Somewhere in Asia

You're the target

2010-12-16T04:44:00.000-08:00

What's new?

I've started doing magic tricks in class? I'm not sure why but It's kind of fun. I've learned something fucking astounding though. Apparently there's an actual minimum age at which anything below, "magic," is simply not miraculous. Here's the run down on my kids and their thoughts on magic.

5 years old: You had a coin, and now it's not a sticker. Where you going to give me a sticker or a candy? There was a coin? I'm bored.

6 years old: Something about what just happened isn't right, but i'm not really sure why. I'm bored.

7 years old: You're a liar and a cheat.

8 years old: 50% = WOAH, DO IT AGAIN. No? Why not? I'm bored. 50% = I don't care.

I think because I only have 7 more teaching days left, a solid week, I've started to have fun again. I guess I've realized I don't have a reason not to act hecka loose now. Today one of my kids start busting a beat on the desk and singing a song which had a pretty good beat. He's going to go far. Anyway, I'm not sure why but I started dancing. I'm not sure if the kids have finally made me crazy or i'm just happy to finally be leaving. Probably just happy to see my family again.

more later..

Crab brains.

2010-12-15T06:15:00.001-08:00

I.am.almost.done.

Today was a normal day at the hagwon. Two kids sneezed in my mouth today. Normal. I told my sister that it's my theory that when a super bug comes and kills off billions of people the only people who will survive are us Kindergarten teachers. We'll rise from the ashes, stickers on our face, all repeating in unison, like zombies, "B is for buttons, and buttons are for me." Maybe B would be for brains. We are zombies after all.

Today at 2pm the "North Korea is attacking your ass" siren went off. All the kids instinctivly hid under their desk. It reminded me of the videos I used to watch in school about the cold war. When diving under a desk would, some how some way, help you survive a nuclear explosion. I guess the led paint would of helped. Anyway, I was left there, marker in hand wondering what the shit is going on. Like crabs on a beach, they all slowly came back out, one by one. Also like crabs, they didn't learn anything today. Stupid crabs.

12 solid days, 8 teaching days.

Cleaning and packing, i've found so many things I thought I lost. Eight socks, two shirts, a pair of pants and numerous papers with ideas, scribbled all over. A children's story I wrote months ago. I'm half expecting to find a half eaten sandwich back there. Speaking of sandwiches, i'm hungry and I just bought some peanut butter..

more later...

9

2010-12-14T03:46:00.000-08:00

9 MORE TEACHING DAYS LEFT! HOLY SHIT!

So much has changed since I first got here. I've learned so much. Re-reading some of my earlier posts, http://alexanderjamesclark.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html, I realize how wrong my first initial perception on everything had been.

First of all, it's kim-bop, not sim-bop.

Second, I went to a place called Ja-gal-chi, I remember calling it jangle or jingle. Like jingle all the way. Maybe I was just getting into the Christmas spirit early. SPEAKING OF CHRISTMAS: If anyone wants me to bring them back anything from this land of the rising sun, let me know. I have limited room so don't ask me for like, a small an Asian baby or something. I've gone this long without getting one, i'm not going to start now.

Third, I didn't have a fork or spoon and had to eat my noodles and rice from a ladle I found. Now I have two forks!! Still no spoon though. Working on that.

more later..

Storming the hill.

2010-11-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my own personal D-day. The Hill? The dentist office. The ships are miles out, landing crafts are on their way. It's do or die.

"Maybe it wont be that bad," I tell myself. Then I remember exactly what i'm doing and begin to freak out. The worst part is, I wont have anyone to go with me. I'll have to some how navigate the bus on my way home, slightly dizzy from everything.

Tomorrow is my D-day, time to soldier up.

T-minus 8

2010-10-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

So it's of official: I have 8 more Fridays left in Korea.

Tonight i'm going to the yearly fireworks festival. The same one I went to last year. I remember how new everything was 1 year ago. I remember walking with a group of people, also brand new, trying to get a taxi to this magical place called KSU. That's apparently where all the bars were. We would get into a taxi, tell them Kyungsung University, and they would make us get out and we couldn't figure out why.

I now know KSU was a 3 minute walk from where we were (like a 10 second taxi ride). Actually, now, I live in KSU! Can you imagine? In Korea, time will absolutely fly.

The weird looks I get on the subway, the "oh, wa-gook (foreigner)" I hear sometimes from kids and even the stench of the sewer that once almost made me throw up; all of these i've made mine. I can't picture myself back home yet, it doesn't seem real. I couldn't picture myself in Korea though and well, here I am.

More later..

Korea

2010-04-02T04:03:00.001-07:00

I noticed today that I have changed. Korea has changed me.
Let me explain: I was on the bus, somewhat crowded, and I had to fart. What did I do? I let that shit rip. I didn't even try to hide it or make it silent either, I just let it go. Matter of fact I might have squeezed my butt cheeks together for that extra umph.

After I realized what happened, I started laughing and I couldn't believe what just happened. I wouldn't have dreamed of doing that in America. I'm still having a hard time explaining it.

Also, I realize in America it's April fools day. It's not here; this is real.

So yeah

2010-03-23T06:41:00.000-07:00

Shit went down.

I'm almost not sure how to write this anymore, it's been almost a month and i've gotten rusty.
Life:
Me and Sam broke it off and I can't say i'm happy right now. I can't get any lower.
Work:
We got a new class. One of the kids yells when I say "IMMAGETCHA and get close to him."
I took a video:

Got that guy - The best home videos are here

I've been taking a lot of videos lately. Eventually, i'll get back into the habit of writing a lot every couple days. Until then, MWF will just be videos that I take.

More later.

2010-02-18T01:48:00.001-08:00

No more updates, at least not for this week. Gotta get myself together.

Lunar Holiday!

2010-02-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

Lunar Holiday! My first 3 day weekend! I'm going to get to this place called Tongdongnae which is supposed to be absolutely beautiful. My boss wants to throw a party on Monday (my day off), but honestly, I don't want to go. It's my day off! Her house is literally the kindergarten, she lives on the top floor. I don't want to go back to work on my day off. What should I do?

Dong Chim!

2010-02-10T03:52:00.000-08:00

DONG CHIM!

Dong Chim is basically putting both hands together and sticking it in someone's butt when they're not looking. When it happens, basically everyone wins except for the person who just got Dong Chimmed. I've always heard that in Korea the kindergarten kids like to do this thing called Dong Chim but i've never seen it done. Until yesterday.

Yesterday we were acting out "The Golden Goose" in class and one of the characters is a dwarf. One one kid went all out trying to act like the dwarf including hunching over like an old man. While he was walking around, another kid got up out of his seat, ran over like 20 feet, and dong chimmed the crap (not literally) out of this kid. Everyone laughed, i'm sure some people even applauded and nodded in approval (very good very good, I like what you did there). Apparently this is customary kindergarten play. So customary, I found a picture of gold (probably not) statue.

More Friday.

In debt!!

2010-02-08T04:23:00.000-08:00

I just transfered half my pay again back to the US..I should have cut up those credit cards when I had the chance..

What I need is a get out of debt stick. Anyone got one?

Other than that, nothing really new.

Keeping my head above water.

2010-02-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

I have literally 400 pictures from the snow festival. Since i'm only doing 1 every 2 days, I wont be able to get through them all. Here is another.

Work is getting better. For a quick minute this week I thought about quitting. Throwing in the towel and giving up. There was this girl who came for one day during the trial lesson, Hannah, who cried the first day. A month later, this past Monday, she came back to have another go. On the way down to the gym I lost her. I lost a kid.

I got all the students together, I thought Christine (co-teacher) had Hannah because she was taking a while to put on her shoes, and I took the rest of the kids down. When Christine came down, we realized no Hannah and went on a frantic search and rescue mission. She was gone.

We found out, like 10 minutes later, that she walked all by her self to her other school and just started crying. Needless to say, her parents were pissed and opted to pull her out of our school.

At the same time, the rest of my kids were going nucking futs. Running all over the place, not paying attention. I considered conceding myself as a bad kindergarten teacher and maybe trying to find an adult job or elementary school job. Something easier to handle.

I talked with Alex though, who has been doing this for a year now, and she gave me some tips. I've started laying down the law now and it's worked a lot better:

If someone does something bad, they say, "i'm sorry teacher"
If they want to talk they say, "excuse me teacher"
If they need to go to the bathroom they say, "Excuse me teacher, may I go to the bathroom?"

How did I get them in line?
Stickers.

Stickers man! Stickers!

Thats where the money's at. It's working for now, and i've got them under control, but just barely. Hopefully, it'll work for 11 more months.

Frozen rain.

2010-02-03T01:31:00.000-08:00

If it looks cold, it's because it was freezing. I'm not sure what the temperature actually was but if I had to guess probably like 2 or 3 degrees. The wind and my cold didn't make it much better.

The snow festival was 5 hours away by car in this really small Korean town called Taebeck. So small, that you could drive through it in about 1 minute flat. We accidentally did twice looking for food. What we did see/do though was:

1.) Huskeys pulling sleighs.
2.) Tobogganing (Sp?)
3.) We saw some girl fall off her toboggan and get run over by another tobaggan, on her noggin (couldn't resist). She was crying really bad though and I hope she was alright.
4.) Amazing mountain scenery.

I'm not sure, there was a lot. We even went into this cave that looked AMAZING. A real-life-cave.

more later.

On Korea, and poo

2010-02-01T05:40:00.000-08:00

I don't have any pictures from the snow festival yet, so unfortunately I can't show you guys what just went down. What I can tell you, is that it was wonderful. It even snowed, just a little, but I saw it snowing!

Why the picture of the toilet?

My only beef with the entire trip was every time I had to poo, all I could find were these squat toilets. Every now and again, you might get lucky and find a western one, but not when you had to go. Either way, I refuse to use these just because it looks like you're probably either going to fall forward or have a mess on your shoes. Usually, the sides are all covered in poo too, so you know you're accuracy can't be that great.

But that got me thinking: Why? Who made these and why?
Why do they still make these? You know they've seen the Western ones. If they haven't, you know they've seen "the chair." There had to have been someone who was like, "hey, I've got an idea guys, lets cut a hole, right in the middle of this chair, that way poo doesn't get all over our shoes."

You probably had some guy in the back that shouted "bad idea, lets stick with the hole in the ground." And then probably a bunch of old men who grumbled about how they don't like change.

What a jerk that guy.

Anyway, a picture Wednesday, if I can get it.

*edited for language, for all my younger cousins.

Picture time!

2010-01-29T03:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since i've posted a picture on here: I figured I should change that.

The other day me and Sam went for a walk because for once, in a really long time, it was warm. Apparently it was not only warm, but low tide. So all the locals I guess came out and were getting clams and other seafood to probably eat later.

It's Sam's birthday so we're going to a snow festival this weekend. She'll be taking pictures, which means there's a much better chance pictures will be on this blog.

Turning Japanese.

2010-01-28T05:13:00.000-08:00

Japan trip:
I got on this massive boat (maybe not that big, like 200 people) with only two other foreigners. Somehow we were all seated together. Coincidence? I don't know. Unfortunately the two other foreigners was this guy from Canada who was 50, and this other guy who was probably around 65. I didn't ask him. The older one proceeded to tell me his life story for half the ride.

I just kept nodding saying, "oh really? No way? yeah?" over in over again, but he just kept talking. Then there was a slight pause in the conversation, so I turned the look out the window hoping he wouldn't continue. When I turned around I found out that dude fell asleep, that fast. like 20 seconds. The rest of the trip was nice and quiet until he woke up and started telling me about this girl he was planning on meeting here. Ew dude, 65 years old. Don't want to hear that.

The other 50 year old Canadian was also going to the embassy and apparently staying at the same hotel so we split a cab there. The conversation to the embassy and then on the way to the hotel was basically about how this guy wanted to try and find some "FOXY WOMEN" as he put it. When we got to the hotel and went our separate ways.

Finally, I had a couple moments to myself. I walked around, got some pills for my nose (still runny) and got lost in a the jungle that is Japan. I asked everyone I could for directions to Canal street; which is apparently the place to go if you want bars/coffee shops/shopping. The guys usually shrugged, the girls would giggle and run away. Either way, I usually ended up lost. Finally, by luck and one really friendly Japanese girl, I found it.

Apparently it was called Canal City, not street, so no one knew what I was talking about. Also, it was just a really big shopping mall with a river that ran through it. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous, just not what I was expecting. So I continued to walk around trying to find a coffee shop but at that point it was dark and getting cold so I decided to head back. This is when I truly discovered how lost I was.

If push came to shove, I had my hotel card, show that to a taxi is like a "reset button" if you're lost in a foreign country and need to get home. I eventually found my way back, got some street Japanese food which was extremely salty.

While I was walking around looking for a bar to dive into, I found a couple Brazilian flags hanging from one of the bar windows. I went in and guess what? No Brazilians. Matter of fact: Everyone there was Japanese, but I guess what could I really expect?

Anyway, the important part of this story is that when I was in there I asked, "do you at least speak Spanish," in Spanish to them. The owner in fact did and we talked, in Spanish for like 20 minutes. We talked about everything, where I was from, what I was doing in Japan. Everything man. I was soooo surprised with how much Spanish I pulled too, it was like I was still in Chile. The feeling is incredibly hard to describe I guess, it felt like it was something i've always known, but was always too afraid to actually click over and really use it.

Either way, me and this guy speaking Spanish in the middle of a bar got a few looks, I remember people looking confused.

The next day I went back with that guy to pick up my visa and then back to the Ferry terminal. Most of the conversation was about how he was disappointed that he didn't meet up with any "foxy ladies." He even suggested, get this, that he should have brought a walkie talkie to meet up with them.

I had to inform him about cell phones.

What I learned from this little adventure:
Japan is expensive. Japan is beautiful. There is a lot less racism in Japan then there is in Korea. The currency is kind of weird. You have to imagine that everything is like you're buying something is priced in cents, since 1 dollar = about 100 yen.

Buy a bottle of water? thats 142 cents. (or a buck 40). Want to buy a hello kitty key chain? thats 1600 cents (or 16 bucks). Also, i'd like to move to Japan now.

More later.

Japan

2010-01-27T02:49:00.000-08:00

I just got back from Japan. I've got some..business..I need to take care of first before I fully update this. When I come back from work tomorrow, i'll get on it. To say a few words though:

Holy shit Japan is awesome.

I want.

more later.

Gross

2010-01-22T02:54:00.000-08:00

I'm coughing up black. Well, first it was red (i'm assuming blood) and now it's black. Anyone have any ideas what this means? Maybe Uncle Leo, ask your lovely wife? Other then that though, truly nothing to report. I bought a money clip because I thought it would look cool. Somehow, i've managed to lose the clip, but not the money or cards it was holding.

Hopefully, if I get better by Monday, i'm going to join an MMA gym. /excited.

Thats it. Monday.

KEVIN!!!

2010-01-20T05:16:00.000-08:00

I'm sick, Sam's sick, and I'm not going to Japan tomorrow. I know who got me sick too, flippin Kevin. Every time I lean over to say anything to him he coughs in my face. Like he thinks coughing is the answer to the question. It's not.

Eitherway, Apparently i'm going next week on Tuesday. I can't really get excited. Everyone who has gone to Japan said it's just like Korea, except a lot cleaner. I unno, it's still another country to check off my list.

Tomorrow I get to interview 3 new girls to work at the school. I get to interview and pick who I want! exciting!

I'm sick, and coughing, so i'm just going to go to bed.

Something hot.hot.hot

2010-01-18T06:05:00.001-08:00

Things are getting extremely hectic over here. From the moment I get into work at 10am I now work until 6pm (minus the lunch break). 7 classes.

On the bright side, I get hugs. Lots of hugs.

This weekend was fun. Come to think of it my mouth was pretty much on fire the entire weekend.

Friday: I went with Sam to get SPICY muscles. At first I was like, I've had everything Korea thinks to be spicy so far, how bad can this be? Let me tell you, this shit was HOT. My entire face hurt, I was sweating, I couldn't feel my tongue. It was that bad. Then I got up to go have a piss and when I came back I had an itch so I scratched my eye. That was a bad idea. Now my eye hurt. The good news is, for about 20 bucks you get about 60 muscles. Not bad! It's a shame you can't eat but 10 before you have to quit.

We got Chinese food with the group on Saturday and I tried to get my favorite General Tso's Chicken. Wasn't as good as the one from the Wok and Roll despite being 6000 miles closer to China. We went out after, bar hoping, came back around 5.

Sunday we tried to go to a temple but it ended up being a lazy Sunday. We took pictures by the water. don't know where my camera cord is otherwise i'd show ya.

Today, in class, we went into the gym to do this confidence course that I made for the kids. Basically you had to run up these pads, jump over a triangle walk walk walk dance dance dance jump walk dance go through the hoop and find the red block and smash the house of blocks that I made.

I wanted everyone to do this one at a time but because of miscommunication, when I said go everyone did it at once. When it came to crawling through the hoop, the kids all tried at once, which knocked it off of the supports and sent it falling. I just gave up and jumped into the pile of shapes with the kids after.

Yeah i've rambled enough. More Wednesday.

something hot. hot. hot.

2010-01-18T05:44:00.000-08:00

Playing favorites.

2010-01-15T20:05:00.001-08:00

Theres a little girl, Helen, who is in love with me. I know this because she told me so. Also, she hangs off my legs when i'm walking, she jumps on my head and sits on my shoulders during movies and also tries to hold my hand when were walking. USUALLY, I go along with all of this, but where and how do I draw the line?

I don't want to make all the other kids jealous. Playing favorites could cause a disaster. I also don't want her to think that Alex teacher is a meany. What do I do?

Also, i'm going to Japan on Wednesday to get my new Visa. BY BOAT. hot damn.

More Monday.

Blue people

2010-01-13T05:50:00.000-08:00

I saw Avatar yesterday. Thing I like about Korea: I can buy a beer at the gas station, walk to the movie theater with it. Not only to the movie theater, but into, buy tickets and sit down with another fresh one.

Korea!

Anyway, so I wrote this really REALLY long post on how the movie Avatar is almost identical to this video game called Albion that came out in 1995. Human on a planet of nature loving aliens who, in both the video game and the movie look EXACTLY the same. I deleted it though. The movie was really good, and i'd probably see it again.

Tomorrow I have to teach 3 extra kindergarten classes. FUN. My only hope is for spongebob to save the day.

more Friday.

Static

2010-01-11T03:59:00.000-08:00

I've been shocking myself left and right lately. First I went to church on Sunday. Korean Catholic church. Couldn't understand a single word they said, but I went anyway. Koreans wear these head things to hide their faces in church. My guess is prevent the guys from letting their eyes wander and focus more on what the priest has to say. Which is smart, because I remember when I used to go to church I used to spend like 40 minutes of the hour checking out every girl around my age.

That technically counts as a confession, so i'm in the clear.

Other ways I've shocked myself:

2.) While watching Spongebob Squarepants with my kindergarteners on Friday, I laughed really loud, almost the entire time, for the entire two episodes. Apparently I have the sense humor of a 6 year old. I mean watch this and tell me if you don't laugh. By the way the dolphin noises are on the actual episode, not edited.

3.) Every time I touch anything metal (LAMEJOKEIKNOW).

4.) That last joke.

Anyway, Saturday I went out for drinks with a couple of my friends, one of which who just got back from Thailand. I want to go, it looks beautiful. Time to start saving money.

More on Wednesday.

Reality.

2010-01-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

This week was my first week teaching Kindergarten English in Korea. Not what I was expecting at all.

I'll recount the recent happenings:
Sunday I moved into my new apartment. Quite literally this new job is a mom and pop school. My boss(s) are a family of 6, all of which help out, the sisters being my co-teachers. I'm the wild card. Side note: I need to stop eating these brownies.

They're like crack. BY THE WAY. Those guys that you see holding those brownies, yeah they're like the most popular music group here in Korea. Not going to lie, I think they look similar to their female counterpart, girls generation, maybe? maybe a little? Korea.

Either way! My new bosses have told me literally 8 times a day that they remind me of their son and have been treating me as such. They took me out to dinner. Feed me from the moment I get there to the moment I leave and give me apples to take home. It's good Korean food too. Getting off topic; Sunday: I moved in.

Monday: I went to school and spent the day preparing a lesson for Tuesday. Tuesday was going to be BIG man. The school had 0 students, Tuesday was a show off the American day. Try to get parents to sign up for the school.

Tuesday: was then my first actual day teaching. It went a little like this: I bent down on one knee, got close to one of the kids and said, "Hi!"

Like two seconds later the kid's face scrunched up and he just started crying. Another kid saw him crying, and starting crying himself. I pushed through the lesson I made on Monday (head shoulders knees and toes and "whats the time?") and went home tired.

Wednesday: Somehow, 11 kids liked my class enough to ask their parents to sign them up. Two classes, one of 5 one of 6. First class, we named the kids and did a little abc's and went down to the gym. I taught them shapes and built a giant tower out of blocks. On the count of three, I told everyone to run at it and knock it down and make a even taller one. Ben, who changed his name to David, and again to Mark, decided he wanted none of that and kept knocking down his class mate's work with a giant block. Jerk.

The other class went better. Julie, who changed her name today to Helen, and I believe changed it again after class, just wanted to run around. I was ok with that and ran around with her.

Thursday: Helen came to class and handed me this: .....

Well never mind. While updating this blog i've realized that I left my camera at Sam's house. I'll describe it quickly and upload the picture later.

It's a handmade card. On the front it looks like a two layer wedding cake. It says Alex teacher with hearts all around it on the first layer, the second layer says teacher (with more hearts). The borders have bows. Open it up and the left inside cover (still with bows) it says:
Alex and teacher ("and" is circled).
Alex and teacher (again circled).
I love you (a big heart on the side)
-BYE-

Then theres a picture of i'm assuming me floating toward i'm assuming her with a wand in my hand. Apparently I can fly.

on the other side is a picture with a duck and a clock. The little word bubble says:

"Noctil ucerce stickes" I'm not sure what she was trying to say with that one.

The back cover has a picture of her giving me this card, me with a shocked face and her smiling.

It's the cutest fucking thing i've ever seen in my life. I gave her a huge hug and I think made the other kids a little jealous.

More later. (ps, i'm going to update NOMATTERWHAT every Monday Wed and Friday from now on, so check back on Monday)

A, Regis, final answer.

2009-12-29T05:34:00.000-08:00

So I decided to stay. Thank you to everyone who gave me their .2, it really helped. Robert, China doesn't pay enough. Talking with my family, they reminded me how hard and how much work it took to get here. My recruiter helped me find another job, which I start January 4th, teaching kindergarden this time. Truthfully, thats what I wanted to do when I came over here the first time and now i'll get my chance. It sucks that I had to sign for another year, but this time it'll be different.

I told them I wanted Christmas week off so I can go home to see my family. They agreed. I might even get Thanksgiving off, too. The school apparently will be essentially mine. No other foreigners teaching, just me and a couple of Korean teachers to help. So basically whatever I want to do, whatever I want to teach the kids, is completely up to me. Actually that's slightly scary. The old school gave me until Sunday to move out, which is when my new school said the new apartment would be ready. The new school and new apartment is in the city city. Before it would take 35 minutes by taxi to get to KYU and 35 min back after a night out. Now, i'll be a 2 minute walk, both ways. Not bad!

Christmas was great. I got a french press, coffee, a new mug and a capo for my guitar. Missed the family though. The huge dinner with wine, cheese cake and coffee. Next time.

I bought a huge pack of post cards finally and I found a post office. If you sent me something, expect a card in the mail. If not, and you want one, send me your address.

more later.

I want to use a life line

2009-12-16T09:05:00.001-08:00

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomuch shit has gone down today that I feel like it would be a crime to not post about this. Even if no one reads this time, I should at least post this for my own personal records.

Today, my boss called. Remember how I was talking about job security and all that jazz? No longer there. How do I know? Because he basically told me I have a couple options:

I can

A.) Take my final pay (2mil) and my severance (2mil), take the 4,000 dollars and stay in Korea, try to find a new job. My Visa after all is good for a year.

or

B.) Take the 4,000 dollars and find a flight home on my own (see after option C).

or

C.) Take half of the severance and they pay of half the flight home.

Option C shouldn't even be considered because with my frequent flier miles I could probably get a free ticket home.

Theres also option D which is get a job in Thailand with my friend.

Anyway, I have until Friday to decide, which actually means Thursday in Western time. It's 2:12am here, I basically have 24 hours. If you ever wanted to give me advice, nows the time to post on here with some words of wisdom.

Lets have it.

Something to write home about.

2009-11-30T05:57:00.000-08:00

I've been here two months and five days. Some people say I move fast.

On Saturday, I walked over to my couch, sat down, and listened to the drone of multiple conversations happening all at once. In all, 18 people that I knew, we talking in my living room. 5 couldn't make it. A moment later my girlfriend came and sat down next to me with a fresh glass of wine. She asked if we should pull out the desert; a fresh apple pie, an ice-cream cake and a birthday cake with chocolate pieces on top. All brought by other people for this Thanksgiving potluck.

I've been here two months and five days.

Afterwards, around 1am, we all got in separate cabs and headed for the bars. I knew what to tell the driver in Korean to get there. We stayed there and danced for a bit and then went to another club after that. Around maybe 4:30/5am we stumbled out, pretty damn sloshed, and got in a cab to head back to my place. I knew how to tell the cab driver how to get to my house.

I've been here two months and five days.

Although part of me was sad spending my first real holiday away from my family, I was happy to be around friends. I'm thankful for this situation I've managed to fall ass backwards into. For the first time, in two months and five days, I realized truly why I had come.

More later.

Turkey day.

2009-11-26T19:36:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I miss my family and friends.

Tomorrow i'll be trying my BEST to recreate what happens every year in my family. Namely, a huge meal with a huge family and friends. We'll see how that goes.

Hope everyone had a really good Thanksgiving, send me pictures!

Yaitsaj@gmail.com

The ups and down.

2009-11-17T05:42:00.001-08:00

Again, you should click on the blue links when you see them.

Tuesday, November 17th 2009, in a sleepy part of Busan, South Korea, at around 7:30am, I looked out my window and saw little white specs floating from the sky.

It was snowing.

I went back to bed and when I woke up a few hours later, all the snow was gone. Oh well. It was still really cool to see snow falling for the first time, ever. I mean i've been in snow before <clickhere>, but i've never seen it fall before.

Needless to say, it's getting cold. Outside, and at work. Before I came to Korea I read on many a websites that working at a hagwon is dangerous. Not Anthrax dangerous, your job just isn't that safe dangerous.

The school I work for has been apparently hit by the financial crisis as well. We combined the two buildings in the area into one to save money, but kids are dropping life flies because of the tuition fees. A lot of Korean teachers have been fired, and now the English department is being threatened. So far, since i've been here, i've had 3 different bosses. This new one is a straight up asshole. I can't sugar coat it.

There are two other teachers I work with, Saint and Ju-hee. There are other Korean English, Science and Math teachers in the school, but in my department, I work with only two others.

Yesterday the director told Saint if we don't get new students by January, we'll only need two English teachers.

Today, he held a meeting with all the other Korean teachers and basically said, "The Foreign teachers don't do anything and we pay them way too much. The school pays Alex (he called me out) 2.7m a month, and with the amount of students he has the school is losing money."

While it's true, my number has dropped, I can't see how they're losing money. Maybe they are. For the record, I only get paid 2.2m. Anyway, job security is making me stress a little bit.

On a lighter note: There is something that has been helping taking the stress away. Actually, it's more like a someone* (though cotton candy helps).

More later.

Take only what you need from it.

2009-11-09T05:06:00.000-08:00

I'm back!

first: click on the blue links for "fun."

I had to take a temporary hideous from blogging/pc bonging for the past two weeks. I think my very last post I said "I got better." The very next day after that what ever I had came back with a vendetta.

It wanted me dead.

I could only spend about 10 or 15 minutes tops at the PC bong before the smoke sent me into a coughing fit which would only quit if I left. So unfortunately no updates, and very few calls to family =(.

I actually was feeling about 40% on Halloween. I had completely lost my voice so I couldn't finish my overtime/voice recording gig that I started. In spite my voice, I went out with Sam anyway to some Halloween party that my climbing friends were throwing.

I heard alcohol kills germs.

Click here

Sam is to my left.

The next couple days were spent recovering from that night and trying to teach without a voice. This was pretty great actually. In one of my classes, my voice just straight up quit. I resorted to writing on the board, "Teacher is done for today, just do your work or something."

Thursday was payday. Or rather: Thursday SHOULD have been payday. I ended up not getting payed until Friday and because of a problem with the bank I ended up getting my entire pay in a large bank bag. You've gotta remember that their biggest bill is 10,000. My pay was almost 2,000,000. I felt like that kid from Blank Check. You know what i'm talking about.

Speaking of which, my pay should have been about 2,300,000. I ended up getting 1,734,andsomechange. I told you my school was cheap. Apparently because I "started later" they docked my pay accordingly. Also, i'm fighting for my overtime. No one knew that I was supposed to get paid for that. UUuggghhh, I was afraid of this. Whatever, before I got paid I had literally 600won left. Just enough for one rice cake. It was time to spend some cash.

Friday: Our whole "group" went to go support our friend Matt, he was doing standup for his first time in Korea. Afterwards we all went to this club called Moe's. Everyone left around 2am to go to another bar but me and Sam stayed behind. Near about 3am, the DJ abandoned her post and left the computer open brave hands.

At that point we were both about..I don't know, 10 beers deep? Give or take. The DJ had girltalk and Mgmt on the computer, so the night pretty much ended with the two of us having our own little dance party until 5am that morning. The only two still breaking it down.

Saturday day: Me and Sam went to Busan tower and shopping, she bought an amazing camera for 550k, I bought a guitar.

Saturday night: It was Becca's birthday, went out for Indian food then to a bar where I kicked ass in foosball against some random drunk guys.

Sunday: I went with Nicole to this AMAZING temple. Only pictures can help you understand how beautiful this place is. Words simply wont do. Unfortunately, I can't find my thumb drive to transfer pictures so until then: imagine that a piece of heaven fell from the sky down onto Earth. That's what this place is like.

More later.

Delivering the goods and a bit more religion

2009-10-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

So, i've been failing at updating this recently so i'm going to try to catch everyone up in a really concise, but really long post. Bare with me.

I got better. Those pills that the pharmacist gave me were some sort of silver bullet (pharmacy term for a pill that cures without any possible side effect). I actually was concerned and thought I was going to die at one point, that that was me being me.

I have Anemia. Thats not really new actually. I found out when I was 12, my mom bought me a cheeseburger. I basically need a bit more iron in my blood then other people or I get really..REALLY tired. Usually i'm ok, sometimes I forget and think, "why am I so tired?" I usually try to counter this with lots and lots of coffee until I remember, oh yeah, Anemia.

Yesterday was one of those days. The entire day I felt extremely sluggish and then I remembered that I haven't consumed any iron in probably a week, maybe longer. I went down to the store and bought a huge bushel of spinach for 1500won, cleaned it, and then sat down like a rabbit and ate that shit raw. No lie. Nothing else, just spinach. I actually had to stop about 2 or 3 times because I was laughing a bit too hard to chew. I still don't have internet or tv so when I eat, I usually just eat while looking around my apartment. The fact that I was just scooping Spinach from a bowl into my mouth was too unusual to not be funny I guess.

What else?
Halloween is coming so at school we're getting ready. All my classes have been given one art project a piece. Yesterday, we made ghosts. Today we made pumpkins, skulls and bats. Eventually we're going to hang them all around the school in a scary-like fashion and it should be good!

I've noticed my kids are getting more and more violent though. The once behaved angels that I used to love have turned into miniature devils. Julia stabbed Milo in the face with the sharp end of her compass. Yesterday, Sophia punched Tom in the stomach sending him to the ground. Today, Milo hit Maddie, putting her in tears. I asked Saint, "Can we write them up, tell the Director? what can we do?" Answer: nothing.

We can't do a damn thing. This aint public school.

Last weekend:

Last weekend started out pretty bad, but ended really well. I had to work Saturday morning, so Friday I did nothing. I couldn't fall asleep until 2:30/3, as usual, so when I woke up at 8 I was extremely tired. I had no idea what to expect when I got there, but I soon found out I would be recording math problems for Korean Highschool kids. Basically I had to read: X axis is perpendicular with Y, mx+b, yatta yatta.

HERES THE THING: I suck at math. I always have. Thats why I became a History major. The teachers who wrote these problems are Korean, so a lot of them have huge mistakes that I simply don't know how to fix. I KNOW the guy who is recording me has no idea what i'm saying because once, when I was recording, I said "the circle circumcises the square (instead of circumscribes)," but I said it with such confidence he said "good, next question."

I re-did that question.

When it got to about 7pm, and mind you I was suppose to get off at 8, but when it got to 7 and I still had about 20 units to go..it became hell. I was tired, didn't want to be there. It was just a shitty time.

I finished with my questions and I had to wait until the other guy, Erik, finished with his before we could go. I went into the green room, where there were two really comfy black leather couches and just laid down. The windows were open, I could hear a group of Koreans, perhaps in the other building, talking joking and laughing. A cool breeze was hitting my face.

I guess it was one of those rare moments in life when you take in everything around you. A reality check I guess they're called. I'm in Korea. I can't understand this conversation i'm listening to. I honestly can't get home right now unless someone points me in the direction of a subway. I don't know how to say subway in Korean. These blinds look Asian. What does that even mean? Is that bamboo?

Eitherway, I fell asleep for 5 or so minutes and when I came to Erik finished with his questions and it was time to go. I got out of there around 10, two hours later then I should have, and headed towards my friend's house for post stressful day drinks. We watched Asian TV, It's always sunny and drank Soju with juice-in-a-bag. It was pretty wonderful. Afterwards, we went to this place called a DVD bong. Remember how I said Korean kids live with their parents and sometimes go to the fastfood resturant over night if they can't get home?

Yeah, well guess what these DVD bongs are for? Personal room for 2, 2 1/2 hours while you "watch" whatever movie you picked out. YEAH RIGHT.

We watched Hot fuzz and by the time we got back to the Apartment, it was really late so we crashed.

Sunday: I had a chance to re-visit the temple with someone a bit more brave then me. instead of sitting at the bottom munching on my sandvich, we went upstairs and actually into the temple. I missed sooo much not going up and i'm so glad I was brought back. I'll put up the pictures tomorrow when I get home from the temple.

More later.

Harder, better, faster, stronger.

2009-10-22T04:34:00.001-07:00

So, I caught strep throat. Or maybe it's tonsillitis. I'm not entirely sure, they both feel pretty similar. I've actually only had tonsillitis once but I used to catch strep every year in High school and a couple times in college. Either way, I know what it feels like, and it sucks.

Normally it's no big thing. Go to the doctor, one swap later you're walking out with enough penicillin to kill a horse..if taken all at once. Not in Korea though. Actually, it would be in Korea if I had my Alien registration card which, I just found out, is being applied for tomorrow. gg korea.

If I had it, I could go to the Doctor and get any medication I needed for under 8 dollars. Now thats health care! You have to pay into it of course, but nothing's free. Without it, I could go to the hospital and pay about 25 dollars for the visit and medicine. Still not bad, but that is about half my money until I get paid. So what am I going to do?

Well I went to the Pharmacy and through a mix of hand jesters and pointing I some how got the message. Matter of fact, she wrote down on a sheet of paper "tonsillitis?" to which I replied, "Maybe?"

What kind of medicine do you want, she asked in pretty good English. Thankfully I worked at a Pharmacy for a while so I wrote down the two generic names for the Antibiotics that would work.

"This one?"
"yes, how much?"
"Prescription?"
"I don't have one"
"no medicine"

So apparently some things in Korea are the same. She did say," may I suggest Herbal Medicine?" Sure, why not right? I mean strep doesn't cure itself so I really had nothing to lose. I paid 3,000won for a blue box with a picture of a floating pill and left. I asked my co-worker if she could read it for me, apparently it's in Chinese. They do have the ingredient quantities in numbers though.

If you add up all 11 things this pill has, it's a whopping 4866mg of random stuff, per pill, twice a day, three times a day, 10 pills. To put that into perspective a Clariton you'd take for your nose has 10mg twice every 4 hours. I would love to say that, yeah, thats a different drug, but I don't even know whats in this one.

Bottoms up I guess.

It's looking like Korea will either kill you, or make you stronger. In more ways then one.

Ta-da!

2009-10-20T07:50:00.001-07:00

I have an address:
Shin Building, 550-19, Goejeong 4-dong, Saha-Gu, Busan, Korea.
Attn: ELS Alex
Zipcode 604-813

(Side note: you can only put Alex, anything else will be thrown away by the director.)

So send me things. Anything. If you send me a letter, I will reply. If you send me a thing, i'll find something Korean and send it back. Tit-for-tat.

Cheers!

Fireworks!!

2009-10-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

Fireworks here

here

here

here

here

here

and here

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed the show!

Fireworks and the price of business.

2009-10-18T00:51:00.000-07:00

Before I start this, let me just say: When it comes to fireworks, Korea knows what it's doing.

Yesterday was the annual firework festival out by G-bridge. We, ten other people and me, crowded into Sam's apartment 18 floors up to witness the best firework show...ever. Forty solid minutes of explosions that lit up the sky and completely filled the viewing area of her window. It was pretty amazing. After that, Sam got bit by a pig, we all went to a comedy club for some stand up (which sucked), saw the worst band ever, and then danced until 4am. I think on the way home we stopped at this Korean 24 McDonald's for a little midnight snack.

Interesting Korean fact #2: Kids live with their parents until they get married. If they go out and get wasted, they can't go home. What do they do? They all go to the second floor of this fast food place and stay here until morning. We got there at about 4:30am and stayed until 5:30am, people were still rolling in when we left.

Last week in school was test week. I basically gave Oral tests to all my students based on stuff I didn't teach them, but they should have known anyway. It was sooooooooooooooooooooo disappointing to have students not understand such basic questions like "What's today's date?"

Apparently I can't fail them though. If I do, their parents might not want to continue paying for English lessons if they're not learning anything anyway. The school gets paid about 200 dollars per student, I have 40 kids. It's not hard to see how the school makes it's money. So i'm going to have to give them extra chances Monday, maybe make the test easier. This is the price of business.

Pictures of the fireworks maybe later tonight, before any of you actually read this.

PS. If you're wondering, Grace got a perfect score.

Shake these bones

2009-10-15T05:08:00.000-07:00

At about 2pm today, I decided it was time to start getting ready for work. I put Itunes on shuffle and started ironing my clothes, as per usual.

Half way through something seemed off, I paused the music and heard the loudest air raid siren i've ever heard, ever. The same one you hear in the movies, like Pearl harbor, right before the Japs come drop bombs all over your ass.

The first thing I thought was, "no flippin way, I have to be dreaming." Maybe I passed out when I inhaled too much laundry powder and i'm on the kitchen floor imagining all of this. Very possible since I don't have a scooper and I usually just pour a bunch in. I opened my window and looked around, hoping for some clue for what I should do. Nothing. No cars on the street, nobody or nothing to be seen, except for a military transport plane flying low behind the mountain.

It's very possible at this point that its been going on for 5 minutes and I just now heard it.

The siren stopped, I look at the time. 2:05.

Some Korean guy on the loud speaker comes on and says something I can't understand. "I should have stayed in the states," I say to myself.

I decide at this point my best bet is to just get ready and go to school early and see if Saint is there to explain to me whats going on.

The Siren rings again.

I don't even finish pressing my shirt and I start heading down the stairs. I remember half way down that I might need my passport if I do need to go somewhere. I run back grab my passport and my camera (incase shit goes down I want to take pictures of it) and jump down 3 steps at a time.

When I get to the bottom the siren stopped, like it never happened. Cars seemed to be going faster but the people on the street were acting like they didn't hear it. The man in the machine shop next door was busy welding away, kids in the park were swinging.

At this point you have to realize I thought I was going crazy. I hurried to work only to find one person there, this Korean teacher that I can't remember the name of. I ask her about the sirens, she couldn't speak enough English to explain what was going on. All she said was, "North Korea."

I was like what?
"North Korea."

So I just sat at my desk and said fuck it, i'm just going to sit here until something happens. Maybe Saint will come back and explain it all to me. I waited and I waited. I went to go get some water and when I came back she finally got back.

"Saint, Did you hear the siren?"
"yeah"
"what the hell is that"

She proceeded to explain that about once or twice a year they do a practice North Korean invasion. The Sirens go off and everyone is supposed to find a place to hide. She was on the bus on the way here and the bus driver stopped the bus for 20 minutes. Also, I guess the military decides to maybe fly some planes around too? I don't know, but I feel like this should be something they warn a westerner who loves watching war movies.

Tomorrow, I want to tell you about test week. Get excited.

Work post!

2009-10-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

I'm at work right now so technically they're actually paying me to update this blog.

Not bad!

Also, sorry about ignoring this blog lately like an unwanted child. I've been busy.

Since I last accidentally updated, there have been a few developments.

1.) The spider is gone.

I went up to the roof the other day to add to the compost pile (thats right Patel, I have a compost pile) and I everything changed! I didn't do, so it must have been my old man ninja neighbor

Not only is the spider gone, but so are all the weeds. He cleaned up the entire plant situation, a project I thought would take at least 3 hours. Also, theres a new cloths line that somehow he managed to put on this huge water tank thats about 10 feet tall.. further proof that hes a ninja (hes like 87, and I'd have to climb to reach it).

2.) Hot water situation:

Today, Saint and my director, I don't know her name, called the landlord and demanded that my hot water got fixed. Saint JUST went over there (it's 7pm) with my keys to let the repair man in. I told the director, in America, if your hot water isn't working, I wouldn't pay rent.

Matter of fact! I remember in Gainesville when I was living at the 2617 and the hot water heater broke started to spray water ever where. Then, later on because of the soggy roof, a large piece of the roof fell in the kitchen, hitting the dial on the stove, turning it on and wedging itself on the element catching a piece of the house on fire. True story.

Also thanks again Will, for putting that out.

Anyway, point of the story is i'm pretty sure we didn't pay full rent for that month with cold showers. Thankfully that was during the summer and it was stupid hot those months. I miss that house.

3.) I can feel a cold coming on, i'm not liking that.

mmmmoooooreeee lllattteerrr

dont' read this

2009-10-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

da da da drunk post.

For those who don't know, I do, on occasion, drink. Tonight I went out to drink with Jacquie, her friend Sam and Nicole. I some how, by the grace of god, have found myself at the PC room at 4:40am. God only knows how.

a little update though.

Friday fun day ended up being a complete success. Although I wasn't able to do any of my scheduled fun activities, I still had fun. So did my kids. MATTER OF FACT, I think they had the most fun scaring me. For those who don't know, I scare very easily. Some how, my kids have realized this and now take great pleasure in trying to scare me every chance they get. Coming out of the classroom, I consider myself lucky if theres not a kid on the other side of the door waiting to jump out and scare me.

My favorite class, the one with only three students in it (Grace, Elva, and James) is no exception. Friday I walked into the classroom and I noticed Elva was missing. Where's Elva I asked? In the bathroom they said. While I waited for her to return, looking out the door window, suddenly Elva popped out of a cubby hole behind me yelling "ahhhh i'm a ghost. (shes so cute)" Somehow this scared the crap out of me though and I almost yelled, "shit." I stopped myself though, because they're only 10.

Today I went to go rock climbing again, like I did last Saturday. Or at least I attempted to. Today, we were supposed to go to the Sea Cliffs. Basically the bottom of an island/mountain that is surrounded by the sea. Sounds exciting. Unfortunately I got there late and couldn't find the craig. Maybe next weekend.

So I came home and paid 50,000 won for gym membership. I'm really excited about this. Not only because i'll actually get to hit the gym everyday but because they have hot showers there. Want!

The owner apparently owns the grocery store next door too. When I went in there post work out to get some protein he serviceda me two things of mushrooms and some garlic. For those not from Korea, if you get servicedad something, you just got that piece for free. On occasion, you'll get it from time to time. Before that, matter of fact the day before that, I went to a store to get some water. I somehow ended up getting water and a bottle of wine and this little red bean bun that they sell. The guy said servicesa? I said yes. I then got a box of pineapple juice off the wall and said servica? he said ok. I got that piece for free. Best part of Korea.

It's 5am, sleepy time.

Day 3 =*(

2009-10-08T06:50:00.000-07:00

Today, all my classes were boring. Most of them were painful for even me to get through. In my first class, fucking Hans fell asleep. And you know what? I let him. I was bored too. I was like Hans, I don't blame you man...I don't blame you.

Tomorrow i'm going to have Friday fun day for all of my 6 classes (6!) I'll let you know how that goes probably some day Saturday.

TEE-CHA

2009-10-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

Day 12.

Before I updated this, I wanted to have a good idea as to what it would be like teaching English in a foreign country. So I waited until Day 2.

Day one was crazy. I only had 3 classes, all elementry. I started out introducing myself, then went right into teaching. I'm nearly positive everyone in the class was bored. Hell, I was even bored. But I didn't know what else to do. First day teaching, ever.

The lesson, in case anyone is wondering, was the difference between a hard c(cow, cash) to a soft c (celebrate...thats the only one I can think of). The classes are 30 minutes, which usually go by pretty quick. I gave them homework which I later found out is a no no on the first day. HOW COULD I FORGET THAT? I remember when I was in school I always HATED when the teacher gave homework on the first day, and now i'm doing it? what. the hell. was I thinking? Anyway, I was sure they hated me when the class ended and Saint, the co-teacher, took over. I then grabbed my markers and went straight into the other class that she was previously teaching.

Thats how it goes, two classes. Each are an hour long. I teach the first part, and then switch with her to teach the last part.

Second class, they all had questions for me. So most of the class was spent introducing myself and talking about where i'm from. We did a little bit of the lesson which consisted of playing a cd and having them repeat after. Then they said, "GAME GAME LETS PLAY A GAME."

One of the kids, Hugh, didn't want anything to do with a game and was like, "NO, STUDY." They went back and forth for a while and I eventually conceded to playing a game for the last 10 minutes. Out of a 30 minute class? I just realized this. Might have to shorten game time.

My favorite game, and pretty much the only game I play, is I make the kids come up and draw one of the words they just learned. All the while, the other kids are screaming at the top of their lungs, trying to guess what it is. Who ever gets the most points at the end of the round gets an extra sticker.

These kids love stickers, and I, I must admit, am a sticker slut. I give out stickers like they're going out of style. You want a sticker? Have two.

The kids love this, the stickers are their drug of choice. I fear i'm throwing off the delicate sticker economy though. It's basic supply and demand. At this rate, they'll be asking me to step it up to the bigger guns by next week. Probably actual drugs...

After that class I moved straight into my last class which was a group of 3, really really REALLY smart kids. All 11 years old. I introduced myself, again with the questions. How tall are you, how old are you, whats your favorite food?

The went really fast and ended with the picture game. That was it, I was done. Total time teaching: One hour and 30 minutes. The rest of my day was spent talking with my other teacher, Ju-hee, and talking to the random kids who would run up to me and say hi.

I knew, this probably is not how its going to be everyday. So I waited to post.

DAY TWO:

Today I had 4 classes, including one middle school class. My first class was the youngest at the school. I think they're were all 10? The smartest was Rose. BY THE WAY, All the students pick their own American names. Which I think is amazing because it makes me wonder where and why they pick the names they do. Hugh? Did he see Hugh Grant and want to be like him? Rose? I don't even know.

Then you get the really crazy names like Basia and Annis. Where and why? Really.

The second class was my first class from yesterday, the one I gave homework too. Saint told me that everyone though I spoke too fast and wrote too small on the board. So today, I made sure to write REALLY big on the board and talk really slow. I also took special pains not to ramble like I always do.

Everyone in the class did their homework, and everyone did surprisingly well. I ended up playing the picture game with them near the end of the class.

Ps.
A.) If you've read this far, i'm impressed.
B.) If you can think of any other exciting games that might be fun that would use the words i've just taught them, please let me know.

The class was great! It went so much better then yesterday. We were talking, joking, having fun. I really liked it. Apparently no hard feelings about the homework.

The next class was a completely new class for me. Same, introductions, questions. I pulled out the book like I was about to teach but one of them said, "Tee-cha, We awredy did this."

Yeah?

Sure enough, everyone was finished. The next page was a game, something to do with rolling the dice. I had no dice, so I was like PICTURE GAME!! They all loved it, everyone got stickers.

After an hour break, my last class arrived. Middle school. Apparently, me and Ju-hee devided the largest middle school class (19) into two groups, I got 10 students, she got 9. They're all 15.

I'm not going to lie, the idea of teaching middle school made me nervous. It still makes me nervous. It seems like with the elementary school classes, I can just go up there and wing it. I can usually get by with a smile and a nod and figure it out as I go.

Today I had to teach them about Superlatives (whhatt?). Yeah I didn't know what it was until I looked it up. Basically, they're smart. If I say something wrong, or spell something wrong, I risk losing all crediability.

In class, one of the questions mentioned Chile and I said it like they do in Chile. Chi-le. Everyone laughed and someone said, "It's Chile!" I had to explain that my mom was born their, and people from Chile say Chi-le.

We ended class with us going into another room with the other kids and watching an illegally downloaded movie. Apparently in Korea, it's not illegal.

I think I can do this? It seems do-able? I still have this feeling that i'm doing it wrong. Playing too many games, wasting too much time, they arn't learning as much as they should be. I guess all teachers probably feel this way at first.

Hi! My name is Alex, and i'm a tee-cha.

More tomorrow.

Pushing it out

2009-10-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

Day 10

Last night I went out drinking with Mike, his Asian girl friend, and Josh, his Asian girlfriend. I don't remember their names.

5th wheel outtings kind of suck. Oh well, either way that was kind of a bad idea on account that I have to teach today! OOooOOhhHHh wWweeEeelllLLl.

I guess thats why I picked the 2-9 schedule, should be fine later.

Ascending into heaven

2009-10-05T02:11:00.000-07:00

Day 9 or so

This weekend has been a bit of an adventure. I went climbing for the first time in Korea. Thanks to the Koreaontherocks.com website, I met a group of 6 other climbers who offered to take me out even though I left all my equipment in Tampa.

The climbing itself was amazing, if you haven't seen pictures:

That's whats up!

Me, this girl Mev, and this guy DJ went on a hike. After climbing up a path for what felt like an hour, we finally got to the top of a peak. The view was absolutely amazing. No lie, to get up here we had to pull ourselves up with vines and climb up these rocks. At the top there was a rock path that was maybe 2 feet wide that led to the peak. The way down was probably way more dangerous then the way up.

We got lost on the way back, it started getting dark and cold. Mev started to freak out. Thankfully, about 15 minutes before the last bit of light went away, we found a random Korean hiker on his way back also. We followed him and we all got back to the main road. The hiker left, we still had to find the camp.

No lie, we were trying to refind the camp in complete darkness, walking along a path that was about 3 feet wide. On the right, the mountain side filled with branches and whatevers. On the left was a straight drop. There was once where I almost slipped and I just grabbed whatever I could, it was super intense. We finally found the camp, the rest of the climbers had flash lights and were apparently getting pretty worried.

We all, with the flashlights this time, walked back to the main road. Caught a taxi back down and went out for Indian food. Never again with the Indian food.

Tomorrow is my first day teaching, I was looking over my book that I have to teach from. I'm a bit nervous. =/. I'll post tomorrow how it went around 10am, Tuesday, American time.

More later.

a little religion

2009-10-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

*AGAIN, CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO VIEW THE ENTIRE PICTURE*

DAY 7! ONE WEEK INTO MY KOREAN ADVENTURE

Can you imagine? Time is beginning to fly, and I haven't even begun to teach yet!

Today is going to be more of a photoblog then a word blog, I hope no one minds.

I woke up to rain, all of my laundry was wet. What did I do? I went back to sleep. It wasn't going anywhere.

When I got out of the PC BONG (I visit this place twice a day now), the rain stopped and the sun was looking like it had plans to come out. Theres this Mountain..Hill? really big hill? i've always been wanting to get to the top of. Actually there are about 4 or 5 around my place. This one looked like it had climbable rocks near the top though. So I packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, some water and my camera and set off.

Once I got off the main road I was surrounded by houses, I wasn't entirely sure where the mountain was anymore.

Walking around I found this stair case that looked like it could be the entrance to a park or something. I thought, maybe this could be a path to the top of the mountain?

I couldn't shake the feeling that I was in some one's back yard the entire time.

I think it was actually a church's back yard. There were 15 bronze carvings of Jesus's plight.

Either way, I found a nice little vantage point to take a picture of the city.

When I was down there, there were so many streets going every which way. Some of them actually were dead ends. The road that I found that stair case on, for example, ended up at a dead end. I finally found a road that was steep enough that I thought, "maybe this might take me to the mountain." Going up about 7 zig zagging, steep as hell roads I got to the foot of the mountain. I started my approach up one of the paths and found a tunnel.

I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at first. When I got into the tunnel there were these BEAUTIFUL paintings on the ceilings. I had this feeling the entire time that I shouldn't be here.

So I kept walking, slowly, up the road/path. Creeping of course, not only because my sister elevated me to creeper status (and I had to fit the role) and never reduced me down, but again, because I was I shouldn't be here.

When I got to the other side of the tunnel, I can't describe the feeling. I felt like I was in a movie, it was a little too much.

I heard voices, people were inside. A couple doors were open, every window was open. At first I thought, maybe this place is reserved for tours? Either way, the "I shouldn't be here" feeling persisted. So I just sat down on the first rock I found and sat there enjoying the view.

I pulled out my sandvich and started munching away. I seriously couldn't help but laugh outloud. Theres probably a monk somewhere, watching me sit here like a little kid. My feet were out, kicking at the air. While I just sat there munching away.
nom nom nom.
Before I started my decent, I caught a glimpse of these little guys just sittin ontop of a rock.

pretty good day.

Tomorrow i'm going to rock climbing with this group of people I found on this rock climbing website. Should be fun.

more tomorrow.

Losing blood.

2009-10-01T02:31:00.000-07:00

Day...5? 6? I think I forgot to post yesterday.

Well, it finally happened. I'm sick of these cheeseburgers. I can't even finish the one I have in front of me right now. Actually just the thought of it is making me feel a little queasy. That elephant lied to me with his smile..and his thumbs up.

Thanks sister for finding out which spider it is, no dad, it's definitely real. I actually decided to leave it alone, it's still hanging there...chillin. Doing whatever spider's do. Actually that reminds me of this video: http://www.glumbert.com/media/spiders

CHECK IT

Yesterday was extremely uneventful, thats probably why I didn't post anything. I attempted to make rice?

FAIL

I attempted to do laundry?

Success!

Yeah, thats pretty much my entire day. I think I watched a lot of flight of the conchords and spent like 4 hours at the PC bong watching cnn videos. Oh I also bought two ties. LET ME TELL YOU, Koreans have fully embraced the capitalistic idea. Actually, in my opinion, they're doing it right. The sales people here stand on top of things and yell at you to buy whatever they're selling. Thats whats up.

Today I went to the hospital for my "health check." I've never in my entire life had a health check this complete. Ever. I went from station to station, one checked my ears, the other checked my eyes, another my blood pressure, another took x-rays. X-rays!!

Then came the blood work/urine test. I was ok with peeing in a cup, no problem with that. I've just always been bad with giving blood. It's not like in America, they don't put you in your own private room, where its just you and the doctor. There are rows of seats. You come in, sit in an empty chair and they take your blood and you get up and another person sits down. So I sat down turned my head, closed my eyes, clinched my teeth. Let me just tell you, there were babies getting their blood drawn that handled it better then me.

Saint brought me a muffin and a coffee and I felt a lot better after that.

The dentist is another story. I went in, opened up my mouth and I actually saw the dentist's eyes widen, like he has never seen anything that bad ever before in his life.

So I guess this would be a good point to interrupt and tell everyone that my teeth have been hurting since i've gotten here. My wisdom tooth has been coming in and it hurts..a lot. The dentist was like
"That needs to come out."
"when?"
"now."
"Can we do it later?"
"you should do it now."

Saint stepped in and said a few words and the end result was it was going to happen later.

The bad news is, my bottom two have to come out, and whenever I finally get my Alien registration card, they're definitely coming out. I don't have a choice.

the good news is that the entire procedure is going to cost about 10,000won; about 9 dollars with today's rates. Not bad!

We went back to the school, I finally got to see my other teacher. She's Canadian/Korean and her husband is REALLY into rock climbing. Also, I finally remembered to start visiting the Korea on the rocks website and i'm joining a group of other climbers around here.

more tomorrow.

Contact

2009-09-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

Day 4:

FIRST, let me say, I only have 15 minutes to type up this post because it took me forever to post the pictures for the apartment. I might come back and edit this.

Yesterday was Insane. After posting day 3, I decided to make some Korean noodles I bought. I didn't realize this, but I didn't have a fork.

I ate it from that ladle, but I had to use the side of my mouth because of those spike type things.

Then I decided, i'm just going to jump on the subway and go somewhere. I went to this place called Jangile (?) that my recruiter told me about. I found this popping fish market. <

because my day started at 2:30 am, I got there so early I caught the fishermen unloading their fish. It was pretty cool to watch.

walking around a bit more, I found out this is where they're going to have the Pusan Film Festival in two weeks. Its so close to my house, i'm excited.

I found a starbucks, it was early so I sat and watched the morning unfold for a while.

The rest of this post is going to be super rushed so I might skip over some details.

When I got back, I found out my ninja neighbor was up to his old tricks. He put a bloody tuna can underneith the gate to keep it open. I left it wide open for him and he felt the need to put this here.

Saint came and we went to go get an Iron and a plug for my laptop (hence the pictures), when we got back apparently the guy asked the soup for a key to the gate, Saint gave it to me and said it was my call. I eventually knocked on the door, he came out, I was like "Check this out," I openned the gate, then handed him the key. He said a lot of things in Korean I didn't understand, picked up his tuna can and started talking to me some more. Again, I didn't understand him so I was just like sorry man, and shook his hand. I figured this would be best lest I catch a ninja star to the back of the head.

3 min left.

I saw this white dude walking across the street, I ran a couple blocks ahead of him and cut him off. Started talking to him, we got Sim-bop, which is like sushi without the fish. He told me his friend from Canada was in, so we went back to his house and I met Rachel. She only had a few days left in Korea so she wanted to explore, we all went out to Busan tower, the same street I was down like 15 hours earlier. Except this time at night everything was open and there were thousands of people on the street. I'm probably going to walk around there tonight, it was pretty awesome. pretty close to my house too.

I met Saint at the school when she got off and we went to this Korean walmart, imagine 6 walmarts stacked on top of one another.

No lie.

more tomorrow.

First, pictures.

2009-09-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

This is supposed to be like you're walking me around my apartment.

*edit* Apparently I fail at posting pictures. Every picture apparently has been cut in half, right click on every one and click open in a new tab. *edit*

Front gate that blocks people from coming in.

Leading up to my door, the glass doors. (also can be locked)

Little room inbetween door and and glass doors

As soon as you walk in to the left the shoe box

more to the right (note the air conditioner)

another with the chairs

to my room

to the kitchen

my table and what not

Into my room

in my room looking out

From the back?

view from room

close up

back out into the living room, view from there.

Padio area left

Padio area right

view from padio

kitchen

kitchen 2

view from kitchen 1

view 2

washer

on the way out from the kitchen

up the stairs

spare room 1

spare room 2

Outside the apartment, up the stairs to roof.

almost there

roof

Gaint Korean spider

view from roof

It was cloudy when I took this, sun should be out tomorrow. Maybe i'll retake some.

Trust the smiling elephant.

2009-09-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

Day 3:

I started today the same way i'll probably be starting most of my days here in Korea: With a cheeseburger..sshhuuttt uppp.

They're good! And probably good for you too! I trust anything that has a picture of a smiling elephant giving me the thumbs up. Whats not to trust? Either way, i'm still alive after eating two back to back, so I guess they're safe. Pictures of all this soon! As soon as I can get my internet up.

A little update on the internet: I'm an illegal alien until I get my alien registration card! Not only am I an alien, i'm fucking illegal! That has dangerous written all over it. No wonder why everyone looks at me when I walk down the street. No lie, I walked past a park with about 14 or so old men and women just sittin there, chattin. When I walked past EVERY SINGLE ONE stopped talking turned their head and looked at me the entire time. It freaked me out at first but then I started laughing? I don't know why. But yeah, I just started laughing and waved, not one of these cracked a smile.

On my endless struggle to entertain myself i've started doing two things:
1.) I finished a book! You've got to know i'm bored when I finish a book. I usually get 2/3rds the way through and just start something else.

2.) This takes a little bit of explaining. Last night, after my recruiter tried to fix my hot water (she failed), this old man throws open his door as we were heading down the stairs. They exchanged Korean words for about 5 minutes while I stood there, nodding my head like I understood what the hell they were talking about. When we got outside, she translated it all for me. APPARENTLY, the couple who lived in my place before me always kept the huge metal gate locked, blocking access to the roof. Now, i'm pretty sure the roof is part of my apartment because the windows upstairs actually lead to the roof. I could climb from the roof into my apartment. Anyway, he asked the Canadian couple if he could use it to dry his clothes and towels, they said no, and kept it locked.

I can only imagine they stood on the other side of the gate dancing a Canadian jig, while the old man stood there with his wet towels and sheets. Probably saying things like, "i'm aboot to oopn this..NUOPE!" Actually my other teacher is Canadian so starting Monday i'll work on my Canadian accent.

EITHER WAY

At this point, we were already outside so I couldn't respond. But for the entire day I kept the gate open and would pop up to the roof like every hour with my Korean to English book trying to catch that dude up there. Its a roof! I figured I could corner him easy and make him talk to me. He's like 70 AND ASIAN, that guy has to be super smart. I must have checked like 8 times yesterday, never caught him. My guess: ninja.

I finally met my co-teacher yesterday. She told me to meet her outside the apartment at 2 so we could go grocery shopping, I lost track of time and met her 5 minutes late. She was like, "Why you late?" I told her "Spanish time."
She didn't understand.

The grocery store was small, reminded me of the ones you'd see in Chile. I got a little bit of the usual: eggs, butter, tofu, tuna, spinach, garlic, cheese and bananas.

Let me tell you about buying things in Korea:
Things have a tendency to come in 10s. Dozen eggs? No dice. You get 10.
You can't split fruit like you do in America. You know how you go to a grocery store, pull off two bananas and buy that? Yeah, not here. You buy the whole bundle..bushel? I think its bundle. Either way, I walked out of there with 14 dang bananas. I'm going to have to eat like 4 a day. DANG!

The rest of the day consisted of me trying to walk far enough away from my building to get lost. I took pictures a long the way so if I did get lost, I could find my way back using the pictures. I only got a little lost though, I came back around 6, sat down for a second and fell asleep until 2:30am. This time difference thing is still throwing me off a bit.

Day 4 tomorrow.

By the way, for those who are wondering: I never re-read my posts. I just type it all out and hit publish. I'm doing it this way because since i'll be teaching English, I want to stop relying on spell checker. My thoughts being scattered, well, thats how they've always been.

mystery meats

2009-09-27T14:12:00.001-07:00

Day 2:

Life in Korea, lesson one: Always walk down wind to the sewers.

Some of you may be wondering how I updated this blog ONLINE if I have no internet. One word (I think i'm going to start all my posts out like this): Shitty! no that doesn't make sense. PC BONG!!

Korea is filled with these things, matter of fact, there is one right outside my building and usually one on every street corner. I walk in, give the guy 1000 won, he gives me a computer and brings me free coffee. NOT BAD! This is also where I've been getting most of my food. Apart from the bag of apples I bought from some man off the street, this PC room has a wide verity of food that you shouldn't eat.

I bought a "cheeseburger" for 1,000 won (1250won=1 dollar). I'm about 84% positive this wasn't meat, apparently beef (or cow as they call it here) is way to expensive. "You only eat cow on special occasions," is what i've been told. So what was on that cheeseburger? I honestly don't know, but it tasted good. Really good. I don't care if it was that bean paste that they put on everything here, it was still amazing.

I went with Mary my recruiter to get some typical Korean BBQ. Afterwards her and James, her husband, came back to my place to try and help with the hot water. Apparently my hot water is on the fritz, I'm not just stupid and can't figure it out, AND my place is bigger then her house. They said WOW a lot.

My hour is almost up here, I'm forgetting some things but i'll post later today with pictures.

Day three tomorrow.

May we please service you now?

2009-09-26T17:54:00.002-07:00

Day 1:

The entire first day of my korean adventure can be summed up in one word: shitty.

Actually, it wasn't that bad. The plane ride from Atlanta to Seoul only took 14 hours, which was a lot shorter then I thought it was going to be but still brutal. Especially because I have a really hard time sleeping on planes.

I must have fallen asleep though, at some point, other wise I wouldn't have been awoken by a violent headbutt from the old lady sitting next to me. Well, she didn't head butt me, I guess I head butted her. I fell asleep sitting up, the plane hit a little turbulence and I fell over and nailed the women to my right. I think she cursed me out in Korean, I couldn't tell.

When I finally got off the plane, I stupidly forgot to take my money out my suitcase before rechecking my luggage for the transfer. I was hungry, tired, and didn't have a won (Korean dollars) to save my life. I fell asleep as soon as I hit the seat on the plane and woke up when it landed. THAT'S HOW FLYING SHOULD BE. Unfortunately it was only like a 45 minute plane ride.

When I woke up though, there was a sticker on the seat in front of me that said, "May we please service you now, you were resting when we came by." I thought that was hot, folded the sticker, and put it in my pocket.

When I got off the plane, I found my luggage and stared out into a sea of Asian faces. Among the masses stood out one man with a sign that said "Cool Guy Alexander Clark"

I forgot I told him to put that on there a long time ago.

Unfortunately every exchange place was closed and Sunday is a Korean Holiday so it was looking like I was going to be flat broke until Monday.

We got into his car, he punched in some things on the GPS and we were off. The drive was pretty queit because he didn't speak good English and I spoke no Korean. After getting lost about twice, we found the place, someone who works with/for the school came and met us. She handed me 50,000won to hold me over until Monday (Thats was nice of her!)

We went up to go see my place. I really don't know how to discribe my place without putting up pictures, which I wont beable to do until Monday when the internet gets connected, but i'll try anyway. My place is pimp. Super pimp. MATTER OF FACT: I'm pretty sure theres a mistake, and next week they're going to be like whoops, sorry, we gave you the wrong place. I'm really worried also that the only other foriegn teacher (a candian girl named ju-hee, which i'm kind of sure is Julie)is going to find out and get upset. That's how pimp this place is.

So here is my attempt to discribe my place: You walk up 5 flights of stairs (sucks bringing up the luggage) until you get to a gate. Open the gate with a key, walk up another flight until you get to two glass doors. behind that is a small room, what for? I dont know, and then the double doors leading into my apartment. If you continue going up the stairs you get to the roof, which by the looks of it, is all mine. Clothing lines, chairs, and a couple places for plants. Assume you didn't go to the roof though, and now we're back in my apartment. It opens up into this huge living room, wooden floors..yeah i'm failing at this. Needless to say this place is amazing. I have a huge master bedroom downstairs, two spare bedrooms upstairs. I'll just take pictures and put them up tomorrow. I took a cold shower because I couldn't figure out how to work the hot water, brushed my teeth and went to bed.

Actually, day one wasn't that bad if you think about it. That girl who works for the school also gave me a packet from my Co-teacher. A guy or girl named Saint (my guess it girl) that also had a bunch of packets and books that I should be making lesson plans with. I fell asleep reading those.

Day two tomorrow.

Day 1.

2009-09-26T17:54:00.001-07:00