I Just Might Make It To Thailand

Well, events have warranted a new post.

I got an email from a guy named Mike who works at the Canadian Embassy in Seoul telling me that I could get someone at the office to be my guarantor. Again, someone who doesn't know me from Adam Sandler and who doesn't do the service for free. This was Thursday I got the email.

So I filled out all the forms. I got my friends Scott and Annaliese to be my references and got all the details about their addresses and phone numbers. I went to a photographer at the front gate of HUFS, where I work and with a little explanation through pigeon Korean and body language I got him to stamp and date one of the pics properly. Then after work I decided, just in case, to go see if I could find this embassy.

I knew it was in the downtown area right behind City Hall but it's never easy to find anything in that mess of buildings. Lucky I went on this reconnaissance mission! It took me just over an hour to find. I asked the information guy at the subway station where it was and he directed me to exit 3. I found it odd that the Canadian Embassy wasn't marked on any of the maps they have in the subway station that show the nearby buildings.

I exited through exit 3 and I asked several other people for directions. One security guard gave me directions and told me I had about 700 meters to go. I was pretty close. So I walked exactly where he told me and came upon the Nanta Theater. I guess when I was saying "Canada" (embassy) he thought I was saying "Nanta" (theater). But curiously enough I asked another security guard near the Nanta who also told me he knew where it was and pointed me to a building where it definitely WASN'T. Sometimes I just wanna teach Koreans to say "I don't know."

It was a very hot and muggy afternoon and I was carrying a full briefcase with me and still dressed in my much too heavy work clothes. I was sweating like a whore in church. But I figured I'd go out to the main road and try again. On my way out I saw a brick wall with a fence on top of it and a nicely cut lawn behind the fence. On the wall was the seal of Canada. But there was no building that resembled an office where one might find the Canadian Embassy. And there was no easily aparent way into the area where the lawn was.

I got out to the main road and wandered around some more until I found a tourist information kiosk. I went inside and asked for some info. The girl there spoke English and had a map. On the map I saw that it was exactly where I thought it was, exactly where I'd been, right behind City Hall. She said it was in the Kolon building. Nice name eh?

So I went back to where I was and wandered around some more. I think I went down every street and cross-street before I finally found the Kolon building. Right around the corner from EXIT 4! Nowhere near exit 3! It was 4:30. The embassy closes at 4:30 so there was no chance for me to go in and get anything ready for the next day. Mike had told me there would be a form to fill out called the "in lieu of guarantor" form or something like that. I thought maybe I could pick that up before closing time but no such luck.

Besides there was a Quiznos Subs right across from the Kolon Building and I hadn't eaten since breakfast. So I got an Italian Classic sub and a bowl of broccoli cheese soup. And I dried off a little bit while in the air conditioned restaurant. I got some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and a book from Kyobo Book Store too. So it wasn't a complete waste of time. But I asked about 20 people where the Krispy Kreme doughnuts store was too and think I could have found it more easily if I had just used The Force.

I figure I walked farther than my 6K fitness walk and sweat about as much. My pants were all salty in the ass when I got home and took them off. Man I hate that!

Next morning bright and early I went to the embassy and got the in lieu of guarantor form. I needed extra identification, two more references and I had two tiny lines to list my employers for the past 5 years. I wasn't about to go home and get all the addresses and phone numbers of employers and references so I did the best I could. I gave them my friend Kasia as a reference. She won't be reachable until September. I also gave them Scott's wife, Minju because I already had her address on the other application. And I just faked the past employers. I told them I had worked at Seogang College for 3 years when actually it was only one.

I got in to the window behind which Mike was sitting. We talked about where I was going and low and behold he goes golfing in Pattaya too! He told me about a good hotel I'm thinking of staying at. Lek Hotel it's called. Anyway, he said I could get the temporary passport on Thursday the 19th. That's the day before I travel. When I get back from my month in Thailand my real passport will be ready and all I will have to do is go to the NEW office and trade the temp. for the new passport. He did say, however, that they will only be able to get me my temporary passport on Thursday if everything goes smoothly. Like if they can reach all my references and if they don't find any discrepancies on my application. heh heh heh.

But screw them if they are that picky! Yeah I lied about my past employment cuz I didn't have all the info, (the thoroughly useless info.) that they asked for. So I cheated once. THEY gave me a stranger for a guarantor who charged me money to sign my forms. So THEY cheated TWICE! But I doubt that will be a good enough defence if they ask me why I lied on the guarantor form. Neither will, "That form will be a dinosaur in three months anyway!"

But we'll see how things go. Fingers crossed.

I already sent an email to one of the guys I golf with and since he was in charge of the golfing trips and had a bad scooter crack up, the club is in a bit of a shambles right now. But he says there are still some guys who go out.

SO the Thai vacation is STILL not a positive but I have paid for my ticket. I asked my travel agent to fax my itinerary to the embassy. That was one of the things they needed to speed up the passport. I hope she did that.

Yeah! This is the kind of frantic planning and stress a good trip ought to have! I feel like I'm on vacation already!

Oh, and that mysterious Canadian seal I found? (I mean seal of Canada. I guess a seal of ANY origin would be mysterious in downtown Seoul in mid summer!) THAT is where the NEW Canadian Embassy is going to be. So I already know where to go to get my new passport. I hope I don't have to scale the wall and climb the fence though.

Vacation Time Again

Well it's vacation time again. I have two days of teaching left and then it's time to head off to golf and drink and swim and relax in Thailand.

GOD! If only it were that easy for me! No, as you can read in my brief bio on this blog, travel adventures are my forte. In fact people sometimes ask to hear my travel nightmares even if they've heard them before. And to me they are like bad old memories: they suck when they happen but they're great stories. I've had luggage lost; I've been robbed; conned; stranded at the airport; forced to beg for money; picked up by a tranny; ripped off by fast-dealing money changers; snorkelling and lost my home apartment keys; sucked out to sea by rip tides; debilitatingly sunburned; confined to my hotel bathroom because of Bali Belly, Dengue Fever, West Nile disease, diarrhea, malaria or whatever; in the airport watching my plane take off ripping up my non-refundable ticket; air sick; hustled at pool; lost countless times, but sooooo many things can happen to a person while on a trip! That's why I keep going. Still no plane crashes or shark attacks. But my traveling days have just begun.

THIS time the troubles are starting before the trip. I guess since I didn't go on a trip during the last school break my travel curse has been dormant too long and is raring to erupt.

I have reservations to go to Bangkok on the 20th of July. I haven't paid for the ticket yet because I have been waiting for news on my passport. You see, my passport expires in November and customs officials "have the right to refuse service to you if you have less than 6 months remaining on your passport." What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

EVERYTHING about passports and customs and all things to do with them, (especially in Asia), are governed by hard, fast, written in stone rules. You know that if, (like me), your key chain is a tiny Swiss Army knife you forgot to put in your luggage, or like the lady who told the customs official that in her bag she had some knitting needles, yarn and a giant Afghan and was strip searched before she could explain.

Just look at the Canadian passport application someday. Photos must have neutral expression, have natural skin tones, chin to crown of head 31 mm. to 36 mm., no shadows, no hats, no texturing, have the name of photographer on the back and date taken, not date developed, and one must be signed by the guarantor indicating that the pic is a good likeness of the person they know as the above signed.

The guarantor! He/she must be easily contacted, have known you for 2 years, live within the juris diction of the issuing office, be notarizing your application for free, and be a doctor, lawyer or officer of the law, banker or politician because everyone knows these professions are chock-o-block full of the most veracious, ethical and unimpeachably honest citizens of any country. PPPPpbbbbbbbtttttthhhhhhbbbtttt!!! They might just as well ask you to get your application notarized by a car salesman, professional wrestler or a hagwon boss.

You must provide proof of citizenship, (I mean aside from the passport that is good enough proof of citizenship to every OTHER country in the world, (and which you had to provide plenty of proof of citizenship to get like birth certificate, SIN number, driver's license etc.)), like birth certificate, SIN number, driver's license etc.

BUT if you have less than 6 months left on your passport, the agent has full discretion. MAYBE he/she will pass you, or MAYBE he/she won't. This is the only thing about passports, customs etc. with any flexibility at all and it's obviously been perpetuated by customs officials for one reason: bribes. Don't kid yourself, you can't get into some countries without bribing customs officers.

And if they would just be clear about things like they are in Lonely Planet guides to places like Cambodia or Viet Nam and say the customs officials will expect a bribe of around... yada yada yada that would be cool. But I'm here thinking maybe they won't accept a bribe. Maybe I won't be able to go at all. Maybe I'll pay 800 bucks for tickets and not be able to fly to Thailand at all.

This is my kind of trip! Drama even BEFORE the get go!

But good news! Passport Canada is implementing a new "Simplified Passport Renewal Program". The program includes a shorter application form, no supplementary identification or proof of citizenship, and (halleluiah!), no friggin guarantor!

I was so excited when I read this! But it starts August 15th. And the criteria exclude anyone who has resided outside Canada on their previous passport. Basically it's for people who wanna go to the States.

HOWEVER, I also read on the Passport Canada webpage that there is a new guarantor policy! Yay, yippee, yahoo.com! Under the new rules a guarantor may be any passport holder. Even a relative or someone who lives with you! Boy was I relieved to read that! Cuz I was thinking pretty hard about who I could use as a guarantor here in Korea.

But then, I read, "Effective Oct. 1, 2007."

See what I mean? This is really sucking right now but I'm sure I'll get a kick out of this when I recall it someday.

So I HAVE thought of one possible guarantor. A doctor friend of mine here in Korea. I WILL have to make a 5 hour trip to get his autograph on the back of one of my photos but if I can do that, fill out the rest of the application, dig up my birth certificate, find a couple friends who are willing to be character references, find a Korean photographer who can a) understand the photo rules and b) perform his duties properly and get to the Canadian Embassy in Seoul between 8 and 11 am, I MIGHT be able to get a temporary passport. I think this might be more dependable at customs than my old passport.

However, I have a week and two days before my flight and the temporary passport takes a week...if there are no delays. I work for the next two days from noon to 3.

And, oh yeah, one more thing, (remember this is ME here!), the Canadian Embassy in Seoul is moving soon. They're closed from the 20th to the 23rd after which they will be operating out of their new office in Jeong dong, Jung gu, and not the old office at Mugyo dong, Jung gu. I just KNOW they are in the process of moving now and won't be operating at normal speed. Or if by some miracle I make it to their office with all my documents they will have already moved the passport lamination machine or the official seal of the Consular General or some damn thing. And who knows WHAT will happen with the move?

My timing is absolutely uncanny isn't it? So basically I'm fucked for getting a new passport, temporary passport, or passport extension. But I am giving serious consideration to the prospect of making a really great future blog entry and just trying to get to Thailand on my old passport. Given my travel record it's a ridiculous risk to take but this has the makings of a heck of a travel story!

Anybody know anything about foreign extradition?

STILL not finished. I briefly considered just traveling to Canada so I can get a passport in Vancouver. Surely they'd let me out of Korea and into my new country to do that! Last passport I got 5 years ago I went to the notary public across the streeet from the Vancouver passport office. He hadn't known me for 2 minutes never mind two years, and didn't do it for free but was able to be my guarantor anyway. That guarantor rule is so stupid! Then I paid extra money to have the passport done as soon as possible and got it the same day.

BUT, (again timing), since Canadians now have to have passports to get into the States, (a new rule cuz they don't want us spending too many of our strong dollars there), there are tremendous line-ups and backlogs at the passport offices. I've been reading posts about offices in Vancouver. People waiting in the rain in lines where there were 150 people in front of them OUTSIDE the office. Waiting 11 weeks for a rushed passport. It would be more expensive and slower to do this in Canada.

So it looks very much like the only choice I have is to cancel my reservations, get my temporary passport sometime in August, (if I can find the new embassy and if their schedule is not delayed), and spend maybe 2 weeks in Thailand instead of a month.

Still I guess it beats spending my entire 6 weeks of vacation time in tropical, hedonistic, exotic, action central, South Korea? It's bad enough I'll probly have to waste 4 weeks of it here farting around with my new passport. And even with the price of a ticket, golfing in Thailand is cheaper than downtime in Korea for me. Simply because golf, beer, and whatever else I will do here in Korea will be like 5x the price.

Updates will follow as events warrant.

The Canadian dollar is going through the roof! It's at the highest point I've ever seen it. I'm quite pleased that I sent money home 20 cents ago. I actually made myself a little bit of a profit.

But the economists were wary! They were warning Canada not to let the dollar get too strong. I didn't hear details about what disastrous occurances might be the results but they all seemed to think we'd piss off Americans. Well now the results are trickling in. We take away their cross-border shopping bonanzas and this is the type of thing they do! Fiends!

Oh sorry. That "this" was supposed to be a link but as I type this the homerun derby is underway at the MLB All Star Game. I tried to join a contest where you pick the winners of each round. First you rank the ten players from first to 10th. Then you predict the total homeruns from the first round. Then you predict the homeruns from all rounds combined. Then you fill out a form with all your information on it. Name, address, phone number, email etc. If you get all predictions correct, you win 10,000 of those weak American dollars. Hee hee hee.

But when I pressed the "enter" key a message came up that read, "Sorry, only real phone numbers accepted."

I am so offended! Because I typed in a Canadian phone number it's not REAL??? So by extension Canadians aren't REAL!!??? Oh you just wait MLB.com... Give us a few more months and with our strong dollar we'll have major league teams in Nunavut and Saskatchewan!!!

Why, I'm so outraged I hope Justin Morneau kicks everybody's asses in the homerun contest. He's Canadian you know. From New Westminster.

Oh and by the way, the title of this entry was supposed to be "Go Justin Go" but I can't put titles on my blog entries any more. Probly another of the prices we Canadians pay for our strong dollar. Sigh.

You can't see that can you? Aww crap! Oh well. We're doing a chapter on abnormal psychology in my class right now. We did this today. It was a really funny psych. test I give my students every now and then. All it is is a bunch of really simple squares with shapes inside. The first one is a square with a circle in the upper left corner, the second has a circle in the bottom left, the third has a circle in the middle etc. I get the kids to encorporate the shapes into some kind of drawing then write an adjective below the pics. Each square has a meaning. You can't really see it but in the third square she drew a pic of me, (a flatteringly thin and hairy me), and wrote the word "nice". I know it's just a ploy to get extra marks but it worked! This girl is passing MY class! That square meant how other people see you. (The student who did this).

Then in the last square she drew a girl throwing some trash into a garbage can and wrote the word "dirty". That square means your feelings after having sex for the first time. Ha ha ha.

Square #5 she drew some lovers and wrote "lovely". This represents her feelings about death. It's a great exercise. I've been doing it for years and the student always love it. I think I got it from back in the days when I worked with Heather at Pagoda Hagwon. Do you remember this lesson Heath?

Then there was THIS one!!! Holy cow! The student who did this is one of the, umm most unique guys I've ever taught too. The two squares at the bottom that he joined represent his feelings after the first time having sex and his relationship with his loved one. He wrote, (incorrectly), "life a tunnel". Ha ha ha. And the door to that tunnel on which he wrote "life moon, (door in Korean), choise open cloes" That is supposed to represent something he gives his friends. LMFAO!!! I hope I'm not his friend cuz I don't want to be invited into the door to his loved one's sexual tunnel.

It's too bad you can't read the other ones too. Hilarious! Then to make things even more funny he comes to me after they got into groups and compared psych. tests and says, "I losing my face. Before test normal. Now psycho." That meant he lost face. Students used to think he was normal but not any more. Don't worry though, nobody thought he was normal before. But I told him not to worry. Normal is boring. I think he's still worried.

It's amazing how accurate this lesson is. And always fun. You want it? Lemme know.

S.S.S.

You know how some people say they think better when they run? I personally can't imagine any reason why a person would think of anything while running but stopping the self-inflicted torture, but I guess if you think clearly while running, it might be worth it. I would still try everything else I could before I resigned myself to THAT deal though. Having to run to get some mental lucidity. However, I like walking and have had some good thinks while I'm on my evening or late night fitness walks. I go in the evening or late night when it's cooler and there are fewer people although lately it hasn't been very cool at night. I've done my walk in the rain a few times and enjoyed that immensely but even though it is officially Monsoon season here, I need to exercise a bit more often than when it rains. I guess if I ran only in the rain it might suffice but that's out of the question.

I absolutely hate running, but I DO see the value of a setting where thought comes effortlessly. I have started a new summer course that requires me to ride the Seoul Subway System for a couple hours every day. In the beginning it was similar to running in that the thought of making it stop tended to pervade. But I have started getting used to the ride. In fact I am almost to the point where I can enjoy it. Well, maybe that's an overstatement but I DO have some good thinks on the subway. And that almost makes it worth it.

I live in what Koreans refer to as the "country". There are high rise apartment buildings, deparment stores, and a subway here but there are also rice fields and farms. I smell cow shit almost every morning because we have a Seoul Milk cow farm across the street from us. Right above the beginning of the walking track.

I suppose this might be the reason I like the subway more than expected. "Country" folk are sometimes quite interesting to observe. And when I have something entertaining to watch, I forget how badly I want to get off the germ infested, sweaty, cramped, cattle car I'm in. But it's not just the country folk I'm watching. It's everyone.

The Yangju stop on the subway is called Deok Jeong, as you may know if you read about my pizza delivery adventures. It is almost the beginning, (or end), of Seoul Subway System line 1. Line 1 is the longest and probably the most used line of the S.S.S. I am quite pleased to tell you that Yangju is far enough outside the city of Seoul that when I get on at Yangju there is usually a seat where I can sit. Except at rush hour, (like 7-9 in the morning). Unfortunately, I work far enough into the city that I usually have to stand at the beginning of my commute home. However, about half way home I usually get a seat.

The subway is quite a miraculous device really. It should not, but is, be taken for granted. I often find myself thinking that the rapid starts and stops it makes HAVE to involve rubber or some sticky material but it's metal wheels on metal tracks. Almost miraculous. And I am quite thankful for the rapid starts and stops because they are responsible for the left and rights of what I call the Seoul Subway System somnambulant sway. It's the ballet performed by my fellow passengers every day that is one of the great sources of my entertainment.

I am sure it's possible in cities around the world where they have subways to board a car and find everyone awake. I will give you my first born child if you can do this in any subway in Korea. Or any bus for that matter. Public transit is just nap time to Koreans.

I started writing this in the morning before work. But I'll just tell you what happened today on the subway. Just today. Today's commute provided more than enough to show what I mean when I say the subway is entertaining.

Deok Jeong Station has only been in operation since the beginning of this year. Around the time when it opened Yangju city planners rerouted all local buses to coincide with subways. Exactly. So if I want to catch the best subway for me, (at 10:51), I can take a bus that will get me to the Deok Jeong station bus stop at 10:51. Of course it takes 3-5 minutes to get from the bus stop to the platform. This leaves bus passengers just enough time to reach the platform and see the shrinking tail lights of their train. So every morning I take the bus that comes just in time for me to see the shrinking tail lights of the subway before mine at 10:30. Many people have not caught on to this trick and it is always a source of sinister pleasure for me to see 20 or 30 people, who can see their train pulling into the station from the road below, panic and shift into survival of the fittest mode pushing, shoving, yelling, running, cutting in front of the old, very young and the slow, waving arms, screaming "Ajashee! Ajashee!" in hopes the subway driver will hear them as he starts leaving the station and stop the train for them. But he never does. And the 20 or 30 people have to wait for the next train. With me. Only my dignity remains intact. Heh heh heh.

This morning I got off the bus and leisurely walked to the station as people cursed me for being one of the slow. An obstacle that shaved seconds off their sprint to catch the uncatchable train. Then as I got to the top of the escalator to the platform I could see their dejected looks as they checked their watches and realized they would have to wait another 21 minutes for the next subway. They sometimes glare at me as I casually walk by them. Perhaps blaming me, not the city planners, bus drivers, subway driver, people who pushed them out of the way, for their sorrows. But it's worth it.

When I got on the subway today I was surprised to see three short-haired white guys sitting at the opposite end of my car. They were quite obviously U.S. soldiers and judging by their conversation and accents, they were from the south. They were talking a bit loudly but since none of the Koreans were talking at all it made it seem louder than it actually was. Their conversation topic was quite technical. They talked about two stroke and four stroke engines, engine parts, muscle cars, NASCAR, pit crews, helicopter mechanics, retirement plans, how much time they had left in the service, and things like that. Toward the end their conversation deteriorated. They made fun of the subway stop called Shinimoon, which sounds a lot like "shitty moon" when it's announced. Then the guy who was chewing tobacco and spitting it into a bottle, (no kidding), gave the guy beside him a purple nurple and they started play fighting a bit and then started questioning each other's sexual preferences.

Long before the subject degenerated so, a Korean sitting about 5 seats down from me got up quickly and rattled off a long, angry string of Korean while storming past the soldiers and throught the doors into the next car. I only recognized a few words he said. A couple times he said "Korea", once or twice "Virginia" (?), and one or two of his words were bad words. Perhaps his midmorning nap was spoiled by the soldiers' talking? Although there are usually plenty of loud talking Koreans on the subway and they wake up exactly nobody. Perhaps he was envious of the soldiers' English proficiency? Maybe he had spent lots of time and money trying to become fluent in English but couldn't? I just can't imagine why he stormed out! ????

The REALLY entertaining part was after the angry guy's exit. All the people in my car, except the soldiers, got out their expressionless masks and slapped them on. It was like an invisible emotion thief had hit our car. Nobody felt confused, shocked, surprised, angry, apologetic, empathetic, the only thing close to an emotion I could see was fatigue. But I wasn't really surprised. I'll explain why.

If you get on the subway at 8 am or 6 pm just about anywhere in Seoul you will see entire carloads of people practicing this apathetic expression. Because the subways are PACKED! People who are sitting down have their faces pretty much at crotch level of the people who are standing directly in front of them. People who are standing are rubbing pubic areas and asses with each other. Sometimes face to face! You don't ride the train together, you have a relationship with the person closest to you. There are a few remedies to the crippling awkwardness that results from a jam packed subway car: 1. Read the paper. Or at least make it look like you are more concerned with what the most popular K-pop singers are wearing these days than who is below you nuzzling your goodies. There are a few free "papers" that are like entertainment news here in Korea. You can always find some on the subway or in stands at subway stations. 2. Sleep. Or at least make it look like you are more interested in catching some Z's than whose hand that was ever-so-slowly brushing against your tit. 3. The good old 1000 mile stare. Why make it look like you are not feeling any emotions when you can make it look like you HAVE no emotions? 4. Think. This can be done with or without an mp3 player. I usually only use my mp3 player on my walks. Except the rain walks. But I am glad for the ability to just lose myself in thought on the subway. Particularly when it gets a bit too crowded.

Often though, my thinking tends to be about what happens on the subway. For instance I saw the usual complement of salespeople today. I saw a lady selling the head/wristbands I wrote about in a previous entry to this blog. That blog entry was brought on by a subway think. I saw a guy selling cellphone holders. I saw a lady selling pleather bound plan booklets, (one of which I already purchased). I saw umbrellas, beachmats, and my favourite, the lady selling the camouflage raincoats. Since it was rainy today she probably did brisk business. The reason I like these ladies so much is because they all have the identical sales pitch and right near the end they grasp the coat by two corners and snap it not once, not twice but thrice. I've seen the pitch so often I look forward to the BAM BAM BAM! I think I may start giving them a round of applause at the snapping part. You know like when we used to wait for Arnold to say, "Whatchutalkinaboutwillis?" Or at the theater when the intermission weiner finally jumps into the bun. That kind of applause.

I also like the fact that the coats are "freesize". They say that in the spiel too. Now I used to think that something either fit, was too big or was too small, but these ladies have opened my eyes to "freesize". I'll show them "freesize" Let me try one of those babies on. I guaran damn tee the hood will rip before it'll fit over my huge melon and snap the coat as much as you want but if the bottom button will fasten over my beer gut I WILL buy one! If I could speak Korean I'd say, "Okay, if it's not my size is it free?" But then I'd never see them again and I'd miss that BAM BAM BAM!

I followed a girl out of the University subway station today and couldn't help having a think about what she was wearing. She had on a pretty stylish miniskirt and top. Even her leapard umbrella was very shique. But she was wearing heels without the heelstrap fastened. Later in the day I noticed this on a few more girls. A new fashion statement perhaps. But I watched her wobbling down the street in front of me. I guess I should point out that there is no such thing as a level walking surface in Korea. How girls can wear heels at the best of times here baffles me. But she did have rather attractively polka dotted bottoms on her shoes. When I say "bottom" I don't mean the part that hits the ground, I mean the part that comes in contact with the foot. Maybe she wanted to show these off. I don't know. She's probably in the hospital with a broken ankle now.

I saw a girl this morning decked out in a beautiful array of expensive looking knockoff shoes, handbag, skirt, top, jewelry etc. Her hair was permed and perfect. She was very good looking. She had an anorexically attractive body. Her make-up was just ever so! She had probably just put it on. I almost always see girls applying make-up on the subway. Very common. Anyway this girl is probably the super high maintainence, conservative, prim and proper until you give me a rock kind of girl who has her boyfriend(s) jumping through hoops for her. The envy of all her girlfriends. And she was doing the somnambulant sway. Her mouth was wide open. Flies could have flown in and out. In fact, (and I'm not lying, I saw this today), she was forming words in her sleep. No sound was escaping her mouth but it was moving up and down. And she was oscillating left and right according to the stops and starts of the train. She had the end seat so when she went to her left she was okay but the person to her right, a lady I'd guess in her mid 40's was getting a facefull of perfectly poodle permed hair on every stop and trying her best to maintain the thousand mile stare while surreptitiously nudging this babe back into an upright position. It was priceless!

I saw an old Korean guy speaking English to a trio of Filipinas and asking the questions I was thankful he didn't ask me: Where are you from. Where are you going. How old are you? Are you married? Do you have any kids? Why only one kid? etc.

This was all in ONE day folks! I haven't even told you about people spitting on each other, calling security, drunks leaving bodily fluids behind, girlfriends popping boyfriends' zits, ridiculous, (and sometmes sexually suggestive), English on bags and t-shirts, religious zealots, beggars... I have so many stories! And I've probably missed even more while I was deep in thought.

That's the good old S.S.S. One of the solid pleasures of my day. It rarely disappoints.

Hong Date

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 was Hong Date. I had a date friends and neighbours. In Hong Dae, an area of Seoul where lots of young, hip people like to hang out. So what was I doing there? Visiting one of my young, hip friends. April.

Okay, so it wasn't really a date. April is just a friend. I am old enough to have been her babysitter at one time. But we sure had fun together! I enjoyed it because I can speak English to April just like a foreigner. She lived in Florida for a couple years. So she's pretty fluent. She likes the slang and bad words too. In fact she swears like a sailor. But in a cute way. Well look at the picture. It's hard for her to do anything that isn't cute. Imagine her dropping F bombs every sentence. I think it's adorable because she looks like the last person who would talk that way. That's April on the left talking on the phone and Yong Ah on the right.

She only said one thing during the night that I misunderstood. She was talking about how she put on weight when she was in the States. Yeah, like she ballooned to 50 kilos or something. But she told me she had a J-Lo butt. I thought she said, "Jailor butt." And I WAS a jailor for a while. So I go into this long explanation about how none of the jailors I worked with had big butts. In fact MY butt was a lot smaller when I worked at the jail. I probably had the biggest butt of all the jailors there. But(t) she said J-Lo butt again and THIS time I understood.

We went to Outback Steakhouse and had a really nice dinner. Her friend Young Ah came along after we had ordered. She just had a few tastes of what we were eating. She was very polite while me and April spoke in English. I don't know how much of it she understood but she laughed in the right places sometimes and reacted correctly sometimes. And April translated some things to her. But she didn't say much.

After a long chat at Outback we wandered around Hong Dae. It's very modern and has some really interesting stores, restaurants and bars. We went into one store that I was quite surprised to see. It was a condom store. In Korea! There were all kinds of condoms in there. Coloured condoms, condoms in nutshells, Pikachu condoms, measuring condoms with a ruler drawn onto them, condoms with lumps on them and the vibrating condom believe it or not. I actually bought one of those. Can't wait to try it out. I was gonna take a picture of the condom store but I forgot. Oh well. I WILL go back there again. Hee hee.

We went into a piercing store. Not a popular place here I imagine. We saw some really trendy boutiques and lots of neon lit bars. My favourite was the Luxury Ho Bar. In fact there are a few Ho Bars. I guess Hos are good business here.

We went into April's favourite bar called Tin Pan Alley. They played only dance and hip hop music. I didn't like most of it. But I DID like the selection of beer they had. I even found a Canadian beer I hadn't had for a while: Moosehead. And wouldn't you know it, I ripped the label clean off. Still a virgin!

April, Young Ah and their friend DK (or something like that) started dancing. So I went to I Tae Won. I knew I could go to the Old Stompers club and hear some REAL music being played by Lance, Dwayne, Dave and Meagan. They did NOT disappoint. So I drank all night and took the subway home at 7 am. It sucks having to do that but I have no choice unless I want to go home at 10 pm when the action is just starting. But I had been working like a slave tallying up the marks for my students. It takes me forever to do that but it's all done now. I just have to plug them into the computer. I started my summer course today. Should be a snap! But I can almost taste the Singha beer and smell the sea air of Pattaya beach. And the fresh cut grass of the golf courses there. I'm already on vacation. In my mind.

Why I Can't Speak Korean

Many people ask me how I could have been in Korea for as long as I have, (about 7 years), and still not be able to speak the language. Oh I can speak taxi and restaurant. I can say enough to a girl at a pick-up bar to get my face slapped. But I really can't speak Korean. I am not alone. I know half a dozen people who've taught English in China. All of them have been there for less than 2 years and speak Chinese much better than I speak Korean. I have known several people who've taught in Japan and most of them speak the language. It seems to me that most people who go to Japan or China pick up the language fairly easily. But I've known only a few who have picked up Korean. The majority of us who spend time here in Korea, for some reason or another, or a combination of many, just don't learn the language. I stayed in Japan for 3 months and learned more Japanese than I have Korean in the 7 years I've been here. If that sentence made any sense. If I give you my list of reasons it'll sound like racism or sour grapes. So I'll illustrate one of the reasons for you.

Today I went to pay rent. I pay monthly. When I finished I said to the couple who are the collectors for my landlord, "Tal maen weol manayo." Tal maen means next, weol means month and manayo means see you. Tashi manayo means see you again. Tashi means again. Ask any Korean what these words mean individually and they'll tell you. But say "Tal men weol manayo" to them and you get looked at like you are a blathering idiot. Much like the couple did to me today.

The couple who I pay rent to is very nice. The husband speaks English pretty well and they have helped me on numerous occasions like when my gas was turned off or when I tried to negotiate for a new air conditioner. They are not dumb or mentally handicapped in any obvious ways. But neither of them had the slightest idea what I meant even though individually they knew what each word meant. This is a phenomenon I have only experienced in Korea. In every other country I've gone to if you say something a little incorrect they can usually figure out what you are trying to say. Not here.

So I had to say in English "See you next month." Then the guy translated for me, "Daeum dal manayo." And I think there might have been an indicator thrown haphazardly in there. As usual.

I looked up Daeum and dal in the dictionary. They mean next and month. But when I said tal maen the guy immediately said, "Next," and when I said weol he immediately said, "Month." The individual words in the two sentences have identical meanings. It would be like someone saying in English, "See you after the following 30-day period." Not many people would say that in English but I don't know any moron who wouldn't understand it.

It just gets incredibly frustrating! When I learned something in Japanese I would say it to someone and it would be understood. If it was a sentence structure I could substitute words and it would be understood. You can't do this in Korean. It's almost like they have separate sentences and separate words for every single occasion in life. No interchange is possible. I can't tell you how many times I've learned some Korean phrase only to be met with the thousand mile stare when I say it to a Korean.

I'll give you an even more incredible example and believe it or not this REALLY did happen to me. I was getting copies made at school. I needed 10 copies. Korean has many different terms that mean "piece" or "unit" of something. They are different depending on shape. Just one of many examples of totally unnecessary difficulties in the language. The word for a flat sheet of something, (like paper), is jang. So I said to the copy room woman, "Ship jang jusayo." Thousand mile stare. I thought she didn't hear me so I said it again. Still no sign of comprehension. I was absolutely positive that ship is 10 and jusayo is "give me" but I was leary of the jang. I shouldn't have been because I had used it for getting copies before and it had been understood. But from person to person in this country you just never know what they'll understand. Another reason why trying to learn the language is like banging your head against the wall.

So I pointed at the paper I wanted copied and said, "Ship," put the paper down, held up 10 fingers, showed her some money and said, "Jusayo." She started to panic. She looked all around for the guy that's usually there who usually does the copying for us foreigners. He was not there. She looked like if she could she would have pulled out a cyanide pill and swallowed it. Luckily there was another student there with a bit of sense who said to her, "Yeol jang! Yeol jang!"

Another unnecessary complication in the Korean language is the numbers. They use different numbers for different occasions. There is no pattern at all. So I was supposed to have used the word "yeol" for the number 10 instead of the word "ship". "Ship" is from the Chinese-ish number system they use here and "yeol" is a more Korean system of numbers. I've since been told that you use the Korean numbers up to 20 and then switch to the Chinese ones. For photocopies that is. For other things the rule may not apply. So I guess the other times I had used "jang" effectively I had been getting more than 20 copies. But still, imagine someone asked you this: "Please give me tenth copies." Do you think you might be able to understand them??? Good God!

It's not just the language that makes it so hard for people to pick up Korean. There are all kinds of extra, (again unnecessary), indicators in Korean like reul, eul, gay etc. They don't add any meaning to the sentences usually, just difficulty. Even if you miss one of these the listener will often just give up trying to figure out what the hell you are saying. The Korean people, (in general), are the absolute worst you can imagine for dealing with beginners at their language.

There now I'm sounding all racist. I can't help it, it's just a fact. If you want to learn Korean, learn it from a young kid or someone who is NOT Korean. They don't really know how they speak. And they REALLY don't know how to teach. Generally.

In Japan there are tons of very good books on the language. In Korea there are none.

I have seriously considered going to a kindergarten full time and learning with the kids there. I'm still dead serious about doing that. I think that would be the best bang for my buck as far as learning this language. But I really doubt I'll do that. So I doubt I'm ever going to learn Korean.

I could go on and on giving individual examples of how things like the situations above have repetitively shot down any attempts I've made at learning Korean. But it just wears me out thinking about it. And when new friends, acquaintences and students ask why I haven't learned I just can't tell them the truth. I usually just say that their language is hard. I don't say it's ridiculously hard and the people just make it harder.

Actually that's not true. I HAVE said this to several of my Korean friends and they've agreed with me. Now I guess I could just refer them to this website. Blogs are excellent!

Bye Bye Bob

And the Dick Clark award for guys who no longer make us feel young goes to Robert W. Barker. But he deserves to retire. He's only been at it 35 years or so. He started the Price is Right in 1972. And he started Truth or Consequences in 1956. So he's been in Television for 50 years. I can give him a break.

I think retirement's gonna be tough for Bob. It's gotta be tough to stop doing what you've been doing for 50 years. He'll have to try to find ways to ease out of the Price is Right routine. Like asking clerks at places where he buys his groceries, hair dye, Viagra etc. to total up his bill and say, "The actual retail price is...!" Or randomly stopping people on the street to try to guess how much loose change they have on their person. Or maybe every week he'll have to go out and buy A NEW CAR!

But there will be change. It's inevitable. Instead of banging Barker's beauties he'll have to settle for playing bingo with them at the old age home. Not HIS old age home, THEIRS. Or maybe he'll just have himself spayed or newtered.

All joking aside, I downloaded the last Price is Right and watched it. The first prize up for bids was a big screen TV and they had one of Bob's original Price is Rights playing on it. Today's Bob looked just as good. Maybe better! Old Bob was chunkier and not as happy looking. Of course he's happy. What a life he's lead!

So the question that now has to be asked is who will replace him? Who can walk out onto the Price is Right stage without feeling like a total phony? Just a replacement. Like when Adam Sandler guest hosted for David Letterman. Ugh! I like Sandler, don't get me wrong, but that was painful to watch.

And Letterman isn't getting any younger either. Feb. 1, 1982 Dave started. A little trivia, Bill Murray was his first guest. He used to be a weatherman for WTHR out of Indanapolis. Dave, not Bill. So before silly stunts like the guy who recently jumped over a NYC taxi cab, he always gives the weather. Wind from the southeast at 2 km/h and visibility is virtually unlimited. And when an audience member told Dave he lived just south of Seattle, Letterman commented that the weather there was highly affected by the Humboldt current or some damn thing. Monday's episode is number 2773. The show has received 67 Emmy nominations and they've won 12 times. But he's still miles behind old Bobby.

Bob Barker has taped 6482 episodes of The Price is Right. 3524 episodes of Truth or Consequences. That's a staggering 10,006 episodes of TV! It's estimated that he's given out over 200 million bucks worth of cash and prizes to the contestants who have come closest to the actual retail price without going over. He has won 19 Emmies. He has kicked Adam Sandler's ass. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most generous and most durable TV performer. And these are just his accomplishments OUTSIDE the bedroom! Bob Barker is a stud. Period.

So who should replace him? I've read that George Hamilton's name has been suggested. I guess because he's tall, tan and kinda looks like Bob. But how many good years does George have left?

Jerry Seinfeld is mentioned when ANY host looks to be retiring. Leave Jerry alone. He's a gozillionaire and he made one of the best sitcoms ever. No matter how well he hosts a show it'll seem like a hobby for him.

I think a good host might be Rosie O'Donnell. She DID have a talk show but I think she's better suited for a game show. She says she'd love to do it. Donald Trump would never be allowed to come on down but he has no idea what things cost anyway.

Or how about Frank Caliendo? He could DO Bob Barker better than Bob!

Speaking of Frank Caliendo, how about John Madden? That would be great! He's got white hair and a tan like Bob. And he could use the telestrater to explain the games.

Whoever they pick to fill Bob's, (or Dave's), shoes, I wouldn't give the new host's problems to a monkey on a rock!

Optimistic me

Well it's the end of the term here. Next week is exam time. If it's anything like previous years it'll be heaps of fun trying to figure out how to mark people and post the marks on a ridiculously complicated online system. But who knows, it might be less of a hassle than expected. See? See? I can still think positively! Even though that's always what ends up getting me into trouble.

A brief example. Tonight I had the cavalier shortsightedness to pick up the phone and order pizza instead of saving myself some money and a headache and going with the pick-up option. Why I EVER do that is a mystery to me. Because if the run of the mill garden variety Korean can't understand me when I am speaking perfect Korean with bang on pronunciation slanged up and slurred like I've been speaking it my whole life, how could I ever expect the guy who answers the phone at Dominoes to know what I'm saying? Positive thinking.

So the guy answers with the hello Dominoes Pizza greeting and I start ordering a large super supreme pizza. I said, " Yoposayo, lah ji Super Supreme Pizza ju sayo." Unfortunately in Korea it's not Super Supreme it's shyoo puh shyoo peu leem. The guy on the phone is no rocket scientist. He probably thinks Dominoes is Korean and shyoo puh shyoo peu leem is a clever Korean title for a pizza. I didn't use the Korean massacring of "Super Supreme" even though I DID say "lah ji" in stead of "large". Predictably his answer was, "Ye?"

"Ye" and "Ne" can both be used for "yes" and with interogative intonation as "what?" I have a habit of saying "yup" in English. It's got a bit of an upward intonation that causes great confusion when I transfer it into the Korean language. As you will see.

So I do the Koreanization of the pizza title. He understands. I wish I could record a call like this sometime for classroom purposes. My students and Korean friends are always telling me how "scientific" the Korean alphabet is. Nobody knows exactly what the hell that means including the parrots who say it, but part of it is the idea that any word from any language can be written using Korean characters. When I disagree and tell them it needs to be written and understood they always tell me they can understand it. Which is a total lie. It's why Koreans write new second language vocabulary in Korean characters and it's why every single person has identical pronunciation problems and it's not gonna change very soon. Job security for me! See? See?

Back to the pizza. He asks in Korean where I live. No, I don't know how to ask the question myself but I have logic on my side, (something I can't say for the guy on the other end of the phone), and I know he's gonna ask me where I live so the delivery driver can find me. So I start saying my address in Korean. I've said it many times before, I know how to say it, my pronunciation is fine and we have a good telephone connection but he just can't seem to understand me. I tell him, "Weon Cheong Men syon, B dong, sam baek sam ho." That means Weon Cheong Mansion B unit, room 303. He asks me if I'm in Deok Jeong. I live in Yangju and almost the entire city is Deok Jeong. The subway stop is named Deok Jeong. The high school and middle schools are named Deok Jeong. All the big apartments are Deok Jeong. The Dominos Pizza is in Deok Jeong about a 5 minute walk from my house. There are no other Weon Cheong Mansions anywhere. The guy has made 20 pizzas for me before and probably recognizes my voice. They have delivered umpteen dozen pizzas to Weong Cheong Mansion B dong and know exactly where it is. I am one of maybe three English speaking males in the area. I've seen the phone at the store, it has call display and they know who it is calling if you've called once before like every other Dominos Pizza in the whole fucking world but this guy just had to know if I was in Deok Jeong. Store policy to ask the neighbourhood I suppose. You wanna see the meaning of do as you're told? Give a Korean a rule.

So I say, "Deok Jeong. Ye." Only he hears my "ye." as "ye?" So he asks me back, "Ye?" I am briefly confused by his confusion and pause to ponder whether he doesn't understand me, if he's asking me whether or not I just said ye, whether he's never heard of Deok Jeong or what the problem could possibly be. And I was trying to think of the sub-neighbourhood to clarify WAY beyond what is necessary to get a pizza delivered. It took me 2.5 seconds to remember that I live in sah dan ji. That's 4, um, dan ji. I dunno what that means. Because Korea doesn't really have street names and their houses don't really have numbers they have a system of ever decreasing sized areas that are used to narrow down addresses rather than actually pinpoint them. Mail carriers and delivery people have to be geniuses. Anyway it didn't come to me instantly and I had to think. Fatal mistake. Another rule Koreans follow is the telephone pause rule. If you are not instantaneous in your answers, despite the fact that you are obviously a foreigner struggling with a very difficult language, they hit you with "yoposeyo?" This means "hello" but it is like "game over" on a video game. You have to start back at the beginning again.

So I sigh heavily and say my address and my order again in impeccable Korean. He understands and superfluously asks again if I'm in Deok Jeong and I say "ye" and drop waaaay down to a Johnny Cash baritone. He understands.

Now Koreans are still having a tough time getting foreign food. It's much better than when I first got here but there are still a lot of people who put odd toppings on pizzas, burgers. sandwiches and such. I've seen, and eaten, some whacky stuff. On pizza I've seen squid, boiled eggs, kimchi, ketchup, broccoli, mayo, mustard, sweet potato, cabbage, peas and the list goes on. They have all those extras but I defy you to get bacon. I miss bacon on pizza. Then there's the ubiquitous corn topping. A majority of pizzas here include it. I don't like it but often don't have the energy to ask them to hold the corn. It's much easier to just pick it off. But on this occasion I had to try. "Ok soo soo eopsoyo," I said. That means "no corn". Predictably he says,"Ye?" So I try a different angle of approach. "Ok soo soo peeri eopsoyo," I said. This means "I don't need corn." He says, "Ye?" Then he says, "Can you speak English?"

I know who this guy on the phone is. I know he speaks English pretty well. I've talked to him while waiting for my pizza several times. He knows who it is calling for a pizza. So I start coming unglued,"YES, I speak English. Do you speak Korean?" Predictably his answer is, "Ye?" "Ok soo soo!" I say voluminously. "Ok soo soo! Corn! Anyo! No! Eopsoyo! None!" The dime, (or hundred won coin), drops. "Oh, weed out cone." he says. "Yes! Without corn."

So now we're speaking English, which we could have done from the beginning. He recites my order and address in English only he says, and by this point I'm starting to think I might be a victim of one of the Korean Jerky Boys, "WEED CONE!"

"NO!" I yell at the phone, "WEED OUT CONE! WEED OUT CONE!"

"Ye ye ye. So dee so dee. Weed out cone. " he says.

So I finally did get my pizza. But next time I'll just go pick it up. That way I get a bit of exercise walking to Dominos. And if I'm ever too lazy to go I'll just choose to eat something else. Probably something more healthy. So ordering pizza on the phone is a pain in the ass but it's sort of a good thing that it is. Wow, look at me go! Positive thinking up a storm.

In other news, I signed a new one-year lease on my house conditional upon the landlord replacing my air conditioner, which is above my computer and leaks like a seive. A few weeks ago a guy came to try to repair it. The third time it has been looked at. This time I couldn't get it to leak. He said that he needed to see it leak before he could fix the problem. I can't understand why a guy who knew what he was doing couldn't just check the possible problems one at a time and find the problem without seeing the leak. But then again, like the first couple of guys, this guy probably wasn't actually a repairman. It's really getting hot here too. So yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought a shower hose and rigged it to my air conditioner so that the water will drip into a rig that kinda looks like an I.V. and then drain out my window. It was on for a couple hours today. Never leaked a drop. Go figure.

You can even see this blog entry on the pic if you look closely. And I had just finished eating some of my pizza. You can just see the plate and crust dipping sauce on top of my printer. And the pizza is what the paper towels are for... of course.

I solved my own ant problem and fixed my own air conditioner. People solve their own problems here. When you have a fender bender you get out your wallets and bicker for a while then drive away. No expensive lawyers needed. People hardly ever sue. My handyman skills are really improving too. I guess this is just another good thing about Korea.

See? See? See?

Top Ten Surprises on the Sopranos Finale

I'm getting excited to see the finale of the Sopranos. My favourite non-animated TV show is ending for good soon. The latest David Letterman top ten contest is Top Ten Surprises on the Sopranos Finale. I normally only submit one entry to the Letterman top ten contests but this time I am getting greedy. I'm trying for the whole top ten. That would be cool. Here are my ten entries:

10 Janice kills Carmella for ziti recipe.

9 Sil finds out too late he is the first new patient in years for Dr. Kervorkian.

8 Anthony Junior becomes the boss... at a local Toys "R" Us.

7 Meadow enrolls in law school and busts entire family as homework assignment.

6 Mob family war is settled by pitting Paulie Gualtieri against Phil Leotardo in a WWE hairmatch.

5 Tony's new therapist - Dr. Phil!

4 A geneological study shows that the Sopranos are actually Tenors.

3 The "safe"house Tony's gang is holed up in turns out to be one of Carmella's spec houses, which she burns for insurance purposes accidentally killing everyone.

2 Tony gets an extra long lapdance and, BA DA BING, heart attack.

And the number one surprise in the Sopranos Final Episode: Tony gets whacked...

by Stewie Griffin of Family Guy.

Wish me luck.

By the way, I don't know who signed that autograph beside Stewie but it should be Fran Doyle. Sorry bout that, Fran. Liars, cheaters and stealers always prosper eh?

Happy Birthday Buddha

Hey folks. I figured I'd start this entry with a pic. Why not leave it at the top and save my self the trouble of moving it and repairing all the errors that causes? Am I the only one whose blog goes haywire when I import a pic? Anyways, nice pic eh? I got this at Everland. I've been there 7 times now and I think since the very first time I've wanted to get one of these things done. I absolutely love watching the artists. I like watching the artists who draw the portraits even better than the caricature artists, but couldn't find any this time. I'm pretty happy with this nonetheless. It's like he knew me! And it WILL be what I'm doing soon.

Exam week is June 18 - 22. Then on the 25th I start teaching extra intensive courses for money over and above my salary. July 16th is my last day of intensive courses. Then it's off to Thailand to spend my extra dough on golf and debauchery. I have over a month to spend in Thailand. Or maybe I'll split the time between Thailand and another country. I was hoping to have less of a holiday and more work this summer BUT my new school pulled the same screw job my old school did on me. They promised teachers could work at camps during the holidays and now it has been announced that we can't. I had a camp arranged for late July and early August that would have given me two weeks vacation and I would have finished the camp two weeks before the new semester started. That would have been perfect. But noooooo! Koreans will only tell the truth in business dealings as a last resort.

I would have had the same camp in the winter for the same amount of money. So now in the last two years the, "Oh yes we will give you permission to work at camps" and a couple other lies have cost me about 15 thousand dollars. Actually both years they used that lie amongst others to induce me into signing the contracts so it's cost me 15 thou and two years in Korea. And I know that when I go into the office tomorrow if I see Mee Sook, the one who told me the lie, she's gonna pull the same act that the guys did last year. Tomorrow Me Sook is going to act like SHE'S the one mad a ME! They get angry if you point out their conniving, cheating, lying, stealing, pure fucking evil business practices. Like a guy stabbing you repeatedly with a knife might get mad at you if you tried to dial 911. I don't know if I'll be able to control myself. I may say some things in pure rage tomorrow. I don't think I'll ever be on good terms with my supervisor ever again. And already it looks a lot like I'll be going to YET ANOTHER new school at the end of this contract. Or maybe before. But the new school will just lie to me too. This is working in Korea. Fun fun fun!

I'll talk about the Buddha's Birthday long weekend later. I'm seething right now. I can't write or think anything positive.

I'm number 8! I'm number 8!

Hey! It's midnight here and I gotta wake up a six AM but I stayed up to watch David Letterman anyway. Boy am I glad I did!

I'm a huge fan! Always have been. I even have the website on my favourites. And sometimes enter the top ten contest. You can get a free t-shirt if they use your entry. I've done, I dunno 20 or so. A LOOOONG time ago the category, "Top ten indications you're at a lame nudist colony" was the topic. THEY PICKED MINE! Here's the site. I'm number 8!

I don't think I'm getting a T - shirt though. They added the parenthetics to cover their asses and save the price of a shirt. Cheap melon forkers! But the Jessica Alba/Jessica Tandy part is all mine!

So am I a published author? Ha ha ha. This brings up all kinds of questions. I can't sleep at a time like this!!! While I was watching I was falling asleep. I didn't recognize the topic as one I'd contributed to and ALMOST didn't notice my entry. But as you know from my previous post I really like Jessica Alba and I think the process in my mind went something like, "That's something I coulda wrote. Except for the lame part about renting Cocoon. Wait a minute Alba... Tandy, I DID WRITE THAT!" And it took about a second.

Now I'm wondering how many of the other 19 have been used. I don't mind at all. It's a thrill for me. As you can tell. And I've got T-shirts. But I have to start paying more attention to the top 10 lists. Or maybe I'll record my entries somehow.

I'm number 8! I'm number 8!

I downloaded the episode and watched it on my computer again. Not the whole episode, of course. Did anyone else think number 8 got just a little more of a laugh than the others? I think I detected that the audience might have been launching into a round of applause and possibly even a standing ovation but then Letterman cut that short by reading the "go rent Cocoon" part. Dammit! Aw, how can I stay mad at Dave. I have a great deal of respect for him. He's great. No question. But those laughs are MINE, baby! Hoo Hoo Haaah Haaaah! I made people laugh. ON TV!

Now to get an episode of the Simpsons on TV. There's much to be done!

Mom and the Girls Mom Warned Us About

I've been doing a little surfing. Catching up on world events without having to depress myself by reading the newspaper. These are interesting times.

First an absolutely perfect Mother's Day cartoon. My Mom never reads this so the fact that I'm posting this late won't matter. She'll likely read it around Christmas.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Thanks to the blogger I stole this from too.

As for world events, I don't like thinking about economics or war or depressing things like that so I figured I'd catch up with celebs. What's happening with the hottest gals of our time. If you had to choose three, (and this is just public opinion, not mine), I think probably Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are the cheerleaders in the minds of most horny guys chanting "Two, four, six, eight - look at us and masterbate."

We all know by now that Paris is gonna spend 45 days giving guards and inmates a taste of why Hilton is "so nice to come home to." Poor girl. No, I'm serious! What did she do, drive drunk and without a license 3, 4, 10 times? Well how can she be expected to know what life is like in the real world. She thought those laws were for REGULAR people.

The pic to the right reminds me of a recent Simpsons episode in which Homer is taking sleeping pills and they cause really destructive behaviour in him. Lisa says the drugs are dangerous and Homer says, "No Lisa I'm taking drugs not DRUUUUUUUGGGSSS." Okay, I think laws against marijuana are stupid. So many people are doped up on legal drugs to make them sleep, keep them awake, make them happy, make them sad, let's face it if there is the slightest thing wrong there's a drug for it. And if you looked at the effects of most drugs prescribed for psychological problems, you'd think the prescribers were pushers, not doctors. I guess that's the point. Why let regular people get rich selling druuuuuugggsss when the medical industry can get even richer selling drugs that look nicer but are more dangerous. Anyway, right or wrong there are laws and evidently Paris doesn't think THOSE laws apply to her either. But what the hay, way to go Paris! Fight the power.

Paris loves being dirty on camera. There is 24/7 videotaped surveillance at every jail and prison I know of. What do you wanna bet a few tapes go missing from her prison? There are some prison guards saying !!CHACHING!! right now. Keep a close watch on Youtube.

And Lindsay is power partying all night then calling in sick to work. Ever done that? No, neither have I. She has decided, (bless her heart), that the world needs to see more of her. So she's a stripper in her next movie. The plot of the movie is about a... yeah, right! Like ANYONE cares.

There isn't much more we can see of Lindsay, but I applaud her efforts nonetheless.

And last but not least, Britney. Take a look at this pic. It's probably too small for you to read the writing but it's on her official website if you wanna check. It's just a pic to thank all the fans who have been praying for her. So you're a good Christian until what, you show nipple?

I just wanna know for future reference. This might get my ass back in a pew I'll tell you hwat! Nice wig eh? heh heh.

These are the three hottest girls in the world? Back in my glory days of pin-ups, posters and celebrity babe worship they woulda been too sleazy for me. If I were a teenager now I think I might have a wall full of Jessica Alba or Scarlett Joahansson. I don't think you can do much better than that. But whatever floats your boat I guess.

There. Now FOR SURE I'll get more people to read my blog.

Grumpy Old Man in Training

I feel like a bit of a jerk right now. But on the other hand I feel pretty good. The kind of good feeling you get when you are warming your hands in the nice, warm embers of a burning bridge. You know what I'm talking about? Let me splain.

Last year I was contacted to work a really lucrative camp and couldn't do so because I worked at Beelzebub College and they wouldn't give permission. The girl I dealt with seemed fairly nice though. We talked on the phone and chatted online about the camp. She actually sent me an email and invited me to be a teacher at the same camp this summer. With the invitation she also sent this website: http://www.weepigeonlifecoaching.com/
and a request that I send it to all my friends and contacts. I sent a response today. You have to read some of the website to understand my reply. Don't read too much or your brain might turn to sugar.

Earlier in the day I received an email from a friend inviting me to talk to him on a new site called Quetchup or some damn thing. In order to do that I had to join the site and while filling out the info on the form, Quetchup tried to take all the names from my yahoo address book. Well needless to say that attempt was blocked by my computer but it still pissed me off. I guess poor Linda Lafferty got the brunt of my ire. I returned her email refusing to forward her address to my friends. This is what I wrote verbatum but with a few emoticons missing:

Wow! I'm sorry, but I can't forward this site to any of my friends and am really disappointed that you asked me to do so. I am going to try to explain to you why, and be forewarned, coming from a person who believes people need honesty, sometimes BRUTAL honesty, more than soothing, positive psychological platitudes, this may harsh your mellow a bit.
Most of my friends are not intellectual infants who fall for psychobabble like, "There are no successes or failures. Only results of actions." I think any of my friends could reason that if I kicked the ball towards the goal and it went 10 feet wide, yes the miss was a result of the kick, but it was VERY obviously a failure. Failure and success ARE results of actions. To say anything like the above quote to most of my friends would be an affront to their intellects. Trying to ease somebody's pain through semantics requires that the suffering person be very suggestable. Most of my friends don't qualify.
And if there are any people on my friends list that I have overestimated and who would be fooled by cereal box psychology, they certainly won't be very receptive to this approach. Why do you think people hate Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons? It's not their theology so much. It's the in your face, magnanimous approach. Even though they might be genuinely just trying to help, it looks an awful lot like, "If you listen to what I have to say, you too can be as cool as me!" YOUR approach is even worse! It's the same only at the cost of 60 bucks an hour! At least.
A coach is someone who spends a LOT of time with his/her sport. They study the game and look at it in ways that others may not. They are masters of their sports. To call yourself a lifecoach is to say you are a master of life. Do you not see how arrogant and presumptuous this is? You are young so you haven't spent more time with life than I, or most of my friends have, so what you are effectively saying is that you have discovered things about life that we haven't and your acquisition of wisdom has been more efficient than ours. You're just saying it in words that go nicely together.
There are a lot of very suggestible people in Korea who have not been exposed to the landslides of psychology that we in the "west" have. They are also so overinstitutionalized that they have a deficiency in social training, which has kept them from developing a healthy skepticism. This is a paradise for a racket like yours. And until they are scammed a few times, Koreans probably won't learn. So it may be good for them, but I don't wish you any success and I certainly won't refer any of my friends to you. Find your own victims and keep pumping your own mind full of hyperpositive cliches so that you can live with what you are doing.

Now, don't take this too personally, Linda. You require your clients to be forthcoming. That's all I was attempting with this email. I am trying to convey my honest feelings. I don't dislike you or anything. I just don't agree with your business. This was not a failure. It was just a reaction to an action. What you have to do is find a way to recover positivity. Life is indeed an adventure! And what adventure is without its setbacks? The longest journey starts with a single step. Consider this a stutter-step. The dream is still yours to achieve!

That'll be 60 dollars please.


I dunno, do you think I was too hard on her? I suppose I won't be invited to teach at that camp. But if she lives according to her website, maybe she WILL invite me. She should be thrilled with my honesty and happy to have such a well adjusted person working with the kids. Yeah, right! And her "lifecoach training" is for real too. And those awesome testimonials on the website were written by real people too. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oigu. Think I'll go icefishing with the putz next door.

Sand and Nuts

Well, no rugby pics. It rained yesterday. I like PLAYING rugby in the rain but not watching. But that rain was a good thing. It washes all the Chinese sand out of the air. Today is nice and clear. Actually last night was clear too so I went for a soggy jog. I swear to God I could feel the difference in the air.

For those of you who think the yellow sand is just a wivestale, there is actually a yellow sand level graph kept daily on the website www.usfk.mil Not that the US military doesn't support wivestales wholeheartedly like the one about the Iraq war being about freedom or womd's or anything but oil, but... I still believe in the sand.

And here's a pic taken from the window of one of my classrooms at HUFS. That ain't smog, it's sand that's obscuring the mountains in the distance. And they're not THAT far in the distance.

It's not the sand that is so bad. I don't think it would hurt just breathing in sand. Heck, Jesper Parnevik, (a pro golfer), EATS sand all the time. But since China has become the "next superpower" economically, EVERYBODY in China is buying cars with their new riches. And the pollution is stifling. Worse than traditional front running Bangkok, Thailand, or so I've heard from friends who've been to major Chinese cities recently. It's hard to imagine worse than Bangkok as far as smog.

Anyway, the sand mixes with that toxic poison before it arrives in Korea and is inhaled by me. So I've had what I believe has been more of an infection than a cold for a couple months. And, (yes, Heather), I'm blaming it on China. But I'm finally getting over it. I STILL hack up sand in the morning and I can't sleep too well but I've got enough energy to exercise again and keep my house clean. I haven't been answering emails or keeping up with my work either. I did some marking yesterday that I should have done two months ago. As my blog will attest, I've been going out drinking with friends over the past couple months. This has been therapeutic, infection-killing drinking, don't you know.

Korea has been planting trees in China to help block the sand but if you know anything at all about the Chinese, they'll just fatten them up and cut them down for lumber. Don't think this is in any way racist because it was a Chinese guy who told me this: "Here's the difference between Canada and China: you have 100 trees with two people competing for logging rights. In China we have two trees and 100 people competing for logging rights."

I asked him if he didn't see WHY that might be the case from what he had just told me. NO IDEA!! I explained to him that the 2 Canadians would cut down maybe 50 of the trees then plant 200 more. The 100 Chinese people should be looking elsewhere to make their fortunes. Leave the trees alone if there are only 2 left for God's sake! Should be obvious, shouldn't it?

I wonder if the trees the Koreans are planting are pine trees. I wonder this because I also read an article written by a North Korean who had defected to South Korea. He was writing about the pine nut "harvest" in N. Korea. He wrote about how people, crazed by the money available from the sale of pine nuts to the Chinese, were cutting down trees to get the pine cones. He wrote about how he started collecting pine nuts by climbing the trees and shaking them off the branches. But he could see how easily other people were making their money by simply chopping the trees down so he said he ended up doing it too.

The pine nuts are inside the pine cones and are quite expensive due to their nutritiousness, (hightest protein of any nut or seed), and the hard labour through which they are acquired. It seems like almost everything nutritious is expensive doesn't it? Anyway, a lot of the pine nuts exported from China are collected by poor North Koreans and Russians. The ones collected in China are collected by poor Chinese. They get paid almost nothing for their work because, hey this is China we're talking about here, but if they cut the trees down they can get many more nuts with far less effort. The end result is more money. STILL not enought to be considered slave wages, but more than they're used to getting. And economically, it's not a bad thing either. There won't be so many pine trees left since A) they're killing them, and B) the pine nuts are the seeds that aren't being planted to make more trees. So every year, due to the laws of supply and demand, pine nuts will get more expensive, the pine nut barons of China will get richer, buy more cars and make the air dirtier, AANNDD, there will be more, and more dangerous yellow sand here in Korea.

So I'm not eating another pine nut, dammit. I'm done with pine nuts. No more! I just thank God the Chinese aren't chopping down pistachio trees!

I wanna go to camp

http://s146.photobucket.com/albums/r248/davoid13/?action=view&current=MVI_2264.flv

The above is a video I just found from a couple years ago. My friend Guns filmed it. It's from a summer camp I did way down in Naju City where all the good pears come from. I was looking through camp pics I've piled up over the years to help out a couple Canadians who are thinking of coming to Korea and doing some camps this summer. They just wanted to see what it was like. Don't worry, I didn't send them this clip.

I got to looking at all these pics and vids and, (God help me!), I almost wished I could do a camp right now. It's a heck of a lot of work but it's a TON of fun! The little teacher swim was during the only 20 minute break during the day time we had for the whole two weeks we were there! Well, I'm exaggerating, but not that much. As you can see they had some pretty strict standards on teachers' attire at the Naju camp too.

I tell you what, if I were a Korean kid I would want to go to the camps I was working at. Even though we acquiesced to the parents sadistic wishes to do classroom English lessons in the mornings, we sure ran those kids ragged making up for all the fun they DIDN'T have during the rest of the year. Ran ourselves a little ragged too as you can tell by the "Kasiawhew" pic. to the right. Heh heh. I love that pic. It sums up the camp so nicely.

I don't know why I'm posting this. Spring fever maybe. Not that I EVER look forward to summer, but I sure DO like the camps. I think it might be because Guns called me today from Vancouver and told me that the Naju camp will be contracted out to Chonnam University this year. Unless I volunteer to be the camp planner, that is. I said no. Teaching is enough excitement for me, thank you. But I really like those kids. The more I look at these pics the more I think I SHOULD just plan the whole camp for them. I know I could do it. The two Canadians I was showing the photos to would work the camp I'm pretty sure. So I'd only have to find a couple more teachers. And with a fool proof schedule and a good camp location things would be pretty smooth. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Oigooo! Like that has EVER happened at one of these English camps.

But things always worked out. And after a day of high-stress kid herding, shuffling, dipping, diving, spinning, and pulling last-minute activity and lesson ideas out of our asses, we always had a couple hours after the kids were fed, drugged, soundly whooped and put to bed, to center our souls with beer, smokes and yoga. Guns is the guy on top. He took the kids on their morning hike around the rice fields and his band rocked the place on the last day of camp. He's the lead singer. Ji is our instructor at the bottom. She did yoga while Guns' crew was hiking in the morning. Because of them us teachers got to sleep one hour more than the students each morning. That was awesome! I always forget the other guy's name. Lots of the female campers had crushes on him though. Ah summer love...

Man we had fun! But, I guess I can't live in the past. Two years can change a lot! Two of the four people in this yoga pic. will be in Canada this summer. And one of them won't be the Canadian either. Two Koreans for one Canadian? Is that the going rate? I'm not sure if that's fair market value for a valuable commodity like me or not. Oh well, they might sneak the third guy into Vancouver too. Hee hee. I better stop before I do something foolish like make a long distance call to Canada and tell Guns I'll do the camp.

I might have some rugby pics in the next post. Saturday some of the teachers I work with will be playing and some of us will be cheering. Then we'll all be doing some drinking afterwards. Should be fun.