Ugh ugh ugh. JH just texted to move our meeting up from "sometime after 9" to 7. Which means I don't have time for a nap, and barely have time to get my (nearly permanently now) dirty dump of an apartment cleaned up and get myself into a presentable going-out-on-New-Year's-Eve state.
Also, I'm cold. And have been for about a week now. Grumpy. Something excellent better happen tonight. I'm not kidding.
Time to down a couple of cups of coffee, put on some terrible K pop at high volume and get my sad, middle-age-acting ass in gear, I suppose....
12.31.2009
A few things.
A few things before I probably crash out for a nap before heading out tonight (which -- how pathetic is this?-- I'm still talking myself into because, actually it's really fucking cold and icy and I kinda wanna just stay in and cook dinner and watch a movie):
1. My school forgot to feed me today. Now, granted I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself if that's what is expected of me, but the norm during vacation is that we all order in together as an office. By the time 2 o'clock rolled around and I realized that phone call asking what I wanted wasn't coming, I was too ticked off to try to do anything about it.
I actually like teaching camps, which makes me basically an anomaly among the NESTs from what I hear, but it can be a rough time of year. On the one hand, it makes you really appreciate your handler (if you have a good one). On the other, it makes you feel completely forgettable sometimes. Now, I don't need a co-teacher in class -- if you can't handle ten to fifteen students on your own, you probably shouldn't ever be in a classroom with 40 to begin with. But it's all the things outside of class that can go wrong. Like for example, last winter vacation when I came in in the middle of the student camp week to find the EOZ completely demolished and full of smoking ajeosshi. Apparently, it didn't occur to anyone to prepare another classroom for me to finish my camp in, and I ended up squatting in a cold ass office with my poor students with no computer and no board to write on, which nixed pretty much all of my lesson plans and left me using every last ounce of my creativity to find ways to teach effectively.
Ugh. It's a frustrating time of year. I saw two unfamiliar men sniffing around the EOZ today and it better not mean anymore surprise construction, or there will be words.
2. I'm really excited to get camps going. I've got three this vacation -- one with the students (I got the class attendance sheet today and several of my favorites are on there, along with a bunch of new boys I don't know by name yet, and absolutely not a single known little asshole), one with teachers at another school (which I love, because it gives me a chance to meet new teachers, and also there's something invigorating about standing in front of teachers' classes and finding a way to get them out of their shells and conversing) and one combined camp with parents and teachers from my own school (which I'm kind of nervous about, just because the teachers are upset about being mixed in with the parents, and it also sounds like kind of a ton of people are coming).
3. That guy texted to confirm our date for Saturday today, and I still haven't answered him, because I really, really don't want to go. Which is stupid, because he's not offensive in any way. He hasn't done anything wrong and he's decent looking. But. Well. I'd kind of prefer someone less good looking and slightly more interesting. I don't really understand what the point of this is. What do you think -- should I go and give it a shot, or bail?
4. Brian in Jeollnam-do posted this about the government potentially creating a black list of "incompetent" NESTs. I left this as a comment:
Forgive me for not really understanding what all the brouhaha is about. Why is there any need for a black list? If foreign public school teachers are already receiving evaluations (and we are), then those evaluations contain any negative feedback the schools have toward the NESTs already. If a school had half a mind to be responsible in their hiring practices, they would find their way to these evaluations anyway.
So the schools plan on asking immigration not to reissue E-2 visas to incompetent native English teachers. But native English teachers CAN'T GET an E-2 visa unless the schools offer them a job in the first place. So the schools are asking immigration not to issue visas to the teachers that they deem worthy of giving a job and inviting into their schools?
Does anyone else see the circle of inane tongue wagging going on here?
Certain people in the media sure do like to paint us like an uncontrollable invasion that can't be stopped despite everyone's best efforts, but the truth is, we're sorta like vampires -- we can't come in unless you invite us. At the end of the day, who's responsible?
I have a lot more to say about this, but most of it is probably best stated over a beer with other NESTs and not here in this blog. The long and the short of it is, though, why are the public schools turning to immigration to do their job? They are responsible to monitor the competence of the individuals they hire -- there's no reason to induce a nation-wide ban on bad teachers. That's just ridiculous. And I hope immigration laughs in their faces. Can you imagine Joe-schmoe Business Owner back home approaching US Immigration about how Jose Gonzalez was caught napping on the job, and therefore shouldn't be allowed back into the country, because otherwise he might make the mistake of hiring him again? Ridiculous. Absurdity at its finest. Frankly, all this does is make me question the competence of the institutions in place that are responsible for hiring native speaking English teachers. Apparently, they can't do their jobs either. Embarrassing.
1. My school forgot to feed me today. Now, granted I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself if that's what is expected of me, but the norm during vacation is that we all order in together as an office. By the time 2 o'clock rolled around and I realized that phone call asking what I wanted wasn't coming, I was too ticked off to try to do anything about it.
I actually like teaching camps, which makes me basically an anomaly among the NESTs from what I hear, but it can be a rough time of year. On the one hand, it makes you really appreciate your handler (if you have a good one). On the other, it makes you feel completely forgettable sometimes. Now, I don't need a co-teacher in class -- if you can't handle ten to fifteen students on your own, you probably shouldn't ever be in a classroom with 40 to begin with. But it's all the things outside of class that can go wrong. Like for example, last winter vacation when I came in in the middle of the student camp week to find the EOZ completely demolished and full of smoking ajeosshi. Apparently, it didn't occur to anyone to prepare another classroom for me to finish my camp in, and I ended up squatting in a cold ass office with my poor students with no computer and no board to write on, which nixed pretty much all of my lesson plans and left me using every last ounce of my creativity to find ways to teach effectively.
Ugh. It's a frustrating time of year. I saw two unfamiliar men sniffing around the EOZ today and it better not mean anymore surprise construction, or there will be words.
2. I'm really excited to get camps going. I've got three this vacation -- one with the students (I got the class attendance sheet today and several of my favorites are on there, along with a bunch of new boys I don't know by name yet, and absolutely not a single known little asshole), one with teachers at another school (which I love, because it gives me a chance to meet new teachers, and also there's something invigorating about standing in front of teachers' classes and finding a way to get them out of their shells and conversing) and one combined camp with parents and teachers from my own school (which I'm kind of nervous about, just because the teachers are upset about being mixed in with the parents, and it also sounds like kind of a ton of people are coming).
3. That guy texted to confirm our date for Saturday today, and I still haven't answered him, because I really, really don't want to go. Which is stupid, because he's not offensive in any way. He hasn't done anything wrong and he's decent looking. But. Well. I'd kind of prefer someone less good looking and slightly more interesting. I don't really understand what the point of this is. What do you think -- should I go and give it a shot, or bail?
4. Brian in Jeollnam-do posted this about the government potentially creating a black list of "incompetent" NESTs. I left this as a comment:
Forgive me for not really understanding what all the brouhaha is about. Why is there any need for a black list? If foreign public school teachers are already receiving evaluations (and we are), then those evaluations contain any negative feedback the schools have toward the NESTs already. If a school had half a mind to be responsible in their hiring practices, they would find their way to these evaluations anyway.
So the schools plan on asking immigration not to reissue E-2 visas to incompetent native English teachers. But native English teachers CAN'T GET an E-2 visa unless the schools offer them a job in the first place. So the schools are asking immigration not to issue visas to the teachers that they deem worthy of giving a job and inviting into their schools?
Does anyone else see the circle of inane tongue wagging going on here?
Certain people in the media sure do like to paint us like an uncontrollable invasion that can't be stopped despite everyone's best efforts, but the truth is, we're sorta like vampires -- we can't come in unless you invite us. At the end of the day, who's responsible?
I have a lot more to say about this, but most of it is probably best stated over a beer with other NESTs and not here in this blog. The long and the short of it is, though, why are the public schools turning to immigration to do their job? They are responsible to monitor the competence of the individuals they hire -- there's no reason to induce a nation-wide ban on bad teachers. That's just ridiculous. And I hope immigration laughs in their faces. Can you imagine Joe-schmoe Business Owner back home approaching US Immigration about how Jose Gonzalez was caught napping on the job, and therefore shouldn't be allowed back into the country, because otherwise he might make the mistake of hiring him again? Ridiculous. Absurdity at its finest. Frankly, all this does is make me question the competence of the institutions in place that are responsible for hiring native speaking English teachers. Apparently, they can't do their jobs either. Embarrassing.
12.29.2009
Cute.
Haha. A cute way to start out my morning. Almost no one will understand this, but:
Have your bangers got smaller since you lost weight?
Yes, of course they have. And thank fuck for that. I am now a sensible 36 D/DD.
Do you now accept that William Bennett, of WHiTEHOUSE fame, is not a homosexual?
I never *said* he was a homosexual -- I was simply open to the possibility. And I maintain that he probably is as well. (Open to the possibility, that is.)
You owe me 185 frickin' dollars.
I'm sorry. I just want to get my turtle, ma'am.
12.28.2009
Schedules.
Ah good night with the boys. Still dealing with the ongoing Ko-teacher vacay tagalong situation -- will update about that once it reaches some kind of resolution. Almost took a golden opportunity to back out of the teachers' trip today just because I could. I don't know why I get so whatever about group things. But it was like, they handed me this fucking schedule.....
I just have a hard time with it. I do. And usually I can make the best of it and I'm glad I went or whatever. But to me it seems like sometimes Koreans and Westerners work completely backwards of each other. The school schedule is up for change at the drop of a hat. Sixth period just moved to fourth and today's third period is changing with Wednesday's and second period is cancelled altogether -- what's the big deal? Okay. I've come around to that part of things. I've even almost completely come around to, "I know Children's Day is in three days, but the principal hasn't decided yet if you will have a week off or just one day, so you can't make any solid travel plans or even let your friends know what you're up to." But the other side of it -- the let's-go-have-fun-by-scheduling-every-second-of-our-time thing.... ugh. Still having major issues with it. Why do I have to go do the sight-seeing at 3:30 -- why can't I do it at 5? Why am I an adult and I was just handed a schedule with "free time" written on it?
Beyond that concern, this is officially 48 hours I'm going to have to sneak around to get in cigarettes. And that's not really going to help with the being grumpy about the schedule thing.
The good news is, a couple of my favorite third graders caught me on my walk home today to ask if I would be teaching English over the vacation. I said yes, I'll be at the school all but two weeks of the whole damn thing. Oh very good! We come study English! I just gawked at them in horror. Are you serious? Yes! Study with 리즈샘 very funny!
Now come on boys. You need to get your little selves a coupla girlfriends or something. The third graders aren't even given an invite to the camps because everyone figures they're so unfocused by the end of the year that there's no way any of them would sign up. One of these guys was at winter camp last year and swears it was the best way to spend his vacation ever. Now, I do my best for those boys because I feel so goddamn bad for them that they're stuck there with me for four hours a day when they should be sleeping in and playing computer games in their pajamas. But it's still English camp. And these are not students who are particularly dedicated to the study of the language, if you know what I mean.
But whatever. They know I love them and I told them, frankly, that vacation is boring as hell and I'd be very happy to have their company. So that's something to look forward to.
Anywho. I've been getting a lot of emails about this blog lately. It's strange -- I never set out to be a blogger. Keeping a blog is something I've done since the early years of high school, and I just thought it was appropriate to start a new one when I moved to Korea. But things seem to be changing around here fast. It's not just family and friends anymore. It's nice, though. And I like hearing from different people who all have different backgrounds and perspectives. So I put one of those handy formspring things in the sidebar there. Because, frankly, I find myself immensely boring. So I'll let you guys direct things from time to time, if you so choose. Ask away.
This is probably me signing off for the next couple of days. I'll see you all when I return from the drunken debauchery that is sure to be 50 odd Korean public school teacher staying overnight at a ski resort. Lord have mercy.
I just have a hard time with it. I do. And usually I can make the best of it and I'm glad I went or whatever. But to me it seems like sometimes Koreans and Westerners work completely backwards of each other. The school schedule is up for change at the drop of a hat. Sixth period just moved to fourth and today's third period is changing with Wednesday's and second period is cancelled altogether -- what's the big deal? Okay. I've come around to that part of things. I've even almost completely come around to, "I know Children's Day is in three days, but the principal hasn't decided yet if you will have a week off or just one day, so you can't make any solid travel plans or even let your friends know what you're up to." But the other side of it -- the let's-go-have-fun-by-scheduling-every-second-of-our-time thing.... ugh. Still having major issues with it. Why do I have to go do the sight-seeing at 3:30 -- why can't I do it at 5? Why am I an adult and I was just handed a schedule with "free time" written on it?
Beyond that concern, this is officially 48 hours I'm going to have to sneak around to get in cigarettes. And that's not really going to help with the being grumpy about the schedule thing.
The good news is, a couple of my favorite third graders caught me on my walk home today to ask if I would be teaching English over the vacation. I said yes, I'll be at the school all but two weeks of the whole damn thing. Oh very good! We come study English! I just gawked at them in horror. Are you serious? Yes! Study with 리즈샘 very funny!
Now come on boys. You need to get your little selves a coupla girlfriends or something. The third graders aren't even given an invite to the camps because everyone figures they're so unfocused by the end of the year that there's no way any of them would sign up. One of these guys was at winter camp last year and swears it was the best way to spend his vacation ever. Now, I do my best for those boys because I feel so goddamn bad for them that they're stuck there with me for four hours a day when they should be sleeping in and playing computer games in their pajamas. But it's still English camp. And these are not students who are particularly dedicated to the study of the language, if you know what I mean.
But whatever. They know I love them and I told them, frankly, that vacation is boring as hell and I'd be very happy to have their company. So that's something to look forward to.
Anywho. I've been getting a lot of emails about this blog lately. It's strange -- I never set out to be a blogger. Keeping a blog is something I've done since the early years of high school, and I just thought it was appropriate to start a new one when I moved to Korea. But things seem to be changing around here fast. It's not just family and friends anymore. It's nice, though. And I like hearing from different people who all have different backgrounds and perspectives. So I put one of those handy formspring things in the sidebar there. Because, frankly, I find myself immensely boring. So I'll let you guys direct things from time to time, if you so choose. Ask away.
This is probably me signing off for the next couple of days. I'll see you all when I return from the drunken debauchery that is sure to be 50 odd Korean public school teacher staying overnight at a ski resort. Lord have mercy.
Dreams.
Feeling all weird and conflicted after two nights in a row of strange dreams. The hard part is, when my head gets screwy, be it from my personal life here in the ROK or from other things going on abroad, work is always what straightens me out. My students keep me sane and grounded. The problem is that (you've noticed, I'm sure) I've been showing a movie for two weeks and haven't actually been teaching. And today will be my last regular day of classes for over a month. I have three camps to focus on and keep me busy, but it's more stressful than anything, until you get right into the midst of it, because camps require so much preparation.
Tomorrow is the teachers' trip to god knows where, where the PE teachers have already vowed to make me try skiing for the first time (no). Judging by how absolutely shitfaced everyone got last year on the teachers' trip, which wasn't even overnight, I'm pretty interested to see what happens this time.
You had a great holiday, Liz. Why are you letting your head get screwy?
What can I say? I love and hate routine in equal parts. Oh well. The next month is sure to prove interesting, one way or another. At least I'll get to keep seeing my boys at the center.
Here it goes, kiddos. The official start of Winter vacation, 09/10.
My name is G G G G baby, baby. Ha. Haha.
Tomorrow is the teachers' trip to god knows where, where the PE teachers have already vowed to make me try skiing for the first time (no). Judging by how absolutely shitfaced everyone got last year on the teachers' trip, which wasn't even overnight, I'm pretty interested to see what happens this time.
You had a great holiday, Liz. Why are you letting your head get screwy?
What can I say? I love and hate routine in equal parts. Oh well. The next month is sure to prove interesting, one way or another. At least I'll get to keep seeing my boys at the center.
Here it goes, kiddos. The official start of Winter vacation, 09/10.
My name is G G G G baby, baby. Ha. Haha.
12.27.2009
It's beating for you.
Okay. I don't want to get into the details, because it wouldn't be hard for everyone in the world to figure out who and what I was talking about. But let's just say this thing last night was kind of a big deal. Or rather, it was a party held to celebrate a company that's kind of a big deal.
I really wasn't expecting that. JH was so casual about the whole thing, and when I got there, everyone else was as well. What I did know was that, as the evening went on, the entire room started to fill up with some of the most gorgeous young men I've ever seen. Come to find out, their looks play a big role in the work that they do. And the work that they do is pretty fucking cool. Even if it is advertising.
These boys all work together and are around 18-21 years old. So a strange dynamic started to develop that very much reminded me of my job. I guess I kind of went into teacher mode. And the boys started to respond like my students. When I came up out of the elevator from having been on a phone call downstairs, I startled them where they were all in a group smoking outside in the stairwell. They turned around and gasped and grabbed each other's arms. I didn't know what to do other than just give them a strange look, followed by a slight bow, which they all responded to with full ones.
Once back inside, they filed in behind me, and an argument was started with them pushing and shoving each other to come over and sit across from me and the other foreigner. Once they noticed I was watching this, they literally scurried to the other side of a wall. Ridiculous. The owner of the company, who was self-declared "pretty fucking wasted" at that point", saw me sitting there with a strange look on my face and came over to ask what was going on. I pointed to the group of boys who were leaning over the dividing wall, trying to shove each other to the other side. He grabbed three of the unlucky ones standing closest to him by the scruffs of their necks and pushed them down into the booth across from me, where they proceeded to giggle and scream at each other to speak English. I was laughing my ass off.
Later, after they got more comfortable (and drunk), they brought over their prettiest members to introduce themselves to me and then gave me my own personal performance of 2pm's "Heartbeat".
As cute as they were, I spent the majority of the evening talking to the older, more reasonable actual workers of the company, who kept trying to tell me I had to call them "오빠". One in particular was quite nice to talk to, but we got interrupted when he tried to ask the company owner the English word for something, and got dragged off in a headlock to stand in front of a table full of people and shout, "ONE! TWO! THREE! [COMPANY NAME]!" over and over again while the owner blew a whistle. He came back at the end of the night to give me his card before he went though. He won my heart, just a little, when his friend came over to inform me that I must call him 오빠, given that he's a year older, and instead of standing there beaming, he cringed and swatted his friend away and said, "No. We are friends. I don't care about that."
And I got to meet a whole foreign family who have been living here for four years, which is a pretty unique situation. The father is the professor who inspired the company owner to set out in his business pursuits, and the daughter was just slightly younger than me and great to talk to. It's so nice to meet other foreign girls when I get the chance, and I took full advantage of the time to talk and relate. She did eventually get around to asking the "yellow fever" question. I told her I wasn't particularly bitten, that I was pretty open to everything, including Korean guys. She said she loved everything about Korean guys in the sense that they are generally kind and polite and make brilliant friends, but she just can't find them attractive, no matter how hard she's tried. I told her that was quite strange to me, because you would think that over the course of four years, no matter what your tendencies before, you would adapt eventually. She said she wished she could, but she just didn't have it in her.
All in all, a pretty interesting night. I wish I had more than just a few hours to get to talk to all of the people who were there. By the time we left, we were all three "pretty fucking wasted", so we took a cab to Gangnam where I proceeded to turn full-on Korean speaking, including giving the guys working at a bar a load of totally uncalled for attitude in Korean for telling us the last available table was reserved. God. Drunk Liz can get too feisty sometimes. I think they were so amused that I was speaking Korean that they didn't really mind though.
I'm kind of ashamed to say it, too, because I hate it when other people do this to me, but JH would sometimes switch to Korean when she wanted to talk about something she didn't want the foreign guy who was with us to understand. It's not the nicest premise in the world, but I'm still quite pleased with my ability to do so.
Some other nonsense went down once we made it back to Incheon, but nothing too life-altering. JH seemed like she could've gone all night, but I stuck by my Nonsense Rule and caught a taxi home just as the clock turned over on 3 am. I did meet some lovely new foreign guys though, which was refreshing. Somehow these ones were able to not cop any weird attitude and also not regurgitate the same boring I'm-a-foreigner-you're-a-foreigner conversation. Even though one of them didn't believe I was American because he said I sound Russian and/or Scandinavian, which later changed to just "European", which doesn't really make sense, but also isn't the first time I've heard that. I'll be seeing them again soon.
I really wasn't expecting that. JH was so casual about the whole thing, and when I got there, everyone else was as well. What I did know was that, as the evening went on, the entire room started to fill up with some of the most gorgeous young men I've ever seen. Come to find out, their looks play a big role in the work that they do. And the work that they do is pretty fucking cool. Even if it is advertising.
These boys all work together and are around 18-21 years old. So a strange dynamic started to develop that very much reminded me of my job. I guess I kind of went into teacher mode. And the boys started to respond like my students. When I came up out of the elevator from having been on a phone call downstairs, I startled them where they were all in a group smoking outside in the stairwell. They turned around and gasped and grabbed each other's arms. I didn't know what to do other than just give them a strange look, followed by a slight bow, which they all responded to with full ones.
Once back inside, they filed in behind me, and an argument was started with them pushing and shoving each other to come over and sit across from me and the other foreigner. Once they noticed I was watching this, they literally scurried to the other side of a wall. Ridiculous. The owner of the company, who was self-declared "pretty fucking wasted" at that point", saw me sitting there with a strange look on my face and came over to ask what was going on. I pointed to the group of boys who were leaning over the dividing wall, trying to shove each other to the other side. He grabbed three of the unlucky ones standing closest to him by the scruffs of their necks and pushed them down into the booth across from me, where they proceeded to giggle and scream at each other to speak English. I was laughing my ass off.
Later, after they got more comfortable (and drunk), they brought over their prettiest members to introduce themselves to me and then gave me my own personal performance of 2pm's "Heartbeat".
As cute as they were, I spent the majority of the evening talking to the older, more reasonable actual workers of the company, who kept trying to tell me I had to call them "오빠". One in particular was quite nice to talk to, but we got interrupted when he tried to ask the company owner the English word for something, and got dragged off in a headlock to stand in front of a table full of people and shout, "ONE! TWO! THREE! [COMPANY NAME]!" over and over again while the owner blew a whistle. He came back at the end of the night to give me his card before he went though. He won my heart, just a little, when his friend came over to inform me that I must call him 오빠, given that he's a year older, and instead of standing there beaming, he cringed and swatted his friend away and said, "No. We are friends. I don't care about that."
And I got to meet a whole foreign family who have been living here for four years, which is a pretty unique situation. The father is the professor who inspired the company owner to set out in his business pursuits, and the daughter was just slightly younger than me and great to talk to. It's so nice to meet other foreign girls when I get the chance, and I took full advantage of the time to talk and relate. She did eventually get around to asking the "yellow fever" question. I told her I wasn't particularly bitten, that I was pretty open to everything, including Korean guys. She said she loved everything about Korean guys in the sense that they are generally kind and polite and make brilliant friends, but she just can't find them attractive, no matter how hard she's tried. I told her that was quite strange to me, because you would think that over the course of four years, no matter what your tendencies before, you would adapt eventually. She said she wished she could, but she just didn't have it in her.
All in all, a pretty interesting night. I wish I had more than just a few hours to get to talk to all of the people who were there. By the time we left, we were all three "pretty fucking wasted", so we took a cab to Gangnam where I proceeded to turn full-on Korean speaking, including giving the guys working at a bar a load of totally uncalled for attitude in Korean for telling us the last available table was reserved. God. Drunk Liz can get too feisty sometimes. I think they were so amused that I was speaking Korean that they didn't really mind though.
I'm kind of ashamed to say it, too, because I hate it when other people do this to me, but JH would sometimes switch to Korean when she wanted to talk about something she didn't want the foreign guy who was with us to understand. It's not the nicest premise in the world, but I'm still quite pleased with my ability to do so.
Some other nonsense went down once we made it back to Incheon, but nothing too life-altering. JH seemed like she could've gone all night, but I stuck by my Nonsense Rule and caught a taxi home just as the clock turned over on 3 am. I did meet some lovely new foreign guys though, which was refreshing. Somehow these ones were able to not cop any weird attitude and also not regurgitate the same boring I'm-a-foreigner-you're-a-foreigner conversation. Even though one of them didn't believe I was American because he said I sound Russian and/or Scandinavian, which later changed to just "European", which doesn't really make sense, but also isn't the first time I've heard that. I'll be seeing them again soon.
12.26.2009
Rush.
Oh! I somehow managed to stay up and on the phone until nearly 4 am last night, blabbing my mouth off about fuck all to all my darlings back Stateside. My family alone takes about three hours each and every time I call, because the phone has to be passed around to five people. I guess it was a white Christmas in Texas this year, which resulted in this year's big Christmas debate amongst the females being over how many white Christmases, in total, the family had seen. This apparently went on all through Christmas Eve night and on into the morning the next day, where my phone call interrupted. I'm told at least one other had been verified through the digging out of an old family photo. Ridiculous. God, I miss them.
Now I've slept in too late and have been running around the flat like mad trying to get myself presentable in time to meet JH, who has just phoned to say she's coming to my neighborhood instead of us meeting in BP, so that buys me an extra 30 minutes. At the moment I'm in leggings and an old football shirt, covered in hair dye and should probably be doing the dishes instead of blogging. This is the part of the day where you really start hoping no one ends up coming back to your flat, because you realize that either you or it are going to have to remain in an unpresentable state. One one of you is definitely going to be seen, so there's little choice in the matter really....
To make matters worse, I've only got two cigarettes left.
Well it's a beautiful sunny day at least. Some other foreign guy will be joining us for the first part of the day and, although I know for a fact I've met him before, I'm really extremely terrible at keeping the foreign guys here in Incheon straight. I can usually remember faces and countries of origin, but that's about it. I always get introduced to them multiple times and as, "Nice to meet you!" is spilling out of my mouth, they're like, "Oh we've already... oh... yeah... I mean I think we... yeah nice to meet you...." It's nothing personal -- it's just that a foreign female out here is a lot easier to remember than a foreign male. There are a hell of a lot fewer of us. This one's American and wears a leather jacket -- I got nothing.
Oh man. Time to boogie. Please someone make time move slower for the next two hours.
Now I've slept in too late and have been running around the flat like mad trying to get myself presentable in time to meet JH, who has just phoned to say she's coming to my neighborhood instead of us meeting in BP, so that buys me an extra 30 minutes. At the moment I'm in leggings and an old football shirt, covered in hair dye and should probably be doing the dishes instead of blogging. This is the part of the day where you really start hoping no one ends up coming back to your flat, because you realize that either you or it are going to have to remain in an unpresentable state. One one of you is definitely going to be seen, so there's little choice in the matter really....
To make matters worse, I've only got two cigarettes left.
Well it's a beautiful sunny day at least. Some other foreign guy will be joining us for the first part of the day and, although I know for a fact I've met him before, I'm really extremely terrible at keeping the foreign guys here in Incheon straight. I can usually remember faces and countries of origin, but that's about it. I always get introduced to them multiple times and as, "Nice to meet you!" is spilling out of my mouth, they're like, "Oh we've already... oh... yeah... I mean I think we... yeah nice to meet you...." It's nothing personal -- it's just that a foreign female out here is a lot easier to remember than a foreign male. There are a hell of a lot fewer of us. This one's American and wears a leather jacket -- I got nothing.
Oh man. Time to boogie. Please someone make time move slower for the next two hours.
12.25.2009
Christmas plans and the trouble with dating.
Well. I've been slowly trying to piece my place together while simultaneously catching up with people back home/friends in other parts of the world.... I'm terrible about communication, but this is the one time of year where you really want to keep grounded with the people who really know you.
I did have one of those moments yesterday, as the phone filled up with Merry Christmas wishes and messages, where I felt really at home in Korea. This time last year I had just gotten my phone and had all of three numbers in it at that point. Mike and I still didn't know anybody and spent our Christmas getting sick on greasy Western food, and laying on the floor of his apartment watching a movie and complaining. Of course, I wish he was here now so we could essentially do the same thing, but this time because we choose to. I think I could even make him watch IRIS without complaining too much.
I'm somewhat jealous of all my foreigner friends who have managed to make it out of the Seoul satellite area for Christmas, but I think ultimately what I needed was a few days to catch up with myself and unwind. Plus, tomorrow night is the big party. I wanted to get out to get something decent to wear today, but then it started fucking raining... a rainy Christmas. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, I'm not about to go out and deal with that shit, and since JH wants to meet early tomorrow for dinner and drinks, I guess I'll just have to make do with what I've got. Which, by the way, is growing out of control. Part of the reason my flat has been so hard to keep clean up to my standards lately is because I just have too damn many clothes these days. My laundry room is already full to the brim with junk that doesn't fit me anymore, due to the fact that I've shifted about six dress sizes since I got here, and according to the scale I bought last week and finally figured out how to work (yes, even an electronic scale can confuse me) I'm still losing weight. Albeit slowly. I need to figure out something to do with all this crap....
I guess I'll go ahead and mention that I've got a kind of date thing planned for just after New Year's. I know this is a bad idea -- the guy already bores me -- which is why I set the date for so far in advance. I don't wanna. There's something about seeing a guy under "date" pretenses that just bores me to absolute tears. First of all, I think I get my defenses so high up that I don't believe a damn word that comes out of their mouths to begin with, but also it feels like the guy usually can't just relax and be himself, too worried about seeming perfect. Which is why it's so BORING. In all caps. Unless he's interesting enough to just not be able to help coming across as somewhat flawed, to say and do cute little stupid things, I just consider the whole thing one big acting session and a total wash. Go home disappointed and wondering why I even bothered.
This is one area where I've got really conflicted feelings about how things are different in Korea. In general, from what I've experienced, Korean guys try a lot harder on dates. It's the sort of thing I never experienced back in the States, that you always think was just something from a bygone era that has died off completely. In a way, it's really nice, to have a guy plan everything out and hold open doors and do the whole old-fashioned gentlemanly kind of thing. But on the other hand, I find myself missing the more Western style of just "hanging out", no pressure. Getting to know someone honestly and seeing where it goes.
Ho hum. Every now and then I hit up against a guy who nags me enough to where I just give in and go ahead and give it a shot. Then I convince myself that I'm never going to do that again, and then I do in another couple of months. The cycle continues, and nothing even vaguely rewarding has come out of it yet. I've had guys start sending the most ridiculous texts out of the goddamn blue, without knowing the first thing about me. I feel like in Korea, even more than back home, there's a tendency toward instant relationships that really rubs me the wrong way. It's so bad that I've had a number of really direct "I don't want to be your girlfriend" conversations that result in totally casual responses, which just goes to show how disingenuous the whole thing is to begin with. It just feels like they're shopping for a car or something -- well this one's not too bad, available and within my price range -- I'll take it!
I hate to sound like a total cynic, but I feel like those guys you meet out and around and just get talking to in the bar randomly one night are far more interesting. The ones who want to make you into a girlfriend and send constant "good morning" texts and whatnot.... meh. Phony.
I feel stuck between two groups in Korea -- the university guys who still live at home with their parents and therefore feel more free to be themselves and the slightly older guys who are employed and out on their own but ultimately seem to be looking for a girlfriend -- any girlfriend -- to just complete the equation. Anyway. Maybe I'll meet someone interesting at this party tomorrow night, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.
Anyway. Here's to continuing to behave myself, even through that infamous night for trouble on into the new year.
Merry Christmas!
I did have one of those moments yesterday, as the phone filled up with Merry Christmas wishes and messages, where I felt really at home in Korea. This time last year I had just gotten my phone and had all of three numbers in it at that point. Mike and I still didn't know anybody and spent our Christmas getting sick on greasy Western food, and laying on the floor of his apartment watching a movie and complaining. Of course, I wish he was here now so we could essentially do the same thing, but this time because we choose to. I think I could even make him watch IRIS without complaining too much.
I'm somewhat jealous of all my foreigner friends who have managed to make it out of the Seoul satellite area for Christmas, but I think ultimately what I needed was a few days to catch up with myself and unwind. Plus, tomorrow night is the big party. I wanted to get out to get something decent to wear today, but then it started fucking raining... a rainy Christmas. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, I'm not about to go out and deal with that shit, and since JH wants to meet early tomorrow for dinner and drinks, I guess I'll just have to make do with what I've got. Which, by the way, is growing out of control. Part of the reason my flat has been so hard to keep clean up to my standards lately is because I just have too damn many clothes these days. My laundry room is already full to the brim with junk that doesn't fit me anymore, due to the fact that I've shifted about six dress sizes since I got here, and according to the scale I bought last week and finally figured out how to work (yes, even an electronic scale can confuse me) I'm still losing weight. Albeit slowly. I need to figure out something to do with all this crap....
I guess I'll go ahead and mention that I've got a kind of date thing planned for just after New Year's. I know this is a bad idea -- the guy already bores me -- which is why I set the date for so far in advance. I don't wanna. There's something about seeing a guy under "date" pretenses that just bores me to absolute tears. First of all, I think I get my defenses so high up that I don't believe a damn word that comes out of their mouths to begin with, but also it feels like the guy usually can't just relax and be himself, too worried about seeming perfect. Which is why it's so BORING. In all caps. Unless he's interesting enough to just not be able to help coming across as somewhat flawed, to say and do cute little stupid things, I just consider the whole thing one big acting session and a total wash. Go home disappointed and wondering why I even bothered.
This is one area where I've got really conflicted feelings about how things are different in Korea. In general, from what I've experienced, Korean guys try a lot harder on dates. It's the sort of thing I never experienced back in the States, that you always think was just something from a bygone era that has died off completely. In a way, it's really nice, to have a guy plan everything out and hold open doors and do the whole old-fashioned gentlemanly kind of thing. But on the other hand, I find myself missing the more Western style of just "hanging out", no pressure. Getting to know someone honestly and seeing where it goes.
Ho hum. Every now and then I hit up against a guy who nags me enough to where I just give in and go ahead and give it a shot. Then I convince myself that I'm never going to do that again, and then I do in another couple of months. The cycle continues, and nothing even vaguely rewarding has come out of it yet. I've had guys start sending the most ridiculous texts out of the goddamn blue, without knowing the first thing about me. I feel like in Korea, even more than back home, there's a tendency toward instant relationships that really rubs me the wrong way. It's so bad that I've had a number of really direct "I don't want to be your girlfriend" conversations that result in totally casual responses, which just goes to show how disingenuous the whole thing is to begin with. It just feels like they're shopping for a car or something -- well this one's not too bad, available and within my price range -- I'll take it!
I hate to sound like a total cynic, but I feel like those guys you meet out and around and just get talking to in the bar randomly one night are far more interesting. The ones who want to make you into a girlfriend and send constant "good morning" texts and whatnot.... meh. Phony.
I feel stuck between two groups in Korea -- the university guys who still live at home with their parents and therefore feel more free to be themselves and the slightly older guys who are employed and out on their own but ultimately seem to be looking for a girlfriend -- any girlfriend -- to just complete the equation. Anyway. Maybe I'll meet someone interesting at this party tomorrow night, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.
Anyway. Here's to continuing to behave myself, even through that infamous night for trouble on into the new year.
Merry Christmas!
12.24.2009
Angry.
Ah, hell no, mysoju.com. You did not just cut off the first episode of IRIS at part 5.
Boo hiss.
By the way, it actually physically hurts me to look at this man and not be able to touch him:
Boo hiss.
By the way, it actually physically hurts me to look at this man and not be able to touch him:
Pervert students, pervert 리즈샘: 세임세임.
Oh oh oh. Just prepare yourselves now, pretty babies. I spent the day with the handsome married PE teacher. Loads of swooning to come.
I like going on field trips because I suddenly turn into the school mascot/celebrity. I get the feeling that somehow they've adjusted to 원어민샘 inside the school building, but when they see me outside, they're still overcome with a sense of, "오! 외국인있다!" Only the 외국인 is me. The boys also always get far too excited when they see me in my street clothes, which are slightly different from my work clothes. Today's big hit was a driver's cap.
Well. The students were horrified that I was going to have to sit through 전우치 in Korean. They kept leaning over, turning backwards and twisting around to ask Coteacher: "완어민샘 괜찬아요?" and to drop some of their really not delicious sweet popcorn into my box using their grubby unwashed teenage boy pervert hands. Yummy. After the movie, they swarmed in to ask if I understood. It surprised even me, but I actually did. Basically the whole movie. Which isn't a testament to my Korean listening ability so much as how easy it is to understand an action movie without actually understanding the dialogue. None the less, Coteacher was proud of me when I managed to laugh at the appropriate times: "오! 리즈샘 잘했어!"
It was an entire theater full of our boys. Absolutely ridiculous. Something that really gets to me about these boys -- one main difference I've noticed between them and American boys their same age -- is that, I know the lot of them have seen their fair share of porn. They are not pure little angels by any stretch of the imagination. However, they can't control themselves from welling up with emotion anytime the leading lady sits with her legs spread a bit or falls to the ground, with her skirt riding up to where you can nearly, just nearly, get a glimpse of her ass. The entire theater would flood with a wave of noise and seat-shifting that started from the front left and moved back over us diagonally every single time. Sometimes it would be something so subtle that it would take me a good few minutes to figure out what was going on. Nothing gets past them.
I think the PE teacher has cracked on to my crush on him. To be fair, he'd be a stupid man not to have. This morning at breakfast, he came in late and demanded that Coteacher move seats so that he could sit next me. Very funny. Let's all laugh while the 리즈샘 transforms into a school girl. After the movie was lunch, where his compliments on my chopstick skills and ability to wolf down spicy food, which would have elicited a severe eye roll out of me coming from anyone else, got a proud smile instead. Then later, playing pocketball, he took full charge of all of my shots, placing my free balls for me and directing me on what ball to hit and how. I obeyed him without exception. He's going to confess his love any day now.
It was a fantastic Christmas Eve, and now I'm sitting here in my mostly clean apartment debating whether or not I actually need to go out again tonight, or if I'm happy enough sitting here getting dug into IRIS and watching Mimi run around like a nutcase. I've decided absolutely everything bunnies do is funnier, because they have to hop to do it. She also definitely only speaks Korean. My neighbors are probably getting tired of hearing, "미미 나와! 이리와! 미미 하지마! 저것 먹지마! 야! 아이우.... 나쁜 여자야."
My life is ridiculous. But I guess it's okay.
This one is for Magnes. You should be here.
I like going on field trips because I suddenly turn into the school mascot/celebrity. I get the feeling that somehow they've adjusted to 원어민샘 inside the school building, but when they see me outside, they're still overcome with a sense of, "오! 외국인있다!" Only the 외국인 is me. The boys also always get far too excited when they see me in my street clothes, which are slightly different from my work clothes. Today's big hit was a driver's cap.
Well. The students were horrified that I was going to have to sit through 전우치 in Korean. They kept leaning over, turning backwards and twisting around to ask Coteacher: "완어민샘 괜찬아요?" and to drop some of their really not delicious sweet popcorn into my box using their grubby unwashed teenage boy pervert hands. Yummy. After the movie, they swarmed in to ask if I understood. It surprised even me, but I actually did. Basically the whole movie. Which isn't a testament to my Korean listening ability so much as how easy it is to understand an action movie without actually understanding the dialogue. None the less, Coteacher was proud of me when I managed to laugh at the appropriate times: "오! 리즈샘 잘했어!"
It was an entire theater full of our boys. Absolutely ridiculous. Something that really gets to me about these boys -- one main difference I've noticed between them and American boys their same age -- is that, I know the lot of them have seen their fair share of porn. They are not pure little angels by any stretch of the imagination. However, they can't control themselves from welling up with emotion anytime the leading lady sits with her legs spread a bit or falls to the ground, with her skirt riding up to where you can nearly, just nearly, get a glimpse of her ass. The entire theater would flood with a wave of noise and seat-shifting that started from the front left and moved back over us diagonally every single time. Sometimes it would be something so subtle that it would take me a good few minutes to figure out what was going on. Nothing gets past them.
I think the PE teacher has cracked on to my crush on him. To be fair, he'd be a stupid man not to have. This morning at breakfast, he came in late and demanded that Coteacher move seats so that he could sit next me. Very funny. Let's all laugh while the 리즈샘 transforms into a school girl. After the movie was lunch, where his compliments on my chopstick skills and ability to wolf down spicy food, which would have elicited a severe eye roll out of me coming from anyone else, got a proud smile instead. Then later, playing pocketball, he took full charge of all of my shots, placing my free balls for me and directing me on what ball to hit and how. I obeyed him without exception. He's going to confess his love any day now.
It was a fantastic Christmas Eve, and now I'm sitting here in my mostly clean apartment debating whether or not I actually need to go out again tonight, or if I'm happy enough sitting here getting dug into IRIS and watching Mimi run around like a nutcase. I've decided absolutely everything bunnies do is funnier, because they have to hop to do it. She also definitely only speaks Korean. My neighbors are probably getting tired of hearing, "미미 나와! 이리와! 미미 하지마! 저것 먹지마! 야! 아이우.... 나쁜 여자야."
My life is ridiculous. But I guess it's okay.
This one is for Magnes. You should be here.
12.23.2009
Mashed potatoes, Christmas cake, Kang Dong Won and... excuse me, what?
Oh god. I've just made myself sick by realizing that the number one food I was going to miss on Christmas was my grandma's mashed potatoes, which is one of the only things my domestically disinclined brain can handle helping out with, and that I can totally make mashed potatoes just like hers in a snap with stuff I can easily get in Korea, and then doing it, and then eating way too much of it way too fast.
My stomach hurts. Dairy overkill is a bad idea after you've been on a Korean diet for over a year. Ask any foreigner -- they'll tell you.
So what the hell, then? What's with the being so jazzed about Christmas? I don't know. I'm infamous for hating just about everything about the holiday. But I think that's just because in the States it's so goddamn in your face. Everywhere you go for an entire month, all you see is Christmas. All you hear is Christmas. It's just too much. In Korea, it's easy to forget the holiday even exists for the most part. Maybe I just needed Christmas to back the hell up for me to enjoy it.
Look. I even bought a fucking Christmas cake:
The students make the holiday a lot more enjoyable as well. Well. The students just make everything more enjoyable. Except trying to take a nap in the teacher's room on your off period. Obviously, family is nice around the holidays, but there's something different about getting Christmas cards from your kids or having them all line up with their cute little faces to tell you, "Merry Christmas Teachuh!" How are you supposed to stay grumpy about that?
Here's something I can be grumpy about, though. (Oh, come on. You knew that was coming.)
Part of why I'm so hyped about the holiday is that I get to spend Christmas Even NOT going to work at 8 in the morning to sit in a chair and whine at Coteacher about how bored I am for 9 hours, but instead I get to take my time moseying over to the local cinema at 10 in the morning to join the students for a morning screening of 전우치, which the boyfriend crew have assured me I will enjoy even if I don't have a clue what the hell is going on, because 강동원 is apparently "very handome man". Let's see, shall we?
Hm. Not exactly my type. He's got weirdo alien eyes and he's far too clean cut and pretty. In short, boring. Nothing special. Wait....
Okay. That's a little better. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: with Korean guys, sometimes the hair makes or breaks it.
Anyway. That Avatar nonsense apparently goes on for three hours, which the boyfriend crew found out about and immediately advised me against. Smart boys. I'd rather sit through an hour and a half of trying to understand Korean than three hours of just about anything else.
The point is, I was supposed to be able to sleep in tomorrow. That is until my ride to work this morning from the teacher who is the mother of the two girls I teach on Tuesdays (for FREE ... for free... privates are illegal and I don't do things that are illegal while I'm in the ROK).
This woman just irritates me. There's no solid reason for it other than just about everyone I've ever met with her personality type has irritated me as well. She's finicky. Extremely finicky. Sitting with her at lunch makes me want to jam a chopstick in my eye because she picks and fusses and takes tiny little bites that she appears to chew exactly 34 times before swallowing. Her desk is directly across from mine and all day I'm irritated by her arranging and rearranging the four things that are on her desk with screeching exactitude. And when she speaks English I want to kill myself, because she'll take twenty minutes to say absolutely nothing, because she'll shift back and forth from one tense to another half a million times out loud, while tilting her head this way and that and sucking on her teeth, trying to decide which one is right before reaching the end of her sentence and her (ultimately boring) point.
She's a church person as well. And I don't mean like, a person who goes to church. A Church Person. You all know what I'm talking about. The kind that repeatedly asks you every goddamn Monday if you went to church this weekend when every previous goddamn Monday you've already told her you don't go to church.
She also has no idea that I have any function in life other than to teach Koreans English. That's part of why conversation with her makes me want to die. She goes about it clearly as English Conversation Practice Time, instead of just fucking talking to me like another human being. When I told her I was going to start doing volunteer work at the center, she gasped with totally unnecessary horror and said, "What about teaching my kids?!" Jesus, lady. Your husband is loaded. If it came down to it, I think you could manage to find an actual private tutor for your little darlings so that I could spend a few hours a week teaching kids who can't even afford new shoes, let alone hagwon. She's clearly got the love of Christ in her.
If her kids weren't so brilliant, I'd do whatever I had to to not have to speak to her ever again. This morning when I climbed into the car, she asked me (eventually) if I would be going to see the movie tomorrow. I answered yes, and she immediately responded with one of her terrible, horror-filled gasps. "Oh no!"
"....."
"My kids make you Christmas cards!!!!"
"Okay...."
"Tomorrow I cannot bring to you at the theater. How will I give?!"
"Uh...."
"But. I think you have classes! You should stay and teach classes!"
"I already took care of that. The principal said I could cancel my classes so I could go...."
"But how will I give you the cards?!"
"I don't... what?"
She spent the remainder of the drive contemplating how to deal with this calamity. Far be it from me to suggest she, I dunno, give the damn things to me on Monday.
Toward the end of the day, she leaned over the cubicle divider between our desks -- my favorite part of any day is when she leans over the cubicle divider between our desks. Because I always know there's something golden coming. Today was no exception.
"Tomorrow... what time you will go to the theater?"
"I have to be there at 10, so I was just going to leave around 9:30..."
"Oh good! You will still be at home!"
".... Still be at home when?"
"Tomorrow I will stop near your house to give my kid's Christmas cards."
".... At 7:45?"
"Yes."
"At 7:45. You want me to come outside and walk down the hill to meet you on the street to get the Christmas cards?"
"Yes. I will see you tomorrow."
And with that, she sat back down at her desk and started to fidget around with nothing.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finally start watching IRIS. Now boys, you wanna talk about "very handsome man"? Hello.
My stomach hurts. Dairy overkill is a bad idea after you've been on a Korean diet for over a year. Ask any foreigner -- they'll tell you.
So what the hell, then? What's with the being so jazzed about Christmas? I don't know. I'm infamous for hating just about everything about the holiday. But I think that's just because in the States it's so goddamn in your face. Everywhere you go for an entire month, all you see is Christmas. All you hear is Christmas. It's just too much. In Korea, it's easy to forget the holiday even exists for the most part. Maybe I just needed Christmas to back the hell up for me to enjoy it.
Look. I even bought a fucking Christmas cake:
The students make the holiday a lot more enjoyable as well. Well. The students just make everything more enjoyable. Except trying to take a nap in the teacher's room on your off period. Obviously, family is nice around the holidays, but there's something different about getting Christmas cards from your kids or having them all line up with their cute little faces to tell you, "Merry Christmas Teachuh!" How are you supposed to stay grumpy about that?
Here's something I can be grumpy about, though. (Oh, come on. You knew that was coming.)
Part of why I'm so hyped about the holiday is that I get to spend Christmas Even NOT going to work at 8 in the morning to sit in a chair and whine at Coteacher about how bored I am for 9 hours, but instead I get to take my time moseying over to the local cinema at 10 in the morning to join the students for a morning screening of 전우치, which the boyfriend crew have assured me I will enjoy even if I don't have a clue what the hell is going on, because 강동원 is apparently "very handome man". Let's see, shall we?
Hm. Not exactly my type. He's got weirdo alien eyes and he's far too clean cut and pretty. In short, boring. Nothing special. Wait....
Okay. That's a little better. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: with Korean guys, sometimes the hair makes or breaks it.
Anyway. That Avatar nonsense apparently goes on for three hours, which the boyfriend crew found out about and immediately advised me against. Smart boys. I'd rather sit through an hour and a half of trying to understand Korean than three hours of just about anything else.
The point is, I was supposed to be able to sleep in tomorrow. That is until my ride to work this morning from the teacher who is the mother of the two girls I teach on Tuesdays (for FREE ... for free... privates are illegal and I don't do things that are illegal while I'm in the ROK).
This woman just irritates me. There's no solid reason for it other than just about everyone I've ever met with her personality type has irritated me as well. She's finicky. Extremely finicky. Sitting with her at lunch makes me want to jam a chopstick in my eye because she picks and fusses and takes tiny little bites that she appears to chew exactly 34 times before swallowing. Her desk is directly across from mine and all day I'm irritated by her arranging and rearranging the four things that are on her desk with screeching exactitude. And when she speaks English I want to kill myself, because she'll take twenty minutes to say absolutely nothing, because she'll shift back and forth from one tense to another half a million times out loud, while tilting her head this way and that and sucking on her teeth, trying to decide which one is right before reaching the end of her sentence and her (ultimately boring) point.
She's a church person as well. And I don't mean like, a person who goes to church. A Church Person. You all know what I'm talking about. The kind that repeatedly asks you every goddamn Monday if you went to church this weekend when every previous goddamn Monday you've already told her you don't go to church.
She also has no idea that I have any function in life other than to teach Koreans English. That's part of why conversation with her makes me want to die. She goes about it clearly as English Conversation Practice Time, instead of just fucking talking to me like another human being. When I told her I was going to start doing volunteer work at the center, she gasped with totally unnecessary horror and said, "What about teaching my kids?!" Jesus, lady. Your husband is loaded. If it came down to it, I think you could manage to find an actual private tutor for your little darlings so that I could spend a few hours a week teaching kids who can't even afford new shoes, let alone hagwon. She's clearly got the love of Christ in her.
If her kids weren't so brilliant, I'd do whatever I had to to not have to speak to her ever again. This morning when I climbed into the car, she asked me (eventually) if I would be going to see the movie tomorrow. I answered yes, and she immediately responded with one of her terrible, horror-filled gasps. "Oh no!"
"....."
"My kids make you Christmas cards!!!!"
"Okay...."
"Tomorrow I cannot bring to you at the theater. How will I give?!"
"Uh...."
"But. I think you have classes! You should stay and teach classes!"
"I already took care of that. The principal said I could cancel my classes so I could go...."
"But how will I give you the cards?!"
"I don't... what?"
She spent the remainder of the drive contemplating how to deal with this calamity. Far be it from me to suggest she, I dunno, give the damn things to me on Monday.
Toward the end of the day, she leaned over the cubicle divider between our desks -- my favorite part of any day is when she leans over the cubicle divider between our desks. Because I always know there's something golden coming. Today was no exception.
"Tomorrow... what time you will go to the theater?"
"I have to be there at 10, so I was just going to leave around 9:30..."
"Oh good! You will still be at home!"
".... Still be at home when?"
"Tomorrow I will stop near your house to give my kid's Christmas cards."
".... At 7:45?"
"Yes."
"At 7:45. You want me to come outside and walk down the hill to meet you on the street to get the Christmas cards?"
"Yes. I will see you tomorrow."
And with that, she sat back down at her desk and started to fidget around with nothing.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finally start watching IRIS. Now boys, you wanna talk about "very handsome man"? Hello.
12.22.2009
Southern Women, Part IV: The Mother.
This one's going to be the roughest. My mother is my mother, and therefore her drama is inextricably linked to mine -- her story is my story, experienced from different points of view. Not to mention, she's reading this. Talk about pressure. Well, there would be a hell of a lot more pressure, were my mother not the person that she is. Hi Mom.
My mother, of the three, is the soft one. At my more frustrated moments in our relationship with one another, this means the more gullible one, the more emotional one, the more irrational one -- the weaker one. The one most different from me. In my more sober and objective moments, this means the more open one, the more forgiving one, the more loving one -- the stronger one. The one most different from me.
I think every person has a tendency to align themselves more closely with one parent than another. It may shock anyone who knows anything about my relationship with my father to hear that I have always aligned myself with him -- both the good and the bad. My greatest fear in the past has been, and to this day to some extent remains, that I will make the same mistakes in my relationships with people that my father has -- that I'm too hard, too cold and too closed-off. Too cynical, too judgmental, and too wrapped up in my own will. My mother, being the gentle woman that she is, has always smiled and shaken her head at these worries, reassuring me that, like it or not, I have more of her in me than I realize.
My mother's biggest fault is that she trusts too much that there is good in other people. She's drawn in, time and again, by one or another fool's sob story, and often ends up walking away with little to show for it at the end. Her heart is wide open, no matter how many times she gets trampled on. I've always been extremely judgmental about this tendency of hers. One of the worst things I ever said to anybody was said to my mother. Actually, probably a few of the worst things I've ever said to anybody. But we'll talk about just this one, for now.
My mother loved my father with all of her heart. She met him, I believe, when she was 19 and they were married by the time she was 21, and I came along not long after, quickly followed by my brother less than two years later. She went straight from her parents' house into her husband's, and he was not a kind man. He held money over her head as a form of control, just as he had seen his father do. He had very distinct ideas about what made a man and what made a woman, and he expected her to adhere to them.
This went on and on. Without getting into details (because this story is not about me), I will say that I never even came close to meeting my father's standards for a female. We went back and forth in a constant struggle between respecting each other for the strength we saw there, and despising each other for the short-comings we both respectively observed. At times, I genuinely believe I made my father proud by defying him, but at the end of the day, it always came back to the fact that he was the father, and I was the daughter. And I did not even come close to behaving in the manner a daughter should.
My mother went through all of this, quietly comforting and encouraging me. She never once made me feel as though I didn't live up to her standards -- in fact, quite the opposite. I never had any doubts about the way my mother felt about me. Anything I could ever do would be fine with her. She accepted me entirely for what I was. It was this same quality in her that I viciously turned on, when I was 14 and I discovered that my father was having an affair. Taking the evidence to her, I sat and watched as she quietly cried and then instructed me not to say a word about knowing to my father. I looked at her then and, in her lowest moment, when she could have used a return on her support and love more than ever, said the most horrible thing a daughter can say to a mother: "I hope I never end up like you."
Years later, I find myself worrying about just the opposite. I couldn't have understood the reasons my mother had for keeping quiet in that moment. I didn't know then what it would mean for my mother to break away from my father, who held the financial reins in our household nearly entirely, along with just about all other forms of control. I didn't know then the value of swallowing your pride and doing what you have to do to get through a situation. I didn't understand that sometimes what looks like weakness is actually strength.
My mother is the most different from me. But I have to hope that she's right and that a bigger part of her exists within me than I have a tendency to realize, that her kindness and gentleness can come through in me when I need it to. That I can stomp down my pride in those moments when I have to think about the well-being of others, and that I can continue to be open and honest with the world, even after I've experienced its rougher edges. That I have the kind of forgiveness in me that allowed her to almost instantly forgive me for saying something for which I still haven't forgiven myself.
My mother, of the three, is the soft one. At my more frustrated moments in our relationship with one another, this means the more gullible one, the more emotional one, the more irrational one -- the weaker one. The one most different from me. In my more sober and objective moments, this means the more open one, the more forgiving one, the more loving one -- the stronger one. The one most different from me.
I think every person has a tendency to align themselves more closely with one parent than another. It may shock anyone who knows anything about my relationship with my father to hear that I have always aligned myself with him -- both the good and the bad. My greatest fear in the past has been, and to this day to some extent remains, that I will make the same mistakes in my relationships with people that my father has -- that I'm too hard, too cold and too closed-off. Too cynical, too judgmental, and too wrapped up in my own will. My mother, being the gentle woman that she is, has always smiled and shaken her head at these worries, reassuring me that, like it or not, I have more of her in me than I realize.
My mother's biggest fault is that she trusts too much that there is good in other people. She's drawn in, time and again, by one or another fool's sob story, and often ends up walking away with little to show for it at the end. Her heart is wide open, no matter how many times she gets trampled on. I've always been extremely judgmental about this tendency of hers. One of the worst things I ever said to anybody was said to my mother. Actually, probably a few of the worst things I've ever said to anybody. But we'll talk about just this one, for now.
My mother loved my father with all of her heart. She met him, I believe, when she was 19 and they were married by the time she was 21, and I came along not long after, quickly followed by my brother less than two years later. She went straight from her parents' house into her husband's, and he was not a kind man. He held money over her head as a form of control, just as he had seen his father do. He had very distinct ideas about what made a man and what made a woman, and he expected her to adhere to them.
This went on and on. Without getting into details (because this story is not about me), I will say that I never even came close to meeting my father's standards for a female. We went back and forth in a constant struggle between respecting each other for the strength we saw there, and despising each other for the short-comings we both respectively observed. At times, I genuinely believe I made my father proud by defying him, but at the end of the day, it always came back to the fact that he was the father, and I was the daughter. And I did not even come close to behaving in the manner a daughter should.
My mother went through all of this, quietly comforting and encouraging me. She never once made me feel as though I didn't live up to her standards -- in fact, quite the opposite. I never had any doubts about the way my mother felt about me. Anything I could ever do would be fine with her. She accepted me entirely for what I was. It was this same quality in her that I viciously turned on, when I was 14 and I discovered that my father was having an affair. Taking the evidence to her, I sat and watched as she quietly cried and then instructed me not to say a word about knowing to my father. I looked at her then and, in her lowest moment, when she could have used a return on her support and love more than ever, said the most horrible thing a daughter can say to a mother: "I hope I never end up like you."
Years later, I find myself worrying about just the opposite. I couldn't have understood the reasons my mother had for keeping quiet in that moment. I didn't know then what it would mean for my mother to break away from my father, who held the financial reins in our household nearly entirely, along with just about all other forms of control. I didn't know then the value of swallowing your pride and doing what you have to do to get through a situation. I didn't understand that sometimes what looks like weakness is actually strength.
My mother is the most different from me. But I have to hope that she's right and that a bigger part of her exists within me than I have a tendency to realize, that her kindness and gentleness can come through in me when I need it to. That I can stomp down my pride in those moments when I have to think about the well-being of others, and that I can continue to be open and honest with the world, even after I've experienced its rougher edges. That I have the kind of forgiveness in me that allowed her to almost instantly forgive me for saying something for which I still haven't forgiven myself.
Southern Women, Part III: The Matriarch.
Then there's my grandma, or Nana as she is more commonly know. That woman. I could make half a million ten page posts about that woman, and it wouldn't be enough to explain her. She was born into a family of about a million kids, somewhere near the end, in a poor-ass rural town in Alabama. I'm talking no shoes, cotton picking, brushing their teeth with chewed-on branches of dogwood poor. The details of her young life are still sketchy to me, because we, being Southern women, don't like to dwell on the details of misfortune. Fake it till you make it is her favorite expression -- one I've seen her live and breathe for going on 25 years now. But it wasn't an easy life. She left home when she was 17 and went on to study her ass off while working to help support herself while staying with her older sister (Opal -- my aunt who just passed) in Kansas, where one night while dragging on the main strip in town, she met my grandfather.
This is one of my grandfather's (many, many, many) favorite stories to tell over and over again. Generally, my grandmother sits there with a stoic and sarcastic look on her face while he tells it, rolling her eyes all the while at his sentimentality, but she never contradicts a single detail, except to jump in and explain what an idiot she thought he was at the time, and how she wasn't about to put up with his crap, not for one second.
Nana was dragging with her best friend, and Papa was dragging with his. Papa and his buddy had set out that evening with a plan. At the time, they were sailors in the U.S. Navy. They had donned their uniforms, knowing they would be a hit with the ladies, and were going to use the fake story of being in town only for a couple of days before setting out to sea again to have a little bit of fun with some pretty girls. They spotted the two girls in their car in front of them, pulled up next to them and flagged them down. The girls reluctantly pulled over to let the gentlemen have a word. They asked the girls out for the following night, and my grandmother reluctantly accepted, at her friend's behest, on one condition. This line will go down in family history as the single most important line my grandmother ever uttered. We all sprung forth into life as a result of this one line. It was the line that irrevocably hooked my grandfather.
She leaned out of the car window, looked up at my grandfather and said:
"I'll go. But only if you promise not to wear that stupid uniform."
My grandfather swears he knew right then and there that she would be the woman he would marry.
On their date the next night, my grandfather pulled out all the stops. He was a painfully good looking young man who had been making trouble with girls since around the time he realized what a girl was -- a bad boy to the core. He'd already been to jail, been through a boys' home for juvenile delinquents -- a genuine greaser if ever there was one. My grandmother cut him off at every turn. You're taking us to do what? Pick up beer? Well. That's fine. You can just drop me off at home on the way, because if you think I'm about to sit in this car and be bored to death watching you get stupid drunk, you've got another thing coming entirely. He lost all his cool and babbled nonsense, going out of his way to please this girl he had intended to pick up, use for a bit of fun, and drop as soon as possible.
The woman's been through an imaginable amount of shit since then, and continues to go head-first through the mess today. I've got a hell of a lot of that woman in me, so much that I have to watch it at times, but I'm proud to have her blood running through my veins. She can be hard as nails, but she's done what she had to do to see herself and her family through.
Her defining characteristic of the three women is definitely her tenacity, equaled only in measure by her love for and loyalty to her family. Our job, as various members of the family underneath my grandmother, is to do stupid shit she can see for what it is coming from a mile off, ignore all her warnings, have her take a firm stance against us, vowing not to have a thing to do with the mess we're about to make, and then watch her as she crumbles and once again does what she can to pick up all of the pieces for us. Her job is to forgive us our ignorance, and she's fucking excellent at it.
This is one of my grandfather's (many, many, many) favorite stories to tell over and over again. Generally, my grandmother sits there with a stoic and sarcastic look on her face while he tells it, rolling her eyes all the while at his sentimentality, but she never contradicts a single detail, except to jump in and explain what an idiot she thought he was at the time, and how she wasn't about to put up with his crap, not for one second.
Nana was dragging with her best friend, and Papa was dragging with his. Papa and his buddy had set out that evening with a plan. At the time, they were sailors in the U.S. Navy. They had donned their uniforms, knowing they would be a hit with the ladies, and were going to use the fake story of being in town only for a couple of days before setting out to sea again to have a little bit of fun with some pretty girls. They spotted the two girls in their car in front of them, pulled up next to them and flagged them down. The girls reluctantly pulled over to let the gentlemen have a word. They asked the girls out for the following night, and my grandmother reluctantly accepted, at her friend's behest, on one condition. This line will go down in family history as the single most important line my grandmother ever uttered. We all sprung forth into life as a result of this one line. It was the line that irrevocably hooked my grandfather.
She leaned out of the car window, looked up at my grandfather and said:
"I'll go. But only if you promise not to wear that stupid uniform."
My grandfather swears he knew right then and there that she would be the woman he would marry.
On their date the next night, my grandfather pulled out all the stops. He was a painfully good looking young man who had been making trouble with girls since around the time he realized what a girl was -- a bad boy to the core. He'd already been to jail, been through a boys' home for juvenile delinquents -- a genuine greaser if ever there was one. My grandmother cut him off at every turn. You're taking us to do what? Pick up beer? Well. That's fine. You can just drop me off at home on the way, because if you think I'm about to sit in this car and be bored to death watching you get stupid drunk, you've got another thing coming entirely. He lost all his cool and babbled nonsense, going out of his way to please this girl he had intended to pick up, use for a bit of fun, and drop as soon as possible.
The woman's been through an imaginable amount of shit since then, and continues to go head-first through the mess today. I've got a hell of a lot of that woman in me, so much that I have to watch it at times, but I'm proud to have her blood running through my veins. She can be hard as nails, but she's done what she had to do to see herself and her family through.
Her defining characteristic of the three women is definitely her tenacity, equaled only in measure by her love for and loyalty to her family. Our job, as various members of the family underneath my grandmother, is to do stupid shit she can see for what it is coming from a mile off, ignore all her warnings, have her take a firm stance against us, vowing not to have a thing to do with the mess we're about to make, and then watch her as she crumbles and once again does what she can to pick up all of the pieces for us. Her job is to forgive us our ignorance, and she's fucking excellent at it.
Southern Women, Part II: Big A.
My aunt was 18 when I was born, and has never been married. Our biggest inside joke to this day is big A and little a. When I was a kid, my aunt had a red convertible and tape deck and was basically the coolest person I knew. Some of my oldest memories are of us driving around in her car singing along to the radio, and irritating the entire family by referring to ourselves as big A and little a -- big Attitude and little attitude.
When I was 9 years old, my aunt brought shame upon the entire family (recovering Southern Baptists... you know how they can be) by getting pregnant by an abusive asshat she was seeing at the time. She endured the freeze-out from my grandmother, until news came in that the baby could be in danger, and the stiff old bird burst into tears at the mere thought of not having that grandbaby around. She went on to raise what has become a strapping 15 year old little man on her own. That kid is like a brother to me -- our family is that close -- and I'm grateful to her everyday for bringing him into this world and for raising him up into a man who loves and respects women.
When I was 17 (and I'll get into the details of this a bit more later, when I talk about my mother), I left my mother's home. My aunt was the person I called to come and pick me up. She had always been the one I related most closely to, was closest to in age, and the only one I could think of who would support me, no matter what her own opinions might be, in this decision. That cost her a lot in her relationship with my mother, and there are wounds there between them, caused by my hands, that still have not entirely healed. But she knows what it's like to be on the outside of the family -- to be the one causing problems and generally stirring up disorder. She railed the hardest against what was expected out of her (for better or for worse) and did the most damage to her own reputation as a "lady" in order to pursue her own version of happiness. She's never been afraid of what anyone else thinks or says. No matter what anyone else thinks about that, I have always, and still do, respect it. And I look up to it.
Now my aunt is set apart from the other women (people) in my family in relation to me by one defining factor: she is the only person in our entire family who is not afraid to get in my face and tell me when I'm being a bitch.
To give this characteristic some background, I'll tell one of my grandfather's favorite stories, about the one and only time he ever spanked me. I was three years old, and I don't remember what it was I had done, but it's safe to say it was a wholly deserved spanking brought on by characteristic stubbornness on my part, which the adults in my environment spent the majority of my young life trying their best to break and reign in. As the story goes, I refused to speak to my grandfather for from days, to up to weeks, depending on the version you get. It broke his heart, and from that day forward, my grandfather never put his hands on me ever again.
My aunt laughed her way through a fair amount of my defiance of the other adults in my life, but she has never been one to put up with it herself. That remains true to this day. In general, I tend to stay on the outskirts of the family drama, lingering somewhere between the women and the men. That's mostly probably because I've been the least invested in the situation, spending most of my adult life far away from the daily grind the family has been through together. But when it comes down to it, when I do manage to get my panties in a twist about something, she's the one who steps up to the plate and brings me right back down to earth. She's not afraid to contradict me, or to even use my middle name in a tone of voice I haven't heard out of anyone besides her since I was a very small child.
These days she's a full-on PTA mom. I'm not even kidding -- I'm talking PTA president. When I do the laundry while I'm home, I'm hanging up loads of "BASEBALL MOM" and "GO PANTHERS" t shirts. She gives her all to that little man, and is almost nearly shamefully republican in her views on family values. One of my favorite things to do when I'm home is still to climb into her car, turn on the radio and go for drives late at night. I can still rely on her to take whatever I have to say with an open mind, but to then turn around and give it to me straight. She's the mouthiest of all the women in our family, and I'm still just a little a (no matter how hard it is to believe) next to her big one.
When I was 9 years old, my aunt brought shame upon the entire family (recovering Southern Baptists... you know how they can be) by getting pregnant by an abusive asshat she was seeing at the time. She endured the freeze-out from my grandmother, until news came in that the baby could be in danger, and the stiff old bird burst into tears at the mere thought of not having that grandbaby around. She went on to raise what has become a strapping 15 year old little man on her own. That kid is like a brother to me -- our family is that close -- and I'm grateful to her everyday for bringing him into this world and for raising him up into a man who loves and respects women.
When I was 17 (and I'll get into the details of this a bit more later, when I talk about my mother), I left my mother's home. My aunt was the person I called to come and pick me up. She had always been the one I related most closely to, was closest to in age, and the only one I could think of who would support me, no matter what her own opinions might be, in this decision. That cost her a lot in her relationship with my mother, and there are wounds there between them, caused by my hands, that still have not entirely healed. But she knows what it's like to be on the outside of the family -- to be the one causing problems and generally stirring up disorder. She railed the hardest against what was expected out of her (for better or for worse) and did the most damage to her own reputation as a "lady" in order to pursue her own version of happiness. She's never been afraid of what anyone else thinks or says. No matter what anyone else thinks about that, I have always, and still do, respect it. And I look up to it.
Now my aunt is set apart from the other women (people) in my family in relation to me by one defining factor: she is the only person in our entire family who is not afraid to get in my face and tell me when I'm being a bitch.
To give this characteristic some background, I'll tell one of my grandfather's favorite stories, about the one and only time he ever spanked me. I was three years old, and I don't remember what it was I had done, but it's safe to say it was a wholly deserved spanking brought on by characteristic stubbornness on my part, which the adults in my environment spent the majority of my young life trying their best to break and reign in. As the story goes, I refused to speak to my grandfather for from days, to up to weeks, depending on the version you get. It broke his heart, and from that day forward, my grandfather never put his hands on me ever again.
My aunt laughed her way through a fair amount of my defiance of the other adults in my life, but she has never been one to put up with it herself. That remains true to this day. In general, I tend to stay on the outskirts of the family drama, lingering somewhere between the women and the men. That's mostly probably because I've been the least invested in the situation, spending most of my adult life far away from the daily grind the family has been through together. But when it comes down to it, when I do manage to get my panties in a twist about something, she's the one who steps up to the plate and brings me right back down to earth. She's not afraid to contradict me, or to even use my middle name in a tone of voice I haven't heard out of anyone besides her since I was a very small child.
These days she's a full-on PTA mom. I'm not even kidding -- I'm talking PTA president. When I do the laundry while I'm home, I'm hanging up loads of "BASEBALL MOM" and "GO PANTHERS" t shirts. She gives her all to that little man, and is almost nearly shamefully republican in her views on family values. One of my favorite things to do when I'm home is still to climb into her car, turn on the radio and go for drives late at night. I can still rely on her to take whatever I have to say with an open mind, but to then turn around and give it to me straight. She's the mouthiest of all the women in our family, and I'm still just a little a (no matter how hard it is to believe) next to her big one.
A not-even-vaguely-related-to-Korea post -- Southern Women: Part I
Oh lord, just prepare yourselves now. Not a whole lot going on in the life o' Liz at the moment (thank god for that) and I have tendency to go into hibernation mode once it gets seriously cold out. As Willie put it this weekend, why would I go into Seoul when I can stay in my apartment and watch movies?
Well all of this is basically leading up to me trying to excuse the fact that I'm about to blog about a television show. And not even like an artistic, documentary based one -- I'm talking Real Housewives of Atlanta here, okay?
Now give me a minute. I'll get around to a bigger point eventually. But we'll start here.
I have no interest in that California show. I've got a lot beef with California, and the west coast in general -- I have a theory that all people can be categorically defined as either "west coast" or "east coast", no matter where they're from or what their background is. It's a personality thing. And, well I lived in New York for nearly six years -- you figure it out. That's nothing against the west coast people -- you gotta have them around -- they're delightful, with their slow talking and generally easy going personalities -- I'm just not one of them. Now. As an adopted New Yorker for some time, however, I do have a general morbid, arrogant fascination with New Jersey, however. And when I heard there was a show about New Jersey housewives, you better believe I jumped on that. That's where it began.
When I went home in October to visit my family at the one year mark, as I sat around gorging on homemade everything and not showering on a daily basis, I noticed that there was a new version -- The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Now we're talking.
Nobody but nobody does drama like a southern woman. I know because I am one. We've got opinions about everything, and we'll take full advantage of half an opportunity to express them. We run our mouths about everything under the sun and rarely show an ounce of regret. The difference in the southern brand of drama is that, if it comes down to it, we can admit we were wrong -- we'll just blame it on being caught up in the moment. And the most appealing aspect of southern drama, as I see it, is the ability to set the bullshit aside when the situation calls for it. Don't believe me? Watch the reunion show for the other housewives series, and then watch the Atlanta reunion show. Those ladies behaved like ladies. They settled their drama before they stepped foot on stage and, whatever may have still been going on at the time, they banded together and refused to let the host burrow in underneath and between them. They realized that, although they could use the chance to bring each other down, they may also be brought down in the process, and the smart thing to do was to pack it in tight and not go down that road.
Smart.
Time and time again throughout the series, you see the girls get into the same bitchy little ego centered fights that all the other women have in the past. The difference is that, following whatever ridiculous rift occurred in any given episode, by the next episode they were sitting down and talking it out. And when it couldn't be talked out, even when there was tension, they would agree to disagree and do their dead level to be cordial to each other. They supported each other when they needed to and put aside their differences to come together for mutual friends in need. That was the defining element I was so proud to relate to.
Which brings me around to my real point, which is that I hate Christmas. Or that it is soon to be Christmas, and although I hate Christmas, Christmas is the time I knew I could rely on every year while I was living in New York for a chance to get home and see my family. I could also rely on boatloads of drama, given that my family is both female and Southern based.
Now you want to talk about a group of women who have been through some bullshit, both in general, and specifically at the hands of men. I don't discuss my past or my family too often here -- it's not really something I focus on in my daily life, outside of my own personal interactions with my family itself and a handful of very dear friends who know a hell of a lot more than most people I meet in life from this point forward ever will. I will outline the situation briefly and then later, because vagueness is boring, get into some more details.
My family, as I consider it, is my mom, my little brother, my aunt, my mom's parents and my little (male) cousin. Since I've been away, my brother has made his own additions to our family in the form of a wife and a baby. Unfortunately, I've had about two weeks total to be around that situation, and haven't quite adjusted to it yet, although I love them both and welcome them into the family with open arms. The three main women in my life are my mom, my aunt and my grandmother. I want to talk about them here for the first time. Christmas is three days away, and I miss these three women more than words can begin to convey. Even thinking about the nonsense and fighting that goes on every single damn holiday we all have crammed up in that little house, where we women-folk always manage to get uppity about something, while the men-folk hide out in another room trying not to make any sudden moves... well.
This Christmas is going to be different. I'm stuck in Korea. My brother's stuck out in California. My grandparents are out in Alabama settling the situation left behind from my great aunt's recent death. Our family is more (physically) divided now than it ever has been. We've been through some serious shit on a lot of different levels over the years, but we've never been separated before -- not like this. So I'll take this downtime from any Korea related news or nonsense to honor these three women and what they've meant to me. It's about to get real personal up in here, kiddos. Bear with the Liz -- she's not used to operating on this level. That having been said, it's going to be long. So we'll divide it into parts.
Well all of this is basically leading up to me trying to excuse the fact that I'm about to blog about a television show. And not even like an artistic, documentary based one -- I'm talking Real Housewives of Atlanta here, okay?
Now give me a minute. I'll get around to a bigger point eventually. But we'll start here.
I have no interest in that California show. I've got a lot beef with California, and the west coast in general -- I have a theory that all people can be categorically defined as either "west coast" or "east coast", no matter where they're from or what their background is. It's a personality thing. And, well I lived in New York for nearly six years -- you figure it out. That's nothing against the west coast people -- you gotta have them around -- they're delightful, with their slow talking and generally easy going personalities -- I'm just not one of them. Now. As an adopted New Yorker for some time, however, I do have a general morbid, arrogant fascination with New Jersey, however. And when I heard there was a show about New Jersey housewives, you better believe I jumped on that. That's where it began.
When I went home in October to visit my family at the one year mark, as I sat around gorging on homemade everything and not showering on a daily basis, I noticed that there was a new version -- The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Now we're talking.
Nobody but nobody does drama like a southern woman. I know because I am one. We've got opinions about everything, and we'll take full advantage of half an opportunity to express them. We run our mouths about everything under the sun and rarely show an ounce of regret. The difference in the southern brand of drama is that, if it comes down to it, we can admit we were wrong -- we'll just blame it on being caught up in the moment. And the most appealing aspect of southern drama, as I see it, is the ability to set the bullshit aside when the situation calls for it. Don't believe me? Watch the reunion show for the other housewives series, and then watch the Atlanta reunion show. Those ladies behaved like ladies. They settled their drama before they stepped foot on stage and, whatever may have still been going on at the time, they banded together and refused to let the host burrow in underneath and between them. They realized that, although they could use the chance to bring each other down, they may also be brought down in the process, and the smart thing to do was to pack it in tight and not go down that road.
Smart.
Time and time again throughout the series, you see the girls get into the same bitchy little ego centered fights that all the other women have in the past. The difference is that, following whatever ridiculous rift occurred in any given episode, by the next episode they were sitting down and talking it out. And when it couldn't be talked out, even when there was tension, they would agree to disagree and do their dead level to be cordial to each other. They supported each other when they needed to and put aside their differences to come together for mutual friends in need. That was the defining element I was so proud to relate to.
Which brings me around to my real point, which is that I hate Christmas. Or that it is soon to be Christmas, and although I hate Christmas, Christmas is the time I knew I could rely on every year while I was living in New York for a chance to get home and see my family. I could also rely on boatloads of drama, given that my family is both female and Southern based.
Now you want to talk about a group of women who have been through some bullshit, both in general, and specifically at the hands of men. I don't discuss my past or my family too often here -- it's not really something I focus on in my daily life, outside of my own personal interactions with my family itself and a handful of very dear friends who know a hell of a lot more than most people I meet in life from this point forward ever will. I will outline the situation briefly and then later, because vagueness is boring, get into some more details.
My family, as I consider it, is my mom, my little brother, my aunt, my mom's parents and my little (male) cousin. Since I've been away, my brother has made his own additions to our family in the form of a wife and a baby. Unfortunately, I've had about two weeks total to be around that situation, and haven't quite adjusted to it yet, although I love them both and welcome them into the family with open arms. The three main women in my life are my mom, my aunt and my grandmother. I want to talk about them here for the first time. Christmas is three days away, and I miss these three women more than words can begin to convey. Even thinking about the nonsense and fighting that goes on every single damn holiday we all have crammed up in that little house, where we women-folk always manage to get uppity about something, while the men-folk hide out in another room trying not to make any sudden moves... well.
This Christmas is going to be different. I'm stuck in Korea. My brother's stuck out in California. My grandparents are out in Alabama settling the situation left behind from my great aunt's recent death. Our family is more (physically) divided now than it ever has been. We've been through some serious shit on a lot of different levels over the years, but we've never been separated before -- not like this. So I'll take this downtime from any Korea related news or nonsense to honor these three women and what they've meant to me. It's about to get real personal up in here, kiddos. Bear with the Liz -- she's not used to operating on this level. That having been said, it's going to be long. So we'll divide it into parts.
12.21.2009
Sticks.
Well, first bit of news is that I have been hit by the ban-stick from the mods over at Dave's ESL Cafe. Hilarious. I'm not sure exactly what it was about -- I tended to rub a lot of people the wrong way over there. I did get an indirect warning on Saturday about name calling and "quoting text containing profanity" after someone called me a "dike" and I corrected the spelling and called him a hillbilly. I was a good little girl and didn't do any name calling after my warning, so I'm not sure what warranted the ban. I've got a message in to the mods, but no response yet.
The sad bit is that there was a certain member of the forum I had tentative plans of meeting on Thursday night for a couple of drinks, but I don't have any other contact info for him so.......
Coteacher is a co-teaching goddess and, after feeling extremely guilty for leaving me alone in the cold office all day on Friday, she went right over our grumpy VP's head (even though the VP usually gives in where I'm concerned) straight the P and asked him if I could cancel my classes for Christmas Eve and go with the third graders to see a movie. She knows how much I'm going to miss those boys, and has gone out of her way to get me every last second she can with them before they go. I was told today by the boyfriend crew that I am not allowed to see New Moon because it is "trash" and have to see Avatar with them instead. They used their very best English to make quite pitch for it, because they know I have no tv and absolutely no idea what's going on in the pop media, but I'm still not sure.
Got to see my boys at the center tonight. The set of twins I'm still having trouble with... they really do look exactly alike, and their mannerisms are all the same. I can spot the other two out from a mile away, but with this set, I have to wait until I'm actually talking to them to know which one I'm dealing with. I told my high schooler his new English word is "relax" because that's what he needs to do. He's so blasted cute. He's got to be breaking hearts left and right, because he's a little guitar playing youth grouper who's got the whole true-love-waits thing going on. There's nothing more devastating to the teenage girl heart than a boy who should be running around being a true player giving his heart (and body) to Jesus instead. And acting all shy about it in the process.
By the way, for those of you who haven't noticed yet, this "loser" thing has gone entirely too far. I heard it about half a million times last week in replacement of the word "short" while we were describing celebrities. Boys. You can't call G Dragon a loser. I'm sorry. Today, Seungtak, one of my 313 boys, had on a hoody with two male figures on the front. One was short, labeled "LOSER" underneath. One was tall, labeled "WINNER" underneath. Aiiiiiiiish. Aiiiiiiiish. Seungtak. Aiiiish.
Movie week always makes me want to gouge my eyes out. The worst part about being a teacher is watching the same 45 minutes of a film five times a day for a week straight. Pure torture. But it's been great for observing the boys in their natural habitat. The ridiculous things I've seen these boys do with chairs in the last few days. Crawling under tables to get to a different seat. Absurd behavior. Today one of my cool guy students was folding up a page pulled out of a magazine when another student spotted me eyeballing it and shouted, "TEACHA HE DIRTY BOY! OH!" Well. Where would your mind go if you were me?
I used my stick to snatch the page out of his grasp and pull it across the table toward me. When I unfolded it to see the damage, it took me a second to realize that the "dirty" part the other student had been referring to was the big wad of spit that had been folded up inside. "Oh my god! Are you an animal? What is this? Gross!" The cool guy attempted to make the argument that he wasn't an animal, and that's why he had neatly folded his little loogie up inside a magazine page, instead of releasing it willy-nilly onto the classroom floor. No.
In other pornography related news, I happened to be walking past class 306 today while they were watching a full on breastes shot of some blonde woman getting out of the shower. Um. You do realize your classrooms have windows? I tapped my stick on the glass and the entire class dove under their desks when they turned around and saw me standing there. Kyeongwon, my boxer student who I lord over the younger boys (who is also in class 306) came running down the hall toward me at that exact moment. "샘! 전.... 샘? 무슨일있어요?"
"변태! 변태!"
"저요?! 왜요?!"
"아니! 여기봐봐!"
"아우.... 진짜...."
Another day, another dollar, eh?
The sad bit is that there was a certain member of the forum I had tentative plans of meeting on Thursday night for a couple of drinks, but I don't have any other contact info for him so.......
Coteacher is a co-teaching goddess and, after feeling extremely guilty for leaving me alone in the cold office all day on Friday, she went right over our grumpy VP's head (even though the VP usually gives in where I'm concerned) straight the P and asked him if I could cancel my classes for Christmas Eve and go with the third graders to see a movie. She knows how much I'm going to miss those boys, and has gone out of her way to get me every last second she can with them before they go. I was told today by the boyfriend crew that I am not allowed to see New Moon because it is "trash" and have to see Avatar with them instead. They used their very best English to make quite pitch for it, because they know I have no tv and absolutely no idea what's going on in the pop media, but I'm still not sure.
Got to see my boys at the center tonight. The set of twins I'm still having trouble with... they really do look exactly alike, and their mannerisms are all the same. I can spot the other two out from a mile away, but with this set, I have to wait until I'm actually talking to them to know which one I'm dealing with. I told my high schooler his new English word is "relax" because that's what he needs to do. He's so blasted cute. He's got to be breaking hearts left and right, because he's a little guitar playing youth grouper who's got the whole true-love-waits thing going on. There's nothing more devastating to the teenage girl heart than a boy who should be running around being a true player giving his heart (and body) to Jesus instead. And acting all shy about it in the process.
By the way, for those of you who haven't noticed yet, this "loser" thing has gone entirely too far. I heard it about half a million times last week in replacement of the word "short" while we were describing celebrities. Boys. You can't call G Dragon a loser. I'm sorry. Today, Seungtak, one of my 313 boys, had on a hoody with two male figures on the front. One was short, labeled "LOSER" underneath. One was tall, labeled "WINNER" underneath. Aiiiiiiiish. Aiiiiiiiish. Seungtak. Aiiiish.
Movie week always makes me want to gouge my eyes out. The worst part about being a teacher is watching the same 45 minutes of a film five times a day for a week straight. Pure torture. But it's been great for observing the boys in their natural habitat. The ridiculous things I've seen these boys do with chairs in the last few days. Crawling under tables to get to a different seat. Absurd behavior. Today one of my cool guy students was folding up a page pulled out of a magazine when another student spotted me eyeballing it and shouted, "TEACHA HE DIRTY BOY! OH!" Well. Where would your mind go if you were me?
I used my stick to snatch the page out of his grasp and pull it across the table toward me. When I unfolded it to see the damage, it took me a second to realize that the "dirty" part the other student had been referring to was the big wad of spit that had been folded up inside. "Oh my god! Are you an animal? What is this? Gross!" The cool guy attempted to make the argument that he wasn't an animal, and that's why he had neatly folded his little loogie up inside a magazine page, instead of releasing it willy-nilly onto the classroom floor. No.
In other pornography related news, I happened to be walking past class 306 today while they were watching a full on breastes shot of some blonde woman getting out of the shower. Um. You do realize your classrooms have windows? I tapped my stick on the glass and the entire class dove under their desks when they turned around and saw me standing there. Kyeongwon, my boxer student who I lord over the younger boys (who is also in class 306) came running down the hall toward me at that exact moment. "샘! 전.... 샘? 무슨일있어요?"
"변태! 변태!"
"저요?! 왜요?!"
"아니! 여기봐봐!"
"아우.... 진짜...."
Another day, another dollar, eh?
12.19.2009
Surprise Willie!
What's better than a surprise visit out to dirty Incheon from Mr. Willie? Nothing's better than a surprise visit out to dirty Incheon from Mr. Willie.
Well I managed to scrape myself off the ondol long enough to take a shower and head out to BP to meet him for dinner and a few drinks. I had been contemplating making 김치볶음밥 all day (since that's pretty much all I have the ingredients for in my apartment at the moment, other than cereal and coffee), so it was lucky we wandered into a place that basically only served different variations of udon and bokkeumbap. It's the same place me and Mike went to about a year ago, which, at that time, only served various kinds of rice and Korean style curry. The two bored looking high school girls did a great job of speaking their Korean one syllable at a time, which I've decided at this point to just find cute instead of condescending and also completely not helpful.
Then it was over to the regular, where I was really excited to show Willie the babo bartender, when some new guy who appeared to have a completely reasonable level of intelligence came in instead. Disappointing. Nonetheless, it was a great night of singing along to Abba, the Backstreet Boys and even, of all things, Suede (which I promptly placed at #6 on the list of bands I would not expect to hear playing in a bar in Korea). Weirdest musical choices of the night included Creed (two songs, because one just isn't enough) and Fred Durst's version of "Faith", which I could honestly have gone to my grave happily without ever having heard again ever ever.
Then, Willie got obsessed with a 뚱뚱이 at the end of the bar and the first other foreigner came in, who was best summed up by Willie's description of, "There's a whole lot going on over there...." Meaning moccasins, a Jew-fro and a fruity red drink. By the way, if you're reading this, I would imagine you would realize it's you I'm referring to, so... sorry for writing that, and hi!
Decent night. Smalltown flew for Ireland tonight. He'll be back in three weeks, but I'll miss the moony-eyed little bugger while he's away. He's left me Mimi for company, but I'm not quite sure how that's going. We're getting used to each other. She's come out of her shell and has decided that she absolutely hates being in her cage, which wouldn't be a problem except that her new favorite pass times are climbing into the trash, jumping on my bed, eating the wallpaper and not being potty trained. That last one I'm going to work on, because I wouldn't really want to spend most of my time in a cage, either. But this point is a bit non-negotiable.
Tomorrow I will clean my apartment. I will I will I will I will I will.
Oh. And the in-a-tent-by-the-Han-River Christmas party has suddenly been changed to a in-a-bar-like-normal-people Christmas party. Pretty disappointed about that. But I suppose I'll still go anyhow. I'm quite excited for this week to get on out of the way. And not just because I really don't want to watch the same 45 minutes of Elf another 20 times. Sigh.
Early to bed. G'night my darlings.
Well I managed to scrape myself off the ondol long enough to take a shower and head out to BP to meet him for dinner and a few drinks. I had been contemplating making 김치볶음밥 all day (since that's pretty much all I have the ingredients for in my apartment at the moment, other than cereal and coffee), so it was lucky we wandered into a place that basically only served different variations of udon and bokkeumbap. It's the same place me and Mike went to about a year ago, which, at that time, only served various kinds of rice and Korean style curry. The two bored looking high school girls did a great job of speaking their Korean one syllable at a time, which I've decided at this point to just find cute instead of condescending and also completely not helpful.
Then it was over to the regular, where I was really excited to show Willie the babo bartender, when some new guy who appeared to have a completely reasonable level of intelligence came in instead. Disappointing. Nonetheless, it was a great night of singing along to Abba, the Backstreet Boys and even, of all things, Suede (which I promptly placed at #6 on the list of bands I would not expect to hear playing in a bar in Korea). Weirdest musical choices of the night included Creed (two songs, because one just isn't enough) and Fred Durst's version of "Faith", which I could honestly have gone to my grave happily without ever having heard again ever ever.
Then, Willie got obsessed with a 뚱뚱이 at the end of the bar and the first other foreigner came in, who was best summed up by Willie's description of, "There's a whole lot going on over there...." Meaning moccasins, a Jew-fro and a fruity red drink. By the way, if you're reading this, I would imagine you would realize it's you I'm referring to, so... sorry for writing that, and hi!
Decent night. Smalltown flew for Ireland tonight. He'll be back in three weeks, but I'll miss the moony-eyed little bugger while he's away. He's left me Mimi for company, but I'm not quite sure how that's going. We're getting used to each other. She's come out of her shell and has decided that she absolutely hates being in her cage, which wouldn't be a problem except that her new favorite pass times are climbing into the trash, jumping on my bed, eating the wallpaper and not being potty trained. That last one I'm going to work on, because I wouldn't really want to spend most of my time in a cage, either. But this point is a bit non-negotiable.
Tomorrow I will clean my apartment. I will I will I will I will I will.
Oh. And the in-a-tent-by-the-Han-River Christmas party has suddenly been changed to a in-a-bar-like-normal-people Christmas party. Pretty disappointed about that. But I suppose I'll still go anyhow. I'm quite excited for this week to get on out of the way. And not just because I really don't want to watch the same 45 minutes of Elf another 20 times. Sigh.
Early to bed. G'night my darlings.
12.18.2009
The Situation.
Hrmph.
I've got an issue, kiddos. The issue is that today I was left unguarded by Coteacher, who accompanied all of the other third grade teachers on the first part of the third grade class trip. Which left me open to all kinds of nonsense all day long. Well. Not really, actually. Just one main thing that's really irking me. But let's just try to get this all going in some kind of organized fashion, shall we? I know. Numbers.
1. When Coteacher isn't around, the other teachers seem to feel a lot more free to speak to me. That is, they feel more comfortable simply addressing me in Korean and not worrying about English. This causes undue stress, because, without my CT safety net around, I tend to doubt my understanding of what I hear the first time, even though I'm usually right. Which means my day was full of a lot of, ".... 네?" But it's nice to get a little Korean speaking time in. The teachers at my school seem to be remarkably good at slowing and down and simplifying for me. If I don't catch it the first time around, they'll reproduce it again in words I recognize. It must be a teacher thing.
Coteacher has started speaking to me in Korean when there are other, non-English teaching teachers around, to sort of clue everyone in on the fact that I am starting to pick a bit up. I feel safer with her though, for some reason.
I think I did pretty good today, though.
2. The hot married PE teacher. It's been a while since I've used this blog to perv on him, but you can believe the perving has been going on. I only allow myself to engage in this nonsense where he is concerned because he's married, and therefore it's basically like perving on a celebrity and I don't have to worry about real-life consequences. Fucked up, I know.
Geez louise, what a man. Yesterday he was in talking to Coteacher, when I must have had a troubled look about me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him nudge her and point in my direction. "What's wrong Liz?"
"I'm boooooored."
Coteacher knows already I hate having reduced classes. Even though I've had the third graders to make up part of the time this week during exams, I've still only had three or four classes a day. So Coteacher decided it was a good time for me to practice Korean conversation. Of course, I mostly refuse to speak actual Korean, but she still did her best to get me and the PE teacher talking.
She asked about the rabbit, and I showed them both a picture on my phone and explained how, when I went to Homeplus to get the cage, a young guy working there talked me into buying a hideous lime green one because it was man won cheaper than the nicer one. Coteacher remarked that she was surprised, because I'm not usually easily swayed from my own way about things, and I said, yes but this was in Korean and I can't really argue in Korean. I was nervous already and just wanted the whole situation to be over and done with. The PE teacher remarked that this was cute. Which is amazing because he said something about me was cute and I'm totally in love with him -- get it?
Then he pulled out his phone and showed me a photo of his son. Then -- are you ready for this? -- he proceeded to basically hold my hand while he shuffled through the photos on his phone while I was holding it. There were rainbows figuratively shooting out of my ears.
Aaaanyway. Today I somehow ended up down in the science lab with a bunch of teachers (including my old main co teacher) making organic cosmetics. Don't ask. But for some reason, the PE teacher also joined in on this.
It was a great Korean practice. I've taken Korean classes in Korean before, obviously, but now I've seen for myself the practical applications of doing these kinds of activities with my students, which I have done before, but I always wondered how useful the English side of it was.
While we were waiting for something or another to heat up on the hot plate (which the instructor informed me was hot, because, you know... foreigners don't just not speak or understand Korean, but they also don't know what a hotplate is, because they're clearly mildly retarded), the PE teacher caught I guess his first glimpse of the tattoo on my forearm. I told him the meaning in Korean while he cradled my arm in his hand and I did my best not to pass out.
During the whole process, the teachers (who are not third grade teachers, and therefore not in my office, and therefore have not been around for the recent Korean language ability developments) had seen me comprehending the teacher's instructions in Korean. The PE teacher had started asking my co teacher questions for me in Korean, but my co teacher would simply shoot her eyes up at me, and I would answer him, without translation, in English. At this point, he finally just started addressing me directly in Korean. And then what happened? The other teachers started shouting at him in Korean, mocking him for speaking Korean to the foreigner, who clearly didn't understand. Even as I was answering his questions, which I was fully comprehending. He finally turned on them and shouted back that we could communicate perfectly fine even though his English is terrible, because my Korean is amazing and they should all be quiet, because we understand each other and live in the same apartments.
You tell 'em. And then also please clone yourself and marry me.
3. Here's the real bomb. My old co teacher decided today that she's coming with me on my trip to Vietnam. It was all so sudden that I didn't have a chance to even pause and try to think of a way to gracefully get out of it.
I'm of two minds about this, at this point. When it first happened, I was infuriated. Who does something like that? I've been looking forward to this vacation for an age, with visions of me playing Thomas Fowler in a gorgeous hotel room overlooking a main road, waking a little late in the mornings and drinking strong Vietnamese coffee at a table outside on my imaginary hotel's imaginary veranda overlooking an imaginary busy, scenic Vietnamese street. I would then spend the day wandering around and taking in the various cities, not bothering with anything too touristy or pressurized, basically just trying to soak up the place in whatever way struck my fancy that day. Time alone. To unwind and decompress from the continuing uphill pace of life in the ROK.
Now I've got a middle-aged Korean tagalong. What in the hell am I going to do with her?
And, more importantly.... I.... it's vacation, okay? Who doesn't look forward to the potential, while traveling abroad, of meeting a cute little local and having a bit of what-happens-in-_____-stays-in-_____ fun? Or just meeting new people in general? Which is a lot harder to do when you have a travel companion.
The woman swears she really wants a real travel experience, and that's why she's opted to go with me, the expert real world traveler (???), instead of the other Korean teachers from my school, who are all going through booked tours. But I don't know if she's really ready for this. On my vacation, there will be no kimchi packing, Korean restaurant going, tour bus souvenir shopping nonsense. The end. We will not be taking photos of ourselves with finger Vs in front of temples and monuments. And we will not be wearing stupid hats that are too embarrassing to wear in our country of residence. No. No no no and no. She says she wants to learn from me how to "really" travel, and hope she means that. I'm not, by far, an expert, but I don't do the package tour bullshit.
My game plan, as it stands, is to not veto this whole thing right away (which could, I admit, be a fatal mistake), but instead to discuss my plans in detail over the course of the next week, including riding on motorcycles, striking out to places with nothing but a map and a god-given sense of adventure, and plenty of imbibing of the local brew, as well as cutting costs and taking the ridiculous, jerry-rigged option whenever the opportunity presents itself. I'll see how she reacts to all of this, and see if she's genuinely open to the whole thing. If it starts to seem like she'd much rather be with one of the other Korean teachers on their package tour, I'll address the situation a little more aggressively.
Oi vey. The situations I get myself into. But, to be honest, a similar thing happened over Children's Day, when Coteacher decided that, since my travel desitnation was near her hometown, we would go together and spend the entire time with her family. It wasn't what I imagined it would (or wanted it to) be, but it was still a lovely time with some lovely people.
I hope it stops after this, though. I get a little tired sometimes, in Korea, of the group mentality. It's the one thing that's really hard for me to cope with about Korean culture. I like doing things alone, and I like doing things my own way, and I don't always want other people jumping in. Sometimes I don't want a ride to _____, because I had my own plans about how I was going to get to ____, and a whole schedule worked out for the day I was going to _____. Sometimes I don't want someone to join me going to that museum, or that temple, or that store, or that movie. I just want to go and enjoy it on my own, without the stress of it becoming a social situation. I don't need help with everything and I don't always need (or want) company. Just because I mention my plans to do something doesn't mean that you're invited.
Does that sound really bitchy? Well. Whatever. I'm trying my best to adjust. But some things about me are not American or Western -- they're just me. And they're not likely to ever change. That doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Well, that was a whole boatload of disorganized, rambling nonsense. Contemplating Mimi's name had me thinking about RENT today, so here.... enjoy this as an apology for the utter mess of random crap this blog has become:
Mimi. <3
I've got an issue, kiddos. The issue is that today I was left unguarded by Coteacher, who accompanied all of the other third grade teachers on the first part of the third grade class trip. Which left me open to all kinds of nonsense all day long. Well. Not really, actually. Just one main thing that's really irking me. But let's just try to get this all going in some kind of organized fashion, shall we? I know. Numbers.
1. When Coteacher isn't around, the other teachers seem to feel a lot more free to speak to me. That is, they feel more comfortable simply addressing me in Korean and not worrying about English. This causes undue stress, because, without my CT safety net around, I tend to doubt my understanding of what I hear the first time, even though I'm usually right. Which means my day was full of a lot of, ".... 네?" But it's nice to get a little Korean speaking time in. The teachers at my school seem to be remarkably good at slowing and down and simplifying for me. If I don't catch it the first time around, they'll reproduce it again in words I recognize. It must be a teacher thing.
Coteacher has started speaking to me in Korean when there are other, non-English teaching teachers around, to sort of clue everyone in on the fact that I am starting to pick a bit up. I feel safer with her though, for some reason.
I think I did pretty good today, though.
2. The hot married PE teacher. It's been a while since I've used this blog to perv on him, but you can believe the perving has been going on. I only allow myself to engage in this nonsense where he is concerned because he's married, and therefore it's basically like perving on a celebrity and I don't have to worry about real-life consequences. Fucked up, I know.
Geez louise, what a man. Yesterday he was in talking to Coteacher, when I must have had a troubled look about me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him nudge her and point in my direction. "What's wrong Liz?"
"I'm boooooored."
Coteacher knows already I hate having reduced classes. Even though I've had the third graders to make up part of the time this week during exams, I've still only had three or four classes a day. So Coteacher decided it was a good time for me to practice Korean conversation. Of course, I mostly refuse to speak actual Korean, but she still did her best to get me and the PE teacher talking.
She asked about the rabbit, and I showed them both a picture on my phone and explained how, when I went to Homeplus to get the cage, a young guy working there talked me into buying a hideous lime green one because it was man won cheaper than the nicer one. Coteacher remarked that she was surprised, because I'm not usually easily swayed from my own way about things, and I said, yes but this was in Korean and I can't really argue in Korean. I was nervous already and just wanted the whole situation to be over and done with. The PE teacher remarked that this was cute. Which is amazing because he said something about me was cute and I'm totally in love with him -- get it?
Then he pulled out his phone and showed me a photo of his son. Then -- are you ready for this? -- he proceeded to basically hold my hand while he shuffled through the photos on his phone while I was holding it. There were rainbows figuratively shooting out of my ears.
Aaaanyway. Today I somehow ended up down in the science lab with a bunch of teachers (including my old main co teacher) making organic cosmetics. Don't ask. But for some reason, the PE teacher also joined in on this.
It was a great Korean practice. I've taken Korean classes in Korean before, obviously, but now I've seen for myself the practical applications of doing these kinds of activities with my students, which I have done before, but I always wondered how useful the English side of it was.
While we were waiting for something or another to heat up on the hot plate (which the instructor informed me was hot, because, you know... foreigners don't just not speak or understand Korean, but they also don't know what a hotplate is, because they're clearly mildly retarded), the PE teacher caught I guess his first glimpse of the tattoo on my forearm. I told him the meaning in Korean while he cradled my arm in his hand and I did my best not to pass out.
During the whole process, the teachers (who are not third grade teachers, and therefore not in my office, and therefore have not been around for the recent Korean language ability developments) had seen me comprehending the teacher's instructions in Korean. The PE teacher had started asking my co teacher questions for me in Korean, but my co teacher would simply shoot her eyes up at me, and I would answer him, without translation, in English. At this point, he finally just started addressing me directly in Korean. And then what happened? The other teachers started shouting at him in Korean, mocking him for speaking Korean to the foreigner, who clearly didn't understand. Even as I was answering his questions, which I was fully comprehending. He finally turned on them and shouted back that we could communicate perfectly fine even though his English is terrible, because my Korean is amazing and they should all be quiet, because we understand each other and live in the same apartments.
You tell 'em. And then also please clone yourself and marry me.
3. Here's the real bomb. My old co teacher decided today that she's coming with me on my trip to Vietnam. It was all so sudden that I didn't have a chance to even pause and try to think of a way to gracefully get out of it.
I'm of two minds about this, at this point. When it first happened, I was infuriated. Who does something like that? I've been looking forward to this vacation for an age, with visions of me playing Thomas Fowler in a gorgeous hotel room overlooking a main road, waking a little late in the mornings and drinking strong Vietnamese coffee at a table outside on my imaginary hotel's imaginary veranda overlooking an imaginary busy, scenic Vietnamese street. I would then spend the day wandering around and taking in the various cities, not bothering with anything too touristy or pressurized, basically just trying to soak up the place in whatever way struck my fancy that day. Time alone. To unwind and decompress from the continuing uphill pace of life in the ROK.
Now I've got a middle-aged Korean tagalong. What in the hell am I going to do with her?
And, more importantly.... I.... it's vacation, okay? Who doesn't look forward to the potential, while traveling abroad, of meeting a cute little local and having a bit of what-happens-in-_____-stays-in-_____ fun? Or just meeting new people in general? Which is a lot harder to do when you have a travel companion.
The woman swears she really wants a real travel experience, and that's why she's opted to go with me, the expert real world traveler (???), instead of the other Korean teachers from my school, who are all going through booked tours. But I don't know if she's really ready for this. On my vacation, there will be no kimchi packing, Korean restaurant going, tour bus souvenir shopping nonsense. The end. We will not be taking photos of ourselves with finger Vs in front of temples and monuments. And we will not be wearing stupid hats that are too embarrassing to wear in our country of residence. No. No no no and no. She says she wants to learn from me how to "really" travel, and hope she means that. I'm not, by far, an expert, but I don't do the package tour bullshit.
My game plan, as it stands, is to not veto this whole thing right away (which could, I admit, be a fatal mistake), but instead to discuss my plans in detail over the course of the next week, including riding on motorcycles, striking out to places with nothing but a map and a god-given sense of adventure, and plenty of imbibing of the local brew, as well as cutting costs and taking the ridiculous, jerry-rigged option whenever the opportunity presents itself. I'll see how she reacts to all of this, and see if she's genuinely open to the whole thing. If it starts to seem like she'd much rather be with one of the other Korean teachers on their package tour, I'll address the situation a little more aggressively.
Oi vey. The situations I get myself into. But, to be honest, a similar thing happened over Children's Day, when Coteacher decided that, since my travel desitnation was near her hometown, we would go together and spend the entire time with her family. It wasn't what I imagined it would (or wanted it to) be, but it was still a lovely time with some lovely people.
I hope it stops after this, though. I get a little tired sometimes, in Korea, of the group mentality. It's the one thing that's really hard for me to cope with about Korean culture. I like doing things alone, and I like doing things my own way, and I don't always want other people jumping in. Sometimes I don't want a ride to _____, because I had my own plans about how I was going to get to ____, and a whole schedule worked out for the day I was going to _____. Sometimes I don't want someone to join me going to that museum, or that temple, or that store, or that movie. I just want to go and enjoy it on my own, without the stress of it becoming a social situation. I don't need help with everything and I don't always need (or want) company. Just because I mention my plans to do something doesn't mean that you're invited.
Does that sound really bitchy? Well. Whatever. I'm trying my best to adjust. But some things about me are not American or Western -- they're just me. And they're not likely to ever change. That doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Well, that was a whole boatload of disorganized, rambling nonsense. Contemplating Mimi's name had me thinking about RENT today, so here.... enjoy this as an apology for the utter mess of random crap this blog has become:
Mimi. <3
12.17.2009
Me and Mimi.
Forgive the dark circles. I need a vacation. But how disgustingly cute!
Sorry Mimi kinda looks like just an eyeball. She's black and therefore blends in with every shirt I own.
Sorry Mimi kinda looks like just an eyeball. She's black and therefore blends in with every shirt I own.
Take your time.
The most ridiculous thing is occurring in my apartment right now. Well. A few ridiculous things. But one at a time.
Mimi (that's the new bunny) arrived at about 11:45 last night, which means we didn't have a lot of time to get to know each other. Basically I shoved her in the cage, watched her for a few seconds to make sure she was alright, and then went to bed. I made sure she had enough food and water before I left for work this morning, and gave her a little scratch on the nose, but that was it.
So when I came in just now from work, I thought it would be nice to get her out of the cage and give her a little time to run around. Mimi had other ideas about how nice that would be, however, and clung to the bars for dear life.
I'm not the type to force things, especially other people's (animals'?) wills, so I just rigged the cage open and left the room to put away the clean dishes and make a cup of coffee. Now I'm sitting here on the kitchen floor and for the last fifteen minutes Mimi has been hopping slowly out of the cage and then scrambling back into it for no apparent reason. Over and over and over. At this point, she has managed to nudge the bedroom door almost closed and seems satisfied enough with that to stay out of the cage, but behind the door.
Whatever. I understand needing personal space and time to adjust. I can give the girl what she needs. She'll come out and say hello when she's ready.
Ridiculous other things: well. Actually never mind. I don't want to get into that just yet.
Coffee!
Uh. I canceled dinner with someone tonight purely because I'm an asshole and I don't want to go out in this terrible cold. My poor social life in the winter.
Mimi's slowly making her way out around the door now. I should go and say hello.
Edit: Interesting development. Mimi doesn't want to be in the cage anymore. Mimi doesn't want to be on the floor. Mimi doesn't want to be on the bed. Mimi only wants to be in my lap. She's watching the computer screen as I type this at this very moment. She also seems keenly interested in going down my shirt, but we've discussed it and come to an agreement about not doing that.
Cute. ^^
Mimi (that's the new bunny) arrived at about 11:45 last night, which means we didn't have a lot of time to get to know each other. Basically I shoved her in the cage, watched her for a few seconds to make sure she was alright, and then went to bed. I made sure she had enough food and water before I left for work this morning, and gave her a little scratch on the nose, but that was it.
So when I came in just now from work, I thought it would be nice to get her out of the cage and give her a little time to run around. Mimi had other ideas about how nice that would be, however, and clung to the bars for dear life.
I'm not the type to force things, especially other people's (animals'?) wills, so I just rigged the cage open and left the room to put away the clean dishes and make a cup of coffee. Now I'm sitting here on the kitchen floor and for the last fifteen minutes Mimi has been hopping slowly out of the cage and then scrambling back into it for no apparent reason. Over and over and over. At this point, she has managed to nudge the bedroom door almost closed and seems satisfied enough with that to stay out of the cage, but behind the door.
Whatever. I understand needing personal space and time to adjust. I can give the girl what she needs. She'll come out and say hello when she's ready.
Ridiculous other things: well. Actually never mind. I don't want to get into that just yet.
Coffee!
Uh. I canceled dinner with someone tonight purely because I'm an asshole and I don't want to go out in this terrible cold. My poor social life in the winter.
Mimi's slowly making her way out around the door now. I should go and say hello.
Edit: Interesting development. Mimi doesn't want to be in the cage anymore. Mimi doesn't want to be on the floor. Mimi doesn't want to be on the bed. Mimi only wants to be in my lap. She's watching the computer screen as I type this at this very moment. She also seems keenly interested in going down my shirt, but we've discussed it and come to an agreement about not doing that.
Cute. ^^
12.16.2009
More adventurous.
Getting a bunny tonight. Stay tuned for photos, obviously. There's a story behind it, but not a very interesting one. Anyway, I could use something to cheer me up from continuing to say goodbye to my boys.
12.15.2009
The Asshole Brigade.
Found no excuses not to go to bed early and had retired with book in hand when I remembered that today, for the second day in a row, the guitar student stopped by to pick up CDs I had forgotten to burn for him.
G Man, you'll be pleased with this -- it's not terribly often I find myself completely out of my depth with someone musically, but this kid, you know, it's his thing. So to continue our musical trade off, I'll have to think on my feet. Or resort to things Gary has introduced me to, of course. Can you guess where this is going, G Man?
Rory Gallagher, of course. No little sixteen year old darling who cradles his guitar like a lover should exist without having heard Rory Gallagher. There's a slight chance the boy knows him already. But I doubt it. It seems to be a bit off his beaten path.
Today I had the only class in the entire third grade that causes trauma amongst the teachers -- the infamous 310. 311 is the total weirdo class, but they're mostly harmless, as long as you can somehow manage to keep their attention. 310 has a whole table of little assholes who the other boys won't even go near. God knows how we were lucky enough to end up with them all in one class, so they have the added mob effect to escalate their hooliganism. They used to give me shit back when I was actually teaching them, but, in the space in between with our hallway interactions, two things happened that changed all of this:
1. I got my ear gauged.
2. I got a new tattoo.
Now I'm the official hero of the 310 asshole brigade. As a result, they dominated the entire class period asking me questions about tattoos -- how much they cost, how much they hurt, the difference between black and colored ink. Telling me all about the tattoos they'll get when they turn 19, drawing elaborate sketches.
They even confronted me quite directly about smoking, and when I turned in on them, openly admitted that they smoked. There are a lot of nonsense subjects I'll engage with, with my students. Encouraging underage substance usage is not one of them. As a general rule, I do not smoke outside in my neighborhood. I do not carry cigarettes with me to school. I'm not ashamed of my smoking habit, as I am an adult and I have the right to make my own choices. However -- call me old fashioned -- I do feel the need to watch the way I represent certain things in front of the students. They know I smoke -- they can smell it on me. And when they ask me about it, I answer honestly. But there's no reason to do it in front of them, or to give the impression that I condone it.
"Teacher smoking?"
"What's it to you? Do you smoke?"
"Yesuh. I smoking."
"You're too young."
"What?"
I drew a "19" on his paper and circled it.
"I not young! I man!"
"Pfffft."
Hysterical laughter. I rounded it all off by making fun of one of their super cool haircuts. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
At the end of the class, I gave my little goodbye speech. I told them all that I would miss them, and to come visit me next year. 310 doesn't have the best English, but one student raised his hand and shouted out, "샘!"
"왜?"
When they all calmed themselves down from the intense experience of me having used a single Korean syllable, he continued....
"내년에 --"
"야! 바보야! 완어민샘 한국어를 못해!"
"아 그.... 샘?"
"Haha what?"
"Uh.... you... here... always?"
"Yeah. Yeah I will stay here."
"아 진짜!?"
"Yes really. So come visit me."
"네!"
The asshole brigade lingered. "왜 왜 왜!"
They asked me to take out my earring and let them have a look. The leader of the pack then decided that he liked mine better than his. "샘! Passuh!"
"What?"
"Passuh! Changee!"
"Uh. No. That's dirty."
"아 새ㅐㅐㅐㅐㅁ! No dirty! Changee!"
"No. Dirty. 나가."
"샘 next year 진짜 here staying?"
"Yes."
"Okay! See you later!"
Deep bows all around as they saw their way out. Maybe you even miss the little bastards, sometimes.
G Man, you'll be pleased with this -- it's not terribly often I find myself completely out of my depth with someone musically, but this kid, you know, it's his thing. So to continue our musical trade off, I'll have to think on my feet. Or resort to things Gary has introduced me to, of course. Can you guess where this is going, G Man?
Rory Gallagher, of course. No little sixteen year old darling who cradles his guitar like a lover should exist without having heard Rory Gallagher. There's a slight chance the boy knows him already. But I doubt it. It seems to be a bit off his beaten path.
Today I had the only class in the entire third grade that causes trauma amongst the teachers -- the infamous 310. 311 is the total weirdo class, but they're mostly harmless, as long as you can somehow manage to keep their attention. 310 has a whole table of little assholes who the other boys won't even go near. God knows how we were lucky enough to end up with them all in one class, so they have the added mob effect to escalate their hooliganism. They used to give me shit back when I was actually teaching them, but, in the space in between with our hallway interactions, two things happened that changed all of this:
1. I got my ear gauged.
2. I got a new tattoo.
Now I'm the official hero of the 310 asshole brigade. As a result, they dominated the entire class period asking me questions about tattoos -- how much they cost, how much they hurt, the difference between black and colored ink. Telling me all about the tattoos they'll get when they turn 19, drawing elaborate sketches.
They even confronted me quite directly about smoking, and when I turned in on them, openly admitted that they smoked. There are a lot of nonsense subjects I'll engage with, with my students. Encouraging underage substance usage is not one of them. As a general rule, I do not smoke outside in my neighborhood. I do not carry cigarettes with me to school. I'm not ashamed of my smoking habit, as I am an adult and I have the right to make my own choices. However -- call me old fashioned -- I do feel the need to watch the way I represent certain things in front of the students. They know I smoke -- they can smell it on me. And when they ask me about it, I answer honestly. But there's no reason to do it in front of them, or to give the impression that I condone it.
"Teacher smoking?"
"What's it to you? Do you smoke?"
"Yesuh. I smoking."
"You're too young."
"What?"
I drew a "19" on his paper and circled it.
"I not young! I man!"
"Pfffft."
Hysterical laughter. I rounded it all off by making fun of one of their super cool haircuts. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
At the end of the class, I gave my little goodbye speech. I told them all that I would miss them, and to come visit me next year. 310 doesn't have the best English, but one student raised his hand and shouted out, "샘!"
"왜?"
When they all calmed themselves down from the intense experience of me having used a single Korean syllable, he continued....
"내년에 --"
"야! 바보야! 완어민샘 한국어를 못해!"
"아 그.... 샘?"
"Haha what?"
"Uh.... you... here... always?"
"Yeah. Yeah I will stay here."
"아 진짜!?"
"Yes really. So come visit me."
"네!"
The asshole brigade lingered. "왜 왜 왜!"
They asked me to take out my earring and let them have a look. The leader of the pack then decided that he liked mine better than his. "샘! Passuh!"
"What?"
"Passuh! Changee!"
"Uh. No. That's dirty."
"아 새ㅐㅐㅐㅐㅁ! No dirty! Changee!"
"No. Dirty. 나가."
"샘 next year 진짜 here staying?"
"Yes."
"Okay! See you later!"
Deep bows all around as they saw their way out. Maybe you even miss the little bastards, sometimes.
12.14.2009
The new boys.
Strawberry milk in the coffee... I'm undecided about this one, still.
Uh. Work is boring me to tears, because they've suddenly decided to cancel all the afternoon classes. I'm also way, way, way sick, which I'm going out of my way to hide from my coworkers, out of fear of being carted off to the hospital and given a shot in the "hip". It's apparently not working, as Coteacher informed me (as we left the office together today) that, "Everybody is so worried, asking about you."
I hate teaching when I'm sick because I don't really want someone who's sneezing and dribbling and wheezing all up in my face at any given moment, and all up your face is what I am when I'm teaching you.
I had my second session at the study center tonight. One set of twins is coming around quite quickly, and the other is split halfway between being overly polite and eager to get the right answers, and just sort of beaming in my general direction and not actually saying anything. Literally split in half, as in one does the first and the other does the latter. My non-weirdo high school boy just basically sits there stressing himself out for no good reason. They're all still far too reliant on the Korean teacher for translation, which shows that they probably haven't had a ton of interaction with their 원어민 without translation. I'm pushing them really hard to put away the electronic dictionaries and stop asking the Korean teacher " _____ 영어로 뭐에요?" I jump in whenever I can, when I hear this, and cut them off. The Korean teacher seemed to pick up on what I was doing and excused himself from the room halfway through after we started working. He's awkward, but a good sort. And the students really like and trust him.
I explained to them tonight that, it may seem weird at first, but that we can work together to understand each other -- they don't always have to rely on anything other than just my brain and their brains. We can work it out. I said, sometimes it probably looks silly to people on the outside, because we might say strange things or make strange motions, but we can do it. I can understand you. Just try. The key is just getting them to stop freezing up as soon as they try to ask me in Korean, and I don't know the word they're asking about. I remember this with my boys at school when we first started, but now those guys make no qualms about going into full on mime, I'll-use-any-vaguely-related-English-word-I-can-think-of-to-get-my-point-across mode.
Ah. They're good boys. Tonight the woman who runs the place tried to drive me home, but I did my best to explain in a weird English/Korean combination that I want to help her, not make more stress for her. But today it's very cold! Yes, I know, but I'm a grown up and I'll survive the walk to and from the bus. She still made the non-weirdo high schooler put on his shoes and walk me to the bus. Which really embarrassed him. Poor guy.
It's so nice to be in a teaching environment where we can do actual activities that don't descend into total chaos without constant circling and monitoring, where we can all participate together as a group. It really, really, extremely ups the amount of English being spoken during the session. I feel like I actually have a shot at affecting my students' English levels in a real way, for once.
And, far from making me more exhausted, it's actually been quite a relaxing experience so far. Far more so than going and sitting through two hours of struggling to understand Korean class was. So I'm not too worried about getting burnt out. I'm still a little worried about keeping one set of the twins straight, though, although I did spot a helpful freckle on one of their earlobes tonight. I'm sure it will come with time.
Gah. All I do these days is talk about teaching. Here. Have a random super-Korean mirror self-cammed photo of my amazing new "big sizee" coat to make up for it. I'm a big fan of taking photos of myself after I've just woken up these days. This was in the women's "rest" room at work, where I spent all my free time today laying on the ondol trying sweat out the illness and not smear my mascara. Sexy.
Uh. Work is boring me to tears, because they've suddenly decided to cancel all the afternoon classes. I'm also way, way, way sick, which I'm going out of my way to hide from my coworkers, out of fear of being carted off to the hospital and given a shot in the "hip". It's apparently not working, as Coteacher informed me (as we left the office together today) that, "Everybody is so worried, asking about you."
I hate teaching when I'm sick because I don't really want someone who's sneezing and dribbling and wheezing all up in my face at any given moment, and all up your face is what I am when I'm teaching you.
I had my second session at the study center tonight. One set of twins is coming around quite quickly, and the other is split halfway between being overly polite and eager to get the right answers, and just sort of beaming in my general direction and not actually saying anything. Literally split in half, as in one does the first and the other does the latter. My non-weirdo high school boy just basically sits there stressing himself out for no good reason. They're all still far too reliant on the Korean teacher for translation, which shows that they probably haven't had a ton of interaction with their 원어민 without translation. I'm pushing them really hard to put away the electronic dictionaries and stop asking the Korean teacher " _____ 영어로 뭐에요?" I jump in whenever I can, when I hear this, and cut them off. The Korean teacher seemed to pick up on what I was doing and excused himself from the room halfway through after we started working. He's awkward, but a good sort. And the students really like and trust him.
I explained to them tonight that, it may seem weird at first, but that we can work together to understand each other -- they don't always have to rely on anything other than just my brain and their brains. We can work it out. I said, sometimes it probably looks silly to people on the outside, because we might say strange things or make strange motions, but we can do it. I can understand you. Just try. The key is just getting them to stop freezing up as soon as they try to ask me in Korean, and I don't know the word they're asking about. I remember this with my boys at school when we first started, but now those guys make no qualms about going into full on mime, I'll-use-any-vaguely-related-English-word-I-can-think-of-to-get-my-point-across mode.
Ah. They're good boys. Tonight the woman who runs the place tried to drive me home, but I did my best to explain in a weird English/Korean combination that I want to help her, not make more stress for her. But today it's very cold! Yes, I know, but I'm a grown up and I'll survive the walk to and from the bus. She still made the non-weirdo high schooler put on his shoes and walk me to the bus. Which really embarrassed him. Poor guy.
It's so nice to be in a teaching environment where we can do actual activities that don't descend into total chaos without constant circling and monitoring, where we can all participate together as a group. It really, really, extremely ups the amount of English being spoken during the session. I feel like I actually have a shot at affecting my students' English levels in a real way, for once.
And, far from making me more exhausted, it's actually been quite a relaxing experience so far. Far more so than going and sitting through two hours of struggling to understand Korean class was. So I'm not too worried about getting burnt out. I'm still a little worried about keeping one set of the twins straight, though, although I did spot a helpful freckle on one of their earlobes tonight. I'm sure it will come with time.
Gah. All I do these days is talk about teaching. Here. Have a random super-Korean mirror self-cammed photo of my amazing new "big sizee" coat to make up for it. I'm a big fan of taking photos of myself after I've just woken up these days. This was in the women's "rest" room at work, where I spent all my free time today laying on the ondol trying sweat out the illness and not smear my mascara. Sexy.
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