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...