西洋오랑캐

These pictures come from sometime in summer, so I’ll just post them here. In order to clarify what is being shown here, the soju bottles were empty prior to the photo being taking, and the child had nothing to do with the consumption of said bottles.

Drinkin’ with Andy! Not really…there were empty (soju) bottles at the school from some science experiment, and Andy picked them up and started pose with them. Hence this picture.

Um…this is Andy. Andy found an empty soju bottle (from a science experiment another class did) and decided to pose like this.

This is Darrell and some of his students. They are Matthew and Sophia. Darrell doesn’t have facial hair anymore. We like to drink and eat kimbab. This picture was taken sometime in the summer of 2003.

What’s going on dudes? I’ve had a fairly strange week thus far. On Tuesday Reese and I had our second study date. We saw Bad Boys 2 (which was her choice). From a sociological stand-point, it was most bizarre. The explosions and non-stop gun violence, which had no effect on me (thanks America), caused the Koreans to jump and have shocked looks upon their faces. After the movie we got a bite to eat and then went for a walk by a river. I busted out copious ammounts of Korean once again. Anyway to me it seems like this will (or has) gone beyond, “language partners.” I think perhpas I will ask if she wants to go drinking and singing tomorrow. Keep it sleazy!

아싸! What a strange weekend. On Friday after work, I went and got a haircut in translation. After my haircut in translation, I treated Andrea (my translator) to some chicken and beer. She’s a good random character. This afternoon, I met with Reese. We went to a coffee shop which was very Nonstop-esque. At this coffee shop I busted out mad ammounts of Korean language. Anyhow we were there until about 9:00. We planned to meet again, and she suggested we go to a movie, which sounds more like a date than being “language partners.” Additionally this Tuesday the school is going on a field trip to a firestation which will be crazy party time. Anyhow it’s crazy raining right now, and there is a flood warning, but since I live at the top of a hill, I’m not too concerned.

Today I recieved my crate of birthday loot from America. I am now the proud owner of such things as a Gameboy Advance, converse sneakers, and a copy of the T.A.T.U. album (which is a guilty pleasure of mine). Anyhow, the loots were rockin’ hard, and I have also determined that Andrea Lee has grand taste in music. When we were on the camping trip, she had a copy of Amnesiac by Radiohead. This week I learned that she had seen Crying Nut in concert, and today when I opened my copy of T.A.T.U. she was like, “I have that in my CD player right now.” Anyway I need to go buy some beer and some paper plates. The beer is for now, the plates are for tomorrow. Peace!

Happy birthday to me! As you can probably guess, today was my birthday. At school today my E2 class threw me a birthday party which was awesome. Also during the day Reese gave me a present of coffee, which was kind of rockin’. Also today, the Korean helper known as Jennifer left which was sucky, but what can be done? Anyhow I drafted some horribly written thank you notes, but it’s all good. That’s about it for me. Peace out!

Here’s a picture from Gabby’s birthday party. Gabby is a pimp as is evident as who is surrounding him in the picture. Dude’s got mad ladies..and Nick. This was sometime in August prior to the 19th.

The Hite

Over here in Korea, it’s all about The Hite Beer. I recently acquired a bottle opener with “The Hite” on it. He is a mug of beer with big muscle arms and legs like Mickey Mouse with over-sized shoes. His face looks drunk….the Hite is my role model.

Yesterday was a totally insane day. So first, I put in a long day at work…you know workin’ (aka I taught my kindergarten class the expression “Ready to Rock!” where this one kid..he’s like 4 years old is like “Teacher…(Glen Danzig voice)I ready to rock!” it’s awesome.)
After work, the staff of my school went to dinner together, which was grand. Anyhow despite the fact that my contract proclaims that I’m not suppose to rock my co-workers, my bosses seem to be all about such actions. At dinner, Mr. Yoo kept making me sit between two of the three Korean versions of a lunch lady / noon aide who work at our school (only they are not like Korean Mrs. Dane, they are wicked hot college students)…the better looking ones at that, and mack it to them. I was made to speak Korean to them, which was tough, but I kind of managed. Anyhow at dinner we drank 막걸리 (makkoli), which is a kind of rice alcohol served out of a cauldron with a ladel into ceramic bowls. It was pretty ok.
After dinner, the helper known as Jennifer left, and the rest of us traveled to 노래방 (the third time I’ve been). I busted out crazy tunes for the ladies. Darrell and I rocked out on Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name,” TLC’s “No Scrubs,” and “Tears in Heaven.” As a solo artist I busted out Lionel Richie’s “Hello,” and “Superstar,” by the Carpenters.
When it was time to leave, I was told that the helper known as Reese and I should stay and “sing” more, since we hit it off well. We returned home with Darrell, Reese, Mr. Yoo, and I riding in a cab back to Bongcheon and wherever Reese lived. On the way home, Mr. Yoo would occassionally address us in some horrible, drunken broken English. Great fun!
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it yet, so…Here in Korea (or at least in my hood) the garbageman has a theme song, kind of like the icecream man in America. He drives up and down my street at 6 a.m., blasting classical music as he chucks sacks of trash into the truck. Awesome way to start the day!

I’ve just returned from my school’s camping trip to the beautiful mountains in Hongcheon and all I can say is waht the fuck is up with Speedos® in this country? Ok, save for one boy, all the boys were rockin’ the Speedo®. Adside from that, camp went pretty well. Since none of my students went, I was sort of auxilary staff. Most of my time was spent babysitting the one kindergarten student from our school who went. She was content with catching grasshoppers most of the time, or swinging on a swing. At night, Darrell and I had to guard 6 boy students. They were rather retarded however, so in an attempt to clean the room we were staying in had to play games such as “Who’s Underware is This?” (We would hold up an article of clothing with a stick and bellow, “Who’s underware, shirt, ect. is this?” until someone claimed it).
Games for all the students included “Chicken Catching,” in which teams of students had to grab as many chickens as they could…it was something you could never get away with in America.
Speaking of “you can’t do that in America,” on Friday night we had a monster bonfire and launched crazy fireworks into crowds of children…FUN!
During one point I was asked to teach my school tae kwon do which was fun. Later when the students had to present something in a quasi-talent show thing, I returned with a hastily thrown together tae kwon do demonstration which the kids did. They got big applause (from the Korean owners) when I had them face the audience and bow. Anyhow we got some decent applause, and I got to do some things I had not done in awhile, TKD and performing in front of others. When I got up on stage and got the mic in my hands, it was just like old times…
Speaking of old times, and tae kwon do, this camping adventure was a lot like the Pai’s events of my past…the schedule of events changed roughly every hour, and no one knew what was going on. Most teachers were pissed, but for me it was par for the course. As soon as I learned that multiple branches of Kid’s College would be involved I was like, “a schedule will be doing us no good!” This turned out to be entirely true. Like tournaments, and Pai’s picnics before it, this trip suffered from too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
Final point: The staff from our school is the best looking, healthiest, and youngest looking of all the schools. Every other school had at least one middle aged overweight smoking guy, and in many cases were staffed entirely by that demographic. I was the youngest staff there, and was closer in age to the students than most of the other teachers. Which leads to the real final point: this weekend I obtained a fan club. First off, once I did tae kwon do with them, all the boys in my school were my buddies. However, at some point a group of teenage girls from another school got crushes on me. One of them was the director’s daughter from another school, so she kept talking to Ashley (my director’s daughter) about me. It was fairly rediculous. Today there was some totally random events involving these girls. First off they tell me that I’m handsome when I was walking somewhere. Later on all the schools were lined up and those girls were talking to Ashley in Korean. Ashley told me that they said that they loved me, causing a girl fight to break out. Their fat 30-something teacher looked sad. Finally, as we were all departing, they wanted to take their picture with me like I was a movie star. It was insane!
Speaking of insane actions caused by Korean teen girls having crushes on white teachers, there is a girl named Sophia from Darrell’s class, and she clearly has a crush on him. Because of this she acts oddly. For example she went and got him coffee, and recited, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit…” in front of all the schools (which is basically a story unto itself). Well Monday, kindergarten is back…boo! Peace out braw!

A girl from Juana’s class, Sophia (aka Darrell’s lady), and Ashley (aka Wangjangnim’s daughter) rockin’ the felt tunics at summer camp.

The new teenage witches…they thought I was cute. Eh eh eh. This was taken during summer camp (August 2003).