Today is my last regular teaching day at Munhwa.
I was taken on for two extra months a few months ago, and the plan originally, was that Mr C would take a vacation. But for some reason, he decided not to, and now he is back, and the school is overstaffed by one. So Mr C is sitting in on classes, and just generally being bored.
A while back, I had offered to help with the recording of the listening scripts that can be used in the class. Basically, you put on a short dialogue, and then the kids answers about it. I've honestly never used it. But I have heard that the listening script CDs that exist already are really tough to use because the quality is not good.
So I offered to redo them, and that is my job for the next five weeks! I will be going in to teach one day a week, but other than that I'll just be working at home.
Which is REALLY REALLY good. I am so tired of teaching, and I really really need a break. Yesterday I came so close to dropping the F-bomb in class... I am cranky, and I really just need a change of pace. So this is really good, I think.
I really like Munhwa. I think for a hagwon, it was maybe the best job I could have had. But working for a whole year without any vacation is insane. Especially when your friends all go on vacation at the time of year when your workload doubles. But no matter how good a job, no breaks can kill it, I think. You get into a groove, and that groove turns into a rut, which is where I am right now. I have become mechanical in the classroom, and that's no good.
So it's good that I'll have something else to do now.
So long Munhwa! See you next Wednesday!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 04, 2007
You need to see "200 Pound Beauty"!
I just saw this Korean pop flick called "200 Pound Beauty". It's been out for a while, but I find it tough to keep up on movies when you're single... or long distance. But now that'll change. Time to start reowking the butt-contour in the chair.
The basic story-line is that there is this fat and therefore undesirable girl who has a great singing voice, so she performs backstage while the "face" rocks it onstage into a prop mic. Then she falls for the manager, and discovers that they are using her (duh) and she gets hurt and blackmails a plastic surgeon into making her over (the voice she has also comes in handy as a phone sex worker). So she becomes beautiful, successful, and the manager guy falls for her (sort of).
You sort of sit watching this movie and feel all the time like you are on verge of being taught a lesson, but it never comes. I feel almost like it was written by a bitter foreign teacher. All the things people get together and drink and bitch about were the central themes/characters/motivations of the movie. The Narcissism, the shallowness, the mistreatment/shallow judgement of women, the drunkenness... I mean, all things that exist where we are from, for sure, but things that we see more blatantly here... but somehow this movie just seemed to hit on every terrible vice that is evident to every complainer here... it was really really bizarre to watch. I kept thinking "No, this can't be real!"
It was a cute movie though, if you could turn off your critical thinking... if you could get past the fact that the "EMT"s were struggling to lift a fat girl who was still smaller than a lot of ajummas here, it was at least enjoyable to watch.
But everyone should watch it. It's going to be the movie I show to people when I go home just so that I can nod my head and go "Yeah, it's for real!"
The basic story-line is that there is this fat and therefore undesirable girl who has a great singing voice, so she performs backstage while the "face" rocks it onstage into a prop mic. Then she falls for the manager, and discovers that they are using her (duh) and she gets hurt and blackmails a plastic surgeon into making her over (the voice she has also comes in handy as a phone sex worker). So she becomes beautiful, successful, and the manager guy falls for her (sort of).
You sort of sit watching this movie and feel all the time like you are on verge of being taught a lesson, but it never comes. I feel almost like it was written by a bitter foreign teacher. All the things people get together and drink and bitch about were the central themes/characters/motivations of the movie. The Narcissism, the shallowness, the mistreatment/shallow judgement of women, the drunkenness... I mean, all things that exist where we are from, for sure, but things that we see more blatantly here... but somehow this movie just seemed to hit on every terrible vice that is evident to every complainer here... it was really really bizarre to watch. I kept thinking "No, this can't be real!"
It was a cute movie though, if you could turn off your critical thinking... if you could get past the fact that the "EMT"s were struggling to lift a fat girl who was still smaller than a lot of ajummas here, it was at least enjoyable to watch.
But everyone should watch it. It's going to be the movie I show to people when I go home just so that I can nod my head and go "Yeah, it's for real!"
The Fourth Music Party
Then it was weekend again, and this was the weekend of the fourth music party!
This music party was promising to be the biggest one yet, but I must admit that I was a little less prepared for it than I should have been. Everything was arranged last minute, but this was done a bit defensively after the last time, when I tried to plan and a bunch of people fell through/changed their plans, and left me a bit in the lurch and unprepared anyway. Anyway, there wasn't really much to prepare, the alcohol was all purchased (we sold this time) and it seemed like there was a good amount of buzz to draw people out.
Jim and I headed there a couple of hours early to get everything set up, and thank goodness we did. I thought that paying $100 for the use of a place meant that you would receive some assistance, and even though we did, the language barrier proved a real obstacle and meant that it often took too long to solve simple problems. One major problem was that one set-up involved two wireless mics set up through a single channel on the mixer. The problem? He didn't tell me that that was what had been done! So I didn't know how to isolate the mics to turn one or the other up or down! It was a big hassle. It took me three or four acts to figure out that they were controlled from a separate mixer.
Another big problem was that I had my set-up ready to go, with a single output for my guitar and microphone (pre-mixed through my system). And the old guy who was helping us out kept trying to turn one instrument up or down by adjusting the channel that controlled both! gah! There were a few instances of ear-damaging of feedback, but once I got control and figured out what the hell was happening (he disappeared to the store without communicating which channel was which!) I think that things got better.
But, other than that, there were no problems. And those were actually pretty small problems. The sale of the alcohol went very very smoothly, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the show. Of course, with the introduction of alcohol, some people got to enjoy the show a lot more (and a lot more loudly) than others.
I was really happy with the calibre of the performers who came out. I'll do a blow by blow of the performances when I listen to the audio, but I was absolutely blown away with Noel Moes' country arrangements, Kip Jones' incredible viola/violin (which?) playing and I was moved almost to tears by Ian Reid from Yeosu. He really reminded me of Fionn Regan, who I have been a little obsessed with for the last few months, so that's quite a compliment.
The night wound down around 12:30 or so, with Ian Reid ending, and then I took the stage to do a couple. For something that started out as a venue for me and Darren to perform, it has really evolved me right out of it. I'm honestly content to just watch though, I really miss seeing folk-y type stuff just being done by people who love it. I love to see a rock band too, but this is a completely different experience, and I miss it from an audience perspective. I played "The Origin of Love" and then "Almost a Full Moon", and then started part of the night. it was a bit of a stretch even for me to do that much, I've been so busy with other things that I could barely make my way through those songs, and I felt like if I kept going, it would have been more of a public practice than a performance.
Now unfortunately, one of the ways that the night could have been much better would have been if I had announced some jam songs in advance so that we all had some common ground to go on... but I didn't. So I fell back on "I will survive", because I know it, and it's not exactly difficult to teach to people if they don't. It went pretty well, and I got in a little bit of looping, which was neat, I think. We all took a turn soloing if we wanted, and Ian surprised everyone by getting up on the stage with his harmonica.
Then, of course, someone (I think Jim) started "All Along the Watchtower", and that went for a while. It was a little embarrassing, I was the only one with an electric guitar, but it had been a couple of weeks since I had been practising so I felt a little out of shape, and a little loose, but not in the good way. But I think everyone had fun anyway, and I was impressed with what a few of the others brought to the table, improvisation-wise.
After it was all over, we gave the place a quick clean-up, and were about to get into the nitty gritty when the owner insisted that we call it a night, and come back tomorrow. Which was fine, because I know myself, and I know that I would not be able to stop cleaning until it was finished once I had started. So we picked up all the valuables, and headed home to bed.
When Vanessa and I went back the next day, I expected to be there for a few hours, mopping, picking up garbage, all that kind of stuff (kindly she had offered to help). But when we got there, he ushered us towards the left-over alcohol, told us to pick it up, and then called us a taxi. He was going to clean up for us! I guess that the $100 rental fee was worth it after all!
Anyway, I was pretty happy with the event on the whole, but I feel like the vibe has really changed from how it started out. While I really liked the venue overall, I found that it just wasn't as homey as Sajik had been. Now I have the problem of wanting a homey place like Sajik with a great sound system that can accommodate upwards of 80 or so people... it's going to be tough.
Fortunately I have already found a pretty cool looking live club with a very cool owner (his business card says he is a trained "saw violinist"). There's a lot of couches, a groovy atmosphere. Unfortunately, they sell alcohol, so our main means of income for the orphans will be gone. So there will be one more in November, and then when I return in the new year, we will see about having one in the spring, but for now, I'm not sure. I really want to put together an art festival, so I may focus my efforts on that.
This music party was promising to be the biggest one yet, but I must admit that I was a little less prepared for it than I should have been. Everything was arranged last minute, but this was done a bit defensively after the last time, when I tried to plan and a bunch of people fell through/changed their plans, and left me a bit in the lurch and unprepared anyway. Anyway, there wasn't really much to prepare, the alcohol was all purchased (we sold this time) and it seemed like there was a good amount of buzz to draw people out.
Jim and I headed there a couple of hours early to get everything set up, and thank goodness we did. I thought that paying $100 for the use of a place meant that you would receive some assistance, and even though we did, the language barrier proved a real obstacle and meant that it often took too long to solve simple problems. One major problem was that one set-up involved two wireless mics set up through a single channel on the mixer. The problem? He didn't tell me that that was what had been done! So I didn't know how to isolate the mics to turn one or the other up or down! It was a big hassle. It took me three or four acts to figure out that they were controlled from a separate mixer.
Another big problem was that I had my set-up ready to go, with a single output for my guitar and microphone (pre-mixed through my system). And the old guy who was helping us out kept trying to turn one instrument up or down by adjusting the channel that controlled both! gah! There were a few instances of ear-damaging of feedback, but once I got control and figured out what the hell was happening (he disappeared to the store without communicating which channel was which!) I think that things got better.
But, other than that, there were no problems. And those were actually pretty small problems. The sale of the alcohol went very very smoothly, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the show. Of course, with the introduction of alcohol, some people got to enjoy the show a lot more (and a lot more loudly) than others.
I was really happy with the calibre of the performers who came out. I'll do a blow by blow of the performances when I listen to the audio, but I was absolutely blown away with Noel Moes' country arrangements, Kip Jones' incredible viola/violin (which?) playing and I was moved almost to tears by Ian Reid from Yeosu. He really reminded me of Fionn Regan, who I have been a little obsessed with for the last few months, so that's quite a compliment.
The night wound down around 12:30 or so, with Ian Reid ending, and then I took the stage to do a couple. For something that started out as a venue for me and Darren to perform, it has really evolved me right out of it. I'm honestly content to just watch though, I really miss seeing folk-y type stuff just being done by people who love it. I love to see a rock band too, but this is a completely different experience, and I miss it from an audience perspective. I played "The Origin of Love" and then "Almost a Full Moon", and then started part of the night. it was a bit of a stretch even for me to do that much, I've been so busy with other things that I could barely make my way through those songs, and I felt like if I kept going, it would have been more of a public practice than a performance.
Now unfortunately, one of the ways that the night could have been much better would have been if I had announced some jam songs in advance so that we all had some common ground to go on... but I didn't. So I fell back on "I will survive", because I know it, and it's not exactly difficult to teach to people if they don't. It went pretty well, and I got in a little bit of looping, which was neat, I think. We all took a turn soloing if we wanted, and Ian surprised everyone by getting up on the stage with his harmonica.
Then, of course, someone (I think Jim) started "All Along the Watchtower", and that went for a while. It was a little embarrassing, I was the only one with an electric guitar, but it had been a couple of weeks since I had been practising so I felt a little out of shape, and a little loose, but not in the good way. But I think everyone had fun anyway, and I was impressed with what a few of the others brought to the table, improvisation-wise.
After it was all over, we gave the place a quick clean-up, and were about to get into the nitty gritty when the owner insisted that we call it a night, and come back tomorrow. Which was fine, because I know myself, and I know that I would not be able to stop cleaning until it was finished once I had started. So we picked up all the valuables, and headed home to bed.
When Vanessa and I went back the next day, I expected to be there for a few hours, mopping, picking up garbage, all that kind of stuff (kindly she had offered to help). But when we got there, he ushered us towards the left-over alcohol, told us to pick it up, and then called us a taxi. He was going to clean up for us! I guess that the $100 rental fee was worth it after all!
Anyway, I was pretty happy with the event on the whole, but I feel like the vibe has really changed from how it started out. While I really liked the venue overall, I found that it just wasn't as homey as Sajik had been. Now I have the problem of wanting a homey place like Sajik with a great sound system that can accommodate upwards of 80 or so people... it's going to be tough.
Fortunately I have already found a pretty cool looking live club with a very cool owner (his business card says he is a trained "saw violinist"). There's a lot of couches, a groovy atmosphere. Unfortunately, they sell alcohol, so our main means of income for the orphans will be gone. So there will be one more in November, and then when I return in the new year, we will see about having one in the spring, but for now, I'm not sure. I really want to put together an art festival, so I may focus my efforts on that.
Chuseok in Seoul
Chuseok was a lot a lot a lot of fun.
For Saturday and Sunday, Vanessa and I just sat and lounged around. We really needed some time to just hang out with out doing anything... it's been go go go, with her coming back and getting settled in, and all that jazz. So we just sat around and relaxed a lot.
On Monday we went to Seoul. Since we had a "whirlwind" introduction before she went home followed by months on skype, we haven't really had a lot of chances to have "dates". So on Monday night we put on a dress and a tie and headed down to Itaewon. I was relieved to find that my dress still fit.
We wound up at a really nice Indian restaurant behind the Hamilton Hotel (for those of you who know the area). It had a patio that was elevated and surrounded by trees, so the atmosphere was really nice, and made for a good date locale. The food was amazing, hot but very flavourful, and the atmosphere plus the excellent food made the higher than usual price definitely worth it. After dinner, we met up with everyone else who was in town (Jon, Emily, Meena and Bobby, and Bobby's mom and dad) for a few minutes. They headed to another restaurant for dinner, and we went out for some drinks with plans to meet up later.
We wound up on another patio out in front of the main drag of Itaewon, and we had chocolate mousse and Martinis (well, I had maritinis, I felt it was necessitated by the tie, plus, I love martinis). The drinks came with pretzels, which we quickly combined with the mousse. After two martinis, it became clear that I was in no condition to meet mommy and daddy Bobby for the first time, so we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.
Tuesday was an early morning. With it being Chuseok, and most Korean children being involved with the making and eating of "SongPyeon" (a sugar-filled rice dumpling), being bored by grandma or leaving feasts at the feet of graves, we headed to the one place where they would normally be on a holiday: Lotte World.
Lotte World is as close as you can get to Disneyland without actually crossing any legal lines. Imagine magic mountain, or whatever the hell Disney calls it, but with one extra peak, or a Mickey head outline but with pointy ears instead of round ones. It was... special.
Our companions for the day were Jon and Emily. They deserve a big thank you for suggesting the trip, and for being awesome companions for the day.
We started our day pretty early, around 9 am, and had breakfast at the only place that seemed to be open: Krispy Kreme. Forgetting that they give you freebies, I ordered myself three donuts, because it seemed likely that this would be my only food until lunch in the park. Then we got a bunch free too. So I started my day with five (I think) donuts and a large coffee. I could basically pass through walls from the vibrating.
Because most Koreans were busying themselves with the various customs and traditions of Chuseok, we were able to ride all the rides with much shorter than usual lines. Which meant: awesomeness.
We also ate hotdogs, which is much much more exciting than it should be. I loved eating that hotdog, let me tell you.
Anyway, they had a few familiar roller-coaster style rides, plus the drop-zone style thing, with the additional fun of a cork-screw ascent, which didn't really add much to the ride except to show you how high you were even compared to the surrounding very high buildings. That's another cool thing about Lotte World. It's right in the middle of town. It's just like they bought up a city block and built an amusement park.
After our quick hotdog lunch, we headed in to the indoor part to get out of the sun. Inside they had a few more roller coasters, and some more theme-parkish "experience" rides, like the ones you see based on movies. They had one roller coaster with a loop, and it was a bit of a disappointment. We all had our heads pretty rattled by the thing, and I had a headache that lasted about twenty minutes from it. And the line was really long, and it was a bit of a leer-fest. There are some creepy guys out there... all eyes and creepiness.
After that Vanessa wanted to go on the teacups equivalent, which was terribly named "Drunken Baskets". Wait, maybe not terribly. Maybe just terribly appropriately. But we thought that if you're going to ride the drunken basket, you should really make a go of it, so we both worked about as hard as we could to make that thing fly around. So hard, in fact, that Vanessa's pigtails stuck out backward like she was hanging her head back off a swing. So hard that our ride continued for a good minute after the actual ride stopped. So hard that I broke a sweat from whipping us around. I'm serious, I think people laughed at us, because they were starting to get off, and we were still whipping around and screaming, not realizing that the ride had ended.
There was another ride inside called "The Giant Loop", and it was possibly the worst ride I have ever been on. It's just as simple as it sounds. It's a row of cars that drive around a giant loop. They go back and forth until they build up momentum, and then they slowly roll around the loop. whoopee. We sat in the back car, so when it had almost but not quite enough momentum to swing us around in a circle, we were left for about 5 seconds or so with our entire weight being supported by a safety rod that locked in on our crotches. yeah, it was great. Did I mention that it stank like puke? Or that Vanessa was too small so her whole body weight actually shifted when we were upside down? It was a terrible ride.
We also hit up a candy store, which was awesome. We spent ten bucks on candy. I don't know if I have ever done that before. haha. But we discovered two new and previously unknown taste sensations. I hesitate to share them now, because I may be giving away a billion dollar recipe that rivals the Caramilk secret... but here I go anyway.
1) Caramel Apple Jelly Belly Jellybeans with Peanut M&Ms. It rivals Raisinettes for hard to explain explosive-tastey goodness.
2) Fuzzy peaches and Hershey Kisses. Seriously, just press the Hershey Kiss' point through that hole and give 'er a chew.
We headed back outside, and discovered that as they day went on, the lines had gotten longer. Luckily, Lotte World has this thing called "Magic Pass". You just pass your ticket under a scanner, and it prints you ticket that lets you skip to the front of the line sometime into the future. So we got magic passes for the long lines and then did a few of the shorter-lined rides while we waited. We did this one ride twice more, called the gyro swing, which is basically a big swing potato-masher shaped thing that spins while it swings back and forth. It's great because you get the awesome variation of plunging both forwards to a watery grave and backwards to a watery grave. Good times. Seriously though, there are few feelings for me that rival that of my stomach feeling left behind as I free-fall (or close).
Jon and Emily are masters of waiting games, so they were awesome companions for the long lines at the end of the day. Whether we were playing twenty questions (I still say that you technically COULD eat a screwdriver) or predicting how many thumbs would come up, it was a great time.
Once while we were waiting for the Gyro-swing, we were playing a game, and when we got to the front of the line, the girl working there asked me if I had had any beer. I understand, because we were laughing a lot and being boisterous. But when I said no, she leaned in to smell my breath! And then, because that apparently wasn't enough proof, she went to get another worker to come appraise my readiness for the ride. I was pretty offended by this point, because I hadn't had anything to drink all day! And then, when we were waiting in line for the ride for the second time, I saw a guy stumble off, clearly drunk, and almost ready to vomit, and they didn't say a thing! But, it's easy to single out foreigners here, unfortunately, and it does happen, no matter what anyone says, where local people are not questioned at all.
But I don't want to be bitter...
After our last ride (unfortunately this whole thing unfolded in the leadup to the last ride) we headed back to the hotel to clean up/nap/make room for dinner. We went back to Itaewon for dinner, and had a delicious meal at a Greek restaurant, where we all came dangerously close to exploding like that guy in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life". The Tzatziki was amazing, the company was good, and I have not enjoyed a beer with dinner as much as I did that night in a long time. I don't know why, but I felt like George Bluth with an ice cream sandwich for some reason ("I am making love to this ice cream sandwich"). We ate (at least Vanessa and I did, Jon and Emily shared a dish) to the point of danger, and then we headed to the same little patio where we had martinis and mousse the night before for some more of the same. We met up with Bobby and Meena again, and Jon had a cigar, and good times and great photos followed. And a big bill. Martinis are expensive. Who knew?
The next day Vanessa and I headed to... oh man, where did we go? I'm losing my memory in my old age...
We met back up with everyone around 3 or so at the train station, and then headed to a black market DVD market near the train station... of course, we didn't buy anything, because that would be illegal. But it was nice to just see it, haha. Also, I am now addicted to Grey's Anatomy (embarrassingly so), however that is unrelated. We rode first class on the way back, but I'm not sure it was worth it. We got access to the dining car, which was kind of cool, but they didn't have stuff that was on the menu, and then we saw people eating things that weren't on the menu, and the dining car experience was just a bit of a drag overall. We finally got back, and collapsed into bed.
Then it was two days of work before the weekend. Most people like the short weeks, but I found it to be a bit of a hassle more than anything. Also, I had been led to believe that there was no staff meeting on Thursday because we were keeping our classes form the week before, but I arrived (an hour after the meeting) to discover that I had in fact missed a meeting and now I had to scramble to prepare for new classes.
I also don't really like short weeks because I am a major creature of habit, so I find it difficult to prep stuff for just a couple of days when I am used to doing stuff that lasts a full week.
anyway... venting.
For Saturday and Sunday, Vanessa and I just sat and lounged around. We really needed some time to just hang out with out doing anything... it's been go go go, with her coming back and getting settled in, and all that jazz. So we just sat around and relaxed a lot.
On Monday we went to Seoul. Since we had a "whirlwind" introduction before she went home followed by months on skype, we haven't really had a lot of chances to have "dates". So on Monday night we put on a dress and a tie and headed down to Itaewon. I was relieved to find that my dress still fit.
We wound up at a really nice Indian restaurant behind the Hamilton Hotel (for those of you who know the area). It had a patio that was elevated and surrounded by trees, so the atmosphere was really nice, and made for a good date locale. The food was amazing, hot but very flavourful, and the atmosphere plus the excellent food made the higher than usual price definitely worth it. After dinner, we met up with everyone else who was in town (Jon, Emily, Meena and Bobby, and Bobby's mom and dad) for a few minutes. They headed to another restaurant for dinner, and we went out for some drinks with plans to meet up later.
We wound up on another patio out in front of the main drag of Itaewon, and we had chocolate mousse and Martinis (well, I had maritinis, I felt it was necessitated by the tie, plus, I love martinis). The drinks came with pretzels, which we quickly combined with the mousse. After two martinis, it became clear that I was in no condition to meet mommy and daddy Bobby for the first time, so we called it a night and headed back to the hotel.
Tuesday was an early morning. With it being Chuseok, and most Korean children being involved with the making and eating of "SongPyeon" (a sugar-filled rice dumpling), being bored by grandma or leaving feasts at the feet of graves, we headed to the one place where they would normally be on a holiday: Lotte World.
Lotte World is as close as you can get to Disneyland without actually crossing any legal lines. Imagine magic mountain, or whatever the hell Disney calls it, but with one extra peak, or a Mickey head outline but with pointy ears instead of round ones. It was... special.
Our companions for the day were Jon and Emily. They deserve a big thank you for suggesting the trip, and for being awesome companions for the day.
We started our day pretty early, around 9 am, and had breakfast at the only place that seemed to be open: Krispy Kreme. Forgetting that they give you freebies, I ordered myself three donuts, because it seemed likely that this would be my only food until lunch in the park. Then we got a bunch free too. So I started my day with five (I think) donuts and a large coffee. I could basically pass through walls from the vibrating.
Because most Koreans were busying themselves with the various customs and traditions of Chuseok, we were able to ride all the rides with much shorter than usual lines. Which meant: awesomeness.
We also ate hotdogs, which is much much more exciting than it should be. I loved eating that hotdog, let me tell you.
Anyway, they had a few familiar roller-coaster style rides, plus the drop-zone style thing, with the additional fun of a cork-screw ascent, which didn't really add much to the ride except to show you how high you were even compared to the surrounding very high buildings. That's another cool thing about Lotte World. It's right in the middle of town. It's just like they bought up a city block and built an amusement park.
After our quick hotdog lunch, we headed in to the indoor part to get out of the sun. Inside they had a few more roller coasters, and some more theme-parkish "experience" rides, like the ones you see based on movies. They had one roller coaster with a loop, and it was a bit of a disappointment. We all had our heads pretty rattled by the thing, and I had a headache that lasted about twenty minutes from it. And the line was really long, and it was a bit of a leer-fest. There are some creepy guys out there... all eyes and creepiness.
After that Vanessa wanted to go on the teacups equivalent, which was terribly named "Drunken Baskets". Wait, maybe not terribly. Maybe just terribly appropriately. But we thought that if you're going to ride the drunken basket, you should really make a go of it, so we both worked about as hard as we could to make that thing fly around. So hard, in fact, that Vanessa's pigtails stuck out backward like she was hanging her head back off a swing. So hard that our ride continued for a good minute after the actual ride stopped. So hard that I broke a sweat from whipping us around. I'm serious, I think people laughed at us, because they were starting to get off, and we were still whipping around and screaming, not realizing that the ride had ended.
There was another ride inside called "The Giant Loop", and it was possibly the worst ride I have ever been on. It's just as simple as it sounds. It's a row of cars that drive around a giant loop. They go back and forth until they build up momentum, and then they slowly roll around the loop. whoopee. We sat in the back car, so when it had almost but not quite enough momentum to swing us around in a circle, we were left for about 5 seconds or so with our entire weight being supported by a safety rod that locked in on our crotches. yeah, it was great. Did I mention that it stank like puke? Or that Vanessa was too small so her whole body weight actually shifted when we were upside down? It was a terrible ride.
We also hit up a candy store, which was awesome. We spent ten bucks on candy. I don't know if I have ever done that before. haha. But we discovered two new and previously unknown taste sensations. I hesitate to share them now, because I may be giving away a billion dollar recipe that rivals the Caramilk secret... but here I go anyway.
1) Caramel Apple Jelly Belly Jellybeans with Peanut M&Ms. It rivals Raisinettes for hard to explain explosive-tastey goodness.
2) Fuzzy peaches and Hershey Kisses. Seriously, just press the Hershey Kiss' point through that hole and give 'er a chew.
We headed back outside, and discovered that as they day went on, the lines had gotten longer. Luckily, Lotte World has this thing called "Magic Pass". You just pass your ticket under a scanner, and it prints you ticket that lets you skip to the front of the line sometime into the future. So we got magic passes for the long lines and then did a few of the shorter-lined rides while we waited. We did this one ride twice more, called the gyro swing, which is basically a big swing potato-masher shaped thing that spins while it swings back and forth. It's great because you get the awesome variation of plunging both forwards to a watery grave and backwards to a watery grave. Good times. Seriously though, there are few feelings for me that rival that of my stomach feeling left behind as I free-fall (or close).
Jon and Emily are masters of waiting games, so they were awesome companions for the long lines at the end of the day. Whether we were playing twenty questions (I still say that you technically COULD eat a screwdriver) or predicting how many thumbs would come up, it was a great time.
Once while we were waiting for the Gyro-swing, we were playing a game, and when we got to the front of the line, the girl working there asked me if I had had any beer. I understand, because we were laughing a lot and being boisterous. But when I said no, she leaned in to smell my breath! And then, because that apparently wasn't enough proof, she went to get another worker to come appraise my readiness for the ride. I was pretty offended by this point, because I hadn't had anything to drink all day! And then, when we were waiting in line for the ride for the second time, I saw a guy stumble off, clearly drunk, and almost ready to vomit, and they didn't say a thing! But, it's easy to single out foreigners here, unfortunately, and it does happen, no matter what anyone says, where local people are not questioned at all.
But I don't want to be bitter...
After our last ride (unfortunately this whole thing unfolded in the leadup to the last ride) we headed back to the hotel to clean up/nap/make room for dinner. We went back to Itaewon for dinner, and had a delicious meal at a Greek restaurant, where we all came dangerously close to exploding like that guy in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life". The Tzatziki was amazing, the company was good, and I have not enjoyed a beer with dinner as much as I did that night in a long time. I don't know why, but I felt like George Bluth with an ice cream sandwich for some reason ("I am making love to this ice cream sandwich"). We ate (at least Vanessa and I did, Jon and Emily shared a dish) to the point of danger, and then we headed to the same little patio where we had martinis and mousse the night before for some more of the same. We met up with Bobby and Meena again, and Jon had a cigar, and good times and great photos followed. And a big bill. Martinis are expensive. Who knew?
The next day Vanessa and I headed to... oh man, where did we go? I'm losing my memory in my old age...
We met back up with everyone around 3 or so at the train station, and then headed to a black market DVD market near the train station... of course, we didn't buy anything, because that would be illegal. But it was nice to just see it, haha. Also, I am now addicted to Grey's Anatomy (embarrassingly so), however that is unrelated. We rode first class on the way back, but I'm not sure it was worth it. We got access to the dining car, which was kind of cool, but they didn't have stuff that was on the menu, and then we saw people eating things that weren't on the menu, and the dining car experience was just a bit of a drag overall. We finally got back, and collapsed into bed.
Then it was two days of work before the weekend. Most people like the short weeks, but I found it to be a bit of a hassle more than anything. Also, I had been led to believe that there was no staff meeting on Thursday because we were keeping our classes form the week before, but I arrived (an hour after the meeting) to discover that I had in fact missed a meeting and now I had to scramble to prepare for new classes.
I also don't really like short weeks because I am a major creature of habit, so I find it difficult to prep stuff for just a couple of days when I am used to doing stuff that lasts a full week.
anyway... venting.
GIC Foreigner Day, September 16
Last week was the big GIC foreigner day. I was the emcee for the first half. I wasn't qualified (they wanted someone who spoke Korean) but I figured that since I was comfortable enough to do it, I should throw my name in in case no-one else signed up. Well, no-one else did, so I won! yay!
What did I win? Well, I won an opportunity to script two and a half hours of banter! Of course, I didn't. hahaha. I told them that I would be very off the cuff, and that I wouldn't have any idea what I would say before-hand. I really didn't. But now they want me to type out what I did say... impossible! hahaha, I'll just give them my notes.
Anyway, it was a horrible day. There was a typhoon passing through, so it was really windy and rainy. I was actually afraid at a few different times because of all the electronics on the stage that someone was going to be electrocuted, and I was more afraid that that somebody might have been me. Because, I'll be honest, I like me.
A lot of the program that I was supposed to be emceeing over was cancelled because of the rain, so my script and notes became largely useless anyway. So my coemcee (Minji) and I zoomed through our part, with many too cheezy jokes from myself, and most useful information coming from her. I was actually a bit bored on stage for a lot of it, so most of the jokes were made just to entertain me. A 30 000 won gift certificate to Shinsaegae (an upscale department store) is way too easy to connect to a joke like "Enjoy the sleeve of your new sweater!" or "Wow, you can buy a napkin holder!" And all the second place prizes were cut out, a decision apparently made by coemcee after each time that I announced who the second prize winner was. So I felt like a jackass more than a couple of times.
When our half of the day was over, the other emcees took over, and they started their program right away, so everything was much earlier than had been scheduled. It seemed really stupid, and frustrated the talent show performers a lot, because everyone had told their friends that they would be performing. They asked me at one point how long my performance would be, and I said ten minutes, just as I had said it would be in the e-mail when they had asked me the same thing a week before. They told me that that was too long, and asked me to cut it to seven minutes. I yelled a bit, I'll admit. It's so terrible to ask people to prepare for a performance and then ask them minutes before they go onstage to cut down their time. Like, what am I going to do? Play the songs faster? People are SO stupid sometimes!
Anyway, there was quite a variety of performances, from highland dancing to Philippino dancing to karaoke to a great performance by the Jordan Emmans Band to close. The judge was BRUTAL though. It's a volunteer talent show. I didn't even know that there were prizes for the performers until I showed up. And I hadn't expected the judge to give individual critiques of all the performances before announcing the winners. And they were really ciritical. He told one girl she was rude for sitting on the floor, he said that one guy's dancing wasn't traditional because he used a pop track (and it was a Nepalese pop tracks, with a definite fusion traditional/pop sound), and he deducted points from one team for having a lyrics sheet while they sang onstage. Okay, these are things you write in your notes for judging, not something you announce to everyone at a talent show that people volunteer for. It was brutal, and it made me really angry. And it's not because he gave me a bad review, I was fine with what he said about mine. He said I did a good job "even though" I didn't play guitar all the time. He also said I was mysterious because I had voices coming when i was not singing, and both those comments just tell me that a) people don't really understand what the looper does, and b), I did a good job of doing it, because a guy sitting five feet away couldn't figure out how I was doing it.
After the talent show, they had some drummers, who were really good. It was like the closing scene of Nanta, minus that amazingly hot woman. haha.
Then they had a raffle. Because of the typhoon, there weren't a whole lot of people out for the day. There must have been around 200 or so throughout the day, because there were about 350 or 400 raffle tickets sold. That meant that the ten tickets that Vanessa and I had had pretty good odds, and they really panned out. We won:
1) a bicycle. The model name, appropriately enough, is "typhoon". We got the man-sized one, and Vanessa is going to inherit my current bike, which is lady-sized.
2) a digital camera. It's a Nikon Coolpix S500. Oddly enough, I was just looking at that exact camera about two weeks ago, and came very close to buying it. It's fun to have a point and shoot again. I really like my SLR, but it's not the most convenient camera for day-to-day use, or just capturing silly little things that I see.
3) A gift certificate. It's for ShinSaeGae, again, but it's only for 10 000 won. Combined with my 10 000 won for performing in the talent show and a trip to the Body Shop, it means that we both smell really nice. Gift certificates are remarkable, you give them away, and they bring in more money. I mean... a 30000 won (about $30) gift certificate for Shinsaegae is like giving someone an obligation to spend a further 100 000. Like at E-Mart, they give away these free fish. Bobby and Meena got some a few weeks ago, and they wound up having to buy a small tank, the stones, and all that other stuff, and then the fish died! So now they had all this stuff, so they wound up going back and buy more fish. Whoever invented free stuff deserves a handshake.
Getting back to my non-tangential run there, it was a pretty good day for us. It was pretty funny that we won the bike though, because apparently Vanessa and Emily had just been having a conversation about how much it would suck to win a bike because you would have to find some way to get it home in the typhoon. We wound up having to pay 15 000 to get a van to bring across town to my apartment, but it was definitely worth it in the end.
That was last weekend. This week, we got a new teacher at Munhwa, Ashlee, who was actually a former coworker of Darren's at ECC. She's been fun to have around, although her stories have reminded me of how awesome Darren (and Mo) was (were) and how much I miss him (them). I think she's going to fit in really well at Munhwa. We have a pretty awesome staff right now, and there is really no drama making things awkward now. Everything is just calm and fun at work.
This weekend is a five-day weekend, because next week is Chuseok, the Korean celebration of harvest and rice-cakes.
What did I win? Well, I won an opportunity to script two and a half hours of banter! Of course, I didn't. hahaha. I told them that I would be very off the cuff, and that I wouldn't have any idea what I would say before-hand. I really didn't. But now they want me to type out what I did say... impossible! hahaha, I'll just give them my notes.
Anyway, it was a horrible day. There was a typhoon passing through, so it was really windy and rainy. I was actually afraid at a few different times because of all the electronics on the stage that someone was going to be electrocuted, and I was more afraid that that somebody might have been me. Because, I'll be honest, I like me.
A lot of the program that I was supposed to be emceeing over was cancelled because of the rain, so my script and notes became largely useless anyway. So my coemcee (Minji) and I zoomed through our part, with many too cheezy jokes from myself, and most useful information coming from her. I was actually a bit bored on stage for a lot of it, so most of the jokes were made just to entertain me. A 30 000 won gift certificate to Shinsaegae (an upscale department store) is way too easy to connect to a joke like "Enjoy the sleeve of your new sweater!" or "Wow, you can buy a napkin holder!" And all the second place prizes were cut out, a decision apparently made by coemcee after each time that I announced who the second prize winner was. So I felt like a jackass more than a couple of times.
When our half of the day was over, the other emcees took over, and they started their program right away, so everything was much earlier than had been scheduled. It seemed really stupid, and frustrated the talent show performers a lot, because everyone had told their friends that they would be performing. They asked me at one point how long my performance would be, and I said ten minutes, just as I had said it would be in the e-mail when they had asked me the same thing a week before. They told me that that was too long, and asked me to cut it to seven minutes. I yelled a bit, I'll admit. It's so terrible to ask people to prepare for a performance and then ask them minutes before they go onstage to cut down their time. Like, what am I going to do? Play the songs faster? People are SO stupid sometimes!
Anyway, there was quite a variety of performances, from highland dancing to Philippino dancing to karaoke to a great performance by the Jordan Emmans Band to close. The judge was BRUTAL though. It's a volunteer talent show. I didn't even know that there were prizes for the performers until I showed up. And I hadn't expected the judge to give individual critiques of all the performances before announcing the winners. And they were really ciritical. He told one girl she was rude for sitting on the floor, he said that one guy's dancing wasn't traditional because he used a pop track (and it was a Nepalese pop tracks, with a definite fusion traditional/pop sound), and he deducted points from one team for having a lyrics sheet while they sang onstage. Okay, these are things you write in your notes for judging, not something you announce to everyone at a talent show that people volunteer for. It was brutal, and it made me really angry. And it's not because he gave me a bad review, I was fine with what he said about mine. He said I did a good job "even though" I didn't play guitar all the time. He also said I was mysterious because I had voices coming when i was not singing, and both those comments just tell me that a) people don't really understand what the looper does, and b), I did a good job of doing it, because a guy sitting five feet away couldn't figure out how I was doing it.
After the talent show, they had some drummers, who were really good. It was like the closing scene of Nanta, minus that amazingly hot woman. haha.
Then they had a raffle. Because of the typhoon, there weren't a whole lot of people out for the day. There must have been around 200 or so throughout the day, because there were about 350 or 400 raffle tickets sold. That meant that the ten tickets that Vanessa and I had had pretty good odds, and they really panned out. We won:
1) a bicycle. The model name, appropriately enough, is "typhoon". We got the man-sized one, and Vanessa is going to inherit my current bike, which is lady-sized.
2) a digital camera. It's a Nikon Coolpix S500. Oddly enough, I was just looking at that exact camera about two weeks ago, and came very close to buying it. It's fun to have a point and shoot again. I really like my SLR, but it's not the most convenient camera for day-to-day use, or just capturing silly little things that I see.
3) A gift certificate. It's for ShinSaeGae, again, but it's only for 10 000 won. Combined with my 10 000 won for performing in the talent show and a trip to the Body Shop, it means that we both smell really nice. Gift certificates are remarkable, you give them away, and they bring in more money. I mean... a 30000 won (about $30) gift certificate for Shinsaegae is like giving someone an obligation to spend a further 100 000. Like at E-Mart, they give away these free fish. Bobby and Meena got some a few weeks ago, and they wound up having to buy a small tank, the stones, and all that other stuff, and then the fish died! So now they had all this stuff, so they wound up going back and buy more fish. Whoever invented free stuff deserves a handshake.
Getting back to my non-tangential run there, it was a pretty good day for us. It was pretty funny that we won the bike though, because apparently Vanessa and Emily had just been having a conversation about how much it would suck to win a bike because you would have to find some way to get it home in the typhoon. We wound up having to pay 15 000 to get a van to bring across town to my apartment, but it was definitely worth it in the end.
That was last weekend. This week, we got a new teacher at Munhwa, Ashlee, who was actually a former coworker of Darren's at ECC. She's been fun to have around, although her stories have reminded me of how awesome Darren (and Mo) was (were) and how much I miss him (them). I think she's going to fit in really well at Munhwa. We have a pretty awesome staff right now, and there is really no drama making things awkward now. Everything is just calm and fun at work.
This weekend is a five-day weekend, because next week is Chuseok, the Korean celebration of harvest and rice-cakes.
Starting to catch up.
Summer in Korea is a hot and sticky wasteland.
It's too hot, and I honestly didn't care to go outside at all.
The result? a whole lot of taxi bills, and addiction to Iced Chai Tea Lattes (with soy), about fifteen extra pounds, and an electricity bill that could reduce people to tears. I also ate a lot of pizza. I know that that's not exactly a summer-time escape the heat food, but the oven would do a remarkable job of fighting my air conditioner. I often make the joke now about turning on the oven and the air conditioner at the same time to let them fight, but it's a joke that is based in fact.
Fact: The oven wins.
So, yeah, that's balls. I've put back on a lot of the weight that I lost, but I'm already taking it off again now that the weather is cool again. It's really terrible, it honestly is. It's so sticky... and then every place is overly-air conditioned, so a lot of people wind up getting sick, just from the transition from hot to cold and back to hot again. I couldn't sing for about a month, just from waking up every morning with a sore throat from my apartment being so dry.
Work has been an adventure. Brooke and Ryan are gone now, which has been tough, but luckily, they left at the same time as two new teachers arrived, Bobby and Meena, who have proven themselves to be super-cool people. And there's Jim, who looks enough like Colonel Sanders to be entertaining on those grounds alone. Luckily, he's also entertaining on other levels. Which is good, because a lot of his friends are blind.
I tried to extend my contract through to December, but I was told that they would only extend to November. Then Mr C decided to use that time to head home for a vacation (Thank God, if anyone ever needed a vacation, it's Mr C). Then they decided that maybe I could stay, but I had already decided to head home for December, and then back here for Christmas. I think I've said it before, but I think it's really important to be here for the people we know, because we're all away from our families, and we really don't have anyone but eachother. So I'll be coming back here.
Anyway, they told me a few weeks later that they wanted me to stay until December after all, but I had already made my plans. Then that changed Mr C's vacation plan, which was about getting a surgery or something, then a doctor's visit, and now it's just a vacation... which is weird, because the illness keeps getting downgraded. Which is good, I guess! So now I'm staying, and there is an extra teacher. So I will be balancing out for Mr C while he is away, and when he gets back on October 15th, I will be taking Mrs Woo's classes while she is off on maternity leave. The weird thing is that because Mr C has shortened his vacation and I will only be covering Mrs Woo's classes for three weeks, it means that most of my work obligation will be over by November 1st or so, which will leave me with almost a month of contract with no apparent work. Mr C told me the other day that my "contract will be honoured", so I guess that means that I won't be kicked out of the country. Which is good news. But who knows what anything really means here until the day? Seriously, everything is up in the air until the moment it's a mess on the floor. But, there is a really cool potential scenario now in which I have no classes for a month, but I still get paid. That would be SWEET! Although I have offered to do some recording for them, since they need to make some recordings for TOEIC tests and for listening tests in the classrooms. It's easy stuff for me to do, since I have all the equipment anyway, and I would be able to work at my own pace on it, and I could work during the day, leaving my evenings free to go bowling and make key chains with cutesy photos in them.
Anyway, this is random, but I'm currently sitting in a Starbucks near Chunnam University with Vanessa. She's working on lesson plans and I am writing in a word document that will sometime become a blog entry. We are reaching new heights of pretentious stereotype embodiment. haha. Anyway, some old guy just walked by, and since I was people-watching, I noticed that he had the finest comb-over ever witnessed this side of the Rio Grande. It was perfect, it was made of several groups of strands glued together with pommade. It made me so excited, I think I peed a little.
So... back to the life recap. Although, I suppose that was more indicative of my life than anything I've already written. yikes.
It's too hot, and I honestly didn't care to go outside at all.
The result? a whole lot of taxi bills, and addiction to Iced Chai Tea Lattes (with soy), about fifteen extra pounds, and an electricity bill that could reduce people to tears. I also ate a lot of pizza. I know that that's not exactly a summer-time escape the heat food, but the oven would do a remarkable job of fighting my air conditioner. I often make the joke now about turning on the oven and the air conditioner at the same time to let them fight, but it's a joke that is based in fact.
Fact: The oven wins.
So, yeah, that's balls. I've put back on a lot of the weight that I lost, but I'm already taking it off again now that the weather is cool again. It's really terrible, it honestly is. It's so sticky... and then every place is overly-air conditioned, so a lot of people wind up getting sick, just from the transition from hot to cold and back to hot again. I couldn't sing for about a month, just from waking up every morning with a sore throat from my apartment being so dry.
Work has been an adventure. Brooke and Ryan are gone now, which has been tough, but luckily, they left at the same time as two new teachers arrived, Bobby and Meena, who have proven themselves to be super-cool people. And there's Jim, who looks enough like Colonel Sanders to be entertaining on those grounds alone. Luckily, he's also entertaining on other levels. Which is good, because a lot of his friends are blind.
I tried to extend my contract through to December, but I was told that they would only extend to November. Then Mr C decided to use that time to head home for a vacation (Thank God, if anyone ever needed a vacation, it's Mr C). Then they decided that maybe I could stay, but I had already decided to head home for December, and then back here for Christmas. I think I've said it before, but I think it's really important to be here for the people we know, because we're all away from our families, and we really don't have anyone but eachother. So I'll be coming back here.
Anyway, they told me a few weeks later that they wanted me to stay until December after all, but I had already made my plans. Then that changed Mr C's vacation plan, which was about getting a surgery or something, then a doctor's visit, and now it's just a vacation... which is weird, because the illness keeps getting downgraded. Which is good, I guess! So now I'm staying, and there is an extra teacher. So I will be balancing out for Mr C while he is away, and when he gets back on October 15th, I will be taking Mrs Woo's classes while she is off on maternity leave. The weird thing is that because Mr C has shortened his vacation and I will only be covering Mrs Woo's classes for three weeks, it means that most of my work obligation will be over by November 1st or so, which will leave me with almost a month of contract with no apparent work. Mr C told me the other day that my "contract will be honoured", so I guess that means that I won't be kicked out of the country. Which is good news. But who knows what anything really means here until the day? Seriously, everything is up in the air until the moment it's a mess on the floor. But, there is a really cool potential scenario now in which I have no classes for a month, but I still get paid. That would be SWEET! Although I have offered to do some recording for them, since they need to make some recordings for TOEIC tests and for listening tests in the classrooms. It's easy stuff for me to do, since I have all the equipment anyway, and I would be able to work at my own pace on it, and I could work during the day, leaving my evenings free to go bowling and make key chains with cutesy photos in them.
Anyway, this is random, but I'm currently sitting in a Starbucks near Chunnam University with Vanessa. She's working on lesson plans and I am writing in a word document that will sometime become a blog entry. We are reaching new heights of pretentious stereotype embodiment. haha. Anyway, some old guy just walked by, and since I was people-watching, I noticed that he had the finest comb-over ever witnessed this side of the Rio Grande. It was perfect, it was made of several groups of strands glued together with pommade. It made me so excited, I think I peed a little.
So... back to the life recap. Although, I suppose that was more indicative of my life than anything I've already written. yikes.
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