Evan Teacher (There) and Back Again

You're the Man Now, Dawg

2011-04-11T01:07:00.000-07:00

Ideal features in my future house:

The windows, ones I hope that showcase a view, to match those of my haveli-hostel in Ajmer, India. Sill, with dark wood shutters and white curtains that extend a foot into the forefront.

Maps and my own framed photos (check)

One entire wall to be a chalkboard a la 500 Days of Summer

Why? Two reasons:
While I'm not the owner of extravagant creative talent, I want to be surrounded by the tools to exert it during the few strikes of lightning. Can I draw? No! But, I would like my surroundings to be an enabler of my limited talents, the forceful fingers pushing out the small amount of toothpaste I possess.
Like my next tattoo (which will be in small part a homage to Johnny Depp since I'm stealing one of his designs; my feelings towards JD mirroring Hansel's estimation of Sting.. he's so hot right now.. Hansel), let's try this again. Like my next tattoo, my life is made up of borrowing. I find the special roads others have paved and try to drive on them as beautifully as I can.

Playing Favorites

2010-12-07T20:57:00.000-08:00

Since I've been back, people have been asking me what my favorite country was among the ones I saw on my way home. India has always been the easy answer.

India is a land of contrasts with its fabulous sights and foods(!!), along with some of the kindest people to be found, while also being a seemingly directionless and perplexing experience. The pros of the country make it a favorite on their own, but it's not the prestige. What makes it tops is that it's the Wild West of my 8 year old mind.

The Wild West explanation might be best illustrated in an anecdote.

I am in Fahtepur Sikri, a 30 minute bus ride outside of Agra (home to the Taj Mahal). A lack of signs and people put my ability to even get to FS in serious jeopardy. I did make it though and had a wonderful day jumping around Mughal ruins. As 5 o'clock approached, I made my way to the bus station to catch the last bus back. Sadly, after an hour of losing precious rupees to a 12 year old arm wrestling champion I realized that this bus wasn't coming. What did the Good Word have to say about my predicament? I found out that there's a bus that comes a quarter mile down the road (rather cryptic no?).

This kid took some cash off me

On my way over I picked up two Chinese girls (I shared a bus ride up with them and figured they might want to get back as much as I did) who had the same goal in mind; they looked more lost than I and were still holding on to the fast fading light of plan A. I convinced them to follow me in an attempt to find a bus I couldn't count on; just like that I had formed a posse. Talking to locals along the road, I had a rough idea of where to wait for this bus. Was there a bus stop or at least a sign that said where to wait? Of course not -- this is India without direction. I set up shop at a (reverse?) fork in the road where two highways merged with no idea from which direction the bus might appear. I was also feeling the heat from the embers of ire from Chinese girls who at this point must have been trying to recollect the early plot developments of the movie Hostel so that they could compare their situation accordingly. Now, let me say that the bus did make its way down the road; we flagged it down as if we had just robbed a bank and were looking for a getaway as cars whizzed by us. The day was won.

What I love is that I didn't remember this story until I stumbled onto it during conversation about my travels with my Aunt Pat three weeks after I had already been home. I preface by saying that most people know I like to spin a story. I can recall stories from the 7th grade with a depressing level of detail. I'm likely to bring one up readily without provocation or a sensible segue. The reason I couldn't remember my day on the highway is because in India it's par for the course. The events that day didn't differ much in difficulty from the one before it or the one that followed. India was my favorite because I forget the stories that would be the belle of the ball anywhere else. I loved Spain -- I'd move there in a heartbeat -- but it was so easy that aspects of it couldn't be anything but comfortable. And to those who say India is too hard? "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard ... is what makes it great." - Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own

My Mom says that you should never end with someone else's words, but MAN Tom Hanks was great in that movie!

Honestly, the adventure is what really cemented the trip. The country of India -- where I felt lost plenty of the time -- is where that adventure shown through the most. My experiences there will keep me excited for my next trip and the one after that.

On Home

2010-11-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

I am back -- Ahh!! Most people have been asking me "How does it feel to be home?" (and when they aren't asking I'm probably subconsciously turning over the same thing myself). My answer runs the gamut based on how well I know them, how much I really want to get into the subject, and how much I think they really want me to get into the subject. So my answer can range from "good" to "weird." The truth, though, is that it's more of a fusion of both making what I like to call goodly weird.

Let's start with the weird and work our way to the goodly. Since coming home, I feel as though I've spent a lot of time looking for a life I misplaced. I have a sneaky suspicion I won't be finding it either. While life isn't "the ragged edge of the universe," it's no longer "the warm center of the world." If you suspect that my situation is akin to the world traveling, forward-thinker returning to the backwood talk of hometown prospects, you would be wrong. It's just that I haven't quite found my place yet and my brain never seems to let it be. I know there's a small hole in the boat somewhere but I can't seem to find it.

The goodly follows the people. Truth be told - aside from the occasional Jack in the Box daydream - I never much got homesick. I got people-sick and often I got dog-sick. So, being around my family, friends and pets has been wonderful. I realize that I won't be able to give adequate space to this paragraph. It's much easier to dwell and write on the things that are off kilter rather than what's in harmony. I can say that it feels warm and familiar and that most of you will know what I mean without my having to use hyperbole. The best I can do is underline the word that really counts!

So this is where I am: attempting to put static words to dynamic feelings. I'll let you know how it goes!

All´s Well in España

2010-10-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

I think God, or whoever, let´s say the Muse of Karma keeps a special eye over me. I spent most of today in awe of myself -- perfect hair day with my new interwoven-gray/red Spanish fisherman's sweater, navy chinos rolled up and gray vans sporting a devilish grin that says "hola" with all the flare of Cirque Du Soleil-- the world just right and with me in it. There had to be some justice levied for this ridiculous level of narcissism.

The last hour I´ve been clumsily searching for this damned `Geographic Club´, taking immediate and wrong turns eagerly as if I was a dog impatient for a treat (taken from a journal entry, and tonight is chilly too to put it in perspective); the prize cannot come soon enough. By the way, there is a special frustration for knowing where you should be, topographically speaking, looking at the cross streets and not seeing either on the map within an 8 block vicinity of where you want to be. I hope my earlier transgressions might have been soothed by the fortune of my night. I have also found myself at odds with every object I come into contact with. I knock over change trays without caution, run into things and sport a confused look of dread that says "I´m lost."

After finally getting to my destination, I end up sitting at a cool but mostly empty bar drinking a frothy, but mostly empty, 8 dollar Murphy´s Irish Red. I sip out of determination rather than enjoyment in the hopes to validate this long pilgrimage. Even in the barren wasteland of beer that is South Korea, I would´ve found abstinence and turned down a Murphy´s for that much money. In fact, I would´ve guffawed at such a prospect as this.

I must say, though, the enchantment I have had today extends beyond just myself. I´ve been bowled over by the beauty of my surroundings all day. I s´pose that´s what Madrid´s Jardines del Buen Retiro is liable to do. Beautiful parks and people, men and women; mortal, marbled and plastered. I think Madrid´s parks would drive an atheist mad. Of everything magnificent - myself included - it pales in comparison to the weather. Today´s weather provided the stroke for which every other element has realized its potential. To quote Haruki Murakami, it was "the scratchy stuff on the side of the match box", giving light to the park, myself and all its inhabitants. It was the perfect collaboration of a warm, high sun, starkly differentiating itself from the cloudless blue sky, with a cold breeze on a cool day. Though I doubt fall in Korea will ever be topped, I tip my hat to you, Madrid. It was the perfect, most perfect landscape to finish The Pillars of the Earth for the second time. I might have wondered the same thing about the Taj Mahal, but how can one not feel a higher presence on a day like today? Be it whoever, wherever or in whatever form, these being the minor details of a grand, peace treaty (can´t wait to find out from my Mom whether it´s `whoever´ or `whomever.´ My 16-year conquest to avoid permanently learning this rule of tongue wages on).

Let me tell you about the highlight of my day. I took such joy in walking by two friends who were presumably meeting again with a long stretch of time in between. They hooted, dance and spun towards each other´s arms. It was quite the Love Actually airport moment, and somehow I felt like a member of their reunion. Somehow I remembered that my Mom, as an English teacher, used to give a particular assignment that called for her students to choose a word, their favorite word, and give the full scoop. I recalled her telling me that one of her former and favorite students chose joy. Don´t ask me how or why that moment came back to me, but I thought; `this must be the realization of that word.´

Of course, it was more than mere chance that I took such a special interest in the this meeting when I´m due to arrive home in the US in only two days. I just with I had the foresight and patience to dance and stride my way there.

The Gist

2010-10-09T04:24:00.000-07:00

So I guess I'll shake this thing off now when I see fit.

Tonight I started to make a list of the "accomplishments" I've completed while on holiday in the hopes that when the details begin to slip my mind I will know where to find them. I assumed that once this list had been completed (it ranges from those of grandeur all the way down) I'd have a fairly descriptive view of my long road home to the US. This, however, was not the case a'tall. Getting hung up on the dirty details would be missing the wood for the trees. I won't include the list - partly to avoid embarrassment - but just assume it follows an Indiana Jones'ish itinerary, minus the Nazi's.

*Quick note! If this sounds too indulgent (your cue to stop reading), you can blame my out-there Murakami kick of late (currently his running memoirs). Though I guess you'd appropriately just blame me; at least now you know the reasoning.

This list of notes, my "accomplishments", may be neat details but only I know the full story. Taken separately, they relate to each other as much as blue does to red and fail to convey the big picture. The true accomplishment, above everything, is growth. They (details) may contribute to but don't constitute that growth. The fuzzy stuff that happened in between the respective bullet points was equally important, if not more, as the spotlight items.

My trip is a total workout; mind, spirit and body (lots and lots and lots of walking), but I can not describe the strength that I feel pouring into me every day. Lots, but not all, relates to self reliance.

Of course, this strength isn't a humanitarian cure-all; nothing is. But, it, travel, is inside of me and it runs through every part. Surging and strong, like a spotlight that is connected to my center and shines on every inch. This light scrubs away weakness, bitterness and ignorance. It finds the faults I didn't know I had - realizations that can be a humbling experience - before it attempts to clean the blemishes and leave them anew.

What I might be most grateful for is that the spotlight illuminates the things I hold dear too; who & what I truly love. This process has stripped down the walls and has been like a peek at the foundations of a house; what makes the Temple of Evan stand.

I realize in hindsight that Indy without the Nazi's might not make for a very compelling story after all. I also realize that if I'm going to refer to myself in the third person I'm going to need cooler coinage than the Temple of Evan.

Easy-E Out

La Taj Mahal

2010-09-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

I suppose this thing was supposed to die a fiery death at the conclusion of my contract in Korea. I have treated it thusly, though I thought I'd dust it off one more time considering the gravity of my surroundings. After making my way through Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand (and now into India), I have countless anecdotes of joy and misery alike. From destitution to hand grenades, paradise to Viet Cong tunnels, there and back again, I can touch on most any topic. However, the one that really counts is the Taj Mahal, and I couldn't help but write a lil' somethin-somethin while I was there! I also figured that this was the best way to simultaneously email my mother and the other two people who follow my life, and I am still holding on to the chance that I rename this blog "Letters home to Mom".

September 25th, 2010

I write this, not coincidentally, sitting under an arch at the back side of the splendid Taj Mahal. Ground zero is not the best place for a snapshot but all that seems arbitrary when put into greater context. When you make your way, finally, to the beautiful Taj, and make contact (in bare feet) with the pure, smoothly white marble, a force seems to hold you in place. It is like stepping into a most gorgeous spider web. You can't get away; nor would you want to (though maybe in a spider web, gorgeous and all, you still might wanna get away - no copyright infractions intended). Lest I digress!

After combing the inner halls, the best way to experience the Taj, me thinks, is to lie down. Putting as much of yourself against the building as possible (you have to do this on the marble floors outside the dome rather than inside, that might be a problem!) allows you to hope, and at times with a bit of success, to be infused with the same genius that inspired and created it. I feel an urge to reach out and constantly have my hands against some part of it the same way young lovers can't resist each others embrace. I feel that if I push hard enough against it I might permeate its seemingly nonexistent cracks. How could this structure have been built piece by piece? How could one imagine that it existed in anything other than its whole? I can't. It seems as though it dropped from the heavens, instantaneously complete. The pesky fact that it wasn't is a true testament to the best of man's virtue.

Anything I write, read or think (Bridge of Sighs, very good so far!, thanks Steve) here seems that much more important. I believe that is called true inspiration. The generous Taj Mahal offers this bond to anyone who seeks it. I've long considered a solo journey to India the Everest of my travels, and if this is indeed the case, the Taj Mahal is the sweet summit.

The Last (& Greatest) Update from Korea

2010-08-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

My last address to my closest friends in Korea:

i figured that if I had one last chance to make a cheesy, overly sentimental speech, i might as well write it down and make it count.

In a year where we lived in a place where we never really knew what was going to happen next; whether it be exciting or scary, or frustrating, you guys were always HQ, home base. While people came into our respective lives, and sometimes left just as quickly, you were always there, and it was comforting to know that you had to be there contractually as well because we all have been fiscally tied to Korea.

But really, what I'd compare it to is familiarity, and with that theme in mind I like to think of us in the context of noraebang (Korean karaoke). I think about our lives in Korea as a drunken stay at noraebang, singing along to a foreign song we've only heard once or twice but now must recite, very much unlike "Total Eclipse of the Heart." That's the one joke I wrote into this speech. *pause for laughter* .. In that foreign song, however, where we dont really know that many of the words, the A-team is the chorus, always familiar and ever present. Even when the singing got hard, and the lines before made us feel out of place, out of tune, or altogether lost, whenever the chorus comes around you can hit every note and drunkenly bust out every line verbatim. i love you guys, a lot, and i'm just thankful you were there to sing with me into the late hours of the night.

Any changes listed in oh-rhan-gee

Pastiche`

2010-07-03T03:07:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have last posted with any kind of regularity. My journal & blog have largely gone neglected throughout this past June and for that I offer my apologies. However, the 4th of July is upon us and this is a time to make resolutions and change the way we live our lives; that or fool about with low-powered explosives (I might be mixing up my holidays).

Reading, as it turns out, is what has kept me from consistent writing. I've gone through some Nick Hornby, which I have really enjoyed, and I just finished up The Hobbit yesterday. When I am not reading, I can probably be found watching "Breaking Bad" (almost done with season 3 and I'd highly recommend it to anyone).

There are three weeks left in the school calendar before the kids go on summer break. I am trying to just enjoy my last remaining classes, which is not out of the ordinary for me, so I guess I am trying to especially enjoy my last classes and soak it all in. Inevitably, life abroad has had its up's and down's, but the happiness I got from my seeing my kids never wavered. They make me smile and laugh every single day. With their examinations coming up, even the 3rd graders are involved in some form of school and/or studying from about 6 AM - 11 PM every day with relatively few breaks. Be thankful you grew up in the US of A -- I'd trade in the smarts for enjoying my childhood 7 days outta the week.

I, along with several rag tag individuals with a can-do attitude, started a short lived dance group coined "The Nicholas Cage Experience." We had two practices, both held at a public train station with many-a-passerby, before we decided that this venture must be retired. We will not sacrifice the namesake though. I was "iced" three times last night, which has made for a lazy Saturday afternoon. If you are not privy to "icing", worry not.

The NCE's routine -- picture 5 guys doing this at a train station in front of a mirror. Our thoughts at the 1 minute mark (right before we gave up): "This gets really hard."

I have kept my eye on the calendar and am tackling the great adventure home (Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand to India, to Egypt, through Italy and France, then into Spain). Save today, I've kept myself relatively busy with all that goes with these plans.

Lastly, I've been listening to "Oh, Sweet Nothin'" by The Velvet Underground a lot lately before I go to sleep:

the WC Experience

2010-07-03T02:28:00.000-07:00

How American am I that I can sum up my World Cup experience before it's all said and done. I'll keep an eye on the games but my rooting interest has come to its conclusion.

Both the US & Korea have been eliminated from the tournament. The only silver lining is that I don't have to watch them play each other after all. Notable places where I watched the games:

Korea vs. Argentina - Munhak Stadium (my prior blog post)

USA vs. England - Rio's Bar in Incheon, with an equal mix of Americans on one side of the bar and Brits on the other
USA vs. Algeria - The Americans packed into a bar called Red Dog, or Three Dog's, or something with a "Dog" in it that was next door to Rio's where all the Brits were watching England vs. Slovenia
Korea vs. Uruguay - Joseph, Carmine and myself watched this game at midnight or so outside a TV shop along with one Korean man who was standing by himself in the rain before we arrived. This guy was awesome and we shared our umbrella.

The rest of the games were fairly in the norm as far as where I watched them. I saw the Donovan reaction video. It was pretty exhilarating and it seems as tho we took our soccer a little bit more seriously this go around.

How intense are Koreans about the World Cup? My favorite Korean fan was at a bar, watching the game in a hospital gown, in a wheelchair, and connected to an IV. As far as I could tell he was not drinking that night

South Korea vs. Argentina

2010-06-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Whelp, we lost..

caught the game at Munhak Stadium with about 30 friends or so (including mothers, coteachers & Joe's students). Obviously, being in a soccer nation, things are a little crazier here than compared to the US of A. People cheer as if we scored a goal just for crossing midfield, though through the first half of the game crossing midfield happened so few times I can see the point of cheering.

I took some photos but haven't done anything with them yet. I did, however, steal a photo from Joe of my friend's, coteacher's son who came to watch the game with us -- so adorable.

Reason 1 Billion I love Elementary Schools

2010-06-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

Walking back to my classroom, peeked into violin practice-- saw a girl playing the violin (poorly, as elementary school muscial-talents dictate) standing up with rollerblades on. I found this awesome.

Birthday & GRE -- Jai Ho!

2010-06-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

Mea maxima culpa for going MIA on any updates!

First of all, thank you to anyone who had me in their thoughts on my birthday!! I was quite the facebook celebrity yesterday, and enjoyed opening my email to find 38 unread messages or something like that. The celebration was relatively muted considering that tomorrow morning (the 12th) I take the verbal/math portion of the GRE. It was a good day though and I am happy I got to spend a great portion of it at school around the kids I love. I was able to eat Indian with Steve & Nara too which made me quite happy!!

So now I find myself going to sleep at 8:30 on a Friday night so I can get to Seoul by 8:30 AM.

I am really hoping, almost expecting in fact, that my GRE test-taking experience will mirror that of Jamal Malik's in Slumdog Millionaire. I'll get a perfect score by being asked questions that each link to a poignant story in my past.

Hope that my test results will be described as "a buoyant hymn to life."

The PC Bang Marathon

2010-06-02T07:19:00.000-07:00

I, along with my friends Joe & Carmine, ran a PC Bang marathon last night that lasted from 8 PM - 8 AM. I could lie and say this was to keep with Korean culture but it was mostly because ideas like this fit our personality too well. It was a rousing success, though difficult in stretches. Oh!-- We were able to do this because today local elections were held so we all had off work, in case you were wondering why a 12-hour computer game marathon would be held on a Tuesday night through Wednesday morning.

Because Joseph so aptly broke down the night, the rest will be courtesy of his blog post -- my changes in turquoise::
The PC Bang Marathon
by Joseph Gutierrez

7:15PM - I met up with Carmine and Evan at Burger King. Carmine had originally wanted to eat at the kimbap place to get something healthy, but Evan and I out-voted him.
8:00PM - We checked our phones exactly at the moment we turned on the computers, and it was eight, so the most daunting task of our lives was made with a cigarette in [Joe's] hand and my belly full of bacon double cheeseburger (the burger doubles for both Joe & I).
8:10PM - The first thing I did was install Google Chrome. There was no way I was going to put up with Internet Explorer for the whole night. I quickly got to checking my e-mail, blogging, and deciding my character build for Borderlands.
8:30PM - We got started playing Borderlands. If you know nothing about the game, you should check it out. It’s a first-person shooter with MMORPG elements.
9:15PM - I bought a cherry coke. (I went with Dr. Pepper)
12:00AM - Originally we had planned to take a break at midnight to get something to eat downstairs and meet up with some friends really quick. That never happened. We played straight through it.
2:00AM - This was the halfway point. None of us seemed tired, but Plans to meet up with anyone have gone out the window.
3:00AM - I started to actually start to get bored of the game, but since there’s nothing else I really felt like playing there, I keep on. It’s around this time that I notice that there aren’t as many people in the PC bang as I’m used to.
4:00AM - Someone in the PC bang had been playing [crappy] music the entire night. The bands on the playlist included Nickleback, Lee Hyori, and Hoobastank (go figure). It was at this point that the music started to get annoying.
5:30AM - This is where it starts getting hard to stay awake. I bought another cherry cola (DP) to help me stay awake. Despite being so tired and how comfortable the chairs are at Tera PC, it’s getting hard to stay sitting down.
6:30AM - It was at this point I realized that the girl behind us has been sitting there the entire time and has been on cyworld for most of it. It was getting harder and harder to stay awake.
8:00AM - We were all glad to see eight come around. The sad part was when we stepped outside and the sun was out.
8:10AM - I was in McDonald’s buying a bacon egg mcmuffin.

Completing the marathon was a success and I probably won’t be going back to a PC bang for a while. To be honest, I could probably do it again and it’s not like I’m boasting about it. The hardest part was just staying awake. If it went from noon to midnight, it wouldn’t have even been a problem. You might ask why I did this, but even I don’t really know why I set arbitrary goals and then feel accomplished when I complete them.

New Camera

2010-05-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

Went to Namdaemun (in Seoul, a technology market) and finagled a new Canon 450D. Although I'm photographically illiterate, I'm an eager student. Joe & I will be going to practice soon but I have already taken a few shots that I've put on facebook here.

Because I got it on the gray market (meaning it was shipped in from Hong Kong), it came at a steal deal combined with said finagling.

looks exactly like this but says kissx2 since it's Japanese

Flies in Appleby's Eyes

2010-05-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

On the way to the bank yesterday to unravel a mystery surrounding an exorbitant bill, I was struck in the eye by something larger than a gnat but smaller than a fly. Unrelenting tears sallied forth. Some quick notes I discovered on involuntarily crying:
- When you do it at the bank you look like you have money problems.
- When you do it in front of a public bathroom mirror you look like you have self esteem problems.
- When you do it on a train you look like you have loneliness problems.
- When you do it while ordering at McDonald's you look like you have eating problems.
- And lastly, when you are caught by a student, eating McDonald's alone and crying, you look like you have a whole boatload of problems. I was able to enjoy all these phenomena yesterday. When my student rolled into the foodcourt I thought I might be able to hide but then I remembered I was wearing my fluorescent hoodie..
It's like a game of Where's Waldo - can you find where I am hiding??

It took a while but I finally reached into my own eye and got it out.

Deokjeokdo

2010-05-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

Camping was entirely miserable. We did an overnight this past weekend to an island an hour and a half off of Incheon and were greeted by never-ending rain, wind and cold. Let me illustrate how bad it was:
You know those dreams where you end up having a test you didn't prepare for, a paper due or lost a large sum of money and/or possessions but you wake up elated that none of this actually happened? Ok, Good..
I dreamt that night on Deokjeok Island that I was back in Incheon and had my bag stolen. In it were my Ray-Bans, passport, books, journal & health insurance. I woke up only mildly relieved because even though I had my bag, the sobering reality set in that I was still stuck on that island. That means I almost would have surrendered my most valuable possessions to get home.

My friend Tony from Wisconsin upon our return:
"I am going to kiss the ground in Incheon and never leave 'til my contract's up."

Hopefully I can plan a return trip soon when the weather is improved.

Brownsville Reporting at it's Finest

2010-05-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

newsworthy

More Frost

2010-05-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Korean Gems

2010-05-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Used Simon Says as a review for 3rd Graders in my open classroom and after class an old coteacher (Lt. Dike for any old readers) approached me:
Lt. Dike: "Evan, Who is Simon?"
Evan: "... umm.. what?"
Lt. Dike: "Who is Simon? Why do all the students listen to Simon?"
Evan: "... Simon is not a real person. It's a game we used in the last class."
Lt. Dike: "Oh, did you invent this game?"
Evan: "Haa.. No."

Two of my favorite students had a conversation about how many stickers they had collected (we give them out and after 2 months the student with the most is the winner).
S1: "Evan Teacher, I have sixteen stickers. She has one-seven stickers."
S2: "What is one-seven. I have seventeen stickers."

The open class went well. There were about 20 teachers who came to observe plus a video camera. The only thing that was weird is that of the 20 teachers who watched me, I know 10 or so well enough for it to be kinda awkward. Open classes are the only time I have to dress up so I was in the whole coat & tie. I guess I might've started looking a little nervous leading into it because as class was starting I turned to one of the 3rd grade girls and she gave me a double thumbs up and said "You look great!" -- I guess she realized I needed the quick pick-me-up.

Today I start studying for the second portion of the GRE. I spose I have a tendency to mention when I have a big occasion coming up but never let anyone know how it went. The written portion of the GRE went well and I'll be looking forward to seeing my score. Also, went to the Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival for Buddha's birthday last night and had a ball of a time there. Pictures should come soon but my camera died early into the night.

My Uncle Jay and Aunt Pat are coming to Korea tomorrow to see me and maybe, just maybe my cousin (their son Steve) too.

What I'm Listening to

2010-05-12T22:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a soundtrack heavy couple of weeks:

Dexter Soundtrack: My favorite for any particular show
Blood Theme
so wonderfully eery
Photos
Kind've reminds me, at the 1 minute mark, of the song they played on the OC whenever Ryan was about to hit someone.
Main Intro - Morning Routine

Last Samurai - Way of LIfe
good soundtrack for a subpar movie. I think they are recycling it for the Karate Kid so I guess that will be elements of a good soundtrack in two, separate, subpar movies.

Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas
Shawshank Redemption Soundtrack

Open class tomorrow = Coat & Tie, principal and vice-principal observing, and a boatload of expectations. Bring it, "Cuz I love- my- job- .. Hoorah"

Poetry in Motion

2010-05-11T22:51:00.000-07:00

I remember the precise moment I came across Emerson's Success. I found it in a “Peace and Nonviolence” course during senior year in high school. It was late morning and as I was getting ready for lunch and lazily flipping through the textbook, I found this boxed, pink excerpt. We passed right over it as far as class was concerned. I had seen the poem in passing a few times but doubt I had ever taken the time to read it. I did, however, take the time that day, and I read and reread and reread. Since that day, all those years ago, it has served as an absolute truth for me. People go their whole lives struggling to determine why we are here and what we ought to be doing. I was fortunate enough to have my answer fall into my lap at age 17.

It's felt like a vindication of the way I have been and am today. I would have a difficult time calling that poem anything other than religious doctrine. The only two distinct memories I maintain from that class were finding Emerson and getting a grasp on Gus Leal, my future roommate. Though Success made the class worthwhile on its own, Gus provided the icing on the cake (I think he still owes me three "frog-skins," however). Anyhoo, this post is not about Gus, to the chagrin of many, nor does it center on Johnny Tillotson. The day I blog about Johnny Tillotson is the official moment I ran outta blogging material three years prior.

No, this post is about distinguishing between what defines me (as much as one thing possibly could) and what drives me (again, as much as one thing could).

What defines me is this poem. What drives me, especially as of late, is Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken. I know, I know -- I happened to pick two of the most famous poems around. Great minds think alike, I suppose.

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

________________________________________________

I am aware that there are two very different translations of this poem. One follows the literal interpretation in terms of self-discovery and individualism, while the other is an ironic take dealing with rationalizing our own personal decisions throughout our past to make peace with them. Using this poem as a driving motivation in life keeps me aware that if Frost's intentions reflect the latter explanation, it would put me in the subgroup of grooms and brides who dance to "Every Breath You Take" by The Police at their wedding. So be it. but let me quickly segue.(Condolences to any couple whose song is "Every Breath You Take" by The Police)

I know a particular girl who once told me, upon noticing me for the first time, that I appeared "too cool for school." This is something that has stayed with me for reasons less ego-driven and obvious than you might initially presume. It is not in my particular nature to burst out and be a huge risk taker and while I can only speak for my own nature, I would bet that I am not the only one who's in this lifeboat. If I appear TCFS, as the kids call it, it usually means I am out of my element (the aforementioned episode did take place in a math class) and have looked inward for solace. I know a few people, though, whose nature is to approach things with a healthy dose of reckless abandon, especially when out of their element. I deeply admire that quality and greatly wish I possessed it. I don't. A certain logic has always guided me that made this quality come a little harder -- though it has really shaped my Risk and Diplomacy skills so it ain’t all bad. The risks have always been slightly more calculated though slightly less rewarding, personally. This TCFS business is the personal illustration that kept me focused on veering away from it and kept me steadied on Frost.

I take The Road Not Taken as a muse. It is to me a melancholic challenge. It challenges me to choose the right way and to stick to that path even when the other is not lost. The awareness that we cannot take every opportunity opened to us is sobering. Making one decision closes us off from another one. It challenges me to succumb to the potential loss of cool-points in favor of decisions that keep me on my own path. I know quite well that the regret of not doing something far outweighs the immediate embarrassment of messing up. Practically everything I've learned in Korea has come through error.

Frost's work doesn't define me, yet. It guides me, and on a long enough timeline I won't have to approach things with a purposeful mind towards finding that path so much as letting it fall into place. I think in many ways it's already set in motion. I feel like I have always marched to my own drum; I'm just making sure the beat is in tune.

You can go ahead and listen to your friend Billy Zane; he's a cool dude. I'll be challenging Hansel to a walk-off precisely because he's so hot right now. If I end up with underwear riding high, I'll do so holding my head to match it.

Dexter

2010-05-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

Finished season 1 last night.
Wow Sooooooooooooooo good

I have heard that 2 & 3 go a little downhill but I am still excited for them.
My mind has been on the show pretty heavily since I started watching it (4 days ago).

Probably tied in my esteem with Mad Men for the best intro for a show, which I know sounds goofy but that goes up against The Wire, Band of Brothers & The Fresh Prince of Belair - pretty stiff competition. Season 1's soundtrack is the best I've heard for a show too, though Treme might give it a run for its money.
Hands down, best finale to a season as well. It wraps up so, so so so, so so well.
All in all, if you haven't seen it, do so - you really ought to.

Defeat

2010-05-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

Well.. my Spurs are out of the running for the 2010 NBA Championship after being swept by Phoenix in 4 games. I had a bet running with Neil (my roomie from orientation) and will now be wearing a Randy Moss, sleeping bag sized Patriots jersey the next time I go out with him. Had he lost (and this was a bet of who could survive the longest between the Spurs and Celtics) he woulda been forced to don a tight, sleeveless Spurs shirt for the night. It is probably good this bet ended now because every round the stakes were going to go up.

At least we didn't lose to the Mavs.

People who know me can tell you that I take sports.. rather seriously. This one isn't quite as bitter of a pill to swallow since I have been abroad all year. It has been an interesting displacement in regards to sports. I stay tuned in pretty well by maintaining healthy doses of PTI and ESPN.com -- maybe an hour a day or a little more when there are a few different sports running concurrently. Concurrently, ergo, vis-a-vis... If you didn't understand that last part don't sweat it. Anyway, being abroad has made me feel as if a fraction of me is paralyzed emotionally from both the ups and downs of my respective sports teams back home.

Also, I always have had a soft spot for the Suns in theory. Basically, they are a hard team to truly dislike, and I always tell myself that they wouldn't be a bad team to pull for if the Spurs were out. What always follows, however, is that we play them and theory goes out the window as I realize that they really annoy me. Not having been able to watch the game through any other means than Gamecast has kept that annoyance from surfacing so this one doesn't sting quite as bad as the others.

Of all the train stations in all the towns in all the world,

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

She walks into mine.
Koreans love clothing with completely inane slogans and sports teams. New York hats with the Nebraska "N" and a slew of Jackie Robinson merchandise springs to mind. Generally, being the avid man of sports that I am, I like to keep an eye out hoping one day I'll run into a Korean attired in something of personal significance to my rooting interest. Early on in Korea, I saw a young buck with a San Antonio Spurs hat. Score!! You'd think so, but I was not fully engulfed in Korean nonsense at that point, and therefore, the gem was lost on me to a degree.

Lost on me until yesterday that is! I ended up coming up the steps at Woninjae Station where I live, and passed by a girl in a purple, acid wash sweatshirt with "Superbowl XXXI" blasted across it and a huge GB Packers emblem. Alas, after running through the gamut of oddly colored Yankee, Red Sox & White Sox merchandise, I came across the holy grail of all finds. And yes, the Packers should toy with the thought of ditching the green and gold for acid wash purple; it works.

Sadly, this approximate recreation took far longer than it should have to make:


Cannnnnnn you dig it?

Meh.. the GRE

2010-05-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

I will be taking the written portion of the GRE this coming Friday. Originally, when I signed up for the GRE, I wanted to take about a month and a half to study for it. The verbal/math portion of the test is on June 12th so when I looked into officially signing on my general goal seemed reachable (I signed up for it about 5 days ago). What I was not aware of, however, was that in Asia one must take the writing portion of the GRE one month prior to the verbal/math. This flies in the face of the American version of the test to prevent cheating (it was a bit of an epidemic in China a few years ago). So I went from having 6 weeks to having 8 days because the last day to take the written portion is May 7th (I'll be there at 11 AM and ask for some good vibes if you are able to figure out the time change because Evan Don't Need No good vibes at 1 AM the next day ^^). Korean, and generally Asian smiley by the way ^^ .

The written portion is broken up into two separate essays. The first is an "Issue" task where the test taker is given two general statements and tasked with choosing one and being either for or against it with a rainbow of possibilities in the middle. You can take it at almost any angle as long as the logic flows smoothly and there is sufficient evidence to back it up. The "Issue" task comes with a 45 minute time allotment. The second essay is an "Argument" task where we are given a prompt and must critique it's soundness of logic, use of evidence and general efficiency.

Today I spent my time on the latter half and because I (a) have no classes today, (b) feel deep shame over a lack of steady posts and (c) figured "why not?", I will upload a practice prompt and my general outline in regards to the "Argument" task. I wrote an outline rather than an actual paper since none of my readers are GRE graders and I am not really focusing on polishing my writing at this point - that's what the blog is for!

::::PROMPT::::
Six months ago the region of Forestville increased the speed limit for vehicles traveling
on the region’s highways by ten miles per hour. Since that change took effect, the number
of automobile accidents in that region has increased by 15 percent. But the speed limit in
Elmsford, a region neighboring Forestville, remained unchanged, and automobile
accidents declined slightly during the same six-month period. Therefore, if the citizens of
Forestville want to reduce the number of automobile accidents on the region’s highways,
they should campaign to reduce Forestville’s speed limit to what it was before the increase.

::::MY OUTLINE::::

Short timeline, 6 months, makes it difficult to gauge the true impact.
+15% accident rate seems like a convincing statistic but doesn't shed much light. Huge difference between +15% if we are talking about a yearly accident rate in the 300's and one in the 3000's.
Most importantly, (the bread and butter), speed limit goes up on highway, spike in accidents don't indicate where the accidents take place or the type of accidents that occur (things other than speed related?).
Using Elmsford, a neigbhoring "region", helps to negate general seasonal changes as a result of this spike and serves as an efficient example in this regard. One must exercise caution, however, when using a completely different region as the control for a study. There is no indication of either region's greater historical trends in regards to motor accident history so it might be unwise to base a decision on Elmsford.
Finally, switching back may intro more damage with two willy-nilly shifts in such a close timeline. Drivers who might be adjusting to this new change must now readjust and this could cause accident percentages to further increase. Also, there would be a reintroduction of whatever problems initially motivated the speed limit to go up 10 MPH in the first place (traffic??).

So, hopefully I do well so I can go on to study that major in that place to get that job. I'll replace the "that's" when I come up with a better answer.

How I Spend My Time

2010-04-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

If one were to gauge my life and goings-on in Korea by my facebook profile (and the subsequent pictures tagged) they might be shocked and appalled. This post is to shed some light and hopefully calm a few people. Saying I have had a good time in Korea might mirror an Old School conversation:

Frank: I had an awesome time!
Beanie: I know that you had an awesome time. I think the entire town knows you had an awesome time.
[to Mitch]
Beanie: And wouldn't you want those times to keep on going?

Now that I have switched recently to a money-saving mode, I thought I'd fill you in on some of the things that actually keep me busy (what the fbook photos don't show you!). I have had the opportunity to focus on some new hobbies (and old as well) during my time as an Incheon resident.
I have written more often than I ever have before. This shows up in these blog posts of course but mostly in my journal. I find that living, traveling and operating on my own can serve up a little cabin fever but writing has helped to temper that. It was the number one item on my Christmas wish list and my parents certainly delivered. The first half of my time here I didn't have one but because the initial 4-5 months move so quickly, I didn't pine for one until my life slowed down and found a rythm.
Reading has also taken up a lot of my time. Like writing, these two didn't pick up until around the halfway mark. I have been flying through books (save John Adams which one does not fly through) and have really enjoyed having the free time to do so. The first time a family friend asked me "What do you do with your free time [besides the incriminating photos]?", my answer was something along the lines of "Uh.. Mmmm..". Now, I would cite reading and writing as my go-to answers. Take that illiteracy, reading and writing to save the day!! -- I have, as you can tell, become quite edumucated.
Alas, you might find yourself asking, "Evan really splits his time evenly between intellectual pursuits and those of a slightly less savory nature??" No, does that sound like me? I have been able to catch up on lots of television as well. I have plowed through Mad Men, Californication, and am currently watching The Pacific and Treme. I was going to put a review in parentheses next to each but I realized they would all say "wonderful" with The Pacific garnering a "wonderful -". I recommend them all. I am convinced Duchovny is the only actor who could pull off Hank Moody in Californication, and if you are of age.., you should most definitely watch it. Anyone else in that role would seem silly and contrived.

Ya Hank, get on with your bad self

Lastly, in keeping with the Evan you all know, I have spent a great deal of my time at PC Bangs (Internet cafes) catching up on good ol' video game time. With Starcraft 2 around the corner, I have my work cut out for me if I ever want to join the leagues of 4 notches below professional-level gaming.

Video games, television, reading & writing, and of course changing the lives of many Korean students. It don't get much better.

Muahahaha!!

2010-04-21T22:30:00.000-07:00

Joseph Gutierrez brightens my day -- In keeping with the theme, here is a clip of Gladiator put on by Korean middle school students

They did Zoolander too - this stuff is great!!

what I'm listening to

2010-04-21T02:38:00.000-07:00

The life of a teacher - at least this teacher - provides ample time to catch up on music. This is what's been on my list ::

A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke

Eyes on Fire - Blue Foundation (Zeds Dead Remix)

Buona Sera - Louis Prima

Sunrise - Norah Jones

cheers to all!

My Mom Says I'm a Catch, I'm Popular

2010-04-19T23:06:00.000-07:00

While hashing out the differences between elementary, middle and high school with some teaching friends I made about as good of an illustration as I could that balances both the power of description with brevity. It has been generally agreed to, by the way, that by the time kids in Korea hit middle school they are these professional students that move from class to class absorbing knowledge and not much else. They are academic warriors who are in class from 9 AM - 11 PM (or later). Due to the rigors of their schedule, their good humor and excitement has been mostly drained.

Luckily, I am an elementary teacher so none of the aforementioned drainage applies to me. My popularity at Hae Song Elementary School, especially in the cafeteria, is (*cue illustration*) not quite, but about two steps shy of Maximus' "Spaniard, Spaniard" reception when he walks into any stadium in the movie Gladiator.

In fact, it is scary how closely my life mirrors that of Maximus Decimus Meridius'.

The Roman General phase = coaching swimming at Westwood
Stripped of Power = Journey to Korea (stranger in a new land) .. let's ignore the whole family dying episode as to not take the wind out of my sails.
The Gladiator phase = putting my finely honed skills teaching kids to use in a new medium (from swimming to the classroom -- war to gladiator)

See what I did there! Alright, so my life isn't really like Maximus' but we all need a little grandeur to keep us going and in my case I usually require a lot.

Credit to Nada Surf for title.

U Don't Have to Call

2010-04-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

Yo after tonight
Don't have your lunch box around me
True playa for real

Shoe bag actually, but my kids have learned that they leave their shoe bag (in Korea we have our indoor and outdoor shoes) alone at their own peril. Though my soccer skills are fairly weak, I summon the spirit of Pelé when there is an unattended shoe bag. I make a mad dash through the halls with their belongings showing off every trick I can execute (of which there are few). The kids seem to enjoy this almost as much as I do.

On a different, school related side note, I was taken a bit surprise by a recent game of kai-bai-bo (scissor-rock-paper). I spend about a quarter of my time either doling out high fives or enthralled in the art of rock-paper-scissors. To keep things fresh, I thought I'd change it to "rock-paper-punch" and faux punched a kid. He thought this was hilarious and after a laughter break (because my jokes kill around the 4th graders) he decided to one up me by throwing down a "Rock-Paper-*#!@ You" with an accompanying hand gesture. Obviously, the severity of certain insults don't always translate through languages so while he thought it was great, he wasn't really aware of what he was throwing my way.

Let me say that I found it hilarious -- I mean that is one of the last things you'd expect in a game of kai bai bo. I laughed very, very briefly. I had to, in accordance with my better judgment but against my deepest wishes, explain in a stern tone why this was completely unacceptable. He got the message though I'll admit I was ultimately defeated in rock-paper-scissors.

Teaching Decisions & My Life Visions

2010-04-06T01:21:00.000-07:00

Rhyming took precedence here in regards to the title. It was either this or prospectus and trying to find a metaphorical use of rectus. My schedule hasn't changed in the past week and a half so I suppose I was due for another one. It seems as though I will be losing the aforementioned coteacher (Lt. Norman Dike - see video 2 posts below) in addition to my original co-teacher last semester. I currently have a set up where I teach 20 classes split between 3 teachers (14 with main, 2 with Mrs. Lim, my original co-teacher, and 4 with Lt. Dike). Currently I see 4 classes of 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th grade one time per week.
My new schedule would have me seeing 3rd grade, 6th grade and two of the 5th grade classes twice per week (as opposed to just once currently) while losing out on the other two 5th grade classes and the whole 4th grade entirely. They will also add two teacher's English conversation classes that I will do which will bump me to 22 but (a) this would've happened regardless and (b) after about two months all the teachers get too busy to go anyway.

There are pro's and con's to both scenarios: The 6th graders are my favorite class this year so seeing them two times per week would be stellar. On the other hand, the 4th graders are a close second for favorite status and not teaching them at all is a bitter pill. I call it a bitter pill despite having trouble with those classes (insert Lt. Dike) because I love those kids that much.
In this new scenario, all my teaching hours would be with my main co-teacher, Mrs. Kim. She is awesome and an excellent teacher. The plus of not having to rock out class with Lt. Dike is slighted by losing Mrs. Lim, who I absolutely adore. Mrs. Lim actually called my main co-teacher pleading to not lose me which really speaks to how well we get along. By the way, the Westerner who would take my place with the good Lieutenant would fit much better stylistically with her anyway because he's stockpiled experience and seems like more of a disciplinarian than myself.

All in all, it seems as though this trade comes out about even so I haven't been too high or low on it since finding out. I did propose, though due to scheduling it seems all for naught, that I trade the teacher's convo classes to get back with my original co-teacher. This would be trading in two puff classes for two real ones but would probably make things a lot easier for Mrs. Lim. Alas, it doesn't look as though it's meant to be.

- On to the Life Visions -I have been giving a lot of thought to my generalized plan of attack on life and currently I am thinking this (for any of you who have been asking or more realistically for no one who's been asking but certainly wondering)::

Take the GRE this summer in KoreaFinish my contract at the end of August
Take two months, roughly, to make my way back home and in doing so travel through Southeast Asia, India, Egypt, Southern Italy/France and into Spain
Arrive to a crowd of adoring and longing fans in the US around the end of October. The term "crowd" is a flexible one and may unexpectedly transform into mob, small handful or smattering.
Take two months for graduate school applications and enjoy the hill country with my parents and animals. "Grad school for what?" you ask -- excellent question but let's move on -- hurry, there's no time! -- loud noises and distractions.
During these two months I hope to develop a hobby (Spanish or photography but leaning towards the former) and take frequent visits to Austin.
A 6 month lease in the ATX starting at the beginning of January to run through the .. well, you do the math.
Start Grad school for something or other in the fall of 2011.

I here there are some excellent graduate programs out there for prospective road pavers.

That's all for now! I'm off to have a The Pacific marathon at my friend Pat's house. I have heard mixed reviews but I'll let Tommy Lee Jones handle my rebuttal "I don't care."

Hey All

2010-03-31T21:29:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a while since I've posted. To be honest, it has been a hectic couple of weeks and the most effort I've felt like putting into my blog involved the layout rather than the content. I am back, however, and come bearing a few notes.

It was my friend Brian & Alli's birthday this past weekend in Gwangju. I had volunteered a massive shift going into the week prior involving teaching 34 out of my 35 possible hours. I hit overtime after 22 so some of you might be thinking "Benjamin's!" but it's more along the lines of Hamilton's. It was an eventful weekend that allowed me to see some old friends who I hadn't in some time and on the whole I had a wonderful visit. Since coming home I've become sick again, as per SOP. I should be getting over that shortly though! Steve & Nara set the date and I have enjoyed watching the announcement video a few times now!! I'd also like to link to my friend Sid's longing thoughts on his time in Korea (though this is for the adults in the room so young'ins beware!).

Sid's blog post

I can relate to a lot of it and I haven't even left yet! By the way I think I just finished like 5 sentences in a row in exclamation so you know this guy's excited.

Some music I've been listening to --

Rocket Man - Elton John

Seen the Rain - CCR

Run Devil Run - SNSD

Elton has helped me get through some of these more hectic times lately so my hat's off to him. So much so in fact that sometimes I feel I have on a crazy pair of glasses and suffer from severe balding.

My Friday Co-teaching Experience

2010-03-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

THIS video summarizes what I feel like every Friday in class. For anyone who's watched Band of Brothers, it's fairly similar to teaching with Lt. Norman Dike. Sabotaged at almost every turn. Trying to work out the kinks!! The first 3 minutes summarizes my entire experience but if you are short on time jump to 2:10. Those few lines can illustrate it better than anything I could say.

Band of Brothers

of course I would be Donnie Wahlberg in this scenario. His reactions & sentiments are fairly analogous to my own.

My St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-18T03:49:00.000-07:00

I was thinking of the best onomatopoeia to describe my St. Patty's Day but I can't decide between "bleh", "yeesh" or "meh". After joyously pinching hordes of unsuspecting Korean students for their lack of green and general knowledge about the Irish holiday, it seemed as if the sky was the limit this time around.
It was going to be hard to top last year's celebration. I went and had a great swim practice at Westwood, got an early start on downtown Austin with Alex H. and Nick M. and generally lazed around all afternoon playing bocce ball at Joe's Bar (by Frank & Angies). This was followed by a bottle of wine at home with Emily after she got off work. I would tend to call it my best St. Patrick's Day yet. The road ahead for me this year was bound to be long and arduous if I was to make it the best.

First stop after school: a faculty dinner at a sushi place near where I work. The food was excellent and the soju flowed freely. I must say (imitating my mom), I had a really good time at this dinner. It was a "Welcome New Teachers" party which was great because it really highlighted my position as an old teacher. In welcoming those new to the Hae Song family, I realized that I had firmly made my claim. I didn't have to go into the dinner worried about all the right things to say or how to make the best impression. I was relaxed and felt like I was among friends, or at the very least people I see rather often. What was I saying about the soju flowing freely?? Oh ya.. it did! Early and often! The whole affair wrapped up around 8 PM (lasted about 3 hours).
The words that are many men's undoing: "I have enough time for a short nap." I woke up again, 8 hours later, at 4:30 AM. The night had completely passed me by and on top of it all I was restless and awake with 3 hours before I actually had to be up. Inane internet activity kept me busy but I was really excited about wearing a new St. Patty's themed UT hat (thanks Mom!) and paying dividends to my Irish ancestry. I'm sure I saved money, but at what cost?? Though I tried it probably figured as my worst SPD thus far.

Random Note -- my Girl's Generation trading card collection (yes, they take their pop groups seriously). I'll claim ownership but not the purchase. My friend Joe got these for me knowing my true love of SNSD (Girl's Generation).

Curriculum Changes - KR & AMR.

2010-03-17T04:05:00.000-07:00

I posted the link (Cliff's notes)in my previous entry but in case you haven't read it there it is once more. This issue has actually been on my mind all day. I don't know how anyone could get behind the idea if the conversation for changes went something along the lines of "Let's try and detract from Thomas Jefferson's influence, shine the spotlight a little more on the militant side of the civil right's movement and try and justify McCarthyism a bit to give it it's proper due." You can't rewrite history to suit your purpose!

A Checklist of changes:

- Resistance to addition of more Latino figures as role models and leaders in Texas history

- A decrease in emphasis on separation of church and state and a questioning of the secular nature of the American Revolution

- A look at the more violent prone figures of the Civil Right's movement (along with a trumpeteering of Republican policy during the CRM)

- A less racist view of the Japanese internment camps during WWII - Hey, Italians and Germans were there too!!

- What about all the good things McCarthy did?

- Replacing the term "capitalism" with "free enterprise system" because as Terri Leo points out, “Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation. You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”

- A decreased view of Thomas Jefferson's works as an inspiration for revolution in the late 18th and 19th century.

- A more favorable view of Nixon's work with China (I actually don't have a huge problem with that)

History is not black and white and it certainly isn't always a matter of right and wrong. It's muddy and grey and that's the whole point. There are instances of complete heroism as well as instances of pure evil (though many times they are few and far between). The scarcity is what makes those instances so noteworthy. History is grey because it is affected by humanity's touch. All people can do is make the best decision with the information available to them. You hope that after your lot has been cast you end up on the bright side of history. If however, you do not, you must own that as well. Our history is not a collection of "what's?" but rather "why's?". "Why" something happened is the reason history lovers can debate, discuss and remain captivated by their passion.

I worry that this action by the Texas School Board of Education is rooted in a deep disorientation by members who have been poisoned by the recent, historical bickering. It is as if their best way to justify their cause is by tearing down the opposition. Like abortion, (yes, it's a bomb of a comparison) the standstill created has led to flat out name calling and takes people further away from intelligible conversation, much less any form of agreement. It just seems like everything got so personal.

If it were dreamt up by a group of people (as is the case) I suppose America could look as flawless as they choose. I would say that a predominant amount of my personal, memorable history comes with me far from my best. The stories I carry with me involve missing my mark, disappointment and poor decisions. It would be convenient but tragic if I could simply wave my hand and remember them a different way. I could put a nice bow on them all and admire the pretty picture. In that blissful picture, I would lose the truth, the lesson and the growth that came of it. In the very best of lights you could call the Texas SBOE's actions misguided. They aim to take away precisely what a completely pleasant story is in want of -- the truth, the lesson and the growth.

The errors they are bringing about in this whole mess are of the worst nature. This is because the worst mistakes are ones that affect those around them. We, as Texans, pay for these stupid amendments. They embarrass us and injure our reputation. They make us look ignorant and foolish. They will inevitably lead to a lot of misguided teaching as well if nothing is done.

What I'm listening to--

2010-03-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

- The Oldboy soundtrack (which hasn't been working from American IP's)

- Shama Lama Ding Dong by Lloyd Williams aka Otis Day and the Knights

- Blame It On The Girls by Mika

- Lisztomania by Phoenix

by the way! I miss everyone very, very much!!

March 18th & St. Patty's

2010-03-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

My St. Patrick's day seems like it will be rather muted. We have a party for new teachers tomorrow and I have been told thus far that it will run pretty late. I will probably hit the town after that but I do have school the next day and if I get out late it might just end up being tempered. I ought to sue on grounds of discrimination towards the Irish. Oh wait never mind-- frivolous law suits don't exist in Korea.

Shutter Island will be coming out on March 18th. This is coming at about a 3 week delay and I must say I am pretty psyched. I am a huge Dennis Lehane fan (along with Leo and Marty) and have read everyone of his books. The movie looks like it is trying to be scarier than the book was. Maybe I just missed that whole vibe in the book but it was never one of horror or chills. By Lehane standards, Shutter Island was just OK but I am excited nonetheless. Of course, I could have watched this movie the day it came out if I bought the DVD at the Yongsan technology market for 2 dollars. I built up enough patience to go for the movie theater experience. In case you were wondering, seeing movies in Korea is almost identical to back home and the prices are analogous too.

Oh ya, Emily linked this to me. Texas has decided to rearrange history which I fully and completely support. I have no problem with idiocy unless it is influential and comes from powerful places. Oh Texas, how I miss thee..

From the Belly of the Beast

2010-03-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

From a journal entry dated March 11, 2010:

Coteaching -> Working our way into the flow of the school schedule. Always exhausted -- I think my sleep schedule barely worked without kids over winter break but now it's just ridiculous. Need more sleep! I now have 3 coteachers up from 1 of last semester.
by the way: writing this on the train on my way to trivia and am wondering how Koreans are so successful at getting smashed by 8:30 PM and then finding me on the train to sit next to afterwards.
by the way 2: trying to ease the odd balance between journal writing and blogging ... already am aware that this should go in the blog as well.
Anyhoo= 3 coteachers up from 1 but no afternoon program so my free time gets a nice and almost unwanted boost. Working as much as I did last semester was tiring yet fulfilling. I don't want to lose that sense of fulfillment.
Pleasantly surprised at how nice my handwriting is even when I write blind (aforementioned Korean man's head is extremely close to my lap) - Yes, I mean you crazy, old man. You probably can't read English and you almost certainly couldn't read Korean at this point either. He held my hand for like 30 seconds - I apologize, this is getting seriously derailed, everyone is watching me yet I press on. I can't help laughing either. His hand was large and soft.
Out of 3 new CT's, (Mrs. Lim, my old coteacher, is one of them), Mrs. Kim (my main) is awesome and really good at teaching English. It is her 7th year in the biz and 20th teaching in general. Ms. Jung I see on Fridays, and that has been an interesting adjustment as I adapt to new theories and ways! Life in Korea is one of adjustments. That's all for now, trivia time!

By the way in relation to the man on train:
During my time at Westwood I got a full array of compliments, far more often and far too flattering than I deserved. One of my personal favorites though was when someone told me I "had the patience of Job." I think tonight, with my new-found friend, I lived up to that billing! Sadly, I do not think a second date is in the works.

The Passing of Time

2010-03-08T06:31:00.000-08:00

One of the more poignant happenings of late was my good friend Sid's departure from Korea. I was able to see him yesterday on his last night before his flight today (taken from March 4th journal entry). I must mention that I was able to slow dance with him to Andrea Bocelli's "Time to Say Goodbye" and then walked out the door to the ending theme of Top Gun -- a most fitting conclusion.
His going away has me thinking about my own impending finale. I can't believe it's already been 6 months; that I am halfway through teaching, through my time in Korea, through my friends and family for this year. I wonder about my return. I wonder about how this experience has altered me and how I will adjust to life back in the US. I even think about my capacity for adjusting to life back in the States and whether I will have an implanted feeling of restlessness. I have changed in many ways and hope that through the fresh circumstances of life abroad I have grown for the better.
Walking home, (again- transplanted from a journal) I thought about my probable inability to explain all the different things I've done and, more importantly, the way they affected me. (I must include this) I made myself laugh by momentarily thinking "I guess this is kinda like Nam." No, in fact, it is nothing like the Vietnam War. The thought was silly the moment I started it but I did get a good laugh out of it. I finished The Things They Carried today (a wonderful Vietnam book) and sometimes I can take on an odd sense of grandeur.
I think it's a hard thing to realize how special something can be in the midst of enjoying it. It's easy to get caught up in an experience and, like so many other things, find yourself bittersweet because it's gone by the time you understand what it was. I am amazed already by how well everything has fit. In a lot of ways, picking up and leaving was a bit of a selfish decision. It was a planned, honest decision, but slightly selfish at the same time. I'm purposely being vague here but I will say that halfway through I know my time in Korea has improved me and that I will carry that back to the people I love and wherever my next chapter takes me.

Tonsillitis

2010-02-28T19:16:00.001-08:00

I have it

Hey Ya'll

2010-02-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

sorry about mentioning new posts and leaving you with none. As it turns out I have had a run of pretty crummy luck this past week. I got a mild sore throat about a week ago that got gradually worse with time. I can't drum up too many sympathy points though because I have friends leaving Korea and have been out almost every night and have done a pretty poor job taking care of myself.

Last night I skipped a good friend's going away party to try and finally kill this thing. I am waking up around 10 AM (after about 13 hours worth of sleep) and finding myself in worse shape than ever before. I have already called my coteacher to let her know that despite my best efforts I will be relenting to the treatment of a foreign hospital. This should be fun!! I went on WebMD and I really can't figure out what this is. It has closed up almost completely today and I really can't do much of anything without it hurting. It's by far the worst sore throat I've ever had so I am really hoping I can get into a hospital today (it's a national holiday here so I wonder how many will be open).

Vacay

2010-02-24T03:19:00.001-08:00

I was in Busan this past weekend and wrote a vague and poorly written synopsis - coming soon to a city near you!!

To quote the wise Samuel L.
"Hold on to your butts."

since this is just a filler I thought it might be nice to throw in this observation--
How awesome is it that of my 16 followers one is myself (done by accident) and two are my mom!

Don't Tread on Me

2010-02-24T03:01:00.000-08:00

No taxation without representation, I do declare.

The Backdrop:

I received and paid for my heating bill in these past few days but it turned out to be an exorbitant fee. I have on good word that I was not unjustly charged and that it comes at a fairly standard rate. The only problem in my particular situation is that (a) I have no control over when my heat is turned on or off and (b) the heating in my apartment works poorly and I really don't have heat at all. They could just make a number and I'd be essentially forced to pay it without even having the ability to influence the price.
My thermostat has actually been punched through the wall which coincides with my current predicament. One might wonder why I have not complained to apartment management. Well~ I have!! After inspection and through translation I was told that "There might be a problem with the pipes. We could try and investigate and repair but there is a chance that your apartment might blow up."
As you can imagine, though I don't think I was actually given a choice (nor should I have been), I passed. I sit here now dejected and despaired, a young man of 23 who has no choice but to pay King George's ransom.
A bright note is that it actually got over 60 degrees today - still trying to find out what land I stepped into where this happens. Should come crashing back to reality soon!

Yes, I watched the John Adams series on HBO and yes, it was quite good!

woo hoo some more!!

2010-02-17T02:11:00.000-08:00

A few bits and pieces ::
- My Uncle Patrick is in Spring Branch with my parents this week and I was able to Skype with him a little bit!!
- Finished Catch 22 -- it was fantastic and I think I need to read it again quite soon.
- My friend Ben will be the new Okey Dokey (private academy) English teacher at Hae Song so I will be seeing him every day. Okey Dokey is their program's nickname.

woo hoo!!

2010-02-16T06:29:00.001-08:00

I got Rosetta Stone up and runnin' --

Italian, Spanish & Korean with the emphasis being Korean of course!!

An Entry from my Memoirs

2010-02-08T00:16:00.000-08:00

Dated 4 February 2010

I can not figure out if the women who work at McDonald's at the E-Mart food court (where I frequent for grocery shopping and snackery) gawk at me because they think I'm a handsome foreigner or if they do it because they think I eat at McDonald's too much.

I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle leaning towards the latter. They have shamed me from consuming McD's.

K-Pop

2010-02-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

The big song in Korea right now is "Oh" by Girl's Generation (aka So Nyeo Shi Dae or SNSD). I guess I never really explained the Korean music business but I think I mentioned that a new hit will be played ad nauseum. The music biz in Korea is faaaaaaaaaaar less varied compared to the US.

SNSD is a group of 9 girls who were all signed at an early age, given dance and singing lessons, and then placed into a group by their record label. It's not quite the garage band scene associated with many American groups. There will only be 5-10 different music groups on the radio. This means that when a new hit comes out you hear it, a lot! Fortunately, I enjoy about 95% of the songs that come out so it's not that bad for me. If you give them a listen I am sure you will find them pretty catchy:

Oh by SNSD

Gee by SNSD (older song by Girl's Generation)

Fulfillment

2010-02-03T01:50:00.000-08:00

I have had an excess amount of free time these past two days. I don't see the 5th graders this week freeing me up to teach one class per day. We are in the closing stretch of school before a 2 week break and the start of the new year. Yesterday I spent a whole lotta time doing a whole lotta nothing. Today my official list of things I needed to accomplish to feel like I didn't waste my day are as follows:

- Figure out my vacation schedule for the foreseeable future

- Make a blog post

- Take a nap

As far as I'm concerned, when 33% of one's list of objectives includes a nap it doesn't get much better.

Yes, I checked the vacation schedule and the blog post speaks for itself. The nap did NOT in fact occur. Listening to the Gladiator soundtrack and discovering that Leon (The Professional) was on youtube took precedent.

here's the scoop on los campamentos de invierno

2010-02-03T01:48:00.000-08:00

I have actually completed two of the three camps taking place during the winter season. I started with 6th graders on the first and took 5th graders the second go-around. The last week of February will be our last camp held for 4th graders. A lot of the other EPIK teachers have had to make everything from scratch and run it themselves. I on the other hand have the benefit of coming into a team of English teachers and a school that had been previously running them. This meant my responsibilities fell to planning 2 subjects (of 4 total) and running the orientation. Matthew, who ran winter camps last year, gave me one piece of advice before he finished his contract at Hae Song. "Focus on having fun," he said to me, "don't worry as much about the English." I did just that! He was right too by the way because with two 75 minute lessons a day if you just focus on having fun the English follows in line rather nicely.

Orientation consisted entirely of goofy ice breakers and was crazy easy. I chose my words carefully just there because I did in fact teach them .. gasp! .. using crazy as an adjective to mean "very." They really enjoy using the phrase "that __________ is crazy crazy" (No worries, they know it's slang and that they should only use it when addressing their elders, principals and other people of influence - har har).

I've mentioned this a few times but for the sake of everyone hopping in now - Matthew and Blair left school at the beginning of January thrusting me into the role of longest native-English speaker at Hae Song. Janice, the head of the English Dept. left about a month before they did and now Amy our teaching assistant has gone too. I used this influence and divine power to swing my choice of winter camp classes. I didn't want to be greedy so I only asked for PE but (you can tell by the pictures!) I got cooking too. This really gave me a carefree two weeks consisting of cupcakes and capture the flag. I had a wonderful time doing it and it was a pretty drastic change up in terms of work load from what I've been used to. In fact, since about Christmas my schedule has been pretty easy-peasy. School will be starting up at the beginning of March and I'd tell you a schedule if I had one but I don't so I won't. I am relying on the oft-reliable fact that I won't know my schedule until a day prior of it starting.

If there was lots of word repetition and generalized general silliness throughout this post you can blame it on my current reading; Catch 22. How did I go this long without reading this book!?!

Photos from Winter Camp

2010-02-02T08:07:00.001-08:00

Here are a few photos from Winter Camp at Hae Song Elementary. The rest are here

From Top to Bottom:
1. Myself enlightening the impressionable minds of 5th Graders to the higher levels of cooking.
2. My crazy and fantastic student Emily.
3. Gingerbear of my doing
4. My student Annie who holds a special place in my heart

The Simple Joys

2010-02-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

On the walk home from school today I strolled by a young boy beating a stick on the ground with another stick. This is both a grand and simple reason for why I really like teaching elementary school (grand in impact and simple in nature!).

Quotations I enjoyed on a trivia website sporcle.com (Great place to waste time and at least feel like you are slightly more knowledgeable for it:

Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.
- Dr. Seuss
I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
- Groucho Marx

Trivia Masters

2010-01-23T00:50:00.000-08:00

I have been playing trivia for the last couple months with some EPIK friends in Central Incheon. It is held every Thursday night and the team that won the previous week hosts the next. Each person has to pay 2 dollars to play and it runs in teams of 5 (winner takes all the entry money). Usually it amounts to about 80 dollars for the winning team split 5 ways. This past Thursday my team and I won for the 2nd time in 3 tries. In fact, they had won a few times before I joined up. I won, hosted the following week, and won again. Now it is up to me come up with my questions for next week's topic!! The last time I hosted my questions focused on Lord of the Rings and Zombie Trivia. This time around I might get a little brainier.

All in all, it's a lot of fun and now get excited for every Thursday's coming!

One More Note on Book Reports

2010-01-20T06:45:00.000-08:00

One last thing!!

Today, like I mentioned, was Library day and Book Report day. We took both our 1st grade classes and our 3rd graders. For the 1st graders I mostly read with/to them. I did this with most of the class (including my coteacher's, (Mrs. Lim), daughter!). Anyway, I got through about half of "The Seals on the Bus" with one of my students named Bailey before I realized this book was supposed to be sung to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus." I certainly thought it was odd that everything rhymed but I only paid it a passing glance. Also, this was the elongated version of the song. When she brought me the book I was initially excited because usually they choose really short books. This one turned out to have like 15 verses and run into the upwards of 20 pages. It was terrible because I had to read, over and over, phrases like "The sheeps on the bus go Bah bah bah, bah bah bah, bah bah bah. The sheeps on the bus go bah bah bah, all the something something or other." I paraphrased that last part. I think I covered the whole ecosystem.

Prank of the Day

2010-01-20T06:31:00.001-08:00

I think most of the people who read this know me well enough to know how much of a goofball I am. If you don't know me well enough to know that, then get off my blog!! Seriously though, one of the things I love about teaching in an Elementary school is the wonderful outlet it provides for my goofiness.

Case in Point (Prank of the Day):
For book reports my 3rd graders got to choose their favorite picture in the book and draw it after briefly describing what they read. John, one of my star pupils, chose some book about cookies and drew about .. wait for it .. cookies. Anyway, he got up to do something or other and I quickly grabbed his book report, erased part of the cookie, and drew in bite marks and a 70% completed cookie. I wrote "Evan Teacher was Hungry - Mashisoyo" which means "It was delicious." Bam! prank of the day!

I am honestly not happy unless I am stealing something, taking something and putting it somewhere else or generally partaking in random hi-jinks about once every 5-10 minutes or so. Elementary school makes this behavior acceptable, nay, encouragable! Spell Check is telling me encouragable is not a word. Is this true??

Anyway, that probably was not the prank of the day but that was the incident where I decided I'd blog about it so there you go. The great thing about Korean elementary schools is that the students' ages run the gauntlet enough to keep me entertained in all ways. I split my efforts about 50-50 between incredibly silly and enjoying dry and sarcastic humor. In Korean schools, the 6th graders are old enough where this works out well. It was one of the main reasons I loved Westwood!! I was able to start with younger kids and work my way all the up to the 15 and 16 year-olds everyday.

Winter Camp started this past Monday. I will update you guys on my PE and Cooking classes in my next post but know that I am loving it.

By the way, if any of my WW swimmers are reading this, know that I miss you every single day!!

Random Notes

2010-01-19T04:40:00.000-08:00

Watched Blade Runner tonight. Going into it I briefly forgot it was a Stanley Kubrick movie so it will probably be something I need to re-watch a few times. I enjoyed it though!!

Why I love college football :: A Year in review ::

College Football Decade Images

Trying to get a game of Dungeons and Dragons going now that I am here in Korea. Now to get my hands on a 20-sided die

Hey All

2010-01-17T07:03:00.000-08:00

Really enjoying Matthew and Blair's classes as it turns out. There is still a good chunk of me that would rather watch LOTR with actor's commentary and Korean movies all day (my original schedule), but I have adjusted thusly and am making a go of it. I start winter camps tomorrow. It should be interesting. Being the wily veteran of Hae Song (longest tenured among the English Camps) I was able to finagle P.E. and Cooking as my two main lesson plans. At first the cooking was giong to be centered around spaghetti which is certainly a strong suit. Now it seems we have switched to muffins so that has hurt my confidence but I won't be alone for it. I should survive without blowing anything up. The P.E. classes (freeze tag and capture the flag) will take me back to the dry land portions of working at Westwood so that should be fun too.

I am sick for the 3rd time in 1 month. The really terrible part is that of all 3 times I have gotten sick, I have ridden that line where I might get sick / might not and have made.. less than wise decisions as to how to take care of myself. Two were defensible (friends from Busan up the first time and being with Emily the second). This time it came down to having to carry a load on finishing JB - bleh!! By the way, I believe there was a severe misprint because on the side it said that a Colonel James Beam was born in 1804 and lived until 1947 putting him at just over 140. They say 140 is the new 90 though so what do I know.

Songs I'm listening to:
- These Days by Nico
- Staralfur by Sigur Ros
- Here With Me by Dido
Currently Reading:
Catch 22

Places I most want to visit from Where the He!! is Matt (video below):
Mumbai, India
Paro & Thimpu, Bhutan (Paro is my overall number 1)
Lisse, The Netherlands
Christmas Island, Australia
Madrid, Spain
Lancelin, Australia
Zanzibar
Alemania
Tel Aviv, Israel
Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
All of South/Latin America

I love this video - I've used it with my students in any class I've ever taught related to culture.
**
Where The He!! Is Matt 2008

Korean Movies

2010-01-09T01:35:00.000-08:00

Korea is an excellent place to stumble into if you happen to a be a big film person. I just finished watching Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War (Taegukgi) tonight. It is SK's cross of The Deer Hunter and Saving Private Ryan. It's stage is the Korean War and focuses on two brothers. I highly recommend it.
I also saw Old Boy recently. It is really great too. The plot is pretty intense - a heads up for those of you who might read this and go out and rent these movies! It is part of a trilogy that deals with revenge. This one had a pretty extensive international showing so some of you have might actually seen it or the two others in the chain (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, the first and third in the chain respectively) The plots don't hinge upon one another so you could watch it in any order!
I have been lucky enough to come to a country with fantastic movies. When I head to the technology market I usually just ask my guy to pick out a few good Korean movies for me. He hasn't steered me wrong thus far!

Photos

2010-01-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

New photos are up on facebook detailing my family's and Emily's time in Korea. I set my mom up with photos so she will be posting soon too if you are friends with her. Hers might be a tad delayed as she got sick on the last day of the trip and is not feeling good. In fact, the only downside of the trip is that all 4 of us got sick at one point or another. Emily and my Mom's came at the tail end or when they first got home while my Dad's came in the middle and me at the beginning.

photos ::

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=2797918&id=7935602

Quick Note on my Posting

2010-01-05T01:34:00.001-08:00

Sorry to any frustrated, faithful readers out there who have been wondering where I have been the past 2 or 3 weeks. Though I doubt anyone would be frustrated by a lack in Evan news. I went without posting with both my parents and Emily in Korea for the past 2 weeks. This is probably my 3rd apology and I know that I have posted sporadically at best, but I hope you will forgive me for wanting to spend most of my time with them and not quite as much writing!! My recent posts and the ones to follow in the next few days are far from chronologically correct, and I will only make a brief attempt to cover all the things that happened over my Winter vacation. There was just too much!!

I should have some pictures up and a post on some of the big stuff that happened over the past 2 weeks.

I Will be a Great ESL Teacher Whether I Choose to or Not

2010-01-05T01:32:00.000-08:00

Finished teaching today with a few more surprises. It turns out that rather than filling in for a week and teaching the English Zone's curriculum and classes it will be spread out to a month. I actually just wrapped up an hour and fifteen minute lesson in which only two of six students showed up. I managed to change the majority of the lesson on the fly. This is not a self-congratulatory post as much as it is a "Look what they have done to me!!" kind of rant. My constantly changing schedule has brought this about in me. Example: It seems for now that the last two weeks of January my in-class teaching hours will jump from fifteen to twenty-nine. This will put me heavy into overtime so I am almost expecting this to change by the time the 18th rolls around because the bank shall not break. My schedule has been changed too many times and on too short of notice at this point to even bother me anymore. These circumstances used to elicit anger and copious amounts of emails to my parents, Emily and my cousin Steve. Now it comes with a melancholic guffaw. More a chuckle than guffaw - I was just that desperate to use "guffaw". Anyhoo.. It seems as though I will be the baddest, raddest ESL teacher in the world even though the odds are high this will come against my will. I am at least grateful that I am out of panic mode when they do this.

A Quick Transcript from my Journal

2010-01-05T01:17:00.000-08:00

* written 4 January 2010 * (meant to be posted yesterday)

I think the ink in my pen is frozen. Sadly, it seems as though I will not have the opportunity to thank Matt & Blair - they leave tomorrow and I don't foresee a visit with them.
About a foot of snow today. Many coworkers (co-EPIK'ers) had the day off. I literally had the opposite of a snow day. I went to school expecting a quiet, classless week to find they gave me M/B's classes for the week. I was given little notice as per Korean standard and caught both unprepared and unshowered (my water was off for 2 days to pipe freezing). Hoping to get wa-wa back today.
Far less upset about lack of notice this time than others, guess I'm coming around.

Quick Updates ::
1. I was able to see Matt and Blair today at school. Happy to say goodbye to them and maintain communications as much as I can with them as they slowly make their way back home.
2. I got my water back. Showered, shaved and happy!
3. I keep a journal now. What a forward thinking man I have become, one might say. It was just one of the fantastic Christmas presents I got this holiday season!

Winter

2009-12-17T01:47:00.000-08:00

Life without air conditioning has been an up and down battle thus far. The lack of AC is not a Korean trend. Quite the contrary, it is just I who lacks powered climate control. In fact, I have been in one other apartment in this complex/area and their apt. was incredibly heated. However, two blankets and being fully clothed has kept me pretty snuggly. The problem isn't sleeping; it's waking up that kills me. It is so hard to get up and out of bed in the morning. Leaving my safe haven calls into question whether I realllly need a shower (don't fret everyone, I usually drag myself outta bed and take one!).

On a random aside -- I put the finishing touches on preparation for my last immersion class tomorrow. I dropped some serious cash to fill their stockings. I have made the firm decision that If they will not give me their love I will buy their love. All kidding aside, two classes down a Korean teacher helped them make balloon animals so I naturally had to up the ante if I wanted to be the cool kid on the block!!

Seoul Snow Jam!!

2009-12-14T04:18:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday I went down to Seoul with my friends Carmine and Joe. After a long afternoon of Christmas shopping, and in my more frugal and calculating ways, Christmas prospecting, we walked a few blocks down from Insadong (where we were shopping) to where some friends were getting ready to go ice skating. As it turns out, the rink was closing down but the latter portion of a snowboarding tournament was just getting going. We were probably there for about an hour or so. It was pretty fun. I think I had more fun being around all the people, many of whom were really into it, rather than actually watching the snowboarding. They replayed highlights from earlier in the day and the skiing ones actually looked great!! I snagged a few photos before we left which I put on facebook. It was definitely nice to see the lights out around Seoul. It is not always easy to grasp the American vacations here but Christmas seems to be coming along quite nicely! I heard that about 1/3rd of Koreans celebrate Christmas. Here are a few photos I took with absolutely no description to go along with them!!

Mmmmm Cashmere

2009-12-14T03:05:00.001-08:00

it fits great, it's warm and I am still falling in love with my new pea coat. My cousin Steve pointed it out but David Letterman sure was right when he or whoever was writing on his behalf penned the note "you do good job" on Manchester Tailors' celebrity autograph board. What a word smith!

Random tid bits

2009-12-07T04:19:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention an odd story on the way back home from Seoul this past Saturday. I was a little gloomy because at this point I came to the realization that I sealed my fate on the whole sickness thing. The cab ride definitely cheered me up though!! I had a cab driver who spoke English fantastically. After he narrowed down that 2 out of 3 of his passengers were from Texas (Sophia and myself, along with our 3rd Joe from LA), he proceeded to name off a few of the cities he had been to. He started with Houston (of course, even in Korea, everyone is from Houston) to which we nodded and then tacked on Dallas to which we nodded again. Then he dropped a bomb; Brooh-own-sville. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? It's hard to find a Texan who has been to Brownsville, much, much, much less a Korean.
Keeping up with my American habits, I have spent a solid % of my money on eating out. However, today might be a deciding reversal in the war against dining out. This is because today is the day I finally finished gathering all the ingredients for spaghetti. There were some casualties in this battle; I was forced to forego parmesean cheese. PC is my right hand man when it comes to the spaghett's. I thought it would be difficult to get ahold of salt too, but the stars aligned as I finally managed to (a) remember to look for it BEFORE going into the store rather than after and (b) have enough time to look for it rather than being in a rush. Shaping and educating kids' lives in Korea has been great but let it be known that the highlight of December 7th was spaghetti. Booyakasha!

Alright - Forget It

2009-12-07T04:18:00.000-08:00

I have spent far too much time trying to edit He-Man so he would take up less space on that last post. Alas, I have given up seeing that my will can not surpass his. If I was working on a PC I would have no troubles but I still can't figure out seemingly simple tasks on this Mac sometimes! On that note, I am still very, very grateful to Brock for selling me his computer days before I left for Korea!!

About that Pea Coat

2009-12-07T03:58:00.000-08:00

So it turns out I am sick for the 2nd time since living in Korea. My He-Man, take-no-prisoners, never-get-sick persona has been completely decimated. On Saturday I ventured out to Seoul to pick up my newly purchased coat - which I was very much excited for!! I gambled a bit, being the logical creature that I am, by arguing that I shouldn't wear a coat to go get a coat. I took a thermal and a hoodie and sallied forth. Turns out the coat was not ready (another gem lost in translation) and I was there for a final fitting of sorts. It should be shipped to me this coming Friday after school. At least I won't have to pick it up. I spent the rest of the day with Steve jumping around parts of Seoul and picking up lunch at the "All-American Diner." It was totes delish. (Totally delicious for the old timers). I really wasn't too cold that whole day, or at least I didn't feel like it but I guess I was wrong. There were certainly times where it was COLD but mostly it was an enjoyable cold that didn't get into your bones. I actually managed to jump home and take a hot shower before heading back to Seoul for the night to see some friends who came in from both Busan and Gwangju. However, my earlier poor decision was surpassed by the one I made that night to fully partake in the festivities. These decisions cost me and have thus stripped away my self-image (pictured above). I thought my new and healthy Korean diet could overpower the cold's of old that used to get to me far more often than most men. Apparently not - I lose again!!

However, the silver lining is that I will be assured to be in good health when the family and girlfriend arrive in a little less than two weeks. This has been the prime factor keeping me in as good a spirit as I can muster.

:: Currently reading ::

2009-12-07T03:55:00.000-08:00

Was jumping between Guns, Germs & Steel and John Adams. Will probably set both of those down briefly after picking up (per Steve's recommendation) Life of Pi. I needed a little easier reading in both content and weight. Seriously, it can be a major drag carrying around 800 page nonfiction books on the subway when you have about 10-20 minutes per session. Much happier now!

Vacancies Vacancies!!

2009-12-03T00:16:00.000-08:00

I found out today that after Matt and Blair, two of my English coworkers at Hae Song, leave at the end of December, there aren't two set people to come in and replace them. This means that the English Camps that begin towards the beginning of January will be run by the English director and me. In fact, we are so far from being set on two replacements that Ms. Lim has asked me (for some reason she's in charge of this search when she already has about a billion things to do!) to ask any of my friends if they want to come take their place!!

So if you are reading this and you know me or reading this and you know someone interested, there are two vacant positions at Hae Song opening up on January 1st'ish. I wish I could be more specific with the job details but because they will be hired directly through Hae Song and not the EPIK program like I was, I am not completely clear on all the details. My understanding is that they would want them here at the beginning of January or ASAP after that for a 1 year contract. I don't know the pay but I would assume it is somewhere in the realm of mine, perhaps better, which will mean that if you spend money somewhat reasonably (see Pea Coat post for my spending habits!) you should be able to save some considerable money. I am assuming, though am not sure, that they will pay for your flight to Korea and am positive they will set you up with living arrangements. The only specific requirement I know of is that you have to be a college graduate. Like I said, since it's a specific hire, there should be less hoops to jump through rather than going through a program. There will be no training period, but you will have me!! I mean I'm totes the best teacher in the world and if I can't run you through it I don't know who can (see Royal Rites of Brag..etc. etc.).

This is pretty abrupt, and I have my doubts that Hae Song's next hire will come through me but I am just throwing it out there. Two vacant positions! You can come as a tandem for all those in relationships!

I wish I could get some of the WW kids out here, but I don't know if they can look the part of a 20'something college grad!

The Royal Rite of Bragitudiousness

2009-12-02T06:12:00.001-08:00

I had completely forgotten about this!! Throughout last week we had our annual "Golden Bell" challenge, an English test at Hae Song conducted by my coteacher Ms. Lim and myself. The 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades participated. Each grade went on a different day, and they all got markerboards and would write their answers and raise them in the air; last one standing wins. The questions ranged from spelling, "what am I?" riddles, and some true or false questions.

If any of you remember my schedule, I teach and see everyone from the 3rd grade up but I also run my immersion classes and have a group of about 5-10 students from each grade that I see 4 times a week. Initially, I was not happy about this class. The curriculum is still a little dry, but these are my babies and the classes that I enjoy the most now. It was just a matter of making the curriculum fit what I wanted to do - it has definitely improved with time!

Anyhoo.. I have to say I couldn't be more excited about how the immersion kids did. I tried to keep a loose eye on them throughout the Golden Bell Challenge and from what I saw I thought they did great. In fact, out of about 100 kids per grade (roughly), I maybe have 5% of them in my immersion class. I am happy to say that the 3rd and 4th grade winners were both members of my immersion class!! The 3rd grader, Julia, has actually lived in the States for the majority of her life so I wasn't flabbergasted to see her win. My 4th grader, Jason, has learned all his English here though. It was very exciting. Generally speaking, I usually had one of the immersion kids in the top 5 or so in each class.

Sometimes it feels as if my teaching style is throwing a bunch at a wall and hoping some of it sticks. Some days it feels great, rewarding, and fulfilling. Some days it feels slightly less than that. I am happy to say that those rewarding days where I actively see them learning are beginning to outnumber the days where I feel I have fallen on my face. As long as they have fun, which feels like most of the time, I am happy though!

That's all to report from Hae Song. Other than that, school is going great!!

THE Pea Coat

2009-12-01T06:04:00.002-08:00

This past Saturday I made the trek to Seoul to invest in a new coat. I needed something a little heavier than I own now. I had been looking forward to this for a while now because this was the first time I'd be seeing a tailor and having something custom made for me!! I can report that it went fantastically.

After walking by a handfull of shops with some potential, my friends and I ran into a guy who seemed to know what's what. He ushered me into his shop downstairs and proceeded to pour on the honey talk. I must say, he was probably the best salesman who's ever made a pitch to me. Generally speaking, I am pretty good at backing out of purchases. Sure, there has been a time or two (as Daniel, Alex and Gus can attest to) where I have been lectured by a salesman for upwards of an hour, looking desperately at anyone who could me away from them. When my nicer, "I'll hear you out" side clash with my frugal nature, frugality saves the day. I like to sit and think about a purchase for a few days and THEN go back and get it. Not the case this time around. He could have signed me up to buy 5 coats and I probably would have been down.

His English was great, and from my limited knowledge he really seemed to know what he was doing. He had some celebrity photos that he had made clothing for. Nothing much stood out except for Kobe Bryant. If you see KB tell him he now knows somebody who knows somebody who knows you. He gave me the "English teacher" price, as opposed to what he called the "professional athlete" price. This Saturday I will be heading up to Seoul to pick up my new, double breasted, cashmere navy pea coat!! Complete with my name stitched inside. No worries, I resisted the urge to request "E-Money".

T-Giving

2009-12-01T06:04:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving Day!! It came and went and for the most part my friends and I tried to do it right. We had a potluck dinner! At first a potluck seemed like a scary proposition since we were running heavy and volunteers for napkins, bread and wine and a little lighter on things like FOOD. It worked out in the long run though. I showed up with 2 pizzas and 2 bottles of wine. We had sweet potatoes wrapped in bacon with rosemary (thank you Patrick), baked chicken (Ryan), cake and salad (Carmine), TURKEY BURGERS (Joe), and marinara sauce to put on whatever it is we were supposed to put it on (thanks Sophia!). Sophia was actually our lovely host! We had 6 Americans and 6 Koreans throughout most of the night. We maintained the tradition of going around and saying what we were thankful.

In all seriousness, other things got me thinking about what I was thankful for in Korea but our T-giving dinner really cemented it for me. I, along with the rest of the A-team (our affectionate and 100% innocently motivated self-tagged group name), have been really lucky to find eachother. I referred to them as my family for a year, and I very much mean it. It is hard to believe I have only known them for 3 months and some change. We have been having a great time!!

On another note, I CAN'T wait to get my family up here. As most of you know, my parents and my girlfriend Emily will be coming up here in a little bit less than 3 weeks. I can't wait to share the past 3 months of my life with them. Pictures certainly help, but some things just have to be seen!!

Hope all is well with my faithful readers!! Happy Holidays!!

Weekend in Gwangju

2009-11-23T03:43:00.000-08:00

Hi All! Haven't been very active lately I know.

This past weekend I visited some friends in Gwangju. My friend Patrick and I took a 3 1/2 hour bus over there to the Southwest Korea. The rail system was out of the question because it runs Northwest (Seoul & Incheon) to Southeast Korea (Busan). It was a pretty enjoyable ride down though they went a little heavy on the heater - very Sauna-esque.

There are a few photos up on Fbook that I added to the Halloween album by the way.

The highlights of the weekend, besides seeing our good Gwangju friends, were spending Saturday playing paintball and a bit of Saturday night at an ice bar. The cool thing about the ice bar is that you got to throw your glass at a target if once you were done. Out of 3 tries, I managed to score once. Unfortunately, I won a coupon for 5,000 W (5 dollars) that can only be redeemed on your NEXT visit to the restaurant. Smooth talking my way out of this did not help. I now am in possession of a 5 dollar coupon that I may be able to redeem in about 2 months.

Forgot to mention that we went to an airsoft gun range. Apparently, and I don't know if it is the Texas in me because I have never fired a gun, I am a pretty good shot. Must be the video games. Cashed in for a phone charm that soon broke afterward.

The paintball was the absolute best part of the weekend. Patrick, my friends Alex and Brian, and myself woke up early on Saturday and played right through to about 3 PM. There were tooooo many stories to recount here, and the girls heard them all ad nauseum.

The bus ride home was the only sour part of the trip. We hit rough traffic and our 3 1/2 hour trip back up turned into 6 1/2 hours. All in all, had a fun time in Gwangju. Check out the pictures and if you can't access them let me know - I will provide a different avenue!!

Wowzers!!

2009-11-14T10:16:00.001-08:00

It's snowing tonight!!

I was with friends from Austin and Los Angeles so we were all very excited! My friend Carmine from Toronto was slightly less enthused.

Turn the Other Cheek

2009-11-13T20:57:00.000-08:00

Those famous .. Walt Whitman words, I believe =), certainly ring true! Now, in all seriousness, I came about as close to being in a fight since the age 10. There's no denying, I was quite the scrappy 10-year-old.

I think I have written a few times where I have been harassed, generally by older Korean men, at various locales throughout Seoul. Not to break the mold, this fight almost came to be with an older Korean man in Seoul (I'll ballpark him at about age 45, 5'6, and one who has taken a rather liberal stance on physical fitness to give him a little illustration).

I was riding the subway to Seoul, a solid 30 minutes behind the rest of my compatriots. I was on the train, quiet of course since I was by myself, and generally keeping to myself when I heard this man start yelling. I gave him a quick glance but as he kept going I thought Surely this isn't directed at me. Well, it was directed at me - 100% of it in fact. He really laid into me too, and I would've been obliged to take offense had I known what he was saying. After about 5 minutes of him yelling at me as I tossed in a "Mian hamida, anyo Hangeul" (I'm sorry, no Korean) the few times I could get a word in, I reached the Evan Daniel breaking point. Commence the stare down!! He had been staring at me this whole time while I had been generally avoiding eye contact. I released the hounds - I looked him in the eyes for about 45 seconds or so and he finally stopped yelling and stopped looking at me. I sat down though the only vacant chair was directly in front of him. He really hit his boiling point after I crossed my legs in front of him and started shaking my foot. There is a Korean custom that I was previously unaware of that dictates that you should not cross your legs in front of your elders. The custom seems to more accurately follow the practice of "Don't cross your legs when your elders are yelling at you."

I had gone back to avoiding eye contact by the way. In fact, I was texting my friend Carmine something along the lines of "HELP ME." No matter, my leg shaking was enough to send him out of his seat. He walked over to me, standing directly over me, and started yelling at my leg again. I almost forgot to mention that every Korean on the train outside a 10-foot vicinity were staring directly at us. Those within the danger zone pretended that all was well with the world. Any other Koreans I made eye contact with gave me what I can only describe as an "I'm sorry this is happening to you" look. By this point, I have apologized ten times to a man standing directly over me with his fist clenched at cocked behind his head ready to hit me for whatever it is I did to him.

Now, for those wondering why I summoned the patience of Job, let me throw in a quick technicality on deportation. If you fight a Korean citizen, you will probably get deported 10 times outta 10. There are very few extenuating circumstances. Had this taken place in America, I would have helped this man sit back in his seat regardless of whether he wanted my aid, told him to leave me alone, and be done with it. Here in Korea however, I took the road less traveled by. Plus, you never know what level of crazy someone brings to the table, and I'm content to go through life never finding out!!

My saving grace was that I was only two stops from my destination. I waited him out, took another 2-3 minutes of abuse wondering if he would hit me or not and how I would respond, and exited the train. As he stood over me I got into the most relaxed, I-don't-want-to-fight stances I have ever mustered. It was very Sean Penn in Fast Times. I managed to escape incredibly irked but unscathed.

And for any of my EPIK'ers who might follow the joke, this was NOT time for a "This is a kill" references.

Halloween!

2009-11-13T20:53:00.001-08:00

I am realizing now that I never made a post covering the H-party. Not too much to say other than it being purtty spectacular. I had friends visiting from Busan that weekend so I also got to give my first Seoul tour too!

Everything we made for the party, monetarily speaking, went back into the party. We charged about 10 dollars per head and had over a couple hundred people - actually now that I am doing this math those numbers don't add up!! After we ran outta food though we only charged about 5. I don't generally talk extensively about money but the party fund ended up running over a thousand dollars, and it all went back in. A Mexican restaurant named On The Map was kind enough to let use their place as our venue. I think we probably helped them out too by giving them one of the better business nights they've had since they have been opened (about 4 months).

Anyway, the most important thing is that it set us up well for our next party. I spent about half the night running around but I did get to enjoy myself towards the end. I do love to host though, and between the 5 or 6 of us who threw it, I must say we did a rather good job!

Hi All!!

2009-11-08T04:31:00.000-08:00

A few new updates in the life of E ::

My friend Hero posted the videos of our bungee jumps. If you click here you can find me in all my glory. This was one of those situations where even had I known I'd be on video, I still would of ended up looking about as scared as I've ever been. If the link doesn't work, let me know!!! It says I can upload videos on here but I don't know how to save it from FB. My brain is not large enough for tasks like these.

Anyway, I was able to spend today with the newly engaged Steve and Nara. They actually came down to Incheon to check out my neck of woods. It was my first time checking out China Town too. It was, as my students would describe, "so-so." We had a good time walking around catching up though, and I am just happy to finally meet Nara and have family in the same country as me!!

Steve got some good photos too so those should be up at some point. All I can say is that both the Daniel's and Iams' will be proud of our patriotism as we saluted General MacArthur in a way only Americans could.

Ugh.. I've seen the bungee jumping video about 5-10 times and I get Vietnam like flashbacks. That's all from here for now!!

The Weather

2009-11-03T01:46:00.000-08:00

It's a good time to be a vampire in Incheon. When I wake up around 7 or so it has just gotten light out. Within an hour of getting out of school or so though it is already dark. As winter approaches I have been told that it should darken a tad bit later (say 7:30-8 or so) and be dark by 4:40 (the end of my school day). Hello darkness my old friend!

The other crazy thing about this week has been the cold front. Yesterday and today it has been in the high 20's. The wind is killing me. It is supposed to warm up as soon as tomorrow. I most certainly hope so, because fall is my favorite season and while I am excited about having a full season of winter for the first time in my life, I am not ready just quite yet!

Did I Mention Something About Lesson Plans?

2009-11-03T01:44:00.000-08:00

I think going into this week I talked about using this time to make lesson plans through the end of the school year. I hope to get a heavy dosage starting tomorrow, because Monday and Tuesday I did nothing but read and watch movies. Not the good kind of reading either - ESPN & The Internet Movie Database have taken up farrrrrr too much of my time recently.

Hope to get on it sooN!!

Well..

2009-10-30T05:05:00.000-07:00

It had been a long time coming, but they finally canceled school at Hae Song Elementary.

They have had several meetings here and there about swine flu. A few days ago, they had 6 deaths in one day here in Korea. All of next week school will be canceled. I will still be getting paid .. and I will still have to show up too! The only thing is I will have no classes - so it will be 8 hours of dead time every day for 5 days. Not too bad though, I can catch up on some reading and knock out lesson plans from now until Christmas. The only reason I can't plan further than that is ... by the way, yes it is further and not farther (I looked it up to double check but I got it right on my first try, booyakasha!) ... anyway, the reason I can't plan lessons further than that is because I will have no clue what my schedule will be and how it will change after the semester.

The two big changes will be:

a. It will be a new semester. The new school year for Korea starts in February, so everyone moves up and some of my classes (like the immersion class I mentioned before) might be different. In fact, they are thinking of adding a 4th class per grade, which will completely change everything about the way our school runs. No one knows what to expect though.

b. Matthew and Blair, two teachers from the English center at Hae Song, will be finished with their contracts. Describing the workings of the Hae Song English teachers can be a little tricky. First of all, there is Josh and Amee, (Amee replacing my good friend Ryan after he changed schools) who do a private after-school program we usually refer to as Okey Dokey. Then comes Matt and Blair, who have been at Hae Song for 8 months or so and have a couple left on their contract. They work out of the English center, each teaching to half the grades (Matt takes 2/4/6, Blair takes 1/3/5 or something like that) plus a couple of after-school programs themselves. I teach the official, by the book, English class. I am not too sure on the differences between responsibility but they work out of the English center and I work out of our official English classroom. Anyway, this has been sufficiently boring - the point is when they have finished their contracts, all these different classes will be up in the air and I have no clue how they will fall because there will most likely be two new English teachers to come in after.

So that's that. All I wanted to say was that school is canceled week. However, I decided to indulge a thinking aloud urge .. or a thinking composition if you will. Or just writing if you aren't into the whole brevity thing.

This past Weekend

2009-10-28T02:42:00.001-07:00

Hi all!

Sorry it has been so long since I have written anything. I have a few updates for everyone, but a day or so after my last post I got sick. This killed my writing aspirations for the week. Fortunately, I was able to rebound in time for this past weekend; the most exciting 24 hours of my life!! Though it might be phrased better if I say that I have not done as much crazy stuff in a 24 hour span.

I was invited by my Korean friend Hero to tag along with his University's English group for an overnight trip to Gangchon, just outside of Seoul (I think). Hero formed the English Club at his school, and I must say he did a darned-fine job. Originally there were over 80 applicants - so he had to do interviews to shave it down to a shade under 30 or so. The people he let in were picked mostly on their personality rather than strictly their English skill. It definitely showed because they were a really fun group of people. There were 22 Koreans along with 5 native English speakers invited along. Generally, he invites out some of his American friends to grab dinner and drinks and just speak English. This is great for a young chap like myself because they usually pick up the tab on the meal and drinks to thank us for going out. I would honestly do it for free, it is so much fun to be around them!!

Anyway, back to Gangchon. We left on a Friday night for a day of "mountain biking and bungee jumping" as it was pitched to me. How could I pass this up??

The 27 of us took 2 vans (which sat 11 apiece) and an SUV to get there for a trip that took roughly 2 hours with terrible traffic. I learned a lot of Korean travel games that will definitely come in handy. We drew tiny sandwiches for who would cook. Of the 27 sandwiches, 8 were packed with wasabi and the others were regular. Luckily, none of the Natives drew a sandwich packed with wasabi, especially after watching those who were unlucky trying to eat it! The ones who didn't have to cook kicked off the night by heading to a miniature carnival. It had 2-3 rides, a batting cage, and some cheesy games like throwing darts and shooting bee-bee guns. We went on "The Hurricane", a ride that works by spinning everyone in it from side to side while simultaneously spinning you around. It was tons of fun, and I have pictures of the whole weekend that should follow this post by no more than a day or two. The ride was rather tame in the grand scheme of things, but exciting enough to worry me about bungee jumping if I freaked out about this baby one.

It provided short lived food for thought because we ended up going home to a grand meal of Korean barbecue. In fact, they had four grills going at the same time. We had a nice long night! In fact, one of my new Korean friends, Nicholas, had such a great time that he couldn't find our lodging and ended up staying with a new set of Korean people he met that night. He actually went missing into the late morning the next day, but more to come on Nicholas in a bit !! ..

The next day we woke up early and hit the road. We got to the bungee jumping place, and then took an elevator up. It was only 25 meters high, so from the ground I was able to talk a big game about how weak it looked. However, things are always different judging by one's point of view. From up there, it looked hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Added to the scariness factor was that the floor was a steel see-through grate.
- 2 Quick Notes: It was not over a bridge (man made structure) and we were strapped up by our backs.
About 10 of us or so were up for it. All of the Americans, plus Hero and a handful of new Korean friends. *Reenter Nicholas* Nicholas, after the long forgetful night, was not feeling quite so well. He had me laughing the whole time because he did in fact go bungee jumping. While we were 25 meters in the air, nervously awaiting bungee jumping, Nicholas was asleep face down on the platform. He stayed asleep until it was his turn and as he stumbled off the platform to jump I swear he looked asleep and motionless the whole time. His limp, noiseless body bungee'ing around had me laughing pretty heavily.

I went third to last, and it was about as scary as anything I've ever done leading up to it. However, actually doing it was fantastic and I can't wait to go higher and connected at the ankles. I will probably be just as scared but it is about as fun as it gets.

We headed out to the place where we were supposed to go mountain biking. Still a little sick, and after a long night, mountain biking wasn't high on the priority list. When we got there, though, we had no trouble upgrading from a mountain bike to an 4-wheeler ATV. I mean, is this even a decision for people? The prices weren't that different. I don't get how anyone rents a mountain bike in good conscience with an ATV sitting RIGHT THERE next to it. I can't believe I have gone this far in life without driving one. It was awesome!!

2 hours on an ATV was the perfect way to close out my overnight trip. We ate a great lunch, hopped in our vans, and came back home. I managed to get to sleep around 8 PM that night and slept for a solid 14 hours or so. the nice things that come with an overnight trip vs. a full weekend sometimes can only be measured in sleep!!

The only negative about the whole weekend was that I saw my SK Wyverns force a Game 7 in the Korean Baseball Championship only to drop it to a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 9th against the Kia Tigers of Gwangju. To make matters worse, I have a bunch of friends in Gwangju and now I have to put up with whatever trash talk comes my way.

My cousin Steve should be arriving in Korea soon, and I will be visiting with him at some point next week. I am super psyched!!

Hope all is well with everyone - you are all in my head more than you know and I miss you guys dearly!! From my family to friends to Westwood, I wish you the best and appreciate all the emails I get from everyone!!

Baseball & Relaxation

2009-10-20T05:27:00.000-07:00

I am coming to you in this post a little aimlessly. I have no direct purpose for it, but I have gone so long without writing that I felt I ought to. So get ready, this should be good!!! *cue sarcasm, for my mom's benefit

Time has flown by since Chuseok. I have been having a great time the last few weeks despite coming under the influence of a bad cold just a few days ago. I think a trip to a Korean sauna is in the works; they are supposed to be quite wonderful (and cheap!).

I just got done watching my beloved SK Wyverns beat the Kia Tigers in Game 4 of the Championship series. We won 4-3, evening us at 2-2. The next 3 games will be played in Seoul. It is a bit of a strange format, with 2 games in Gwangju, 2 in Incheon and the remaining 3 (if necessary in this best-of-7) in Seoul. I won't complain though since Incheon is the little brother city and shouldn't have too much trouble flooding the stadium.

I have only been able to read up on the Horns recently. I was scheduled to go watch the RRS, (I refuse to call it the Red River Rivalry), but my phone died in Seoul that night and I was a little worried that I'd be in dire straits if I got lost going from the group of friends I was hanging out with to the friend watching the game that night. It was ugly, so I hear, but we won and that's all that counts.

School has been a series of highs and lows. With the enormous amount of time I have spent with kids in the past 8 years, I can't help but hold myself to high standards with this teaching gig. It is hard to realize that I have started something new in regards to some lesson plans being great and some being just OK. I want my students to be engaged at all times - and when they are in school for literally 12-14 hours a day, sometimes I just have to come to terms with the fact that they won't be running on all cylinders at all times. That being said, my immersion classes which I was originally stressing over are much improved. I see them 4 times a week (M,T,W,F), with a joint class for 1st and 2nd grade, 3rd and 4th grade, and a 5th grade class by themselves. I have been having trouble tailoring most of my teaching stuff to the 1st and 2nd graders, but the 3-4 and the 5 classes have been going really really well. My other half of teaching (the regular public school hours), along with the English courses I run for teachers, have been great too. If I can get the 1-2 class up to my standards, I will be about as happy as I can be for a new teacher 2 months into the job!!

For now though, I am off to Skype with my parents!! Hope all is well with everybody!! Hook Em!!

Oh and P.S.
I have been growing out a bit of a beard, mostly out of apathy after being sick and a little out of motivation for my Halloween costume (I am going as my friend Joe - there may be pictures of him up and I need to have some appropriate length for the sideburns!). Today, however, one of the teachers asked me if I hadn't shaved because I was so busy. This has shamed me enough into chopping off the beard tomorrow morning!

Let's kick some Ice

2009-10-19T15:46:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting for a while now for it to get cold, practically overdressing a few days in anticipation. Now it is finally here!! It is 40 degrees this morning, though it should warm up a bit throughout the day. For a Texan, this is as good as it can get. However, Mother Nature had to wait til I was sick before it changed on me. Yesterday it was cold and rainy, and I was rather miserable. I feel a bit better today and should be on the up-and-up.

btw the quotation is from Ah-nold, playing Dr. Freeze in Batman & Robin

More photos

2009-10-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

An album documenting the baseball games I went to, listening to the renowned Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and a few pictures from around SK.

pictures

Photos from School

2009-10-19T02:26:00.000-07:00

A few photographs I have taken around school, featuring a few of the kids I see most often!

pictures

Korean Music

2009-10-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

In case anyone has been curious what I have been jamming out to:

my favorite song thus far by the pop group Brown Eyed Girls:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlTqQjOJ7jk

another big hit right now, it's up on my list too, by 2NE1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MgAxMO1KD0

the nice thing about Korean music, is that it is so commercialized that there are only a handful of popular groups, so it is easy to learn and if you find yourself really liking a song you can take solace in the fact that you will hear it 10-20 times per day. If you dislike a song, you better learn to like it!!

Our school actually has a dance class for 1st - 4th graders, where they learn the choreography to all these pop hits. Watching them do the Abracadabra dance by Brown Eyed Girls (the arms crossed with the hip swivel) is probably one of my favorite things in the world. There are about 30 8 year olds doing these synchronized moves. It is by far the cutest thing in the world. In fact, I wasn't able to attend, but today we had a similar class just for teachers to learn the moves too, we take our dancing seriously at Hae Song Elementary!!

Chuseok Pt. 2

2009-10-09T04:56:00.001-07:00

My Busan adventure is undeniably quite shorter because my time there revolved more around who I was with rather than what I did. Ryan from OK stayed back in Jejudo, spending his whole vacation there (not a bad idea at all). Patrick, Sophia and I touched into Busan that early afternoon. On a random aside, most of the flight was dedicated to Patrick telling us his experiences on September 11th, in NYC. Pretty powerful stuff..

The 3 of us met up with my roommate from orientation, Neil from Boston. Neil and I seemed to be one of the few sets of roommates who grew quite close during our orientation there. In fact, he reads my blog, Hello Neil... Neil and I, it seems, spent our time doing different things - because while he has become quite adept and dedicated to his Korean, he isn't what I would call a master of geography. I, on the other hand, have spent a LOT of time aimlessly traveling around Incheon and as much of Seoul as I can, while forsaking much of my Korean language duties. I don't know about him, but I am certainly jealous of his new found skills!

I was able to see three different beaches during my time in Busan, hit up as close to a legitimate Mexican restaurant as I could find (see: burrito), walk around the closed Jalgachi fish market, and take some sweet photos from the top of Busan tower. We went to a "heliparty," which is a party on a helipad, and dancing after that. I think this was the let-loose portion of the vacation. I had a great time the whole way through, and managed to make my flight home on Monday without too much difficulty. You really can fly anywhere in Korea for about 50 dollars.

We also managed to watch a terrible terrible terrible terrible movie called "The Marine", terrible. It is about.. surprise surprise, a marine (the title was NOT spun in any metaphorical sense) who gets mixed up with some criminal masterminds midway through a jewel heist, or something.. I'm not exactly sure. What I am sure of is it has at least three scenes in which he jumps out of a building as it is blowing up - who could ask for more? I have already given up trying to explain to Korean people why these are bad movies. Michael Bay will always have home a Korea. Limited dialogue makes for good dubbing I guess, and they really like it when stuff gets "blowed up."

It's good to be back, and I am glad that I had a few hours before I got back into the rhythm of school. It has been a tiring week, but it is finally the weekend and I loved my first vacation!!

Chuseok Pt. 1

2009-10-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

I am splitting up my Chuseok (T-giving break) into two posts. I spent two days on the island of Jejudo, and two days in the city of Busan (pronounced Pusan). The Chuseok celebration for Koreans is definitely a big deal. The customs mostly revolve around a big feast, and it isn't always on the same day every year, a la Thanksgiving. However, it differs in that it is mostly focused on paying respect to one's ancestors. The highlight of Chuseok is the eating, but also the preparation of many foods - most notably songpyeon (rice cake). They are about the size of a dumpling, and vary in colors between white, pink and a dark green. Personally, I think they are just OK. Koreans go nuts over them though, and I heard they are fantastic when fried.

But, on actual Chuseok day, I ended up eating a burrito!! .. So let's get on to the vacation part!! In all seriousness, I just wanted to give you guys a brief intro to the holiday so you were aware of why I had time off and what it means to Koreans.

I left for Jeju on a ferry around 7 PM on Wednesday, September 30th. This means that I had about an hour and a half after school to get to this ferry, with the necessary stops of picking up a duffel bag, getting home and quickly packing clothes I had already set out, making a stop along the way at Juan Station, to pay for and pick up my repaired camera (hooray!), and pay off a cell phone bill. I was able to get the bag, pack, and pick up the camera - if you couldn't tell by the photos I uploaded. However, the cell phone bill fell by the wayside. Luckily, I was able to pay it off one day late without any charge. Anyhoo, made it to the ferry with enough time to get some necessary supplies for a 13 and a half hour ferry ride, you can use your imaginations as to figuring out my list!! I was travelling with my friends Patrick from NYC, Ryan from Oklahoma, and Sophia from Austin, TX. The boat deck was freeeeeezing, and our cabin, which had a maximum occupancy of 55 in a room built for 20, was about 88 degrees. Pick your poison! I am glad to report that I had no issues with sea sickness or anything like that; outside of the temperature, it was all smooth sailing. I got about 8 hours of sleep or so and woke up to us being pretty close to the island of Jeju. Picked up McDonald's for breakfast, of course, and hopped on an hour long bus to Seogwipo, the southern area of Jeju-do (as opposed to Jeju-si, the northern side of the island where the ferry brought us).

wikipedia page for Jeju-do:: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeju-do

They refer to Jeju as the "Korean Hawaii," and while I am fairly certain that Jeju is not in fact as nice as Hawaii, I have never been to Hawaii so I am rather easily impressed!! It is honestly beautiful. In terms of vacation spots in Korea, I can't see it getting much better than Jeju. Living there, as amazing as it is, might be tough in an area that small. Plus, being from Brownsville, I have already gone through the small town routine - granted, comparing Brownsville to Jeju is like comparing fire to ice ... I suppose I'd be the lukewarm water .. these go to 11!

One of the first things we wanted to see were the famous waterfalls. We told the cab driver to take us to the Cheonjiyeon watefall, in fact, we even pointed at the sign. However, he decided to take us somewhere else. It was about 100 yards from the waterfall entrance, but we entered where he took us and ended up taking a 2 hour tour or so around this mini island. It was beautiful, and that's where all my photos came from of the rocks and spiders on my facebook album. It really did rain ALL day long. We ended up finding the Cheonjiyeon waterfalls (pronounced Chon-che-yon with a Hispanic "o" sound). It was worth both the effort and walk. We saw a Mandarin duck, and found that huge bridge in this area too, where we got that coconut rolling from the photos. We also ate fresh, emphasis on FRESH, raw fish and breaded shrimp.

Later that night, we met up with some EPIK people stationed in Jeju. I knew none of them, but they were very friendly. They do a weekly potluck, where we were able to eat PB&J sandwiches, so good, and a few other treats from home. I was under the impression that night that it was around 2 or 3 AM when they decided to go to the karaoke bar. I ducked out and hit the sack early, and got close to 10 hours of sleep. The next day they informed me that I went to bed sometime around 11:30 PM, and it was not in fact 2 AM. Evidently, I can be a real party animal sometimes. Truthfully, the sleep on the ferry wasn't the most relaxing, and we went about 36 hours without a shower at one point, so I would have taken the sleep 10 times out of 10 even if I knew I was checking out a little earlier than the others.

The next day we hit the beach - this involves the photos where we buried Ryan in the sand and had that marvelous view of the Hyatt hotel. Being the noob I am, I went to one of the most outdoor specific areas in all of Korea and managed to omit taking a bathing suit or hiking boots. For the first time in my life, Evan the swim coach had to wear basketball shorts - I felt stripped of my armor with out a good jammer!! I did a little swimming, but for the most part the water was freezing and no one was interested in paying me for private lessons. We left the beach and did a bit more traveling .... wait a minute.. no no, THIS was the day I went to the aforementioned bridge. Anyway, I am too tired to go back and switch around the order of events, so just know that all these things happened and we can be a little relaxed with the specific order of events!!

Had a relatively quiet night the second go around. We made it out to a famous Western bar, which was a nice flashback to the good ol' US of A with the amount of English speakers. Our night was cut short because we jumped on a shuttle home, yes, this bar runs a free shuttle to take you where you live. The only downside is the driver enjoys speeds bordering on 90-95 MPH. You know those rides you sometimes take your baby on to help it fall asleep? This was NOT one of those rides. We compared it to the VR roller coaster back in Incheon, but coined it the AR coaster (Actual-Reality). The next morning we woke up, caught a bagel breakfast, and headed for the airport to Busan. The flight was great and only cost 52 dollars. I ended up meeting two people from Texas during my time in Jeju by the way, both older men who I managed to have relatively lengthy conversations with considering I was a young buck on the go.

Part 2 to follow!!

Photos from Chuseok are up!!

2009-10-05T07:13:00.000-07:00

The dirty details of the trip will come later, but here are the photos I was able to take. If you can't view them, let me know so I can host them somewhere else too!!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2755575&id=7935602&saved#/album.php?aid=2755575&id=7935602

Chuseok!!

2009-09-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

I will be out of school for Chuseok, like I mentioned earlier, this coming Wednesday through Monday. I will be going to the islands of Jeju for 2 days, and Busan for 2 days. My old roommate Neil, from the EPIK Jeonju orientation, lives in Jeonju - so I am pretty excited for him to show me the ropes. Busan comes highly recommended from just about every Korean. Jeju is supposed to be beautiful too!

I will be taking a ferry to Jeju, a trip lasting a little over 13 hours. I hope I don't get seasick!! The plan is to sleep for as much of it as I possibly can. The trips to Busan from Jeju, and back home to Incheon from Busan, will both be by plane. The rates are amazing here in Korea, I literally scheduled both flights in the past two days, and I am paying about 50 dollars for each flight. I definitely plan on cashing in on these cheap deals again! (Thanks, travelocity.com and Patrick, a buddy of mine from NYC, for showing it to me in relation to Korea).

The best chunk of news from today is that I will be getting my camera back right before my trip. In fact, I will be picking it up on the way to the ferry, so hopefully I will be back in the picture game with photos-a-plenty!!

I wish everyone a great start to October!!
P.S. I will let you guys know about the big Halloween party the EPIK teachers are planning as the dates get closer!!

Quick Update

2009-09-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

My last day of school this week is Wednesday. I will have the 1st, 2nd and 5th off of October, for Korea's Chuseok celebration. Chuseok is like the Thanksgiving of America but it is geared more towards honoring one's ancestors and probably a bigger deal here than T-Giving is in the States.

I haven't been very good the past few days about making new posts, but I will update you all my Chuseok travel plans soon. I will be heading to the Jeju islands along with Busan, so it will be a busy 5 days!!

This past weekend I was in Seoul on both Saturday and Sunday, and spent both days at the Dongdaemun Market. It is a giant shopping area where you can hit up the department stores, or go to the area where you can haggle. I opted for the .......... (sorry, I had to take a 5 minute break to go on a mosquito-killing binge) .. anyway, I opted for the clothing market where you haggle. It was a lot of fun!! I was a little worried I'd get taken but it ended up being OK, though I got much better rates on Saturday than Sunday.

Gotta go for now, class tomorrow in the early morning! I'll post soon on my upcoming travels.

They're Breakdance Fighting!!

2009-09-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday afternoon I ventured out to the Incheon Arts Center, which has a really neat setup, plus a lot of cool restaurants and a virtual-reality roller coaster. In fact, I could have probably skipped the rest of my vague description and just mentioned that it had a VR roller coaster, which makes it a hands-down awesome place to be. It's dirt cheap to ride it too, but I digress..

The specific reason I was out there was to catch a 2-day break dancing competition teamed with a graffiti exhibition. They had about 8 graffiti artists who had some incredible artwork going, along with a public board where anyone could grab hold of a can and spray whatever it is they chose to spray. I threw up an EPIK tag, not wanting to get too crazy considering it was both the first time I held a can of spray paint and actually used it too. The main attraction, however, were the B-Boys (break dancers). The B-Girls actually performed earlier today, so I wasn't able to catch it. Watching them dance live was .. incredible. There really isn't anyway to say it, but they had the whole crowd hooked. My favorite part was when the music would change, which I believe happened at random, and watching the dancers adjust to the new beat or tempo. Lots of times it would happen mid-dance, and if you watched their faces you could see for a split second them adjusting their moves to suit the song. They would change so fluidly, though, that you only caught it in an instant, and it only translated in their faces; their bodies would adjust seamlessly.

I actually got some video of a few dancers, and being the adventurous soul I am wandered over to the performers' side of the stage. My friend Ryan and I started talking up this dancer from the UK, and with very little prompting whatsoever, he tried to recruit us into the world of break dancing. He introduced us to a fellow named Daniel, who gave us his card and some strong encouragement to join up. They were all really nice people, and incredibly talented too. Learning to break dance wasn't necessarily the highest priority on my to-do list coming to Korea, but I have given it a little thought and I will continue to ponder the possibility for a few days before I join a "crew." I think that a lot of the EPIK'ers were pretty excited about the prospect of learning how to break dance though, so I may come back home with a newly found set of skills. We shall see!

It very well may be one of my favorite things I have been a part of since I have been in Korea. The population it attracted was almost as fun to watch as the actual dancers and graffiti'ers, because their fashion was always top notch. The setting was perfect too, because all this new-age art and dance was taking place in the midst of a pretty classic Korean scene. The old-Korea feel of our locale tied in so well with everything. I will try and get some of those pictures and videos up and running as soon as I can.

A Cheese by Any Other Name

2009-09-20T04:45:00.000-07:00

I take a special interest in linguistic humor. One of my favorite things about being in Korea are the products, expressions and titles that get lost in translation. For instance, just yesterday I was in a Lotte Department store, which is a biggggg shopping center (they have their own baseball team, to really give you an idea of the size), and stumbled across the exit during my search for the food court. It read, verbatim, "This exit is the doorway to life." Pretty heavy stuff.... I managed to take a photo of it on my cell phone, but I accidentally deleted it when I was trying to show it to some friends. I know that I will be back in the area, though, so the next time I am there I will try and get another photo of it - I mean, it is the doorway to life and all.

However, that was just an example of the odd things that get tossed onto products or signs. My favorite thus far came while I was grocery shopping. My list was short, but I definitely needed the essentials (bread, meat, cheese, mayo) because I am a sandwich man. I had every item on my list completed save the cheese by the time I meandered towards the wine section. There are a lot of pretty good wines here and most of it comes on the relative cheap too, but what caught my eye were the snacks that go along with the wine, namely the cheese and crackers. The cheese here is pretty expensive, it being a rarity and all, so my selections were limited to two types (keep in mind these were paired with wine!), American cheddar cheese and American white cheddar cheese. The labels read as follows:

- Well Being Cheddar Slice Cheese
and
- Orange Cheddar Slice Cheese II

Yes, there was literally the roman numeral for "2", so obviously I was curious where "1" was. Needless to say, I went with the well-being variation (the white American cheese), and it has treated me quite well so far! One of the reasons I have enjoyed my time here, among the many, is that all the drab endeavors in America have become little adventures of their own in Korea!

Some Pictures - All Borrowed!!

2009-09-15T05:24:00.001-07:00

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2745268&id=7935602&saved

even if you are not on fbook, you should be able to access these. Let me know if you can't.

Back in Seoul!!

2009-09-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

I had a much better experience the second go around in Seoul! We went to the 63rd tower, which is a huge gold skyscraper. The view rivals the N. Seoul Tower, but the 63rd has an art exhibit at the top too. It was a lot of fun, and it is always amazing to see Seoul from that far up.

After that, we headed down to the Seoul City Hall area, where they had an outdoor orchestra playing Beatles songs, the 007 theme (there is a video of my pretending to be James Bond, hoping that doesn't make it to the internet), and Oye Como Va. In fact, the band came to the place we caught dinner after their show so they were pouring in towards the end of our meal. We went to a smaller club where they had a few live shows, reminiscent of Austin.

We took a cab back this time around, and believe it or not it only comes with about a 5.50 fare to get from Seoul back to Incheon, so no waiting for the first train at 5:30 AM anymore!! However, my friend Ryan wants to hit a sauna one of these nights in Seoul and take the first train back one more time, so I think I might join in on that because the saunas are supposed to be pretty cool, and cheap!

Pictures to come soon I promise!

Hey Ya'll

2009-09-14T03:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of photo updates.

I think I mentioned earlier that my camera broke at the end of orientation. I dropped it a grand total of a foot and that was all she wrote. In fact, and don't ask me how, ten minutes after that I managed to spill mustard on all sides (front, side and with the aid of my elbow I even got my back) of my favorite white polo - my 4th grade habits are coming back to haunt me I suppose. It's a small part of my life I wish I could take back.

Anyway, I took my camera into a Canon shop - and actually got it set up to be fixed by only knowing how to say "Dowa juseyo?" (can you help me?), "yes," and some serious acting skills where I mimed dropping my camera and it exploding. It should take about a week or so from this past Friday, and I will be uploading an album of photos I downloaded from my friends, but some originals are on the way as soon as I get my camera back, I can't wait!!

Back at school again today, which feels great, because on Thursday and Friday I actually spent the day doing voice recordings in a pretty expensive sound studio. I had official leave from school, so I got to spend those two days saying things like "Is this your cap?," "No, my cap is red," and "How many pigs do you have?" I actually broke out laughing twice, so in two days of repeating some pretty ridiculous stuff, I think I did a good job. Either this semester or next, when the students take the official English tests, they will be hearing my voice from grades 3-6. It was quite the experience!!

Seoul Adventure

2009-09-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday I was finally able to make it out to Seoul for the first time!!

In this story though, the good comes with the bad as well. I might have gotten my first true taste of culture shock, ironically in one of the more internationalized cities in Korea (how did I get through Jeonju, reputed as one of the most classically Korean cities, without any odd encounters!!). The train was actually great and the ride there was fantastic. I expected the trip to last close to an hour, but it really only took us about half that. Low expectations for travel turned into a rather pleasant surprise.

The five of us who came into Seoul that day happened to all have a pretty late night on Friday, so we were all lacking some energy. We did however run into some friends we hadn't seen since orientation, and that gave us a second wind of sorts.

The only tourist-y thing we did that day was to visit the N. Seoul Tower (it is incredible!! I'll have some photos on fbook soon but there are some tagged of me already). The bus driver was incredibly cranky though and was yelling pretty harshly at us in Korean to be quiet; we had a friend with us who speaks fluent Korean who was able to act as translator. He was actually on a rant for the duration of the whole bus ride up the hill, going on about how foreigner tourists are terrible. It is worth noting that he picked an interesting form of employment considering his disdain for us (a bus driver on a route of probably the biggest tourist attraction in Seoul). But!, we were in the wrong and we pretty much quieted down when we figured out he was aiming his rant at us. No big deal, we moved on quietly and forgot about it for a while.

The tower was amazing by the way, and it purports to have the best view from a bathroom in the world, and I believe it!! I bought some postcards along the way as well. Outside of my friend Joe, we all skipped out on the adjoining teddy bear museum. It was strange that the TB museum was more than going into Seoul tower, but only later did I find out it was Korea's history via teddy bears, complete with breakdancing TB's (a return visit is in order!!). We made our way down the hill, onto a new bus with a much gentler driver and into the subway....

but then!! A friend of mine named Ramsey actually got caught in the subway door as it was closing. We had to pry the thing open, and it ended up closing on him twice with the first one landing on his neck. Although it was a pretty scary event, we did end up getting the door open and him in without tooooo much trouble. However, enter Rant #2: An older Korean gentleman was reaaaaaaaaaaaallly not happy that we caused this scene and proceeded to go on a fairly mean spirited rant about how we should have split up and had some people wait for the next train. This would have actually been a fine idea if any of us knew where we were going (if you are lost in a big city, don't split up!!). He gave us some means looks along the way and gave us all a stink-eye. This one was a little bit more frustrating because our predicament had no adverse effects on anyone else and we delayed the train's departure by about 20 seconds tops. I was well aware coming into Korea of the power of age, but I let a little Americana slip out anyway. I didn't fight the 75 year old man and I certainly didn't say anything to him either, but I maintained eye contact with him until he looked away when his gaze came my way (I regret this a little now, because I have been so good about falling into Korean etiquette, but it happened and I can't go back in time). A lot of our frustration really came from remembering the experience on the bus. Most of us tried to keep to ourselves but we were yelled at anyway.

Luckily, a decent dinner put us back in tiptop shape. Let's fast forward a few hours because not much happened from here to there, outside of us deciding to catch the first train back in the morning (5:30 AM) rather than the last train out at night (10:30 PM) - bad idea! We ended up at a dance club for a while but were through with that by 2 PM and had some time to kill.

Time to kill.... enter me getting hit by a car!!
And I will say that I have only played it up because the actual story pales in comparison to the technical translation. We were walking down to a convenience store down a narrow road when a car came up behind us and happened to clip me in the side. I bounced off of it like a pinball and was about 1000x more confused than I was injured. It didn't hurt, but it really caught me off guard. In all actuality, I probably would have destroyed the tiny car before the car destroyed me, but I can now check that off my to-do list - getting hit by a car! I actually happened to have to walk next to the car, which was already doing about 2 MPH, for a good block or so, which is as every bit awkward as you might imagine!

On a side note, I was blown away by how many Americans there were that night! We were in Hongdae-Seoul, a huuuuuge place for foreigners, but there were times where the English speakers outnumbered the Koreans. It was less than ideal, because I have really enjoyed being one of the few Americans engulfed in a sea of Koreans.

All in all, it wasn't my ideal trip to Seoul, but I'd put the odds on favorite that I might be back as soon as next week. I know it is an amazing place, I think I might have just gotten less than an amazing experience (though the car thing was actually a pro, not a con). I should probably add that despite the few crazy events, it all pales in comparison to how amazing this country and how much neat stuff there is around me. I am sure I will get a decent share of both good and bad throughout my year, but I will say that the good outnumbers it 10 to 1.

I'm out!! G'night everyone!

I've Got a Confession!!

2009-09-09T03:09:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this post by saying that throughout all my McDonald's eating years, I had never experienced the Big Mac (Whaaaaaaaaaaat!?? Yes, it's true).

I have actually been eating there a lot more than I would have hoped for. I maybe catch it for a meal every other day, causing me great shame. I do need to go back to my first point in my defense however. I contest that my new-found reliance on McD's has less to do with American tendencies than it does with the realization that I love Big Mac's. It is just ill timing that I discover this while in a different country. The Big Mac is the only non-Korean altered item on the menu, so I got it at my lowest, but it turns out that I love it. I firmly believe that if I lived in the States I would still be on a huge McDonald's kick. Anyway! I thought I'd toss that out there and have a little fun with it before I got onto the next post about getting hit by a car!!!

Mailing Address

2009-09-07T02:24:00.000-07:00

I am using my school's mailing address:

Incheon Hae Song Elementary
Evan W. Daniel
9-27 Songdo-Don, Yeon'su-Gu, Incheon
South Korea

as far as postage goes, I have no clue. By the way, I am posting off the internet I just got in my apartment, hooray!

Living Conditions

2009-09-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

A quick note to where I am living and how I am doing it!! My
apartment, which initially seemed to be the one bad aspect of my
EPIK experience, has become almost endearing with time. It is not the
biggest (though not the smallest I've seen either!!), and I possess no
air conditioning or internet (I get my fridge in about an hour
though!), but it has grown on me a bit and with the windows open and a
pretty decent fan I picked up, I can handle the warm conditions. It
will be winter soon enough anyway, though then I will be dealing with
heating issues!! I hear, though, that the Koreans use a floor heating
method that is actually quite convenient and well thought out.
Apparently the steam and temperature is used from hot water to heat
the floor above yours, so I should be able to make it through the
winter OK. I am actually rather excited about it, since being from
Texas I could use a little variety.

I live north in my neighborhood, and caught a big break by living off
of the Woninjae subway station, so I don't have much of a commute and
I can travel pretty easily from place to place. I have friends who
have 30 minute bus rides/walks just to get to the subway, so I
definitely caught a break. I am about 6 stops south of main downtown
nightlife, and 4 or so north of my school, so I can't complain.

I forgot to mention something! My camera broke, so the pictures have
stalled, but I have a backup plan up and running so hopefully I will
have access to some pictures from my travels sooner rather than later.
The only good note is that with no more moving around (airport to
orientation to placement), nothing is really going anywhere. I have
been looking for a camera repair shop, so I am hoping to deal with
this problem quickly!

I have actually typed out all 4 of these new posts consecutively, so
at this point I can't tell if I have fingers or not. I think I might
leave off here! Today was actually the second anniversary of my
school, so I already have a day off, hence being at a PC Bang at 4:00
PM my time!!

I am thinking about you all always, and I would love to hear from you all!!