of the folks I met in orientation in this train station. This deserves investigating. Back later.