Live Forever or Die in the Attempt

I Think I Have to Change the Title

2011-03-16T09:46:00.001-07:00

Well, this is gonna cost me, but I figured I'd update things here on the old blog. And the first thing I probably should do is update the title of this here thing eh? I'm no longer in Korea so Korean chronicles these entries will no longer be. I gotta put some thought into this.

The reason it's costing me is I'm at a computer cafe right now paying Canadian, (not MUCH cheaper Korean), prices. But it's okay. There are two really cute girls working here and the food is good. Speaking of that, OH MY GOD Magnum!!! The food is great here! I always forget the little things. I hope I can maintain the attitude of appreciation for the stuff I was missing while in Korea. But like most things it'll probably wear off after a couple months. But I have been eating great! Made a pizza, lasagna, potato salad, Kraft Dinner, (a couple times), smokies and the list goes on... I forgot how nice it was to eat an apple, a SWEET apple, that's the right size and doesn't have to be peeled or cut up or eaten with a fork. And oranges! They're great here! I've had about a dozen different kinds of bread too! 5-grain, 7-grain, 12-grain, whole grain, migraine, grain! Don't think I've even had a slice of white bread.

And the air. Who even thinks about air? It's so much better! I've been actually detoxing for a couple weeks. Sneezing, coughing, crapping Korea right outta my system. The water RIGHT OUTTA THE TAP is better than the bottled stuff I had to pay for in Korea. And when I look around, just look around, I can always see something that was missing while I was languishing in Asia. GOD it's nice to be back! Just look at the pics at the top of this page. The one is just a normal Monday morning in Smithers. The other is a shot of the house I used to live in. It's been redone. Looks pretty nice.

And here's
a pic of a blue bird I saw on my ramblings this morning. Pretty cool eh?

I've seen two moose, a few deer and about 50 bald eagles. The other day I was just off the highway near a lumber store and came within about 10 yards of a 6 deer. Five just cruised along but one of them gave me a look. He might have wanted to come a little closer. For what I am not too sure. But he eventually hightailed it outta there with the rest.

As for the battle of the bulge, I told everybody I'd be slimming down when I got here and that's already the case. I've probably lost a good 20 lbs. Not kidding! I'm down to 250 and am walking probably 5 or 10 Km. every day and going to the gym 3 times a week. Today after I finish this I'm gonna go look at trucks at the dealerships in town and then go to the pool for a gym and swim. I'll be back in fighting shape in no time flat!

And I have an interview at 4 today for a night auditor job at the Hudson Bay Lodge. I am not really sure what I'll be doing there but it'll be gainful employment. Something I haven't experienced for quite some time! And there are a couple massive work projects happening around here in the near future. I'll probably get in on some of that work and before I know it I'll be making enough money to save up for the teacher's certification course I wanna take. Then after a couple years I may actually be teaching for real and in a for real school! That'll be nice.

I've run into a few of my old friends here and am making new ones. I think I'll be set up here with a truck and my own place pretty soon too. And I won't have to get screwed by my boss and immigration on a yearly basis. Just the tax man. But I'll blow up THAT bridge when I get to it.

If you have any suggestions for a blog title, don't be afraid to post.

Proverbs 16:18 Part III-Immigracism

2011-02-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

I'm on my 185th day of visiting Korea. My visitor visa only allows me 180 days. I have been forced to overstay my visit by immigration workers who wouldn't let me extend my stay because they obviously thought I was illegally working while on a visitor's visa. They can't fathom why anyone would not just come to Korea to visit a land where everyone thinks all tourists are criminals. Unless they were criminals. They can't believe I wasn't illegally teaching because I had illegally overstayed a visa 5 years before due to immigration not allowing me to extend it, so immigration did not allow me to extend my visa this year forcing me into an illegal overstay position, making me a recidivist and flawlessly VERIFYING their suspicions of my criminal activity while visiting Korea.

Me? I didn't teach any classes. Not a one. I didn't molest any children, rob any Family Marts or kill any misinformed, xenophobic, racist immigration workers with a Phillips head screwdriver then dump the bodies in the dumpster behind the Kimbap Nara on Unnam Dong road near the turnoff for Moodeung Stadium in Gwangju. That wasn't me. I mean if it happened.

I've just been wandering the streets like old Brooks in the Shawshank Redemption, a hardened criminal trying to find honest work in a world that is hostile and confusing. It all started with that little trip I took OUT of Korea to visit my family and attend my 25th grad reunion. I purchased a return ticket fully intending to come back to Korea, get a new one-year contract and move to the place where I got it. Nothing was said by the travel agent about new immigracism laws that don't allow me to do this. Maybe the travel agent just didn't know. Nothing was said by the immigracism officer at the airport who I TOLD I would be returning, looking for a new job and moving. She was the one who suggested I surrender my alien card and come back on my 180-day Canadian visitor visa, instantly making myself a suspected felon and unwittingly disqualifying myself for a majority of the jobs I'd be applying for. But maybe SHE didn't know that either.

After being forced to buy a plane ticket OUT of Korea so I could get back INTO it, I found out how hard it was to look for work, get a job and move without an alien card. Banking, renting videos, moving, ordering internet and cable, even applying for jobs - all these things are easier with an alien card. But I had a job. Nam Seoul University had pencilled me into their schedule. I had three friends whose hours were cut down to make room for me. All but the contract signing was taken care of. They called me and asked if I had my Master's degree just to confirm. I told them that I don't have one. They never got back to me and the number they had used was no longer in service after that call. THEY knew about the prevailing winds of anti-foreigner sentiment that would make hiring me a massive battle with immigracism because those with Masters can get E-1 visas. Those without have to apply for E-2 visas and as all Koreans, including immigracism workers know, E-2 visa holders and applicants are all just trying to compromise the integrity and purity of this, the greatest nation on Earth. You see crime amongst E-2 visa holders is out of control here! At least that's what newspaper and TV reports say. If they only knew the facts! Koreans are still committing crimes at 5 times the rate of E-2 visa holders in their own country. But I guess that's okay because it's THEIR country. Or maybe they just don't know!

I couldn't get a job since Nam Seoul U. pulled their switcheroo at the last minute just before the new semester started at universities and colleges around Korea and that's the kind of job I was after. So I had 3 choices: 1. Go BACK to Canada where I had just come from after buying a $300.00 ticket to Japan I'd just throw in the garbage, 2. Get a job at a hagwon, which would be a one-year crappy job, or 3. Take a few months off and stay in Korea. I chose 3. I figured after the semester was over there would be kids camps and intensive adult programs all over Korea where I could teach and make up some of the lost money from being off 4 months. And 4 months of doing nothing ain't so bad. Even in Korea!

The semester ended and I found some camps and intensive programs. I was asked to do a kids camp and some intensive programs. I chose the intensive programs at Dongshin U. in Naju because I also wanted to work there. The guy I talked with, Professor Oh, said I was in. I had the job and he would send the contracts. It was New Year's. The contracts didn't come my phonecalls and text messages were ignored and the hiring season for camps and such came and went. I finally got ahold of Oh and he said that he desperately wanted to hire me but that administration didn't. I asked why. All he could tell me was they figured it would be easier to hire somebody else. I thought that just meant someone who was already living in Naju. They didn't tell me it was this immigracism bullshit.

Then the final push for hiring at universities around Korea came in Feb. I was called to several places for interviews. Several places I talked to other applicants and knew that I was miles above the others in experience and thought I had the best chance of getting the job. Then was passed over. I called one place and asked why and she hemmed and hawed and got all mealy in the mouth lying and lying and lying when all she really needed to say was that immigracism would be impossible for me.

Then I GOT the job at Dongshin U. although once AGAIN it was yes-no-yes-no until finally at the 11th hour I signed the contracts. This was the day before my 180-day stay expired. Since it was a Friday it was the last day I had to try to get my visitor visa changed to a work visa. I didn't think we'd be able to do it because immigracism always makes you go back twice or more, but I thought we'd at least get it started. Go to part I of this saga to see that that wasn't to be the case. Nor were they inclined to extend my stay on that day. I went to Suwon Immigracism Office on Monday and was shooed away like a dog by the worker there saying I needed a new criminal record check to extend my visitor's visa. Then I called my would-be supervisor, Professor Oh to explain or maybe get him to explain because nobody at the Suwon Immigracism Office speaks English, but he just kept saying, "I hope everything goes well for you..." then he hung up, unplugged his phone and stuck his head in the sand like almost all the other Korean people.

This is how they handle things when they absolutely KNOW their government is totally screwing the pooch. Just ignore it, don't talk about it and wait till it goes away. This is not going away. It's going to hurt a lot more Koreans than foreigners.

I have seen lots and lots of Korean protests since I've been here. A lot of them were for things I didn't agree with like the mad cow protests or the Yankee go home protests, but if there were ever a time and an issue to protest, this is it. Instead there seems to be the opposite of protest. They are attempting to draw attention AWAY from the mistreatment of foreigners in Korea. Maybe it's because they are getting richer and more comfortable and just don't want to get off their comfortable leather couches and pull themselves away from their 50-inch plasmas to go out in the cold and protest. Or, maybe they just don't know...

Proverbs 16:18 Part II

2011-02-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

See how easy it is to "BE A CRIMINAL" in Korea? You can imagine how many times OTHER E2 visa holders have run into problems with immigration workers who didn't do their jobs properly, or just didn't care to, causing delays and ending up in overstays. Since visa dates and contract dates are almost always fairly similar, a person typically has just a short period after their contract has fully expired, to renew their visa. I've even seen it where the contract expires AFTER the visa does. Another way the "criminal" activity numbers have been bolstered.

I bring this up because this is the way the dumbasses who created this law in half-cocked, ultranationalistic vengeance are trying to cover their asses. (or in Korean parlance, "save face") Do you think the guys at the top don't know forcing everybody to get CRC's at the Ottawa office is stupid? Of course they do! But we deserve it. Do you think they don't know that making people, like me, get them more than once is cruel and unusual punishment? Of course they do! But when Canadians hurt Koreans, Koreans MUST hurt Canadians. They're trained to see things as Korea vs the world. When this happened I had all kinds of students apologizing to me. And I'm not even American. Do you think that not a single person has bothered to ask someone in Canada at the R.C.M.P. how these criminal record checks work, or, for crying out loud, FLIPPED ONE OVER? Of course that's not the case either! That would be pretty stupid.

A little history. Christopher Paul Neil.
THIS guy, a Canadian, from BC, who worked in Gwangju is the guy that created this anti-foreigner paranoia and ultimately lead to fairly forced amendments in Korean laws and immigration procedures. And it's possible that since I am from Canada, from the same area, and have taught in Gwangju, THIS might be the reason the girl at Gwangju Immigration wouldn't even sit down at her desk while I was there. I am not kidding at all. The heights to which the hysteria about foreigners possibly sexually molesting Korean children seemed to have no limits for a while. The security cam business boomed for months while hagwons and schools across Korea installed cameras to monitor possible criminals to whom their children were entrusted every day. And accusations against foreigners ran wild so long as the VERY newsworthy stories of sexual misconduct by foreigners remained in the news.

But a funny thing happened on the way to martyrdom. What Koreans found out with the heightened awareness and concentration on sexual and just plain child abuse in school and daycare facilities wasn't quite as newsworthy as they'd hoped. You see it wasn't just foreigners doing it as the TV had told them. In fact it was an inordinately small number of foreigners who were the guilty parties. But anything we foreigners can do to draw national attention to a REAL problem in Korea! You're welcome.

I'm being facetious but it actually DID turn out to be a good thing. Now, largely because of foreigners in Korea and the nationally inspired mistrust Koreans have for us, the children are better protected. And in the end that's a very good thing. The same thing happened, (or seems to happen ever 3 or 4 years really), when the first news stories of foreigners using fake degrees in Korea surfaced. News was made, foreigners were checked, and indirectly thousands of KOREANS with fake diplomas were noticed. Some of very prominent status.

In both cases the story originated because it was foreigners who were the bad guys and Koreans who were the good guys. In both cases laws were hastily enacted and amended and rules were enforced before people even knew exactly what they were. Foreigners Korea-wide were forced to have their degrees inspected AGAIN at their own expense. You see everyone gets their degree verified at a Korean consulate in their country when they first come to Korea. At least I know I did, (see top). Since then I've had to get it verified twice more and I've supplied sealed transcripts to 3 universities for verification purposes 3 times at my expense.

Once Korean bad guys started being exposed at alarming rates both of these stories faded away. But the laws still remained in place to punish foreigners. If anything they are being tightened.

The sexual abuse is what Koreans feared most. I haven't heard a story of a guy who was caught committing it in Korea but there have been people who were convicted pedophiles teaching in Korea. And THIS is what caused the misinformed amendments to the Korean immigration rules regarding criminal record checks. And I'll just do the Canadian version. You see NOW every Canadian possible criminal must get a fingerprint-based criminal record check run AND processed at the Ottawa R.C.M.P. office and present it during their application process while it is 3-months-old or less. If the lawmakers took a little time to find out what they were ordering takes at least 120 working days, from the time of receipt to process, add to that the mailing time and current backlog of requests we're looking at 5-6 months. Then they would know it is impossible. Let me splain:

There are two kinds of federal criminal record checks that can be done. By far the more common is the name-only CRC whereby a cop or prospective employer requests that a name be run through the massive criminal data bank known as the National Repository for criminal records, which is located at the R.C.M.P. offices in Ottawa. This takes very little time and the results can be given almost immediately. They can be documented in FAR less than 3 months particularly if the Ottawa RCMP office is not the place drawing up the documents.

There are 3 possible results for a name-only check: 1. negative 2. positive 3. inconclusive. Negative is positive meaning you have no criminal offenses on file. Positive is negative meaning you have been convicted and not pardoned of a criminal offense. Inconclusive is when a person might have a pardon pending or is on trial or something like that. It could also mean that there is a possible sex offender charge or what they now call "vulnerable sector" charge. In this case, since names are confidential and not released, it is necessary to conduct a fingerprint-based CRC. THIS is what the fingerprint-based searches are for. Fingerprint-based searches are NOT more accurate or better in any way. But they are considerably slower.

So since the main concern of Koreans asking for the CRC's WAS sex offenses, and they heard that the fingerprint CRC's were connected with sex offenders they said, "Okay, yeah, we want THAT!" and promptly ordered the thousands of Canadians in Korea or coming to Korea to get them. TOTALLY UNNECESSARILY!

The CRC I got 2 years ago was name based, (see top). That is what I showed to the irritable immigration workers in Gwangju. THAT was a completely solid CRC that should be honoured as such by a well informed Korean government. But it's not and they're not. The reason they're not well informed is this pride I started talking about. When somebody starts to explain these things to them the reaction is much the same as the people at the immigration office, or the advanced level student in the mixed level ESL class I mentioned. "YOU're going to try to tell ME the the laws of MY country are flawed?" And it's like talking to a wall. I defensive, even aggressively argumentative wall.

HOWEVER, I think that the realization is slowly seeping into the top officers and law makers in Korean immigration that their hastily enacted laws may actually BE flawed. But we're in Korea where the tragic flaw is hubris. These guys can't simply change the laws they hastily and vengefully enacted! That would cost them face! So they've been looking for a couple of years now for a face-saving tactic. Here it is!

Now all us E-2 visa holders are committing crimes at an alarming rate. So alarming that it is becoming newsworthy in Korea. And soon a panic will spread and things will be investigated. And this time it's pretty safe to think that while investigating E-2 visa holders' criminal activity in Korea they won't accidentally stumble onto a way that Korean criminal activity can be exposed thereby ruining a perfectly good and newsworthy story. And it can be reasonably expected that the immigration brass will claim vindication for tightening immigration laws and probably enact even MORE dumb ones as a result of this.

In my argument at the Gwangju immigration office they asked me what I had been doing in Korea for the last 6 months. The insinuation was obvious. They assumed because I had lots of free time and I'm a criminal foreigner that I was obviously breaking some laws. And since it is pretty common for foreign teachers here to teach privately, (which is illegal), that might be what they assumed. And they seemed pretty sure of it although I did not teach a single private lesson or break a single law. But much like a person suspected of a sex offense, I was guilty whether I had done it or not. The facts, if they were revealed would undoubtedly show that teaching private lessons and unintentionally overstaying visas BECAUSE OF THE STUPID NEW LAWS, and the far more suspicious and inefficient immigration officers make up a vast majority of the laws that are reportedly being broken by foreigners. But the facts are not revealed, and won't likely be which just fosters mistrust and anti-foreigner sentiment in a country already in desperate need of a tolerance infusion.

The results of all of these things have certainly NOT helped the ESL industry. Or foreign workers affairs in this country. In fact the Koreans hurt, (or punished), financially by all this silliness FAR outnumber the foreigners. Hagwans, schools and universities all over Korea are ripping their hair out trying to get good teachers. And good teachers are going home. It is actually hurting the industry in Korea. They are just shooting themselves in the foot. Repeatedly!

And in other areas, like I explained in my blog another time when I tried to help my school by splitting a large class in half and teaching the resulting second class for free, my efforts were STILL misconstrued as an affront to the Korean education system and a personal attack on the Koreans who made the schedule. I have no doubt that this kind of hostility in reaction to people who are trying to help is finding its way into other industry and areas all over Korea. I also have absolutely no doubt that I have seen an INCREASE, not a decrease in this kind of hypernationalism throughout Korea. And as the country gets richer, and as the compliments from foreign dignitaries flow the Korean chests, (and heads), are swelling to a point where they are just going to have to explode. And if this ISN'T a tactic employed to sink the powerful Korean economy by other competing nations, boy it sure SHOULD be because it would work.

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. I wonder how that translates into Korean. Despite myself I like the people here and think they are good people with incredibly bad leadership. They're just trained to be bad. And this haughtiness is one of the results of this bad training. I really hope Korea and Koreans realize this before it's too late.

Proverbs 16:18 Part I

2011-02-20T02:51:00.000-08:00

You've probably heard the old proverb "Pride goeth before a fall." It's not just a proverb, it's a Proverb. Proverb 16:18 is pretty much the same although I like it better because it has more detail. It reads: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." If you don't know what "haughty" means it's being overly proud of yourself to the point where you look down on others.

For years I've talked of Korean people and said that there is a fine line between "Hooray for Korea" and "Boo for everybody else." This is the difference between good national pride and haughtiness. For a long time I used to admire Korean national pride and wish we could exhibit something similar more often in Canada. Then I started noticing a lot of signs that it is something a bit beyond.

Signs, literally, that read, "Global Elite" or some similar oxymoron are ubiquitous throughout Korea. How can you be thinking globally when you consider yourself elite? "Elite" is a huge seller in Korea. You see it on places you might expect it like universities or travel agencies but then you might see it on something like, (and I'm not making this up), a factory that makes pencils. Again, another fine line being crossed here is that between trying to do your best and considering yourself the best. (particularly when you're SOOO not!) "Elite" is a word that will be a few paragraphs away from the word "education" in reference to Korea as long as it remains a profitable business here cranking out degrees for a price. And that shows no signs of changing. I was thinking about just this today when I saw a sign on the side of a bus that read, "Gwangju Metropolitay City". Very metropolitay. Also erite.

On the other hand you constantly see Korea at the top of lists for education. How can that be? I've explained a few of their methods before like cheating on standardized testing. I am talking about teachers helping students during the exams. And I'm sure a great deal of those lists are compiled by Koreans or at least highly sponsored by them. Their education system is shyte. You learn that when you're in it. That's why ALL the rich folks in Korea send their kids the hell out of the country to get educated and why degrees from Korean universities are considered second rate IN KOREA. Yet, Barack Obama was praising the Korean system. What is up with that? Talking about quantity I might point out, not quality, a major FLAW, not strength of the Korean system. Obama also praised the internet and trade in Korea. Aside from the internet, which is fast, (when it works), here Obama is either not well informed and falsely praising Korea, or VERY well informed and falsely praising Korea.

This is their weakness, their hubris. You have to be in Korea all of 5 minutes to figure that out. They sure don't hide it very well. Mirrors on hiking trails; girls putting on make-up an everyday sight; 76% of women get plastic surgery; men have the cleanest cars in the world; they are always upgrading fashion, phones, cars, girlfriends to outdo their friends; and the measure of a man is money. Of course this is very general, but not inaccurate. And as I've said a few other times here, there is nothing that touches their "pride" in their country. I enclose that in quotes because it is not a strong enough word. Hypernationalism would probably be closer. And this kind of intense national pride leads to paranoia, ethnocentrism, xenophobia and all kinds of hostility toward people who are trying to help. Korean pride is making Swiss cheese out of their feet. If you know what I mean. (bang bang ouch ouch) Let me show you what I mean:

I teach ESL. It's what I do. No ESL teacher really wants to have classes with a wide variety of English levels. This is why they are separated by English proficiency in the good schools. But sometimes we have to deal with the problem. The higher level students DO get kinda ripped off because they don't learn as much but it's not as bad as all that. A good swimmer improves his best time by hundredths of a second whereas a beginner might improve by full seconds. Every learning situation is slower for the advanced. I don't believe I've had a single class where the highest level student couldn't learn anything from the lowest level student. But what I HAVE had are some really arrogant, swelled heads who think they are the greatest at English and will not accept any instruction from other students. Some who wouldn't accept it from me. In my early years anyway. Those kind of guys and gals are only hurting themselves. Sometimes simple improvements in English can make massive improvements.

For example imagine the practically fluent speaker was told by a low level student that his intonation didn't match his punctuation. This could be crucial advice. It could change his life or even save it! But if he says, "YOU are trying to teach ME? Ha ha ha ha ha. Don't make me laugh." Then kicks linguistic sand in the low level students face and steals his girlfriend. It'll serve him right when he says, "Woman without her man is nothing," with no intonation at all and that girl he just stole kicks him in the crotch and pushes him into oncoming traffic. Then as the low level student stands over his body now bloody and mangled by traffic the last thing he hears is, "You should have said, 'Women: Without her, man is nothing.' But don't listen to me, I'm just a low level English speaker..."

I went into the Gwangju Immigration Oraface on Friday to do two things: 1. Try, (and of course fail), to start the application for a new work visa to work in Naju and 2. If in the very likely situation that that didn't work out, extend my stay here. My 180-day visit finished the next day, Saturday. A third, and kind of side-purpose would have been to inform immigration that there was a pretty simple solution to all the recent problems Canadians are having with the backlog of criminal record checks. This advice I wanted to impart would help thousands of Canadians and literally millions of Koreans.

So in I go with Johan, a young Korean guy who speaks English pretty well. I can't exactly remember where we started but I DO remember she stood. Every immigration worker I've ever had before sat at his/her computer. She stood and never once looked at the computer. I think Johan gave her the pile of documents me and the school had put together and she pulled out the criminal record check I had from over 2 years ago and rather confrontationally said, "Not acceptable! Not acceptable!" I had applied for a new one about 108 days before so I KNEW it was not acceptable. The thing is it should have been and I was gonna try to explain to her why. I was not being rude or raising my voice at all. The problem was I was talking to Johan and he was translating and I have learned over the years that a guy who is younger than the person they are translating to will NOT do it accurately, just politely. That's probably what he was doing. But I remember saying that this criminal record check is identical to the one that I am unnecessarily getting right now from Ottawa. I know this because I worked for the R.C.M.P., I understand the criminal record check procedure, and this is something immigration workers like you should know. I didn't say it in an accusational tone at all but it was then I realized she obviously COULD speak English, just chose not to. She acted like I had stabbed her with a fondu fork.

"NOT ACCEPTABLE! NOT ACCEPTABLE! Must be R.C.M.P." My criminal record check was ORDERED and documented by the Calgary police but it says right on it that is based on a search of Canada's National Repository for criminal records. So she probably doesn't know what that means so I say, "Okay, National means country. This is not a city criminal record check. It's a federal check and those are all done in Ottawa by the R.C.M.P. our national police. Then like a little girl she says, "Show me R.C.M.P. Where R.C.M.P?" and folds her arms, (and I believe held her breath). I remember thinking that this was getting us nowhere and that I probably should move on. It really didn't matter if she accepted it or not, I had ordered another one. Just another in a lengthy list of useless exercises in obedience immigration workers love to punish foreigners with.

But, I couldn't resist. I said something like, "What would you do if I showed you R.C.M.P? Would it make any difference? Would you change your mind?" She just kept repeating, "There IS no RCMP!" So I flipped the page over and on the back it says, "The National Repository for criminal records is located in the Ottawa R.C.M.P. office. I flipped it over and back a few times so she can fully understand that this meant she was looking at a federal CRC and telling me it wasn't. Well that just made her MORE angry.

I then asked how old the CRC is supposed to be. I had read on the Canadian Embassy website that in Korea they want it to be less than 3 months old. Johan asked her that and she said yes. So I then said that I had ordered a new one 108 days ago. Even if I had that now it would be too old, wouldn't it? Again she got angrier as though I were insulting HER or her country or something. All I was doing was explaining the problems that so many Canadians are having right now across Korea. She just pulls the first thing out of her ass. "Oh, no, SIX months okay." I say, six months is NOT okay according to my country's website. Also the RCMP told me that the current processing time is more than 120 WORKING days AFTER the receipt of application." SO let's round that off to "much more than 4 months."

She says, "When did RCMP say that? They did not. Show me. Prove it." I said I CAN prove it if you just let me use your computer here I'll bring up the email they sent me. "NO! We don't allow!" She ALMOST touched the computer screen THEN but didn't. I think it might have had a picture of me on it with the words "Give this guy a hard time" below it. Also she knew I'd just prove her wrong again.

So I said, "So your government is asking thousands of Canadians to get something that takes more than 4 months in less than 3 months. Isn't that a bit crazy to you?" This is why across Korea immigration offices are waiving the CRC's and processing visas without them. This has happened to lots of my friends. Again she wanted me to provide a list of names of my friends who this has happened to. I just said probably 100 of my friends. She says, "Show me." Boy I guess she had me there! Probably felt proud of herself. Then she dropped the bomb and told me that she was going to make me go back to Canada to get a new criminal record check from Ottawa RCMP and get it stamped at a Korean consulate in Canada.

After that things deteriorated. I said to Johan that she's just not interested in helping and we should find another person to deal with. Like there was anybody there now who would treat me objectively. She says, (and by now she was livid and saying everything 2 or 3 times like a crazy woman), "You want another? You want another? Here!" And she grabs a guy right beside who had of course been listening and in Korean fills him in probably telling him that I was an asshole. The guy instantly started baiting me. Like he was heroically defending the fair maiden or something. Because I had said that going back to Canada would just be "crazy" he leans over and says to me, "Watch your mouth!" Oh this amused me. First of all "crazy" is not in any way bad enough language to describe the ass-raping I was getting and secondly being told to watch my mouth by a Korean is like being told to be celibate by Charlie Sheen.

Now I know that the word "michin" is commonly, but erroneously translated in Korea as "crazy" and it's a pretty rough thing to call somebody, THIS was not the problem. He was just trying to get me to take a swing at him. Koreans are ALWAYS doing that! They ARE crazy! But I wasn't going to give them any evidence that I was the criminal they perceived me as even though my mouth was dryer than a popcorn fart. That's what happens when I get really mad. So this guy goes over to ANOTHER computer and brings up something and then leans over at me and says, "You are a CRIMINAL!" My reaction again was Whaaat? Yes you broke Korean law! And he's shouting this so everyone can hear and flailing an accusing finger at me. I said, "What are you talking about? What law did I break?" He says, (and I'm not making this up folks), in 2006 you overstayed your visa by 2 days!" I just laughed. Again not a good way to calm the situation.

He starts freaking out like the girl. "You think this is funny? Breaking Korean law is funny to you?" I said, "No but it is funny that it took me 5 years to be informed of it. Not to mention I have signed 5 contracts and visited immigration offices many times since and nobody has brought it up until now." and then I started realizing that the chances of me getting anything done on this day were screwed so I started getting a but vindictive. I said, "Don't you think that's just a little CRAZY?" Again, for about the 4th time he said I should "Watch my mouth." So I said to him okay where was I working then? Was it at Hankuk Wae Dae? Was it HUFS? He goes into his computer, not the one on the desk in front of me mind you, and he pulls something up and says in 2006 I was working at Pagoda Hagwon. I just laughed again.

PAGODA HAGWAN was 1997and 98! "You are off by almost a decade!" I remember the reason I overstayed my visa and it was the fault of an incompetent immigration worker who kept making me go home for extra papers one at a time. A very common occurrance. And when I got to the airport immigration and announced that I had overstayed my visa, did they want to put me in jail everybody had a laugh and told me to pay a little fine and be on my way. Dude at the immigration office thinks I'm Charles Manson or something. I don't know where they find them.

The last straw was the girl who had taken over the computer where dude had searched for my heinous crime. She pipes up and asks me, "Hangul mal chadashinayo?" I know it means "Do you speak Korean?" but didn't answer because it had no relevence. She says to me in the English she refused to use during the visa interview, "How long have you been in Korea, 10 years?" I said yes. "And you still can't speak Korean?" Oooh two points for bitchy pants! Really nailed me there! So since this bridge was pretty much already torched I said, "I didn't learn Korean because I don't want to talk to people like you." And that's the truth.

At around this time I gave it up and me and Johan went to another girl to ask for an extension of my stay. You can imagine the answer. First she asked what I needed it for. I said to buy a stupid ticket to Canada. How long. Well I don't know because I have to wait for my CRC and there's no telling how long that will take. Then to punish me for not taking the abuse the other two were dishing out she said, "No you have to get a plane ticket before I'll give you an extension." Big surprise. So after being told by the berserk guy to respect the Korean law more and being informed of the seriousness of my terrible crime of overstaying my visa, she forced me to overstay my visa again. So then we left.

I Got The Koobfaced in Korea Blues

2011-02-15T05:44:00.000-08:00

Hey folks. Let me start off by saying to all the people I infected with either my message that I had won a free Ipad or this one, "How's it going (your name)? Look at you in this video.. What are you doing? LOL!" I'm sorry. I got the second message from a guy on my list who I genuinely know. He's from Gwangju and I thought maybe he'd found the video of me "running to the hills" one night at Stompers in Itaewon. So I opened it. I didn't go to any page where it said to download anything and I didn't see any vid but I got the virus.

Not long after people were sending me messages that I had sent them a message saying I'd won a free Ipad. Then facebook completely crapped out so I couldn't answer these people and warn them not to open anything. Then today I got a mess. from a guy on my list who doesn't even know me saying, "???" in response to a mess he got from me saying, "How's it going, (his name)? Look at you in this video.. What are you doing? LOL!"

I can't even log in or out of facebook now. I go to the site and I get just the top line with the friend requests, messages and profile and such. But there's nothing below it AND none of that stuff works. Facebook is totally Koobed for me!

But that was not all this virus did! My computer slowed down to a crawl. Well, the internet did anyways. I could still watch dvd's and work offline with no trouble at all but the internet was useless. Not just facebook. I checked the processes with the old ctrl/alt/del and there were all kinds of processes running at 70,000 K, 80,000 K, even 100,000 K when usually most are using less than 10,000 K of memory. No wonder my computer was brutally slow!

So I lugged it over to Jacky's computers. He plugs it into his internet and it runs like a dream! I don't think he went to facebook though. But we checked the processes and they were down at 7000, 4000, 3000 etc. where they're supposed to be. Of course he wanted to tell me fifteen things it WASN'T. He said my vid. card fan wasn't working, (it's new), my vid card was burnt, my mother board was burnt, blah blah blah. I told him about the strange happenings on facebook and that system restore wasn't working. In fact I told him to try system restore about 10 times until I said, "FOR THE 10TH TIME TRY SYSTEM RESTORE!" So he finally did and it didn't work. Well of course THIS was my fault too. "You must have used it too many times," he accused. I told him I hadn't even used it once.

So I says, "This is a sign that Windows is deteriorating, right?" I knew it was. He agreed. I asked him how much his Kaspersky antivirus cd's were. 50 bucks. Then I asked how much to re-install Windows. 50 bucks. I asked if a facebook virus would disappear if he re-installed Windows. He said, "Definitely." I MADE him say "definitely" because, as I've written so many times before, Koreans will say "yes" when they have no business saying it. So I went with the re-installation.

Turns out I should have gotten BOTH. You see these Koobface viruses can be deleted with ordinary anti-viruses or by re-installing Windows. BUT, they get into your system restore and automatically restore your system to a time when you had them. Then they start screwing up your computer again. Pretty evil. Who are the scumbags who make these things? Whoever it was will be recruited very highly somewhere I'm sure.

Anyways, I found some instructions online that said I had to get an anti-virus so I downloaded a free Avast. Then I pulled the internet plug, went into start/my computer/properties/system restore tab and disabled the system restore. Then I restarted my computer in safe mode, (by banging away at F8 while it starts up), used the safe mode without net support and did a full system scan with Avast. It found some bad stuff. I can't remember what all the names were but I nuked most of it. One bug required a second restart and full system check to get rid of so I did that. Then I started in normal mode and did one more full check to make sure.

My internet is running just fine now. BUT facebook is still fubared. I've sent messages to them and they have promised to reply but I think there are probably a gozillion people who sent similar messages to I doubt they'll get back to me. I hope they solve the problem though. I miss facebook already. I still wanna wait for a while and see how well my internet maintains before I enable my system restore again.

But in other, more positive news I went to the interview in Youngju and it was fantastic! The trip there... not so much. If you look on a map it should take a couple hours to get from Pyeongtaek to Youngju but I took the train and let's just say it's not a very direct route. The guy at the train station said that to go to Seoul Station then take a subway to Chongyangni and get a train south from there would be the fastest way. It only took 6 1/2 hours. I was way late. But the interviewers didn't mind too much. Tim and Michael. Nice guys. They said several times during the interview, "This looks very good."

The deal is a great one and although the place isn't really near ANYTHING, I think I'll like it. Mountains all around and I saw some fishing stores in town. But before I get my hopes up I'm going to stop. I don't have the job yet.

So after the interview I took a bus from the college into the BUS terminal in Youngju. I figured that couldn't possibly be slower. I KNEW there were roads linking the two cities. So I asked for a ticket to Pyeongtaek. The buses don't go there. Closest is Suwon. I said that would be fine. Suwon is 15 minutes from Pyeongtaek on the subway or train. So I got my ticket and she says, "The bus won't be leaving for another 2 hours." So I asked if there were any buses going anywhere right away. There was one to Seoul. So I called my friend Guns in Seoul and he said he'd have some free time after his Valentine's date with his girlfriend so I decided to go have a beer with Guns. I said, "Kangnam Terminal?" She says, "No, Dong Seoul." That's East Seoul. On the other side of the city from where Guns was. But I said okay let's go.

It worked out okay. Guns' girlfriend's father came to see her so Guns could come out to play. We went to a little bar near his house called Uncle K's. Mr. Kang is the owner and has put out a few CD's. I think it's folk music. I didn't get to hear him play but he was a nice guy and played some songs we were requesting. He also had a few beers with us. Then Guns' roommate came for a few beers and we all slept at their place. They had to get up pretty early, poor guys, but I didn't get outta there till about 11. Made my leisurely way home and found that my internet was still slow. (I didn't know then about the Koobface virus). I asked the daughter of the landlord to call the internet company because even after reinstalling everything the internet at Jacky's was WAY better than mine. But then again, I remembered that toward the end of our squabble at Jacky's we checked the processes again and they were climbing up there. I don't think the net would have worked very long THERE either. Anyway, she comes over and says I should just unplug the internet and then plug it in again. And she's saying there's nothing wrong with the internet and I'm about at the end of my patience telling her how the other internet was good and mine is useless so I said, "Listen, listen, listen. It's no-" She interrupts me again. So I said, "No, you listen with your ears, not your mouth!"

I know, I know that was rude. But I was able to explain it to her so she trusted me and she agreed to call the company. They're coming tomorrow morning to look at it. THEN shortly after she left, and I smiled and thanked her, I started checking for fixes for the problems I had and came across the Koobface virus fixes. And after doing the Koobface boogie for a few hours, taking out garbage, washing dishes and cleaning up during long virus scans I now am up and running again. I don't think I need that internet guy to come tomorrow. But how am I going to tell the landlady's daughter to cancel without looking like a heel? Especially after that ears and mouth crack. Should I leave a post-it note on my door? "internet okay. no need for repairs" Should I just act surprised when the net works fine when he gets here? Or maybe I'll just tell him what it is. Maybe he'll know something about the Koobface virus.

Buuuuuuuuut if I ask him if he can fix the Koobface virus, whether he can or not he'll say, "OH sure! Here's what you have to do..." and he'll start banging away at my computer changing all kinds of things not making anything better but leaving little computer footprints that I'll be fixing for a few months. It has happened pretty much every time a Korean has touched my computer. They can't help themselves! I swear! It's like a disease for them. And so is say yes now and try to figure it out later.

So it's good to have my computer working again. But it would be even better to have facebook too. I hope it's not lost forever. It would be nice to put a comment on my facebook homepage apologizing for passing on Koobface and add a link to this entry, but no can do. It seems everything linked to my email address is screwed. Including, believe it or not, this blog! I can go to blogspot.com and write new entries and edit and everything but I can't go to http://koreanchronicles.blogspot.com. It has to do with cookies I think because if I go to anonymouse.org and type in my blog website it works.

So what I'm gonna do is try another computer and see if I can access my facebook page and blog website from it. If so then I may have to make a choice again: have Windows re-re-installed or buy the antivirus. Until then I'll try cleaning my cache and disk and defrag and do an adware scan.

Yeah I got the... Lord you know I got the... feel like I never gonna lose... never gonna lose the Koobfaced in Korea Blues.

2011-02-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

I recently had an interview at a school where they not only wanted me to teach English but also do a sports program. I really got my hopes up for that one because I absolutely love sports. So that made it all the cheesier when the woman who had interviewed me very eloquently, spent about 30 seconds going uh, um, er, uh, ah, er, uh when I asked WHY I didn't get the job. Why is such a tough question in Korea! They're still not used to being asked. Evidently she hadn't formulated a convincing lie to cover for the fact that I wasn't hired for being too old, too fat, having crooked teeth, a long nosehair, wearing stripes with checks, or some other ridiculous reason. So after a barrage of fillers while she flipped through resumes to try to find mine she says, "Well we were um looking uh for someone with more university experience than you. It looks like you have uh, one and half year."

First of all I have only relevant experience listed on my resume. I have the experience with better educational facilities here in Korea listed there. I don't list the years with the fake schools because I am actually too good a teacher for those schools and that was the ultimate reason for my leaving in every case. To list them would infer that my teaching skill and academic integrity is suitable for those places. Secondly I have 2 and a half years of experience listed on my resume. And thirdly, we had spent the entire interview talking of my 4 years of teaching low level university students, which is what they told me to expect at the school I was interviewing for; my 2 years of teaching at a college in Canada where I did the sports programs in conjunction with Arkansas Tech. University that they were interested in; and I think I also mentioned that I had been teaching at the college/university level for 9 years.

Anyway, I KNOW I was lied to so I guess it's good that I didn't get the job working, as my friend Ang says, "...for bozos like that." But it would have been so nice to teach sports again!

Sports in so many ways is like life. I figure a person can become a very well-rounded, free-thinking, well-adjusted, moral human being just by playing sports. In fact I'm not afraid to say that a majority of the major weaknesses I see in the world, and in Korea could be cured with sport and may actually exist for lack of it. The aforementioned interview is a spectacular example. If you choose a person for your team who is popular or LOOKS like a good player and pass over one who you KNOW is good but doesn't wear the uniform as well, you're gonna lose. The player will let the team down, may ask for more salary than better players, make errors, not play hurt, slag the coach in interviews, refuse to give autographs to fans or whatever. Meanwhile the GOOD player will be helping his/her team elsewhere and you'll wish you had taken that player. One bad player can really kill the chemistry of a good team. And chemistry can make a team of so-so players better than a team of great players. It's been shown again and again.

Reporters can make the life of the person who chose this bad apple really uncomfortable. They will have to lie and they will be caught in their lie and look really foolish. Maybe if the interviewer knew this she wouldn't have had such an embarrassing phone call from me. She knew she was busted and kept trying to end the phone call but I kept her on as long as I could allowing her to either admit the truth or dig her hole deeper. She did the latter, (or course). I even at one point told her that she knows she chose the wrong person for the job and she didn't disagree. But she did put the maraschino cherry on top of her phony, plastic, artificial, business-speak pie when she invited me to apply again next semester.

Anyway, enough about that. I want to talk about sports more than my trials and tribulations in the Korean job market. The recent Super Bowl was pretty good I thought. It wasn't a blowout like so many of them are. But it had a couple peculiarities that brought to mind some of my pet peeves about sport. First of all, why do so many sports have limits on celebration? I forget who it was but after a TD catch he was penalized for "going to the ground in celebration." Excessive celebration. It's impossible to guess but I'd say about half the world has a sporting dream. It may be to win the gold medal at the Olympics or to climb Mt. Everest or to kayak down the Amazon or to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Most people, like myself, will go their entire lives without even coming close to their sporting dream. But if you are one of the miniscule number of gifted, lucky, skilled, dedicated athletes who manages to attain the goal and then some JAGOFF says, "Hey, wait a minute! You can't celebrate too much," and actually PENALIZES you, there is something wrong.

I mean, okay, you reach the summit of Everest and yell at the top of your oxygen-starved lungs and somebody tells you to keep it down in case you cause an avalanche, well okay. THEN I can see that the celebration is excessive. It could be dangerous. It could hurt people. But what is dangerous about a little victory dance in the endzone at the Super Bowl? Who is being put in danger? Who is hurt by it? The fans of the other team? The players on the other team? Please! What is this day camp, where everybody gets a medal for participating and score is not kept? Do you really think the players don't know who won the game and who scored the most goals? This is the NFL. If the other team doesn't like the celebration, get a TD and do some celebrating of your OWN!

Every sport's players know when celebration becomes excessive. There are unwritten rules against running up the score and if the Tigers are losing to the Yankees 25-0 and Arod starts moonwalking from 3rd to home after hitting a homerun, then he's a dick. He'll probably be benched for a game or at least should be. If he's not, it'll be what I described above: the tightness of the team will be eroded by it because his teammates will know he's a dick. This is one of so many valuable lessons we can apply to other areas of life. If only some of the psychopaths in business domination would take it easy on the competition! I'm looking at YOU, Walmart! Walmart needs to be benched for a game or two.

There was a guy on the Colbert Report lately named Sean Kelly. A Harvard Philosophy professor who says that there is great meaning in sporting events even to the fans. When we jump up off the couch together and high five after a big play he says that's "sacred." I think he's right. I even think when a satarist like Colbert or Jon Stewart really nails a villain good there's a similar sort of feeling. I'd give you a link, but just this week the Colbert Report website will no longer allow anyone in my area to view full episodes. It's like a referee has blown a whistle, thrown a flag and taken away my sacred celebration of Colbert slamming the selfish, capitalist scumbags who own this world. They have all the money and power and now they're trying to stop us from laughing at their folly. Please, Stephen, tell me you won't begin complimenting their invisible new clothes too!

Even my beloved Kia Tigers are going to have to put a limit on their celebrating. Starting this upcoming season, if a player gets a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th inning the players can no longer crowd around him at home plate, pour water on him or anything like that. Why the hell not?

Who are these stuffed shirts making these rules who think that THEIR sense of decency overrides that of the athletes? Do they think because they play sports they are dumb? I submit to you that every single one of these stuffed shirts led a sportless life otherwise they would know that every athlete has a perfectly good grasp of when and where celebration is excessive. MUCH better than them! And what kind of Orwellian madman tries to regulate FEELINGS???

Let's examine THAT point, shall we? If there are any misplaced emotions at any sporting events they are in the moments just before the action begins. A moment of silence for the victims of Hurricane Katrina; Observe with us the hanging of the flag to support our soldiers; Please remove your hats and stand for the singing of the national anthem, not of the players but of the government run by the conglomarations that own them and you. COME ON everybody, take your Soma now. Could it be more obvious? Not a single person is there to think of that stuff and there may just be a whole lot of them who are hoping to put it out of their minds for a few hours.

Of course we may support these things but what in the wide wide world of sports do they have to do with baseball or hockey or football or whatever? Why don't they have the national anthem before golf tournaments? Because golfers and golf fans already achieve the emotional tranquility that best suits the consumer manipulation perpetrated by the sponsors of the events? Who knows?

All I know is NObody is throwing a flag on Mariah Carey or the latest winner of American Idol when she/he sings her/his 18-minute magnum opus rendition of America The Beautiful before a game between two hockey teams that have no Americans playing for them. Some day I would just LOVE to see the national anthem cut short like a droning Oscar acceptance or even GONGED! Ha ha ha. That would be so sweet! But then I'm sure that won't happen because all around the world the viewing audience would all jump off the couch, high five, hug and show excessive celebration at it. I know I would.

Freedom from free

2011-02-07T00:18:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty much responsibility free for the entire football season having no job, no wife, no kids, no teams, groups or clubs, no volunteer work, no family within a thousand miles and not much of a social calendar to speak of. Life's been dull since the season's opening kickoff. PERFECT! That way I had nothing to distract me from watching as many games as I could through the year. And I did, boy howdy!

I was active in about 5 football pools making trades every week and following my players live. I think the more I watch the games the WORSE I get at those damn pools though. "Chicago will probably beat New England this week because Devon Hester has gone two games without a return for a touchdown and last time he went three was never. Although, Tom Brady DID cut his throwing index finger making a breakfast bagel last Wednesday. He'll have three days to heal but will that be enough? Then again BenJarvis Green Ellis can't possibly handle all those names AND the football. He's overdue for a fumble. But will Cutler be able to capitalize if he fumbles. He's only 1 for 7 this season scoring on drives immediately following fumbles by guys with too many names. As opposed to Brady who jumps all over opponents fumbles. But you can't count on Forte fumbling because hangin on to the ball is, (fake "well"), his Forte! But Tom Brady's answered plenty more than one fumble with scores this season. By the way, that 1 score for Cutler was a 48-yard field goal. And speaking of field goals the forecast calls for heavy winds blowing sideways across Soldier Field and that's gonna hurt BOTH teams." and so on and so on.

I woke up at all hours of the morning all season long and missed only one week of football this season. Only one week when I didn't watch a game. Then came today. Super Bowl Sunday in America, and Super Bowl Monday morning in Korea. I was called for an interview and told it'd be right after the lunar new year holidays, either Monday the 7th or Tuesday the 8th. When I got the email confirming the time and giving me directions to the school I copied it down and was gutted! Monday morning at 10 AM. I had to travel to Daejeon, about a 2-hour trip for me. Absolutely the worst time possible. The Super Bowl was from 8-11. I didn't see even a minute of it.

But here's the fun part: I got to the interview over an hour early. The directions were very easy to follow. I told the receptionist in the office who I was there to see and she called her. I got on the phone and introduced myself and told her I was there for my interview. I didn't know why the receptionist had given me the phone or why she had called the interviewer so I just said, "Don't worry I know I'm early, I will just wait." She was oddly silent but made a sound of agreement. When she finally arrived after I had waited over an hour the first thing she showed me was the interview schedule. I was down for 10 AM alright, THE NEXT DAY!

She says, "You really ARE early!" Man, I felt terrible! I had probably forced her to come to work when she hadn't planned on it. Plus I had needlessly missed the Super Bowl! AARRRGGGGHHHH! And who knows WHAT she's going to think of my organizational skills when I can't even get the date of the interview right! Last thing I need with all the people who have been waving jobs under my nose and then snatching them away at the last second over the past 7 or 8 months. I kinda think I am starting to develop a theory on that too.

But it may have been all for the best. I find I'm saying that a lot these days. You see my computer is old and ready to call it quits. The latest thing to go has been live streams. I can't even watch the Daily Show any more. I get about 3 seconds of it then a 20-second pause, then 2 more seconds and so on. I recently found a website with a whole bunch of documentaries posted in their entirety online and have been O.D.ing on them. But can't watch them any more either. MUCH too slow. Then I tried today to do some maintainence. I did an Adaware spyware scan with my free adware program. Adaware is good. And actually free. For now. I also downloaded about 4 "free" virus scans including norton and even one that was in German. They all told me my computer was infested with bad stuff but wouldn't get rid of it unless I purchased their product at the reasonable price of yadda yadda yadda/shprechen shprechen shprechen. Raise your hand if that's NEVER happened to you.

Then I tried to do a system restore. My computer has had problems but only minor ones and until just recently has been good enough. I figured I'd just restore to a few days ago. I got a message that I can't use my system restore. I checked if it was disabled and it's not. So I'll probably have to haul my computer into Jay's Computer Repair, like I did 6 months ago, and get everything re-installed. That's my computer. It's just old. "OLD" Like 4 years. ANCIENT!

So anyway, I got back from the interview remembering that the last time I turned my computer off it worked extremely well when I started it back up. I hoped for the same result but couldn't even get onto my homepage. Then just for kicks I tried to go to the place where I had watched about half the football I watched this season WITH COMMERCIALS. Check out THIS Big Brother action! Right at Super Bowl time! Spoilsports! Literally.

Now, I've been watching a LOT of documentaries lately so my mind is just awhirl with all the folks, well all the entities, agencies, boards, commissions, brotherhoods, clans, and corporations that I can blame for all my problems. Let's start with Mr. Gates. Oh SURE he's trying to get rid of polio worldwide and has almost succeeded, but I know he's just doing that to maintain a healthy market for his made-to-break Microsoft products. He's not the first. Why do you think electric cars didn't work? Not just because oil companies were going to take a hit but because they were too well built. Very low maintainence. Repairmen, garages, dealerships woulda lost millions! They were marketed poorly, on purpose, and STILL caught on. You had to go through intense interrogation to qualify to get one and you couldn't buy it! You had to lease it. Then when they started getting just a bit too good, they were all rounded up and crushed.

I bet if somebody made computer parts that don't get old or deteriorate, THEY would all be recalled and crushed too! Wouldn't they? You KNOW they would! Don't try to fool us with that schoolboy charm, Gates. You and your disease-fighting, Skull and Bones belonging, New World Order, Free Mason, Illuminati, Bilderberg team aren't pulling the wool over MY eyes. And even if you got rid of cancer, AIDS and mosquitoes, I still wouldn't... well hang on. Then, I, uh, er... Well he hasn't done that, has he?

And who's to say these new parts are any better? They're probably just like pharmaceuticals. Zoloft, Viagra, the purple pill. They have generic brands that are exactly the same and 10X cheaper. But you can't buy generic computer parts yet can you? Well, I dunno, maybe you can but I'm sure Bill doesn't want us to.

It's all a conspiracy. They're all against us. We must be vigilant! And what about sharing stuff online. Well, SHARING just isn't something we're supposed to do in the capitalist world, is it? NOOOooo! I get a grainy, herky-jerky picture that I have to sit far enough away from to get a first down before I can make out what's happening. My picture times out once a quarter, usually when it's 4th and goal or during a close in cheerleader shot. I have audio that sounds like John Madden and Frank Gifford are underneath an overturned bathtub and I get ALL of the beer, pizza, burger, car, video game, movie and snack commercials that make me crave stuff I CAN'T GET over here! But the NFL wants me to PAY for that!

Or maybe they just want a credit card transaction from me so they can keep closer tabs on what I buy, where I am and what I'm wearing when I watch the games. Who's to say your government doesn't put a little tiny cam in your monitor. Why do you think it's CALLED a monitor. It's monitoring YOU! You KNOW it's possible! And if you ever want to expose the people who installed all this Big Brother surveillance equipment inside your computers, they'll dredge up some pretty incriminating footage of the last time you were all alone in your room surfing pinkbunnynose.com.

Why, I wouldn't be surprised if they're montoring this blog entry right now. It may appear differently than originally written. And maybe, just maybe, writing THIS kind of stuff is the reason I'm such a fantastic teacher and I can't find a job teaching over here even in a FAKE school! Eerie isn't it? Did you hear that? And why was it that just a few days after finding this site where all this information is just tantalizingly available my computer myseriously goes on the blink. They now KNOW I'll be going to Jay's to get it fixed and they'll give him some extras to put into my old computer to surveil me. I gotta get underground. Soldier on readers! Stay the course. Even when I'm gone. My next entry might be made from a cave.

Something Fishy Going On

2011-01-20T05:03:00.000-08:00

Ever feel like something just ain't quite right? Something that is just believed and never questioned could be wrong? Or maybe that something NOT believed might be right? The other day a lifetime of zodiacal skepticism was justified and verified by science. I don't mean that I was skeptical about the whole thing! We all know how helpful horoscopes and astrological personality predictions are! Especially when meeting new people at the bar. I mean I just didn't feel much like an Aries. There were a few things in the Aries personality profile that I felt were accurate for me but not many.

Aries, according to the babble.com food section, are adventurous and energetic. Hello? I've been doing NOTHING for 6 months! And their zodiacal food would be walnut trail bars to pack along on adventures. Yuck!

But I look at Pisces who are compassionate and kind and might bake chocolate chip cookies or brownies for the ones they love. I DO that! And while my chocolate chip cookies may have a few chopped up walnuts in them, they are so much better than walnut trail bars.

Astrological discrepencies such as this have been haunting me my whole life! I was born on April 14th making me a member of the first zodiacal sign: Aries. Apparently Aries mentality is very often, "Me first!" I don't want to be and am just not like that! Jefferson, (Apr. 13),and Da Vinci, (Apr. 15), are a couple of the curious, energetic movers and shakers always delving into new areas that personify the Aries. And when an Aries is "on the cusp" of Taurus they can have very powerful personalities gone bad. For example Adolph Hitler!!!, (Apr. 20). Aries are sometimes referred to as "Arians!" Who WOULD want to be an Aries?!?

On the other hand, Aries ARE forthcoming and direct. No ulterior motives or hidden agandas. I'm brutally honest and it sometimes gets me into trouble. It's one of the hardest things about living in Asian societies where lying is preferred and expected in so many social scenarios. Aries tend to get bored easily leaving lots of unfinished projects in their wake. If I could finish HALF of the stories I've started writing I'd be Stephen King! And Aries are opinionated. It's my opinion that I fall into that category too.

However, they are territorial about possessions, very competitive and hate to lose. Survey says, NAAAHHHH! I don't know how many times I've railed on about how people have gone overboard with their passion for property. "I belong to you. And you belong to me too." That's supposed to be a romantic line in a Lenny Kravitz song. I happen to think it's psychotic. (good tunage though) And although I absolutely LOVE sports and winning, I have tried to share that feeling with others more times than I can count by playing a bit below my best so that I am easier to beat. I enjoy putting up stiff competition but allowing the other player to win. It makes them feel great and THAT makes me feel almost as good as them. How Ariesish does THAT sound?

Many Aries are self-employed or managers and foremen. They enjoy having authori-TAH over other people. I have been asked many times to be camp supervisor, head teacher etc. and just don't want, (or need), people to respect my authori-TANH! Suggested jobs for Arians are military, politics, driving or outside sales. I would plain SUCK at every one of those careers!

Aries are supposed to be more intellectual than spiritual. Here again it's not true. Although, my spirituality IS quite a bit more intellectual than some. I like to study and intellectualize about spiritual matters regardless of religion. "Rafah Ramah Karuna, Agape Prema Tzedakah, First or last or in between, the love you show is the love that has been seen. Love. We got love. Yeah we got love, and that is all we need." This is a line from a song I recently, uh, wrote. It's sung to the tune of "I Got You Babe" because it's simple and I can play it on my harmonica. But anyway, not very Aries-like.

And an Aries won't marry unless he can wear the pants in the relationship. This in large part has been the problem with my Asian girlfriends. I don't want to wear the pants. I don't want to own a woman. I don't want to beat her "passionately" to make her love me, (and respect my authori-tanh).

BUT, thanks to the wobbling of the Earths axis, and some sagacious astrologers, I am now a Pisces! Let's see what mysticalblaze.com says about Pisces, shall we?

Pisces, being the last zodiacal sign, are patient. Almost 15 years of teaching. Nuff said. They are perceptive, spiritual, imaginitive and consider the feelings of others. Some famous Pisces are Michelangelo, (sculpted David), Einstein, (said, "Imagination is more important than intelligence."), and Dr. Seuss, (does not like green eggs and ham). We have so much in common!

Pisces are often thought of as scatterbrained and messy but experts know that these are not our dominant traits. Sure my desk, bedroom, house, truck ARE messy but I know where exactly everything is. Pisces are regal, compassionate, reliable and if pisces weren't so tactful we might brag about it. They often appear to be workaholics. They work hard and do a great job not to gain material possessions but because they believe through their work they are helping people and doing good. You can go to the next entry in this blog to find examples of this in my life. Just scroll down. Money and stuff we buy with it are means to an end, not our goal. My employers never understand my priorities. I've even offered to work for free.

But hold on now... Pisces are devoted parents and spouses who are very understanding and NEVER COMPLAIN. Not a parent, not a spouse and I am an EXPERT complainer! I've said before that if I had a job as suntan lotion applyer at the Playboy Mansion I'd find something to complain about. In Pisces not complaining causes them to internalize their feelings and that can lead to excessive alcohol and drug use. Both Oscare Wilde and I agree that too much of anything is bad for you, especially moderation. I've been known to pop a cork but afterwards anything, though there is never much, that had been internalized till then comes out dragging all my stress behind it. But all of this might change if I were a parent and spouse.

Pisces are passive and agreeable. You don't believe me? Okay, maybe they're not. You're right. These traits make them easy targets for bullies. Hey, I had an entire class of bullies for 2 or 3 years. I had one or two good friends, my brothers, the family dogs and my imagination. And I was fine! This is textbook Pisces. Maybe I was a bit of a loner but I had a cheerful, if unusual, outlook on life even though everyone at school treated me like shit.

Pisces need to be needed. I haven't found a wife who needs me yet. We have the intellect to excel but don't want to be leaders. I could run my own English camp or even a school but I just want to teach. Pisces have home-based hobbies. You're reading one of mine. They are easy going friends who are creative, caring and will surprise with witty and deep insights. To all my friends remember this: You are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else. Lazy at times but when motivated will be energetic. That's me. When angered can hurt with words. I surprise mySELF sometimes how I can hit a person right in the weak spot just with words. This may be because of the incredible sensitivity and understanding pisces have of other people's feelings.

It all makes sense now! When I was young I was an Aries. Now I've gone through a kind of zodiacal reverse evolution from a ram to a fish. I wish, like the picture at the top, to keep my horns, however becuase they will prove most useful in my new home beneath the water. But I suppose I won't be needing my lungs, wool, or legs any more. So I will maintain a few Aries characteristics but for the most part I'm now a fish.

As for which horoscope to read, I think I'll just read both and choose the best one.

A Few Korean Oddities

2011-01-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

Although Koreans seem to have all learned from the same lesson in the same book they all used at one time or another, that "Korea has 4 seasons!"; and although I have sometimes instructionally replied, "Canada has lakes and rivers!"; they seem to have it in their heads that we're in the tropics over here. Every winter several things happen that make you think it might be the first year of winter in Korea.

For instance, one of my favourites: "undol" floor heating. It's hot water pumped through pipes in the floor folks and for some reason there are almost always poorly insulated, (or uninsulated), pipes that lead to the source of the hot water: the boiler, which is almost always OUTSIDE. Water freezes. That's what you have in your cocktail to keep it cold. It freezes, or gets hard, when it's 0 degrees or below and, yes, every year just about everywhere in Korea it gets down to 0 degrees or below. That's Celcius for any Americans reading. I don't know from Fahreignhoit???

Every winter I go to stores or friends' houses or the pub to see people in a panic ripping styrofoam off the pipes and hitting them with the hairdryer or calling in the repairman, or locking the restroom and putting a sign on it that says, "Out of order..." And while we're on that, I sometimes think we've overgeneralized that phrase. I think it was invented for vending machines or restaurants or places where you choose something and order it. Now it's used for anything that's broken and it always makes me think, in situations like the toilet, "hmmm, (that's my thinking), What were you expecting me to order from the toilet?" Anyhoo, it's even worse when it happens at MY place.

Another oddity here in Korea is what I will call "door etiquete." I've blogged about some examples of this before. First, the bathroom door. In a public bathroom, (that isn't "out of order"), if you are using a stall, Koreans will knock. There is no need for a verbal response, just knock back. It's beautiful! A wonderful little slice of door etiquette that makes you think Korean people might just understand what doors are for. Then you are brought back to reality when some Korean just walks in on you. Not in the can but in your home. Usually some jagoff come to check the oil reading, install your cable internet or, you guessed it, to thaw frozen undol pipes or fix your exploded boiler. I'd say over the years about HALF of the Korean people who have had business in my house or apartment have not knocked before barging in. The hilarious part is after totally invading your privacy and walking in on you while you're surfing porn, taking a shower, playing with your Hello Kitty dolls or something like that, they ALWAYS take off their shoes! What is the reasoning? "I don't mind accidentally seeing this person having tantric sex with his wife on the kitchen floor, BUT I certainly don't want to get dirt on it." Or do they just take off their shoes to warm their feet on the undol? If so why does the guy coming to FIX the undol remove his shoes? Connundrum!

It's not just repairmen though. I've had landlords, pizzaboys, friends, students, church recruiters, advertisers and probably some others I have forgotten, walk in on me. It's worse when it happens in winter because, oddity number 3, they'll just leave the door wide open! People who are coming; people who are going. Sometimes they just stand in the wide open doorway. That's a VERY popular Korean passtime, blocking entrances and exits. Maybe that would be oddity #3 1/2.

So today is the coldest day of winter so far. I was up all night watching football. At about 8 AM I made some scrambled eggs and used a little water from the kitchen tap in them. But somewhere around 9:30 when the second football game is ending and I'm getting ready to start watching hockey, BLAM! My door sticks and it's made of sheet metal. It can't be opened or closed quietly. I go out to the kitchen and some stranger is looking at my sink full of dirty dishes. He demonstrates that there is no flow of water from the kitchen faucet. Again my dilemma of not knowing how to effectively relate sarcasm to Koreans. "OH! Well then it's no wonder you walked in without knocking, left the door wide open and checked the bathroom as a bonus knowing I was in the bedroom while you're snooping around my home. Please, make yourself a sandwich while you're at it. Or while you're costing me money by heating the outside why not put your foot through my TV screen? Oh wait, I know why, because you're not wearing your shoes! Thank you for removing your footware. You are SO polite!" It just wouldn't have any effect. And neither did the knocking gesture I made and the "KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK," I was saying over his Korean explanation.

But I didn't really even try to make my point. It's an exercise in futility. I'm a nub. So while EVERYBODY, and there were like 6 of them, was barking out orders in unintelligable Korean and asking me questions I didn't even try to understand or answer I turned on my boiler. My undol. I knew within an hour the water would be flowing again. Meanwhile I could see, THROUGH MY WIDE OPEN DOOR, a couple guys digging up the cement in the courtyard to get at some water pipes they thought might be the problem. They had all manner of equipment. And my poor landlady was gesturing to me saying, "Mool mool!" That means "water." And even pointed at the hole in the ground, shook her head and at one point said, "Whatchagonnado?" Ha ha ha. She's so cute!

Just nicely into the second period of the game I heard the water start flowing again. BLAM! A different guy this time triumphantly demonstrating the water flow in my sink full of dirty dishes. Again door wide open and shoes off. People came and went all through my place for the next half hour. Finally the action settled down. Then around the third period, BLAM! It was my landlady. Shoes off and door swinging wide open she turns on my kitchen faucet and demonstrates that I now have water. Then tells me some stuff I didn't understand. I think it was like keep some water running so the pipes don't freeze. A common practice in winter in Korea. You know, rather than installing proper heating systems just waste thousands of gallons of water every winter.

What I'm going to do is turn on the undol every now and then to make sure the water doesn't freeze in the uninsulated pipes. A costly, useless practice since I have a small electric heater in my room that keeps it nice and warm. The undol heats the whole house, which I don't need. Especially now that I'm not working. And why am I not working? Korean oddity number 4: The Korean "yes."

I tried to get a Kia Tigers official jersey made for me one time. Since all Korean bodies conform to the economic convenience of making all shirts one of 4 sizes, (95, 100, 105 or 110), I had to get a shirt custom made. I went to the custom made jersey store and asked if it was possible. He said, "YES." But I had to wait 2 weeks. I went back 2 weeks later and he had the right size and colour of shirt but he then went to the back room and started ironing on some letters and decals. I had made it clear to him that I wanted the real embroidered thing. So he finally tells me the truth, that he can't make a shirt like that after having wasted 2 weeks and gotten my hopes up.

"Do you understand?" YES "Will you abide by this contract?" YES "Can you handle this?" YES "Are you telling the truth?" YES It's an oddity I have grown accustomed to and again, I'm a nub. I've given up trying to fight it. This is what's happening in my work search of late. I was told YES I had a job at Dongshin for Jan and Feb but that didn't happen. The worst thing about that was there was another camp advertising that I could have done. 2 million for 11 days! But I didn't apply because I was waiting for the contract from Dongshin.

Anyway, before the landlady and her daughter left I asked the daughter, (who speaks a little bit of English), "Did they fix the problem?" She replied, "YES!"

My New Year's Resolution

2011-01-10T00:56:00.000-08:00

Things are not great here in the "land of the morning calm (after the previous night's half-cocked salvo of lunacy.)" I've had yet another job offered to me then taken away for reasons that have yet to be discovered. Sometimes I feel like a suffering saint. You know like any one of the 10 or 15 who attempted and failed to tackle Marshawn Lynch the other day while giving up 41 points against a 7-9 team. Actually I counted 9 but that's pretty dadgum bad! And I, in my infinite support of the Saints, chose Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Garrett Hartley, AND the N.O. defence in my nfl.com playoff pool. Drew and Garrett did me proud but Reggie wasn't healthy I guess. They kept using Julius Jones for plays, like the short screen, that are Bushes bread and butter. My grievance with my football team parallels one of my main complaints about life and I kept yelling it at my computer screen as I watched: More Bush! We need more Bush!

But I suppose it wasn't their fault. Reggie ended up missing a lot of the second half with a bum leg. Would they have won if it was Reggie running on 4th and goal instead of Wynn, an untested rookie? It doesn't matter I guess. When the opposing quarterback is throwing moonshots with the football like he's playing a game of donkey on the basketball court and the ball is somehow NOT being intercepted but landing in the hands of the correct receivers who then run for touchdowns through a defence that can't tackle, then you know the Saints are suffering.

I feel like that sometimes. I'm on this unwanted holiday because of a school that expressed interest in me back in August, called me, told me they'd send me their offer the next day, never got back to me and made it impossible to get back to THEM. That was Nam Seoul University. This last week I put in a resume for work at Dongshin University in Naju and within an hour I got a response. I was asked to do some intensive courses in January and February. Again I agreed and they said they'd send me their offer and they disappeared.

I got an offer within an hour of application. They were all excited about hiring me and then just changed their minds. What causes that? Are they googling me and finding naked pics? With some of the schools I'm pretty sure they called my previous employer and were told how I'm a terrible worker because I'm honest and hard-working so I make them all look bad, but I didn't include them on the resume I sent to Dongshin U. But I'm sure I have been considered and rejected by many of the places to which I've applied.

I also have a few people in Naju who know me and work for the school board there who expressed interest around Christmas time in finding me some work. I did two camps with them and they loved my work at the camps and were really excited about the prospect of hiring me to teach full time. They pretty much told me not to worry, they'd find me work. I haven't heard from them since and am just a little paranoid that the same thing might be happening with THEM. I was actually a little worried that they might hear about me (almost) getting work at Dongshin and think I was looking for other work behind their backs. For that reason I used them as references when I applied, but who knows what goes on?

So things are a bit tense right now. I don't know if I should continue searching for work or should I wait for the Naju job. I am about ready to give up on the whole university/college thing and admit that I'm not likely to be happy no matter where I work. I could take the attitude that I'm liable to run into the same problems with jealous, incompetent people who resent how good I am at my job and how much better I would be at THEIRS who, like little children, try to sabotage my efforts and get pissy when I end up fixing what they broke and making things even better for everyone. I could decide that I'll just do a really mediocre job the next place I work. Mail it in. Fuck the dog. That'll make everybody happy! But I'm just not like that.

Instead I'm counting on my theory that this type of person embodied in the corrupt businessman, lawyer, politician etc. trying to gain a little prestige and some false morality by posing as an "educator" tends to gravitate toward the universities and colleges of Korea. This is, in a nutshell, why I've had such trouble here. I'm hoping for some maturity and appreciation from the Korean public school system. Hopefully the people I work for there will see that I'm not trying to show them up, I'm doing a good job and helping the school. Hopefully nobody will brandish this edgeless, antiquated, nonsense weapon of "FACE" against me if I do something differently or improve upon one of their ideas. Practically all of the morons I've worked for in universities and colleges around this country could shoot somebody 6 times in the head in front of me and with smoking gun in hand protest at my calling them a murderer. "You are costing me face here!" they would say.

Like Penis. My last supervisor, Na Ki Deok, gave me a class of 50 despite a verbal agreement I made with the college to not exceed 30 students per class. He assured me that some students would drop the class but I'd fallen for that before. It doesn't happen. So I propose to him a simple solution whereby the class is split in half. "Impossible," is the familiar reply. Well before you say that listen to my proposal. I show him the schedule, which has convenient openings, offer to teach the newly created class FOR FREE, and outline just a few points of classroom dynamics that will ensure a much better learning environment in a class of 25 than one of 50. "Impossible," he repeats. Why? Because the students already have their schedules. It's the beginning of the semester and I haven't taught a class yet. Let's go talk to the dean of the department and see if it would be okay. "It's impossible, David, why are you wasting my time?" Eventually I convince Penis to go and the dean of the department says, "Sure." and all is well. Do I get a commendation for improving the education of 50 students? For teaching 34 hours FOR FREE? For possibly setting a valuable educational precedent at the school? Nope! I am despised by Penis because my sole purpose was OBVIOUSLY to try to make him look bad. I don't ever need to do that. These idiots tend to do that job, (and maybe ONLY that job), very well.

It's because they aren't educators. Their sole purpose is to make money. They are much better than educators at GETTING the jobs as authority figures in universities and colleges throughout Korea, but abysmal at DOING them.

This brings me to the point of this entry. When I started working here in Korea I had a much higher tolerance for the shenanigans that regualarly occur when people are trying really hard to LOOK like they can do jobs they know nothing about. In the leisure possibly brought about in part by this lowered tolerance I am noticing a lot of other areas in my life where my expectations have risen thereby increasing the possibility and frequency of disappointment. And, with this in mind, I have noticed it in other folks through world news and current events.

There are areas where higher expectations lead to advances that justify them. For instance computers. I can remember when I had to rush to the computer room at my school at lunch time, forego eating lunch so as not to damage the computer, insert my floppy disk, wait about 3 minutes for "High Res Cannon" to load, account for wind speed and trajectory, take a shot, wait about a minute for it to either hit the other player or explode on the ground around him. Then wait a few minutes while the other player did the same. THIS was fast and furious high tech. entertainment!

Nowadays 10 seconds is an eternity to wait for almost anything to load. And graphics that would have absolutely blown my mind 20 years ago are, "Meh."

George Carlin says kids are never given a chance to just sit on the ground with a stick. Not any more. You never even SEE a stick any more. How long could I, as a kid, sit there with a stick and dig holes or make piles of dirt or peel the bark off and maybe taste it or rub it on cement somewhere to sharpen it or poke a hornet's nest with it or tie some string to it and make it into a bow so you can shoot OTHER sticks at the hornet's nest with it? Endless hours of imagination strengthening, formative play. Nowadays a kid would sit with the stick for 2 minutes, huck it away and go inside to play Xbox. And so would I!

What happens to us? We get bored of everything! How can we somehow learn not to take stuff for granted? Because I've had good jobs over the past few years I have just finished my 6th month of vacation. And that included a pretty expensive trip to Canada. And STILL I bitch about those jobs as evidenced above. I wish I had a sort of M.I.B. pen that I could flash in front of myself so that all my expectations could be lowered to an early time in my life when times were not so prosperous. And I wish that even in my prosperity I could maintain the pure joy in the little things. Find joy in small good things and don't sweat the small bad things. What an absolute PLEASURE I would be to hang around then! But what a crotchety, bitchy, buzz killer I can be!

I think most folks know that I won't complain about things that I don't care about. If I'm bitching about Korea or Canada or education systems or friends or family or people in general it's just proof that I care about them enough to want to improve them. You don't ever hear me railing on about the sport of cricket or picking apart the fine art of interpretive dance. But I could be more positive.

So that is my resolution for 2011. I will try not to bang my fist on my desk when my computer takes 5 seconds to do something that should only take 2. I promise myself to remember a few things every day that I would have almost killed to have, that I HAVE now and never use. Like my Wii, my bike, my own house. Well, okay I DO use the house, but I'm pretty lucky to have it and don't think much about that. I can wash my dishes or take a hot shower whenever I want. Couldn't do that last year or the year before.

I can watch almost any TV show or movie I want, make almost any food I want, drink almost any drink I want, read almost any book I want. I can travel almost anywhere I want, fish, no wait, swim in almost any lake I want, hike up almost any mountain I want, and make friends with almost anyone I want. I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul!

Now if only I can find some new waters in Korea into which to steer that ship and challenge my fate... AH HA! Why don't I change from teaching at universities and colleges to teaching in the public school system? What a great idear!

Invictus!

Crime in Asia

2011-01-04T21:54:00.000-08:00

If you read my last entry, and any number of others you'll have some idea of the utter corruption in business in the ESL industry and in government agencies in Korea. That idea will not be wrong either. My experiences to whit are not the worst I've heard. Not even close. I'd say about average. But it may come as a surprise to you when I say that, at least here in Korea, I feel incredibly safe walking the streets. The low occurrence of crime in a society that still regards a lot of their laws as behavioural advice that can be ignored in times of convenience seems a bit odd. Low crime rates throughout Asia persist. I've thought pretty hard about it. Harder than I probably should have. And here's what I've come up with. These will be opinions shared by few or maybe none, but for the sake of argument...

Blame it on Buddha. Argument number one. Buddhists believe in reincarnation. In the face of a raging Christian revolution, there is still a heavy Buddhist influence here in Korea. If a guy has any thoughts of going out and committing a terrible crime for which he knows he might get a triple life sentence... theoretically, he can serve it! All three lives of it! Maybe that serves as some sort of deterrent to a population with remnants of Buddhism still persisting. Although you will notice I wrote, "theoretically." The concept would involve finding someone born at the exact second the criminal died, arresting the baby and throwing him into prison. I dunno, maybe since all babies are innocent they'd let him grow up to when he becomes a teenager. NO teenagers are innocent so put that boy behind bars for his second life.

Think of the parents of this kid. What an easy job they've got! Why would they take the time and trouble to raise him right? I mean if he's caught shoplifting or fighting at school why bother with the discipline, he's got lots of that coming!

Criminals in the west can be quite cavalier if they have life sentences already. They can rob convenience stores, kill people, basically do what they want and say, "What are they gonna do, give me more time?" In a Buddhist society the cops or judges can just say, "YEAH!"

There are, of course, a few bugs in the system, such as suicide. A guy could commit suicide in the first week of all three sentences and he will have successfully served triple life in less than a month. There is stringent suicide watch in prison, but the criminals can find ways. Stabbing themselves with chopsticks, hanging themselves with Tae Kwon Do belts, they can find ways.

Another big bug is that since there's no guarantee that a guy who commits a heinous crime as a human will come back as a human, problems arise. What if he comes back as a tortoise or a Methuselah tree? Would it be fair if his second sentence were 5000 years? And then there's the opposite argument: What if he returned as a mayfly? Some of them only live 30 MINUTES! That's a pretty light life sentence by all accounts. And just imagine the problems facilitating a Buddhist prison! All the different types of food, holding cells, entertainment for all the different species! What a nightmare that must be! What if a guy who came back as a lizard ate a guy who came back as a cricket? Would the lizard criminal get ANOTHER life sentence added on to his time? Would the cricket's untimely demise qualify as a full life sentence served?

And what about Karma? If a man's crime was really heinous won't Karma punish him by forcing him to live his next life as a dung beetle, a cicada or some other tragic existence? So can they justify adding punishment to what Karma gives? That's a toughie.

What if the criminal is a Buddhist and the judge is a Christian? The problems are limitless if you really, (have the spare time to), think about it. But then again, since we've known about DNA I have yet to hear of a case where someone/thing alive had the same DNA as someone/thing dead. I'm not sure that there are many searching for such a match although it would seem to imply reincarnation. Perhaps there are DNA researchers in India comparing people's DNA to dead trees, bugs, corpses and such. Not sure but it would seem to me that the longer we go without ever having found such a match, the weaker belief in reincarnation will become. Then again, it's quite possible that some great yogi or being who attained enlightenment has told the Buddhist world that your DNA changes during reincarnation. BLAM! Religion saved! And, Kablamo, my theory is completely shot down. I guess that's why I haven't yet seen or heard of any Buddhist prisons. There must be a different reason...

Argument number two: I'm not going to say that I'm for or against harsh penalties for crime or even capital punishment but a friend of mine was riding on a train in China with his wife and two daughters. I may be embellishing but it just might have been the Orient Express. Suddenly the wife noticed that her digital camera was missing and reported it to the porter. The train was stopped and members of the railway police rounded up about 5 people they thought were likely suspects. They were lined up and searched outside the train in full view of the other passengers. Lo and behold, the camera was found. As it was returned to my freind's wife the thief was shot and left for dead on the sides of the tracks. I suppose some nearby undertaker was alerted to the business. My friend's wife was agape as her camera was returned. She couldn't even say thanks. But as the train rolled on funny things began to happen. Children obeyed parents and didn't misbehave; chairs were pulled out and doors were opened for women; the elderly were cherished and every waiter/waitress was tipped 21%. And I am quite sure a guy could have left the Hope Diamond on his table to go to the toilet and wash up and there it would have been upon his return.

It's fairly certain that despite misleading statistics, death is a strong deterrent to the average man and for those who are not deterred by it, it is probably best suited. Fascinating though they are, I am not interested enough in why a guy murders and eats a young girl then mails the recipe to her parents. It is not an intriguing enough mystery to me what curing and tanning techniques were used to enable a killer to make flesh suits and lampshades from his victims' skin. I feel OK about making everyone just a little bit safer by eliminating these interesting and unique individuals instead of making them cult heroes, publishing their songs and books and spending enough on maximum security facilities on each one of them to support entire trailor parks full of families. Furthermore I would imagine that their disregard for the sanctity of human life would perversely allow THEM to be OK with their own lives being taken from them as a sort of fine for their actions. An equitable punishment that suits the crime. A Dantean "contrapasso" as it were.

How many Asian serial killers do you know of? Whether they are just not well publicized or whether they just don't exist, point made. In Taiwan there's a sign at the airport that says anyone who is found with drugs will be executed. We've heard of all kinds of harsh punishment and death penalties meted out in Asia and I think that THIS is probably what leads to the lower crime rates.

But let's go back to argument number one in conclusion. If there were a really awful crime committed by somebody in Asia and if reincarnation is true, maybe it's punishment enough for that criminal to have to come back and struggle through another lifetime trying to get it right. THAT could be part of the thinking behind capital punishment in Asia too. So maybe both arguments hold water. Or soju. Or sake. I'll tell you if I ever find out for sure.

World Jr. Hockey Championships - Team Canada Program

2010-12-26T03:24:00.001-08:00

The wait to open up gifts is over! And for me the wait to start the World Jrs. is a day longer and it's over too! I'll be up at 5:30 eating Cheerios in my PJ's and watching team Canada start its way out of the Group of Death by beating the Russians. Team Canada is in with The Czech Republic, Sweden and Russia. One of these teams is done after round robin! I don't think it'll be the Swedes because they outplayed Canada in pre-tourny action. So I have to hope the Czechs and Russians didn't put together as strong a team as the Swedes. We'll see.

My pre-tournament guesses as far as line match-ups were, uh, not so good. But I put a lot of guys together based on what hand they shot and one of the huge trends in hockey nowadays: off-wing one-timer goals. I'll concede that Dave Cameron probably knows who plays well together a wee bit better than I do. So the lines we've seen are probably better than mine. And to show you how good DC is, he actually HAS paid attention to the off-wing one-timer trend and has been putting Ellis a right-handed shot on the left point, and Schwartz, a left-handed forward on the right point on the power play. And check the vid kids, it's already working. They both have one-timer goals and are getting good chances like that.

So the following are the revised lines player by player with their stats and performance rating by me.

Line 1

C Brayden Schenn- He Only has a goal and an assist so far. He didn't score in the first game against the Swiss either. But he was my pick for player of the game vs. the Swedes. He's making sweet moves close in and looking like the NHLer on the squad.

RW Jaden Schwartz- Got a goal in game one, 2 assists and lots of shots in game two and set up a goal in game three vs. the Fins. He'll get lots more to add to his 4 pre-tourney points if they keep him on the right point on the power play.

LW Louis Leblanc- Spectacular in game one! Got a goal and an assist. He set up Schenn's goal against Sweden but didn't get credit for an assist. He played a more defensive role in the second two games. I hope he gets back to offense against Russia.

Line 2

C Sean Couturier- Leads team Canada with 6 points, 4 of them in game one vs. Switzerland. He is MAGIC with Foligno although I've heard the same about Hamilton. Although the second line isn't the one I had picked, they have been the best.

RW Zack Kassian- He's not with the linemates I chose for him but he has been a bull in a China shop as expected. He got no points in game one but his linemates got 6 and he was a big part of that. In game two he drew a penalty barging to the net then scored on the ensuing power play. And in game three he got two assists and showed some good hands. He's already hitting everything that moves and scoring well. I still like this guy!

LW Marcus Foligno- I picked him as the first star of game one. He was a darkhorse to make team Canada but has done EVERYTHING for them so far. Got a goal and assist game one and put up a screen on another goal. He threw more hard hits than anyone in game two, got an assist and hit the post on an open net. Solid in game three as well although Cameron was experimenting with lines.

Line 3

C Ryan Johansen- I predicted he might center a line and he is doing so. Getting better every game too. He didn't score in game one but hit the post twice and got lots of power play time. Got a goal and an assist in game two and was the best player in game three in which he became the first Canuck to get his second and third goals AND he was a screen on the Ellis goal. However he had such a great game without Eakin and Connolly. This line is probably done for.

RW Cody Eakin- Hasn't been all that noticeable and probably should be the 13th forward for this team. Hasn't played bad at all though. Got an empty net goal in game 2 and an assist in game 1. I think he'll be used mostly for penalty killing and sparingly on offense.

LW Brett Connolly- Looked like the sniper he is in game one putting a lot of rubber on the net and hitting the post once but only got one assist. Also set up Barrie for a sure goal but he didn't score. Unfortunately he got sick and we saw less of him in game two and none of him in game three. Hope he's back for the opener vs. Russia.

Line 4?

C Cody Cizikas- Got a goal and an assist in the first game. He has looked good but not outstanding. I think coach Cameron will find him a spot on a line with Howden and Ashton for the tourney. And it will be line 4.

RW Quinton Howden- He has been a stand-out in every game. Got an assist in game one but sort of disappeared in favour of Hamilton in the third period. Some great penalty killing and 2 assists in game two. Then got third star of game three. He got an assist and a goal. Missed on the first but not the second. I think he's just getting stronger.

LW Carter Ashton- I think he's been playing mostly right wing but it doesn't matter much. He's a big, skilled player and versatile. Got a goal and assist in game one but hasn't scored since. I think when he gets some regular linemates and figures out their chemistry he'll be back. Till then he'll just keep throwing punishing body checks.

#13 Curtis Hamilton- Didn't notice him too much in game one; good penalty killing in game two; and he played very well in game three. Had one awesome rush to the net that got him an assist. I think he'll become a fixture on the third line and get lots of either Eakin's or Connolly's ice time.

The D

Ryan Ellis- An assist in game one, 2 key shot blocks and a post in game two and second star of game three with a goal and assist. He established himself on the left point of the p.p. getting some good one-timers and showing NHL composure. I predicted he was the likely choice for captain and DC agreed. He IS the man!

Jared Cowan- I think he's been the second best defenceman so far. His experience is showing.

Tyson Barrie- Got a goal and an assist in game one. He was good offensively but I don't think he gels with Ellis. I think Cameron has decided team Canada doesn't need his offense so much. He didn't score in games 2 or 3.

Dylan Olson- He's been very good.

Calvin De Haan- Also very good. Got a goal in his junior home rink in game one and played solidly in games two and three. Had some great power play chances but hasn't cashed in for a while.

Eric Gudbranson- Haven't noticed him and that means he's playing exactly the way he's supposed to.

Simon Despres- You may never notice this player in this world championships unless there's an injury. Riding the pine a lot so far.

Well time to hit the hay. I'm setting the old alarm clock for 3 AM so I can watch the football but I'll be switching over to hockey at 5:30 AM. I'm so glad I am not working right now!!!

Pension/Severance Fiasco

2010-12-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

Part one: The Deception

Since I haven't been doing much here in Korea over the last 3 or 4 months I thought it might be fun to try to get severance pay from Seokang College. If you have read this blog you know that after my first year there they didn't pay, and I didn't ask for, severance pay because I was treated well. But over the past two years the jagoffs in charge of the language program at Seokang, Jung and Peter have lied to me; asked me to commit fraud every semester at grade submission time; locked me out of my home on numerous occasions; refused to provide a better apartment for me even though I found one that would actually save the college money over keeping me in the dorms; threw away my mail or just kept it for several months before giving it to me and refused to implement a simpler mail plan I had provided that would solve the problem; invented reasons to refuse permission for me to teach camps; scheduled exam conflicts in almost every class every exam period for me; broke their promise of keeping class sizes below 30 and now have classes of over 70; said, "Impossible!" when I asked to split a big class in half and even offered to teach the resulting new class for FREE; refused a camp that I proposed which would make the college MASSIVE piles of cash even though I took care of everything in the camp except the facilities, (which would have been Seokang College); tried to sabotage my hiring by giving me a contract with the wrong date; broke all the contracts they made with me; and I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of specific incidents. Suffice to say they have cherished their hatred of me and bent over backwards to make things as difficult for me as possible, sometimes even at their own expense!

Why? Because I'm too honest. That's what it boils down to. To give you an example, my second contract included a starting date of Sept. 1st. Jung was given my schedule from the school where I was working at the time and I told him I would only have the last week of August to move and do all the immigration nonsense. He said at the interview, "I hate your schedule," but never once mentioned that I had to start work at Seokang the last week of August when I had just told him I had planned to move. The result was that I was informed at the last minute and had to quit with no notice, pay another teacher to cover my Mokpo classes, pay expensive weekend rates for moving, run around Korea getting things stamped and sealed and verified and was miraculously able to make it to work at Seokang on time.

Did Jung say, "Thank you?" Nope. Did he offer to help with the extra expenses HE was responsible for? Nope. He just whined like a little girl about losing face when I pointed out that it was his negligence that had led to all my unnecessary expense and misery. And hated me more. During the immigration process I told him we needed to get everything done RIGHT NOW. He called immigration and they told him it was, "Impossible." I told him we were in a rush and that we would have to go down there and get things rolling and not accept the old Korean favourite, "Impossible." as an answer. While he whined about how he had other things to do and I never ONCE pointed out that if he hadn't given me a contract with the wrong date on it, we wouldn't be so rushed, we went to immigration and guess what? POSSIBLE! We got everything done. But this only made him hate me worse because AGAIN I had cost him face by showing him that I knew more about immigration, (i.e. HIS job), than he did.

Noticing a pattern? I was hated for helping. The whole time there I was trying to solve problems at Seokang and make things work better and it just made the people in charge hate me. The extent of their hatred I still don't know but it is becoming clearer and clearer as the pursuit of my severance pay continues.

A while ago I read something online, possibly at efllaw.com, that said that according to the Labor Standards Act of Korea any business that employs 5 or more people must pay severance in an amount of no less than a month's wages for every 12 months worked. I didn't read about any exceptions. In fact, I remember being paid pension AND severance pay at Chonnam U. and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. I THINK that if I had worked a full year at Mokpo U. I would have received both as well. The private institutes I had worked for paid both too except for my first "hagwon" which told me at the end of my contract, "Sorry, sorry. No severance. IMF crisis. But please re-sign. BIG bonus! David good teacher!" It occurred to me that Seokang, a place where they regularly commit academic fraud and seem to regard labour laws like most Koreans see traffic laws: as just suggestions, might just be withholding my severance pay illegally. I figured that forcing them to obey the laws might be a perfect way to get some semblance of satisfaction, and, yes, revenge for the crap they had put me through for being honest and law-abiding.

So I went to the labor office in late August just before my contract with Seokang ended. I had been on vacation since mid June so my work was finished, just not the contract period. I went to the labor office to investigate the chances of getting severance pay. I went with my friend Guns, a Korean, as my translator. We met with an old, thin guy who told us that I was indeed entitled to severance pay from Seokang College. That was great news! I heard Guns talking and I heard the man speaking as he called Peter on the phone and "yeon geum" was never mentioned, only "dwei jigeum." Yeon geum is pension and dwei jigeum is severance. The result of the phone call was Penis lying to the guy and saying that Seokang had every intention of paying severance pay when our contract period was over. I told the guy that they hadn't paid me severance for my first year, or my second year and nobody who had worked there during my 3 years of service had ever received it. He said we'd have to wait until the contract lapsed.

Part two: The Wait

Through September, October and November I wrote emails, called, texted and talked in person with Penis about my severance pay and he always faked like he didn't know what it was. I even used the word "dwei jigeum" to him. He just ignored every attempt. So I returned to the labor office a couple weeks ago in early Dec. The old, thin guy was there but he was busy with other people. A girl named Shin Hye Jin asked me to have a seat somewhere and when I communicated in English that I was waiting for the old guy she went over to him and said something in Korean after which he looked at me and gave a head-shaking hand wave. It was either that he didn't remember me or that he didn't want to be bothered with me. At any rate the girl took down my information and made ANOTHER call to Penis. I was with my friend Amber who works at Gwangju U. and she had one of the workers there write on a piece of paper in Korean that I was after my severance pay. I saw it in black and white, "dwei jigeum." When she saw this, Shin Hye Jin said I was entitled to dwei jigeum, took down some particulars and called Penis. Peter had the gaul to ask the chick to hand me the phone. I get on and he says, "What's up?" I said he knew what was up because I had told him a million times in every messaging media except post. He said exactly this: "David, you should know that Seokang College doesn't pay severance pay." I said that I knew but I was pretty sure they had to according to the law. He hung up on me.

The girl did her best with her limited English and said a meeting would be set up and that I would be mailed a notice with the date and time of the meeting on it. Then I would have to come back to Gwangju again. But because of the language barrier I was a bit confused about what, if anything, had been accomplished at that meeting. I was told by both the old, thin guy and the girl that I was entitled to my severance. I didn't understand why there was a need for a meeting and why at the labor office, they couldn't just look up the labor laws and make a ruling on the case then and there. So I contacted the Gwangju International Center where they help foreigners with problems they sometimes have in Korea. A very nice gal named Karina Prananto helped me out by calling the girl who had dealt with me at the labor office. Then I received an email, from the GIC, NOT the Labor Office, at 10 PM Monday Dec. 20th that I was supposed to meet Penis and a labor mediator, arbitrator or judge or whatever on Dec. 21st at 10 AM. Obviously, since it takes me 5 hours to get to the labor office by train and/or bus I could not make it. I got pretty frustrated and went out for a few scotches that night wondering if I'd be told I had forfeited my severance pay. I was also very suspicious about why the mail notice was not sent and how the impossible meeting ended up being scheduled.

Next day I received a call from Penis who was at the labor office with the labor mediator named Park Sung Yoon. He sounded giddy when he told me that if I didn't make it to the appointment I wouldn't receive my severance pay. Interestingly I could hear Park Sung Yoon in the background talking to Peter almost as if he was telling him to ask me if my fridge was running or if I had 10 pound balls. At one point Penis even handed him the phone and he spoke to me in really fast Korean knowing full well I can't speak Korean.

As luck would have it, my buddy Guns had called just a bit before 10 that morning saying that he was driving to Gwangju and asking if I still needed help with the severance pay issue. I told him about the scheduling fiasco and gave him Shin Hye Jin's number. While Park Sung Yoon to bombarding me with Korean I managed to say to him, in Korean, that my Korean friend is calling Shin Hye Jin right now. He then handed the phone back to Penis. He had no more taunting to do so he hung up. Guns called moments later saying that we had a new appointment the next day at 5 PM. So Guns came over and we drove to the Ju together.

Even though I was not feeling 100% because of the scotches the night before, it was good to see Guns. I felt kind of bad for dragging him into the mess and told him I appreciated his help. We had some sam gyup sal with a couple of Guns' friends, hit a few baseballs then I went to Gwangju U. and visited with Amber and Maria and stayed for free in Bill's dorm room. I paid for Guns' gas and the sam gyup sal. It was the least I could do.

The next morning I went with Guns to my bank and got my transaction history printed out so that I could show the mediator all the deposits Seokang College had made to my account. I got the ENTIRE history of my bank acct. EVERY transaction. It was a misunderstanding but that turned out to be good. The teller also printed out just the Seokang deposits. It cost me 1000 won.

Part three: The First Judgement

Guns and I got to the labor office early and since Guns had his I phone and computer he killed time by finding out more info. He called ANOTHER place that said I was entitled to severance pay. We were both pretty sure the meeting was just gonna be a formality. At 4:45 we got to the office where Park Sung Yoon's desk is and we reported to him. He told us to wait in the waiting room. Then a few minutes later I got a call from him saying, "Deureoyo." I'm not sure of the spelling but this means come in. If you can find 5 people above the age of 5 in Korea who can't say, "Come in." in English I'll eat my dirty underwear. Throughout the entire meeting Park Sung Yoon rarely spoke to me directly but when he did it was like he was assaulting me with Korean. It was pretty clear to me that his behaviour and in all likelihood the unreasonable rescheduling of the meeting were both Peter's influence.

The meeting started out with Peter trying to explain that Seokang had paid my pesion and acting as if he didn't know the difference between pension and severance. In fact he produced a document that said just that. I told Guns to tell the mediator that Peter was acting right now and that he is very aware of the difference. I'm not sure how exactly Guns was translating but for the better part of an HOUR we were farting around with semantics. Severance is paid by the employer at the end of the work relationship, or when it is "severed." Pension is money for old age that I contribute to and it's paid pursuant to an agreement between the Canadian govt and the Korean govt. There are two different words in Korean. Why do you suppose that is if they are the same. I showed in my bank records where Seokang had paid pension and it said, "Yeon geum" on the bank printout. It was about that point when the mediator made his final ruling. He sided with Peter.

I then told Guns to tell him that there are lots of schools around Korea that pay both severance and pension. In fact I had worked for some. He said, "Prove it." So I showed the deposits made to my account by H.U.F.S. The severance payment was there and the pension went to my Canadian account when I left the country. He started to change his mind a little bit thinking that I wasn't just taking a piss here. He also started making documents that he hadn't prepared until after his initial "judgement." I think he wanted to make sure he did this thing correctly just to cover his ass if I was right.

At this point he said that I had to contact my former employers and obtain written proof of them paying me both severance and pension. I said to him that what those schools paid me had no bearing on the case, what HE needed to do was make a judgement from a position of certainty. I asked Guns to ask him, "If I get these written statements from the other schools, what will you do then?" I asked that same question at least 3 times. Again I am not sure but I think Guns was translating correctly. I never received an answer. I told Guns to tell him, that the onus is not on me to prove anything. It was up to HIM to make a fair judgement and I repeated that it had to be from a position of certainty. The only certainty is the law in the case. We were at the labor office. Surely there must have been some access to labor laws there! I told Guns to ask him, (like 4 times), "Are you saying that Seokang College is a private school and therefore can pay pension in lieu of severance?" AGAIN I never got an answer. It must have been this fucking face nonsense again because I was essentially telling a guy who didn't know his job how to do it. I actually said a few times that I could not believe that he didn't actually KNOW the laws regarding severance pay and the difference between it and pension. Whether Guns translated accurately or not, I know the guy understood that and got defensive. He told Guns to tell me that I was the very first person who had ever come into the Gwangju Labor Office with this problem.

HEY me and Guns are Pioneers! Anyway, in the end he took back his hasty "judgement" and decided to give both Peter and me some tasks. Peter had to find the difference between severance and pension, (remember he told me Seokang doesn't pay severance and he KNOWS they pay pension so he is well aware of the difference), and he wants me to get proof I was paid both pension and severance from some other employers. Then he wants us to return AGAIN on Dec. 28th. We had been at this an hour and 45 minutes and it was pretty clear to me that this guy had no intention of doing what it was his job to do: look up the labor law that applied to our situation and make a ruling according to it. I have no reason to believe he will do that when, or rather IF I return on Dec. 28th. But he drew up some official LOOKING papers that I had to sign and fingerprint in about 8 places to make it LOOK like he had done his job.

I left the office thinking that if I could get a labor lawyer or a representative from the labor standards office or somebody like that to scare this dude a little, maybe he might look up that laws and make a ruling. I still admitted to Guns that I had thought that all these people were positive that I had severance pay coming to me but maybe THEY were confusing pension and severance too. I mean the old, thin guy, Shin Hye Jin and whoever Guns called. Maybe the laws, (which I read on EFLlaw.com are written by former politicians, lawyers and lawmakers who become heads of schools, and they are written purposefully vaguely in order that they may be used for their school's purposes.), DO say that Seokang is able to pay me pension instead of severance! Well I did some searching, again online so I don't know if it's accurate or up-to-date but I have found that in the Labor Standards Act of Korea in section 34 SUBSECTION 4 it appears to say almost exactly that! And there's ANOTHER piece of legislation called the Pension for Private Teachers and Staff Act which allows private universities and colleges to put retirement pension statements in their contracts instead of severance pay.

If this is the law of Korea that we are currently operating under, and it wasn't just thrown up there by one of the private colleges and universities who want to exempt themselves from paying severance, then I don't think I'm gonna get any severance pay. But this begs the question, how is it possible that I was informed by two labor office representatives that I was entitled to severance pay and a third made a ruling that I WASN'T entitled to it before he had any idea what the hell it was?!?! And why oh why doesn't anybody at the labor office know this law? Even after I said this almost verbatim and asked if a law like this existed! 3 or 4 times!!! One of the laws in the Labor Standards Act of Korea states that any workplace with 5 or more employees, like the Labor Office, MUST have a copy of the Labor Standards Act readily accessable. There are actual penalties including jail time if they don't. I seriously doubt I'd be able to find a copy at the Gwangju Labor Office. It looks to me like just another professional LOOKING office in a professional LOOKING building where the peope do little more than nothing but do it busily enough to appear industrious. That's MY judgement.

The aftermath

And then they have the unmitigated gaul to look down their noses at a guy like me and call me "lazy!" I'm not lazy I'm just a helluva lot more efficient than you, you asshole and that frees up a lot of spare time for me to get some well-earned relaxation.

I'm talking to Penis and Park Sung Yoon. You see, after the meeting was over, I got some interesting information from Guns about what was happening in Korean. First of all I am pretty sure the meeting was pushed ahead in order that I might not have the time to find a translator and so that Penis would be able to MIStranslate everything I said to the arbitrator. And the arbitrator was undoubtedly aware of all of this. I have a strong suspicion that he was paid too. Guns said there were several instances when Penis TRIED to translate what I had just said INcorrectly and Guns had to straighten him out.

There was also a little chatting and a little laughing between Guns and Peter. I found out from Guns that Penis was trying to do to him what he had obviously done to the arbitrator. He was schmoozing Guns saying that he shouldn't be friends with me. Saying I was good in my first year at Seokang but not the last two. AND calling me lazy because I haven't learned how to speak Korean. He was insinuating through slick sophistry that Guns was a bit of a sell-out and a traitor to Korea for helping a foreigner I have no doubt. The arbitrator did nothing to keep the atmosphere at the meeting professional. In fact his refusal to practice the common courtesy of speaking English to me in situations when he could easily have done so, made his position obvious. This racism, (I'm not gonna sugarcoat it and call it xenophobia because Penis is not afraid of me he hates me), was at the heart of every instance of Peter and Jung trying to make my life difficult at Seokang. This was why even after I threw them the olive branch of the camp that would have made them both a ton of money while I did all the work, they cherished that racist hatred of me so much that they ignored the offer. But not before trying to get from me the numbers and names of the contacts I had in Naju that were in charge of the camp and wanted me to make it happen. They wanted to steal it for themselves the bastards.

There is no doubt in my mind that when Seokang College is contacted by future prospective employers Peter will spin his yarns about what a terrible teacher and person I am. There is no chance I will get a good recommendation from them despite the 3 years of excellent teaching there and everything I did to make the place better. I have to wipe 3 years off my resume now and ensure that at every interview I will be asked about that and my answer will be scrupulously and skeptically received. I have little doubt that although I have applied at quite a few places, the fact that as yet I have had only one interview has a lot to do with Penis and/or Jung. And the length of time spent on my relationship with Seokang College at my interview for Jeonju U. leads me to believe that it was Peter's handiwork.

But I'm actually okay with the whole thing. It is giving me confirmation that I need to go in a different direction. I have given the university thing far too much time to work out and I have received no indication that it ever will. I have a pretty good job opportunity in a different area.

But that is for another entry. I will conclude by saying that I'm not going to do the bogus search for records from any of my past schools and I'm not going to that bogus meeting scheduled for Dec. 28th. The fact that Penis will have to make time for it makes me a little happy. I hope he has to miss something important. I really don't think it is fair to ask Guns to go back to that place either. So what I guess I might do is send the appropriate laws to Park Sung Yoon IN FUCKING ENGLISH, and ask him why he doesn't know them and why he was messing around when the whole mess could so easily have been solved. But there's no reason for me to think I will get any reply to that question or that anybody will learn anything at the Gwangju Labor Office from this. But they'll all be glad that the possibility of actually having to maybe DO something, embodied in me, will be out of their lives. Maybe I'll write something up about this and put it in the Gwangju News. I dunno.

World Jr. Hockey Championships

2010-12-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

It's the most wonderful time of the yeeeeeear! Before the advent of NHL Gamecenter Live, which I've had the past couple years, the best hockey I had to look forward to over here in Korea was the annual TSN.ca televising of the World Jr. Hockey Championships. I love watching this tourney as much as American basketball fans love their March Madness and for a lot of the same reasons. These are young, hungry kids playing their hearts out to win for their team and country more than impress scouts. Not yet rich, spoiled businessmen playing to maintain their financial status without risking it through injury.

Last year the Canadian team came within a goal of the gold medal. It was the first time in quite a while anyone has taken it from Canada. But full marks for the US team. They were good. Aparently they are gonna be good THIS year again too and their playing in their own country. So team Canada is set up to do exactly what they had done to them last year. There are 4 guys on the team who settled for silver last year and they'll no doubt be telling the others how nice it was to get those medals. ANNNHHH! They'll be stomping on them, throwing them at walls, and grinding them down in the skate sharpener to ensure the boys know that nothing but gold is good enough.

The final rosters have been entered and the pre-tournament games begin on December 20th. I'm not sure if those will be aired on TSN.ca or not but I'm pretty sure I'll be watching livecasts of games provided by TSN.ca even if I'm teaching at a camp and have to be up at 3 AM to do so. Here's the sched: http://www.tsn.ca/world_jrs/feature/?id=4124

Nice thing is they keep them archived for NON-live viewing. The problem is accessing them without accidentally seeing the score. It's better just to watch them live. Hope you'll all be watching with me.

Here is a brief rundown of some of the players to watch. I don't know much about them but I'm crunching stats and a-googling. Here's what I've come up with.

Line 1?

Brayden Schenn is probably the class of the forwards on the team. A strapping farm boy from Saskatoon, he's already playing Center in the NHL for the LA Kings this year. He's got 2 assists in 8 games but is being used very sparingly. He scored 99 pts. in 59 games for the Brandon Wheat Kings last year so he got game. Some think he'll be the leading scorer for team Canada. I'm not so sure.

Jaden Schwartz is another Saskatchewan product. Though he is also a center he'll likely be on the wing with Schenn setting him up. He's a Colorado college boy right now but taking a break from the books to get some business done. He's got 26 pts. in 17 games with Colorado College this season.

Louis Leblanc is, (as the name would indicate), a Quebec Major Jr. Hockey League player for the Montreal Juniors. He's got 29 pts. in 24 games so far this season. Both Leblanc and Schwartz are a bit small, and they're both centers but since Leblanc shoots right and Schwartz shoots left they'll probably play right and left wing respectively. My UNtraditional wisdom says that should be reversed to get them some SWEET one-timers, but nobody ever listens to me.

Line 2

I think line two will be FAR more productive for team Canada.

Brett Connolly is a right handed sniper from Campbell River, BC who has 22 goals in 30 games for the PG Cougars in the WHL this season. He's a lanky 6'2 181 but he'll have some protection to his right that will allow him to freewheel. He'll center the best line of the tourney if it's put together.

Zack Kassian could be the guy folks. His 20-game suspensions and bar fights have taken a lot of attention away from the fact that this guy is a HUGE 6'3 226 bull-in-a-China-shop right winger who could run roughshod over this tourney. He'll barge into the opponent's zone, get the puck and set up one of his two sniping linemates a LOT if things are as they should be. He's got 48 pts. and 33 assists for the Windsor Spitfires this season. I sure hope this line is together!

Quinton Howden is an Oak Bank, Manitoba boy who ALSO has 22 goals this season. He plays for the Moosejaw Warriors in the WHL and got his 22 goals in only 29 games. He's a smooth skating left winger who will be the perfect complement to Kassian and Connolly.

Line 3

Sean Couturier He has the same initials as Sidney Crosby and is being compared to him all the time. Of course it's way too early but he IS someone who has a lot of eyes on him. This might be a detriment. He'll still get his share of points but the fact that he'll be targetted and the first line will get a lot of focus is just going to make line two better. He's from Bathurst, NB and has 51 pts. and 35 assists for Drummondville in the QMJHL this season. He has 3 more points than Kassian after having played 7 more games in a league where I think it's a little bit easier to score. But SHHHH, don't tell the other teams in the tourney.

Cody Eakin from Winterpeg, Manitoba is a character player. I think his nickname should be "Seth" because he looks like Seth Green. He's a natural center but has played on the wing. Good at forechecking and penalty killing he may be used in these roles. But he also has good hockey sense and rarely makes a bad pass. He has 18 goals and 39 pts. this season for the Swiftcurrent Broncos in the WHL.

Marcus Foligno seems to be a wildcard. He hasn't played in all the under 18, world jrs., world championships, etc. that everyone else on the team has played in. He has just gotten better at a staggeringly fast rate. At 6'2 200 lbs. he's a powerful left winger and he likes to get his nose dirty. Nobody will mess with Couturier or they'll go toe to toe with Marcus. But he's got 15 goals in 28 games with the Sudbury Wolves! He's no slouch. The 48 penalty minutes may be what got him on this team though. I am anxious to see this guy play.

The fourth line

Casey Cizikas is better known for his rugby play than hockey. Let's hope THAT changes this year. He aparently pile-drove a guy who was headlocking him in the midst of a rugby game. The guy already HAD head injuries and was medically ordered not to play but he died from head injuries and Casey was charged for manslaughter. Okay enough of that, I want to see him slaughter a few men as a member of what will probably be a hard-hitting 4th line for Canada. I think if this line is together and positioned properly they could do some scoring too. He's got 36 pts in 28 games with the Mississauga Majors in the OHL this season.

Carter Ashton is yet another Saskatchewan hockey playing lad who is a left-shooting right winger. I LOVE this idea because of the one-timer goals that leads to. He's also a big 6'3 219 grinder for the Regina Pats in the WHL who has 44 penalty minutes already. Hopefully he accumulates penalties wisely.

Ryan Johansen is a right shooting center who I think should be put on the left side of this line. I remember watching olympic and world jr. hockey last year and seeing a couple huge trends. One was the ease with which off-handed wingers were piling up the one-timer goals. I felt Canada, (as usual the more traditional thinking team), was probably taking the LEAST advantage of this tactic and could have made things easier for themselves if they had. Will they try it this year. I doubt it. But Johansen has 36 pts. in 31 games with the Portland Winterhawks in the WHL this season. He might center a line but I like him here.

That's it for the forwards. The defence I will just sum up. Jared Cowan is back. I loved his big hits at last year's World Jrs. and am looking forward to the same this year along with his stifling defence.

Ryan Ellis is the all time leading scorer amongst Canadian defencemen in the tourney. And he's back to extend his record. He's a tiny 5'10 154 but he'll be buzzing around and scoring more than most forwards. He's already got 40 pts. in 27 games as a defenceman with the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL. I think he'll be my favourite guy on the team. I can't wait to see how he does in the NHL!

Calvin de Haan returns this year to avenge his silver medal from 2010. He's steady and will have the confidence of being in his second WJHC.

Simon Despres is 6'4 222 but he's supposed to be a guy who can also score. He's a smooth skater and good shot blocker. He plays in the QMJHL where, as I said, I believe it's a bit easier to score, and I've heard has been kinda disappointing so far in training. We'll see...

Tyson Barrie is an offensive-minded defenceman. He plays for the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL and has 25 pts. in 23 games this season. He's a mainstay on their powerplay. Could be a good pairing with Ellis for power play situations.

Dylan Olsen is the only Alberta boy on the team. He's 6'2 222 and has 9 assists in 12 games for the NCAA college Duluth team this year. I imagine he'll be a stay-at-homer.

Erik Gudbranson was the captain of the Canadian under 18 team that included some of these same players. He's a rock solid 6'4 211 and the Kingston Frontenacs of the OHL will tell you he doesn't let many guys past him. He's a very physical player in his own end. But he also has a great outlet pass and hard shot from the point. Leadership is strong and I wouldn't be surprised to see him as the captain though Ryan Ellis might be the more likely choice.

So watch out for Canada this year! They're predicted to be not so much a one-line team and I think that will be good for them. It will spread the other teams thinner so we can take advantage of our depth. Usually that's Canada's biggest strength.

GO CANADA GO!

Full on or casual?

2010-11-23T02:19:00.000-08:00

Full on or casual? It's a question isn't it? So was that. But really in so many ways we think full on is just going to be better and I am certainly starting to see a lot of examples where it isn't. Casual is always easier and sometimes it's just better, despite what we may be trained to believe. Of course examples will have to follow. And they will:

Parenting. GREAT example! Nowadays parents are full on protectors, instructors, disinfectors, nurturers and projectors. But kids aren't any better for it. Might be worse. Then you look at some of the sadsack, lazyass parenting of the past THAT WORKED and we gotta give this one to the casual. Kids can do stuff on their own. They can! And it's actually GOOD for them!

Education. Same thing in a lot of ways. Here in Asia where they spend twice the time in the classrooms as we, in so many very important ways, they're only half as smart. The only Koreans I've known who have managed to achieve a level of English I would consider to be totally fluent didn't get it the Korean way. They got it hangin' out with, dating and partying with English speakers. I always try to keep my classroom casual and administrators, (and lots of students), think I'm just lazy. And they are amazed how well they are able to convey that to me using the English they learned in my class playing games and doing fun exercises.

Religion. I don't want to pick on one so I'll be very vague here. But the full on militant religious are probably the same in all religions. They look at individuals very closely to see past the good, pick out all the details in the doctrine that differ so that they can pinpoint the sinners' exact routes to hell, (or its equivalent), talk with like-minded believers about how glad they are that Jesus, (or his equivalent), has delivered them from such evil ways, (as far as those like-minded believers know), then do a little self-congratulatory back slapping as humbly as possible, and finally pray for their lost souls. This takes a tremendous amount of study and effort! I prefer the Dalai Lama's casual approach. He believes we should just seek happiness. It's what we do anyway, right? But he cautions that improving your station in life, your means, your financial position, that's nice because it makes life easier but it differs from true happiness because it's not spiritual. Spiritual happiness comes from making others happy. If you want to make someone happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Just be nice to people! Casual and effective. That's the way for me! What the world needs now, is love sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world... and so on.

I was in Pyeong Taek today shopping at E-Mart. If you know Korea you know a lot of E-Marts have Mcdonalds and the one in Pyeongtaek does. And if you know Korea you know we haven't had 1/4 pounders at Mcdonalds. Until NOW! Just recently. So to tell you the truth it wasn't absolutely essential for me to go to E-Mart, I think about 1/4 of the reason I went was to eat Mclunch. And it was worth it!

But a funny thing happened at the Mclunch counter today. Not new, but funny. I ordered a 1/4 pounder set with 6 Mcnuggets. The cashier says no problem, rings me up and takes my money. Tells me about the 4-minute wait but doesn't mention there is no sweet and sour sauce in the place. I see her huck a little container of barbecue sauce on my tray. Now this is not a big thing but I can't tell you how many times this EXACT same thing has happened to me in Korea. Well occasionally it varies in the flavour of the sauce. But that's all. I always just ate my nuggets with mustard, barbecue sauce and even a few times with that awful chilli sauce for dipping the Mcwings. Ew. But I WANT sweet n sour! That's all. And why don't they TELL me? Easy, because they know the order was made, the nuggets might be in the oil already, a nice person will just take what he's given. Today I said DAMN THAT!

So I asked if there wasn't any sweet n sour sauce. She made a show of looking to make me think she hadn't been trained to hide that fact from me, then said no. So I said, "Okay forget the nuggets. Change them for a Big Mac." She yells something to the cook who yells something back to her. Then she says, "No." I just laughed. So did the Korean guy behind me. "NO?" And I laughed a bit more. So I downshift into English and say politely, "I don't want the nuggets if I have to eat them with barbecue sauce." She relents and tells the cook to fire up a Big Mac for me. Then asks me for the extra 900 won. I checked my burgers for spit and didn't find any.

Why this story? It just gets me thinking about Korea. Maybe thinking too much. You be the judge. But if I were working at a bulgogi restaurant and that chick walked in and ordered bulgogi I would TELL her if I had no bulgogi sauce, only barbecue. I wouldn't give her pork covered in barbecue sauce. She'd freak! Probably torch the restaurant, start a candlelight vigil, I'd be deported and soon the government would hastily enact a law that forbids all foreigners from serving meat with barbecue sauce on it in Korea. Okay maybe a little too much.

"We do it all for you." "Have it your way." "The customer is always right." Those probably don't even translate into Korean. The fact is, if they ran Mcdonalds in Korea the right way it'd be fast food not medium speed food. It was 1:00. Lunch time. There should have been a few Big Macs and at least one box of nuggets in the tanning bed so there would have been no problem. The problem originated in the kitchen. The cook had already started cooking the nuggets and didn't want to waste them. I remember going to Mcdonalds where they had egg timers on the counter. Two minutes. If your order took longer you got some sort of deal. 4-minute waits just shouldn't happen. And furthermore, had I stuck with the nuggets I would have been given my fries. Then 2 minutes later my burger. Then after the 4-minute wait, the nuggets. I don't want to eat in installments! But that's how they do it in Korea. They think it's better. Because it's their idea.

I'm getting to the point. If you go to the bank and open an account they give you a bankbook much like if you order fries at Mcdonalds they give you a packet of ketchup. The bankbook is optional. You can use it if you want. Same as the ketchup. But then suddenly on a Friday night when you are far from home you go to a bank machine to take out some cash to pay for the train home and your card is refused. You try 10 other machines and get the same result. You have to go the entire weekend without money. Plans are cancelled and people are disappointed. You go to your bank on Monday and they tell you the bank book MUST be regularly updated. If not your account is closed without notice or explanation. Of course you ask why and you get the robotic, "It's a rule." or "It's our policy." So you start up a new account, get a new bankbook, tear it up and throw it in the garbage in full view of the shocked bank teller who learns exactly nothing from the display. Never once does the thought cross the wide open transom of her mind, "Yeah, why DO we have that stupid rule?"

There IS a point coming. Trust me here. The bank teller and the Mcdonalds worker both have similar experiences with many other foreigners and develop a distaste for them. So they get jobs at the immigration office. There they are trained to ask for every piece of documentation the foreigner can possibly be required to produce. Whether or not it is necessary is not for the trainee to decide. They even tell people that they must leave the country while their work visas are negotiated even though that's not true. They have full information on their screens saying that the foreigner's degree has been verified three times but they make him do it again at his expense. They refuse provincial criminal record checks that are all just federal record checks requested by municipal police stations. They make the foreigner get the identical federal criminal record check directly from the federal police. At his expense. Plus they require sealed transcripts from the university as proof of attendance despite the fact that on the screen the verification of his documentation is crystal clear. They do this for a while and grow tired of being yelled at by irate foreigners even though it was fun at first. They now hate foreigners so they get jobs at airport immigration and customs.

There they tell folks that they need to surrender their alien cards and assure them there will be no troubles when they return to Korea on a visitor's visa. They know the stupid foreigner won't even be allowed onto the plane to Korea without a ticket OUT of Korea in his possession. And there are hastily enacted rules almost every day to decrease the number of things you can do without an alien card. They confiscate cigars and bottles of scotch to enjoy on the weekend. They get yelled at some more by foreigners and despise them.

They get married to a full-blooded Korean man, squeeze out 2.5 kids while falling out of love, obssess over the kids to make themselves forget about their husbands fillandering, and train their kids to do exactly the same things that have made their lives so "happy."

And now, finally the point. One of my favourite Rush songs is Subdivisions. In it there are some awesome lines that always make me think of Korea. "Growing up it all seemed so one-sided, Opinions all provided, The future pre-decided, Detached and subdivided, In the mass production zone, Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone. Korea is a mass production zone. People are trained, not educated. They are like this because Korea is as full on a capitalist society as can be. People are numbered consumers. They matter little in the grand scheme of Korea.

So the final addition to my list of things that are better casual than full on would be capitalism. Or I suppose any government. If Korea could loosen up a bit I bet they would blow right by Japan and maybe even China. But I fear I'll never be proven right.

I poured my ice into the ice-hole, deposited all the paper products into the trash and even tamped it down a bit. There was a tray on top with a big pile of ketchup on it. I lifted that tray and put mine underneath it in the stack. The girl from the counter came over, smiled and wished me well in the Korean way, (peace be with you). I said the same to her and smiled nicely. My smile was genuine though I'm not sure about hers.

I'm pretty sure I'll just take whatever sauce I'm offered next time.

Another Dave's Top 10 list: Top 10 Things That Bug Me About Survivor

2010-10-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

I LOVE Survivor. It is one of my favourite shows of all time. If it were only animated! Dang! But seriously, it is not animated because it features real life. I know reality TV is to reality what Life cereal is to life but I like watching these folks who are usually "even better than the real thing", and in situations that are anything BUT normal because in every season there is a lot of real life. The show's creator, Mark Burnett prefers to think of it as "unscripted drama." It's not what these people would normally do since they are watched by millions. I'm sure there would be more fighting, swearing, and getting it on if they weren't. Probably even MORE lying, cheating and stealing too! But it's watered down life that I enjoy watching as a bit of a guilty pleasure.

Considering I've been in Korea, a foreign land where I can't eat what I want, can't do what I want, don't have a lot of the comforts of home, am forced to act nicely to a lot of people I don't care for, am in constant competition with other people who want the same money I want, am forced to sometimes make alliances with people I do and don't like, have watched lots of my friends go home and leave me on the peninsula, and for me and just about everyone else here, it's all about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I reckon I've been playing Survivor for 10 years. But I'd prefer the TV show to my version of it.

On the other hand, there are some things that consistently bug me about the show. A lot of them are probably because the participants can only be Americans, and not being American, some of the things they do boggle my mind! There'd probably be some of the same things and some different if there were a Canadian Survivor. Although the first prize would likely be an Amana Radar Range or a Brother Sewing Machine. Ha ha ha. Canadian game shows! So cheap! Anyhoo, here is my list of things that bug me about Survivor.

10. I like Jeff Probst. He's a good host and although a lot of his questions are most likely written for him by sociologists or whatever, I've seen him do some pretty good thinking on his feet. However, he has a speech impediment! How does a guy get the best job in the world, most of it requiring speech when he can NOT say "skull" or "ultimate" or "ultra". Skoal, oltimate, oltra. I think it was Survivor 12 in Panama when they had an Exile Island named Skull Island and the challenges often had skull themes, I nearly muted the show a few times. I kept getting an odd urge for a pinch of chewing tobacco between my cheek and gums. (Skoal) And it usually bugs me when he says the most often heard redundancy in TV, "Once again, immunity is one more time, back, again, up for grabs another time." Okay I added some but saying immunity is once again back up for grabs is like saying AM in the morning or basic fundamentals or honest truth or round circle, or soda pop or any of several that bugged people so much THIS list was made. I know it's a small thing but it's number 10.

9. During the final episodes called the reunion episodes where the people gather to read the votes and see who wins the million bucks, everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY is wearing WAY too much make-up. And it's not just because we're used to seeing them in their natural states. Survivor is never going to win any awards for make-up if there are any in TV. I know they have Academy Awards for make-up artists. Even the dudes get plastered with product. Sometimes it's so bad it looks like they used Homer Simpson's make-up gun! I think the worst two examples ever were Ozzie, who shoulda WON Survivor Cook Islands, (DAMMIT!), and Steph, ALL THREE times she was on! She is PLENTY hot enough without make-up!

8. There has never been a Survivor in which people weren't constantly talking about how they need protein or food energy to perform well in challenges, yet, aside from Survivor 14 in Fiji where it was survival vs. THRIVAL, and the team with all the luxuries like food won every challenge, I am POSITIVE, (and I've seen 'em all), that the hungry tribes have won more than their share of challenges. The survivors who go on reward challenges that include meals just don't have the killer instinct they might if they weren't recently full to satiety. This is why athletes NEVER eat before games. Fighters have been known to starve themselves in other ways, if you know what I'm saying. No nookie turns a pugilist into a murderer who might bite off your ear or threaten to eat your children.

7. I absolutely hate watching the episodes where the survivors get letters from home or relatives visiting the island or whatever. Almost EVERYBODY cries. When somebody DOESN'T cry, I am usually a much bigger fan of theirs. It's a month, probably less, away from your family. Survivor lasts 39 days and it's usually before day 30 that they have these episodes. Who among the survivors has never WISHED for a month away from their families? I always wonder if they're not just playing it up to get some sort of sympathy votes or to look sensative in the eyes of the viewing audience. For a wife or husband or especially a kid I could understand a bit more but it happens with Moms, Dads, friends, I think some of the survivors would have cried in the arms of locals that were hired because Survivor couldn't track down any loved ones. Do average American families see their Moms and Dads every month? Every single month? And if it's longer than that do they blubber and wimper like Lucille Ball when they meet? I guess this is part of that UNreality the cameras add. If it's not, it sure gives me doubts about the intestinal fortitude of the average American! If I want waterworks I'll watch the Biggest Loser. I wish they'd lose these episodes, but millions disagree. I dunno. I don't get it.

6. This one is one I'm usually entertained by, but in principal it bugs me. It's those sore losers on the jury who lambaste the final two or three for lying, cheating, stealing, breaking promises and doing immoral things, BETTER or SOONER than they did. I find that people who play honest games are almost always proud of the way they played and the fact that they can sleep well at night is reward enough for them. It HAS to be cuz let's face it, they never win! The ones who make fools of themselves reading the riot act to the people who make it all the way to final tribal council are almost always people who either failed at the deceit game or didn't get a chance to employ it. I think this is A LOT like life. Probably the best example is Sue from Survivor 1 and All Stars who went ballistic on both shows.

5. There is almost always some loser at the very end who did absolutely nothing while people were falling like dominoes around, (usually), her. Someone who is useless in challenges, has no charisma, did little or no game playing or manipulating, is lacking in social skills, intelligence, athleticism and even sometimes work ethic, but made some very fortunate alliance early in the game with a powerhouse player or two who keeps, (for the most part), her around because she'll be easy to beat in the final two or three. Then when the jury criticizes her for all that she says, "I must have played the game better than you since I'm here and you're on the jury." Even Probst has said it a few times! I suppose Sue would qualify from Survivor 1. Tina won Survivor 2 because of Colby. Was voted off first in All Stars. Kim from Survivor Africa rode coattails all the way as Big Tom said. Then Survivor 4 the final TWO were people who fit the category. One coattail rider and one who flip flopped any time people came to her with a new alliance. She never proposed an alliance, never worked, naver really made friends, was terrible in challenges but because of a purple rock she got a mil. Danielle and Arse, (Aras) were a useless final two and stole the game from one of the best ever survivors: Terry. Actually, no, Arse was pretty good. Just an arse. I could go on and on... But here again Survivor is very much like life. And we'll go to number 4 for the next one...

4. The person who deserves to win almost never does. In fact the person who wins almost never deserves to. I'll give you a list that I think would be very well accepted as the people who were the smartest/most athletic/best social players/hardest workers and had a winning combinations of assets that SHOULD have won them the game. 1. Greg (9th), 2. Colby (2nd), 3. Tom (4th)though I think Ethan deserved the win, 4. Hunter (13th), 5. Brian (1st time!), 6. Matthew (2nd) 7. Rupert (6th), 8. Lex (9th), 9. Sarge (9th), 10. Tom (2nd and last time!), 11. Steph (2nd), 12. Terry (3rd), 13. Ozzy (2nd), 14. Yau Man (4th), 15. Chicken (lol okay maybe some would disagree with this), and so on. This year it'll probably be the same. But that's life.

3. As in life when people say stupid things to reason away the travesty of the inept rising to power and wealth while the worthy get shafted such as, "It's just business," "Don't take it personally," "Just trying to feed my family," or other such crap, Survivor has its own version: "It's a game!" Hey, it's NOT a game! There's a million dollars PLUS on the line. Nothing could be farther from the truth. These guys are all playing for endorsement deals, public appearances, vehicles, the easy life. It's not a game. People just say that when they've realized they don't deserve to win as much as someone else so they lied, cheated or stole. Once again, just like life! The greatest example of this was when the appropriately named Dreamz made a deal with Yao Man that in exchange for about a 60,000 dollar vehicle, if he won immunity for the final 4, he'd give it to Yao Man. Dreamz had that same money sickness that causes businessmen/women to say, "It's just business." He somehow DREAMED that after shafting the most deserving guy in the game he'd get even ONE vote from the jury. Of course he didn't and has been lying his ass off ever since saying it was his "game" strategy. I call BS because he wouldn't have sworn to God right away when Yao Man proposed the deal OR talked about how proud his kid would be of him when he turned over immunity to YM. He was only talking to the camera when he said that so it absolutely COULD NOT have been strategy. Was it his strategy to lie to the viewing audience? Dangle money in front of some people and just sit back and watch the show. A million bucks makes for some real entertainment!

2. I absolutely hate it when people ally based on sex. For the men it's a bit more understandable because they are better suited for a lot of the challenges. But the WOMAN POWER alliances really bug me. This is one of the big reasons why we end up with so many duds at the end of a lot of seasons. But even worse I hate when the races hook up. For a long time if there were two black people on Survivor, you could bank on them hooking up. Even the one time when Ghandia accused Ted of sexual harrassment, they were a brothah/sistah alliance beforehand. The most obvious example to me would be the alliance of Yul and Becky the two Koreans. They were talking about how they had such a "strong bond" from like day 2? Two things have caused that kind of "bond" in the history of Survivor: A rockin' bod and racism. And since they were very clear about not ever thinking of each other in those terms after the season ended, I think we know what it was that brought them together. And knowing Koreans and the way they feel about the importance of blood, how they have special words for racist ideas in Korean like "jeong" the special love only Koreans can share, it's a no-brainer. Quite fitting that a racist-based alliance won the season where the tribes were initially separated by race.

1. The thing I hate worst about Survivor is what I call the "blah blahs." These are those people who say stuff like, "If I put my mind to it I can blah blah blah." "I believe that there's nothing I can't do if blah blah blah." And so on. These hyperpositive and hyperconfident people almost NEVER turn out to be even close to as good or fast or socially adept or funny as they claim in their hooray-for-me, self-congratulatory back slapping. And Americans have never been accused of having too LITTLE confidence in themselves. Watching this Dunning/Kruger effect and witnessing the absolute crash and burn failure of its sufferers is almost as sweet as watching the truly good players win. I'm not actually sure which I like better. This Dunning/Kruger effect is only theory but that's why it's so fun to watch. It really looks to be evident. It's basically when someone has an illusion that they are really good when in fact they suck. But the same delusionary thinking that makes them think they're good at something is what keeps them from realizing they suck. They also judge others to be of similar judgement and ability to them. It also works in reverse with the great players. They usually underestimate their abilities and overestimate the abilities of others to be about on par with their own. Probably the best example of the former was Rocky. He won exactly nothing but if you asked him about his performance on Survivor he'd probably tell you he was dominant. And almost every season you'll have people who compare themselves in their profiles to past survivors. Like I'm as devious as Russel or as funny as Tyson. They're usually nothing close. Of course it doesn't work for everybody! Russel thought he was the smartest guy alive and it was sweet to see him proven wrong. Tyson was absolutely in love with himself too. Then there's Boston Rob. But they weren't blah blahs. They had some game to back up their cocky talk so I dislike them slightly less. But the thing I like the least is also the thing I like the most. Guys like Ozzy, Tom, Rupert, Rodger, Paschal, Ethan, Greg, Hunter, and QB Gary had the positive D/K effect. So did girls like Steph, Amanda, Danni, Kathy, Sandra, Helen, Elisabeth, Colleen. But I'm not talking about the things I like best about Survivor. The blah blahs make it tedious sometimes. Especially when watching alone and I can't slag them to someone else. Oh I still do but there's nobody around to hear me. Maybe I need a dog.

Anyhoo, that's what's got me typing this time. Nothing much happening since last entry. See ya next time.

Korea is a funny place

2010-10-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

These days there are all kinds of ads for jobs in the major universities that don't start until March 1st. Why are they advertising so early? Because xenophobic paranoia has led to hastily enacted rules that require foreigners to jump through a lot more hoops before they can be legally employed here. New laws that are being enforced by people who think they might possibly have forgotten to actually read them but they think they can probably, almost, partly figure out the implied, intended spirit of them.

For example, the criminal record check I got 2 years ago from the Calgary Police force that accessed national records and said that I had not committed any crimes in the country of Canada is no longer any good here. In fact, I understand that even if it were valid, I'd have to get another one because 2 years is too old. Regardless of the fact that I have lived in Korea for the past 5 years so could not have committed any crimes in Canada, prior to that was employed at schools in Canada that required more stringent criminal record checks than Korean schools, and even had high level security clearance in Canada because I actually worked FOR THE RCMP, the agency at which they are forcing me to apply for my new Criminal Record Check. None of this means anything to the people of Korea because a few attrocities have been committed and rules have been broken and because they were attrocities committed and rules bent by foreigners, made big news, so now the entire country thinks there is a good chance all ESL teachers here are potential child molesters with fake degrees.

So I have to get a new CRC, which takes about 4-6 months, and I need to get my degree verified for the umpteenth time. You see every few years the Korean government notices a rash of Korean people who have attained high positions on the strength of phony degrees. So what is the appropriate thing to do? Why, get all the foreigners to have their degrees verified at their own expense, of course! It has cost me 40 bucks twice to get my degree verified at immigration. It cost me more than that once to have sealed transcripts mailed to my employer. And schools I worked for have verified my degree themselves on a few occasions. Not good enough! Now I need to get it verified, by my employer, through the Korean Council for Universities Association. No doubt this will cost me some more dough.

The cost for the new federal CRC through the Canadian RCMP will be 25 Canadian dollars. It can only be paid by certified check or money order. Well, foreigners can't get certified checks in Korea undoubtedly because one or two people sent their money home via certified check and Koreans have this drastic aversion to that practice. My Korean friend who had a business in Korea for several years is moving to Canada and has no idea how she will transfer her money there. And she's KOREAN! Foreigners can no longer use credit cards or debit cards to access THEIR money in Korean banks even though the bankers will always tell you they are international cards and even put phony Cirrus/Maestro or whatever stamps on them. They don't work. And if you take cash out of a Korean bank, go to another country and find a Korea Exchange Bank, they will not exchange the Korean cash for you.

And there are other problems too. New rules for foreigners needing their alien cards to do practically everything in this country. I couldn't even get into the country on a tourist visa without having a ticket out even though the immigration officer told me I could. YES, immigration officers and bank tellers actually ARE being trained to lie to foreigners. Not really a new practice but it IS new policy. Also, in order to use my bank account in Korea I need to continuously update my bank book. The other day I tried to do that and was asked by the teller to show her my alien card. I have no alien card but showed her my passport and my visitor's visa that is good till the end of February. She updated my book and froze my account. New policy. FURTHERMORE, if you are trying to get a job here and need the CRC you must find a bank somewhere, (and good luck with this one!), that can give you a Canadian money order. Most tellers don't know what they are and will lie to you and tell you their bank doesn't issue them. If this happens you need to go to another teller and maybe another teller, (possibly in the same bank), until you finally get one who knows what money orders are. THEN you need to ask for CANADA dollars because they don't know what Canadian dollars are. And you might even have to use the letters O.D.D. because this is the term used only in Korea for something that is used only by foreigners who have never heard of it. THEN after all of that they may ask you once again for your alien card to get the money order needed for the CRC needed to get the job needed to get the work visa needed to actually get an alien card. In short, if you don't have a job in Korea, you can't apply for one because you need an alien card to get an alien card. New policy!

But none of this matters to Koreans either. So long as they think they are safe from the .0001% of foreigners who are nasty to Koreans. Why would any foreigner be nasty to Koreans?

I, and plenty of my colleagues, am suffering through all of this craziness that almost seems designed with the sole purpose of making things as tough for foreigners as possible, for the right to work at facilities with slogans like "Global Elite," "Global Future," "Globalization For Tomorrow," "We Love Foreigners," and other such irony. I admit I made up that last one. We are stringently abiding by Korean laws, being fingerprinted, scanned and interrogated to make sure we haven't so much as jaywalked in our lives to work at institutions that routinely practice academic fraud, degree selling, cheat on standardized testing, fudge attendance and marks and ask or even REQUIRE us to do so as well. We are forced to verify our credentials on about a bi-annual basis for the honour of working at these institutions who commonly maintain 75% minimum grades for all students and hand out "diplomas" and "degrees" to people who haven't even shown up for class.

Not only that but the trend is now toward accepting only teachers with Master's degrees in related fields like TESOL, TEFL, Linguistics etc. AND they are paying less and less money.

What do you suppose will be the end result of all of this? I know, because over the 10 years I've spent here this sort of thing has just been snowballing. What is going to happen is the businesses, (and make no mistake, it is erroneous to call them schools), will need these Master's-holding teachers because they have promised them to the parents of their prospective students, (who are notoriously knocked out by letters after a person's name), but the teachers won't be available BECAUSE 1. it's too hard to jump through all the hoops, 2. Koreans don't like foreigners and make it obvious, 3. if a guy gets a good degree the first place he'll try to use it WON'T be Korea. So the businesses, not the teachers, the businesses will get to work forging fake documentation for workers they hire at their schools. The government will eventually find out but will not punish the Koreans, rather the foreigners will be disciplined and deported and it will make all the TV news reports, newspapers and Korean media and we'll be at it ONE MORE TIME. In my career here this is the 3rd discernable cycle of this that I have noticed.

It's a funny, funny place this country they call Korea! That's why some clever foreigner invented "OINK!" which means Only IN Korea!

"Can There Be a Science of Good and Evil?"

2010-10-09T02:23:00.000-07:00

Lookie here, another blog entry inspired by the Daily Show! It's such a great show though! I sure hope Jon Stewart can restore sanity to the world! Recently he had on a guest who had written a new book. It was one I was particularly interested in called "The Moral Landscape." It's written by the guy who also wrote "The End of Faith," Sam Harris. He was introduced by Jon Stewart as a professional atheist. His new book is an attempt to convince you and me that science is a source of moral values. Something a professional atheist will give a completely non-biased opinion of to be sure!

I haven't read the book but I have been thinking about this issue a lot lately. I actually brought it up in conversation a few times with people I socialize with here. It's a touchy issue. Even if people AGREE with you they will argue with you on this. It's really weird. I had a guy tell me he is a scientist AND a Christian and then after a litany of argumentative points that supported exactly the opinion I had stated, he said he didn't think there WERE any scientists who didn't believe in God. Because we had already monopolized conversation I didn't mention Harris, Richard Dawkins or most recently and famously Steven Hawking. But it was a good example of how science and morality have become such enemies. Harris is trying to help the world by showing them that the answers to our problems can be found in simple science and we need not stray to the slippery slope of morality to solve our problems and maximize our well being.

He's the same age as me and judging from his education and experience I'd definitely say he's got a LOT more knowledge on this than I do but he DOES say some silly, silly things! Child-like simplicity from such an educated man that is most likely the result of the training that keeps us from seeing the truth about this whole issue. So fascinating! Maybe he has spent too much time in the classroom and not enough time actually socializing because people just don't think like this. We can't create, or arguably even conceive of a sterile environment devoid of moral decisions. Plenty of great, SCIENCE FICTION has been written about such societies but they will never exist.

He makes some great points and has a knack for turning a phrase. For example when he talks about the culture war between secular liberals and Christian conservatives he says that "a shared beleif in the limitations of reason lies at the bottom of these cultural divides." I agree. And the word, "science," as it so often is, can be substituted here for "reason." Like the unscientific never use reason...

In his article, "Can There Be a Science of Good and Evil", he includes "mistrust of science" in a list of attributes such as "intolerance of diversity" that are generally agreed upon to be morally reprehensible and just assumes that the entire world would put it right there with him. It's so odd from a man who is a proponent of scientific skepticism to not apply his scientific skepticism to science itself! This is what I mean when I say he's fascinating. He has a degree in neuroscience. These guys have done some incredible mapping of the brain. But for some reason old Sam seems to think he's working with the mind. Trying to use the mind to explain the mind. A walking, writing fountain of irony this guy!

He lists gay marriage, stem cell research, anti-blasphemy laws, and abortion as issues that have unnecessarily distracted politicians that arise from conservative dogmatism and liberal doubt. As though conservatives have cornered the market on dogmatism and liberals on doubt. I have a strong conservative doubt that the mind will ever figure out the mind and quantify things like instinct, emotion, creativity, human nature and such. We can see it exists, even scientifically measure it, but we can't explain the first thing about why or how we do it. But liberal dogmatism consistently purports psychology, sociology, neuroscience and others as hard scientific studies of fact when all they really amount to is formulation of theories about what is going on in the mind. They preach not from the pulpit but the lectern and disguise theory as fact for the purposes of self-legitimization and to keep their courses from being offered under the faculty of arts.

Who but someone with an unshakeable faith in science could separate morality from issues like those listed above? Oh I know, a legalistic religious person. Here's a great little tidbit that ties things nicely together: a scientific study was done recently that shows most atheists know more about religion than religious people. I got that from the Daily Show too. It's all about faith. The atheist studies and finds out all he/she can about religion so he/she can scientifically disprove it in his/her mind. The legalistic religious person doesn't need to know all that stuff because he/she has God and a hard, fast list of rules. My point is, guys like old Sam Harris and all the faithful scientists are not that different from the legalistic fanatics they write off all spiritual people as. Indeed if a scientific study could be done on which of the two has MORE faith I have no doubt the scientists would win hands down.

But back to Sam Harris's reasoning. He puts forth a charming little pre-school argument in which there are only two people on the earth. He mockingly names them Adam and Eve and asks the scientific questions, "How can they flourish?" Answer: do things that have been found to be scientifically beneficial. "How can they fail?" He gives the example that they could both punch each other in the face. The answers to all questions, he posits, will come from facts that can be scientifically understood. He goes on to ask how would the difference between right and wrong disappear when we add 6.7 billion more people to the experiment? What a very well trained, and absurdly out of touch with reality, scientist he is! No need to use morality, just do the things we can agree to be for our best interests. Indeed, this may have been the way things were BEFORE Eve ate the apple, but it just ain't that way any more.

Let's just think of one of a gozillion different wrenches that can be thrown into this simplistic little piece of scientific, escapist dogma. Let's say Adam, (this time), were to wander off one day and find a tree full of delicious fruit that neither he nor Eve had ever tried before. Will he share the fruit or keep it all for himself. BOTH could be argued to be beneficial. First let's look at the results with the extra 6.7 billion people. Scientifically speaking, we have already done this experiment and the scientific evidence gleaned from the acquisitive, competitive and just plain selfish ideals that are instilled in the overwhelming majority of the 6.7 billion people of Earth indicates that Adam should keep the tree a secret. That's science.

But if it were just Adam and Eve why wouldn't Adam double the happiness or "well being" and halve the fruit? In fact the happiness he gets from the joy of sharing may outweigh the half of the fruit he lost. The fruit is renewable. And future benefits can be derived from the generous nature Eve sees in the action of sharing. Also, what if Eve discovers the secret? Adam may have to lie or change his actions to maintain the secret. He may carry some guilt about hogging all the fruit. Eve could bust him and bring to an abrupt end their peaceful coexistence. So why does Adam keep the tree a secret? You know he would if science is any indication. We can only postulate that it's greed. Maybe greed is more instinctive than sharing.

Or maybe Adam will just understand that sharing is the right thing to do and it made him feel good. This in my estimation, and those of most intellectual moralists, (who Sammy and most of his ilk seem to forget about in their teachings), is the only REAL way to make Adam and Eve thrive and maximize their well being in this instance. But there is absolutely nothing scientific about it. It is in Harris' own words, "positive change in the experience of sentient creatures" and it is brought about by psychological, moral and therefore absolutely unquantifiable and unscientific decision.

And the thousands of other moral decisions Adam and Eve would have to make every single day should not be the result of a bunch of rules derived from thousands of replicated scientific studies, or a bunch of rules derived from thousands of years of religious tradition. We can not say that a newly discovered tribe in the Amazon is wrong for sacrificing their first born children to imaginary gods, nor can we say that a woman is wrong for aborting a fetus. We can only try to do the right thing. And I think if we can just separate the good teaching from the proselytization and be honest with ourselves, (that's the hard part), just about everybody has it in themselves to make the right decisions.

Who even knows if what's wrong for me might be the right thing to do for someone else? I think maybe one of the most important moral decisions we can ever make is not to be judgemental. As you can see, I have yet to gain the spiritual maturity to become comfortable with that one. I should just let Sam Harrison believe his scientific legalism and say a salut! Good for you. Do what makes you happy. We all really should, shouldn't we? Unless what makes you happy is bad for somebody else, like fighting wars, or making a billion dollars a year through slave labour, or depleting the world's resources for personal financial gain, or participating in corrupt governments, or...

Why are the rich depressed and the poor so happy? At what stage of development does a person become a person so that killing them is wrong? How much does a person have to bug me before I can morally commit post natal abortion? Is euthenasia okay? When should I allow my daughter to date? How old do I have to be before dating a 20-year-old becomes creepy, and how much oldER do I have to be before it becomes cute again? Is suicide bombing a meeting of the richest 100 people in the world an immoral fantasy? I certainly don't want to trust any of these decisions to science. I can't even see how science could be very much help. There will always be a need for moral decisions to be made and there will always be those who disagree and worse, those who disagree and want to force you to agree with them. The trick is to try to take joy in the trials of existence. If we could all live a life of moral relativism where every behaviour was mandated by rules, life would be a stone cold drag and I think it would be purposeless.

So the best answer to your question, Sammy boy, is NOPE.

But that's just my opinion.

Good news America!

2010-09-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a post that a lot of my myriad readers will differ with. Maybe even take offense to. Don't worry, it's not bad news. It's good news!

I live in Korea and STILL I'm constantly hearing about the American "recession." Some people have even had the nerve to label it a "depression" already. You know how much time I spend in sorrow for America? None. In fact the panic stricken new anchors using scarily diving charts and graphs and proporting doom and gloom are just a beautiful illustration of exactly why the "recession" is good for America.

Let me splain. There's this new thing called globalization. Maybe you've heard of it. It's unstoppable. It's going to continue. With technology allowing other countries around the world to share all markets it's going to be good for just about everybody. American businesspeople already know that when you go to a foreign country you can give jobs to citizens and make them very happy. Jobs that pay them a tiny fraction of what you have to pay Americans. You COULD, (but come on, chuckle snicker why would you?), even lower the price of your product so it sells even BETTER. THIS part of globalization is quite familiar to America. For years they've been doing this and for years profits have increased by a fairly steady percentage every year.

But now, other countries are doing this. And other countries ARE pricing their products lower. They are becoming more competitive so that the regular increases in American business are harder to maintain. Companies in rich countries are vigourously searching for poorer and poorer countries to exploit- um, er, I mean give the privelege of building factories in. But there are only so many countries on the earth. It eventually had to happen: soon even American companies will be forced to charge more reasonable prices for their goods because they are only increasing their profits at maybe half the usual rate. The panic-stricken news reporters are trained to call this "loss" for companies. And when many companies report these "losses" it's called a "recession." It makes it easier for CEO's and people at the top of American companies to ease the "losses" by "downsizing", devaluing stock and things like that and at the same time maintaining a steady increase in THEIR standards of living while their companies have fallen on hard times. This is how so many "downturns" and "fiscal hardships" and things like that are happening yet companies are still managing to stay afloat. The companies you see going tits up are the ones that just refuse to charge reasonable rates for their products or take pay cuts. They'd rather go out of business, which can actually be more profitable for them.

This is hugely oversimplified but what it boils down to is what Americans have spent their entire existence training their citizens NOT to do: share. The world is now sharing. How many years has America made a gozillion bucks more than any other country? It seems the businesspeople of America, (and, yes other rich countries too including Canada), somehow expected that the money to even economies out around the world was going to come from somewhere else. And let's not overstate the case. It's going to be a VERY long time before things are even.

The countries that have been cheap labour for the rich countries have learned how to make stuff, saved their meagre salaries and now are producing goods themselves. But they are poor countries. They don't need to charge the outrageous prices that rich countries like America does for the same products. So everybody stops buying from the rich countries and buys from the poor. I think this is great! It's awesome how not everything is made in China or Taiwan or Japan or America any more. It's fun to look at the tags on things now to see where they're made.

Now here's the good news. I'm sure, like me, you've seen all the poles and studies that show how happy various countries around the world are. It's always the poor countries who are at the top and the rich are at the bottom. Well I've also seen first hand how happy people are in their poverty. And there's no end to the evidence of how miserable Americans are! Half the country is on one anti-depressant or another. Do you think it might have something to do with all these people joining the ratrace, or in American terms, "chasing the American dream," working long hours under highly stressful conditions trying to keep up with the Joneses and support their families rather than raise them?

Americans must buy their children rooms full of toys, pay for lessons in sports, music, martial arts, dancing etc. to keep them entertained while the majority of the world has their kids at home with them. And they have time to spend with them, cuz they aren't working 80-hour weeks. Or sometimes they just tell their kids to quit whining about being bored and get the hell outside. Where they develop socially, use their imaginations, and learn life lessons while playing with the other "poor" kids. Maybe this can partly explain why even the KIDS in America are depressed!

I was watching the first episode of the new Apprentice show. It's a "recession" Apprentice in which every contestant had some job making multi-million dollar business deals and now they're on unemployment or working a regular job like driving a bus or something. They're failures! They just can't support their families any more on mere hundreds of thousands a year. Woe, woe, woe to the American recession victims! Please!

Take it as good news, America. As your economy gets "destroyed" and you are forced to sell the yacht and maybe the fourth car or second house, you'll be all the happier for it. And maybe your kids will too! Unemployment is relaxing. Working part time frees up a lot of schedule slots to spend with family. THEN maybe, just maybe, you'll realize that all these scare tactics like having news reporters tell you how dire the economy is, how evil socialism is, how important it is to be a good "provider," and the list could go on and on, were all just mind massage to keep you productive, if clinically depressed citizens. And let countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Costa Rica share some of the sorrow that comes with riches. It's all part of the SHARING of globalization.

Or maybe not. I dunno.

Survivor Nicaragua: Predictions

2010-09-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

Another Survivor has started and it's looking interesting already. cbs.com has chosen to discontinue allowing people who are from other countries like Korea, or, I'm guessing, Nicaragua, to access the pre-Survivor videos they have to introduce us to the competitors. I found these to be very helpful the last few seasons in pre-judging the competitors and writing about them here. Now when I try to watch them a message comes up saying that they aren't available to people in my area.

So I chose to wait an entire episode before I tell you everything you need to know about these people. Also I've been warming up. I have been watching the first Survivor series on disks my good buddy Scott gave me. I didn't realize how much I'd missed. So this will undoubtedly prepare me to give you my personal snap judgements on all the people in Survivor Nicaragua. Age before beauty?

Espada tribe. (Oldsters)

Jimmy J - Gotta start with the oldest. He's a legend. Won college football championships as a player and coach then topped it off with a couple superbowls while coaching Dallas. A lot of the survivors will know him. I don't think he's a threat for the very reason he gave: NObody will give him the mil. He's already got several. If the oldsters are smart they'll keep him around for his coaching value. THEY might not need it as much, being older and wiser, but when the tribes merge, if they do, he'll probably have some major influence on the younger and more impressionable. I think a lot of his tribemates, like Jimmy T. and Marty are unwisely seeing this as a bad thing because they think he is actually trying to win the million. He's not. He might want the title of Survivor champ but if he DID win I think he'd give the money to one of the other competitors. He's PSYCHED for this. He says he's watched every minute of Survivor and he got the nervous butterfly heaves in the first episode. Something he probably saw from a lot of his players who were psyched to play games. I hope he lasts a while but think he's already a marked man. He's a proven winner but I think that's gonna be more of a detriment to him.

Danny Lembo- He looks like a mobster but that may not be a bad thing. Mob mentality could work in this game. Boston Rob tried to use it in Survivor IV in Tahiti. See? The research is paying off already. He's a real estate exec. who says he's very "connected" so he is probably trying to play up his mobster appearance. He says he'll be aggressive, cunning and devious and he'll thrive on beating everyone else. Hates modern politicians but idolizes Ronald Reagan. Reagan was an actor and this guy may be too. He does look the part though.

Jane Bright- A dog trainer who is hoping to be best in show. I'm sorry, that was too easy. lol. Says she's loveable like Rupert but smarter. Rupert was pretty darn smart so she's got to live up to her name. Lost her husband and wants to pay off her farm with the money. Says she's always busy, hates lazy folks and doesn't toodle around the house. She got the fire going right away. Listened to Probst when he said people who can't start fire shouldn't go on the show. That revved up her tribe. Marty said it reassured him that they are gonna win this thing. Southern drawl, gap-toothed farmer and the third oldest in the game. Might be underestimated and not voted for. I think she'll be strong and I think I like her already so others will too. She wants to "win America over" and I think she will. A VERY good shot to win this thing.

Jimmy T- He's a commercial fisherman with a low tolerance for imcompetence. He's already shown a hot temper, ("I'm not gonna NOT be heard here!"), on a tribe full of older people who you'd expect to be a bit more competent than, say, Fabio on the La Flor tribe. He'd better rein that in or he won't be long for Nicaragua. He won a nationwide contest to be on the show so I guess he's got some qualities America will like. But I have a feeling they're backing the wrong pony here. He's volatile and a bit of a jerk from early indications. I don't know what he's got against Jimmy J. but he made a point of telling everybody he was voting his ass off. Who does that before the first tribal council? Maybe he's an Eagles fan. Or maybe he's jealous. thought he'd be the celebrity but is "just another player here." He'll be gone fast if the oldsters are wisesters.

Marty Piombo- He's a tech. exec. whatever that means. Rescued a guy in the mountains in the winter. I didn't see any snowy mountains in the first episode unfortunately for him. Likes Lance Armstrong and says he'll be a cross between Boston Rob and Russel. Two of the best players of this game who I think would be the biggest assholes outside the game. I loved them on the show though. They added SO much! After Rob was ousted from the Marquesas I almost stopped watching. It was nice to see the good guys win that episode but I lost almost all interest after episode 8 after Rob and John said bye bye. It got boooo RING! I'm hoping Marty will keep this season interesting and be one of the villains. Called Wendy weird and I gotta agree with that. Has no idea why Jimmy J is there but was very fake friendly to him. Should be fun to watch this guy.

Wendy Jo- Goat rancher? Used to be a Lt. Col. in the army? And what was that get-up she was sporting? Did she think the first challenge would be barrel riding? She is one of the people I love to hate on Survivor that I call the blah blahs. People who are busy trying to convince themselves that "if you put your heart and mind to it you can do any.. blah blah blah..." While some people really believe in the power of positive thinking my opinion is that actions speak louder than words. The more positive you SAY you are that you are gonna succeed, the bigger a dick you appear when you fail. Winners don't need to constantly remind themselves and others how positive they are and how successful they are going to be. On the other hand, she was "blah blah blah" in another way. Her stated strategy was to put a muzzle on her yappety yap. Said she didn't want to gab gab gab and drive everybody cuh razy. How long did THAT last? She talked herself right off the show at the first tribal council.

Holly Hoffman- Swim coach twice voted coach of the year. Says that gives her a real knack for judging people accurately on first impression. She went right for Wendy cuz she got a "good vibe" from her. Then after Jimmy J. talked with her she questioned that alliance and avoided her till she voted her off. And at tribal council told EVERYBODY about the alliance like a dumbass. So far not so good.

Dr. Jill- An ER doctor. "How could I NOT be the sole survivor?" If she's an ER doc, I'm sure she has leadership skills and is good at organizing and working under pressure. She could NOT be the sole survivor by blending into the background and NOT using those skills. Like she did in episode 1. Where the hell was she? On the other hand she didn't screw anything up. The only good thing I saw from her was calling Jane "Survivor McGuyver."

Tyrone Davis- Fire captain. Inspired by God and parents. Hates plastic people. "If I want it, I'll get it done blah blah blah..." Could this guy be a bigger stereotype? I hope he shows us something more like his reaction to Wendy telling America her age: "You look so young!" (eye roll). And I liked when he said, "Wendy Jo gotta go." I think he'll be a boring nice guy but if he lets his badass flag fly I'm gonna like him.

Yve Rojas- Homemaker. Unassuming. Her daughters are her life. I think she'll be one of those bawling her eyes out at any mention of being apart from family. They always mystify me. How many people would PAY a million bucks for a 39-day break from their families? Hates not being acknowledged when she speaks. She won't have to worry about that because she doesn't speak that much. Was called on by Probst and said she could tell a lot about people and how they're checking each other out. Maybe THAT'S what she was doing the whole episode. Didn't notice her at all.

La Flor (Youngsters)

Kelly Shinn- Youngest and probably the hottest of this group. She's a nursing student/homecoming queen. She plans to play the popularity game although I think she might be outplayed at THAT by Brenda. Hates dirty fingernails. If she means her own I think she might be a lazy one. She'll need to look her best to overcome that. Didn't see much of her in episode one other than it looked like her blonde hair had black roots. I think going blonde is a pretty good strategy if that is what it was.

Jud "Fabio" Birza- Could give Robb from Survivor Thailand a run for the STUPIDEST survivor ever. Already parallels like foot injuries and boarding. He's a drummer for a band called Space Funk Odyssey. Says he's a good swimmer. Better than Ozzy. He'd better be cuz he won't be solving any of the brain teasers. When Kelly B revealed her prosthetic leg he said, "How do you tell it to move?" I hope one of the other band members write the lyrics for Space Funk Odyssey.

Alina Wilson- Listed Paris Hilton as her inspiration. Of course she was joking. Doesn't like people calling her "sweetie" or "hun." I'm like that too. Especially from strangers it's just a blatant attempt to gain dominance. Don't call me that unless I've known you a long time. But then she said, "Nothing stops me when I put my mind to...blah blah blah..." Noticed Kelly B's limp and said, "She might have a hip problem?" Then found the clue to the hidden idol with her and wished she had found it alone. I liked that she doesn't want to be associated with Kelly B because she will get a sympathy vote. I think I might like her despite being a blah blah.

Ben Henry (Benry)- Club promoter. Runs 2 businesses. He's out to show the world what it's like to be a winner. "If you look good you play good and you get paid good." Obviously very cocky. High 5ed everybody and introduced himself as Benry when the young tribe got to camp but didn't notice him after that. I'm sure we'll see more of his cockiness in later episodes.

Chase Rice- Pro Race Car Jackman. He figures people will trust him cuz he's a southerner. He might be right because instantly Shannon set up an alliance with him. He agreed with Shannon that they don't want a woman winning this thing. Then moments later Brenda said she liked his "spirit." Had intended to play an honest game but Brenda blew that with her womanly wiles. He's hooked, poor guy. Says for some reason he "trusted" her. Now what's he gonna do? He might be smart enough to play both sides though. He said to Jud that he looked like he might be good in the water. That was a sharp observation. He's gotta choose between the woman hater and the man user. I hope this country boy just abandons BOTH his early alliances. We shall see. I think he might be a guy I pull for this season. So maybe I trust southerners too.

Kelly B- Amputee. Will get a lot of sympathy. Not only for the leg but for her Dad who recently died giving aid to Haiti. Already Shannon the misogynist has stated that he'd just give her the money if he were in the final few with her. But quickly said he'll have to make sure she doesn't make it that far. Her calling everyone together looked pretty obviously like a ploy to get the sympathy vote. I think she wasted it too early. Already a lot of people are saying that her prosthetic leg won't change anything. NaOnka wants a foot race; Tyrone says they both have the same rules; Alina wishes she didn't have to share the immunity clue with her. But it looks like she might not need the sympathy. She's an Iron Man Triathlon finisher. Found the immunity idol clue with Alina and they were, in her own words, "stumped" by it. I didn't say it, she did! At any rate I think she'll be capable but whether she can turn a weakness into a strength or vice versa will be the barometer on how long she sticks around.

Brenda Lowe- Probst and I got the same impression from this hotty: "She is a sort of black widow." She already looks like she wants her first victim to be Chase. Says she's "used to guys doing what she says." "Chase likes me but he's clueless." She better hope so. I could see Shannon cluing in to the alliance and advising Chase against it. She's another blah blah. "Nothing stops me when I get an idea into my blah blah blah..." Very easy for beauty pageant winners to say. But I don't think she'll just depend on the boys to carry her along. Found the golden medallion and climbed a tree to get it. So she's not helpless on her own. But her mouth and the confidence to use it that comes to beauty pageant winners might be her undoing. When asked if she would have used the golden medallion for the challenge she instantly said the oldsters were wrong not to have used it. She further schooled them on how they have to "...think of now, not tomorrow. You're here to win!" I think she'll be a bad girl but she won't be able to hide it well enough. Won't last long if she can't.

NaOnka Mixon- P.E. teacher. No kids. Loves dogs. I am TOTALLY on her side after these three facts! Doesn't feel any sympathy for Kelly B. Bring her on! But she IS worried about others giving her sympathy. Haven't seen much of her yet but I think she might be a strong sister. If she doesn't go overboard, like the stereotypical strong sister, I'll be pulling for her.

Matthew "Sash" Lenahan- Supposed to be funny. Says he's like Tyson with the one-liners. I've noticed a pattern on Survivor: anyone who said they were gonna be funny hasn't been. I fully expect this from Sash too. His "funniest" quote so far is, "Great beach, great waves, beautiful girls... it doesn't get much better than that, right?" Meh. Distance runner so that might help. Thinks he's awesome but he might be as awesome as he is funny. We shall see...

Shannon Elkins- I think he'll be the most interesting guy on the show. I fear that he won't be around long enough to peel back all his skins, however. He's in pest control. Obviously hates women. Has made such comments as, "We already get owned in marriage." "A guy needs to sack up and take this thing." And dreads the day he sees coming when America has a female president. Misogyny central! He will probably try to exterminate the women like as many queen insects. He hates dumb people. Instantly disliked Jud and gave him the name Fabio. I thought this was extremely interesting since Shannon looks a whole lot more like Fabio than Jud. I mean look at the body! Borrow some of Kelly S's blonde hair dye and there ya go! Says he wants to win Survivor to put another notch on his belt and that he'll be like Russel only much prettier. I'm interested in the Freudian aspects of this dude. Everyone immediately knows he hates women. Calls himself pretty and has a name more often used for girls. Instantly allied with the hunkiest of the men on his tribe. Maybe he's struggling with his own sexuality. I bet he could spend hours and hours on the couch. He will certainly add some colour to this season!

It looks like it'll be a good season! A few new things I've noticed: the age groupings, the gold medallion, an amputee, a really famous person and crotch smudges for the guys walking around in their undies. Not sure if these will make it better or worse but am looking forward to finding out.

So I vote for Chase and Jane, I don't like Benry or Holly.
Interesting villains- Shannon and Brenda.
Could last a long time- Chase, Jane, Kelly B, Marty.
Alliances to watch for: Tyrone/NaOnka brotha and sista. Hey it happens. Only time it didn't was when Ghandia tried to get, what, a sexual harrassment vote by accusing Ted? And they WERE a black alliance before that.
Danny/Dr. Jill/Yve. I don't think they will last long without some sort of alliance. Danny says he's connected so make some connections. Who better than a doctor? Yve needs somebody's coattails to ride. This alliance could make them all contenders.

Sole Survivor- Marty. The person I vote for never wins and I don't think I'll be voting for Marty. But I think he'll be a good player. He won't play good, but he'll be a good player.

Just my opinion.

Harmony abounds

2010-09-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

I can't believe Canada! When I was back there last month I noticed this new tax called hilariously the HST or Harmonized Sales Tax. This is absolutely not because it creates any harmony amongst the payers, (victims), of it, rather it was the name chosen by some brainwave working for the government who counts himself, (or I'd be willing to bet, HERself), a soothsayer who need only speak and things come into existence. The real reason for the name was because the tax works "in harmony" with the GST, goods and services tax which we have all loved so dearly and has itself been the cause of such harmony since its inception on the first day of 1991.

But it seems these days that some folks have seen a little too much Harry Potter or Crouching Tigers, Hidden Dragons, vampire movies or something. I think the name was partially chosen because these spacers in the Canadian government actually believe that the name could help people come to enjoy paying 13 or 12 percent extra on almost everything they buy. If, I suppose, it is coined and magically charged by a 12th level magic user. I may be overestimating Canadians, but I think we're all skeptical. You could call it the teenage sex-sport-simpson-lasagna-beer-booby tax and I STILL wouldn't like it. I don't care if Gandalf the Grey came up with that name. And I know that name might not appeal to my friends of the fairer sex but let's call it the teenage sex-sharing-candle-bubblebath-chocolate-champagne-romance tax and measure how many Canadian women would enjoy paying it. None of them. Not even if Oprah had come up with the name.

I'm just guessing here without a 30 million dollar referectum. Oh, did I spell that word incorrectly? I meant "referendum." This is what the Canadian government does when they think the Canadian people are trying to tell them something. They charge them a great deal more money than it actually costs to tell them what we've already made crystal clear. Our government officials have somehow perceived a slight disinclination among the commoners to pay more money for everything they buy despite such a lovely name. This might have something to do with the fact that over 700,000 people in BC, that's more than 15% of the province, signed a petition against the HST. That's gotta be at least 33% more people than the number that voted for the provincial leader whose attention they are trying to attract. And collecting these signatures probably cost Bill Vander Zalm and company a few hundred grand. But now we need a 30 bazillion dollar referectum to verify the results in the minds of the government officials.

Pity the poor government officials of Canada for their jobs are not easy. It takes a special person to try to spend/waste the avalanche of taxes they euphamistically call the provincial budget every year in ways that the public doesn't heartily object to rather than the ways that we cosistently want.

How do they get away with this? The answer is one of the factors that I believe contributes to these morons believing they have some special powers to speak things into existence. You see there is no basis to the 30 million dollar figure that has been thrown at the public of BC. In fact the person who tossed it out there probably had to wipe it off first because he/she had moments earlier pulled it out of his/her ass. But if they gave us a reasonable number like 500,000 dollars to hold a referendum, we'd probably put two and two together and say, "Hey, it shouldn't cost that much!" But nobody understands 30 million dollars. So we believe it. The government has become very adept at creating these massive numbers and it's gone to their heads. Now they're thinking, "If it works with numbers, why wouldn't it work with names?"

Give me half a million dollars and I'll do the referendum in B.C. 1000% more accurately than it's going to be done and I'll STILL have enough left over to retire on. Or just cut me in on some of that 30 mil. you're going to steal from the residents of BC, make me an MP in Smithers and I'll never tell. THEN things will be VERY harmonious for me!

Football follies

2010-09-12T23:02:00.000-07:00

I accomplished my stated goal last night and then some! I posted on facebook that I was going to watch football until the sun came up. And I did so. It's one of the odd charms life in Korea takes on after you've lived for a decade here as a starving sports fan able only to eat lima beans like ping pong, short track and archery, a turnip like World Cup Soccer every 4 years, broccoli like Korean basketball and volleyball and in the summer the mashed potatoes of the KBO, Korean Baseball Organization. It's nice to have some roast duck like live boxing or UFC every once in a while, but the pork, beef and chicken like baseball, hockey and football, you gotta work for. AND you have to watch the fruits, or meat of your labour between the hours of 2 AM and 9 or 10 AM.

I remember in the early years here I would try desperately not to see the scores of games until I was somehow able to find them online posted without the score, download them and watch them in "almost as good as live" conditions. But sometimes friends would blurt out the score, or who won, or say things that partially compromised the mystery like, "Oh you're really gonna like the game!" or "You're not gonna believe what happens in the third quarter." These failings and the fact that although I have no qualms about cheering while I'm completely alone watching a truly LIVE game, I felt strangely embarrassed to be talking, groaning, hooting and gesticulating at my monitor that was showing me old news. Embarrassed! Of myself! You know like when you wash a cucumber or utter the word "croissant." It's not a sexual self-questioning like if you got a broner watching Adrian Peterson's bulging biceps or Randy Moss's form-fitting white tights, more a challenging of your lifelong dedication to the purity and ideals of sport. Like when you find yourself watching synchronized swimming, figure skating or Japanese ladies wrestling and enjoying it.

So I had to try to find a website that was a dependable source for live streaming video of the real sports. I tried loads of sites where people share their lives and on Sundays or Mondays their lives happened to include football. Like Justintv. Well that site sucks, obviously. Then I tried some sites like myP2P from overseas where blackouts and other restrictions DIDN'T apply. Here you find Russian, German, Italian football fans who cleverly, however nefariously, upload their broadcasts, complete with highly entertaining, non-English commentary or English non-expert commentary. But there were an endless number of programs to download like veetle, ustream, streamtorrent, vexcast, sopcast etc. and drivers and updates FOR those programs that just clogged up the old computer. Plus, the NFL, a league where they are so pathetically short of money, saw to it that very soon the restrictions DID apply overseas as well and people had to pay for their product. That's like making Americans pay for soccer. But just so long as nobody got to watch the NFL for free I guess...

You ask, "Dave, why don't you just get NFL Fieldpass?" or whatever they're calling the internet subscription that allows you to watch every game on your computer. I WANT it really badly and the price is well worth it. There's a big, hairy but coming up... BUT, they won't let a person get it unless he/she has properly prostrated him/herself at the altar of our Blessed Lady of Acquisitiveness, chanted the international capitalist mantra: "I need it before I deserve it!", and got a credit card.

When I went to HSBC in Vancouver recently to open a new account they set me up a checking account that came with a shiny new credit card. Only upon checking, re-checking then giving his head a shake and TRIPLE checking, the teller, Ronald Zhang, told me I had no credit rating. He might as well have been telling me I had an arm growing out of my ass. All adding machines, bill counting, computer tapping and office noise came to an instant halt. A collective intake of breath from the bankers as well as the customers drained the building of oxygen. For about 5 seconds I FELT like a man with an arm growing out my ass! But then Ronald proceded to the part of his teller's manual, somewhere at the very bottom, where it said, "In the unlikey event of a customer who has no credit..." and he told me I couldn't get the credit card. He told me I couldn't even get the checking account! I had to start a savings account! His attitude toward me took a decided turn after that. It wasn't haughtiness or superiority because surely a man of my age and obvious intelligence could not exist without credit. And I had told him I was getting the account mostly because HSBC was the only bank that allowed easy money transfer from Asia. He probably thought I was a secret agent or something like that. And I didn't tell him I wasn't. Who knows?????

At any rate, I ended up watching at atdhe.net and using ustream. I was able to watch most of the games I chose. There were brief stoppages due to copyright infringements, sigh and eyeroll, but I had a good night. Not so good in my football pools though. All the guys I sat on the bench had GREAT nights and the guys I played were pretty average. Oh well, at least I got to see some football. How long it'll be before the NFL notices these games slipping through the cracks remains to be seen but hopefully I'll be able to see a few more games this season. If there's a sports fan out there reading this who has a dependable solution to my sports problems in Korea, please help!

Back from civilization

2010-09-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody. I've been back in Korea for a while now trying to get used to the new house, heat and humidity. Not gonna happen. But Chuseok, (Korean Thanksgiving), is almost here and that's generally the time when the weather changes. So I'll have to put up with sleepless nights, (like last night), covered with this slime that is probably half sweat and half humidity, chasing mosquitoes around the house for a little bit longer to save myself the expense of buying an air conditioner.

I'm probably doing the wrong thing since this house has ondol heating, (that's Korean floor/water heating, Korean national treasure number 112), and I've had nothing but bad experiences with that. It's just a big water heater that heats water and sends it through pipes in the floor. The pipes get clogged over the years, (and this is an OLD house), so you have to have the thing going full blast to get some areas heated. That way your house either gets super hot, (and costs you a ton of money), or the pipes all freeze, and cost you a ton of money to thaw out. You can never turn it off or the pipes freeze and cost you a ton of money to thaw out. Most, (like mine), have the boiler either outside the house or in a room that isn't heated and when THAT part of the water pipe system freezes, you have to thaw it out and it costs... And the day after I moved in here the landlady, (who is a cute, old ajjumma who has already told me she's surprised that I can cook and that I'm not married), called the boiler repair guy to get the water heater fixed. So that's probably not good either.

I just have a little electric heater and it was all I used last winter. This place is a bit larger than my dorm room so I would probably be fine with the little heater plus the air con/heater. As it is now my house is inexplicably 5-10 degrees warmer than it is outside at all times even though I'm constantly blowing outside air in with fans and leaving the windows and door open. Maybe it'll still be hotter than outside when winter comes and I won't need to use the ondol at all. Or, and this is more likely if you know anything about my adventures in Korea, maybe in winter my house will be 5-10 degrees COLDER than outside. But who knows? Maybe this is the one ondol heater in the country that's any good. Ha ha ha. It's dangerous for me to think positively like that, but I still do, as you will see as you keep reading.

So here's what happened while I was away: I got to the airport in Incheon with my round trip ticket to Vancouver and back to Incheon but I wasn't sure if my multiple re-entry permit had expired or not. Turned out it had so I asked the immigration officer for a new one. This costs about 50 bucks. She says to me, "Your work visa expires soon after you will be coming back. Why don't you just give me your alien card now and return as a visitor. You automatically get a 6-month visitor visa." I was confused. An immigration officer using discretion to save me 50 bucks. I just KNEW I should have been skeptical. I asked if that would be possible being a tourist while I still had a valid work visa. I asked about my bank account. I said that a person can't start a bank account without the alien card, will I be able to do my banking? And I mentioned that there are all kinds of other things that a non-Korean person can't do without an alien card but she assured me that there would be no problems.

I have raved on and on here about immigration officers in this country and their complete incompetence. I may be wrong. They may actually be very knowledgeable about the "rules" that are flying around this country willy nilly changing like Oprah's weight. They might just be enjoying themselves causing us foreign devils trouble. And maybe while they are faking apologetic behaviour as we rave at them for being such blockheads, just maybe after we leave the immigration offices around the country where they all regularly "screw up", they go to the break rooms and say, "Did you see that big one with the beard? I thought his face was gonna explode! Ha ha ha ha ha..." or some things like that. I'm really starting to wonder.

So anyway, I had a VERY enjoyable time in Canada. If you like you can see some pics and a little history of my trip on facebook. The photo album is called "summer 2010". But since this is a blog mostly concerned with Korea, we'll skip to the end when it was time for me to go back to Korea. I was told in the Vancouver Airport that my return ticket to Korea was no good. I instantly thought that maybe the travel agent who sold me the ticket had cashed it in while I was on vacation. It has happened before. Just recently the guy I used to deal with sold a pile of tickets to foreigners at vacation time, cashed them in while they were on vacation, closed up shop and disappeared leaving a lot of people stranded. A very "cunning" Korean business move. But that wasn't the problem. This time. The lady at check-in told me I needed some proof of my intentions in Korea. I said to her that I was going back as a tourist, what proof could I show, a camera and a flowery shirt? No she said I needed a return ticket. I wasn't about to purchase aNOTHER ticket back to Canada, which I wouldn't use, and because of some other lies I had been told by various Koreans, I didn't even have enough money to buy one!

Let's expand on that shall we? A long time ago when I started the bank account I have now, in 2004, it was still okay for a visitor to Korea to get an international bank card. You know, one where the Cirrus or Maestro or whatever logos that are on the card, are actually functional. All cards and all machines in Korea have those symbols but they aren't all international. They are now mostly just for show. So people think Korea is getting more international instead of actually getting LESS international, which is the case. Anyhoo, soon after I got my card, which really WAS international, (I used it in Canada, Thailand, the Philippines and probably Japan), there was one of these new laws instituted for the purposes of making things tougher for foreigners that stupidly disallowed these foreign bank cards. I say "stupidly" because the usurious exchange rates and service charges banks tack on for actually using the cards overseas must more than offset any fraud that Korean bankers don't trust us foreigners not to commit. Which was the stated reasoning behind this new rule. I'm pretty sure I was charged over 40 bucks for every transaction I made from Thailand last time I was there. And you don't even want to know the exchange rate! The banks are losing money on this no doubt in my mind.

I tried to protect that card for as long as I could. I even tried to get a new non-international card to use in Korea while I still had the real international card. You should have seen the teller when I tried to do that. She actually tried to snatch my international card out of my hand at one point. They did everything they could to convince me to surrender it. Including lying to me saying they could issue me a new international card. I called my Korean friend April, who works at a bank and she told me they were lying and to keep the card because they can't retroactively disallow my international priveleges. Well unfortunately because of wear and tear, the card broke and became unusable. I went to my bank and with a Korean "friend" there with me, (a guy who works for Seokang College and has known me since 2004), my bank issued me a replecement card and my "friend" and the teller swore up and down that it would work in other countries. I tried it in Canada and Japan and, big surprise, they lied.

But I had expected that. My secondary source of income while in Canada was going to be my pension. I went to the pension office in Gwangju before going home and was assured that my pension would be transfered to my Canadian account within a couple days of their receipt of my bank account information. They even showed me how much pension money I had built up. I tried to send them my information from Vancouver the day I got to Canada and started my new account. The fax number I had been given was not working. I also tried to scan it and send it to an email address the guy at the office gave me but that didn't work either because they are STILL waiting for Seokang College to submit my pension money. Before I left I went to the labour office and they actually CALLED Seokang and talked to my supervisor who said, (need I say he was lying), that Seokang was going to pay my severance pay at the end of my contract. The end of my contract was the 17th of August. Still no severance pay. They also assured me before I left that my pension was going to be available about a month after the end of my WORKING period with them. That was mid June. Another lie. I STILL have not received my pension or my severance. In fact when I got back to Korea I talked very briefly with my supervisor Penis, I mean Peter, while giving him back the keys to my office and room. He said that my pension wouldn't be available till the end of September. I said, "Don't forget the severance either," and he gave me his best Fat Tony impression, "What is severance?"

You know Fat Tony from the Simpsons? "I guess you don't know anything about those truckloads of cigarettes that were hijacked, do you Fat Tony?" "What are cigarettes? What are trucks?" I think he's supposed to sound like Joe Montegna's character in Godfather III, Joey Zaza.

So I'll probably have to go back to Gwangju to the labour office and have them call Seokang College AGAIN and inform them that it is the law to pay a month's severance upon the completion of a one-year contract. They didn't pay it to me last year or in 2005; they didn't pay it to Kasia the 6 years she taught there; and they still don't want to pay it to me. I think Cock, I mean Penis, I mean Peter just keeps my severance money every year. Him and Jung and probably director Park go out for food karaoke and singing hoes once a year on the foreign teachers. Unbeknownst to us.

But back to Vancouver. What I ended up doing was talking to a guy who had obviously had stuff like this happen before. He said he hated the Koreans who invented this rule where they fine the airlines for letting people fly into Korea without tickets out. Ahhhh so THAT'S their angle! And sure enough people at immigration in Japan and Korea both made sure I had a ticket out. Air Canada would have been fined otherwise. It's a harmless scam. Nobody gets hurt. Well, except the foreigners. Bonus! So what I had to do was buy a ticket from Korea to Japan. That was the cheapest the guy could find. I asked for one to Fukuoka since if I had landed the job at Nam Seoul I would have had to fly to Japan on a work visa run anyway. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the ticket. And, of course, since the cheapest ticket you can get is GONNA be non-refundable, (which I think should be illegal), I just paid 240 dollars for a lie some bitch told me at the immigration office at the Incheon Airport. Well you can bet that the second I got back to Incheon Airport I - did absolutely nothing. I wouldn't have been able to get a refund for the ticket. They wouldn't have paid me for the worker's "mistake." Nobody would have learned a thing. They are STILL getting people to surrender their alien cards and come back on visitor visas. All that would have happened is I would have been the red-faced irate foreigner who amused the workers at immigration Incheon making them feel a little superior and giving them a little entertainment to break up their boring days. Fuck them. Didn't give them the satisfaction.

So as you can guess by now I left my job at Seokang. I moved to a new house in Pyeongtaek and am all set up for 6 months. Bought some furniture, got the internet paid for the whole deal. I'm here because there's a school nearby called Nam Seoul University. I know three guys who teach there and they all say it's a great school. A great school! After only 10 years of searching this place I've found it! So I figure a little 6-month hiatus won't be too bad. One of the guys who worked there, Chad, said they'd jump at the chance to hire me with my vast experience here and that they were looking to hire somebody. They want people with Masters' but they have people working there without them. So I got back and went to Nam Seoul in person to give them my resume. WITH one of the guys I know who works there named John. They took my papers and told me that they were no longer looking for anyone. But then just about a week ago, a couple days before the September 1st start to the semester, I got a call. The lady on the other end of the phone said she was from Nam Seoul U. and wanted to know if I had a Masters. I said no but told her about my experience. She then asked me for a reference from my previous employer. So I said I could send her one if she texted me her email. She said someone would send me an email and I could just send it to that address. I am STILL waiting for that email. And I tried phoning the number that she called from but the number is no longer in service.

OINK! Do these people doing the hiring call teachers using burners or what? A burner is a disposable cell phone. Called "burners" in Mafia Wars because they're popular with mafia members due to their untraceability. I suppose that's the attraction to hirers here in Korea too. Anyway, yesterday I was out with Sam, another guy I know who works there and he told me that around that time all the workers were expecting their hours to go down because they had been told there would be another person hired but the teachers were suddenly told, "Nope, you're working the hours you're scheduled for." It would have been very nice of them to inform ME of their decision not to hire anybody else too!

I got another tip from Chad for a job at Cheju University. I called them and said Chad sent me. They told me on the phone that they were no longer looking for workers. Yesterday I saw an ad on Dave's ESL Cafe from Cheju University and they are looking for workers. What the hell? Am I scaring people?

Same sort of thing happened with G.I.S.T., a college I taught for last winter. I did a 3-week camp there and loved it. You can see pics from THAT on my facebook page too. So one day in the early summer I was playing tennis with Amber and Andrew, another guy who did the camp and who ended up getting full-time work teaching pronunciation to our camp students. He tells me that they're hiring another person to teach pronunciation. To the students I taught at the camp! Who better than me, right? I applied for the position. I waited until the stated date for interviews had come and gone. I even called the director of the program at G.I.S.T., who I met during the camp, and he said he'd do what he could to help my application. Didn't even get an interview call. But I checked Dave's ESL Cafe yesterday and saw that GIST is going to hire another person to start in October. Had I known that I would have gone back to Canada earlier. Anyways, I called the number on the ad this morning and talked to Hwang Hin Ho, (Triple H will be his nickname if I get a chance to meet him), and he said he remembers me from the camp. He knows the kids liked me and I got great evaluations. Better than Andrew's actually and he works there! I told him I had sent a full application package for the camp and the last ad and asked if he wanted me to send yet another one. He said it wasn't necessary. So I guess that's encouraging, right?

Have you learned nothing from this post? I'd be stupid to even hope for an interview. But, because I AM stupid, I am hopeful. The offer includes a dorm room on campus. I don't want to live in the dorms again so I will keep this place and take the 4-hour train ride home on weekends and holidays I guess. And sleep in the dorms during the week. Or if I don't really like the place, after 6 months I'll find something back in Gwangju. I'll blow up that bridge when I get to it. IF I get to it. I shall let you know, readers...

Interview week for GIST

2010-07-09T00:17:00.000-07:00

I went on a little trip to visit some folks and to see if I couldn't get my face in the door at a couple of prospective places to teach. First I went to see Kasia in Weonju. She had had baby Clovis Jr. a week before so I wanted to be one of the first to meet the little guy. He's cute. Long, wiry, strong arms and legs. And his hair is awesome. Made me jealous. I think he liked me. He usually went to sleep when I held him. Or just looked around quietly. He's a quiet baby. We went for a walk in a nearby park, Kasia, CJ, Caroline,(Kasia's friend), Jelly Bean, (Kasia's dog), and I. I'd say we strolled around for over an hour and he never made a peep.

Kasia is in the midst of planning a trip home to the States so her family can meet CJ too and it has been a logistical nightmare for her! Clovis Sr., (Kasia's hubby and CJ's Dad), wasn't even there when I visited. He was in China having his own little nightmare. Lost his wallet of all things. Then somehow Kasia misplaced her passport while I was there. I only stayed the one day because I figured Kasia had a lot more important stuff on her plate than entertaining me. But it was nice to see the two of them.

Then I went over to Pyeongtaek to visit with Scott, Minju, Alex and Justin. Their breakfast restaurant is doing great. And now they have a little bit more free time to visit. We spent July 4th on base at Camp Humphries. It was open to the public and we didn't have to be signed on by a soldier as is usually the case. It was nice to spend the day in America! I got to go into a Bradley armored troop transport unit, (not supposed to call it a tank I was told), and even put on the headware, stuck my head out the top and said, "Okay show me something to blow up!" It was riDONKulously hot and humid on the day but other than that it was fun. I was looking forward to a concert later in the evening Hoobastank was supposed to be putting on. I like their song, "The Reason." And they do some quality song writing for EA Sports hockey games too. I went to the archery demonstration with Alex and we both got to shoot some arrows. I shot 4 and got a piece of the bull on the last one thank you very much. Although the first one missed completely and I don't know of any game or enemy who will wait around for an assailant to fire four arrows at it. So I am not quite up to snuff as yet.

The base pool is awesome! Unfortunately I didn't have a swimsuit or a change of clothes so I just sat in the table area and watched while the others swam. I also had a beer. And that was the first time all day I stopped sweating. So I cooled off with everyone else. Alex and Justin looked cute in their swimming attire. I had a nice chat with Minju and Alex's wife. I am not sure of her name or their baby's. After that we started the mini-putt, (Scott, Alex and I), and we were joined by big Alex on about the fourth hole. It was a really great course! LOTS of water! I'd say we were on about hole number 12 when the fireworks started. Since the miniputt area was among the best for viewing, a throng of people invaded our course! It was pretty hard to get people to move or even stop their kids from picking up our balls. By the end of the fireworks show the lights went out anyway so we had to quit before we finished. But I want a rematch. I wanted to stay on base and see the concert and maybe enjoy some of the barbecue I'd been smelling all day long. The ribs looked, and smelled especially succulent. But we found out that Hoobastank wasn't going to show up so we went to a little gathering at the apartment of a helicopter pilot/church friend of Scott's and Alex's named Sam. Who better to visit on July 4th than Uncle Sam? I felt uncomfortable in my sweaty, stinky clothes but the folks were nice and the air con was wonderful! And Sam's wife, (whose name I also forget), is a great baker. I had a brownie there that knocked my socks off!

It wasn't long after that we all piled into the subway and went to Seoul on a little bit of a research/book buying trip. Alex needed some textbooks and Scott wanted to get some ideas for restaurant expansion. We looked around Kyobo Bookstore and then the I Tae Won district. I used to live there so I figured I knew a little that would help. But SOOO much has changed! I didn't realize how long it had been since I'd been there. New places going up, old places being torn down. This is what happens in your old age I guess.

One thing I was happy to see unchanged was my favourite place, Woodstock. I called up Mr. Woo and told him I'd come by for a visit. The boys had fun whipping balls all over the pool table, and the floor, and Justin gave a virtuoso performance on the drums. I was having a little too much fun to go home with the Jacksons on the subway. It's just a long, boring time standing. So I stayed and caught up with a few friends I hadn't seen in ages in I Tae Weon. Next day I went back to Pyeongtaek on a compfortable bus. Slept most of the way.

The day after that I decided to go to Pyeongtaek University and look around. I had mailed in an application package about a week earlier and I thought if I could meet the people in charge of the English program it'd give me a better idea of what kind of place it was. It could also score me some points for keenness. I got there a little before noon and the place was absolutely deserted. Even information kiosks had nobody manning, (or womaning), them. So I just walked around. All the buildings were unlocked but conditions could be best described as post-apocalyptic around campus. So I found a few unmanned, (or womaned), computers, sat at one and brought up the employment ad. I found a number on the ad for more information about the job. I called and the guy who answered said he couldn't understand English. On an English ad for an English teacher you give a number of a guy who doesn't speak English. This may seem odd but it is the norm here. I thought nothing of it. There was also an email address on the ad and it was someone's name. On a hunch I spoke the name into the phone and the guy gave me her number in Korean numbers. I called it hoping my Korean number translation had been correct and it was a lady this time who DID speak English though it was pretty deep into the phone call before I confirmed that. She answered, "Yoposayo." I said, "Hi, I applied for a job in the English department here at Pyeontaek U. and since I was in town anyway I stopped by the campus today. I am on campus now. Are you?" She paused a long time before saying, "Yes. Where did you get this number?" I explained how the other guy was happy to give me ANYthing so he could get off the phone and stop speaking English. Though I think I just said, "I got it through the contact from the ad on Dave's ESL Cafe." Then I continued, "I'm on campus and if it's not too much trouble could I ask a few questions about the job and the English department." She said, "No." I said, "Oh. Are you busy now?" You have to understand there was absolutely nothing going on and NOBODY working at the place. She was ANYthing but busy. She goes, "What kind of questions did you want to ask?" I said, "You know the usual questions about class sizes, accomodations, student levels maybe look at a classroom, things like that." She then says, "There were 90 applicants for the position and their papers have all been sent to the selection committee." I said, "Yes, I sent in an application package." She FINALLY asked, "What is your name?" So I introduced myself so that she would recognize my application package. She was firm about not allowing me to go to the English department though. And I never did.

This sort of experience sets off all kinds of warning alarms for me because if things are like this when I am working there, it'll make for a long year. I got a distinctly familiar feeling from Pyeongtaek University and that is exactly what I'm NOT looking for. I'm not really sure if I helped or hurt my chances of getting the job but I am now not sure it matters. It might not be the greatest place in the world to work.

So it's now back to hoping GIST will do the right thing and hire me. I am back at my room in the Seokang Dorm breathing in fumes as we speak. When I got home after being away less than a week, there were about a bazillion ants on the floor. So before I even unpacked I had to spray down the entire floor, then wash it with soap and bleach. That still didn't kill the Raid fumes though and I breathed them in all night long. The bathroom contruction/destruction had progressed marginally in the time I had been away. They had poured cement on the floors of the bathrooms they'd dug up with the jackhammers. As luck would have it I have arrived home precisely on the day when they covered the cement with sealant. Now I'm breathing in THOSE fumes.

While I was away Peter, my supervisor here, sent me a message that he wanted to meet. I told him I was out of town. Then he sent another saying, "I think we should talk about closing your working with us." So I told him I'd be back in a couple of days and I'd call him. I think I know what's coming. He's going to try to get me out of the dorms and maybe try to get out of the contract early. I'm not going to let that happen of course. I will stay here until the end of the contract, (end of August), or until I move, whichever comes first. Also, I have the address of the Gwangju labour board and I'm going to get them to pay me severance. They didn't pay it my first year here but I didn't mind because they treated me nice. The past two years were something altogether different so I'm going to get my severance pay from them even if I have to go to the labour board. And if I do, I just might bring along the ACTUAL marks of students in my classes and tell them that if they are compared to the final grades they'd be VERY different in most programs here. I'm not sure the labour board can do anything about that but I WILL mention that I was asked several times to change the grades myself, sign the phony grades etc. None of which I did, but these kinds of labour standards and practices, (asking your workers to break the law), are probably frowned upon. If Seokang isn't fined, at least the labour board will demand a huge bribe not to report the findings. Either way heads just might roll around here when the owner has to pay the fine or bribe and I think I know which heads they will be.

But I'm not sure I'm gonna do that yet. Depends how things go when I meet with Peter. I'm not yet ready to put any faith in a Korean government agency. I may not even be able to get help from the labour board getting my severance. It'd be nice if all this could be avoided but that's just not the route they have chosen these past two years. I'll keep you updated.

Ah, summer in Korea!

2010-06-26T19:33:00.000-07:00

It looks like I won't have the choice of working back at Seokang where I work now. I've been told they won't be re-contracting me here. As I said I really doubted I'd be back even if they DID want to re-sign me because of the problems I have had. If you haven't been reading my blog, let me give you a very clear idea of what I mean. My supervisor, who I call Peter, (although his name is Na Ki Duk), was the one to tell me the bad/good news, in his own ultra Korean way, that they don't want me any more. Here's the message he TEXTED me: "Before next week's official notice I hope you have time to arrange your new place to work ASAP. Thank you for working with us for last two years. Good luck!"

First of all there was no official notice for anything. He is just doing what they have always tried, and failed, to do with me: treat me like a well-trained Korean who would fall for this shit. He's trying to make me think that there is some kind of official notice to force me out of my room in the dorm within a week or "ASAP," whichever comes first. So I text back, "What "official" notice are you talking about? I am under contract till the end of August." He texts back "I am in Philippines now. I will contact you on June 30 in Gwangju." So I text back, "And what new place of work? You are saying I gave you notice to quit without my knowledge?" He texts, "Right.We will not make a new contract with you. Sorry."

It's June 27th and I got that message four days ago. I suppose I am expected to clear outta here by the end of the month to make room for my replacement, no doubt a dirt cheap "teacher" from the Philippines. That's what they tried to do LAST time they got rid of me and THAT time it crashed and burned. Probly will again.

BUT they didn't want me going without having a little more fun with me before I left. Two days ago I stayed up late to watch stupid soccer. Two offensively talented teams, Portugal and Brazil, going at it so I thought it would be one game I could watch without falling asleep. Final score 0-0. Then the next morning after only a couple hours of sleep, I get woken up by jackhammering right outside my room. And it goes on and on and on all day long! They are taking out the tile floors of the bathroom and shower areas, right outside my door, and I suppose putting in new stuff. It's not just the jackhammering that would have been nice to have been warned of, it's the fact that they turned off the cold water. This means I can't shower, do laundry or flush my toilet. I still have water from the hot water side that is scorching hot when the hot water is on and cold when it's off. So I have to fill a big pot with water to pour into the can after I drop a deuce. It's Sunday today and Korea played, and lost, last night in World Cup so there are no workers here today. There is still no change in my water situation and I'm guessing tomorrow, early, the jackhammerers will be back and who knows when I'll have laundry and shower priveleges again?

I thought of typing, "But at least they haven't shut down my internet yet!" But that would be foolish wouldn't it? If this entry has an abrupt ending, it's Murphy, or his Korean equivalent, "Muppy", at it again.

Other job prospects have been pursued. This past week was stated as interview week for Yeungnam University. I was notified by them that I would be given my interview time and place during the week. I waited all week and received nothing. This may appear disheartening but it's nothing out of the ordinary around here. They are most likely waiting for a guy with 16 Doctorate degrees to decide he hasn't been getting enough kimchi in his diet and that his students somewhere back in the educational first world, are too responsive to proper teaching methodology to pose any kind of professional challenge to him. Sometime around the end of August when places like Yeungnam realize that this guy doesn't exist and decide to settle for far superior teachers with less wall paper, I'll get another notification from them telling me how things were very hectic in June and they appologize for losing touch.

My REAL hope is for a job I've applied for at Gwangju Institute of Science and Tech. GIST. That's where I did the winter camp this past January. One of the guys I worked with at the camp, Andy, is the only teacher in their new freshman English program. They are looking for another to work with him. Since I've already met my prospective supervisors, co-worker, and students, AND LIKED THEM, I think this would be a great job for me. Here's hoping they aren't holding out for Doctor 16!

I will be called for interview/teaching sample sometime starting July 8th. If I get the job I'll be notified by July 23rd. That'll be enough time for me to move my junk and still make it home to Canada for my 25th grad reunion on July 30th. If I don't get the GIST job, and haven't found something else as a back-up plan, I think I just might pack everything up and ship it home. I really think I need a couple more years here in Korea before I have enough money saved to move home for good but I may not have that, cough cough, luxury.

And speaking of luxury, I think I'll find a cheap hotel for the night so I can have a shower and a shit. Maybe find a laundromat too. Ah, Korea in the summer time!

Long Time No E

2010-06-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

Wow! I guess this is what happens when you try to juggle TWO blogs, a job, a wife, 3 kids, a couple dogs, a coaching position and a role as advisor to the minister of education. Even when most of them are made up! It's been a while!

I started an entry but actually got too depressed about it to finish it! It was about the underwater geyser of oil in the gulf. 40,000 gallons a day! That kills me! I don't know how long it takes them to reach the depth they're at but it seems to me the smartest solution would be to drill another hole into the deposit, with bigger pipe, (and this time one that is controlled), and the flow into the gulf would be either limited or stopped completely. Surely they could have reached the deposit by now with a second hole!

With everything from garbage plugs to Aquaman commanding sea creatures to suicidally swim into the hole en masse being discussed as solutions it's strange that I haven't heard this suggestion. It could be that it takes a long time; it could be that they don't have big enough rods; it could be the fear that a bigger hole would make the original hole suck salt water into the deposit and contaminate the re$t of the depo$it; I don't know. But there are probably plenty of rea$on$ why that ha$n't been done.

I don't wanna talk about that though. The greed of some human beings sickens me.

There have been other things happening that are blogworthy. First and foremost I have finished another semester of teaching here. I still have to hand in the final grades and finalize the attendance but my classroom work is done. I'm planning a visit to Canada. But I don't want to go until I have an idea of what I'll be doing HERE when I get back.

I would consider another year at Seokang IF they provide me with off campus housing or a monthly housing allowance. In talking with Maris and Erin, the other guy and girl I work with, (respectively), I found out that Maris has a 400,000 won/month housing allowance. Okay, he does have a masters degree in music and the whole point of us being at this place is to legitimize its existence. Now not only can Seokang student recruiters say they have actual TEACHERS working at this place, (to make it appear like it's a school), but they can say they have a guy with a MASTERS degree! Wallpaper draws a lot of water in these here parts. His masters is in music. If he were teaching music, or musical ESL or English through Gilbert and Sullivan, then okay, maybe he deserves the housing allowance I've been prostrate in supplication for lo this past score and a dozen moons... but he's not. He's doing the same stuff I've been doing for three years longer than him. And there is a distinct learning curve with this place. It's not your average sham school where people are level tested to be sure they can handle a class taught in English, it's bring us your poor, your huddled masses, your DEAF, and we will teach them conversation in a foreign language. Well, not "we", some foreign folks will. With foreign degrees! Really! They can do it! This piece of paper is proof! And the parents say, "Well, since you have proof..." and fork over an obscene amount of cash. Very little of which goes to the earner of that piece of paper, I might add.

New teachers are always shocked to see the average English level here. It's such a shock because by their 20th year here EVERY Korean has been exposed to at least 10 years of English study. It is nigh onto impossible for them to emerge so Shadrach Meshach and Abednego unscathed from THAT fiery furnace! But, here we are at Seokang teaching these miracles the basics. Erin told me in her 2nd or 3rd week that she went over all the verb tenses. I'm sure she did, but I'm also sure her students didn't learn them. I covered present tense, (what do you like?, what do you do?, how often do you...?), and present progressive, (what are you doing?). I touched on future with a palm reading exercise and a dice rolling fill-in-the blanks sort of mad lib but in 16 weeks, 32 hours of class time, I couldn't finish future tense with my students. Maris told me he did pretty much the same amount as me. Good for him! He's learning fast. Next semester we'll make things even easier. That's how it goes around here. By the end of next year, if I stay, I'll be teaching the alphabet and phonics.

To be fair, I'm only talking about some of the programs here. This session it was my Thursday classes - the hotel cooking program. The worst I've ever taught. Last semester it was the same. I honestly don't know where they dig them up! There are other programs like the EMT program. Word to the wise: if you are in an accident don't even bother trying to communicate in English with the people who come in the ambulance. But there are GOOD programs here too! This semester and last my superstars were the Physical Therapy program. Everybody does their homework EVERY week. They threw me birthday parties and teachers day parties. To give you an idea, the other day I was writing something on the board while teaching how to describe the way people look. I was asked a question, (which is something else they do and the cookers don't), and by mistake I wrote "glassed" instead of "glasses" on the board. A student pointed it out and I corrected it before class finished but, bless their hearts, about a dozen people wrote "He is wearing glassed." on the final exam. I didn't deduct marks.

If ever I have a semester without the good to offset the bad here, I think I'll go insane. And I predict those days are coming. Classes are going to get larger and academic standards will probably decrease in the good programs rather than increase in the bad ones. For this reason and, as you know, the stupid dorm situation, I have been looking for other employment. Just testing the waters for now but it could be a moving year. A couple places have already shown some interest.

And things are happening with the Tigers too. That's the main reason I haven't posted here. I'm busy with my Kia Tiger blog. And I've been trying to watch as many Tiger games as possible. And going to the games has provided me with some pretty good blog fodder as well.

Gwangju is known in Korea, by Koreans, as sort of a deep south. You know what I mean if you're American. A kind of banjo playing, squeal like a pig, hicksville. I dunno, maybe it's the heat. People from Gwangju are not well known for their subtlety. They're loud, brash, in-your-face kind of folks. I've always taken that as a kind of endearing honesty. But it's changing. Yesterday while walking to the game a busload of kids opened up their windows and hit me with a barrage of nationalism. As I've said before here, the difference between "I love Korea" and "I hate every other nation in the world" is ignorance. There are military, economic and probably many other advantages to training a people to be ignorant. It's on the INcrease in Korea despite their claims of globalization. And nowhere is it more obvious than in Gwangju.

At first accosters act like they are being nice to you by saying "Hi," because they want you to respond. The whole mooing at a cow phenomenon. But after they get the HILARIOUS response of, "Hello," or if you completely ignore them, they get to the true purpose of the confrontation: making fun of the foreigner and/or making the foreigner feel uncomfortable is hilarious and will make you not only look like a comedian to your friends, (no matter how stale and unoriginal your technique), it will also make you look like a good Korean. It is my opinion, (it's blatantly obvious in some cases), that this phenomenon figures greatly in the problems I have with the cooking classes as well.

Anyway, these little bastards were hiding behind their window curtains yelling obscenities at me for quite some time while their bus was stopped at a light and I walked by. I don't know if it was a school bus or some kind of private function but the teachers or leaders weren't putting a stop to it. Maybe they were proud at the nationalism of their charges. Or maybe they were yukking it up with them, passing along some good English zingers to try.

You might think I'm misreading things or I'm paranoid or just tired of Koreans. Or maybe you might think that in their ignorance they don't know they're being impolite at the low end or absolute racist pricks at the top end. It's not at all the case. I know this because it only happens when they are in groups and when they are in the safety of a bus or far enough away that I won't go over and kick asses. The other day I was about 100 yards from my door, (every time I leave my room, folks), on the way to the Tigers game wearing my Tigers cap and jersey and I was texting a friend telling her I was on my way to the ballpark, when some jackass says for the benefit of his friends, "Kia Tiger. Niceu pashion seu tyle!" (nice fashion style) I had lost sight of my phone screen and right after he said this I stopped so that I could get a better look at the message I was sending. The kids, who were I'd say high school age, thought I stopped to confront their asshole friend. So suddenly I hear, "Oh sorry sorry!" and some scurrying to get to that safe distance away from the foreigner they had angered.

Being a large target, accosting ME also makes these buggers look tough to their simple-minded friends. I have to constantly remind myself that it is all part of their training and not really their fault. But I'm not sure how long I'll be able to hold out.

Anyway, on the same day I encountered the busload of patriots, I got to the stadium and it was suspiciously empty. I went directly to my usual seat and wondered why there were so few people. Unfortunately even though there were entire rows of empty seats a group of already lit up folks sat right on top of ME. This one guy was their spokesman and he started soju-slurring some Korean that I probably wouldn't have understood had he been sober. He shook my hand with his dark brown, rock-hard partial right hand, which was missing the tips of Peter Pointer and Toby Tall, squeezing MUCH harder than necessary and holding the shake about twice as long as he should have. Then he looked around for prospective translators asking people if they spoke English because what he had to tell me was, to him, quite urgent to impart. The couple directly behind us waved their hands and said that they don't speak English at all. Eventually we agreed to speak Korean and I understood that he had met me in 2009 at a game and we had drunk beer together. I usually drink at ball games although recently I have been taking medicine for my annual summer sweat rash. Oh that reminds me: have to take my pill. Only two more and I can drink beer again.

So after he had established our lengthy friendship he decided to give me a beer. I refused and explained to him that I was taking medicine for my skin. He badgered and prodded and poked and pressured and encouraged me to relent but I held firm. So he brought up some soju and told me that it was made in the area that his family is from. Again I politely refused. So he introduced his wife to me and pointed out his 15-year-old daughter who was still in her middle school uniform and sitting several seats askance. He then introduced his two buddies, both of whom were also well tanned and had weathered skin and firm, calloused handshakes. He never did introduce the large-eyed toddler with thinning hair in a pony tail that originated from the top of her head and was cropped by a pink bow, and the white, Samsung credit card balloon tied to her wrist.

He then asked me my age. Having been in this country as long as I have I am completely desensitized to the question and immediately answered. He was two years older than me, which made him "Hyeong," meaning older brother, and just in case that meant a damn to me he and his cohorts embarked upon a fresh salvo of soju suggestions. In Korean drinking culture the younger MUST drink at the behest of the older even if you have good reason not to. I have had students with alcohol allergies who were forced to drink at school, family, social or company get-togethers. I was not put off in the least by their persistence admittedly because I was proud that I had met a Korean of similar age who actually looked older than me. It is most often the other way around. Maybe soju preserves people...

By the time the game started the group had relented to only occasional alcohol pushing and seemed satisfied that I accepted a few pieces of chicken from them. Even THAT I had to put a stop to though. However, it became aparent to me that the baby's balloon presented an obstacle to my view of home plate and the batters. I didn't want to seem ungrateful and ask them to do something about it although I'm sure they would have cut the balloon loose at some point of the string or the baby's apendage to be hospitable to me. So I decided to move a few seats to the other side of my old friend toward the wife and middle school aged daughter who were in the row directly below us on the homeplate side of the opaque, white balloon. The couple in the seats behind had done the same.

This solved my line of sight dilemma but it seemed to be taken as a slight by my soju swilling old friend. He went rather silent after this. On the other hand, the mother became the focal point of the soju shenanigans. A slight trickle of rain started to fall. The mother made a big show of rushing to the concession stand and purchasing a 1000 won white, plastic raincoat for the middle school student. Not to have her maternal instincts outdone by anyone in the crowd, she took her two yellow, plastic, noisemaking tubes called "thundersticks" and used them to shelter her already covered daughter from the elements by holding them above her head. An extra white raincoat was bought by the man but he had to do his fatherly duty and outlast the elements and the mother had to be a pelicanesque sacrificial nurturer to her daughter so the extra raincoat lay open and getting wet on the inside sprawled across two empty seats. A pelican will peck at her chest to draw blood upon which her babies can feed.

All this time the baby, unprotected by rain gear of any sort, had climbed up on the mother's back several times and was shaken around as Mommy was dancing and cheering for the Tigers. More than once she was jarred loose as Mommy sat down or stumbled. Once the baby landed in MY row and her feet were caught between the cement where she had landed and her mother's seat. To make matters worse she had bumped her head on the seat in my row a couple seats away. I tried to help the little girl but her mother immediately pushed my hands away and began pulling her screaming baby who she must have thought had gained a thousand pounds or so. Soon several surrounding fans began yelling over the babies screams to the mother that the baby's foot was caught. A Korean guy from a few rows down was allowed to dislodge the infant. The woman scooped it up, pulled up one side of her jacket and began breast feeding it.

If you've been to Moodeung Stadium you'd know that there is no way to avoid contact with people in front of you. They are pretty much sitting between your legs if you are of average adult, western size, which I am. I may be wrong but during the times when she was intermittantly breast feeding, the wife seemed to rub her elbow against my leg more often than usual. And even though I was intently watching the ball game, I got a couple very clear boob shots. Too clear to be unintentional it seemed to me. I'm not even gonna say she had a bad rack, but for the sake of manners I moved farther down the row. Now the group was SURE I was dissing them. It wasn't long before they left without saying goodbye to me.

I was now directly behind an attractive, university-aged girl with a massive umbrella. Again my vision was impaired. So I moved even farther in. It wasn't long before some guy with a big Kia Tigers flag began waving it directly between me and home plate! I couldn't believe it! So I move UP one row and ended up standing beside the couple who spoke no English at all. Before long we were watching in the pouring rain. It tends to scare all but the real fans away. And it brings the real fans closer together. It turned out that the couple's names were Joon and Joon. We introduced ourselves and had a good game together communicating our favourite players, baseball strategies, high fiving when Kia scored and just chatting together - in Korean AND English.

It would almost seem anti-climactic to tell the story about the guy directly behind me who had a siezure at a game last week and how I physically pushed two girls off of him. They figured it was necessary to push really hard on the guy's face to protect him from the siezure I guess.

Sigh. Oink.

Another Dave's Top Ten

2010-05-07T05:44:00.000-07:00

Last few entries I've been Mr. Buzzkill. Time to accentuate the positive a little bit. So here we go with ten things that are going pretty good for me right now. They're really not in order so pay no attention to the numbers.

10. I just poured myself a glass of Crown Royal and Coke. It's nice to have a taste of Canada now and then. It's hard to find Crown Royal in these here parts but I got some last time I visited Scott and Minju and I think I'll pick up another bottle when I visit them next time.

9. That'll probably be the Buddha/Alex Birthday weekend. Buddha's Birthday is Friday the 21st and Alex's birthday is Sunday the 23rd. And I'm looking forward to a beer and wing night at Bacon And Eggs, (Scott and Minju - proprietors). And maybe we can go the whole day without checking the hockey scores and watch the games that were played at 8 in the morning that day. Do a mini hockey pool for the game. That'll really be cool! Especially if the Canucks are still in the playoffs by then.

8. Speaking of the Canucks, they have about the strongest team they've had the whole time I've been in Korea and THIS is the first year I've really been able to watch them. I wake up every morning to watch the NHL playoffs. Or, (like today), am woken up by some guy smoking outside my window who hears me snoring and hammers on my window to wake me up. Heh heh. That sounds negative doesn't it? Well it was nice of him to show concern for the health of my throat and vocal chords. Who knows, maybe I stopped breathing and he was waking me up to save my life. It's a possibility. And the nice thing was, I would have been awakened by the smell of his cigarette anyway so being shocked awake and bolting upright in my bed was only slightly less pleasant. Uh, he DID wake me up at 8 AM, right when the games started. So I had that goin for me. Anyhoo, haven't missed many games yet. And when I have to work or something, I just watch the game from the archive. It's nice to have NHL Gamecenter!

7. I can also do that with the Blue Jays this year! I haven't watched many games yet because hockey is more important but once hockey's done I got MLBTV from the Jacksons for my birthday so I can watch a LOT of baseball. It's in the mornings too but if I have enough bandwidth I can watch the archived games.

6. I downloaded a spyware killing program today that seems to have gotten rid of a lot of the bugs that were slowing my computer down. Now with the little bandwidth I have I may be able to watch baseball games again.

5. If not, the semester is hastening to a close. I looked at my calendar today and realized because of Seokang sports week this week and its anniversary May 20th, I only teach the Thursday classes 3 more times! And the one class will be notebook/homework check and giving a review, (telling them the answers), for the test. That means I'm really only going to have to teach them 2 1/2 more lessons! YEEHAW! And when all the students are gone from the dorms I get more bandwidth! So I can watch baseball in HD!

4. The Kia Tigers are on a hot streak! They've won 5 in a row now and if they keep playing like they're playing they'll soon catch up to the Bears and Wyverns at the top. What they're doing is exactly what I've been writing about in my OTHER blog devoted to the Kia Tigers. Running more, stealing more, swinging away, NOT sac-bunting, even the hit-and-run! I was at a game recently with Amber, (my Aussie friend who is really catching the baseball bug here), and the Tigers hit and ran a FEW times! They kicked ass that night too! Scored in almost every inning. That's the way I'd coach this team all the time. I think maybe the coach is reading my blog and now he's gonna take credit for all my baseball wisdom and the way it's paying off. But I don't care. He can have that in exchange for me slaggin' his ass all the time. Heh heh.

3. Summer is still not here. I haven't used my air conditioner yet and have only been visited by a couple moths, ONE mosquito and a hornet. How can I hope to keep mosquitoes out of my room if HORNETS are getting in? I wish I knew how they're getting in here! I'm not gonna jinx things by actually saying that as yet there are no blabbety blabbety blah, but it's unusually late in the year for them to show up.

2. I'll probably be going back to Canada in August for a visit. I still need a year or two more here before I can return for good. I reckon. But I'm hoping to get my banking and storage situations straightened out. That'll be two loads off my mind. And it'll be great to visit friends and family! And to see the "old country." Ha ha. Looking forward to it.

1. I have been a good boy this year. Even with the Canada holiday this will probably be my best year in Korea yet. I've avoided Seoul; tried to save as much as I could; I've kind of hibernated in my room a bit; didn't make any big purchases like a move or a fridge or new golf clubs; and I got lucky with a great winter camp. I'm hoping to find one or two camps this summer to make this year a beauty financially. World financial crisis - shmorld shminancial shmrisis! I'm recession proof!

There. A positive post. Didn't think I could do it, didja?

Wry Face

2010-04-24T13:08:00.000-07:00

Okay kids, the vocabulary word of the day is "wry." Who can tell me what it means? We've all heard of and probably seen a "wry" smile, or a "wry face," but what Webster or Roget amongst you can put it into words? A little lit. for ya, Victor Hugo in Les Miserable said of Paris, "Its hurricanes spring sometimes from a wry face. Its outbursts, its great days, its masterpieces, it's prodigies, its epics fly to the ends of the universe, and so do its cock and bull stories also."

I don't know much about Paris or France, certainly not as much as old Vic did, but I can tell you a little bit about Asia and take it from me it's much the same here. "Wry" can mean dry and mocking. It can be used to describe an expression of disgust, disappointment or mockery. Here is a pretty thorough definition.

As most people know, "face" can have a different meaning when applied to Asia. Saving "face" has historically led to people doing any number of extreme things not excluding suicide. Japanese culture brought us "hari kari" or "seppuku" a ritual suicide that consisted of a person shamed, or a person who has "lost face" plunging a dagger into his/her abdomen in a slicing motion from left to right. It was originally used as part of the Samurai honour code as a way to die an honourable death rather than be killed by one's enemies. But it was also used as a way to make amends for a perceived disgrace.

Korea abounds with stories, (hurricanes? masterpieces? epics?), of businessmen caught in financial scandals killing themselves; students failing to achieve high scores on college entrance exams holding hands and jumping off the school roof; even recently a former president, Roh Moo Hyun throwing himself, (?), off a cliff in what many believe was a suicide due to the allegations that he took 6 million bucks or so in bribes from businessmen while in office. I am skeptical about that one. I believe it could just as easily have been a murder committed by any of the many businessmen exposed by Roh's vigilant fight against corruption that is at the heart of business in Korea but Koreans prefer to memorialize Roh in an honourable way so we won't get into that right now. And as you know if you've read this blog a time or two, I believe this "face" has degenerated into not much more than a great cock and bull story used by "clever" people to lie to, steal from and cheat the not so "clever."

I guess it's because I am in the "education" racket here. Nowhere is "face" more aparent. Now you may be thinking, "Dave, what about the business world?" Well, dear reader, as I've said a thousand times if I've said it once, the very reason I never type the word "education" when referring to what it is the Koreans have here without quotation marks bookending it is because education IS business here. It has been since '45 when the Japanese occupation was brought to an end. At the end of WWII Koreans thirsted for education and they still do. But rather than use that as a way to create a free thinking, well adjusted population, it was perceived as a great demand that could be used to make big bucks. It's hard to blame Korea for this since the country was pretty poor in '45 and since then it has become an economic miracle of sorts. So you can say the approach worked. But where I find fault is the little, if any, progress that has been made educationally since.

This is a huge jump in logic, but it's my blog and I can jump if I want to: I watch a LOT of Korean baseball and one of the biggest differences is the reluctance of scorers to give errors. I saw an absolutely hideous game a few days ago when Kia played LG and both teams were booting balls, throwing wild, missing catches and at the end of the game there were 2 errors on the board when there should have been about 10. "Face" is even made a part of things that are NOT Asian over here. Bunting in Japanese baseball, (and the source of most of my frustration with the Kia Tigers strategy), is done not so much strategically, but as a way to appease fans who expect it. Or so the story goes. If the coach doesn't call a sacrifice bunt with a guy on first and nobody out, it might be perceived as a failure. And nobody fails in Asia.

This brings us back to "education." I can't tell you how many times I've been told to fudge grades and attendance here. It's midterm exam time and I have three Hotel Cooking classes who performed abysmally on their midterms. In class A, (which I call class F), 5/45 passed the midterm. Class B 10/45. Class C 9/45. That's less than 18%of my students who were able to get 50% on their tests. And I was a bit surprised those numbers were so high. This is with an incredibly easy curriculum dumbed WAY down and MASSIVE hints given a few days before the exam virtually telling them what was going to be on it.

I have no doubt that at the end of this session after they have similar results on the final exam I will be presented once again with a list of "amended" grades upon which every student has been magnanimously given no less than 75%, including the ones who never saw the inside of my classroom, and asked, with a wry smile, to sign it. This has always been what I figured would be the death of my career in teaching here in Korea.

Another big jump: What are the currencies of Korea, China and Japan, or at least their Anglicized equivalents respectively? Won, Renminbi, and Yen. Look at the first letters of those currencies and you will see the point of this blog entry. The wryest smile I've seen is from administrators in the various "schools" where I've worked telling me I need to grade on a curve; I need to have a minimum of 10 A's, 10 B's and a maximum of 10 C's; asking or demanding that I sign fraudulent grades or attendance and all because they are trying to save "face" for the students. What a crock of shit! It's all done to increase or maintain enrollment numbers, or what I more accurately refer to as, "recidivism" numbers.

So if ever this post comes to public attention and it is perceived as having cost the Korean "education" system face, do you suppose the Seoul Superintendant of Education, (who is pretty much in charge of everything because he's in charge of the budget and curriculums), will blow his head off to save face? Ha ha. Get it? Blow his head off to save face? I think not. But what would be for more likely is some thugs coming to my room and killing me then leaving a suicide note that says I was shamed by the many false grades I turned in and the crimes of academic fraud I had perpetrated over my years in Korea. This is what caused me to stab myself. In the back. 17 times.

I want you to know I will never commit suicide or do anything drastic like that to "save face." Furthermore I never have, nor will I ever sign the phony grades or attendance I'm continuously asked to sign. And I won't commit any other kind of academic fraud whatsoever. But I guess this post could be altered too.

But if I make it out of Korea before that happens and I return to Canada, (and the day is hastened by the phenomenon of which I write), and I am interviewed by a school for a position most likely as a substitute teacher they might ask me how many years of experience I have. My reply will be something like, "About 15 years, but only the years in Canada really count." You can bet I'll say it with a wry face.

Gods in the machines

2010-04-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I waxed philosophical on yer asses. I guess it's been a while since I've waxed a lot of things. Poetic, romantic, a car, my bikini line... But that's probably because lately I've waxed lethargic.

It's my Thursday classes. They aren't so much peopled with students as succubi and they drain every ounce of life out of me so that by Thursday night I just say, "Calgon, take me away! Serenity NOW! Balloonball!" Or whatever works. Usually I have barely enough power remaining to drink lots of beer and try to devise ways to stop kids from coming to class or to catch an illness that will last until the end of the semester. That combined with accomodation hell, the absolute absence of educational standards and practices at my workplace and the unconditional certainty of meeting with some xenophobic, ignorant and stupid treatment EVERY time I leave my room, leads to a lot of time wasted in my room watching movies and TV on my computer. A lot of time.

But today after a reasonable amount of sleep that was only interrupted a few times by rude, noisy, drunken students, I feel like I have a bit more physical and mental energy than usual. And I thought I'd get back to putting that excess marblage to work solving the problems of the world.

I saw a TV commercial recently for a Ford truck that featured computerized braking, fuel injection, guidance system, climate control, collision sensors the whole deal. And I recently chatted with some people about a hideous losing streak my character was on in a facebook role playing game I play. They all told me it was just the random roll of the die. These things got me a-thinking.

Are we really putting that much trust in computers nowadays? For my money the smart automobile shopper steers clear of all the extra wiring and computerization because it all just leads to extra headaches. And they are expensive headaches. I know from experience. I think all the specialized computer shit in vehicles nowadays is actually DESIGNED for the purpose of making vehicles impossible to repair at home, making them more expensive to repair at the service centers and making motorists visit those service centers a lot more frequently. And if you get scumbag mechanics like the ones I always seem to find, they can temporarily fix problems so that you'll have to fix the same problem a dozen times. Why not just buy a new vehicle altogether? There are lots of improvements and technoligical breakthroughs on the new models!

How often does your computer need servicing? If you're like most people it breaks down regularly. Even Bill Gates' computer screws up regularly! People believe it's because of these mysterious viruses and hackers and crap but really it's just that they aren't well made yet. Maybe they never will be. The same goes for those car parts we put all our trust in. But if we knew how volatile and undependable electronics really are we probably wouldn't buy so much. Maybe we would but we certainly wouldn't pay so much for this junk.

Here's a question for you: How many TV Repairmen do you know? How about people who fix phones or video cameras or even cameras? Nobody does this any more! Things are made poorly and repairs are hard to find or too expensive if you find them. And new updates and improvements come along just often enough to keep us buying new shit every couple of years. Whether we want to, need to or not. Here's a word to look at: capitalism. Capital means money. Ism is a doctrine or practice of support or even love. Folks, capitalism is the love of money and that is the root of all evil. Isn't it?

But the more we get herded into the electronic culture, the more we settle for the mediocrity of the products. Computer generated "random" is the best example I can think of. If you've ever played computer poker and real poker with actual concrete paper made from trees cards, you'd know beyond a doubt that there's a massive difference. There has never been a good "random" program created and there never will be. And I've played a lot of computer games with "random" card flipping, dice rolling etc.

It's like baseball. I've seen and played enough of it to know beyond a doubt that when the leadoff hitter gets on first, sac bunting him to second is never a good play. I don't need statistics to back me up, I just know from experience. But we don't trust fallable human beings any more do we? We need a computer to figure it out. Same with dice rolling or card dealing or any other supposedly "random" actions computers are designed to perform. They aren't random, they are highly organized, orderly, and structured sequences that are programmed to give the appearance of "random." It's easy for any human to tell the difference. If you look hard enough and keep statistics long enough you can find the patterns. This is how people came up with the probability matrix that PROVES a runner on first base with nobody out is more likely to score than a runner on second with one out. And this is how guys can "cheat" slot machines in Vegas.

But really, who are the ones being cheated? People are more and more reluctant to recognize the obvious limitations of electronics as they become more willing to accept, (and pay thru the arse for), the latest technologies. We are willing to replace reality with something synthetically designed to simulate it. And soon we will have been told so many times that there IS no difference that we'll believe it. And we'll be cheated out of reality.

Just look at another word: TECHNOLOGY. Tech is technical like made up of lots of parts that do things that are just magical to the average person. No means no. Negative. And one of the meanings of "log" is to achieve. Tech no achieve...y.

Okay, having said that, I use my computer a lot. I have a cell phone an X-box and a Wii. And despite the many problems I have with ALL of them, in general I get more pleasure than pain out of them although sometimes I wonder...

BUT, who are these lunatics trusting computers with their lives as they're hurtling down the road at 70 M.P.H.? Trusting computers to keep their life's savings safe? Believing that computer random is just as good as real random? These are people who'd probably rather whitewater raft or bungee jump in virtual reality; rather see the pyramids, Angkor Wat or the Great Barrier Reef on a 60 inch plasma screen; rather have sex with a robot than a real person. Well, okay there IS something to be said for that last one since the robot doesn't come with any baggage. But come on!

The longer I stay in Korea and am bottlenecked into this dependancy on electronic living the more I understand the Ahmish. I wouldn't go quite as far as them but maybe someday I'll marry a nice Ahmish gal and we'll compromise. We won't abandon technology but we'll only use the old stuff. We'll drive only vehicles we can fix ourselves. We'll play games with real cards and dice and spinners and bubble poppers and such. We'd do activities with other real people instead of e-friends. We'll chat offline. Tweeting will be the sound in our back yard. We'll virtually have sex, we won't have virtual sex. We'll raise a family of humans not Sims. We'll have a couple of dogs not a Zhu Zhu or a Tamagotchi. We'll buy things with cash, if it's still available to use. And we'll go to the store to get them instead of looking at a 3-D image of them that is "even better than the real thing."

Ahhh but who am I kidding. This would be so Thoreauian and potentially harmful to our owners that we'd be declared either insane or criminal. Or criminally insane. And we might be arrested or institutionalized if somebody can be found to leave their house long enough to go get us. It would have been worth it though. And I'd shout it from my jail cell every day.

But now I'm waxing idyllic. Even romantic. Lotta waxing today.

2010-04-05T01:35:00.000-07:00

Here's something weird about me: when I'm ready to quit a job I know subconsciously before I know it consciously. I'll splain what I mean. I've quit several jobs teaching here in Korea. I don't recall ever missing a day with legitimate sickness, but when I'm getting to the end of a contract with a crappy school before I decide that I won't be re-signing I'll go out drinking on a Wednesday night when I have class at 8 Thursday morning. Or something like that that I almost never do. And I'll fake like I have the flu or something when I call in sick Thursday. Before going out I don't intend to miss the classes Thursday; I don't even intend to go out drinking on the Wednesday; these things just happen and they're brought on by a subconscious awareness that my job sucks and I just don't care about it any more.

Also, I find myself dreaming about the job, whatever it may be. So not only do I go to work for my regular shift, I work another 8 hours in my sleep. It's like I'm working all the time. And that ain't cool! This was the worst with drilling and KFC. I was drilling every night in my sleep while I was a driller and breading chicken in my sleep when I was a cook at KFC. I wonder if my arms were doing the motions. heh heh.

I had a fantastic weekend! Friday I went to the Tigers game and I also went on Saturday and Sunday. I walked there and back all three times so I got lots of exercise and I only drank beer at the Sunday game. A LOT of beer! Then I went out to drink some more. By myself. I hooked up with the usual bar crowd in downtown Gwangju but I really didn't go out with anyone. I teach at 2 PM on Mondays so it's not like I have to get to bed early but I've never gone out drinking on a Sunday night until yesterday. And it was the right choice.

I think my subconscious was trying to tell me something because lo and behold when I got back to the dorms the back door was locked. I've lost count how many times I've been locked out but this was probably the fifteenth time. I thought I had solved the problem when my supervisor finally relented and got me a key for the doorknob lock on the back door. I have the deadbolt key but 15 times or so one of the Idon'tcaretakers has locked the doorknob lock so I can't get in. Last night was the first time in a long time I got locked out. The doorknob had been changed! The new knob had no keyhole at all! But it still locked from the inside. And last night it was locked. I started reefing on the doors trying to open them and one of the caretakers woke up and let me in. I blasted him, (and it probably wasn't even his fault), for changing the doorknob then went to bed.

I didn't feel too great in the morning but I was okay to work. I could have gone in no problem at all. But I chose not to. I figured management would notice my absence and then I'd tell them that either we fix the doorknob problem once and for all or I'm outta here. I was almost giddy with excitement at finally getting the park out of this dump! I was even thinking that maybe if they DID change the knob, appologize, fire the asshole who's been locking me out and everything I'd STILL get the park out of here. I waited and waited. Erin called and told me some of my students asked her about me so I told her what I was doing. She just told them class was cancelled. Then I waited some more.

I decided to go out and check the doorknob just for kicks. I saw some round pieces of that blue plastic lining paper you get on stainless steel stuff that's new but the new doorknob was gone. The old one with the keyhole had returned. I figured that maybe the caretaker I blasted the night before changed the knob back.

I was pretty sure news of my strike had not been the cause for the knob switchback. Normally I think I still would have given management a piece of my mind about the slap in the face the new doorknob was. But since the problem was solved, (for now), I decided I'd just try to avoid the confrontation and stress that would be involved in yet another attempt at talking sense into the management here. So when my supervisor Peter called I did the Korean thing: I lied. I said I got too much sun the day before and had sunstroke. He told me he'd have to report it to Director Park, that I should have informed the head of the department and that it better not happen again. I didn't bother to bring up the fact that nobody informs me of anything. I had a deaf girl in my class for 6 teaching hours before I was informed about it! Exam schedules I find out from my students. Anyway, I just said, "Yeah yeah yeah, whatever. Bye."

I am obviously subconsciously just calling it in at this job now. Living for the bell. I'm done trying to make things better here. I'm gonna get out. At least that's what it seems like. I'm just tired of fighting. These guys. I know it'll be new fights anywhere else I work but at least I'll have better pay and accomodations. And I doubt I'll ever get locked out. Probly be able to shower or wash my dishes any time I want too. I may have to work a few extra hours a week and I may lose a few weeks of vacation time but I think my conscious mind is starting to come to grips with the fact that 3 years here is my limit.

So I guess I should start looking for work. I absolutely hate moving and sending out resumes and doing the immigration hula hoop jumps but I think I'll probably quit my job at Seokang even if they want me to come back. That's what my subconscious seems to be telling me. I am reminded of the old Fleetwood Mac song that says, "When the rain washes you clean you'll know." I think I know. If I start teaching in my sleep I'll know for sure it's time to go.

I added this later: The next night I had a dream in which I was teaching.

The early worm gets eaten

2010-03-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

It's 6:30 Sunday morning as I type this. That's AM. I know it's hard to believe but here we are. I'm a guy who doesn't get out of bed at 6:30 unless there's work, golf or fishing involved. Or unless I can't sleep. For my whole life that's never been a problem. Until now. And although there are things about the job I have right now that make it so sweet I really shouldn't complain about it at all, IT'S 6:30 in the friggin' mornin'!!! I'm grumpy, so here I go:

The early bird, it's often said, gets its reward when it is fed.
It's meant to get you out of bed; lift your spirits; clear your head.
It works just fine for farmers' toil. Cooler air and softer soil.
I favour the comedic foil. This saying sets my blood aboil.
What's in it for the lowly worm? I cannot fly but I can squirm.
So speaking in poetic term, I'm less a bird and more a worm.

I thank you.

I was up yesterday at 6:30 too! This is just crazy! It has to do with many things. Students in the dorm are the first reason. Out in the courtyard they sometimes raise such a clatter that I spring from my bed to see what's the matter. Two days ago when I did that I was spotted and then I had half a dozen students asking me through my window to please let them in. I reckon it was about 3 or 4 in the morning. So I have a choice: I can reveal to them that I have a key to the back door and CAN let them in but then they'll be all the more likely to come a knockin' on my window in the future. Or I can tell them the truth, that I really can't open the main doors for them. Then they'll just sit at the picnic tables and continue drinking soju, smoking and making racket enough to keep EVERYBODY awake. So what did I do? I let them in.

I didn't hear them making any racket in their rooms. They probably saved their soju for another time and went right to bed that night. But it'll probably come back to bite me in the ass. In fact just a short time ago today when it was still dark outside and I was trying to ignore the noise and get back to sleep I could have sworn I heard someone out there say, "Dae ee beet." That's me. David. The cat's out the bag! I'm in trouble folks.

But it's not only the students keeping me awake. The room I have is as dusty as Dead Man's Gulch in a sandstorm. I don't know how it happens. Last vacation I stayed away for a month and came back to a room that was so dusty it killed my computer AND my printer. I had my windows and door closed. How does this happen?

And breathing in all this dust does me no good. It makes for some pretty clogged sinuses. I've taken to rubbing Vicks Vapo Rub under my nose before going to bed but that's only a temporary solution. The clogged sinuses just make my snoring worse. And some days, like today, I find myself dosing off only to wake myself up with the first snore. Then going back to sleep again to be instantly awakened again. I don't need to tell you how frustrating that can be.

I find that by midweek I'm exhausted enough that I can get a good night's sleep. But then comes Thursday, the only day I have to get up early. On Thursday it would be helpful to get up at 6:30. But, of course, that's the day I can't seem to do it.

Oh well, on the bright side I'm up early enough today to wash my dishes in warm water and take a hot shower. We get hot water from about 7:30 to 9 am and pm.

But as long as I'm complaining I should bring up the latest here. I have a girl in one of my Thursday classes that has told management she's deaf. I say it that way because I'm still not convinced she is. But that doesn't matter, management IS convinced. So what does that say about the standards of this place? They will admit a deaf girl into a program that has a mandatory conversation class! She should have been put in another program or given special exempt status. Well, it's been the practice of the management since I've been here to just take the money from every customer and let the teacher, (now teacherS), deal with the fallout. That's why I say my main duty is to pick up the ball every time management drops it. On my facebook profile I describe my job as "Catcher in the rice."

I told somebody I was chatting with the other day that the deaf girl didn't show up to my last class. Probably because she was noticing a pretty big gap in communication ability between herself and my other students and she just couldn't deal with their ineptitude. I'm only kidding there a little bit. My Thursday classes are all from the Hotel Management Cullinary Arts program. They're all nice but smart as sacks of hammers. I didn't think it would ever be necessary but I find a need to dumb down my already dumbed down lessons. And of course it doesn't help that all three of the classes are 45 kids in a small room for two hours.

They all have at least 10 years of English training from public school and hagwans and they've all miraculously come out of that all but unscathed by any foreign tongue. Only to land in a class where they don't even have a teacher who can communicate in Korean or give them the answers to their tests! It's gotta be a hellish experience for them! Poor souls.

But like always I've pinpointed a few students from each class who are following along and actually learning. They'll keep me sane through the semester. And I know there's an expensive, (but awesome), trip to Canada waiting to happen in the long summer break that'll more than likely bolster my constitution for the next year I teach here. If I get re-signed, that is.

Oh and also the Kia Tigers will have their home opener on Tuesday. I've already made plans to go with about 6 or 7 other folks to that.

My struggle and my coping mechanisms. And on and on it goes.

Counting my blessings

2010-03-20T04:55:00.001-07:00

It's a good day here in Korea. It's a Saturday. I haven't gone outside my room to meet with any untoward Koreanness today. I've just been catching up on my TV. What's with TV these days anyway? It seems to be yet another thing that's passing me by. The Friends are no longer friends; Old Christine isn't old in my books; the race isn't so Amazing any more; I only watch the Daily show about once a week; Hockey Night is in the morning and it's not in Canada; Lost lost me long ago; House isn't up in dis here house; I scrubbed Scrubs; Middle Man was cancelled while it was still in the beginning; pickins are slim.

I still have my old favourites: Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park (the new Tiger Woods episode was awesome!), 30 Rock, The Office, Big Bang, Cougar Town, Modern Family, Survivor, Daily Show, Colbert Report, and occasionally a Letterman or Man vs Nature. American Dad and the Cleveland Show are wearing a bit thin.

I watch America's next top model out of morbid curiosity as much as anything. To me it looks like Tyra always picks chicks who are nowhere near as good-looking as her. It's tough to find anyone as good-looking as Tyra Banks but these girls are just not attractive to me most of the time. When a few girls who I think are hot sneak through they get voted out early for reasons that are fascinating to behold. It's reminiscent of the old TV channel I watched in Calgary when I lived there, Fashion TV, mostly for the sexy outfits and occasional boob falling out but between catwalk models we were forced to sit through designers fashionspeak and if it wasn't such an affront to the intelligence of the average person I might have appreciated it a little bit for it's poetic, lyrical quality. They tended to shovel the shit like, I dunno, people who are trying to sell invisible clothes to the King. For a lot of money.

The judges on ANTM are exactly the same. They will tell one girl to stop doing the expected and to think outside the box and tell another that her traditional modeling poses are classically beautiful. In the same show. Two girls will do the exact same thing with their eyes and one will be told she is squinting while the other is applauded for "smizing", (which is smiling with her eyes). Today one girl was told she should stretch out her neck all the time and another girl was given compliments for the fragile feminine effect she got by hiding her head in her shoulders.

What's funny is when two of the judges say opposing things about the same picture or model. They're just trying to make an asbtract idea like beauty concrete and the more they talk the harder they work. But these beauties aren't usually geniuses so they get away with it. It's like me telling someone that hot dogs taste better than hamburgers and trying to create what seems to be an explanation as to why by stringing sparkly word circles together. It's sad to me that there are people who like hamburgers better than hot dogs who would BELIEVE me! These are the people who pay for and wear high fashion. The expensive prices are their punishment for being mentally impotent enough to allow someone else to convince them that this blue dress is $20,000 better than that other blue dress.

But let's talk about shows I like for better reasons. My favourite new show is the Ricky Gervais Show and, surprise, surprise, it's animated. It's the simplest idea in the world: three guys talking. But this Carl Pilkington they have on the show is a cottage industry of oddball insight that is absolutely hilarious. WIthout even trying to be! The other two just wind him up and watch him go. This show would be the greatest conversation teaching aid ever if there were any hope of my teaching a class that could follow even 10% of the conversation. It's tough for me to explain how conversation can be the most entertaining thing in the world if you're talking to people whose brains are not identically programmed. I don't know about this Pilkington guy but his programmers seem to have crossed some wires.

I also like the new show called The Marriage Ref. I can't imagine many people who aren't enjoying that one. I like it for the same reasons as most but much like the model show I also watch it from, shall we say a tangential viewpoint. A single man's angle which makes it all the more entertaining to me. It's not just that I am happy in the knowledge that I'll never need a marriage ref or have stupid fights about the things these people fight about. I am also noticing something that perhaps is my imagination but perhaps not. It looks to me like when the woman wins and the man loses, he will actually do what the marriage ref tells him to do. But when the man wins and the woman loses, in every case I can remember to this point the woman has looked like not only is she not going to heed the advice of the marriage ref but hubby is in the doghouse for a week, she's gonna throw out all the DVD box sets of Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Office, and burn all the Madonna cd's. And she will go on the trip they give couples on the show, but she's GONNA steal some bathrobes and soaps from the hotel.

This is not to say that I'm not married because women are too controlling. It's just a real plus about NOT being married. I don't want to win arguments, I just don't want to have them. And there's no such thing as a woman who could deal with me without changing things, or suggesting changes that would eventually result in fights. And I know now that she would always win because I can't stand the fighting. I'd be so whipped if I were married! This show makes me glad I'm not.

To bring this entry full circle there aren't many ladies who would have "allowed" me to sit around all day watching TV the way I did today if they were married to me. And if I could find this gem of a woman who would allow me to sacrifice a full day to the TV gods, 1. Would she spend it with me or would she work really hard around the house to shore up some guilt points for later? 2. Would she spend it watching TV with me and allow me to watch 50% of the shows I want to see? 3. Would she disappear for the whole day and make me wonder if I'd get my head bitten off for asking where she was? (You'd know if you weren't watching TV all day!/I can waste a whole day just as good as you buster!/I was out looking for a new TV cuz THAT one's gonna be worn out soon! and so on) 4. Would I be able to scratch, nap, fart, and eat spaghetti and meatballs TWICE like I did today?

It's probably the greatest blessing I have being single. I just don't think about that enough.

Another new show I think I'm going to like is yet another animated show called Ugly Americans. Looks like it's gonna be quirky enough to remain interested in.

Other than these shows I've been watching some old classics. Red Dwarf. Wish I had the box set of that. I found an old show that I didn't know ever existed called Strangers With Candy. It has Amy Sedaris and Steven Colbert. Every time she says, "I stole a Tay Vay" it kills me. ha ha ha. I like the Mind of Mencia too. Comedy all the time. I laugh so much I should have abs of steel. But I guess I'm more than compensating with the food I eat while watching.

I'm so lucky to be able to just waste a day sitting around on my own watching every show I want to watch, eating what I want, wearing what I want, just being me. In fact I can be me more often than most people I know. And people have told me that when they are around me they feel that same way. I don't guess there are many greater blessings I could give to anyone or have. I think I'll go indulge in this blessing a bit more.

See ya.

Week two: big changes

2010-03-09T03:52:00.000-08:00

I'm settling into the second week here at my beloved job. Monday was a red letter day here I think. First I was called into Peter's office because he had to tell me that the book needed to be changed back to the book he suggested then told me I could deep six. It's a good thing I didn't throw it in the garbage. The students may have though. I told them all last week to buy a different book. That's about 175 students.

Now I have to tell them all this week that we're going back to the original book. Sigh. But I won't see 135 of them because they have Membership Training this week. So I don't know how many of them will buy the new, wrong book in that time and I'm not sure of the exchange policies in book stores around here. I think I've just lowered the soju budgets for a lot of students. I won't be Mr. Popularity for that especially with this being MT week when they all get together and drink themselves into inibriated states of bonding.

Plus this means the curriculum I had already planned, (and for which I already had hundreds and hundreds of copies made), has to be shelved and I will have to make a new one. I was already busy making a new curriculum for the Flight Attendants anyway. Now I will have to do another one.

But there IS good news. I'll have a long weekend to do them in. Since Thursday is MT day and since Friday is hangover day, I get a four-day weekend! Yeehaw!

Also, just to show you how incredibly GOOD I am, enrollment in the English program, (for which I was the one and only teacher last three semestres), has exploded. Not only are my class numbers WAY up but there is a new teacher here named Erin who from what I've heard has similar or even higher class numbers. So it has more than doubled thank you very much. I'm sure it's not just because of me but I'll toot my horn a little.

Yeah, I have another soul to share with. I've really missed Kasia since she's left the hallowed halls of Seokang University. I'm sure Erin won't take her place but it'll be nice to have somebody to speak sober English to. The only other time I speak English is on card nights, (Tuesdays at the German Bar), quiz nights, (every second Thursday at the Speakeasy), and weekends when everybody seems to do the same thing: drink. Although, this past weekend I DID enjoy a night out with Amber, Maria, Chris and Kimmie bowling and for some odd reason there was NO BEER at the bowling alley. And I've played tennis a couple times with Andy. So things are getting better there. Actually Maria and Amber play tennis too. We're tentatively talking about getting together with Andy for a game of mixed doubles some day.

However, these are not the events that made Monday a red letter day. I asked Peter if I could change the scheduling for my Physiotherapy class. They were scheduled for 3 hours a week, 2 hours on Tuesdays and an hour on Wednesdays. The class has 45 students and the room is not big enough for that many, especially if we're doing activities like I have planned. So I asked if I could split the class into two classes of 22/23 and teach two hours on Tue and 2 hours on Wed. I told Peter I would teach the extra hour for free. His knee-jerk reaction was, "Impossible!" which he said a number of times while I was vehemently stressing the educational benefits in a class of 22/23 as opposed to the drawbacks of a class of 45 especially in a class where the teacher isn't lecturing or training, he's EDUfuckingCATING. I admit I got a little riled up. I'm passionate about my work.

Finally he agreed to visit the Dean of Physiotherapy, no longer Prof. Shin, who I have a great rapor with, but a new guy, Prof. Jung. So I lost one Jung and gained another. Anyhoo, we went in and in a few minutes Prof. Jung agreed to the arrangement on a "probationary" basis. Lo and behold, POSSIBLE!

I could see Peter's point that the three hours were needed to get the students the full credit for the course but I told him that if I taught 45 students three hours a week we'd finish the curriculum. If I taught 22 students 2 hours a week, we'd finish the curriculum AND do LOTS of other educational activities.

His mistake in the debate was stating that Seokang is not a hagwon. I said he was acting naive and that if Seokang really wanted to be better than a hagwon they should be thinking of the educational value for the class, not the monetary value. There's no way he could argue with that since I've tried things both ways. Classroom dynamics is no mystery to me after all the years I've been at this. Then I went as far as to suggest 3 hours Tue and 3 hours Wed. I'd be teaching FOUR hours for free! I think Peter might have gained a little respect for me when I offered this. I'm not sure if I would have followed through on it... but probly. I gained a little respect for Peter for actually abandoning the almighty RULES here and making things better.

So that's going to be awesome. Today I sent half the class home and they were, to a student, over the moon with the new arrangements. This means they only have English once a week. And we did some Oscar conversation and played a game of celebrity Headbanz. The students all had a good day. I didn't hear much English being spoken but we'll work on that as time goes by. The thing is, EVERY student did EVERY assignment. There was a group of girls in the back who would have fallen asleep if there were 45 students today. That's why they chose those seats at the back. I'm not a dummy. I've BEEN in those back seats before. In this class the desks are jammed so tightly together I can't even REACH the back of the room. The students know this. And the people at the back are always the ones who don't listen the first or second time I explain how to do something then talk to the students in the front, (in Korean), asking what the hell they're supposed to be doing, thus wasting EVERYBODY's time. What I'm saying is I couldn't have gotten through what I did today in two hours with a class of 45 in THREE hours. And even if I had, there would have been several students who didn't do a thing.

Anyway, it's going better for that class. Now I have to work on trimming the fat on my other three classes of 45. They looked like they were none too interested so I think it'll be a case of locking the doors at go time and if someone shows up and they don't have homework, notebook, textbook, and writing utensil - BUBYE. You'd be surprised how many students will actually come to class here with nothing. Not even a pencil or pen or crayon or whatever.

One way or another I'm determined to keep the educational value in my classes and force this place to do things the right way and make shitloads of money. At least in the English program.

Now if they'd only let me do camps in the vacations we'd all be swimming in cash!

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. One victory at a time.

Back to school

2010-03-01T19:23:00.000-08:00

Well I taught my first new class today. It was much the same as always. I think it's about 15 Celsius outside today. I walked into the classroom that was about 30. My glasses fogged up for crying out loud! And all my students were sitting there in their winter jackets looking like they were ready to climb Everest!

Tomorrow it'll be 25 Celsius and they'll turn on the air conditioner so that it's 10 degrees in the classroom. The modern Korean is a creature of extreme temperatures.

Other than writing on the whiteboard and hoping the sweat running down the trough in my back hadn't yet made a big stain on the ass of my pants, I had other concerns today. The new management, (Peter), gave me a new textbook. It has no publication date or author's name on it so I can only suspect that somebody has suggested this to earn some extra dough. Possibly somebody at the school or a friend of somebody at the school. Regardless of who wrote it, it's not very good. It's designed for ESL and I'm teaching EFL. It's pretty much the same lame stuff they've learned over the average 10-12 years they've taken English classes at hagwons or in public school. So you'd think they'd be good at it. This is in part why this same crap is suggested. They WANT the students to get good grades. But they're not very good at it because it was boring to them THEN and it's boring to them now.

However, I have a better book with better lessons that I have been using successfully for years. I have lots of extra copies of my lessons too so it would save me some money on copying. Also, I won't have to create any new lessons and print them out at the store where I do my copying. I went there yesterday to copy out a new introduction Mad Lib I made for this week and there was some problem using my zip drive. I've used it many times in their computers but over the winter vacation they installed some new "security" programs that won't allow me to use my zip drive on them.

What we did was turned off the new anti-virus "protection" program, (I forget what it was called. Some new Korean thing. NOT Ahn Lab I don't think), and my zip drive worked fine. But today when they turn on their computers that program will tell them that there are new "viruses" recognized. These fake programs "recognize" viruses just to keep the buyers feeling warm and fuzzy thinking their computer safety is increased when actually their speed, RAM, and efficiency has decreased. It's just another example of the mentality that complicated is better. It seems to be very popular in Korea particularly with electronics.

Anyhoo, if I use the curriculums I have already designed I will be able to bring in copies of all my lessons to photocopy instead of printing out new ones which would require me to use my zipdrive, which has been identified as evil by their new anti-virus program. Most likely because it doesn't like English. No kidding.

As far as that class is concerned, I'm going to see if I can divide it in half. There are 45 of them and they get two hours on Tuesdays from 11-1 and one hour on Wednesdays from 11-12. What I'll suggest is cut the class in half and I'll teach half of them on Tuesdays from 11-1 and the other half on Wednesdays from 11-1. I'll have one extra hour a week. So instead of 11 hours a week I'll have 12. I think I can live with that. And instead of one class of 45 I'll have two classes of 22. MUCH easier to work with, (and the class won't be so dang HOT).

But I have to talk to Peter to change the book, and I have to talk to the dean of the physiotherapy department, (this class's major), to get permission to change their class hours. I have THREE two-hour classes on Thursday that I think I might have to do the same things with. I sure hope those classes have reasonable numbers!

That's par for the course around here though. I have been doing my teaching AND administration since I came back here. It's just easier that way for everybody. I tried telling Jung how to do things more efficiently but we always ended up arguing. That's most likely why he quit. But I am glad he quit. For him as well as me.

The nice thing is I got a schedule WITH ROOM NUMBERS! For the first time ever! I was very happy about that. Peter even gave me a map of the campus AND something else I've been asking for forever, a school calendar. Now I know when holidays and sports week and scheduled events are taking place and I won't be going to class and finding it empty any more. So things are looking up here I think. I'll know better as we settle into classes.

And you can be sure I'll let you know.

Gold Canada Gold!

2010-02-27T18:09:00.000-08:00

Wow! We aren't "owning the podium" but we DO seem to have put a lot of our athletes onto the TOP of it. 13 gold medals! That's amazing! And Team Canada might get another one tomorrow morning in hockey.

I'm watching cross country skiing right now and if I'm not mistaken there are two gals in this race named Sauronen and Schmiegel racing for that PRECIOUS ring of gold. I'm probably misunderstanding the names though. Not watching intently really. I'm just wating till noon when the Fins play the Slovaks for hockey bronze.

I always find this time of the Olympics weird. The winners of the bronze will no doubt be happy and jumping around for joy but the silver medalists will undoubtedly be depressed tomorrow. I'll be quite happy with the silver but MAN it'd be sweet to get the gold!

I guess it depends on Team Canada's play though. If they play well and lose I'll be happy. But if they self-destruct like the Canadian women did in curling, I will be pretty disappointed. I couldn't believe that when our girls went into the 10th end with a two point lead AND I think they had the hammer! Sweden stole two to get into the 11th end and then they stole one for the gold medal. That's just impossible odds! I remember thinking that the Swedes had only two rocks left, nothing in the house and they were down by two. And SOMEHOW they got both those rocks to score! Absolutely unbelievable!

BUT the Old Bear, Kevin Martin and the boys got the gold today so I'm pretty happy aboot that!

Things have worked out really well for me as far as watching these Olympics! I thought I was going to have to start teaching this week but I've only been doing administrative stuff and lesson planning so I've had lots of time to watch. The site I've been watching, MyP2P, has been solid throughout, until today. The NBC and Eurosport coverage I've been watching has been great. I've seen a bit of Danish, Russian and Italian coverage too. All excellent. The only problem I had was when this morning I tried to get into MyP2P and they asked me for a password. I joined and my password didn't work. Then I did an anti-spyware scan and was able to get in just in time to see Canada take the lead over Norway in the gold medal curling match never to look back. So that was lucky.

If ANYthing happens so that I am unable to watch the gold-medal hockey game tomorrow I'll be gutted! It's on at 5 in the morning here so it's not like I can go out to a bar to see it on TV.

However, I have to count my lucky stars that tomorrow, (Monday), is a holiday here in Korea so I won't be at work while the game of the century takes place.

I've heard that this is going to be the most watched hockey game EVER. I hope it's a good one. I expect the U.S. to come out guns a-blazing but I'm not sure whether Canada will give an effort like they did against the Russians or if they'll play the defensive style that almost lost them the game against the Slovaks. There's no question which style is more effective, it's just a matter of convincing all the hockey traditionalists who worship defence and always seem to make big games like this or Stanley Cup playoff games SUCK by forcing skilled players to play not to lose instead of playing to win. I guess we'll see tomorrow.

Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to it BIG TIME. And since I lost a bet with Heather so I had to use the American flag as my facebook photo, (which I cheated on and changed for the Canada/Slovakia game), I am going to post the following pic and say one final time GO CANADA GO!

Super Thursday?

2010-02-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

It's 5:30 AM here in tropical Gwangju, South Korea and I'm up sipping tea and watching the first of four monster Olympic hockey games. So far it's 0 - 0 between the U.S. and Switzerland. Next is Canada/Russia, then Fin/Czech and finally at 2 in the afternoon the Swedes will play the Slovaks. Should be a fun day!

This game wasn't 2 minutes old before one of the announcers made the bonehead comment about the American defenceman Brian Rafalski and how "dangerous" his pinching is. First of all the pinch Rafalski made today to bring about that stupid statement didn't hurt the Americans; secondly, Rafalski got back and broke up a false two-on-one the Swiss had; and thirdly take away Rafalski and his "dangerous" pinching and the U.S. would have lost to Canada on Super Sunday at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Yes, Brian Rafalski. Everyone is talking about Ryan Miller as the guy who beat Canada. He was spectacular, no doubt about it. The Canucks outshot the U.S. 2 to 1 but I would have given Rafalski the player of the game. He didn't get any award. In fact he probably got a stern talking to from the coach after the game for providing the offense that won the U.S. the game.

Defencemen like Rafalski who are pinching are playing offense and defence and they're expending a lot of energy. This is not lazy hockey. But guys who stay out there for a lot of minutes tend to be the defensive defencemen. They're not getting as tired because defensive play is easier to play.

We've seen a lot of lesser teams taking on the giants by employing a simple strategy: drawing the highly skilled teams into a defensive mode that suits the underdogs. It's a very easy thing to do against a team made up of NHL stars who have played a ton of games already this year in the NHL. I have a funny feeling that I'll be watching games like this all day long today.

I just hope we have ONE defenceman on team Canada who pulls a Rafalski and starts taking offensive chances. I don't even care if he is the cause of a goal or two by the Russians. If he's good enough, he'll likely be the cause of 2 or 3 goals for Canada. And it'll most likely be one of the young guys like Drew Doughty if it's anyone.

This is exactly why the highest scoring defenceman in the NHL, Mike Green, wasn't chosen for the Candadian team. He's not even on their list of reserves for crying out loud!

Last game, (Canada/U.S.), I saw guys like Weber, Kieth, Pronger, etc. BEHIND the blue line when Canada had puck posession in the U.S. zone! What is THAT nonsense? It makes for some low-scoring hockey that if not for the fact that the score is close, would be a bit boring. If I were shelling out the kind of dough the fans are paying to watch this I think I'd be a bit upset.

The pattern in most games, and I've watched them all, has been the stronger team coming out and playing the first few minutes of energetic, offensive hockey and after that settling into the lower energy, defensive, "safe" hockey they are mistakenly calling "old time hockey." That's when teams like Germany, Switzerland, Belarus and Norway have been making these unlikely runs at the giants of hockey. As I type there's less than a minute left in the second period, shots are 32-8 for U.S. but the score is 0-0. This, believe it or not, is exactly where the Swiss want to be. Oh wait a minute now, there's a goal. What do you know, Rafalski was pinching. Is it a goal or had time expired? I guess it's still 0-0.

So here we go again. This is a perfect example of the kind of hockey I was hoping we wouldn't see at these Olympics. I'm still enjoying it but I could be enjoying it more if the Offensive stars were allowed to shine. 32 shots might sound like they're playing offense but the shots aren't the quality you'd get if the defence was pinching and the stars were allowed to freewheel. A stat more indicitave of the actual play in the game has been the ZERO shots that have made it through on the 5 power plays so far. That's hard to watch for a guy like me who likes offense.

I'm actually enjoying watching the women's hockey. They seem to be doing all the stuff that I've been saying the boys should be doing. They're scoring a lot of goals from one-timers by left wingers who shoot right or right wingers who shoot left. They're taking wrist shots from the point and allowing players to deflect them in. The men's hockey I'm watching has included a lot of slap shots from the point that are being blocked or the player's sticks are breaking or the shots are going 2 feet wide. Danny Boyle has done this a lot for Canada.

Having said all that, Team Canada might actually try to play the defensive game against the highly skilled Russians. This might just be the correct way to play them. But I'd still rather see offense.

Well what do you know! The U.S. scored. On the power play they got a shot through and Parise put in the rebound. Guess who shot the shot from the point. Rafalski of course.

The thing about playing this defensive hockey is that you have to depend heavily on your goaltender. Even though the goalies for Canada have big names, I'd say the Canadian goaltending hasn't been good enough for the defensive style they've been playing. Just another reason to score some more goals.

Anyhoo, I sure hope I don't have to suffer through another 1-0 game when Canada faces the Russians. It's a shame one of these two great teams will be going home without a medal but I guess that's what happens when you don't play to your strengths.

Nonetheless, go Canada go! I'm nervous!

Shut the &^$%&*+@@!! up about Tiger Woods already!

2010-02-20T05:11:00.000-08:00

I know it's been said before but I'd like to say it one more time: what the smeg is going on in the world? Specifically this Tiger Woods public apology. This is the biggest waste of media time and energy in the history of mankind. Leave Tiger alone! It's a travesty. And ironically Tiger mentioned in his PUBLIC APOLOGY that his actions were because HE felt an unreasonable sense of entitlement. Who are these idiots who feel entitled to an apology from Woods? And who are these JAGOFFS who have the ass to say, "No, I'm still not satisfied." "He didn't seem genuine." "It's not enough."?!?! Come ON!

I too admit to being interested in his sexual behaviour and his off course driving but it has in absolutely no way detracted one iota from my reverence for Tiger Woods' mastery of the hardest sport in the world. If anything this will probably have a Clintonesque effect on me to where I, through abject pity for the man, end up liking him a whole lot more. I certainly don't feel entitled to any apology for anything he's done in his personal life. I don't recall him ever promising me that he will be a dutiful husband, be faithful to his spouse, and never cheat on her. I don't recall him swearing that even though he's a young, attractive sexual stud with women throwing themselves at him and more than enough money to show them ALL the times of their lives, he will not shag them five at a time in his heart-shaped limousine hot tub. I don't recall that. These are not prerequisites to the acquisition of a PGA Tour card.

If he used steroids or cheated at golf somehow, then I could understand a public apology but the only people who deserve a PRIVATE apology for his private affairs are the people in his private life.

What if Tiger Woods were a famous rock star? We would almost expect this kind of behaviour. If you want a warped but valid slant on this, listen to Bill Hicks. PLAY FROM YOUR HEART!!! Who cares if a lot of rock stars are violent, promiscuous, suicidal, deviants who die in pools of their own vomit, THEY ROCK! Why can't we extend this same courtesy to athletes? Don't tell me it's because watching Tiger Woods hit a 300-yard two iron is any less artistic than a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo! Cuz I love rock and roll, but I'd say they both ROCK just as hard!

To quote another famous comedian, George Carlin, "I'm tired of being told who to admire in this country!" Amazingly enough he actually uses Tiger Woods as an example here. Because that's really the problem isn't it? Why are we supposed to look up to Tiger Woods? He hits a golf ball for a living. Why should he have to be as pure as the driven snow?

Why do so many athletes have this same problem? It's been going on forever too. Look at Babe Ruth. He drank a quart of whiskey with his daily breakfast of a big steak, 6 fried eggs and potatoes. He blacked out on a train once after eating 18 hotdogs. He drank, smoked, swore, played and lived harder than most people. He probably wouldn't have been so great otherwise.

And how many basketball players are frowned on for drugs, guns, sexual affairs and such? Hello? Most of these guys were recruited in the hood not the Hamptons. And this is not to say things in the Hamptons are any more moral.

Then there's Ross Rebagliati, the Canadian snowboarder who had his medal stripped because he smoked some weed. Maybe that's a bit different because marijuana is against the rules but we have to question why that is. It's not like it's a performance ENHANCER! We're forcing social expectations on athletes that are just ridiculous. The fault is not in the athlete, but the society.

I'm trying to think who I am more upset with, Tiger Woods or the guy who wins 30 million bucks in the lottery and goes back to his job at the box-making factory for the rest of his life. If you have the good life, live it! That's what I say. And it's almost mockery of us poor paycheck to paycheck people if you don't! Isn't it?

And it's not like he was slumming it. Look at the list of girls he's been with! WOW! I'm not saying Tiger should have cheated on his wife. I think everyone should honour the commitment of marriage. Or just don't do it. Maybe, like half the people in the world, (maybe more), who get married, Tiger did so because it's the thing to do. Then he realized later maybe it wasn't. Who knows? Either way he doesn't owe me an apology for what he did.

We owe Tiger the apology. And so many other public figures whose sex lives are none of our business. I think this is just sad. Sorry about that, Tiger.

Olympic Thursday

2010-02-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

I just got up. It's 12:45 AM and I have been up for about an hour. I am now fully committed to Olympian hours! Wake up at midnight, sleep at supper time. It makes it tough to know when or what I should eat or drink. But I've figured out a good system: for curling I drink tea, for hockey I drink beer. And I eat between periods or after the 5th end. It's possible that by the end of these olympics I'll have a long beard, long nails and I'll be storing my urine in bottles, but these are the sacrifices a Canadian sports fan needs to make in Korea.

I'm now surfing the web trying to find a good place to watch the Canadian women's curling team go up against the Japanese. I watched the Japanese team yesterday. Because they played the Americans. It's pretty easy to find online streams of American curling. But thanks to our lame, Canada-only coverage on CTV/TSN/CBC it's pretty hard to get the Canadian stuff. They have live streams for all the people in the world who don't need them: Canadians.

I think I'm gonna have trouble finding this stream. It's gonna start at 2 so I have time to search around but it may end up being like yesterday when I watched CTV coverage of Canada vs Germany in men's curling pirated by a dude in Russia and voiced over in Russian. And of course before the end of the game they switched over to the Russia/Latvia hockey game.Luckily the game was no longer in doubt.

I'm truly loving the globalism of the internet! I watched the entire men's snowboard cross in Italian. And by the way it was awesome! I still can't figure out how our boy Robertson didn't get the gold. It was like a sudden gust of wind blew the American guy past him right at the end. Great silver though!

But before I could grieve for too long, outta nowhere Maelle Ricker jumps to gold in the women's snowboard cross. I'd have to say that this is my favourite winter olympic sport to watch besides hockey and curling. And it's so nice that Canadians are GOOD at it! That beautiful pic at the top is of her. It's a photogenic sport though isn't it? I love the shots of the four people going over the jump at the end with the Olympic rings in the background! It's just too bad I can't seem to move pictures around on my blog any more or I'd be able to put them at the appropriate places rather than all at the beginning. But like many things involving electronics, my blog is getting harder and harder to work with as it gets more and more "advanced".

But I won't complain about that. This entry was gonna be about curling. I am very happy that our men's and ladies teams, (pictured WAY above), the Martin and Bernard rinks respectively, have gone undefeated so far. I've watched some pretty good shot making from them. I would not be surprised to see them sweep the golds in curling. It'd be great to see!

It's too bad so few people like curling. I've been a fan since my high school days in Ignace, Ontario where I first slipped on a slider and grabbed a broom. And it WAS a broom back then, not a brush or one of those Swiffer-looking things they're using now. I was actually sweeping and making noise and working up a SWEAT while curling back in those days! It's such a great sport! They called it "chess on ice" a few times in the English coverage I've seen. It IS a real strategic game too. That's the part of it I'm worst at. I'd say that, like Marge Simpson, my strength is my sweeping, or brushing. I played mostly lead in my brief high school/university foray into the sport so I also throw up a mean guard. But I can't claim to be any good. Still and all, it's a sport that I really miss. I think it would be VERY popular in Korea too. I wish it would catch on. I wonder why it's not popular around the world. I have a few theories.

Could it be, like women's tennis, that the screaming and yelling turn people off? There are some good-looking women in curling, (the Japanese team I watched yesterday has a couple of REAL hotties), but when they start screaming "HURRY HAAAARD!" it's not too attractive. But then we're not supposed to be watching women's sports for the babes anyway are we? Ha ha, yeah right! I actually think I liked the cute way the Japanese team called their shots. "Ceu leeen! Ceu leeen! Niceu syot" But they are the exception. There are some real howlers and catterwhallers in the sport that admittedly don't do much for its image.

Could it be that because it's a really long game and it seems to the untrained eye like very little is going on, people are reluctant to watch? It's possible. You don't see a lot of triple take-outs or spectacular shots in a game. There is no body contact or fighting. (although there's no such thing as a curler who doesn't drink and if they showed the pub after the games I bet there'd be some contact sports going on).

Or maybe it's just not getting enough exposure. People tend to like what's put in front of them even though we no longer have to get off the couch to change the TV channel any more. Well, as I've said so many times before, thank God for the Simpsons! The most recent episode of the Simpsons was about Marge and Homer going to Vancouver to play in the mixed curling there. Marge was the star sweeper and Homer was the star drinker. Which is important! It was pretty obvious the writers and animators didn't really know a lot about curling but the attempt was valiant. For example all the stones were the same colour and people were picking them up like they were filled with air. Also there was a Zamboni on the ice at one point. But I liked it.

Anyway, I sure hope I can catch more of the curling. From what I've seen, or heard, so far it's been really good. I had to settle for the US/Japan game the other day because I couldn't find the Canadian game. But I could tell how Canada was doing by the cheers I heard. I hope I don't have to do that again this morning. Speaking of which I better go see if I can find some.

Go Canada Go!

The Olympic$

2010-02-13T20:56:00.000-08:00

As promised on my facebook updates, I fixed my computer and now I am all ready to sit in my room and watch Olympics in any way I can. I am checking all the live feeds and they're very disappointing but exactly what I expected. Canada's main Olympic coverage is done by CTV and, (as expected), it's not available outside of Canada. I've said this before but WHY BOTHER if it's not available outside Canada?! It's gotta have something to do with money. INSIDE Canada you don't need a computer or even CABLE to get CTV. STREETpeople in Canada are watching Olympic coverage on their TV's in alleyways for the love of GOD! Well actually right now the only place in Canada warm enough, (and without snow), so you could live on the street would BE Vancouver so the homeless are probably all going to the events live. Unless it's hockey. They'd have to collect bottles and cans for a lifetime to buy the CHEAPEST hockey ticket. I heard from a friend in Vancouver that you can pay 30,000 dollars for a hockey ticket there. 30 THOUSAND dollars! And if it happens to be Canada and Russia or Canada and U.S. in the final who knows how high the prices could go? It's obscene if you ask me. The Olympics is supposed to be amateur sports. This is what happens when you let the pros play. Damned exciting, but obscene. I don't like to see the evil of filthy lucre perverting and corrupting something as pure as sport. It sickens me. But I'm kinda used to it.

I went to the site available to Koreans to watch coverage in Korea, SBS. Of course, (as expected), you need a password. You need a password for everything in Korea. TWO! At the camp I just finished I had a list of about 10 passwords I needed to get into places or computers. And the only way you're gonna get a password on SBS is if you live in Korea and know a Korean who can navigate their way through the password process, which is hard even for a Korean. Also, SBS is available in Korea without a computer and I think without cable. So why bother? Gotta be some money involved! But I'm not too concerned. It'd be short track, short track and more short track with brief glimpses of figure skating and maybe ski jumping. Not my favourites to watch.

So how can I watch hockey games? I was able to catch the third period of the Canada/Slovakia game in women's hockey today because my brother in the U.S. told me, (chatting on facebook), he was watching it. That's the only way I could tell if it was on. The problem is times. I go to the official Olympic site and times are listed there but I'm not sure if they're Vancouver time or the time most things are listed in, Eastern Standard Time. It doesn't matter because no Canadian sites have live streaming video anyway. That I've found. So I go to the sites like JustinTV. There times are listed in Eastern Standard Time. I think. Cuz most people streaming there are from the States. I think. Or I could go to MyP2P. But I think most of the people streaming on THAT site are from the U.K. I think! It's frustrating so far.

But it's okay as long as I don't miss any of the men's hockey and I have a list of the times for those games already. No worries there.

I haven't noticed any demonstration sports yet. Doesn't the host country get to do a demonstration sport? Something popular in their country? I have an idea for Canada. And it comes from watching MANY MANY years of Canadian disappointment at the Olympics. I think we should introduce a new thing at the Vancouver Olympics but it's not a sport, it's a fourth place medal. Like maybe tin or aluminum or something Canadian like beaver pelt, moose antler, Saskatchewan sealskin, or how bout wood? The wood medal goes to Canada! We have had medal hopefuls every year, sometimes favoured to win gold, even HEAVY favourites, who came in fourth place. I think we'd be way up there in the medal count if we could introduce a wood medal. Should we call it a wood medal or a wooden medal? Too confusing, let's just hang a pancake around the fourth place finishers' necks. How much more Canadian could you get?

I guess so far the story of the Olympics has been a tragic one. That luger from Georgia named Nodar Somethingorother took a grisley spill didn't he? And I admit to looking it up on youtube and watching voyeuristically. I only watched once and felt a bit guilty about it. But it was very interesting to see the reactions of people from around the globe. I'm not talking about the fact that it's now the number one hit on youtube and other sites like it, I'm talking about the comments I read about it. I read "R.I.P. from France", "R.I.P. from Sweden", "R.I.P. from Canada" among them. That's nice isn't it? People from all over the world expressing their deep sorrow at the passing of an athlete. Well not deep enough to write the words "Rest In Peace" in full, but pretty deep. And I'm so glad at the girl from Canada taking it upon herself to express my, and millions of other Canadians' views on the tragedy in three letters!

And I heard they changed that part of the track where a lot of people wiped out and where Nodar died. Disappointing autosport enthusiasts and other death sport fans everywhere. Well honestly, it's like the fights at hockey, who looks away when there's a dangerous crash? Luge could have maybe taken a run a hockey for the most watched sport at these Olympics otherwise.

The second biggest story for Canadians will be getting gold. We already have a medal! This is brilliant for Canada! And it's a silver! Way to go Jennifer Heil! Canadians must be ecstatic! They must be chanting her name all over the country. Let's hope it's her FIRST name. Jen - ni - FER, Jen - ni - FER! We're all proud of her! But the story remains, no gold for Canada in Montreal and no gold for Canada in Calgary. We got lots of fourth place medals in '76 and '88 I'm sure but no gold in our two previous Olympics in Canada. And we have some good shots at gold in 2010. But as we can read from the link, this is only based on how much money we've been spending on our athletes. MONEY! Again!

But if our women's hockey team, women's and men's curling teams, and speed skaters don't win a gold I'll eat my gotch! We are gonna get some soon. And we have all kinds of other chances in short track, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, and other stuff. Some people think we might even win the medal count this year! It would be nice but I only care if we get ONE gold medal really. And that's in men's ice hockey. Ha ha ha. It sounds so funny saying it that way. I just call it HOCKEY and so does the rest of Canada. This will be the best thing to ever happen to Canada. Yeah sure there were a few nice political things like becoming a nation, getting our own constitution, joining NATO and silly little things like that but pppbbbttthhhhbbbtttt! Peanuts compared to this!

But men's hockey doesn't start till Feb. 16th. Feb. 17th here! I gotta wait three more days! It's gonna be rough. But for now I'll try to watch other stuff online to tide me over till the hockey starts.

GO CANADA GO!

If you put bamboo shoots under John Yoo's fingernails, would he cry like a Bybee?

2010-01-13T04:07:00.000-08:00

I recently watched the news. To me the news is the Daily Show with John Stewart. He had John Yoo on the show. John Yoo is a law professor at Berkeley. He also is infamous as the co-author of a little memo called the "Bybee Torture Memo" by some. It's a memo that tries to define the limits of interrogation techniques that are allowable by the U.S. military in overseas combat. It was written shortly after 9/11 and it has been pretty contraversial. One of the "enhanced" interrogation techniques that has been up for discussion is "waterboarding" in which a person is tied to a board with his/her head tilted back and water is poured over his/her face so that it goes into the nose and the victim feels the sensation of drowning.

Yoo admits in the John Stewart interview that he was approached to write it a year after 9/11 and shortly after the capture of a very high ranking, (#3), Al Qaeda terrorist who was resistant to standard interrogation techniques.

John Stewart suggests that he was asked to increase the limits of what is legal to do in an interrogation and Yoo claims he was asked to simply define what was legal to do. I wish John Stewart had pursued this more because it seems to me, after reading up, that Stewart was right and Yoo was stretching the truth a bit. For example, if I have a gun in my hand and there's a pitbull attatched to my leg who is gnawing his way up to my crotch and I ask a lawyer who is passing by, "Hey, dude, can you define what it is legal for me to do in this situation?" I'm really not asking for parameters and the lawyer knows it. I'm asking if it would be legal for me to shoot the dog.

This is something like the line of questioning I wanted J.S. to take. He didn't. He seemed thrown by Yoo's calm demeanor and his sparkling rhetoric.

A little background that will give you an idea of why I wish J.S. had slam dunked this guy. And this is to the best of my knowledge. I'm going by my own internet research so it might be wrong. The Bybee memo was co-written by Yoo and a judge named Bybee. It was an attempt to give the U.S. military a wider range of interrogation techniques by using simplistic and flawed logic to justify these acts under existing laws as "allowable" and burying the flawed logic so deep in legal jargon that it wouldn't be noticed by the general public. If you read it closely it IS permission to torture. At least that's what I get out of it.

The existing laws that govern the limits of interrogation techniques are referred to as Sections 2340 and 2340A. Yoo and Bybee conclude in the memo that taken as a whole these sections prohibit only "extreme" acts declining to require criminal penalties for cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. These are all okay.

They reason that "extreme" acts result in "severe pain" whether mental or physical and they go ahead and use their own misguided, (and I think intentionally misleading), methods to better define what these mean legally. They decide that they need to look elsewhere in the U.S. Code to see where Congress had previously used the phrase, "severe pain." They found it in statutes defining emergency medical conditions. An emergency medical condition is one "manifesting itself by acute symptoms of blah blah blah including 'severe pain' such that a prudent lay person, who possesses an average knowledge of health and medicine could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in placing the health of the individual in serious jeaopardy, serious impairment to bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part." So severe pain is an indicator of a medical emergency.

Nothing wrong so far.

Then they make their giant leap. "The statutes suggest that 'severe pain' as used in section 2340, must rise to a similarly high level in order to constitute torture."

To me this is either a stupid mistake or purposely flawed logic. And we can see from the Daily Show interview, John Yoo is no dummy.

Let's simplify this in case you haven't noticed the logic leap. Imagine these jokers were writing a medical manual on what to do in case of a brain aneurism. A headache is one indicator of a brain aneurism so by their logic every patient with a headache should be operated on to get their brain aneurisms removed.

Medical emergencies and torture both involve severe pain but they are completely different things. That is pretty obvious. So it needed to be written in legalese that nobody would bore themselves to read in order to make it less obvious while accomplishing the objective of legalizing torture.

If you think this is wrong, take the guidelines proposed by this memo and apply a technique commonly agreed upon as torture to them: putting bamboo shoots under the fingernails. This will not put the victim's health in serious jeopardy, it won't impair any bodily functions, (unless you include typing or piano playing as bodily functions), and it will not result in a serious dysfunction of a body organ or part. So it's cool! Same with waterboarding. Same with a LOT of other things that are only limited by the torturers' imaginations.

It's too bad John Stewart concentrated so much on the President's ability to just do whatever he wants anyway in war time. This is something I agree with Yoo on. If there's a guy who has the knowledge to disarm a doomsday device that will kill a billion people waterboard the shit out of him! I don't care! 1 bad guy compared to a billion innocent people is a no-brainer of an executive decision. But as for torture, I think everyone, including guys the Americans call terrorists, deserve humane treatment.

Throughout the interview, and I watched the entire interview, I sympathised with J.S. Yoo, (who is Korean American), is VERY much like a lot of the people I deal with over here. They have their dishonest objectives and even though I totally noticed their not-so-clever ways of trying to hide them, they talk in circles to the point where the stress of trying to explain your point to them far outweighs the suffering created by the dishonest objective. I can't tell you how often I've felt like soaking my head in ice water after meeting with the supervisor here trying to explain how they are supposed to do things that they promise to do in the contract, or other such things. Now Jon Stewart knows what it'd be like to work in Korea.

The holiday virus

2010-01-09T00:25:00.000-08:00

JONG! JONG! JONG JONG JONG! ... JONG JONG! Jong. That's the JONG! sound I got when I JONG JONG got back from JONG JONG JONG JONG vacation and started up my computer. It's the error sound. I got a barage of about 15 of them. Only one error message came up though. It was a RUNDLL, Error loading fimp.elo The specific module could not be found.

Of course I have no idea what that might mean so I ran it through google and it turns out I have a virus. I also checked all running programs and found "userini" was using up a lot of my computer memory. Ran THAT through the old google search too and THAT'S a virus.

Used to be when I caught a virus it meant I was sick. And I've always been one to catch them during the holidays. Nowadays I get computer viruses and they ALWAYS seem to pop up when I get BACK from holidays. It's happened almost every time I've traveled around SE Asia. I used to wonder if somebody was sneaking into my room and contaminating my computer but just how sick a person would that have to be? But my computer is fine when I leave and messed up when I get back. Even NHL Gamecenter Live, which I had bought wasn't working. The video was grainy and jerky. How does that happen?

Anyways, I started doing everything I knew how to do to try to fix things up cuz I wanted to have a smooth running computer for the NFL playoffs this weekend. I watch the games on streaming TV. If my computer isn't working the games are all herky-jerky and they're not worth watching.

So I scanned disks. I defragged. I downloaded the programs the experts on google mentioned that would get rid of these viruses. I got SuperAntiSpyware and ran a full scan. 3 hours later it finished. Then I had to restart to kill all the bugs. So I rebooted and sure enough the same warning came up. But this time with only one JONG. PROGRESS!

Then I went to Microsoft and downloaded the anti spyware program MADE for Windows XP and ran that. 4 hours later it finished. Same thing - I had to reboot to get rid of all the bad stuff. So I did. There was no more warning! Yeehaw! I'm a genius! I am a computer EXPERT! Thank you Bill Gates!

Then I decided to go online and see how the video streams were working. But I couldn't get on the internet. For some reason I had lost my internet connection. I tried to repair my internet connection, then manually install my IP address again and neither worked. So I had to do a system restore.

I did that and wouldn't you know it... JONG JONG JONGJONG JONG! Jong JONG JONGJONG! So I started all over. After doing all the other stuff again I found ANOTHER program from Microsoft that does a scan for viruses. Specifically designed for Windows XP. That took another 3 hours. Then I had to reboot.

JONG JONG JONGJONGJONG! etc. Another system restore.

I got my computer working so that video streams are good now. But I still get that warning when I start up. And a few weird things are happening. I'm still not rid of the viruses. But I watched the football games this morning. The Jets beat the Bengals and Dallas whooped the Eagles.

Tomorrow morning at 3 AM the other two wildcard games are on. I'm gonna try to watch them both. Go Cards go! And I'm not sure who I want to win between the Patriots and the Ravens. I have a feeling New England will win though.

Anyway after all that I really need to figure out how to fix this computator of mine. Anyone have any hints for me?

Congratulations to the U.S. but wait till the Olympics

2010-01-05T20:11:00.000-08:00

Well as expected the Canada/U.S. game today at the World Jr. Hockey Championships in Saskatchewan was great! I was on the edge of my seat the whole game and out of it at the end of the 3rd period. The Canadian boys have no reason to hang their heads. They had a good tournament. They were outplayed in the last two games. The Americans deserved the win. I thought the Canadians were lucky to get the win in the game before and they would have been very lucky if they had won this one. U.S. earned the gold medals.

Now I'm not one to say, "I told you so," but... Okay, yes, I am one. So I'm now gonna. If you read my blog entry about the Canadian Olympic team you will see where I mentioned two things that I am noticing this year and that are changing hockey for those teams who pick up on them. One is the fact that the big, booming shot from the point is fast becoming a thing of the past because of all the players dropping in front of pucks. Shot blockers are better, and more to the point, faster than slap shot takers. The wind up gives shot blockers plenty of time to drop down and get in the way. I said that the wrist shot from the point is better for 3 reasons: 1. It's tougher for shot blockers to drop in front of because it takes virtually no time to get the shot away. 2. It's easier for teammates of the wrist shooter to tip the puck into the net because the speed is just a bit slower. 3. It's still just as hard for a goalie to stop a deflected wrist shot because the reduction in speed makes a direct shot easier to stop, but not a deflected one. Unless we're talking about a really BIG difference in speed, which we're not.

We saw this all game long. It was the story of the game really. Team Canada all tournament long had been taking wrist shots from the point and tipping them in with regularity. Probably because of adrenalyn, this game they were going more for the big wind-up slap shots and the U.S. team were blocking them with regularity.

The second thing I mentioned in that blog entry was how dangerous a right handed shot on the left wing can be. Take a look at the last three goals of the game. The 5-4 goal and the 5-5 goal by Jordan Eberle, (a right hander one-timing a shot from the left wing), had me jumping up and down here! I'm sure all over Canada it was the same. Then in O.T. if I'm not mistaken the game winning goal for the States was scored by a right handed shooter coming down the left wing.

I'm telling you, it will be NO different in the Olympics. These things will STILL be MAJOR goal generators and the teams that miss out might be going home. It's too early to tell who will be linemates for the Olympic teams so there's no way to know who will have the dangerous right handed left wingers but I'd be willing to bet, especially on the power play, the Fins will take advantage of this by putting Teemu Selanne on the left side getting set up by his teammate Saku Koivu.

Canada has the possibility of setting this up. They got Bergeron on the team because of his phenomenal chemistry with Crosby at '04 World Jrs and '06 World Championships. I think Gerome Iginla will play on a line with those two so either Iginla or Bergeron will be a right handed shot on the left side. Also Getzlaf and Nash have shown great chemistry at past world championships. If they make up a line with Perry, who is magic with Getzlaf for the Ducks, he'll probably go on the left wing and being a right handed shot - DEADLY!

The Czechs will have Krejci, Hejduk or Hemsky they could put on the left wing shooting right.

The U.S. has Langenbrunner, Callahan, Drury, and Pavelski who could play this role. A lot of people were wondering at these choices for the U.S. team. Maybe this is why.

The Swedes just might throw Daniel Alfredsson there.

But I think the team that will most take advantage of this phenomenon, and it could win the gold for them, will be the Russians. The number one player on their team and the number one goal scorer in hockey, Ovechkin, a right handed shot who plays left wing. A lot of folks think Alex Semin would be just as good if he didn't play on the same team as OV. Can't have two first line left wingers. And many people will tell you the best pure goal scorer isn't either one of them, it's Kovalchuk, who is a right handed shot on the left wing playing in Atlanta. That's three lines with a deadly left winger who shoots right. But almost as deadly is a right winger who shoots left. They have Radulov and Morozov. And with guys like Datsyuk, Malkin, Fedorov and Kozlov at center watch out for a LOT of one timer goals from the Russians.

However, don't give up yet. I'm not sure the one-timer to the off-handed winger is quite as effective as the wrist shot from the point being tipped in. And EVERY team has an even chance of getting a lot of goals THAT way.

So it'll probably still come down to depth, goaltending, special teams, and basic things like face-offs, shot blocks, chemistry, not taking penalties, and even penalty shooting. And there's always those elusive "intangibles"... For almost all of these I give the nod to our Canadian boys. Here's why...

The U.S., Finland, Russia and maybe the Swedes have a better number one goalie statistically with Miller, Kiprusoff, Bryzgaloff and Lundqvist but we have Marty Brodeur playing at home! Could be better than all of them. Or we could even have Luongo playing in his home country AND home NHL city. You never know how much that could help.

For depth NObody comes close to Canada. It's always that way. Canada's second team is as good or better than the other teams. Canada could quite possibly win the gold if every single one of their first team players gets injured between now and Olympic time. And there ARE a lot of players on every roster who will be injured. This could be a large factor. This benefits Canada who have far superior second choices for every position. It's not likely any other country's second team would even win a game.

Chemistry is something I put a lot of stock in. You need to play the game to know that no matter how good a guy is, sometimes he clicks better with players who aren't the best players for that position. The best example will be Bergeron with Crosby. If anyone had seen these guys play together Bergeron would be a no-brainer of a pick. I'm embarrassed that I forgot about him when I picked MY Team Canada.

Same thing happened with Nash/Getzlaf/Heatley in the World Championships. I think it would be crazy to put this line together since we have the power play for the San Jose Sharks in Thornton/Marleau/Heatley and I think Getzlaf/Nash/Perry would be just as good. But we'll see.

Canada also has defensive chemistry, which just might be MORE important. They have Keith and Seabrook who play together in Chicago. And they have Neidermayer and Pronger were nominated for the Norris trophy while on the Ducks together! That's some powerful chemistry!

When you look at special teams you have to give the power play to the Russians. Theirs should be the best, NO question about it. But I don't think other teams will be far behind especially when you get into the second line of the power play. I would have to give second place to Sweden. Daniel/Henrik/Forsberg then Zetterberg/Holmstrom/Backstrom or maybe throw Alfresson out there? He'd be awesome with the twins! But Canada will be third at worst.

When it comes to penalty killing Canada will be number one. If I were to pick a perfect penalty killing line I think I might pick Kris Draper, Jordan Staal and maybe Tyler Kennedy, Darren Helm or Matt Cooke. But I only think ONE of those guys has the skills to be picked for the Canadian team. Coincidentally, his brother is on the almost perfect HIGHLY SKILLED penalty killer line for team Canada, which includes Brenden Morrow, Eric Staal and Mike Richards. This is a coach's wet dream of a checking line and it's even better for killing penalties. They will be rock solid on D and they will score short handed. Mark my words! This is why these guys were picked by Yzerman and his crew. These guys will make other teams wish they can wave off penalties called against Canada. That's if they're used in this role and I can't imagine they wouldn't be.

Penalty shooting is why we have Jonathan Teows. He hasn't played well enough this year to get on the team but a penalty shot could win an Olympic hockey game. As much of a travesty as some people think that is, you have to prepare for it. Teows is the best. Anywhere. Bar none. And he DOES have the skills to make the team.

One more thing to watch for on team Canada. I've been noticing Scott Neidermayer this year looks like he's at the end of his career. He's not making mistakes defensively but he's nowhere near the threat he used to be offensively. I've watched a TON of L.A. King games this year. In fact I've seen them play more than any other team. Drew Doughty belongs on this team and he will take over more and more of Neidermayer's minutes as the Olympics wear on. At least he should in my opinion. He is just a kid but he has plenty of international experience and he knows almost all of the guys on this team. I was very happy to see him picked.

So here's what I expect to happen at the Olympics. And, of course, this all depends on injuries.

Team Canada - Gold medal at home! Fans go crazy! Canada wins not one but 23 gold medals in Canada after getting shut out at Montreal and Calgary.

U.S. - Best defensive team in the tourney. They'll be REALLY hard to score on. But just can't put it all together. All their players will perform well but Parise, Kane, Brown, Kessel, Malone, Pavelski, Stastny, Ryan will be too young and will make too many small mistakes. They only have three guys with Olympic experience: Rafalski, Langenbrunner and Drury. Parise, Kane and Brown should finish near the top in scoring but the U.S. will finish out of the medals. At least I hope they will because I hate defensive hockey and I REALLY hate seeing offensive stars playing it. These guys won't be able to let their stars out. I fear that's what this team will be. Offensive guys being forced to play D. The U.S.'ll have to be satisfied with beating Canada at the World Jrs.

Russia - I always expect so much from Russia because they usually have the best offensive team in the tournament but then the players look like they're on vacation in the games and get knocked out early. Not this year??? They TURNED DOWN Yashin and Kovalev for this team. Not to mention Zherdev and Khabibulin. They're deep and when you look at their best players, they ARE the best players. Why they won't easily win the gold is because of the little things. I think Canada just plain has more heart. But Russia will give them a run for the gold. I think they'll have to settle for silver though. Can't wait to see Sergei Fedorov again!

Sweden - Any team that can refuse Franzen, Samuelsson and Hedman must be pretty good. They'll be great to watch but they'll wish they had picked Hedman for some extra offense from the D and to add some youth to an old bunch of guys. Not to say slow. They'll be skated around a lot and Lundqvist will be expected to stop a LOT of rubber. He can but I don't think he'll be good enough. I think they'll score a lot of goals but they'll have a lot of goals scored on them. In one of the shockers of the tournament they'll be beaten by the Czechs in round robin but will get revenge in the bronze medal match. It will be AWESOME to see Peter Forsberg play again!

Finland - A solid team. Just not spectacular. Kiprusoff will have to win the tourney MVP if they have any chance at a medal.

Czech Republic - The surprise of the tourney. If they had chosen Kotalik and Prospal for their team I think they might even have won a bronze. I will be REALLY interested to see Jagr play again. Is he a porked up floater or does he still have that Lemieux-like dominance. If he does, (which I highly doubt), Czechs will contend for a medal. They have a lot of guys that are, (or were), great NHLers but little known like Vasicek, Krejci, Fleischman, Michalek, Hejda, Erat, Plekanic, Polak, Cajanek and some who are well known like Jagr, Kaberle, Elias and Havlat. But I just don't think that'll be enough to beat the well established stars on the Swedish, Russian or Canadian teams.

So there you have it: Canada beat Russia for gold and Sweden beats the Czechs for bronze.

And I just hope Canada lays a beating on the U.S. for breaking our string of 5 World Junior Championships in a row. How dare they!

Another travel adventure

2010-01-04T16:33:00.000-08:00

So I'm in Peng Sung visiting friends over the holidays. It's just outside Pyeong Taek where there's a subway/train station. It's time to go home. But a guy like me just doesn't hop on the train and go home. What would I write here if I did???

Scott and I watched the first Canada/U.S. game in the World Jr. Hockey Championships. It was a good one. Canada won in a shootout. Neither of us like that though. So I sez to Scott, "I hope they meet again in the gold medal game to settle this the right way." Lo and behold, Canada and U.S. will play again for gold.

I strongly urge anyone who likes hockey, (or Canada or the U.S.), to tune in to that game. Here in Korea it's on at 9:30 tomorrow morning. I'll be up for sure eating bacon and eggs and watching that one. The last game they played was a comeback, shootout win for Canada. The game before that was the best game ever played in the World Jr. Hockey tourney. I think this is going to be a good one. If you miss it live you can watch it at tsn.ca on video on demand.

Anyhoo, I told Scott after watching the game on Sunday night, that I'd be going home the next day. I got up around 9 in the morning. It had snowed quite a bit the night before so I flipped on the TV. ALL OVER the Korean channels there were reports of traffic jams across the snowed in country. Schools were closing, accidents were happening, Godzilla was rampaging... There was about 9 inches of new snow. Sigh.

So I KNEW the trains would be extra crowded since nobody would be taking the buses. But I gathered up all my stuff plus all the stuff that had accumulated over Christmas and a visit to Costco. I had a hockey bag completely packed and a big, heavy Costco bag. All in all it was pretty much 100 lbs. of luggage. If not more. Luggage is the word cuz I was lugging it down the snowy street to the nearest spot to get a taxi. So after showering, shaving and putting on fresh, clean clothes, 5 minutes into my trip home I was sweaty, wet, and huffing and puffing. Great start.

But there were taxis waiting so I got right up to the first one in line and some guy darts in front of me actually brushing my bags away and takes MY taxi. Didn't he see me carrying my baggage that was easily heavier than him? Didn't he understand that if I could lift this much baggage, how easy would it be to lift him over my head and deposit him into the fresh new curbside snow? But, I wasn't about to add, "pissed off" to my list of conditions so I just tried my best to ignore him and kept saying to myself, "There are other cabs. There are other cabs." I get into the second taxi before anyone could steal it from me and we CRAWL down the street. It wasn't clean but it was only a little slushy. It wasn't like people were sliding all over. But I had all day so I didn't let that bother me at all.

We get to Pyeong Taek station and the meter reads 5000 won. I pull out 5000 won. The taxi driver won't take it. He want's more because of the weather conditions. I think he was expecting more than the SIX thousand won I gave him but I didn't let THAT bother me either.

When I got to the station it was busy but not as crazy as I had expected. I had to wait in line for about 15 minutes before purchasing my ticket but that wasn't too bad. The chick I bought the ticket from told me that it was a 10:45 train but the train had been delayed 22 minutes. So I do some quick mental calcutationing and figure out that I will be getting on my train home to Gwangju at about 11:07. That should get me home by about 2:30 in the afternoon. Not too bad at all.

I pick up my 100 lbs. of luggage and go down to the platform, (platform 4), where the chick had sent me to wait for my train. In less than a minute there's a train pulling in and on the loudspeaker I hear an announcement in Korean. I figure out that it's the announcement for my train, the 10:45, that will be arriving 22 minutes late. I look around at the clocks and I see three of them all showing 10:45. So I figure I have to wait 22 minutes. Not so bad. It's snowing but it's not too cold on the platform.

So as the train on platform 4 is loading I notice it's a Gwangju train. Could this be my train? Just then the announcement in English comes on, "The 10:45 train to Gwangju WILL BE ARRIVING 22 minutes late because of certain conditions of the train. We appologize for inconvenience." So now I'm really not sure. The announcement would have said, "...is now boarding" or "...has arrived" or "...will be DEPARTING shortly" or something in the proper verb tense surely! I decided to get on the train just in case. But as I picked up my 110 lbs. of luggage to try to make a break for it, the doors closed and the train pulled away.

I don't wear a watch. The only thing I have with the time on it, particularly during the holidays, is my cell phone. So now I have to find out. I dig out my cell phone from my luggage and check the time. 11:07. FUCK. Evidently all those "clocks" had been indicating the time the train was supposed to have arrived, not the present time.

So now I'm on the tracks with 120 lbs. of luggage a floor away from a long line-up in front of the ticket window where I need to change my ticket. I can either walk up the stairs with my 140 lbs. of luggage, or lug it way down the platform to the escalator up. I make a judgement call. I LEAVE my luggage on the platform. I wouldn't do this in Canada. No way, now how! But this is something I have found doable in Korea in the past. Besides there are folks milling about on platform 4. They will probably all assume the stuff belongs to one of the other millers.

So up the stairs I run. I wait another 15 minutes in line and explain that I missed my train. While in line I hear an announcement for a train, "The 10:55 train bound for Yong San Station IS NOW ARRIVING and WILL DEPART at 11:10, 15 minutes late. We are sorry ...blah blah blah." WHY OH WHY wasn't there a clear announcement like that for MY train???

However, without bothering to argue about correcting the grammar on ALL the P.A. announcements, (not just the ones for Seoul), the same ticket window gal refunds my money for the ticket. So I ask when the next train to Gwangju will be. She says, "Direct to Gwangju, 3:00." It's just after 11. No WAY am I waiting around with my 155 lbs. of luggage in Pyeong Taek station for 4 hours! So I say, "How about INdirect?" She says, "Well you could go to Asan. It's an 11:14 train but it's 25 minutes late." Then she shows me the sched. and from Asan I could have bought a seat on the train to Gwangju that gets me home by 2:30. Probably MY empty seat! So I buy a ticket to Asan and she says, "Car 1, seat 7A. Go to platform 4." What luck! That's where by bags are waiting for me!

I go back down to platform 4 and all the millers are gone. But, there they are, my bags, untouched by honest railriders of Korea! Bet you didn't expect THAT! So I wait. The time is 11:39. That's when my train is supposed to arrive. I keep waiting. Probably around 11:50 or so a train arrives. It has no marking for "Asan" on it. I think it was a train for Pohang. But that's in the right direction, (I think), so on I got.

My car, (car #1), is a short one. My seat, (7A), is not vacant. There is no room for my 160 lbs. of luggage on the overhead racks so I just keep it in the toilet area and end up standing there since no seats are available. The trip to Asan is only supposed to be 22 minutes anyways. 30 minutes later I'm starting to think that this isn't the right train. Just then a fellow expat comes up to me and asks if I need any help. "Are you new to Korea?" he asks. I replied that I'm new to the trains, which I sort of am. I usually take the bus or at least HAVE in my days here. He tells me that he doesn't know where Asan is but I can go a couple of cars ahead to the car with a bar, snackbar, computers and, yes, singing rooms. There I can find a girl in a red uniform who can tell me what to do. So I leave my bags unattended again and go to that car. No girl but they had Gatorade and lugging around 175 lbs. will deplete the old fluids. So I bought a Gatorade then went back.

At LEAST an hour after boarding we got to Daejeon Station. This is good news! I know that from SEO Daejeon station I can get home to Gwangju. I know this because that's where Costco is! So I get off the train probably having shorted Korea Rail several won since a trip to Asan is cheaper than on to Daejeon. Not MY fault.

I carry by 180 lbs of luggage through the Daejeon Station, past MASSIVE ticket lineups and out to a cab. He takes me about 10 blocks down the slushy road, does a U-turn and the meter is already over 3000 won and we're back at Daejeon Station again. I have to conserve my energy so I don't say anything to the guy. We GET to Seo Daejeon Station but the guy parks in the taxi line rather than driving me to the door. Just a little farther to haul my burden.

At the top of the escalator into the station I see what I had feared the entire cab ride over: an anacondan line-up for train tickets. No wonder in that since wickets 1 and 4 were closed and wicket 2 was reserved for the handicapped, passengers exchanging tickets or hooking up with boats. Essentially there was one girl providing tickets for all of Seo Daejeon Station. Probably some other workers couldn't come in because of the 9 inches of snow on the ground. (eye roll). So after standing in ticket lines and on the subway platform for about an hour, standing on the wrong train for over an hour, I now have to stand in line to get a ticket to Gwangju. Long story short, THAT took an hour too. It was 1:47 when I got my ticket home. Luckily for me it was a ticket for a 2:47 train so I'd only have to wait an hour for the train.

I drag my ass and 199 lbs. of luggage over to the waiting area, in which EVERY seat is full, and stand for yet another hour. Well to be honest I didn't stand there for the whole hour. I wanted to make double sure I caught my train to I took my 200 lbs. of luggage down to the platform, (platform 2 this time), and waited for my train.

Whilst I awaited I heard an announcement, "The 14:47 train to Gwangju WILL BE ARRIVING 08 minutes late because of certain conditions of the train. We appologize...yada yada yada." Just then a train marked for Gwangju pulls in. I looked at my phone. It was 2:45 I think. I'm in a quandary. Last time this happened it was a grammar mistake and because I wasn't pushy enough, and because I exhibited far too much faith in Korean English usage, I missed my train. Should I just barge my way onto this train? If it was the wrong one I could just act stupid. I made a judgement call: I waited.

It turned out to be the right call. And when the 14:47 train arrived 08 minutes late at 14:55, there was an announcement saying the train was NOW ARRIVING on platform 2. Again, if there had been a proper announcement like that on my first train... grrrr.

So I hoist my cargo onto the proper train. The hockey bag should be stored in the large baggage area but, of course, it's full. I leave it unattended and take my Costco bag into my car. I try to put it in the overhead area above my seat but it doesn't fit. I have to take it to the back of the car and put it behind the last seat. I then find the porter and ask what I should do with my big bag. I suggest putting it in the overhead storage area where there's a big space. He says, "Okay," then just looks at me. Of course he's a young guy and certainly didn't sign up for Korea Rail to deal with a lift like that so I had to take care of it.

It's not a comfortable thing to do. Even less comfortable for the poor passenger directly below my big bag because as I'm struggling to wedge it into a space barely big enough for it, my naughty bits are right in his face forcing him into the passenger beside him. The guy actually put up his hand to block me actually touching the front of my jeans at one point. So after successfully stowing my hockey bag, I go to my seat where there is a mother who had also had my naughty bits in her face while I was trying to put my Costco bag above my seat. And the whole car has seen the entire show and is now murmuring. I'm just thinking, "FINALLY I get to sit down!"

At about 5:00 the train arrived at Gwangju Station. I had to be the last guy off the train because my bags were at opposite ends of the car. The girl in the red jacket thought the train was empty and I startled her by heaving my hockey bag out the door and onto the platform in front of her. She thanked me as it was her job to do and gave me a look of surprise when I packed on my 250 lbs. of luggage for the long trudge through the Gwangju Train Station and out to the incredibly long taxi line-up. I waited about 30 minutes for a taxi and finally lugged my 280 lbs. of luggage into the trunk of it lowering the back considerably then giving the springs a proper stress test by flopping my SELF into the back seat too.

I was surprised to see the dorm doors open and the Idon'tcaretaker opened the door for me so I didn't have to use my card. I said, "Sae hae bong mani badeusayo," as I unloaded 300 lbs. of luggage at my door. That's like, "May you have good luck and good fortune in the new year." So I had succeeded in turning about a 4-hour trip from Peng Sung to Gwangju into a 7-hour odyssey and one helluva workout!

And now, the morning after, my arms, shoulders and traps feel like I've been to the gym. The snow has made its way down to Gwangju. It was just raining yesterday here when I got home but today there's a good build up of new snow on the ground. I dunno if I have enough energy yet to make a snowman though.

Like every year I am swearing to myself now that I am NEVER NEVER NEVER doing this crap again! But I probably will. Otherwise, what would I write about here?

The Convalescent Critic Top Ten

2009-12-12T02:48:00.000-08:00

Yes I have a cold. I'm pretty sure it's a cold and not H1N1. First cold in a long time for me. I suppose it's better that I should get it when I'm not working, (I'm on holidays now), because although I like missing work, if I don't miss exactly a week it's a real hassle trying to get everybody back on the same schedule. More of a hassle than dragging my sick arse in there.

But even so it's not such a bad thing. I don't mind so much having a cold. I haven't tasted food in a few days. There are positives to that. I bought some pretty disgusting hamburger patties from Costlyco last time I was there. And, of course, since it's Costco I had to buy about 18 hundred of them. Since I can't taste them and I have to eat them to make room in my freezer I've had burgers twice in the last three days. I used lots of the crappy Yoshida's barbecue sauce on them of course because I bought about 9 gallons of that at Costlyco too. I also made some leftover vindelou. Just used veggies that were getting old, added some meat that had been thawed for a while and some packets of boil in the bag curry and voila: getting rid of leftovers in a healthy way. It's too bad though cuz I think it would have tasted pretty good, that curry. It might have been spicy too but who can tell when you're breathing through your mouth while eating?

Still, try as I might, I just can't eat a lot of food. This too is a plus for a guy like me. I have what you might call a few extra pounds that I'd like to pare away if I could. Loss of appetite is a bonus. Only it's kind of offset by the loss of energy that goes along with it. I don't do a lot of exercise when I am convalescing.

However, I DO get LOADS of ab work. And when I exercise abs are never a target area for me any more. So this cold is really making me feel the burn. No kidding! Wake up, cough for an hour. That's a great ab burn! Eat a meal, cough for another hour. I'm blasting my abs three times a day! At least! And then to keep the burn going between workouts I blow my nose every 10 minutes or so. I washed clothes today. ON MY ABS thank you very much!

I haven't left the house really in 3 or 4 days. That forces me to get some tedius stuff done that I just haven't wanted to do since last cold. I fixed some of the error messages I've been getting on my computer. Actually going into safe mode and deleting stuff from the registry! I am pretty proud of myself for that! And I upgraded to a gig of ram. It has sped up the old computator a little bit. I scanned for spyware, defragged and cleaned disks. But the thing that probably helped the most is when I blew a small, grey tumbleweed of dust out of my computer. It's UNbelievable the dust that builds up in this place! That's another thing I've been doing is dusting and vacuuming areas that I usually don't. Like under the bed, behind the computer and such. The dust in this place is the reason why I'm always at least a little stuffed up in the sinuses.

But I don't want to give the impression that I was as energetic as all that. The main thing I've been doing while recouperating has been downloading and watching about 20 movies. Maybe even more. Some old classics like Treasure of the Sierra Madres, Doctor Strangelove, Cool Hand Luke, The Philadelphia Story, Old Man and the Sea, The Public Enemy, The Eiger Sanction, The Revenge of the Pink Panther, The Omen, The Meaning of Life, The Maltese Falcon, High Noon and some others. And I've seen some fairly new movies that might be classics in 10 or 20 years like Son of Rambow, Appaloosa, Felon, Resurrecting the Champ, Superbad, Cashback, Food Inc., Ghost Town, Wall E, Couples Retreat, World's Greatest Dad, Paper Heart... how many movies is that?

This has got me thinking. Not about what it is that makes a good movie. No that just wouldn't be me. I got to thinking about what it is that makes a real stinker of a movie. Things that if I saw them in the movie trailer I wouldn't even bother going to see it because, much like shopping at Costco, you go into a movie pretty much blind. And it's usually a pretty big investment. Those burgers and that barbecue sauce looked good enough. They were attractively packaged. I had heard no negative buzz about them. Now I wish I had. That was probably about 40 or 50 bucks I'll never get back.

And when I watch a really bad movie I often wish somebody had warned me about it so that I wouldn't spend money on it. Or even if it was free, the time spent watching it was 2 hours I'll never get back. So here comes another of Dave's Top Tens. You may disagree. I know some of these there will be people who COMPLETELY disagree. Maybe even a majority of people. These are just MY hints.

The top ten things in a movie that give you a strong feeling that it's not going to be good. I'm not going to list actors or actresses because even the worst like Keanu Reeves has been in some good movies although they would have been better with almost anyone else cast in his place. Rene Zellweiger, same. Never absolutely necessary to a good movie but often the cause of bad ones. The stinker movie/stinky acting royalty in my books would be Vin Diesel and Paris Hilton. I don't think either has ever acted well or been in anything good. (that wasn't filmed with a night vision camera).

But that's not what this list is about. It's about scenes, cliches, situations, characters that we see quite a lot and almost never in good movies. These are not necessarily in order but I'll do my best to save the best for last.

Top ten things in a movie that give ME a strong feeling that it's not going to be a good one.

10: The Mexican Standoff- When two macho characters or more are pointing their guns at each other waiting for someone to flinch so that somebody can blow somebody away and remove all doubt about exactly how UNmacho they are! This is becoming very popular in modern movies about gang violence in the hood. Only diff. is the guns are tilted 45 degrees. A "good guy" who "heroically" blows people away just doesn't do it for me very often. Exception: Dirty Harry.

9: Singing- Now I know some great movies like Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop of Horrors, The Blues Brothers and a few good Disney flicks had singing but that's why this is only number 9! GENERALLY, Chicago, Dreamgirls, West Side Story, Cabaret, Moulin Rouge, faaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrttt!!!

8: Martial Arts- Take a movie like Kung Pow. Compare it to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I don't see a difference. I am not sure which got more laughs from me. Martial arts movies are COMEDY, people! If you take it serously when people spin around in the air kicking 5 or 6 guys out cold, fly through the treetops, do a horizontally spinning drill move that knocks over several people, I have some very cheap but high quality electronics and some pills that will increase penis or breast size to sell you! These movies are Oriental musicals. The fights are choreographed and augmented with a soundtrack. Nobody can really fight like this. And if they could, it sure wouldn't sound like that. But it IS much better than people singing and dancing if you approach it as comedy.

7. "I'll have a beer."- Now I now a lot of people are going to think I'm nitpicking here but this has become such a pet peeve of mine that it distracts me to the point where I can no longer appreciate the movie. And it's not just the ordering of "a beer" like you're at a fraternity kegger and there's only one kind, it's the fact that 9 out of 10 beverages in movies, alcoholic or not, are rarely touched much less finished! It takes me half a reel of film before I forgive the characters for this. And the director? Forget it. Most movie heroes are from the world where people buy specific beverages and finish them. Maybe the Hollywood cinematic elite don't, but in the interest of realism, get this right, will ya?

6. Two beautiful people who hate each other- Come on! Though I think a lot of love scenarios are lame and often out of place, this has to be the worst. Okay, maybe only second to the superhero who messily kills 15 heavily armed and trained warriors and then in the arms of his girl turns into, "Hi Honey, Poopsi, Sweetiepie! Mwuh mwuh mwuh I weely weely missed my girlfwiend!" Alright so these two will share number 6. You can pretty much bank on the characters who hate each other the most hooking up by the end of the movie. If they're both attractive. Simplistic movie making and it needs to be accompanied by ingenious, Taming of the Shrewesque character development if it's to be at all stomachable. And usually it ain't.

5. A friggin vampire!!!- Just exactly how are goths and vamp kids obtaining the cash to support all these damn vampire movies? It's often true of kids in middle school and high school that intelligence is directly proportional to amount of black worn. Eye make-up, nail polish etc. But if these kids are so smart then they will have to realize sooner or later that the vampire genre has it's limits and they were eclipsed sometime WAY before stupid movies like Blade or Underworld. I think after Interview With a Vampire I was pretty much finished. But I'll probably get my blood sucked for saying this.

4.Willful destruction of property- Another of these things that is just a personal distraction. I really feel bad for the bartender whose bar gets trashed in a barfight and nobody pays him anything. At least in the old western movies the hero would likely flip him a couple coins and appologize. No more! Now people overturn fruit carts in the street with regularity and without even so much as an apologetic backwards glance. And car chases. Forget about it! The cops are supposed to be good guys. It is strongly discouraged for cops to chase bad guys in reality. Again, when are movie makers going to choose realism over gratuitous destruction? Car chases don't happen because things get damaged and people get sued. There could be a huge volume of movies about a personal injury lawyer who sues movie characters for all the destruction visited upon the general public. And I'm only talking about the GOOD guys!

3. Hand grabbed over the edge of a deadly drop- How many movies can you name? Heck how many CLASSICS? To Catch a Thief, Cliffhanger, So I Married and Axe Murderer, there are too many. But this is something I've personally tried. The physics of it STRONGLY favour BOTH people going over the cliff or off the roof or into the crater or whatever. The faller has the inertia. Unless the hero is considerably larger than the person rescued he/she will just topple right over the edge with the other person. Furthermore it takes a TREMENDOUS amount of strength to hold someone hand to hand like this for a long enough time to squeeze any drama out of it. I'm talking about world class arm wrestler hand strength. There have been a few movies in which someone was swung over to a safer place and dropped but usually there is a cutaway and we see that the hanger was pulled up by the rescuer. This is another feat of superhuman strength we are supposed to suspend our disbelief and allow. And I'm not even going to talk about all the people who almost go over the edge and grab onto a tree branch, shingle, eaves trough, girder, pontoon or whatever.

2. The gorgeous ass-kicking woman- While I have known quite a few physically tough women, (hell I'm from a land abounding with them), exactly NONE of them have been physically attractive. These days the ideal body for a woman, (and for a man for that matter), is in need of a sandwich, folks. Annorexia does not equal strength! You ever seen a female bouncer? You ever seen a gorgeous female bouncer? Nuff said.

1. The defused bomb with one second remaining- If I'm a bad guy making a bomb I'm certainly not going to provide anyone who might want to disarm it the convenience of a timer that lets him know how long he has. Sure some bombs need timers but why hasn't any bad guy yet set the bomb to go off at 00:03 or 00:04 or if it's not in a movie, how about 10:00 or something? It doesn't have to be 00:00! It probably NEVER IS! Again, how good can a movie be if the director doesn't know this? This is a cheap ploy to create tension. Stop it! It doesn't work any more! Like all the others here I don't want to watch these things in movies any more UNLESS they are being lampooned.

Hope you enjoyed my list. I have to go watch a movie. What are the odds it'll have one of these in it?

Shirts and shoes

2009-12-08T18:37:00.001-08:00

It's the Christmas season here. I've sent out some Christmas cards, put up my Christmas shrubbery and done some Christmas shopping. I'm listening to Christmas music, watching Christmas specials and thinking Christmas thoughts. I figured it was high time I started drinking Christmas drinks. At this time of year I like to drink Spiced Rum and O.J. It just tastes Christmassy to me! But I dare you to try to find Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum here in Korea. Or any kind really. I went to Homeplus, E-Mart, Shinsegae. Nothin'

Incidentally, how bad is Shinsegae getting? I went there with a 50,000 won gift certificate. It was a Teacher's Day gift from my Physiotherapy class. I used to like going to Shinsegae for the various items I could get there that were really hard to find anywhere else. Like Kraft Dinner, dill pickles, Japanese sour candies, good spaghetti sauce, Kraft Parmesan Cheese etc. Now they have nothing there I want. Try as I might I couldn't even spend 10,000 won of my 50. I bought a bag of Poco Loco Nacho Cheese chips. Yuck! The little "Sool" store they have there is massively overpriced and has nothing I can't buy elsewhere. Shinsegae used to be pretty good. What happened?

I remembered a little alcohol shop I used to buy Canadian Rye from when I taught at Chonnam University. It was in the Chun Dae Hoo Moon area. Expensive, but a good little place to find something other than beer and soju to drink. I decided that since I'm on holidays and have nothing to do, why not walk? It's a good hour and a half from Seokang to Chonnam the way I go. I do a LOT of walking and I love a nice LONG walk from time to time. And it's perfect fall walking weather these days. So I slipped on my trusty Reebok runners, the heels of which have been reinforced with duct tape. I've had them for 2 1/2 years and they've been ratched for about a year. The soles are gone so I put in an insole. The heels are always the first thing to go on my runners because I usually don't tie them tight so my shoe slips around a lot. Hence the duct tape. Don't chuck it, duck it, right?

The reason I don't buy a new pair is because they are size US 11. The only places that have this size are shoe stores located near army bases. I bought them in a shoe store in Eui Jung Boo. There's a US military base there. I've been looking for over a year but still haven't found a pair of runners that fit. Pretty sad. We'll come back to this recurring sadness.

So I'm in Chun Dae Hoo Moon looking around at all the brand new stores that have gone up since the last time I was there about a year ago. The place changes every day! It's crazy! But I get to the Miller Time/Bob's Noraebang corner. This, unfortunately, is where a lot of my evenings in Hoo Moon ended up. I say unfortunately because of the caterwauling at Bob's that usually punctuated those evenings with vocal finality. The little alcohol shoppe was just around the corner from Bob's. I walk around the corner and to my mild surprise there is now a restaurant there. A spicy food restaurant with an English name something like "Willy Nilly Chilli" but not quite as good as that. Heh heh. I just made that up! I like it!

Anyhoo, that was disappointing because I knew that if I didn't manage to find some spiced rum there, I could always get some rye and I had just run out of Crown Royal. In fact that bottle of rye may have been what had brought me to Hoo Moon the last time I was there a year ago.

To cut a long blog post short, I ended up settling for Smirnoff Ice. It's new to Korea. I've always liked it especially over ice after a bit of exercise in the summer. It was awesome after a ball game! They also have this tasty new product they call Smirnoff mule? It's vodka with ginger ale. I like that too. And they have T-shirts in every 4-pack! T-shirts! Extra LARGE T-shirts! Tee shirts are not easy for me to find.

I think I paid about 20 bucks for a 4-pack of each but considering I had expanded my wardrobe, the booze was a bonus. So I got home and opened up the cases. There was a bottle-shaped extra inside. THAT was the T-shirt. After unwrapping it and unfolding it, sure enough, it was a wrinkly white t-shirt and on the tab it said, "XL," so I put it on.

My head barely fit through the head hole and my arms barely fit through the sleeves. The wrinkles don't look like they'll ever go away and if this shirt doesn't expand after washing then I'd say it's an XL for kids. And kids really shouldn't be buying Smirnoff Ice.

If you look in the picture I am holding the OTHER tee shirt in my hand. That's how it comes. If you zoom in you can see all the wrinkles in the shirt I'm wearing. Even though it's stretched pretty much to its limit. Disregard the belly hanging out the bottom.
So on goes the adventure of finding good booze and big clothes. If anyone has some shoes that are too big for them I'll trade you for two T-shirts that are too small for me.

Kids time

2009-12-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

Now that I'm off work for a while it's kids time! I'll probably be teaching at a kid's camp for a while and I'll be visiting the Jacksons which means Alex and Justin will be my play buddies for a while.

I don't like kids. I LOVE them! I don't like teaching them because it doesn't take them long to realize that I'm a pushover and they can take advantage of it. THEN I have to do something I hate: I have to play the bad guy. And after showing them how much you love them, discipline is tough. I'm like a big, purple Barney to kids. They usually love me! But Barney is only a half hour show, isn't it? There's a reason for that! It's make believe. You never see one of Barney's little buddies having a temper tantrum. They never punch him in the nads or pull his tail on the show. They never cry when he shows another kid more attention than them. And Barney never gets tired. He never says, "Go away kids I don't feel like singing right now." They never bug him while he's chowing down on the carcass of a sabertooth tiger or a caveman. He never growls at them when they bother him while he's dropping a Barney bomb in the woods somewhere. Barney is make-believe.

I usually find the little foibles of childhood to be the reasons I like them so much. Kids haven't learned to be fake yet. That's mostly what I mean by "foibles". When they say things like, "You have stinky breath." Or they stroke your arm hair like a pet. Or they want a red crayon but another kid won't give it to them so they cry. They say what they feel; fart when they need to; get angry when they're pissed off; and they show extreme joy and happiness at things that please them because almost every pleasure in life is pretty new to them. This is the kind of non-regulation of nature that makes me love kids. And so often I will smile at behaviour that would anger other grown-ups they know. I guess it's because I don't want to discourage it. Especially if they're really young kids. I want them to be kids for a while. Maybe even retain some childish behaviour throughout their lives. But I know this won't happen. Also, I have vast reserves of patience because I don't have kids of my own. So I tend to encourage them to be kids more than to behave.

Now the negation phrase: Having said that; however; that said; on the other hand; buuuut; you choose your favourite, adults nowadays aren't doing ourselves any favours to make dealing with kids easier. In fact we're making it more difficult all the time. We try very hard to create these consequenceless, sterile, safe, morally neutral environments that are pretty similar to Barneyland. I think we're just setting our kids up for a bigger crash when Barney finally shows his teeth.

What is Barney anyway. He's a T-Rex, right? Not a creature I'd want to make angry! Just imagine one morning Barney's baby wakes him up three hours before the alarm clock and is teething. He tries for a few hours to calm the kid down and finally it gets back to sleep. Beep beep beep beep! His alarm goes off and wakes the kid up again. Now Barney has to go to work. His wife is grumpy too from lack of sleep and now they have a crying baby to deal with during their morning routine. Not only that but Barney didn't wipe the scum ring off the bathtub after draining it last night. Mrs. Barney says she can't understand how the bathtub ring could be so red in colour when they live in the brown soil part of town. Unless he had business over on the red soil part of town with, umm, hmmm, his young, sexy secretary, who lives over there! So they have an argument over breakfast. Barney is late and the boss gives him shit because it's not the first time this week. His secretary ignores him as he arrives because he WAS visiting her and THEY had a fight too! Then during the taping of the "I love you, you love me" song one of the kids steps on Barney's tail. He turns on the kid, opens his toothy mandibles of death to snake-like capacity and utters a gutteral blast of sound that blows her hair back and makes her face wet with fang slime!

THAT's how a kid feels when I finally have to put my foot down and discipline them. I hate to do it. I try to keep my exposure to children short enough so that it's not required. But it's getting tougher to do. Camps are getting longer and kids are getting so shut in and overprotected that this eventuality comes much sooner in the relationship.

I've said many times that if I don't have kids of my own I won't be disappointed because I don't think society will allow me to raise them the way I want. For instance I think of myself and one of my best friends growing up named Grant. We were both very sickly kids. My friend's family doctor said he was allergic to everything. I'm not sure what the doctor said about my symptoms but I was always sick. My Mom says I was always underweight and it was impossible to keep any food in me. Hard to believe but I'm not kidding.

Both my friend and I would be overmedicated and maybe living in plastic bubbles if we were kids today. But our parents decided that if our bodies couldn't build up immunities, we'd die. Either was preferable to a life in a sterile, germless environment. NO WAY they'd even have that option today. That's tantamount to child abuse, isn't it? Maybe even manslaughter or murder!

I'm happy to say that both Grant and I are healthy as horses today. I can't remember the last time I had any health trouble that wasn't a cold or hangover. Same with Grant. We found the cure, folks! You know what it was? It was "Get the hell outside!" That's what it was. Both Grant and I LOVED sports, camping, hiking, swimming anything we could do in the germ-infested outdoors with other germ-infested kids. More often than not we did it UNsupervised! Though I didn't know Grant until high-school, our childhoods were spent outside naturally increasing our antibodies and white blood cells.

People are all paranoid nowadays about their kids' health. They are too often given medicine that is supposed to help but I believe it only prolongs the health irregularity that the body would naturally eliminate if it were untreated. I'm not going to say that it's a massive money-making conspiracy by doctors and drug manufacturers, but I do so love a good conspiracy theory!

And worst of all there just aren't many kids whose parents prescribe the tried and true medicine known to me as "Get the hell outside!" The fewer parents that send their kids outside, the less fun it is to be out there. And the more of an outcast the kids are going to be. While they're talking about playing soccer and trading Pokemon cards, most other kids are talking about playing FIFA 2K10 and trading magical items online.

The worst thing about this in my opinion is the social growth the kids are missing. In video games if you cheat, you win more easily! In a person to person social situation if you cheat there are consequences. This is just one of many very valuable lessons that kids can't learn in the classroom. They need to be learned in social interaction with REAL other kids in REAL life, not real time.

And think about the parents! Or at least the supervisors of the kids. It gets them out of their hair for a while. It allows the kids to expend their energy in more productive ways and it gives the supervisors and kids time away from each other. This increases guardians' patience with the kids and vice versa. It just makes it easier for everyone!

I have to admit I'm seeing a few more kids in Korea playing outside but not as many as there should be. Parents just don't trust kids outside on their own. Germs, child abduction, traffic accidents or other play-related injuries - these are smaller risks than robbing your child of the chance to develop personality. In MY opinion.

But rather than tell their kids to go outside and play, parents here tell their kids to get out of the house and study. That's what they want out of the kids camps. What I want is to try to infuse as much desperately needed PLAY into the camps as I can. I just hope I can find a camp at which I'll be able to let the kids play without having to growl at any of them. I think two weeks is the magic window for this situation. But the camps all seem to be a month now. This has me worried.

Anyhoo, here's hoping kid season will be a success this year.

Finished!

2009-12-03T06:36:00.001-08:00

Another semester comes to an end! I turned in all my marks and filled out the unbelievably tedius attendance sheets for all my classes. Now it's time to concentrate on finding a good camp or intensive program to teach sometime in January or February. Preferably January because I'll be watching Olympics all Feb. Hopefully.

A lot has happened since I last posted but I wanted to come to the end of the drama before posting about it. It's over now I think. Not yet sure if I'm better off or not but... Jung is no longer my supervisor. I now report directly to the director. It's been a stunning lesson on the futility of face for me. The events that led up to the loss of Jung. Stunning! I can't get into the details and I'm sure nobody thinks I understand what went on. But I probably know better than everybody but Jung why and how he gave up his position as advisor to the English Language Department. Maybe even better than him. He did a LOT of crazy things and when I asked him why he could only say, "I don't know." Maybe this is another. This is directly related to my topic today.

It bugs me when people think I'm dumb. It riles me when people think they're smarter than me. It really pisses me off when I can tell they think they're smarter than me. Even if they ARE! I believe lying is only done when one assumes the person lied to is stupid enough to believe the lie, which means stupider than the liar. In this way lying qualifies as extreme arrogance. It especially burns me when I know people are lying as the words come out of their mouths. I will never like this or get used to it and I will never accept culture or tradition as an excuse for this arrogant behaviour. I don't think I'm alone in that.

This behaviour is at the heart of Korean society. Almost every day almost every Korean has some other arrogant Korean lie to their face. The Korean who is smarter than the liar has to act like he/she doesn't know it's a lie if the liar has seniority, position or age. But that's not all! He/She has to bow and give some fake signs of respect to the prevaricating scumbag. This would be excruciating for me. It has been the source of almost every problem I've had in Korea. I DON'T accept this as reasonable behaviour. I don't care if you're my boss, filthy rich or if you're 100 years old. If you lie to me, you insult me and in most cases I won't just ignore it or act like I don't realize you are lying.

Most foreigners share my feelings. They may not believe them as strongly but they agree. Foreign teachers are difficult for Koreans to deal with because they're difficult to lie to and it has become an issue that the Korean "education" system is planning to take action on. First the geniuses in the Korean "education" system decided to call it a problem of underqualification. They spread word throughout the highly suggestable populace that foreign teachers are not qualified. But because of the abysmal state of education here that causes me to put that word in quotes so often even the least qualified foreign teacher here is vastly overqualified for what we are doing.

So now there have been suggestions made that foreign teachers in Korea need to take "cultural sensitivity" classes. This is just another colossaly idiotic idea to come out of Korea! For so many reasons!

These courses will no doubt be disguised as opportunities to teach foreigners about Korean history, traditions, geography, maybe some language, and things like that. These are things that every last Korean thinks he/she knows everything about and is trained to be fiercely proud of making it literally impossible for any foreigner to walk among them without being thoroughly informed in like a week!

Nobody comes to Korea without learning about the culture. Ignorance of the culture is probably NEVER the cause of the problems Koreans are having with foreigners. But because of our education and healthy skepticism that comes with it, we have the ability to weed out the propeganda and we actually have a better idea of the TRUE Korean culture than most Koreans do. But most Koreans are too blindly convinced of the wisdom of their ways to accept that anyone who understands them would NOT believe them and act in accordance with them. Because they've been systematically programmed from childhood to be that way. The people who want to run these stupid training courses may or may not be aware of this. Either way, the courses will be nothing more than attempted indoctrination and there is no reason to believe they will be successful. We foreigners are too old, too smart and we already know Korean culture, we just choose not to practice certain aspects of it that are absurd.

Aye, there's the rub! Koreans don't see any aspects of their culture that are absurd. I have been lied to with regularity here in Korea and while I'm still not desensitized to it, it doesn't upset me as much as it used to. Maybe that's bad. But I can't think of a single time when the lie made things easier. Lying invariably causes more work for everybody, disorganizes, confuses and makes things remarkably LESS efficient. Koreans don't see the absurdity of perpetuating dishonesty, even being PROUD of it as part of their culture! It'll take some pretty strong mental re-programming for them to see it. Likewise it'll take some pretty strong mental re-programming for foreigners to espouse constant deceit as a necessary part of living.

So the end result is that these courses will be a waste of time and money that could be SO much better spent trying to legitimize the "education" system they have here. But this is the familiar catch 22. They don't know their "education" system sucks because they are trained to believe it's just another thing that's superior about Korea.

It could be much more accurately said that Koreans need to be educated in Korean culture. That's how bad it is. There are so many things they are trained to believe in that just aren't true!

Or what about a program of sensitivity to foreign cultures taught to Koreans? Or even basic concepts about us like we are NOT exactly the same or as same as Koreans. I've had so many students who have shown interest in my culture! They ask me things like, "What do you like better, chicken or pork?" I say, "Chicken." So it's not long before I hear that student telling someone else that all foreigners like chicken better than pork.

Foreigners are not a new thing in Korea. We've been here a LONG time. Given the lightning speed at which Korea's economy developed you might expect a speedy attitude of tolerance toward foreigners to develop. Not the case. It's been shamefully slow. In fact I believe it's going backwards. Every year they make tougher new laws with flimsy reasoning at best that seem to just be attempts at making things more difficult for foreigners here. And now they have the gaul to suggest to people from countries like America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England etc., countries where we really don't even USE the word "foreigner", to be more culturally sensative when we come to Korea.

OINK!

The cartoons at the top are taken from Korean newspapers. I don't know why but I can no longer move my pictures around on my blog. The Korean words in two of the pics mean "unqualified". The other pic is of a stoned teacher. We now have to be tested for AIDS and drugs EVERY YEAR. Cuz that's what all us foreigners are, right? Sex crazed, druggies.

What am I thankful for?

2009-11-27T06:07:00.000-08:00

Even though I'm not American and Canadian Thanksgiving was a long time ago, I didn't really sit down, watch football, eat turkey and contemplate the things that make me thankful. Today I watched football, ate other stuff and decided to contemplate what it is that makes me especially thankful this year. As you may know from reading this blog this will be a hard thing for me to do. I'm not one to ramble on about how wonderful life and the world are. But give me a little bit of adversity and I'll blog about that till the cows come home.

Incidentally why are the cows out to begin with? And aren't they technically "cattle?" Who sends their cattle away from home? And what are they homing cattle? Why would they just come home? And, okay, okay, Who let the cows out, moo moo moo moo!

See what I mean? Give me a small opening like a strange turn of phrase and I'll run with it. As long as I can make it sound like a complaint. This could be my calling. I really should be a critic. It really doesn't matter what needs to be criticized, I can do it all. So like all critics Thanksgiving is especially hard for me. Can you imagine Thanksgiving in the home of a famous food critic? That'd be something! Imagine the pressure every year on the person who does the cooking!

Anyway, let's get on with it so I can finish up and leave blog space for another scathing entry about something else. What am I thankful for? I guess I have to say first of all I'm thankful to be working. It's impossible to survive without a job and I really can't complain about my job. Well, I've proven that statement false numerous times in this blog. But all in all I DO like what I do. And the hours are great! In fact after Monday I will just have to do all my marking, grading and attendance recording for the session and I'll be off till March! Pretty sweet. Of course I will be trying to find something to keep me busy in that time and make me some money. I am not planning a vacation during this break. But I still have a pretty sweet job. At times like this I feel like it's worthwhile being away from my country, family and friends, dealing with the crap I deal with, the people conning me and fighting against me every step of the way. Still wish I could bypass all of that but at least I'm working. And I like my job. Not everybody can say that.

I have a pretty good body. I'm sure I couldn't do a Calvin Klein ad but what I mean is I could still do any job out there. I am smart enough to do any thinking job and strong enough to do any labour job. That's a real blessing. Right now I'm doing a job that requires NO strength at all and I'm never intellectually challenged unless it's to figure out what the administration is trying to do to make my life difficult. One of the things they are doing is keeping me trapped in the dorm and that is actually HURTING my health but not to the extent that I can't work. But other than recurrant acid reflux that I will probably never lick, I am healthy as a mule. That's another big blessing.

I'm thankful for my computer and for email, facebook, skype and sites that keep me in touch with friends and family. I can't say I'm thankful for friends and family this year because I'm as socially isolated as I've ever been in my life, and for that I'm NOT thankful. But thanks to computer chatting and email I still keep in touch a little bit. And when I can once again say that I'm thankful for friends and family it'll be my computer that made it so I still HAVE friends and family.

I'm thankful for other internet sites like this one, sports and sports pool sites, comedy central, youtube, and google that make life for a socially isolated person a bit more bearable. I just found out that I lost a very valuable site like this today. Goodbye mininova.org and thanks for all the fish.

I'm thankful for my favourite TV shows that I used to download from mininova. I'm thankful for all the Thai and Filipino people who animate them for ridiculously low wages I'm sure. Family Guy, Simpsons, American Dad, Cleveland, Sit Down Shut Up, King of the Hill, Southpark, I love them all. I also like The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Survivor, Modern Family, Cougar Town, Fringe, Dexter, Big Bang Theory, 2 1/2 Men, 30 Rock, The Ultimate Fighter, Merlin, Man vs. Wild, How I Met Your Mother, Deadliest Catch, Mythbusters...OH MY GOD I need a life!

Who is thankful at Thanksgiving for a list of TV shows?! You know who I'm most thankful for? Two people. Named AXXO and EZTV. These are the people who upload and share the TV shows and movies I spend my down time watching. They're about the most important people in my life right now. That's sad.

But I'm thankful for the Jacksons. Cuz after a long semester like this last one, I can always go visit them and get out of my funk. Some real people time. In fact with the two boys it might be a little TOO much people time at times. But it's a nice change. So that's a sincere one. It's nice to have them to spend Christmas with every year while we're all still in Korea.

Even though my other friends are mostly moved away it's nice to have a few good friends left here in Korea. But because of the isolation at Seokang I'm not making new friends to replace the ones who leave.

I've had jobs that involved isolation before. I was taking care of a logging camp during break-up one spring and it was just me and the camp dog, Rocky. That I didn't mind too much. I drilled and camped in the woods for a few months solid seeing only 3 other guys. That I got through okay. I did lots of security work where I was the only guy in a grain elevator or construction site. But even though I see my students almost every day it's been a really slow year socially. Really slow. Slowest ever. So I'm thankful for every email, chat, letter, blog comment, phone call, text message or communication of any kind I get.

I'm thankful for having a life that even though I bitch about it is better than the lives of most people on this earth. There are a couple billion people who would be WAY more thankful than I am to have my life. I guess I need to try to be more thankful. But don't worry, I'll be complaining about something new soon. Probably next post.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans and people who are being thankful today!