i'm downloading a-ha's 'take on
i'm downloading a-ha's 'take on me' onto my phone. i also got radiohead's 'creep.' it cost me W300 each.
i caved and got 'hotel california.'
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i'm downloading a-ha's 'take on me' onto my phone. i also got radiohead's 'creep.' it cost me W300 each.
i caved and got 'hotel california.'
so i figured out the cable tv. the television itself wasn't configured to accept cable. i think there are three settings: antenna, cable, input. suddenly i have over 50 channels, rather than 10. i'm watching 3rd rock right now on star world, and apparently they play buffy too.
the channel down button is broken. this wasn't so much of a problem when i had 10 channels.
i need a remote.
a have the flu.
today one of my students drew a picture of supposedly me, with a caption beside which read: 엽기, 느끼 선생. basically she called me freaky, cheesy teacher.
i went to costco today with a couple of friends. they use their american costco card here. pretty cool. i bought a swiffer-type thing, throat lozenges, oyster sauce, 삼겹살, pork shanks (whatever they are), chicken wings, 불고기, muffins, a case of hite stout, and a bottle of johnny walker black label scotch whiskey. it was well over $100.
to clarify i couple of things: a: not all calls are the same price in korea; i was given false information; the person responsible has been sacked; b: i did not actually go to seoul, but to gwacheon, which is just outside of seoul, and is where the eldest of my mom's uncles lives. my mother's father passed away long ago, and he was the eldest of five sons. i just learned about the fifth, who has been missing for probably 50 years or so. no one knows where he is, if he is alive.
starting from me and going down, there were 9 kids. i'm not really a kid anymore, but i'll put myself with them. up from there, there were about 17 more adults. basically they were the sons and daughters of my great uncles, with their husbands and wives and kids. the eldest grandfather, as i said, is dead, and his children are my mother and her older brother, who lives in ohio now.
there were a few relatives whom i'd never met until last night. they'd met my brother when he came a few years ago. i should probably go up to seoul to visit each family properly, but i'll wait a while. i'm still not quite settled. a couple of my cousins didn't remember me from when they'd visited us in toronto. they've grown a lot since then. the seemingly eldest cousin is 21 and goes to fashion design school. i think she might be just taller than me. she said if i needed a girlfriend that she'd find one for me. how nice.
it was nice at first, meeting everyone, but then after dinner it got pretty awkward. there are a few reasons. 1. the family is still quite traditional. the women hang out together in another room, separate from the men. i don't really like that. i stayed with the aunts for most of the time, because the men were having what looked to be some sort of discussion, which i couldn't understand. but i was still uncomfortable. 2. but mostly, it was my age. i'm too young to sit comfortably with the uncles or aunts and have meaningful conversations (we'd gotten over the regular banter), and i'm too old to play with the kids for more than 15 or 20 minutes at a time. plus the kids don't really speak english either. at least, they won't.
it's been over a month now. i wasn't even paying attention when it was a month to the day. not sure if that's a good sign or not.
i'm used to it all now. i suppose. i just live day by day, and live for the weekend. the good thing about this job, i've noticed, is that i've got minimal amounts of responsibility. rather, the responsibility i do have is important (i am a teacher after all), but it is not far-reaching by any means. i can pretty do whatever i want to, and if i haven't prepared for a class, i can always just do something simple like play games, or have them read. then the day is over and i do it all again the next day.
i'm not knocking having responsibility, you have to have some, or you won't feel your work is important, but having small amounts is good. like being a bartender. you have the responsibility of getting people drinks. simple enough. add to that small amounts of friendly banter to elicit larger gratuities, keeping clean, etc. serve a drink and you never see them again. you are creating and maintaining relationships that last maybe a few hours. after last call, you go home and never see them again.
as long as i enjoy my job at worst half of the time, and i can avoid more amounts of responsibility, i think i'll be happy.
enough of that.
i heading off to seoul tomorrow. it's chusok here, which is basically like thanksgiving, but without the pilgrims and turkey. though i'm wary of the trip there - every chusok the whole country gets up and goes somewhere else, where there's family, and unfortunately a good chunk of them are going the same place we are. i've heard the usual 2 hour drive can take 7, 8, 9, 10 hours. we're leaving sort of early in the morning, and a day later than most people - like going north for the long weekend on sunday morning rather than saturday. and we plan to drive back in the middle of the night the same day. whatever. it's something i've got to do, as i haven't seen the majority of my relatives that live in seoul, and i'll get to do it in one swell foop (sic).
other than that, the cat is good. she's not as randomly loud. but still likes to jump around on the bed if i move my toe and wake me up at ungodly hours.
i'm learning korean. everday at lunch three korean teachers get together and practise their english. i stumbled in on them a couple of times, and eventually was coerced into helping them with their english in return for korean lessons. but when you haven't studied, you have to pay W1000. then we use the money at the 7-11 to buy drinks. so far i've learned a couple of expressions, a bunch of colours, and some other basics. also, they bought me dinner once.
i made dwenjang chigae again the other night, but i burned it. so it was gross.
vii. W6000 got me a haircut.
last night i made pajeon.
an interesting list of things that money can buy here (today 1 CAD = 762 KRW).
since yuffie and tifa were not very aggressive, i didn't know how demanding cats can be. this one doesn't shut up if she's hungry. she's been waking me up at 6 am.
yesterday i booked a flight to ho chi minh city. we plan to leave on the 20th, returning on the 30th. as per tim's suggestion, i will drink whiskey and snake's blood.
oh, i plan to go with another teacher, named chris. he's from kitchener.
oh yeah, she's calico. and sitting on my lap yammering about something.
as i said before, i have a cat. not the ones in toronto.
so there's this teacher who is leaving tomorrow. she has no less than two kids with her here in korea. they have a chiuahua, and this kitten. she's about six months old. she's cute, and really friendly. but i've seen strays healthier than her.
she's so skinny and light, it's like she's hardly there. i gave her some food, and she attacked it as if she'd never seen real food before. i think i might be true, since when i asked the daughter what they feed her (as all cat owners know, cats are picky, and may not eat the food you give it), and she said, y'know, dog food, cat food, tuna, whatever.
they actually have royal canin here at the pet shop. the pet shop is another story. it's so sad in there. i'm sure you can imagine it. but there were these two kittens that looked like yuffie a little, colour-wise, anyway. oh, i didn't buy royal cannin, as it's 18000 a bag, whereas this one i bought was 12000. i don't have that much money. after the exchange, W12000 is about $16. it's a pretty small bag. well, i've got myself stuck with it now, there's no going back. if i have to work overtime for this cat, dammit, i will! ^^
the cat's name is "boots," which i loathe, but i guess it was given that name by a 12 year old. i think i might koreanglisise it and call it "boose." she's right now crying intermittently, under the kitchen cabinents. she ate a lot, and when as she was eating she was trying to cry too. it was pretty funny.
i'll post pictures later. i've just sent my first roll off yesterday. thing is, in daejeon, APS film is not very popular, so they don't sell it, and don't develop it. it's being sent to seoul. then i have to scan the photos somehow. all the more reason to go digital.
she's gotten better in just the past hours. but she's still randomly complaining about something. for those of you who know james' cat iris, this one is even more of an attention ... well, she needs it. if i leave the room, she says something. if i say something, she talks back. but at least for my sake, and the neighbours', she's stopped constantly crying.
she is also pooing well.
i have a cat.
i went to wal-mart.
it's huge. if you thought wal-mart was big back home, this will change your mind. there's also a giant supermarket section. i bought W56000 of groceries. i'm having instant coffee right now - can't tell if it's too weak, too strong, or just gross. i may need to spend lots of money on real coffee. just not now.
though, i did just get paid. just over a thousand dollars for about two weeks.
i've been making dinner every night for at least a week or so. i bought so much food that it barely fits in the fridge. i'm being pretty optimistic. i think right now i'm still living the novelty. it's kinda fun, to make dinner everyday, to see what i can do, but it's also pretty annoying. the rice cooker i have sucks donkeys, so i can only make as much as i will eat that day, since it burns the rice 2 minutes after it's done. and i don't have a microwave.
i've come to a decision. the coffee is both too strong, and gross.
oh, i made a stirfry, with chicken, onions, garlic, and hot peppers. green peppers are expensive and i couldn't find any good stirfry sauces. but i do have a freezer full of tonkatsu, and yummy tonkatsu sauce. i could eat that every other day.
i gave a test today in one of my classes. 4 of 7 students finished in 70 mins. so i said they could have 10 mins the next class to finish. at first, though, only three people were in the class. i thought that i had scared them off, since i had told them only on tuesday that they'd have a test today. it happened that the school bus was late, so four more kids showed up about 8 mins late.
i'm giving another test next week, too.
classes are getting much better. though my tuesday/thursday 5:00 class (the last of the day, and the latest class i have) always gets a little shafted. i try to prepare, but i seem to underestimate how long things will take, or how boring they turn out to be, so there are times when i'm sitting there thinking how i can fill the next 30 minutes. today wasn't that bad though. we played a good spelling game. they don't know how to spell wednesday. granted, it's not spelled the way it sounds. at least, i don't say it the way it's spelled.
i've got to prepare a lesson now. and make so that i do minimal work, as it will be friday tomorrow.
there was some minor flooding here in daejeon (there's a creek that runs through the city), and probably some broken windows, store signs, felled trees, etc., but i was fine. though, the umbrella that i had just bought got wrecked in the really really strong wind. the typhoon basically ended by sunday, which was in fact a nice, sunny day. i tried to teach my class about how typhoons, cyclones, and hurricanes are all the same phenomenon, but originate in different places. they didn't even know what the pacific ocean was, by name anyway.
i made dwenjang chigae last night. it was pretty good, considering i had only vegetables in the base. for those of you who don't know what it is, it's a stew made with fermented bean paste, which is sort of like miso, which you usually get in a japanese restaurant. anyway i threw in a bunch of veggies and that was the end of that, and the beginning of three nights of dinner. tonite was two. i know you're all dying to know what i put in it... get used to disappointment.
oh, i made my first set of flash cards, too, on saturday. twelve countries, each with a flag, some sort of recognisable building or landmark, a person (this ends up being really difficult, as you can't really summarise an entire nation or culture into one picture of one or two people; traditional clothing is ok, but people usually don't walk around in hamboks these days in korea, and not everyone looks like a mountie or uncle sam in canada and the usa, respectively; some of the pictures i've got are actually pretty funny, like the french guy who is on a bike, wearing a beret, carrying a paper shopping bag which has in it: a baguette, a bunch of bottles of wine, maybe some cheese, and is of course smoking a cigarette; and the brazilian lady i'm told looks like someone from an ad in the back of the toronto sun; the kids won't care, but another teacher and i laugh at ourselves for it), and the word for their nationality (i.e. canadian, french). 48 cards, plus cards for asian, european, etc., but i can't find the word for people who come from the general direction of australia/new zealand/oceania/micronesia. i looked up antipodean, but it just means someone from the antipode, or the opposite side of the world, so it's only for europeans, and anyway the europeans are antipodeans to the kiwis anyway. i'll just skip it. plus i forgot to teach them antarctica. oh well. dammit, jim, i'm an english teacher, not a geographer!