Weekend and Beyond

I was in Seoul over the last weekend and came across this group of China supporters. They told me the torch relay was going to go by this area, but I had stuff to do and didn't want to wait around for it. I also heard that there was misinformation to confuse protesters, and only a few people actually knew where and when the relay would take place.
Sunday afternoon, my friend Joel picked up his new suit from the tailor's in Itaewon. He looked damn sharp in it. He had a showing of some of his paintings at this Thai restaurant called "Buddha's Belly" which seemed to go well. Vaughan is back in country. I have a video of him telling a story over on the LiveVideo site. While I was in Seoul, I was fitted for a sport coat. Now I have two jackets to wear at work while I'm teaching.
Speaking of work, we found yesterday that our positions as teachers at the university will be determined by student opinion questionnaires they fill out during our courses. They tell us there are only 20 teachers on campus that this affects, however. Most Korean teachers are professors and are not bound by this rule. Our university will not hire foreigners as professors (even with Master's degrees), so we can be fired if the questionnaires show the students don't like us. Korea in general does not like having foreigners working in their country (except in factories), so they don't think anything of these little jabs and taunts they throw our way. Korea has grand hopes of being an international player, a tourist destination, and global leader in business. However, as long as they cling to their xenophobia, they will just be the world's kooky rich uncle who says inappropriate things at the dinner table on Thanksgiving.

American TV! Grrr

Since I live abroad in a non-English-speaking country, I watch American TV on the internet. So I watch this Comedy Central, and they have these adverts:

Vehix.com: This one causes me to go into fits. The woman sitting in a hatchback says something like, "You can literally test drive a vehicle online!"

YOU CANNOT LITERALLY DRIVE A CAR ONLINE! You can virtually drive a car online, I suppose, but you cannot literally drive a car through your computer. This ad makes me want to kill something! I even wrote to the company, and told them to pull that inane advertisement. They never responded, of course. Maybe the American public has just become so stupid that they don't even know what the word 'literally' means. It wouldn't surprise me.

Here's another one:

'Girls Gone Wild'. What a waste. You can get online and download free videos of hot women doing a lot more than on the 'Girls Gone Wild' DVDs. Are there people so internet illiterate that they cannot find free naked chicks and must spend too much money for a bunch of 20-somethings pretending to have just turned "18"? Let some schmuck buy the DVD and the rest of us can torrent it for free.

And here's Dr. Stein who finds the clinical word "penis" so shameful that he has to resort to using a euphemism when he talks about "that certain part of the male body". Who respects a doctor who can't even say the clinical names of human body parts? Not me, that's for sure. Drives me nuts.



There are some shows that are worth watching, but watching American TV ads is probably going to cause me apoplexy. Somebody is going to pay for this nonsense.

But for me to get my daily dose of "Scrubs", I suppose watching these stupid ads is my payment.

Soju and Dduk Festival

These are the fireworks they shot off last night at the soju festival. Apparently every year Gyeongju holds a festival to honor traditional Korean drinks and rice cakes (dduk). I met up with Maria and some of the other Dongguk teachers to enjoy a little soju and beer. I got a lot of video, and when I get some free time, I'll edit it and post it at the LiveVideo site. Both these photos are captures from the video.

This is me in some bar wearing Chris' glasses. He's from Manchester and bears the scars of many spills on his motorcycle! I think his glasses look cool on me, but Maria thought otherwise. Todd had his crew there: Patrick, a couple Chrises, Adam (who's going back to Canada shortly for a holiday), Todd's Korean wife, and some Korean guys, too. Sarah and Sherwin also went. Maria and a Korean gal named Jinny (Jenny?) kind of compelled me to go to this bar even though I wanted to go home to bed.

Since I didn't drink much, I had a fantastic Sunday today! In the morning, I went to HomePlus for a fluorescent lamp to help my plants. This apartment is rather dark, so my little green friends aren't too healthy. Saw a couple dirt bike riders there getting ready for a day out in the... dirt... I guess. If I were just 30 years younger! Dirt biking must be fun. This afternoon I worked on the midterm tests I have to give this coming week. It's going to be an easier week than usual, but giving oral tests can be fairly boring.

Had a minor run-in with a guy in the next building. He was sitting in his car with his girl and letting the engine run. My windows are right there practically on their parking slab, so I went out and told him to turn off the car. He did, but when he got out, he had a couple choice words. I had a couple words for him, too, but I said them in English so that I would get the benefit of saying them without the negative response an English speaker would have returned! Sometimes it's good to live where nobody speaks English. Koreans often seem to lack the ability to empathize with other people unless they are told to, so they come across as terribly inconsiderate.

Rain

This morning I discovered I was out of cream for my tea, so I threw some pants on and zipped out to HomePlus. It's amazing that they were open at 7:45 AM! Even more amazing, the McDonald's "24-hour" sign was not lying... well, I can't say that, but they were open at 7:45, and I did get a sausage egg McMuffin. I went in to McD's and saw a couple breakfast sandwiches in the rack, and I didn't want to wait for them to make a special sandwich, so I just asked what those were. She told me, and I said give me that one, and honestly, she went in the back and made me a fresh sandwich anyway! I wanted to be angry about it, but I couldn't. There were some park benches in a tiny garden-like area between HomePlus and McD's, so that's where I ate breakfast... then it started to rain, and it hasn't stopped all day. Uploaded a couple videos to my LiveVideo site, and a few photos, too. Haven't been able to get any candid shots around town. The last couple weekends I've been going to Gyeongsan, but this weekend, I will definitely stay around Gyeongju and get some photos and maybe make another video. I might post that E-Mart one I made on the Sony CyberShot even though the manager made me stop videoing. There's still enough footage to give you an idea what it's like in a Korean supermarket. This week I've been prepping the students for the midterm exams next week. They're scared, of course, but once they realize how informal and relaxed I make my exams, they'll breathe a sigh of relief. I hate stress, and I hate to cause it in others if I can help it.

Stop it, Google!

I hate it when these internet companies try to "help" me by detecting the country of origin in the IP and taking the liberty of directing me to their website in the local language even though I've ticked every box available as "English." Don't they think I can choose for myself what language to use? I often have to lie when a site asks what country I'm in, because if I tell the truth, I get swept away to some blinky-flashy-noisy Korean site! If a Korean wants the Korean site, he goes to the Korean site. He doesn't need to be automatically "redirected" by Big Brother... and neither do I. I can usually get rid of the Korean when Google does this elsewhere, but this blogspot Korean won't go away no matter what I do. Irritating.
All that aside, it was just a regular busy Monday. The classes were OK, though in my low level class, I had to raise my voice to a student who was just sitting there like he was killing time, no book, no notebook, no pencil, no will to live apparently. I assigned them partners for their test next week and set up a schedule for them to come in for their test. (It's an oral exam.)
Nobody came to the International Lounge this morning. That routine is becoming a waste of time. I just sit in there reading the weekend Herald Tribune, but at least I stopped embarrassing myself by trying to do the crossword.

Saying Farewell

Last night a bunch of Yeungnam and former Yeungnam folks gathered to say goodbye to our friend Frank. In the picture you can see, left to right, Brent, George (who saw Frank die), Eddie, and half of Sarah. Frank's wife came up from the Philippines along with Frank's son from a former marriage. She is understandably in shock, but Jack and Martin, two of Frank's buddies, are taking care of her.
When Martin walked up to shake my hand, I was a little shocked myself, because he resembles Frank so much. I had to apologize for spacing out when he introduced himself.
The weather was cold yesterday, but today it is quite nice.
This morning in E-Mart I tried to make a video of all the strange stuff in a Korean supermarket and basically show everybody back home what a Korean supermarket is like, but they told me to stop taking video. Korea has these grandiose plans of being a tourist destination, but it will never happen as long as they remain paranoid of foreigners. You can't be camera shy and a tourist destination!

Mountain Day

I was playing with the camera and took a bunch
of crazy pictures....


As some know, Korea has a female astronaut up at the International Space Station now. She took some Korean food up with her, and if you'd like to read about it, go here. Apparently she took only good stuff; I haven't read about any of the gross stuff they eat.


Because Deborah wants me to help get information for her brother who's coming to work at Korean Aerospace Industries for 15 months, I sent a couple faxes off trying to see what the housing arrangements might be. No word back yet. I think the company would just give them an apartment since it's for less than two years. I explained the deposit and rent system and the cheonse here. I'm so used to it that I forget it seems bizarre to others.


Took a bicycle ride today in lieu of the mountain day hiking. They said it'd be crowded, and I just couldn't bring myself to go to something like that. It was sunny and warm, though, and the bike ride was pleasant. Made a video rant and posted it at my LiveVideo site. I'll make sure to do a video with positive stuff next time... might be shorter, though. heh heh


Got a letter out to Jim in prison. He sent me a gazillion recipes from the Sunday papers he reads there. Most of the stuff I can't make in Korea because they just don't have the ingredients for Western food. However, there was a beef taco skillet thing that I can make. Might try that tomorrow.

Haunted

This is me at my PC in the living room.
Soon I'll be taking off to Gyeongsan to get some stuff for the cats and see some people. The store here doesn't sell cat litter, so every few weeks I need to go to a bigger place to buy it.
Today I got to sleep in a little, because it's election day and therefore a national holiday. Since it's raining, I got out my new motorcycle cover. It doesn't fit properly, but well enough.
Still feeling foolish over my reaction to Frank's death. Everybody will know that I thought it was a hoax. Of course, Frank would probably think that was hilarious... but will anyone else?