西洋오랑캐

The other day I was in the midst of my daily 5 kilometer run (aka balancing on a moving strip of plastic until a meter displayed 5.00 kM) and watching a little television. Because I usually rock out to some sort of tunes while in the gym, I watch something like Discovery Channel (since it has Korean subtitles) or pro-wrestling since I need no sound. On this particular day in question, the batteries on my mp3 player crapped out at the 1.00kM mark. So I actually watched some television.

Flipping through the channels I found the show, Let’s Speak Korean on Arirang. Let’s Speak Korean was a pretty decent show…emphasis on the word “was.” Back in the day the show was actually informative, the host, Stephen Revere was funny, and the presented advanced enough material that I actually learned things. Oh they also had students…students that were clearly better than me. Not anymore.

This new version of Let’s Speak Korean is terrible! For starters the material covered is really basic junk. This is actually the thing that bugs me the least; in fact I’m a little bit proud that everything I’ve seen is so easy. I actually yelled, “HA! I already know that!” at the TV, which got me a few weird looks for the middle aged ladies that were jogging nearby. Also gone is Stephen Revere, replaced with some Korean dude known as Young. Again I don’t really have a problem with Young. He breaks it down decently, but I never drank beers with him so I don’t know how cool he actual is. What bugs me more is not Young’s arrival, but the fact that the lady named Lisa is still there. She just bugs me. She kind of comes off as really condescending. Again this part is not that bad. She was there before and the show was fine. What bugs me the most is the new “student” guy.

This dude is a total moron! For starters his pronunciation is terrible. If I want to hear foreigners speak Korean poorly I’d record myself and play it back. This is a show that’s supposed to help foreigners learn Korean…get some people on there that can actually speak it. But even this is not that awful. I can kind of see the producer being like, “Let’s get an actual rookie. Other rookie speakers will be less threatened by someone who is making mistakes.” More than his inability to remember similar grammar or vocabulary (”Airport가 어디에요?”), his foreigner caricature makes me want to break some faces.

If you’ve ever seen any English language education show on EBS, you know of the “whiteface” for lack of a better word that a lot of the native speakers engage in. “HI!!!!!! I’M WHITE AND SPEAKING ENGLISH!!!! I’M OUT OF CONTROL!!!! ARE YOU READY TO LEARN ENGLISH!?!?!?!” “Yeah Isaac, we’re ready to learn English…stop dancing please.” Yeah, this guy does it too. Maybe I’m just Oscar the Grouch, but I don’t want to learn anything for a dude that’s dancing around like he’s Barney all going, “WOW!!! SO THIS IS KALBI?!?!?!” Forget you Let’s Speak Korean! I’m going back to Integrated Korean with Michael, the foreigner that speaks perfect Korean, but has never heard of bulgogi before. At least he remembers all the grammar.

Yo what’s crackin’? This week I watched some movies and worked out at the gym and played Gameboy. None of these activities really warrant being written about at any length, so instead you can look at some awesome artwork I did while riding the subway a couple months ago. Ah what the hell…as a bonus I’ll give you one paragraph reviews of the films I saw this week.

누가 그녀와 잤을까?
I was kind of nervous when my wife rented this one, as Korean comedy movies often tends to be well…not particularly funny, but this one was. The story was kind of similar to the film 몽정기 2 in that the central plot revolved around a group of students that lust after a student teacher. Only in this case the students were male and the teacher female…which I guess would make this film more like 몽정기 1, but I digress. The movie was decently funny, and managed to avoid the random serious turn that most Korean comedy films seem to take in the third act (ala the pregnancy and abortion at the end of 색즉시공). If I were to give it a grade I’d say B+ if only due to the fact that the one dude got unwanted boners much like Spinner in that episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation. And as we all know, boners are funny!

The DaVinci Code
Oh my god…was the book this bad too? Seriously this movie was crap. It was like a Hardy Boys mystery with some sort of dumb ass conspiracy theory. It was terrible, boring, and long. Again, was the book this bad? And if it was, why did so many people read it?

Troy
When I was in third grade my friends and I did a moderization of the story of the Trojan War as a school project. This being the mid-1980s, our quest was to get a video game back from a rival elementary school. This film did not feature a copy of Zelda 2, but was none the less entertaining. Lots of good epic battles. Lots of Brad Pitt as Achilles being an ass and roughing up fools. Trojans a plenty! What wasn’t there to like?! Also, unlike the similarly lengthy DaVinci Code, this film didn’t seem like it was two and a half hours long.

Anyhow that’s it. I’ve got junk to do tomorrow and Sunday, so I might not be back until the New Year. If that’s the case, have a good one, and keep it safe.

The hand is still all broken and junk. For the time being regale me with tales of your most out of control 회식 (those mandatory dinners with the boss and co-workers). Did the boss take you to a “room salon?” Attempt to hook you up with another co-worker? Puke on you? Most off the wall story will be declared the 2006 회식 Disaster Champion and will get the championship belt!!!

This event is open to anyone working for a company that occassionally requires you to go get shitfaced with the rest of the staff, not just people who work at a 학원. Take it to the comments!

This is a plea to all my Canadian readers (I know for a fact at least two of you exist). Will either you, or one of your countrymen (or women) please for the love of Christ write a walkthrough on how to go about dealing with your country’s government? I mean Street Fighter 2 had a walkthrough, and that game was a hell of a lot easier than Canadian government institutions.

For those of you just tuning in, I had a bone to pick with Canada about the way they do criminal background checks. It turns out that a great deal of this anger was misdirected and premature. It turns out that apparently one doesn’t have to go through the process of getting fingerprinted and waiting 150+ days in order to get a Canadian criminal report. Nope, it turns out that all one has to do is provide a name, address, and (in the case of my wife) passport number, to any of the local police forces and they will check out your national criminal record and ship out the results to you in anywhere from a week to 14 days depending on the police force you choose to use. We picked the guys in Winnipeg, mainly because they were the cheapest and also didn’t require fingerprints (which as I explained eariler was kind of a hassle to get here).

So here we are thinking we’re in the clear. Oh not quite. Like most things, this service does not come for free. Unfortunately, Canada, as I mentioned before, is a developing country, and therefore has no way to pay for this service online or by using a credit card. Additionally Canadian currancy frightens them, since they stated that they would not accept payments made in cash. No, they want a check. Unfortunately for us, we live in Korea, a country that has moved beyond (or perhaps never had) a checking system. Here everything is paid for either with cash, or a credit card. So we went in search of a money order.

The post office didn’t have any, but they insisted that you could get them with ease at the bank. The first bank we went to didn’t have them, but told us that you could score them at a bank that did international exchanges. The international exchange bank didn’t have them either, but told us that we could get money orders in American dollars at Citibank. This would have been fine, save for the fact that we were sending this shit to the provinces, and it stated that they only dealt in Canadian funds (unlike the central…federal? government who would gladly accept American dollars). Fuck!

So we headed home, dejected. What could we do? Flying to Canada to deal with this was out of the question for two reasons: 1) It was too expensive. 2) I probably would have punched a Mountie in the face for causing my wife and I such annoyance, and then would have been sent to Canadian jail (which if the Trailer Park Boys is to be believed, might not actually be that bad of a thing). So the only option that seemed to be open was to ship the documents to my family in the US (a country where one can get cashiers checks) and have them ship the documents and check to Canada.

So basically I don’t know who I’m pissed off at. I’m pissed off at Canada’s government for sucking ass six ways to Sunday. I am pissed off at Korea for not having the outdated method of payment required to do business with Canada. I’m pissed off at America for making the wife and I have to jump through such hoops to obtain a paper that says she didn’t do any crime during the one year that she lived in Canada. And, I’m pissed off at myself for getting pissed off about such stupid bullshit. I’ll be glad when we have a paper that says, “Jinhui, you didn’t do crime in Canada.”

On Friday afternoon, Jinhui and I had to go to the violent crimes division of our local police station so she could get fingerprints taken. This is what happened…if movies like 살인의 추억 and countless other Korean cop movies are to be believed.

This is a true story of my youth that took place in upstate New York sometime at either the end of the 20th century or begining of the 21st century.

The Robot - Have you figured this nonsense out yet? If not, fear not since you have some time to work on it before the next message. Starting now there will be one week of radio silence. End Transmission.

ㅗㅁㅍㄷ ㅛㅐㅕ 랴赫ㄷㅇ ㅑㅅ ㅐㅕㅅ ㅛㄷㅅ? ㅑㄹ ㅜㅐㅅ, ㄹㄷㅁㄱ ㅜㅐㅅ 냐ㅜㅊㄷ ㅛㅐㅕ ㅗㅁㅍㄷ 乃ㅡㄷ 샤ㅡㄷ 塞 在家 ㅐㅜ ㅑㅅ ㅠㄷ랙ㄷ 솓 ㅜㄷㅌㅅ ㅡㄷㄴㄴㅁㅎㄷ. ㄴㅅㅁㄱ샤ㅜㅎ ㅜㅐㅈ 솓ㄱㄷ 쟈ㅣㅣ ㅠㄷ ㅐㅜㄷ ㅈㄷ多 ㅐㄹ ㄱㅁ야ㅐ 냐ㅣ둧ㄷ. 뚱 ㅆㄱ武느ㅑㄴ냐ㅐㅜ.

The Crash - On Tuesday July 25th, my wife and I were returning from a trip to the supermarket when we saw an accident much like the one pictured above. I could not for the life of me imagine how the car got into that position since there were no other cars involved in the accident. We kept walking home. I wonder if anyone was seriously injured.

ㅒㅜ 쎧ㄴㅇ묘 ㅓㅕㅣㅛ 25소, ㅡㅛ 쟐ㄷ 뭉 ㅑ ㅈㄷㄱㄷ ㄱㄷ셔구ㅑㅜㅎ ㄹ개ㅡ ㅁ ㅅ갸ㅔ 새 솓 녀ㅔㄷ금갇ㅅ 조두 ㅈㄷ ㄴㅁㅈ 무 ㅁㅊ챵둣 ㅡㅕ초 ㅣㅑㅏㄷ 솓 ㅐㅜㄷ ㅔㅑㅊ셕ㄷㅇ 뮤ㅐㅍㄷ. ㅑ 채ㅕㅣㅇ ㅜㅐㅅ 랙 솓 ㅣㅑㄹㄷ ㅐㄹ ㅡㄷ ㅑㅡㅁ햐ㅜㄷ ㅙㅈ 솓 ㅊㅁㄱ 햇 ㅑㅜ새 솜ㅅ ㅔㅐ냐샤ㅐㅜ 냐ㅜㅊㄷ 솓ㄱㄷ ㅈㄷㄱㄷ ㅜㅐ ㅐ솓ㄱ ㅊㅁㄱㄴ ㅑㅜ패ㅣㅍㄷㅇ ㅑㅜ 솓 ㅁㅊ챵둣. ㅉㄷ ㅏ뎃 ㅈ미ㅏㅑㅜㅎ ㅙㅡㄷ. ㅑ 재ㅜㅇㄷㄱ ㅑㄹ 무ㅛㅐㅜㄷ ㅈㅁㄴ ㄴㄷ갸ㅐㅕ니ㅛ ㅑㅝㅕㄱㄷㅇ.

The Lion - As you know I teach English in Korea. Every once and a while I see some completely awesome English mistakes that make me sit up and take notice. The above illustration shows one such example. I was correcting some homework (the theme of which I have since forgotten) when I saw the awesome answer, “We got the party!” The lion was my own touch, as it is the only thing I can draw.

ㅁㄴ ㅛㅐㅕ ㅏㅜㅐㅈ ㅑ ㅅㄷㅁ草 뚜히ㅑ노 ㅑㅜ ㅏㅐㄱㄷㅁ. ㄸㅍㄷ교 ㅐㅜㅊㄷ 뭉 ㅁ 조ㅑㅣㄷ ㅑ ㄴㄷㄷ 내ㅡㄷ 채ㅡㅔㅣㄷㅅ디ㅛ ㅁㅈㄷ내ㅡㄷ 뚜히ㅑ노 ㅡㅑㄴㅅ맏ㄴ 솜ㅅ ㅡ맏 ㅡㄷ 냣 ㅕㅔ 뭉 ㅅ맏 ㅜㅐ샻ㄷ. 쏟 뮤ㅐㅍㄷ ㅑㅣㅣㅕㄴㅅㄱㅁ샤ㅐㅜ 뇆ㄴ ㅐㅜㄷ 녀초 ㄷㅌ므ㅔㅣㄷ. ㅑ ㅈㅁㄴ 책ㄱㄷㅊ샤ㅜㅎ 내ㅡㄷ ㅙㅡㄷ재가 (솓 소듣 ㅐㄹ 조ㅑ초 ㅑ ㅗㅁㅍㄷ 냐ㅜㅊㄷ 랙햇ㅅ두) 조두 ㅑ ㄴㅁㅈ 솓 ㅁㅈㄷ내ㅡㄷ 묹ㄷㄱ, “ㅉㄷ 햇 솓 ㅔㅁㄱ쇼!” 쏟 ㅣㅑㅐㅜ ㅈㅁㄴ ㅡㅛ ㅐ주 새ㅕ草, ㅁㄴ ㅑㅅ ㅑㄴ 솓 ㅐㅟㅛ 소ㅑㅜㅎ ㅑ ㅊ무 ㅇㄱㅁㅈ.

草 (풀초)

During a brief period during which I lacked anything remotely related to focus or clarity, I drafted this illustration (which shared a page with a drawing of a pilgrim giving a Native American small pox for some reason). Anyhow I guess this deal is about common cultural misconceptions or some nonsense like that. Basically in the USA a large percentage of the population wrongly assume that every Asian person is Chinese, and in Korea a large percentage of the population wrongly assumes that every white person is American…or Robin Williams.

I’m busy today, so it was this or nothing.

Sometime several months back I was investigating via the internet the process by which I needed to obtain my Mel Gibson Bellowing “Freedom” Stamp in my passport (better known as an F-2 visa), and for some reason the websites that came up the most often (but had the least useful information) were various recruiters for hagwon positions. Among the non-F-2 visa obtaining information was one piece of information I saw no less than 203 times.

While it is true that knowledge of Korean is not required for the actual employment part of living in Korea as an English teacher, having at least some knowledge of Korean not only makes your stay easier and more enjoyable, but it’s a lot more polite as a resident of a country to at least put forth some effort in learning the language of the land in which you are residing. Anyhow, segway to some links for those of you who have no idea about the Korean language, but have set your mind on teaching in Korea. Don’t say I never did anything for ya!

Sogang University Online Korean Course
Kosnet Online Korean Program
Korean Slang Dictionary
Korean-English Dictionary

A scant two days past I sat in a local eatery with one of my allies in a rendez-vous of the most secret nature. As we sipped our fine coffee blends that caused us to recall past memories of cafes in Paris, and French waiters named Jean-Luc, I happened to notice a gaggle of street toughs enter. Among their masses was the following character. In order to maintain the veil of mystery that surrounded that day’s mission, and mainly because I neglected to bring my camera with me, I have gone through the trouble of creating, in great detail, a life-like rendering of this character, and more importantly his jacket.

Figure 304-F

As Figure 304-F clearly illustrates, this college aged fellow was sporting not only a perm fit for a 46 year old Korean woman, but was also clad in a leather jacket, cut in such a way that had he not been wearing a sweater, everyone would have been able to see his navel. END TRANSMISSION.

I receive a fair amount of email from lads and lasses interesting in becoming involved in the fast paced exciting world of refrigerator repair, or teaching English in Korea, whichever one I am currently involved in. For some reason these people, in their search for information, stumbled across this website and for whatever reason figured that I’d be the person to ask about teaching English in Korea.

It’s not all puppies and alcohol fueled parties with members of the opposite sex…there’s a lot of things the potential teacher needs to know. So I have decided to take it upon myself to help these poor bastards by giving these people the information that they desperately need, but that no one else (read as recruiters or hagwon owners) will ever tell them. The medium I have elected to use in giving all this valuable information is the Microsoft Paintbrush program. So without further ado check this out!

Now I am full aware that mocking the concept of molestation is horrible, but in all honesty if you decide to come to Korea, you will be molested by your students. They will attempt to stick fingers up your rump. Fellas, they will attempt to grab hold of your naughty bits. Ladies they will attempt to cop a feel (there’s a nice term). And they will ask you extremely inappropriate questions. The best advice I can give is always be on your toes, because if you let your guard down for even one second, there will be a finger up your ass.

DSC01585
Originally uploaded by wdunn.

Koreans love their characters and mascots. Every business (and government institution) regardless of size will have a cartoon mascot that they can stick on their building. While most businesses tend to create a character of their own (usually some personified version of what they are selling), some simply take an existing character and make it their own.

Each and everyday (aside from Saturday and Sunday), I pass a cement factory, I have dubbed the 둘리 (Dooly) factory.

For those of you unfamiliar with Dooly, he is the star of a Korean cartoon. Here in Korea, he is probably the best known of all the homegrown animated characters. And apparently he is supporter of cement mixing factories. For those of you looking for more info on Dooly, check his homepage.

The thing that strikes me the most oddly about this, is the fact that it’s a factory! Why does a factory need cartoon characters on the outside? I can understand a 갈비집 (kalbi house) having a picture of a pig on the outside. They’re selling pork, a pig makes sense. This factory does not manufacture little cartoon dinosaurs, so why the character? So 유진 (Eugene) cement, I’ve cooked up a new logo for you. Feel free to use it.

Like I said, if you need to have a cartoon logo on you factory, feel free to loot this owners of the “Dooly” factory. At least it closer to what you are dealing in.

♬ “I’m on my way….I’m on my way….HOME SWEET HOME!” ♬

That’s right ladies and gentle-ladies, this morning I picked up my airline ticket, and in approximately a month’s time I will be arriving in New York for some rowdiness and tourism.

Actually picking up the tickets was fairly uneventful, but on the way to the travel agent I saw a pair of outstanding t-shirts that made no sense for the people wearing them to be sporting.

The first shirt was being worn by your typical Korean college student. You know the type: skirt, high heels, t-shirt, carrying a book. Anyhow these girls consistantly wear shirts with fairly random English slogans, but this shirt was something special.

The front of the shirt had a picture of Donald Duck, but on the back were a series of pictures of Donald’s face with various drug names written above the face.

The shirt looked something like that, only with way more drugs illustrated. Did you know that cocaine makes you look like a cowboy? I would have thought it would make you look like an extra from Miami Vice.

Mere seconds after seeing this typical Korean college student with her pro-drug t-shirt, I came across the most ironic shirt ever, except the irony was more likely than not lost on all who witnessed it.

I noticed a gentleman in a pink shirt, a fairly common shirt color for the gents here in Korea. As he came closer I noticed the slogan scrawled across his chest: “DON’T SEND MY JOB TO MEXICO!”

Now this shirt is very bizarre for a number of reasons. First off I’m no expert on Korean economics, but I pretty sure Korean companies aren’t sending jobs to Mexico (South East Asia maybe, but not Mexico), so this guy is walking around with a shirt proclaiming his hatred for people sending his job to a country that does not recieve jobs from his country, but that is not even the most ironic part of it.

The real irony comes from the shirt itself. I learned awhile back that a lot of the seemingly random shirts here are surplus shirts ordered from overseas. So maybe your school is having a cross country run and wants to make up some shirts. They send them to a printing company in Korea. The company runs off some extra shirts and sells them in the country…hence kids is Korea walk around with “TOWN OF COLONIE SUMMER YOUTH LEAGUE BASKETBALL” t-shirts.

So what this dude’s t-shirt was really saying was “Don’t send my job to Mexico, but it’s perfectly fine to have t-shirts made in Korea.” Oh I also find it hard to believe some Detroit assembly line worker would be sporting a bright pink t-shirt as means of supporting America.

I was chatting with one of my friends on MSN last night and he mentioned that he was having his students draw a picture of 신화 (a Korean boyband) eating 호빵맨 (better known by his Japanese name Anpanman) for some reason. I thought that this was a great idea for an art project, and assembled the following art piece. The large chunky man in the picture is Bruce K. Grant, author of A Guide To Korean Characters, and the Chinese character on his shirt, 肥 (살찔 비), means fat. Anyhow without further ado I present, 호빵맨 먹는 신화!

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve actually learned any Korean profanity. Since I worked for Koreans will still living in America, I learned most of the more extreme words before I ever set foot on Korean soil (or in a Korean language class for that matter).

Even the childish name calling (which I hadn’t heard in America) I learned with the first couple weeks of arriving in Korea. These phrases were fairly easy to learn since they were just different combinations of the word 바보 (babo / fool), and 똥꼬 (ddong-kko / butthole), with the occasional 돼지 (dweji / pig) thrown in for good measure, but today I learned an outstanding new elementary school insult. I give you: 짝궁뎅이 (jjak gung deng e)!!!

Today in my kindergarten class, one of the boys drew a picture similar to the one above. When I asked him what it was, he proclaimed, “짝궁뎅이!” which resulted rawkus laughter from the other students.

I made a further inquire as to what this picture actually was. He went on to explain in a combination of Korean and English, that one ass cheek was big, and the other was not big. Basically the ass was uneven.

Ever meet a Korean with one cartoonishly large ass cheek and needed to insult them? Need a really specific term with which to mock them? Well, my friends, now you have it!

editor’s notes: Please bear in mind this is a definition I pieced together from a five year old’s explaination. If you have further explaination as to what 짝궁뎅이 is, or if you know someone who actually has an ass like this, drop some comments.

Yesterday began with an exciting trip to the bank to pay my bills. You see, here in Korea there are no such things as personal checks so when it comes time to pay the piper, there are a couple things that can be done. First off the company can withdraw the money from your account directly. This is the most convient, but to my knowledge only phone companies will do this. The second thing that can be done is go to the post office and give the clerk there the money for you bills. The final option is use the awesome bill paying machine at the bank. I’m not sure if all banks have this feature or just mine (KB), but anyway that’s what I did yesterday…or at least tried to do.

When I arrived at the bank there was already a line of people at the two bank machines. Finally when there was one woman in front of me, she did something that put the machine out of commission. A bank employee began work on it and told us to use the other machine. Again, ten minutes pass, the woman steps up to get her bank on and lo and behold, the machine crashes again. I believe at this point I proclaimed, “You gotta be kidding me!” After another 10 minutes or so a machine was up and running and I could final pay my bills…Hooray!

Now yesterday is the day I have my kindergarten class. They come in we read a story, play some games, sing, have a snack, and use a workbook in which 90% of the activities involve coloring. Yesterday’s class was really good. The kids were well behaved, and were doing really well. The workbook activity for the class was a connect the dots puzzle, that when completed formed a desk (they were learning about “classrooms” and “schools” this unit). Upon completion of the puzzle the students called out, “I’m finished!”

When the students finish their work (and after the proclaim loudly that they have done so), I check the work that they have done, and either give them a sticker or write something like “Awesome!” or draw a happy face or a star…something to show them that I approve of their work. Yesterday the two girls in the class finished first and wanted me to draw, “Princess please.” So I drew a couple of hastily assembled princesses. The boy asked for a prince. Below is an exact replica of the drawing the boy recieved.

Upon seeing this drawing the boy burst into tears. Granted I’m not an great artist, and I will never be doing police sketches for America’s Most Wanted, but there was nothing wrong with this drawing to bring on uncontrolled sobbing. I asked him what was wrong and between sobs he was able to give a one word answer: “수염 (su-yeom)…”, which means “beard.” “코밑수염 (Komeet su-yeom)” is a more accurate translation for “moustache,” but I got the picture, and learned a valuable lesson: moustaches make small Korean children cry.

I’m a young man, and while I enjoy what I’m doing I don’t see myself teaching in a day care center…uh I mean hagwon forever. “So Wyatt, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

That’s a good question, and I’ve given it some serious thought. Excluding the possible creation of awesome new future jobs, like robocop, or alien bounty hunter, or space business man, I’ve decided that the best job avalible in this day in age is “old Korean man.”

“Say wha~?”

Take it easy an In Living Color cast member! Allow me to explain what makes the old Korean man such an awesome job. Well to begin with, they are their own boss. No one is going to tell an old Korean man what to do. As an old Korean man I would not have to fill out pointless paperwork, or lie to people to keep them happy. Additionally as an old Korean man I can set my own hours. No longer would I have to pass up all night drinking events or rock shows so I could get up early for work. As an old Korean man, I could party til I puke, and then sleep in the next day.

Additionally as an old Korean man, extreme drunkeness is tolerated…nay, encouraged! So I am allowed to spend my day in anyway I please, as long as I have some brew with me.

Furthermore, Korean men (old men in general get to spit on the street). In doing so, they make such an awesome noise. It’s kind of like “HWAAAAAAKKK!” and then they spit. Such an awesome, awesome noise!

“So what, hobos can do all of that shit too! What makes an old Korean man such a great job?”

Oh, a hobo is a pretty sweat job as well, but an old Korean man has something a hobo doesn’t have…style! I refer you to figure 71-D.

Seriously, look at that picture! Who wouldn’t want have a job where your uniform is the above picture! Damn think of all the ladies that would be up on my jock if I looked like that…wait a second, why wait? I’m off to go purchase some plaid pants. Later peoples!

A Korean Shark

Today with the kindergarteners we went on a field trip to the COEX aquarium. It was pretty fun. While there I saw a family of white people which was pretty odd for me…the seemed so foreign to me, even though they were clearly American. Wandering around in an aquarium which was in a mall was fairly odd, but at the same time kind of enjoyable. I rode in a bus for roughly an hour each way. Most of my class seems to like me better as well, so it was ok. Also along for the ride was the best looking helper. I spoke with her as well as the short helper who had Nick in tow all day…that girl is a saint. I on the other hand, had to follow Eric all afternoon…that boy needs a leash. He was constantly wandering off to god knows where. Also today I started using my own books in my elementary classes, which was much better than the crappy lessons others had designed. The kids and I both had a lot more fun today. It’s currently monsoon season, and I’m watching Nonstop, so I’m going to get out of here. Later!

P.S. White people look at me most oddly. and I heard one of the adults utter, “They (the Kid’s College students) are speaking English…” Later on Nick spoke to them, but I witnessed it from a distance, so I don’t know what he said to them.