I don't make monkeys..

Sam, Brian, Cindy.

gongi.

Here are the girls playing Gongi.

The Expanding Universe

I don't know if anyone still even reads this, but, i realized that I haven't posted in like 2 months and I had planned on having one out every week. Oh well i mean its just blogging. Most days here I'm stupidly happy-- there was one day at school where I was convinced there was something wrong with the chemicals in my head and I was going to have a stroke or something-- other days i have to settle for just being really happy. And that's the long and short of it. Is that a valid expression or am I misusing it/ making it up? Today, in an attempt to get back in the habit of writing, here is a short post with some pictures. A lot has happened recently but i just don't think I can sit here for 5 hours and hash it all out. I just don't feel like doing that anymore. I have always been that way about things, i feel like talking about them can cheapen the experience. But I did make you a promise, reader, way back when, in the old days, to keep on writing as long as you'd keep on reading. I am going to start with the most recent stuff and retrograde my way back to Halloween-ish.. or it may all be out of order but what do you really care anyway. You know what screw it I'll just start with Halloween.





I was a mummy. Here I am with the nice girl who makes my Americano every morning. They don't really make a big deal out of Halloween here so my walk to work was pretty interesting. i thought i got stared at before..













Here is Esther. I really can't put into words how wonderful of a person she is. I mean she's true blue. A real angel.

Jimmy, the kid in the witch hat, told me he was going to be Harry Potter for Halloween an he came in wearing that garbage. I was pretty unimpressed with Halloween as a whole here in Korea. Just lazy. I mean, a girl's witch hat and thick glasses? A 'Scream' mask and your regular clothes? A princess tiara that you wear every day anyway???















Becky was an apple tree. Now I think that's creative.











Oh, my sister Sara was in town for the Halloween weekend. She had been traveling for work and popped into Seoul to check it out. Here she is with Doug-teacher and Sylvia and Amanda playing Scrabble. Sylvia and Amanda just moved to a new school and I miss them already. They were my 'Yale' class but i called it my Scrabble class.



























With Sara at Namsan Tower.



















Some art there that I liked.

A terrible picture from the top. But I live somewhere in that direction.








This is the bungee tower I have been trying to jump off of for a month now. It takes forever and a lot of hassle to get to that part of the city and my friend Shawn and I have tried twice now to do it. The website says "open 365" so, of course, the first time we went it was too rainy. It was barely raining and I yelled at them good. The second time we had a korean call and make reservations and then go with us and it ended up being "too windy" and I kind of flipped out. If it was any less windy than it was that day it wouldn't have been windy at all. The next time I'm convinced it will be "too cloudy."







Short, Wilson, and Siyufy were just here on a little adventure of their own. Was beyond great to see them.. I laughed so hard all weekend that my face hurt. Here they are in my alley with Doug and his friend Chris.

My new couch/ Short's new hat.


















Wilson playing Gongi on my bed. Gongi is like Korean jacks and I'm trying to get a video to load of Sylvia and Amanda playing it because its amazing to see. Its a game for little girls so Doug and I play it a lot.











These guys and their money i'll tell ya what.

















Siyufy telling Wilson she can borrow her camera but 'be careful with it!'















We were taking stupid / ugly pictures.
















Mid fake sneeze. Gross.



































Dan and Tina.















Tina, who I have been hanging out with a lot lately.

With some of her friends. Look at Doug in the background.



































Really wanted to climb this beautiful tree but it was rightnext to a buddhist temple and i didn't want to piss THOSE guys off.

And now some pictures of cute kids. Ann.


















Kevin, Chaeeun, Barbie.

















Sophia.
















Mean Girls...Kate, Jessica, Veronica, Annie.

















Jack and Ann have recently discovered that they are in love with each other. Its pretty nice to be around them. He picked her as his favorite friend over all the boys and it was pretty great.

Doug-Teacher is the new John-Teacher. This was the first end of the month mass birthday party where I didn't get a SINGLE favorite teacher.. and Doug got THREE. I'm happy for him though, he deserves it. These are for you my friend. Chaeeun.

Billy.













Kevin. Everyone's name is Kevin.

This was Ryan's last day-- he's moving-- and wanted to sleep so I sure as hell let him sleep the whole time. See ya 'round, Ryan.








I am going to get out of the house now. I wish you all the very best and i dream of you often. Remember to answer the phone if its a weird number at 3 in the morning and, hey, take care of yourselves.

Hi, enjoy your life.

-John.

Saturday Afternoon Thoughts

This is Barbie. She has been wearing this outfit about once a week.

And then no less ridiculous is Annie, seen here in the middle. I don't even try to tell Annie what to do anymore. That's Jessica on her right and the two of them are mortal enemies.

Here's a gem from music class. They let us teach them some Beatles and other old pop songs now so its far less painful than it used to be. I'll have Puff the Magic Dragon on here next week.

On a side note-- why am I still having server nightmares? I should be having teacher nightmares.

I'm almost at 6 months now.. going through yet another weird/hard/good transition phase. Everything just keeps changing here, which I guess is good when you have to smash so much into just one year. I'm glad that things keep moving right along here and, once in a while, it slows down long enough for you to enjoy it. So I'm just about at the top of the mountain now and in many ways back to square one in my head, which is a good thing. I'm remembering how I felt when I got here and the exciting weeks before, and for the first time just recently entertained ideas about staying longer, which is a positive step for me. Regardless, I plan on fully enjoying the air and the view before I start the easy and exciting trot back down the other side.

And I'm looking forward to having visitors.

I have more to say today but I have to go I am meeting Ryan McKelvey, who has an extra ticket to this:

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fspaf21.com%2F2008%2Fenglish%2Fprogram%2Fprgm_view.php%3Fart_no%3D31&h=78d3b0b9663f90814abac2fe213a0eb8

Currently listening to: Conor Oberst's solo album in honor of Mike Cunningham's birthday. Happy Birthday, Michael.

Currently reading: To Kill a Mockingbird. Because I never have.

Bye.

Meet me in the morning.

This is me in the morning. Look at it.

LOOK AT IT!

I will never be a morning person.

Steeler Nation.

Love,

John.

That's The Way We Get By.

My apologies for waiting over a month to post a new blog. I don't have any sort of tangible excuse for being lazy other than that I guess I am just inherently lazy. But, seriously, I have simply been doing a better job of finding other things to do with my free time besides sit in front of my computer. It's a good thing.

Its Saturday morning now, the weather has finally cooled off, and I am fighting a bit of a cold myself and don't feel like leaving my apartment just yet, so, here we go..

Not too long ago a bunch of us attended the Mnet Music Awards (Korean MTV) where I was honored with an award for "Coolest Overall Person." Here are some shots from that magical night...

No, actually we went because a friend of a friend of a friend works for Mnet and was looking for whiteys to go and fill the front section so it wouldn't look on TV like it was just all Koreans. Which would be lame. So we got to sit right in the pit and be all close to the performers we knew nothing about and pretend to be excited for the cameras. I only lasted until intermission (i went and watched Korea win Olympic Baseball Gold) but it was kind of fun. Anyway, we had to be there a bit early so we made use of the empty stage. Bakerloo folks, the photo directly above was taken for you. Sorry I missed you this season.

Above is a shot of where the celebs sat. They all stood up and bowed to each other when someone new was introduced. Vey cute, Korea.

Dianne and I. It was fun seeing us on TV when they replayed it the next day. Below is a video of some of the opening number.

Moving on. One of the real reasons I have been stagnant with writing is I haven't felt too happy lately and didn't want to come on here and bitch at you. Work has been real rough. Just when i was starting to get in the swing of things, they just haaad to go and change it all. My whole schedule just about changed-- partly because we had some teachers leave and Becky and I had to pick up the slack, and partly because of, I think, petty squabbles regarding U.S. /Korean relations. For instance, some of them openly resent that some of us Americans go to our apartments on our breaks. The Korean teachers live further away than we do (train rides) and don't have any place to go on their breaks. The aprtment building they put us up in is a small 8 minute walk from school, so when we have, say, a 2 hour break, where do you think I am going to go? I only get paid for the minutes that I am in front of a class teaching, there is no chance that I am going to stare at my desk and not get paid for it. So recently, my schedule was revamped so that I not only taught more, but they spread out my classes so my longest break now all week is about 40 minutes (barely time enough to run to the post office) and when you add it all up, I spend a whole lot of time staring at my desk and not getting paid for it. You win, Koreans, good job. You work harder than Americans do. Even though I teach twice as many classes as you do and... i could go on but what's the point. There's nothing to be done about it besides quit and go home and lose out on a bunch of money. They could seriously just decide not to pay me for an entire month's worth of work and I'd be on my own and there is nobody to complain to. This is just the tip of the iceberg too-- I am really glad I cooled off a bit before writing this. There is another blog I read, an expat who sometimes comments on my blogs, and she had a post about similar things recently. I told her I probably could have plagiarized her whole rant but the one part i remember is this (and I paraphrase) "The first 4 months are great. It's hard but you are still excited about the opportunity and the adventurousness and you generally love Korea. Once 4 months hits, you'll say to yourself 'get me the hell out of here.'" It wasn't the first time I had heard this either.. some random person told me the same thing around my 2nd month. I'm a few days away from hitting 5 months and I wonder, what is it about 4 months? Why is it the same for most people? I think that's when i realized that this is just a job. I am here to work, not for vacation or to "find myself" at some hokey asian chain resort spa weekend retreat kind of thing. I do love it though. I don't honestly remember thinking that it would be easy anyway. I'm on my own living and working around the world, I get along swimmingly with my kids, and all is going as planned. Homesickness though. It'll kill ya.

I didn't use to have a kindergarten homeroom until Sarah-Teacher left.. now I have Lion class and they are the coolest! I am already proud and very protective of them, like they are mine. The room itself has a bit of a problem that i need to fix-- I have a thing about clowns (unrelated to Stephen King's IT or any childhood memories-- long story). Without getting too into it, here is what you see when you walk into my classroom:

What the hell is that?!?! I HATE IT! I HATE IT SO MUCH!

Here are my Lions all dressed up in their Hanbok outfits. We just had Chuseok, which is a kind of Korean Thanksgiving and maybe the biggest holiday of the year (i got ONE day off) and they all wore them. I think the teachers are going to all rent them for New Year's.

Jimmy, who is good at everything and probably smarter than I am.

Sylvia, who is half of Sylvia and Sophia, the twins in the school. At first I thought I would never be able to tell them apart, now I can't see how I ever would have thought that- they are so different. Anyway, she's pretty great.

Grace is.. okay. Smart-class and all, she always seems to have this song in her head that she often sings out loud, a song that goes "beep, boop, beep, boop, beep..."

I used to hate Kevin, now he's up there with my favorites. He's got a good laugh and a good energy, though I should get paid what I do just to keep him in his seat. It's a two-man job.

And it's next to impossible to keep him out of pictures. Here he is with Steve. Steve likes to say nice things like, "Teacher, hurry up" and "That's not funny" when I am trying to be funny. Thanks, Steve.

These are from my first party at my apartment and then Amber's going away party shortly after. Goodbye Amber, we miss you.

The video below was taken in Myeong-dong. I am only sorry i didn't get the whole thing on video. It was some promo for a cosmetics store or something.. and it was awesome.

These are some Chuseok gift packages that were everywhere.

One Chuseok special event we had was a Shi-dm tournament. i didn't spell that right I am certain but Shi-dum is basically just where you each wear a belt and grab on to each other's and whoever goes down first is the loser. Kind of like judo.

Winners were Dean, Abraham, and Esther. Good ol' Esther, good for you.

Of course we made Sylvia and Sophia go against each other. Every time there is any one-on-one activity we make them face each other because it's so interesting. They arm-wrestled once and it took forever.. once I had a rock/paper/scissors tournament in gym class and the two of them went, and I counted, twelve rounds without a point before someone finally got one. That's twelve ties in a row. In this picture they are about to go at it and all the kids started chanting "twins! twins! twins!" in Korean. Intense.

Here is Dianne-- most likely texting someone more interesting than me.

Some of us went to Seoul Forest (it's not a forest, it's just a park) and had a picnic. Dianne made a bunch of good food. Becky brought a bag a apples. I was happy that I got to throw a frisbee for a while.

We took the kindergarteners to a paper folding museum last week. I don't think i took any worthwhile photos of the museum but it was a fun day. The best part was when we stopped at the park on the way back to school.

And then here is a video of volcano day in science class. i never got to do this when I was a kid so i was just as excited as they were.

And i think that's about all I can do right now. Sooner or later I want to write one that isn't so based on photos as I haven't written anything substantial in a while. Oh, btw, the other day I saw a girl riding a bike down the sidewalk and reading a book at the same time. And around the same time I saw a motorcycle driven by a man with a small child seated in front of him, two small children behind him, and then another adult male sitting behind them on the delivery rack. There were two helmets and of course the two men had them on. This country is absurd.

Here are some things that I will not miss about Korea:

1. The spitting. Nobody blows their nose here, they all just hock it up and spit it out. On the sidewalk or wherever. Men and women. I always walk into the bathroom in my school building and see men leaned over with their hands on their knees doing it into the urinal. "Acccchhhh! Hawcchhhhkkk! Thwoo!" Disgusting.

2. Not being able to talk to anyone. I'm lazy and don't feel like learning some dumb new language. Why don't you have your kids teach you some English...

3. People riding motorcycles on the sidewalk.

4. Working like a dog.

5. The near-constant sewer smell in my neighborhood.

6. The way the subways shut down at midnight.

7. Watching dudes strong-arm their girlfriends in public. I almost beat some guy up one night until someone assured me that that was the norm for Korea. Women just aren't treated very well here.

8. Sometimes cabbies will intentionally take the longest way possible if they see that you are foreign, just to run up the meter. Man, I have said some horrible things to a couple of cab-drivers here.

9. The current exchange rate.

Things I will miss:

1. Not being able to talk to anyone. Sometimes it's nice to not know what's going on.

2. My kids. I don't know how I am going to handle the goodbyes. It scares me a little, honestly. I still really miss Judy, who was my favorite and moved a little while ago. I used to miss her on the weekends. Paul and Philip are gone too and it's just really sad to think about never getting to see them again.

3. The relative simplicity of it all here. This country really feels a bit, not behind, but slower than it does at home. My head is way less cluttered with things I have to do. I don't really have to think much about bills or gas prices or the economy or my future. Sure, I probably should be worried since I am eventually coming back to the states, but for now i am just going to enjoy it. Korea now is kind of like the U.S. was in the early 80's. Before everything got so complicated.

4. Nice, fair people. Youthful optimism. No frat boys. I hate frat boys. Sorry Strati.

5. The cabs are generally pretty cheap and they are everywhere when you need one.

6. Cheap, high-quality bootleg DVD's. 3 for $10. So far i have picked up another copy of Darjeeling (i left mine at home), Indy 4 (very possibly the worst film I have ever seen), No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Dark Knight, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Assassination of Jesse James, I'm Not There, Smart People, Into the Wild, Hot Rod and Semi-Pro. Between those and the DVD-bongs (rooms you can rent for like 7 bucks a person and just sit and watch a movie on a private screen) I have caught up on a lot of movies I needed to see.

7. Being able to sit in the park or just walk down the street while drinking a beer. I'm sure I'll probably get myself in some trouble with that when I get home.

Those are both short lists, obviously. Okay, now I think I really am done. I am really looking forward to seeing you all when I get home in 7 short months. I can't even put it into words. And if you thought my going-away party was big-- you have no idea!

Oh, I see that Tobey Maguire is getting 50 mil to help ruin another Spidey movie. How much weight did Christian Bale lose for The Machinist? Like, a lot? Think you might want to try something like that you fat pig? You fat tranny pig? You're getting paid more money than most people can even understand for your 3rd 2nd chance, why don't you try to surprise me this time and go into the thing prepared instead of phoning it in again. You actor. You artist, you. I'd rather Jackie Chan played Peter Parker. I'd rather see Bruce Willis play him. I'd rather see Rick Moranis play Spider-Man than you. You monster. Where has Rick Moranis gone anyway? I honestly miss him very much and wish him the best.

Currently listening to: a lot of Yeasayer and Pink Floyd.

Currently reading: Stephen King's Dreamcatcher and a bunch of Shakespeare-- I'm trying to read all the histories I have never got around to reading.

Currently wearing: a red hood from UniQlo and red tear-away athletic pants.

Storms comin',

JWS.