Poor Young Things: July 2007

It's Seoul Time!

Monday, July 30, 2007

We finally made it to Seoul yesterday. This is a good story, so here we go.

We found out from LJ and Minsoo that the closest train station to us is Dongam Station. So, yesterday afternoon, we decided to be adventurous and give it a shot. We hopped a green bus to Dongam Station, which you can see below, and found it with no problems.

Once in Dongam Station we encountered a watch seller. For a country that's rather technologically advanced, I found this watch hilarious. Look below and click it for a big version. Is there something wrong, I wonder, with a digital thermostat, or is this an artistic statement? This thing was big and took up most of my palm. Very cyberpunk. I expect to find a watch that runs on a steam engine attached to your arm next time we go there.

We got on Line 1, which stops....a lot of places. Look at the map below. This is an overview of the entire train system. Luckily, all the directions (written and verbal) are in Hangul, English and Chinese.

So, thanks to my brother's advice and information we made it to Iteawon -- the international district of Seoul -- after about an hour and ten minutes on the train (including some transitions).

When we say international, we mean it. There were hordes of English speakers here. There was a Starbucks ($16 for a bag of whole beans), a McDonald's, a Burger King, and English bars galore. Below are some of the highlights of what we saw. First, the Aussie Shop. We didn't go in, but there is no American Shop, or England Shop, so we thought this was pretty cool.

This one is for my dad. Check this out:

Among all the great things we saw there, this was by far the best. Here was authentic Mexican food. Real re-fried beans, real sour cream, real limes in the Corona, real sopapilla, real everything. It was awesome.

We finished the evening there, at the Mexican place, with our new Scottish friend, Arleen. During the day, we met Arleen and Lisa, two Scottish girls who have been over a little over a year and live and teach in Seoul. They were great! They cam and drank with us at the English bar, Gecko's, then Arleen had dinner with us. We have plans to all get together here at the apartment, drink soju and watch movies. Hopefully, we're all meeting up on 8/11 for a DJ night in the Hyehwa district.

But I digress, the story isn't over. So, the trains run until about 11:30 pm. At 10:30...with plenty of time ...we boarded the train to go home. But we goofed. We didn't tranfer to the Incheon track of the #1 line (think of the way the Marta North line splits for Doraville and Sandy Springs). We backtracked to Guro station, but the trains had stopped. And we were a good 30 minutes from home. Great. We don't know the bus routes, we have SOME cash left, and we know our address. So we stood outside Guro station essentially bargained with taxi drivers to take us home for $20. But know we know! It had to happen once, and its good to get it out of the way.

Anyway, what we did get was this cool little keepsake: a traditional Korean pipe made of brass and bamboo.

This Post Is For Tom K. And Barry H.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Tom and Barry, I think I might shrink this down and make it my new Gmail picture ;-p. I thought you would enjoy this.

PS: We're going to Seoul on Sunday so I'll post a lot Sunday night!

Brought to you by...

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Tonight, to honor all the English tea-
We'll return to our regularly scheduled blog after these messages:

Thirsty? Feeling rundown? Needing a boost? You've tried the other sports drinks, but don't settle for second best. Other drinks, no matter what they may advertise are merely artificial concoctions that attempt to re-introduce needed materials into the human body. In this day and age, don't go artificial, go natural! YES! Why use man-made products when we bottle pure biological goodness: the stuff the body needs from the body itself!

When you need a boost, get it from new Pocari Sweat! The best sweat from the best Pocari's.

We now return to the blog already in progress:

-at T.G.I. Friday's! Can you believe it? A Friday's here. The school director bought us whatever we wanted, and we wanted a good bit. Medium rare New York Strip, a rack o' ribs (real BBQ sauce thank God), fries, Corona, and on and on. We're stuffed and feel great. It will be a necessary thing to eat once a month to keep my pallet sound.

Tonight's lesson in Korea is about soju (click that link for the wikipedia article). Much like sake in Japan, but better tasting, soju is Korea's national drink. It's 20% alcohol, and distilled from rice, sweet potatoes, and tapioca, among other things. At roughly 90 cents per 12 oz. bottle it's the cheapest drink in the country, and roughly 3 billion bottles are consumed per year.

Well, all this American food made me think of home, so for the reminder of our time here I will be posting some blast-from-the-past pictures.

Begin Sequence

And this is one of the happiest, best pictures of my family ever:

PS: A thank you to all who have commented on the posts till now. It means a lot to know you read and care enough about our situation to say something: Brandy, Katherine, Barry, and Eric!

take your time, think a lot, think of everything you've got

Fear & Loathing In South Korea

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I don't remember too many summers in my life. I remember fragments of all of them, smashed together, like one long run-on sentence. I can see an afternoon of swimming when I was seven next to riding bikes when I was thirteen. It's all difficult to sort out, except one summer. When I was seventeen, and on my way to being a senior in high school, I used my summer to go work for Word of Life in their STC (Summer Training Corp.) program.

Word of Life, for those that don't know, is an evangelical ministry and Bible College that operates out of New York. They also run two summer camps for youth: one in New York and the one I worked at in Florida. They ran this program that let people like myself come stay in a cabin for 3 months doing some kind of duty. I was maintenance. I mowed lawns, and that was way better than washing dishes, believe me. The pay was minimal to non-existent. The camp emphasized the discipleship opportunities the workers would be involved in as a selling point. Looking back now, I see that as shrewd business to say to a bunch of well-meaning young Christians, "Hey, we'll pay you in God." Thing is, God don't pay no bills. Ah, well. It worked out for the best.

But this isn't about the institution itself. It might be a fine place, but it's not a place I would attend anymore. They are a tad, let's say, small minded. Still, that summer was great for many reasons, but out of the entire thing 2 memories stick out more than any other: my father dropping me off, and my father coming to visit. At that time, I hadn't yet spent any significant time away from home. I was scared to death, and yet nothing could have been healthier than to stick me in a place I didn't know and make me mow lawns for 3 months with strangers.

I distinctly recall him driving me to Florida. I was scared out of my wits. I don't remember any of the trip, or any of what we talked about, but I do remember we went to a flea market the day we got there. We went, we walked around, and that was it. But it stuck in my head. When he finally left, I cried -- at 17, yes. But I adjusted, and then I remember, half-way through the summer, he came back. He showed up again to stay for one night. As an adult, I now understand that he drove a long ways, and spent a lot of money, only to turn around and go back 24 hours later, but I know he did it more for me than for him. That's a nice memory to have. It was nice, at 17, to feel safer in my strange, temporary Florida world simply because my father was showing up. It was like home was coming to visit me, and all the security that a father can embody was coming also.

But what do we do when we get to be adults ourselves and we don't have other people to take the fear of life away from us? How does one deal with the pressure of the fact that you must simply go on, day after day, with no relief. Parents don't get a sick day from their kids. Husbands, as I believe, don't get to quite their wives and find a new one. Mothers and fathers all over America are doing things they dislike and yet they must come home, day after day, with the strength of will to be kind, generous, and loving. When things get scary, there is no one person there, like my parents were, to make you feel safer.

The Word of Life summer has helped my attitude about this trip. Mowing lawns, first of all, was not fun. Likewise, the job here is difficult, but difficult is what you make it. I really never expect to enjoy my job -- most people never get what they want --, but I do expect myself to behave in a generous manner toward my family despite what my job is. So far my success rate is pretty low, but it's one of the primary goals I have for my life. Secondly, I wish I had kept in touch with more friends. "The older I get the more things I have to leave behind", said Rocky in (the surprisingly good) "Rocky Balboa." That's a sad fact. The moral is, take lots of pictures. Write things down. Record everything. Lastly, where do I go when I'm truly afraid? It can't be kept all inside forever. I think that's what Liz is for now, and vice versa.

PS: Before my film credentials get pummelled here, "Rocky Balboa" was, to every one's amazement (including mine), not utter crap. The L. A. Weekly review said: "What gives Rocky Balboa its unexpected pathos is the titanic humility of Stallone's performance, the earnestness with which he plays a man knocked down (but not out) by the ravages of time." It's true, actually. Stallone's acting in this film is the best he's done since the original "Rocky," one of the best films of the 70's. Its major flaw is that it's so obviously working to redeem the franchise from II, III, IV and V, but, that aside, it's not a bad 2 hours.

Serious Sci-Fi Is Back

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Before you read, you must check out these t-shirts. You'll laugh. Maybe you won't. I did.

Ok, now onto the content:

Danny Boyles is a British director who has made a career out of making what most critics call "genre twisting" films. To American audiences he is best know for making Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and the follow up film 28 Weeks Later.

Now, he's back with a sci-fi film. In his words: "Hard-core sci-fi has gone out of fashion, hasn't it? There was a strong strain of it into the '70s that tried to depict space realistically, but it's been replaced. Alien, one of the great masterpieces, was quickly followed by Star Wars. And Star Wars, of course, led everyone to fantasy sci-fi, that playground where anything goes. You can imagine any creature, on any planet. And they all talk English."

That excites me! His attention to detail and rules is what made 28 Days Later head and shoulders above other films in its genre. Sci-Fi movies like Alien, Solaris, Serenity, and 2001: A Space Odessey -- films that are masterpieces and follow very real rules -- are few and far between. I'm excited about this, and wanted to inform all of you in case you like sci-fi. It opens in South Korea in April. You can read Wired's article and watch the trailer here.

Freakonomics Findings: Crime and Abortion Rates

The economist Steven D. Levitt, the academic whose findings are the source of the book Freakonomics, specializes in crime statistics and finding correlations between crime rates, habits, and the demographic data of criminals.

In the wake of the falling crime rate, experts and journalists listed seven major reasons. Here they are, in order:

1) Innovative policing strategies
2) Increase reliance on prisons
3) Changing in drug markets
4) Aging of the population
5) Tougher gun control laws
6) A strong economy
7) Increase in number of police

According to Levitt, only 3 of these can statistically be shown to have done anything (though I forgot which three). Unsatisfied with these answers he went on to write a paper that would win him recognition and also create controversy. His idea is so unique, I had to talk about. In short, he credits the drop in crime, at least half of it, to Roe vs Wade.

I find this idea so interesting, I wanted to write about, link directly to the paper, and read it for myself.

Here is the paper's abstract:
"We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization. The 5 states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime."

Here is a link to the paper itself:
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime[PDF]

Levitt has commented on his own paper, saying:
"The numbers we're talking about, in terms of crime, are absolutely trivial when you compare it to the broader debate on abortion. From a pro-life view of the world: If abortion is murder then we have a million murders a year through abortion. And the few thousand homicides that will be prevented according to our analysis are just nothing—they are a pebble in the ocean relative to the tragedy that is abortion. So, my own view, when we [did] the study and it hasn't changed is that: our study shouldn't change anybody's opinion about whether abortion should be legal and easily available or not. It's really a study about crime, not abortion."

A Big Weekend

Sunday, July 15, 2007

What a fun weekend. First, yesterday we had dinner with all the teachers and got to hang out more with our last and newest English speaking teacher. Greg is 42, from Australia, and a photographer (yeah!). He really seems like a great guy. He's a Christian and was very open about his past life. He's been clean from drugs, alcohol, and surliness for about 12 years now. We're looking forward to him being here. He's a no-nonsense kind of guy.

Below is Liz with Christine, Elly, and Lauren. The male Korean Teacher (Jay) was off on a date and couldn't make it (click any picture for a bigger version).

Liz and I with some Soju...

Then we all went to karaoke. I started the night off with a rousing rendition of "Daniel" by Elton John.

Elly is a good singer, and loves the American band 4 Non Blondes, believe it or not.

Greg helps me out for Johnny B. Goode.

The percussion section:

Liz and I sang a Backstreet Boys song together, among others.

Lauren sang a funny Korean dance tune at the very end.

Sunday Minsoo and LJ took us to a place called Pu-Pyong in an effort to teach us the very basics of the bus system. Pu-Pyong is a quick 25 minute bus ride away and has a teaming section called Culture Street. There's a Bennigan's, an Outback Steakhouse, two movie theaters, lots of fancy, cool bars, shops galore, tons of people, and an American Style Bar called Goose Goose. We saw "The Transformers" and I met an Irish guy who is also here teaching English at another school. He invited me to Goose Goose with them every Friday and Saturday night. I don't have any pictures of it, but we stepped inside to check it out and they carry American beer, Australian beer, and all the wines and liquor we're used to. Liz and I can't wait to go back (even though no one in the bar spoke English).

This store, although expensive, plays American Hip-Hop and sells American style "vintage" clothes.

They took us to a really great Korean restaurant where we got this "traditional" dish the four of us split. It was chicken (still on the bone) soaked in this soy type sauce and served with rice noodles. Very good.

Here's Liz with them on the bus. The pole hid Minsoo's face.

I am one step closer to completing my old man look with the purchase of this awesome hat! The hats I brought are either all wool or thick cotton and I can't wear them without sweating a gallon. This woven hat is the ticket. In two weeks Minsoo and LJ want to take us to an authentic Korean town. They even brought us their student bus passes to use since they have others. The bus passes are rechargeable at specific locations. They're such generous guys (I paid for their movie to try to say thank you) that we hope they're having fun too.

Oh, I'm listening to an audio book right now: Freakonomics: Revised & Expanded. It's interesting. It's good. Ever heard of it? It's an economists view on cause and effect in our free market. For example, if drug dealers make so much money, why do the majority of them live with their mothers? Is it more dangerous, statistically, to have a handgun or swimming pool at your house? Two chapters are entitled:

Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education (instead, the authors assert that it is what the parents are, not what they do, that makes a difference)
Chapter 6: The socioeconomic patterns of naming children (or why do black parents give their children names that will adversely effect their job opportunities?)

The $12 Bottle of Guiness & Music

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

No new happenings here in Korea aside from a funny bar experience. I'll get to that in a minute.

Right now, let's talk about music. I love music. It's hard enough to find good music in the States, but here it's doubly hard, so when I found Aurgasm I was immediately thrilled. This is one amazing music blog, and includes full song samples. This guy posts the absolute best pop, folk, indie, electronic, jazz-fusion and downbeat stuff from around the world. His commentary is great too *gasp*. Think of it as the Penny Arcade for music.

I also am getting into French folk fusion. If you like the work of French composer Yann Tiersen (he did the "Amelie" movie soundtrack) you will like Detektivbyrån.

Intermission: looky what we found...

Now, back to our program. The cost of shipping things over here prohibits anything from being shipped over here. So if you want to ever buy us something, I mainly go for music, books or movies. Here's my early list:
Budos Band
Night Ripper
Duets

Anyway, the funny bar experience. It amounts to that it cost me $12 for one bottle of Guiness and I bought two. I couldn't read the menu and who thought it would be $12 for Irish beer? On top of that, the bartender lady never left where I was. Her job was to stand there, talk to me, and drink when I drank -- which mean I was supposed to pour her some of Guiness, my worth-its-weight-in-gold Guiness. The place was swank though. Like European swank with modern interior design, and jazz-fusion playing over the speakers. We're going back for a big date sometime for sure. Everyone in the bar, men included, would turn and wave at me across the bar for no real reason (so would the bartenders actually). It was definitely a higher class of people then we normally see around where we live.

I leave you with some more shots of the few blocks around us we've gone to:

Editorial

Monday, July 09, 2007

Koreans Are Teasing Me by Marvin H. Squibb

Hi. My name is Marvin H. Squibb. I never did write in this newspaper before. I try to stay on pretty strict alcohol regiment to keep my mind limber for my work, and that can often impair the ability to coagulate complex concepts. Hey, that was three C's in a row. Cool.

But this time I just couldn't read the funnies and then wipe. I had an issue. An internashunal issue to discuss, and I knew it was time to use my skills and write in.

Dear reader, look ye below. Dost thou see, verily, a piece of bread? Might thou sayest unto me, as one would to Jesus, the guy who bowled so well in The Big Lebowski, "Verily, I see-ist not only bread, yeah, I see garlic bread." And I would say unto you, hell yeah garlic bread! But forsooth, it is a rouse, like the French broadcasting commercials on American TV to visit their tiddlywink of a country.

I bought this piece of bread in good faith. Longing for a taste of home, and excited for the thrill my taste buds would receive upon biting into the garlicky, tart, sour goodness, I handed over my money only to find I was deceived, possibly by a communist. Dear Koreans, please, for the sake of the U.S./Korean alliance, stop making everything sweet. Sugar goes on your Frosted Flakes, just like mom used to make after her fifth cigarette when I woke up. It does not simply go everywhere else because you happen to have a lot of it. Be American, like me, and put it in people's tail pipes or in your dog's food bowl (man, that was funny). Those are both great places for sugar. But I can't tell you how to be American with your sugar, that's what makes America America, you can be American however you want. So when you start having really non-sweet, Italian foods, then you'll be American. It's as easy as 1, 2, C.

Might I partake in a bit of an analogy here? I do have two whole columns to fill up my parole officer said. My grandfather, Korea, fought for you in the 50's, back when the Great Depression was happening and the Write Brothers had invented the ballpoint pen and something that flies. At the least, he was somewhere in the U.S. army at the time so that makes him involved even if it was undiract--...indeeric---...even if his involvement wasn't, you know, involving. Anyway, seeing as how my grandfather (possibly) might have shed his sweat, blood (unlikely), tears (maybe), thoughts (probably) for you it seems you can do a little bit to give back. Haven't you ever seen the Godfather or any of the subsequent mafia media that it spawned? Haven't you ever been to that great little Italian joint on the corner of 5th and Maple in New York on a Fall's evening and ordered the lasagna from the waiter named Joe? I was breaking parole, but man was it worth it. You should too. Trust me. Time in the Big House is nothing compared to that stuff, and you guys are smaller than us so the Big House is probably much more comfortable. Don't make me write my congressperson about this.

New Korean Friends

Sunday, July 08, 2007

In one of my posts I mentioned we happened to meet two nice Korean guys at the Tiger Hof bar. They've actually started to become pretty good friends. Tonight, they came over (with their portable grill), brought food, and cooked us up some Korean BBQ. Their names are LJ and MinSoo.

In the pic

ture with me is LJ on the left in the brown shirt, and Minsoo is on the right in the grey shirt. There's Minsoo holding up his shot glass of Soju in the picture with Liz. He told us a Korean proverb states that if you drink Soju alone, you will die alone. That's incentive enough for me to keep inviting them over.

Minsoo even brought us a Korean router tonight. For only $35 we got a Belkin wireless router (my Linksys in the U.S. cost me around $75). That's cheap enough to leave here if we have to. Even though the browser interface to the router is in Korean I was able to navigate, even to the point of successfully setting a password. The bad news is, I seem to have misspelled m

y password and now I can't get back into my router. Oh well. It still sends a signal and if I need to reset it, well, I can read the word RESET BUTTON on the back.

Next Sunday they're coming back over to show us how to buy a bus card, ride a bus, and take the subway. We're going to a section of Incheon called --- errrr.....I have no idea how its spelled, but it sounds like Ping-Pong or Pu-Pyong or something. Anyway, its where the young people hang out and where the theaters are.

Anyway, both LJ and Minsoo are studying to be computer technicians if I understand their degree correctly. Actually, they'll be more like engineers, chip designers, etc. Semi-conductors and other electronic components comprise the bulk of South Korea's exports so that's their field. Unfortunately, they said its very hard to get a job in Korea right now. The market is apparently saturated, and thus many Koreans are learning English to go abroad.

It's work time again tomorrow for us and we're still on the tail end of the sickness. Wish us well and we miss you all!

Picture Perfect

We're still sick, but slowly getting better. Today was our first full day off since we started and that helped. Last night, we had to buy a mattress pad and some other necessary things, and we discovered there's a market not one block from our apartment. Here are some pictures we got from it. First, the artsy photos. We'll get some of these matted and framed when we get back.

Here's the market below. It has shops of every possible kind. Yes, those are mini-squid in that little yellow box.

We got little slurpees for .30 cents!

What Have We Learned Today?

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

It's hard to break down everything we've talked about, prayed about, and thought about during the last several days.

First, we learned we didn't eat beetles. We ate silk worms. Second, we've learned that we the mattresses here (hard as a rock) might feel nice on our back for two nights or so, but they're killer for longer than that. Third, we've learned it gets light in Korea around 5:30am and our bodies are used to waking up with the light. That's going to take a while to adjust too. Fourth, we learned that where there are kids, there are germs. We're both fighting off colds. As usual, I had one really bad day and I seem to be getting over it. Liz will take longer -- sometimes up to a week.

Lastly, we learned that the hard parts seem to be over. Their version of "training" is throwing us in without a life jacket and waving as we dog paddle frantically. It's working. There really is no better way to learn. I already know my student's names, who works, who doesn't, who I like, who I just have to tolerate, which classes I like, which I don't. I really only have one class I simply don't like, but that's the nature of the game.

My favorite class so far is called ICB2. I have them Monday and Thursday nights from 9:10pm to 9:50pm. There are five students, all between 14 and 15, and they have been in an English school since nearly kindergarten (you can always tell who has, their listening comprehension and pronunciation skills are the highest). I'm burning them each a CD of American music styles they like (hardly any rock -- for shame! -- mostly R&B, hip-hop and pop), and am considering having us all meet for an American movie (it's my way of justifying paying for The Transformers. Any movie directed by Michael Bay needs an accompanying excuse).

It's up in the air right now whether a few of my classes will like me or not. I have some smart kids, but they have had bad experiences with past foreign teachers and haven't taken kindly to me laying down the law. They're accustomed to doing what they want when they want, but since I'm not here to be there friend, I'll just have to control them and get the job done no matter what.

Well, I'll say this for Korea: it's safe, the music is WAY better than Japan (I've actually heard some Korean metal and rap that's actually pretty good. Have you ever heard Japanese rap? Gag me), and the people are nice as hell.

When I start getting pictures of my classes I'll post them. We have a informal plan with our Korean co-teachers to go to Karaoke next Saturday night. Yeah! My Johnny Cash is up to snuff!

+AA-

PS: for you music lovers out there: one of the best rock albums of the 2000's is Green Day's "American Idiot," and the unauthorized mash-up American Edit is great. Download it. It's free and it rocks hard core! If you like mash-ups, the best mash-up ever is Girl Talk's "Night Ripper." That album you have to buy from Amazon (or dowload from a BitTorrent site) but its incredible.

Don't Let's Be Upset...Let's Be Mild

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Fun with Korean products! Shopping is fun here because it's like a grab bag. Here I am, thinking we're buying soy milk. But are we? Who knows!

For whatever reason, Koreans can't make a cup of coffee to save their life, but they love cold coffee in these little tin cans. Remember, when one gets stressed, just Be Mild.

This coffee tastes, well, okay is a good word. I miss Waffle House coffee. Either they burn their beans here when they roast, or they put in too much sugar. Its nearly impossibly to find whole or ground coffee beans -- everything is instant. Water is pretty precious here (everything is bottled, the tap is undrinkable), so my guess is that making coffee fresh is just too expensive in terms of water usage. Next we have an example of their cute little Coke cans. Everything here is skinny and tall.

But the most fun can be had at a clothing store. Liz bought some little bootie socks that advise us to "Thank Apple Love Happy." Sage advice, my friends. And for the boys, I found this gem:

Nothing says gangster culture like 75 Years And Look Great. That's one old rapper, and man does he, indeed, Look Great and Worn For.

Our substitute for PBR while we're here is CASS beer. It's actually pretty good, and as the bottle says it is the Sound of Vitality.

Ladies & Gentlemen, It's The Beetles!

Monday, July 02, 2007

Hello all!

Here we are, broadcasting from our apartment, Korea. We just got this set up (literally, 30 minutes ago) and I have to go to work within an hour , so there is just no time to write a proper long blog post. First, I'd like to give "props" to the outfit that supplied us with internet until today. I present PC Submarine:

The fact I can see my browser in English is comforting. Heck, reading English on anything is comforting. How do you think PC Submarine got your business in the first place? I passed by and thought, "I don't know what a PC Submarine is, but I'm checking it out." Not being able to read English has made for some rather...interesting...moments. For those who don't know, Liz and I ate what is best described as "pupates" the other night. It went down like this, I had discovered this bar near us. There are tons of bars here, but I liked the coziness of this one. Plus it had a picture of a tiger on the sign next to the words Beer/Soju/Hof. Now, soju is like Korean saki (but much better) and I have no idea what hof is. Nevertheless, I call this place Tiger Hof. So, Liz and I go to Tiger Hof and decide to be adventurous by simply pointing to the first thing on the menu. The waiter, well, he got ANOTHER waiter to take our order to make sure this was really what we wanted. We had no idea what was happening until they brought us a bowl of steaming soup. Yummy. I dip in my spoon and...wow....baby beetles. Baby beetles filling my spoon. Hey, let me tell you, ounce for ounce these things pack more protein than raw fish. I had two spoonfuls and wasn't hungry the rest of the night. Healthy, they are. The drawback is that they taste like you're eating, well, dirt. And dirty dirt, to be accurate.

So, two nights at Tiger Hof have produced two funny incidents. The first time I went I didn't know about "the button." Let me explain: see, in America, a waiter will keep coming to your table to make sure you're okay, etc. Not here. I didn't know that.

See that little brown thing? Its "The Button" at PC Submarine. See, when you need someone you push that, otherwise you could die and decompose in your chair and the employees would probably just light some incense to dispel the odor. So, on our first night, I go to Tiger Hof, unaware of The Button and order a beer successfully (yeah me!). Then I finish the beer and wait. And wait. For an hour I wait till I see this brown button on my table and go, "Hey, that was at PC Submarine! What happens if I push it?" So I do and: victory is mine! It works and I am free from the shackles at Tiger Hof. I narrowly averted death and decomposition.

On to the teaching: today will be our second day. Liz is already there. I'll make this simple: it's hard. It's hard because our "orientation" is nothing of the sort. I started teaching on my own yesterday. I had no knowledge of the texts, I barely could figure out which books were for which classes, I didn't know where the students were, what they needed to review, how fast or slow I needed to go, how the texts paced the lesson, how many pages to cover, etc. Nothing. I don't know the students, what they're needs are, what their names are, who acts up, who doesn't, etc. That was a day. Is this the hardest thing I've ever done? Possibly. I have 10 classes a day, two different sets of classes for M/W/F and T/TH. That brings my total of classes up to around 20. You can imagine how many text books I have to sift through, how many students I have. So, the main difficulty is one of memory. Once I'm not juggling names in my mind, once I'm not trying to read the text while I'm up there, once I am familiar with the lessons and the pacing it will be a simple matter of keeping the class in order.

But I'm not complaining. Deep inside, I like this and so does Liz. I haven't done anything this difficult in a long long time. It's a nice feeling: either succeed or fail miserably. It's nice to have a challenge. Besides, the more difficult the job is the more I concentrate on the essentials in my life, namely Liz. The hard work keeps our alone time a time of encouragement. Once again, this is only for a year, we can take it. :-) Heck, still pray for us, though.

What I Miss
What I wouldn't give for a nice, quiet walk through Inman Park during a warm Georgia night, the big, serene, antebellum houses lining the street while I listen to my folk music (bless you Ane Brun)...oh, and a big plate of cheese fries when I get back home.

I'll post more tonight when I get home, including pictures of our apartment etc.

Labels: beetles, korea, teaching