Saturday, March 14, 2009

sick.

hey, i'm sick. it started on thursday and has gotten progressively worse. i need to see a doctor on monday. let's see...friday, i got off work early due to said sickness and i slept for a long time. then me and patraig took one of our korean co-teachers out to eat and for drinks. she's the only korean teacher we work with who speaks english and she's our age. she gave us her number last week and said she was going out w/people and that we should call her so we could meet up...we ended up not calling her and i brought it up in the middle of the week and she said that she had waited on us to call her and didn't go out...so we felt pretty bad. she's going to give me private korean lessons soonish (or at least she claims) in exchange for english writing/spelling lessons. we kept asking her to stay out w/us and she kept telling us she needed to go home...but she stayed out and ultimately around 3 or so she revealed that she had to go because she had another job on the weekends and had to be there at 11. why she didn't mention this until 3 is a mystery to me. we probably would not have let her drink as much as she did. while we were sitting down i looked over and saw some korean guys playing poker and i had her ask if they were playing texas hold 'em and was it for money? and so yes, and i was invited to play. so i did. i put in my 20,000w and was doing pretty well for a while...but ultimately, i hit the point at which i became too reckless and lost. but it was ok because i had left the people i came with and needed to get back to them.

today i went to dongdaemun w/patraig (pictured above) it was not as good as central seoul, but it was fun all the same. dongdaemun is a big shopping district and so there are a lot of giant skyscraper super malls but i found the random junk shops on the side streets much more interesting. if you got away from the main shopping area, there was basically a huge open air flee market that went around for miles. there were odd electronics, record players, watches, speakers, clothes, etc. there were so many things i wanted to get, but i could never send it all home.it was soooo cold though. the wind was pretty bad. there was ice anywhere there was shade...it certainly didn't help how i was feeling...but the great thing today was that the subway all the sudden made sense to me! i got a map and figured out how to do it! i know it's not a big deal, but i've never had subway access and so it's really intimidating initially. someone just told me that they've lived here for 10 months and still don't know how the bus system works though...oh well, time to sleep. will write people back tomorrow. i'm tired right now.

6 comments:

  1. the whole start of your post was reminiscent of the start of most men's fantasies i think... "asian girl (any kind of asian is fine) gives private lessons for _______ in return." sounds like you're having fun. feel better soon!

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  2. whoa. i'm on my mom's computer, so the last comment came up as rosanne. it's dera. not jackie's 60 year old aunt.

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  3. dera, did you delete your facebook...again!?!?! you have to quit doing that. feeling a bit better today...hopefully, i can survive teaching tomorrow. i was mentioning to one of my friends how i should try to take a lot of pervy pictures of me w/school girls in their uniforms to make people think i was living the dream or something.

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  4. yes. you are living my husband's dream, for sure.

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  5. oh yeah, and facebook is no good for me. i'm a bad mom, wife, and all 'round person when i'm on there. contact me via casablanca and email!

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  6. congratulations on figuring out the train system. public transportation is AWESOME! you will hate atlanta when you return because you will have seen the light of mass transit. that said, buses suck. they are confusing and slow, and they will inevitably take you where you don't want to go.

    here's my theory about the korean girl a) waiting for you to call and not going out and b) staying out with you so she's four hours late to work and drunk. so korea is an uber patriarchal society, unlike anything even remotely familiar to modern westerners. and you and patraig are dudes, and your korean friend is a lady. so she waits for the dudes to call because korean ladies are subject to the whim of dudes. and she stays out with you because you guys asked (told) her to stay out with you, and you're dudes. also, i'm sure she likes you guys and was having a good time.

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