i'm home.

well, i'm on winter break now. i didn't realize how long the days were until i didn't have to work. you see, all of my friends kind of left. coleen, rachel1, rachel2, danny, and june. now kai is leaving in a few days. i only have a couple of friends left. i guess this is what contracted work in korea is like. jackie warned me that everyone would leave. so i'm not really making any attempts at meeting people since i only have 2 months to go. needless to say, korea can be a place full of crippling loneliness! it is so easy to make friends in america. i don't know if i've lost it or something...but i just remember how i would meet someone and then we'd be friends...maybe that's because i met a lot more people with similar interests/common ground. lots of douche bags in korea. i had a big discussion with my friend about how you see koreans and their fashion would indicate a certain counter-culture element, but how disappointing it is that not all girls with thick frame glasses, skinny jeans, and a carefully selected "thrown together" look does not indicate a hipster status. it just means she dresses like everyone else, is probably getting a worthless degree, and will stay at home with her 2 kids once she gets married. not that it's a bad thing necessarily...it's just weird because a selected fashion that means something in the states means nothing here.

it snowed a few inches yesterday. today it's all brown and disgusting from the cars. i walked a couple of miles to the library to get a card and see what they had in their english section, but for some reason, even though they were open last night when i went in, they were not open today (monday). i have no money until the end of the month, so i've been walking to yeongtong (4km) everyday so that i can check my email and get out of the house. tonight's big plan to go to starbucks and then possibly the bar to study korean. korean is difficult as hell by the way. my teacher explains that they use two number systems because it is easier...easier than one number system? i don't believe her explanation...i think they just didn't want to concede to the fact that the chinese numbers were much more efficient and made more sense.

i'm looking at jobs already. i'm just seeing what's out there...but i'm thinking more and more that i want to move to busan. it's got nice beaches, i could have a scooter, and i could make more money there. i don't know why i'm not as psyched about living in seoul...but my friends will be everywhere. june will be gone. i'll have to start over wherever. i'm looking forward to coming home and just relaxing for a while and collecting myself. it's been a bad month.

my name is yoo, yookulele.

i haven't posted in a while. this is because i will never have the internet at my apartment, because what good would it do my bosses for me to have it? it wouldn't do them any good at all. in no way is it beneficial for them. there's my "i hate my job" rant for this post. i am actually happy with work this week and that is because i don't have to be there. i was lucky enough for one of my coworkers to come down with swine flu and so they closed the school for a week. i don't have swine flu, but i get all the benefits of having it. i'm sure my bosses will be in sour moods next week, but the important thing to remember is that they won't be mad at me for once. my coworker with the swine flu has not stayed in bed as she was supposed to and has been going out normally as if she weren't sick. they're pretty mad about it, but i don't live at the school and don't have to deal with babysitting her. so, here are some pictures and then more on my life:



i went to the asshole of korea for halloween. it's a place called itaewon. all the foreigners seem to flock there...and that's precisely why it's a bad place. i didn't have much choice since everyone seemed to be going there. i was harry potter. i had a lot of korean people shouting "hally poata da!" (it's harry potter) and it was cute. i met a korean harry potter too. my friend rachel went as g-dragon, a kpop star in the group big bang. they're actually pretty listenable. june was a vampire, but really she just looked a hot korean girl. things are going well on the june front. i've seen her every weekend since i met her and if i'm correct, she likes me. i'm about 80% on that. she's pretty great, we have common interests, she has a sense of humor, and look at that picture...is there any reason i should be allowed within 500 feet of her? the answers is: God, no. we went to a dance club and i actually tried to dance a little. once i figured out that i wasn't the only person not picking up their feet i felt more at ease. then june and i broke off and went to a hamburger joint and went to the hotel. we talked till about 4:30 when rachel came home and we pretended to be asleep. the next day at lunch she asked me if i wanted her to take me a palace. i answered yes, but in my mind i was thinking "duh, i'll go anywhere with you." we totally held hands and it was awesome. the longer i don't have a girlfriend, the more i appreciate the subtleties of a relationship...and girls...my english girl friends tell me to go slow for various reasons and my korean girl friend is like "this is how korean girls act when they like a guy! are you stupid?! just kiss her!" either way, that's that and now i will see her this weekend, i think. she might have the pig flu as well. right now, i just went to seoul to a music shop. i had bought a ukulele about 3 weeks ago but i wanted something nicer and with a pickup...so kai called them and asked if i could trade it in and pay the difference. they said yes. so he gave me 200,000w for my old one (i only paid 180,000w for it) and i paid the difference plus a leather strap, which came to 370,000w...total comes out to be about 600,000w...which is more than i'd like to admit...but if you go to a currency converter, you can find out how much i spent on a ukulele and shame me. i'm about to meet hyunji, june's cousin for coffee and english lessons. i'm getting about 240,000w for 8 hours a month. i gave her a discount, or else i'd be getting about 320,000 an hour. so hopefully it will go well and she'll refer me to others. alright, going to go now.

what good would living do me?

we went to a cow farm this week. we milked cows and made cheese and ice cream. it was a nice day, though i've been sick for a while. luckily, i got some medicine last thursday and i think all i have is a stuffy nose, a sure sign that things are getting better in my book.

i went costume shopping with rachel and seeing as how korea doesn't really enjoy halloween so much, the selection was rather limited. seeing as how i didn't want to go as "mexican" or "bed sheet ghost" i went with a harry potter outfit. i have the gryffindor cloak, a tie, and a scarf. it was only about 35$ total.

i then went to insadong to meet with june and her cousin, who will hopefully be my new private student. i went to the nagwon music arcade and bought a ukulele and hardshell case for about 200$. it was pricey, but worth it. i love it. great purchase. i then met with june and watched her get her hair cut while i read chesterton's biography on st. thomas aquinas. we went for sandwiches and met her cousin who was very shy. i convinced them to come back to yeongtong with me to meet up with our friends. we went to the laos bar, a horrible place full of horrible people. her cousin lives in the next town over and so june went to help her find a cab. they were gone for about 20 minutes and so i went looking for them and walked everywhere, knowing june's phone was dead and that she didn't know the area. finally, i found them and they couldn't get a cab cheap enough. so they stayed with me and i slept on the floor. most of the night was spent by them asking me which celebrities i found attractive. here's a sample conversation:
june:do you think nicole kidman is attractive?
me: maybe in the year 1843.
june and hyunji: (korean)
june: you are crazy.
i cooked them french toast and basil/cheese omelets the next morning, which they found "divine" and other adjectives that indicate a glorious afterlife. all in all, it was a good weekend and i'm looking forward to halloween weekend...except i know i will not like going to "clubs." i never do. oh well, time to go to class.

channeling astrud

well it's been a while since i've written, but i don't have the most to say these days. things are going relatively well. i am still researching on how to get into universities over here for my masters degree...but if it doesn't work out, i'll just come back to work. i'm not done with korea yet!

june came down yesterday to record vocals on a song i wrote. it sounds really good, i just still have a lot to do. thankfully, jessica calleiro has offered to do the mixing/mastering duties for me so that it will actually sound good this time. then we went out to dinner with some people and went to a bar. one of rachel's student's parents was there. he bought us beer, but was very annoying. don't get me wrong, he was friendly and all that, but he just sort of sat down with us and wanted us to hang out with him afterward. he also sent his wife away. she was trying to get him to leave and he just shooed her away and she left. he was drunk. we then went to a game room. you pay like 1.75$ per person/per hour and you have a bunch of board games to choose from. we played clue. i found out how to win at clue: cheat. if you just always deny having any cards, but no one else has anything and you have one of them, you can at least figure out what 2 of the right ones are and at the same time, make someone else lose when they make their guess. so it works out really well.

then i went to church this morning with colleen, june, chelsea, and frank. i didn't care for it very much as i had some sort of theological disagreement with something said and i don't like to have hour long praise and worship (especially when they only sing about 4 or 5 songs). we then got some chicken for lunch and i walked june to the bus stop so that she could make her two hour journey home. it was a good, but short, weekend. since i've only eaten korean food for the last few days, i'm going to reward myself with pizza tonight. i rented "an inconvenient truth" cause i never saw it before, so maybe i will watch that or finish up the last 2 episodes of buffy season 3 tonight. that is all for now.

surprise ice

ok, so maybe i posted something a couple of posts ago that was rather impulsive. i removed it. either way, things are starting to get really good or really bad, but i'm happy about it.

boredom is a day without work.

i understand there's no excuse for doing a survey...but i'm bored and i have a day off...so this was on josh austin's facebook and i figured i would attempt to not lie about something. due to the relatively unscandalous characteristics of this quiz, i've decided to ignore many questions.

Tell no lies!
Can you fill this out without lying?

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth?
cigarette

4. Name someone who made you laugh today?
i haven't seen anyone today, so no one...does internet laughing count? because that's just "haha" but i don't even crack a smile in real life.

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?
it's called dr. pepper because it tastes like medicine, i will only drink it if it is absolutely necessary.

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?
a wonderful girl named june.

19. Night out or night in?
night out, unless season 3 of buffy finishes downloading soon, then i have my plan for the week.

23. How do you feel about your life right now?
i don't belong anywhere, i hate my job, but everything's great.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?
no, unless they didn't say it to my face, then perhaps someone did. so let's just go ahead and assume that all of you get together and talk about my perfection.

28. What song is stuck in your head?
"wings of love" or "pentacost hotel" by nirvana (the original one, not that crappy 90's band)

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be?
a man with a check for 50,000,000$. he will be a man in his mid-50's who has realized that his greed has filled his bank account but has emptied his emotional wallet. he views the money as a curse and wishes he had never gotten it. he's giving it to me in order to cleanse himself and to cast off his embarrassing riches. i accept the money and make him a grilled cheese sandwich and i think to myself "i'm going to buy the good cheese at the grocery store next time."

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow.
go to the gym, take medicine, 한국말 공부해요.

i dare you not to write.

nothing has been going on.

i almost got fired because i didn't have a song in my heart while doing something. did the "right" thing though and apologized to my boss for caring so much about the contract that we both signed.

lloyd and kay visited from japan. they brought me scotch.

i still don't have the internet at my place.

anki software is amazing. flashcards but without the waste and time.

i swear i was in a better mood like 2 days ago.

another night in 홍대 and thoughts on black metal politics.

dear blog, how are you? this week has been relatively uneventful. jon's girlfriend, tara, went back home after a couple of months spent in korea. i got a package. that's about it.

last night, i made plans with a girl i met in jeju (not those kinds of plans, she has a boyfriend who just doesn't like to do anything). we decided that we would find mexican food. so we went to sinchon to go to an on the border there. it. was. amazing. needless to say, there's not much in the way of dirty tex mex in south korea. so i got flautas and enchiladas with black beans and rice. it was phenomenal. it was really hard to order because this restaurant is easily an hour and fifteen minutes from where i live, so i doubt i'll make the trip that often.

after that, we went to hongdae in an attempt to find the ice bar. the attempt failed. we wondered for a good hour and asked a lot of people and even though this place is in every travel guide, no one seemed to have heard of it. she ultimately had to leave because it was 11 and the subway was about to stop (because while great, the public transportation system doesn't understand why anyone would stay up past 11pm on a saturday night). so i waited for kai in hongdae. she was with 3 japanese friends that she had studied with. they took an hour because the subway train they were on stopped (see parenthesis above). we then met up with another one of her friends from japan whom she was sure i would be in love with. i really wanted to be like "you don't know me, you don't know what i like!" but she was right about me all along.

we went on our own excursion to find the ice bar, which again failed. we settled on a restaurant and everyone but me and some greek guy and his girlfriend drank a lot. because the subway had stopped, i made up my mind that i was going to stay awake all night and one must pace himself. if you order a lot of food or whatever at a restaurant they give you "service" which is just more stuff, but for free. we had two pitchers of kiwi soju smoothie stuff and about 6 bottles of soju and two big plates of food. it was only 60,000won (about 44$?) and we were there till about 3 am. we then had to say goodbye to 3 japanese friends. me, kai, and her wet dream of a friend then went to a club. this was not some lounge, this was like a really loud scary club. it was several floors below street level and it was just deafening music and lots of creepy people standing around while slightly moving (this was dancing). i got a call from my friend verve and decided i should leave.

i met him in the park and got a drunken lecture on the history of black metal. he basically retold the Lords of Chaos book. it was intense. he loves black metal and all, but every time i hear about it, i've just got no real interest in these incredibly f*cked up people. a lot of these black metal bands he was telling me about were these horrible nazi/white nationalist bands...like full blown "eradicate the jews" nazis. i know he's not a racist and he just likes the music, but whatever, i've got no interest in it. this got into a big debate about nationalism in general and how i think that it's messed up, especially from the black metal perspective. consider the senseless murders, church burnings, racism, suicides, and general misanthropic qualities that are contained in black metal and i think it's clear why i don't think these people have anything valid to offer in the realm of politics or social philosophy. it's odd though because to some extent i believe in certain kinds of nationalism ("kashmir for the kashmiris" etc.) but it sort of falls apart when you talk about the west/america. he started talking about spangler and his philosophies/theories of why societies fall apart (they lose their core values and thus their own sense of their culture), but i don't understand america to have a solid culture. maybe there is and i just don't see it because i don't belong to it. all the same...you can go to korea and see there is a korean-ness to the place or england and see the english-ness. of course that's too simple and there is a broad spectrum across any society. what it comes down to is that i prefer the mixing of culture instead of the preservation of it. if culture was all it's cracked up to be then we should all be living it up in utopia by now...but the fact is that people needlessly cause each other grief because of their culture and own self-inflated sense of superiority. and that's what i think about the current state of black metal.

we left the park and i saw kai's friend again at 6:30 in the morning on the street. kai was out drinking with some guy she said. her friend spoke very little english and i only remember a little japanese, but we pinched each other's cheeks and parted ways. i fell asleep on the subway, woke up and looked out of the train and saw it was my stop. i ran through the doors as they were closing. i went to krispy kreme and had two donuts and a milk. caught the bus home and then again i fell asleep only to wake up at the right moment yet again. so here i am, i slept from 8:30-3:30 and i don't know what to do...i will take sleeping pills tonight. sleeping pills are the only answer, ever. below is a picture of me and kai's 4 japanese friends. see if you can figure out which one i liked. i'm sure it will be difficult.

i got a package

i got a package today from home. it contained:

2 boxes of tazo zen green tea
1 box of tazo china green tips tea
1 bag of fun size butterfingers
1 bag of peanut butter m&m's
1 bag of reese's peanut butter cups
3 .005 micron pens, black
4 boxes of kraft macaroni and cheese

so a box of contraband items...i can't find any of this stuff over here...it's disappointing...but i'm excited i got it! i'm eating mac and cheese tonight...maybe hot dogs?

holy s***

so ok...the date didn't happen. she called in sick...i feel like i got blown off. i saw her last night though and she was very apologetic etc., bought me a drink, said she would call me and we would go out...but i don't know, maybe she was sick...i am usually skeptical of convenient ailments though. however, one of the other bartenders (whom i also have a crush on) told me that she was jealous of the one girl...and so now that makes some more confusion...and then a girl at the bar came up to and struck up a conversation and asked for my number and asked me on a date...how is it that after 6 months that all the sudden this is happening? i still shower the same number of times per day (1...maybe 2) and i haven't done anything noteworthy to my appearance...either way, it's confusing as hell. why can't girls just go back to not liking me?

i shaved my head and tried to be a monk

so as last updated, i have a crush on a bartender and she likes me too. well, we are going on a date. hooray, i'm coming out of retirement. in korea, bartenders are allowed to drink on the job. go figure. but we did some shots and i tried out my korean.
me:namjachingu isseuyo? (do you have a boyfriend?)
her: ubseuyo (no).
me: namjachingu wanani? (do you want a boyfriend?)
so i asked her on a date and she said yes and gave me her number. i'm surprised that it was so easy...too easy...either way, i have no idea what we'll do or what we'll talk about. my korean is so limited and her english is as well. she told one of my friends that she's worried that she's too old (she's 29, 30 in korean age). then we danced (well, she danced and i kind of shuffled my feet because i can't dance). when i was leaving she walked down the stairs to say goodbye and i slipped on the stairs. it was embarrassing. i wasn't looking at the stairs because i was looking at her while walking. oh well, i'm trying to figure out what to do on a date. any suggestions?

no internet...again!

so a lot has happened recently and i haven't been able to really get on the internet because my new place doesn't have internet.

1. vacation- i went to jeju island for my vacation. jeju is often romanticized in korea. it's the honeymoon island. well, i figured out why: it's a great place to go if you want to stay in your hotel room for a week. that's not to say it wasn't pretty, but it is certainly boring. the first two days i had friends from seoul in town. they left. i was alone for a few days and then kakki and chad came and i spent the rest of my time with them. i saw lots of waterfalls and ate a lot of ramen. i went to some mountains. it was hot as the devil as well. one morning after i took a shower, my shirt was soaked with sweat after a 30 minute walk. i met some people from oregon who actually live in the next city over from me. we went to nore bang and the guy got a little destructive when he got drunk. it made it an uncomfortable experience. all i could think about was "this guy is going to break a t.v. and i'm going to have to pay for it." they were both nice otherwise though.

2. guitar pickup- i went to seoul yesterday to buy a guitar pickup for my classical guitar. i guess i never really thought about it, but classical guitars have smaller soundholes than steel string guitars; they're just smaller in general. so my pickup didn't fit. realizing that it wasn't worth the trouble to go back to seoul because of a cheap pickup, i decided to modify my guitar...i did this by using a butterknife to saw out two little squares in the soundhole. i'll post pictures, i'm proud of my butterknife skills...long story short, i put the pickup in and it doesn't work. i'm pretty sure the cable i was using was fine, but the pickup made not a noise. so i seriously hurt my guitar to install a non-working pickup. fml (for those of you less web savvy, that stands for "f*ck my life." all the kids are using it these days).

3. padraig's gone- my best friend in korea left. padraig was rather unhappy with various things about our school and other various things so when the opportunity to receive a scholarship for his phd back in the u.k. presented itself, he did the right thing. i got a call from him on wednesday during vacation and he was at the airport. he had kept it a secret, which i can understand. all the same, now i do things alone a lot more often. the school is very mad. they're filing charges which can't really do anything. he won't be able to work in korea again most likely, but he'll have a doctorate and so i can't imagine why he'd move back to a place that made him so unhappy. they're telling the parents that his father is sick and he has to go home for a while. in a few weeks, they're going to say his father died and so he's not coming back. that way they don't look bad. pretty sick, huh?

4. new place- one of my coworkers had a place that was about a 20 minute walk from school and i have a scooter, so he just said he wanted to move to the school and i said i'd consider trading with him. the boss heard this and immediately said "oh, so you're trading with michael?" and i said "well, we haven't talked about it." the next day, this same conversation took place again. he then told michael to go ahead and pack his things and did not tell me this. i packed up everything in my room on a day's notice. talk about being filled with hate. well, i moved in a day before vacation. i love it in my new place. padraig left during vacation. 3 days into the next week i was told that i would have to move back into the school. i had not lived in the apartment for even a week. i told him i'd really not like that. it would be the 4th time i've changed locations in the last 5 1/2 months. this has made me really pissed off. the location of the school is not great. there is no privacy. you cannot have guests. there are cctv cameras in the hall and we've been told before "oh, you came in late last night." if i live at the school i have to do pickups, which means that every couple weeks i have to go to work an hour early for no money. the bosses work sometimes till 10 at night and want to chat it up if they see you. the bills are insanely expensive, our electric bills basically pay the electricity for the whole school. so i've decided that i will move back to the school under a few conditions: the ad for the school said the job paid 100,000w more a month than the actual contract i signed in korea. i would ask for backpay and a raise of another 100,000 on top of that. i would also ignore any pesky rules about having guests. if they do not want to do this and still force me to move back into the school, i will give them my notice because i could easily find another job in korea...and since they just lost a teacher, they cannot afford to lose another, it would sink them. if they don't want to give me a release, i'll just tell them that i'll report them to the labor board if they don't. they have engaged in various illegal activities such as not providing us with health insurance until after 5 months, still not giving us pension, and breaking all sorts of general labor laws associated with how many hours we have to work a day. of course, they could just let me stay and everything would be fine.

5. darts- i play darts now. i bought my own set. everyone here loves to play darts at the bar. there are people who can pretty much get bull's eyes every time. it's amazing.

6. the ladies- it turns out that the waitress i have a crush on at the bar also has a crush on me. this was related to me by my korean friends last night. she's 29 and doesn't speak english very well, which is her concern. i can't say i don't understand. not speaking the same language is sort of a big deal when you want to know someone. she came to our table and put her arm around me. she said in english that i was "her man," which is funny on many different levels. she then explained to my korean friends that she likes me but is afraid because she can't speak english. oh well.

7. books- i finished "hocus pocus" and "bluebeard" by vonnegut. bluebeard was maybe better. hocus pocus was maybe my least favorite vonnegut book so far. i went to the book store to find something more heavy to read. i got "critique on pure reason" by kant. i've trudged through the massive introduction and i understand about 30% of it. i consider this a huge accomplishment, the 30% that is. i think i'm going to start on pynchon's "vineland" again. i started it a while ago and then moved to something else. my friend kakki also has "the crying of lot 49" which i might borrow.

that is all. i've been here for nearly 6 months. i think my big plan is to come back and study for my master's degree. i met a guy who did that. with a 2.7 gpa, he got a 75% scholarship on tuition and a 50% scholarship for the dorms. why? because korean universities love white people going to their schools...or foreigners in general, it's just that most of those foreigners are white folks like myself. so that puts me here for 2 more years. hopefully i will speak a lot of korean when i come back for good. it would be a shame not to.

counting out time...

i have to get off of this island. i just want to go to my apartment and cook dinner and see my friends. i want to go to the crazy duck and have the waitress fawn over me. i want a rotibun. maybe there's a movie playing. i don't know, anything is better than this.

jeju is a really beautiful place, but there isn't anything to do. it's ridiculously boring. in the town i'm staying in, there are no people in the streets. it's really odd. it feels oddly deserted. there's nothing to eat except sashimi and pork (which, i've discovered i hate pork, except when it comes in breakfast form). it takes like an hour to see a waterfall. you get there, you look at the waterfall and think about how similar it looks to the last waterfall you saw an hour ago. i think it would be fun if i had people with me, but i'm alone on a honeymoon getaway because all my friends had their holidays already.

my best friend in korea ditched out yesterday in a "midnight run." this is where you don't tell anyone you're leaving and you just go home to get out of teaching at your horrible school without honoring the full contract. he called me yesterday around lunch asking me to give his contact info out. he said he had received funding for a phd back in scotland so he had to go back. i had to call our boss and tell him what had happened. he was very angry...but the truth of it is that we are treated like garbage by our school. i hate it very much. i'm currently job searching myself. i think my letter of release will be easy to come by. i'm going to tell them that if they don't sign it then i'll turn them into the labor board for all of their shady dealings. we'll see. oh well, enough of this, going to the beach i guess...

NIRVANA (UK)

nirvana (uk) people! listen to it. love it. live it. seriously, my favorite new band.

jeju, day 1 (and a little of 2)

well, i got into jeju last night and got on the bus going to my place, not knowing if i'd have a place to stay or not. after i found the hotel i talked to the guy and he gave me a room. it's the size of a cardboard box, maybe, but this trip has only cost me 288$ for the flight and for a week's lodging. so i'm pretty happy with it. i went out around 11 to find out what was going on in town. the answer was surprising: NOTHING. i'm not in a really hopping part of town and need to figure out where to go.

i went to the roof this morning to read some and a british guy and his sister started talking to me and then we were joined by their parents. they were friendly and gave me a beer at 10:30 in the morning. me and the guy got along and so we made our way out and tried to find some sunglasses for him and went to the batting cages. again, batting cages are everywhere.

i called my friend padraig to ask him something and he told me he had bad news. apparently, one of the students at school died yesterday. his name was james and he was 5 years old. he was being watched by his cousin and he fell off of a balcony. it's really sad...sorry to be depressing. here is a picture to cheer you up. irene! my favorite!

a clock that sings...

today, i went to seoul to see all those experimental music crazies bang out some noise. it was fun as usual. i will post the video soon, but i saw a pretty amazing performance from a guy who used bowls to make music. they were "singing" bowls, if you've ever heard of those. they're just bowls that resonate tones very well and sound almost like tubular bells. before that though, i had a really phenomenal experience: a chicken quesadilla.

let's just say that it's the second time i've had mexican food in 5 months...and the first time doesn't really count because it was horrible mexican food...like "i will spew you forth from my mouth" mexican food. but this, this was a legitimate quesadilla and it had nacho chips with salsa on the side. i normally don't clean my plate, but i threw caution to the wind and didn't care if i was being an american stereotype. i'm very conscious of being an american and so there are things i do and don't do over here to hopefully reflect well upon myself/my country:
1)i attempt to use korean as much as possible, even if they speak english.
2)i do not go to mcdonald's
3)i hold open doors for people and offer my seat on buses/trains to elderly folk (this is just a holdover from georgia i think, most of the times people are surprised because this is not something that's done here) it's almost like they can't conceive of a stranger being polite. more often than not, if you're a stranger, you might as well be dead to everyone you don't know. strangers do not talk and people do not mingle. it makes the social aspect of this country perplexing. it's also ironic that one of the main t-shirt slogans pushed by polham (clothing company that EVERYONE wears) is "world without strangers."
so i guess you could say that i am ultimately the greatest person to ever live and that i am worthy of your praise and respect......just checking if you were still reading. if you've gotten this far, i will tell you now that i'm none of those things.

recently, i've had a fascination with darts. electronic dart boards are at every bar in korea. you can see how high you can get your accuracy and what not. there are some really amazing players. i saw a woman last night who can hit anything on the board as many times as she wants. she was playing someone who wasn't as good as her and she would begin each turn by missing a shot, etc. people buy their own darts. i need to buy my own darts. the game of cricket is pretty amazing. padraig beats me most of the time. for some reason he's really good at bar games. oh that's right, he worked at a "fecking" bar for years.

glenfidditch is only 5,000w a finger at the crazy duck. easily the best scotch i've found in korea. everything else is johnnie walker or some bizarre ones i've never even heard (which padraig, the scot, hasn't heard of either). the staff at the crazy duck (loud,obnoxious,militarily occupied bar) are really nice. i only go there once a week or so, but they remember my name and talk to me. victor shows me card tricks (i've learned how to do magic tricks with cards, so sue me), bonnie works on her english (her electronic name tag says "hi, i'm bonnie. i'm cute and sexy! do you think? haha! i love u. have fun!" and jessica holds my hands for inordinate amounts of time when greeting me before going in for the hug (which is fine, because i have a fantasy crush on her).

for some reason or other, i'm talkative tonight. i think i said last night i want to come back for a master's degree here. my school really sucks still and i'm thinking that i might need to get them to release me due to their severe breaches of contract.

in other news, the song "wings of love" by nirvana (uk) is really one of the best psych rock songs around. if you go to http://bizarre-garden.blogspot.com/ you can download a bunch of nirvana (uk) stuff. i have most of their stuff, but if you just want a best of then the third entry should be what you're looking for. if you like the zombies, the left banke, the kinks, kaleidoscope, etc. then i suggest you get it. the bizarre garden guy really has some excellent albums on his site, you just have to search around sometimes. he'll get on a kick about a band and post everything they have for a month. go check it out.

but where it's going no one knows

nothing's happening here but i've thought about a change of plans. i was considering coming back to korea and teaching next year, but i'm considering coming back here instead on an education visa and getting my masters. it's about 1/4 of the cost compared to the states. so i might come home for a few months and come back in august for my master's in english literature. the classes are in english and all that. i'd have to stay in a dorm, which would be fine...but the only thing i'm wondering is how i would live. i could do some private lessons, but those are much harder to come by than i was hoping. i figure that if i taught 5-10 hours a week i could live a relatively normal life, making between 500,000-1,500,000w a month. i just don't want to take out a ton of student loans. the thing is that the programs over here are based not only on your academic standing but also on your interviews and gre scores and personality. so it seems like a good deal. i think that maybe i'm starting to think of this place as home. it feels like so much has changed since i left and that home will never be the same. oh well, so it goes.

i bought a t-shirt today. i like it for some reason or other. the perplexing array of t-shirts here baffles me. there will be a shirt and it will have an amazing design and some random english phrase that somehow makes sense in a way that an english person couldn't. for instance, one is a shirt with these geometrically arranged cassette tapes and the slogan is "slow life." i like this one for the fact that it's sort of an obvious yet still bizarre phrase. "when changing the way you think, there will be a...wonderful change." it's rather obvious but still evasive in a way that only a non-native speaker could be evasive. it's still odd though because koreans for the most part will never understand the irony of things like a "three wolf moon" t-shirt or even that new threadless shirt with the three cats playing piano under a full moon...i guess most americans don't get it either.....all the same. i think i like the shirts here because they are equally bizarre to anything you could find back home, but they're worn in complete sincerity. often times they have no idea what they say. i saw a guy wearing a shirt that said "fuck you!" on it and a girl wearing one that said "about our conversation earlier...i never said shit." in a way, i don't think they appreciate the innocence of their t-shirt choices in the same way i do.

pour your oil in our hair

had a flea market today at the school. parents brought in things for the kids to buy with fake money. i stole a stuffed animal for myself though. it's a hamster thing. i call him funnel cake. it's cute. the older kids were helping to run the booths, but were charging outrageous prices because they were told that they could spend whatever fake money they earned. so each kid got 15 fake dollars. i sold stuffed animals for 2-5$. the older kids were selling everything for 5$-10$ so they'd have money. it was sad because these little 5 year olds were just forking it over and not having any money for anything else. so when the older kids tried to buy something from me i'd say "for you, 60$" they'd complain and i'd say "ok, ok...80$" i gave them a lecture in the afternoon when i taught them about how i was disappointed in them for price gouging kindergarteners.

feeling a bit down today. realized i haven't really spoken to anyone in weeks. i'm starting to feel a bit isolated. all my friends here are on vacation or out on dates. my vacation is a week after everyone else's and i don't intend to ask a girl on a date anytime soon/ever. i'm having another dip in mood...but a week from today, i'll be on jeju island and i hope i'll feel better sleeping somewhere where i can see the stars (it's been a few months since i've seen them)...i'll probably sleep outside the first night because my hotel was booked that night and so i have nowhere to stay when i arrive.

i still miss people.

i had sex with a whore and have herpes

not really...i'm just seeing if you're paying attention. things have been slow lately. i'm getting into a pretty normal routine. after work, i eat dinner and go to one of three places afterward to do some reading: holly's coffee, rotimum, or the now bar. i've been trying to change it up though. i bought some traditional groceries in order to cook at home upon occasion. this week's menu: fettucine alfredo, a rare dish in korea.

i also took a taxi to the next town over to get an iced grande no classic green tea from starbucks. this was a phenomenal experience since it has been nearly 5 months since i had last had one. by the way, if you work at starbucks, feel free to mail me china green tips or zen since they sell neither over here. i met my friend kakki. she's going home to the states for a week and is going to buy me cigarettes. i gave her a lot of money for their purchase. korean smokes just don't do it for me...maybe i should quit 3 years ago.

after that, i walked over to a bar called the crazy duck to have a quiet beer and to read "bluebeard" by vonnegut. crazy duck is never quiet, due to the kpop blasting out of the speakers, but there weren't many people there. i studied korean for a bit, read a bit, played a game of darts by myself, admired the waitress who speaks token english phrases (i speak token korean phrases), and then my friend rachel walked in on a date. she was shocked to see me because of various reasons which are personal to her and not to me, and so i won't go into it. i then came home to brush my teeth with my newly purchased electric toothbrush. did people even brush their teeth before electric toothbrushes were purchased by me in korea? i know i didn't.

work sucks. i'm advertising this saturday for a few hours because i was coerced by my boss. supposedly, i'll get paid.

doubtful.

i made a kid cry today. he cried for about 20 minutes. why? i took away a water bottle he had fashioned into an improvised watergun (achieved by poking a small hole into the cap and applying pressure to the body of the bottle...a trick they picked up from me, as i squirt them when they are behaving badly). i told him to "man up." fat tony (his secret nickname) has been giving me trouble for some time.