Mia Korea

My Christmas was characteristically ridiculous.  About a week before Christmas, I planned a Christmas work party set for the 23rd.  A few days before the party, my boss comes into the work room and goes "umm...so would it be a big deal if we changed the date of the party to the 22nd?  I'm kind of getting married on the 24th."  So we were like..."WHAAAAAAAAT?????" and then of course we changed the party date.

Sidenote: my boss has, in the past, talked about how she wished she had a boyfriend and everything.  Turns out she's been seeing this guy for 13 years.  She's ridiculous.

Exposition: Back in October everyone from work went out to The Singing Room.  They're really into Mamma Mia right now so May (my boss) requested that we sing Mamma Mia and other various ABBA songs.

Later on in the week she came into the work room and was like "Katie, you should sing Mamma Mia for my wedding, haha."  So I said, "okay, haha."  And then she said "Really, you will?" and I was like "uhhh...yeah if you want me to Mamma Mia (a break-upish song) at your traditional Korean wedding May, then sure."

So I arrive at the wedding with my zip drive containing a karaoke mp3 version of Mamma Mia on it, thinking this is probably a chill wedding with a few people in attendance.  Also thinking, she's probably changed her mind about this.

Turns out there are a zillion people attending this wedding and it's really fancy.   Also turns out that Korean weddings are really short.  There's no fooling around.  The whole walking down the aisle and saying words of commitment and everything took only 10 minutes.  And then I heard "Keh-ee-tee"  and I was like "What.  Now?  Me?  Oh dear God."


So I went up there and sang karaoke Mamma Mia in front of a whole bunch of people and my boss and her husband all fancy and beautiful.  It was so ridiculous.  Who does that?

Too-Many-Bad-Seoul/Soul-Puns-Can't-Choose-Just-One

So I went to Seoul this weekend (all Seoul/Soul puns were present and accounted for) because I wanted to see Seoul and I was adopting a dog near the Seoul area.  I was adopting the dog on Sunday so I decided to go to Seoul on Saturday and spend the whole day meandering around.

I had to bring a dog crate to pick up the dog.  This proved to be quite amusing because Koreans are terrified of animals.  I've seen grown men cross streets to avoid a teeny little dog.  Yet everyone kept looking in my crate, and not subtly might I add.  No people were bending down and looking in the crate.  And when they didn't see anything they still weren't convinced that there was nothing in there  so they kept looking, like some animal was magically going to appear.

Anyways, so I got to Seoul and after an hour, I gave up looking for a hostel and settled for a hotel (grr).  I went and saw all the famous palaces although I should have just seen one because they are all exactly the same. But they are pretty cool to see; they are the epitome of Korea in my opinion.  (That was such a good use of a semi-colon!  Lynn Truss would be so proud!)  Then I walked down a strip to try and find an art museum when I saw a random door protruding from the ground.  So naturally I went in...

Turns out it was this huge underground museum dedicated to the Korean Admiral leader guy who was all "We are at the height of battle!  Do not tell them I'm deeeeaaadddd!!!!"

Everything was all fine and dandy until I found the "4D experience."  You know those big chairs they put you in that move all around and you wear 3D glasses and water and mist shoots out at you?  That's a 4D experience.  This particular 4D experience (and I have no idea why I thought it would be about anything else) was about the naval battle in which Admiral Sin "don't tell them I'm dead" surrounded Japan's ships and sunk them despite being outnumbered.  Now whoever thought it would be a good idea to give people the feel of being in war is a complete idiot.  This is THE WORST IDEA EVER.  There are bullets flying at you, ships are crashing into you, canons are exploding in your face.  It's absolutely AWFUL and all you feel at the end is terrified,  emotionally traumatized, and that you now might be eligible for some PTSD funding from the government.  I'm not even going to get into the portrayal of the Japanese commander or his maniacal laugh, mostly because there are just no words.

After that permanently scarring incident, I found a Rockefeller center-esk ice-skating rink and went skating at a Dollar Store-esk price.  Korean's can't ice-skate.  I really have stop stop making vast generalizations that have absolutely no support to them.  I retract the ice-skating statement.  I'd delete it, but I don't feel like holding down the delete button for that long.  That sentence is really far away.  Now it's even farther.  "You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older, and now you're even older, and now you're even older.*"

Later on, I walked around downtown, got a free hug from some Korean dudes who were giving out free hugs (I love those!) and then I bought the best purse ever.  Tricera-purse.


The next day I went to the shelter and got Benes.  She's such a good dog.  The guy that runs the shelter, who was dressed in military garb, somehow found out that I came all the way from Yeosu to get Benes and he freaked out.  He hugged me like a million times (Korean's aren't big on hugging, that's not an unwarranted generalization this time).  I was trying to ask him for the number of a taxi so I could get to the train station and he was all "My chingu, he drive, thank you!!!"  So this dude drove me to the station for free.  Normally in life, I have a lot of bad luck, but getting Benes has been nothing but good luck and good timing.  I was scared that I was making a mistake in getting a dog, but this is so right.


*They Might Be Giants

First Person Golfer

Of all the things I thought I might try or do or learn in Korea, Golf was never one of them.  Partially because (and I'm still under this impression) I never thought of Korea as having golf courses.

Well, as far as I know, they don't.  But after tonight, I have learned that they have something much more logical involving a lot less work.  Yes, I'm talking golf without all the exercise and slugging things around.  Golf for the uninspired.  Golf for the weak.  That is: VIRTUAL GOLF.

Now I know Virtual Golf has existed for years, mostly in the form of video games or arcades, but there is a very big distinction here.  First, let me explain how I stumbled upon this Korean goldmine.

A few days ago, my boss came into the teachers room, and in her very random, spontaneous way she said "you must want to talk to someone who can help you learn Korean, you should meet my friend."  I don't know if she was picking up on my lack of friends or if she just thought our personalities would be a good match but yadda yadda we set up a time to meet.

Tonight was that night.  Tonight was also the night I realized how little Korean I knew, for my boss's friend spoke very little English and conversation was really a struggle.  Long story short, our lack of good communication lead him into believing that I was an expert golfer.  Apparently "mini golf" doesn't mean in Korea what it means in America.

So Sang Min is all "Oh really??" And then says we should go and I'm all:
Me: "Ok!"
Sang Min: "Ok!"
Me:  "Now?"
Sang Min:  "Now?"
Me:  "Ok!"
Sang Min:  "Ok!"

I'm not a word off there.  So we get to the golf place and turns out it's a really big private room that in an ideal situation you go to with all of your friends, drink lots of beer and play some serious golf.  There's a sensor.  It's scary because the golf ball bounces so hard against the wall after you hit it that I couldn't help but ponder how many people have gotten seriously injured in one of these places (especially drunken ageshies).

And they were playing bird noises the whole time.  There were giant speakers and from them came only bird chirps and noises.  Is it because of the "birdie" in golf?  I don't know.

Anyway, apparently I'm god-AWFUL at golf.  I'm so so terrible.  Not once did I NOT hit double-par.  I have never felt like such a girl in my life!  Don't forget I played a hooker in a play this summer.  The worst part was that I had told him that I was good at golf.  1) Because I thought he meant mini golf and 2) because what are the chances you are ever going to be called out on a statement like that?

Aside from the fact that even though I sucked it really was a lot of fun, the one good thing I can say I got out of it (at the risk of exposing my inner dorkiness, oh wait...I do that everyday) is that I totally had a "hips before hands" moment.  Sang Min is a really nice guy and it was completely innocent; he was honestly trying his best to teach me how to play golf and to not completely fail (which I did despite all of his best efforts) but this mentoring resulted in my "hips before hands" moment, so even though it was meaningless, I still feel happy.

Aside from learning how to golf, who am I kidding I cannot golf my way out of a paper bag, I learned a few new Korean words!  I learned how to say 'closer,' 'back,' 'strong,' 'less strong,' and I forgot what else.  But very very important words for everyday conversation I'd say!

To conclude, in Korea, everything that you could ever want to do activity-wise can be done virtually somewhere in a temperature controlled room with beer and food.  I have yet to find any exceptions to this theory. 

There was talk of going skiing (I think?) but I have no idea if this means virtual skiing or real skiing.  To be continued....

Fan Death: You Are Die

So I have to admit how much I have come to love correcting my older classes' written assignments everyday.  Not because I like correcting papers.  On the contrary.  If I read the words "he is die" one more time all my students will die.  They won't "be die," they'll be dead.  I'm getting off topic.

Anyway,  it's fun because I inadvertently learn all of the silly things about Korea through these papers.  Today their topic was "What are some Korean superstitions and do you believe in them?"  (By the way, I just read Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation and now I'm super paranoid about my punctuation.)  Did I punctuate that correctly?  Again I diverge from the topic.  Help!

Some of the superstitions they wrote about were hilarious.  For example: don't cut your fingernails at night because then a goblin will come and eat them and the goblin will begin to look just like you so you'll have a clone.  Not gonna lie, that would be motivation for me to cut my fingernails at night.

Don't eat brown seaweed soup the day before a test because then you'll fail the test.  Why?  Because brown seaweed is slippery and therefore you'll be slippery during your test.

Don't sleep in a room with a fan on and the windows and doors closed or you will die.  Adults believe this one too.  For some reason their scientists haven't gotten around to debunking this one?  Silly Korea.

Using mix-matched chopsticks is bad luck.  The number four is very bad luck.  It's the numeral equivalent to our number 13 in that most hotels and apartment buildings don't have a fourth floor, they skip to five, like we do with the thirteenth floor in hotels.

It's very bad to write someones name in red ink.  It means they will die.

But my most favorite of all is this: water ghosts.  Apparently, water ghosts come from the ocean.  I don't know what they do or why they are different from regular ghosts.  But the two words next to each other really makes me laugh.  Water ghosts.  hehehehehe.

On another note, I figured out how to type in Korean on my computer!  멬 주 하 나 주 세 ㅛ!

Where The Watermelons Grow

Before today, it was my small-brained assumption that all people agree that a watermelon is a fruit.  A watermelon has seeds and tastes sweet and sugary and therefore, it is a fruit.  The real debate is tomatoes.  Are they fruit or vegetable?  They have seeds right?  So alas!  They must be a fruit!  Then what about cucumbers?  I’m getting off topic.

As I was saying, I had long ago made the assumption that I would never have to question the placement of a watermelon as being in the fruit category.  UNTIL TODAY.

Today in one of my classes I was having my students list fruits and vegetables.  When I suggested watermelon they told me it was a vegetable.  Assuming that they were not understanding the word ‘watermelon” I drew a picture and said, “it has seeds, it’s a fruit.”  And they said no!  It grows from the ground, it’s a vegetable!  And I said, “Strawberries grow from the ground!  Are they vegetables?”  “Yes!” they exclaimed.

Here, I presumed, we had a major misunderstanding, for strawberries and watermelons, which are sweet sweet things, surely are not considered vegetables in Asia.

So I asked a foreign teacher’s opinion.  She too told me that watermelons were vegetables.  Watermelons!!!  Watermelon.  Vegetable.  Watermelon=Vegetable? Ludicrous.

Unable to accept this, I began questioning students in the halls:

“Is a watermelon a fruit or a vegetable?” 

“A vegetable.” 

“A vegetable?!?  Are you crazy?!?  It’s a fruit!”

“Hey!  This is KOREA!!!!  A watermelon is a vegetable!!!”

And there’s a cultural barrier I did NOT expect to encounter. 

I'd Rather Be a Germaphobe

I went to the coffee shop tonight to write an essay for a fellow foreigner who is doing a dissertation paper on teaching English in Korea or something like that.  I love writing and I kind miss writing essays so I figured why not contribute to society instead of holing up in my room playing sporcle quizzes.

I'm really sick, so I bring a role of toilet paper with me wherever I go in case I need to blow my nose.  While I wouldn't put it past 95% of my kids to give me diseases, I blame this particular sickness on one particular child.  Mr. Shawny-pants.  Shawny-pants, as I like to call him, did me the kind injustice last Friday of gathering up spit in his mouth and then taking my curriculum paper and slobbering allllll over it.  And when he was done, he ripped it in half.  Now I come in an hour early to work to write up my curriculum.  I needed that paper.  So I took the slobbery ripped up paper and brought it along to my remaining classes.  (Gross I know, but arguably not as gross as the walking germ infestations that are children).  The best was when other students would pick up the slobbery ripped papers and say "Teachah what?  Teachah whaaaat?"  and then I'd tell them what happened to it.  Lesson: don't touch my stuff kids. he he.

(Sidenote:  Koreans hate when people blow their noses in public, yet they have no problem spitting everywhere at all times.  In stairwells, in corridors, you name it.  Boys, girls, women, men, children, everyone does it, it's the thing to do.  It's gross.  They have no problem very audibly coughing up a lung and mustering a loogie full of mucus, but blowing your nose...now that's taking it too far.)

Anyway, so I'm at the coffee shop, blowing my nose and writing this paper after a long sick day of attempting to control over-worked, hyperactive children when a cute little kid comes over to me.  First he just looks at me.  Then he comes over to me.  Not knowing what to do as he stares at me and my computer, I hand him one of the chips I was eating because he was a little chubby and all chubby kids want snacks.  Right?

Well, right, but I should have known that once you feed them, you're never rid of them.  So now the kid starts speaking Korean to me so I say "Hangul, Chogum" which basically means "I only know a little Korean."  And then he's all "ok" but then continues to talk a mile a minute to me in Korean.  So to divert his attention from the fact that I'm smiling and nodding because I have no idea what he's saying, I try to look up a computer game for him to play on my computer.  But, nothing is interesting to him.  He is bored with my computer and he is bored with his legos that he brought over to show me and he is starting to take interest in my used tissues.  So I tell him "noooo grooossss" and I think he gets it, but then again you'd think he'd understand not to touch them after watching me use them.  But kids are gross, and they give me diseases.

Even on my few hours off, the unwanted kid magnet that I have, manages to bring on the children.

Hello, I Love You

Today I rode the bus downtown and tried to then take a different bus onto the island of Dolsan.  After a while of trying to figure out the different bus routes, I was finally convinced that I had figured out the correct bus to take.

So there I was sitting on the bus when I realized I was the only one left.  The rest of the bus had cleared out.  I knew then that I had taken the wrong bus.  I looked toward the front of the bus to the bus driver who was trying to get my attention.  He pulled into the bus station.  Then he yelled to me (to my surprise because most people don't know any English) "Uh...Last Stop!  I love you!!" 

A little lost in translation?  Or maybe he really did love me, because I have a small face. :-)

Octpuses, octopi, octopodes

I apologize in advance for all the exposition into this story, if it's unwanted, skip to the third paragraph...

I think I'll begin my tale with a stroll I took with a fellow foreigner a few weeks ago.  We were walking amongst the outdoor fish markets of Yeosu, when we began to notice all of the dried octopi (my preferred plural, of the grammatically correct trio) around.  This sparked a conversation about octopi.  Robby (who I was with) told me that octopi are the smartest invertebrate, that their intelligence is equivalent to that of a cats' and that they can, for example, watch another octopus solve a problem and learn from that octopus, therefore solving a similar problem in the way the octopus they observed solved it. Pretty intense.

He also mentioned that he thought it would be cool to own an octopus as a pet.  I told him that I had the same thought about a year ago and I did some research on it.  Almost every site on the internet regarding owing an octopus as a pet offered the same advice:  WARNING! DO NOT GET A PET OCTOPUS! Then would follow some horrifying story about owning a pet octopus.

Anyway, the following week, I went walking with my roommate Kayla and we saw a bucket of little octopi.  Before I knew what was happening, a woman grabbed an octopus and cut out its brain. (I would later find out that octopi have 9 brains, well, one large neural clustering at the head as well as 8 neural clusters leading down through each of it's 8 tentacles).  Then, she cut up the octopus into little pieces.  The octopus was all chopped up on her cutting board but it was FAR from lifeless.  It was still squiggling and moving all around.  Then she put the pieces of the still moving octopus into a bowl and served it to a customer.  Basically, I was horrified.  I wanted to cry, but I was too shocked.

Kayla, however, was only fascinated.  She said that we should eat a live octopus, that it should be our goal of the year.  And then somehow, although I'll argue I was still in shock and not in a sane state of mind, I pinky swore that I would do this.  I figured that it would happen sometime next summer and that I'd have about 9 months to wrap my mind around the idea of eating a live octopus.

So we go to work the next day, and Kayla goes and mentions our goal to our Korean co-worker Lydia.  Lydia goes, "I want to see this, let's go Saturday at 2:00."  So I choke, and then I'm all "WHAT?!?  No!  But I need time!  I need to make peace with the octopi community!"

But Saturday at 2:00 it was.  So we drove to the fish market.  Me, Kayla, Robbie, and the three observers Lydia, Jean, and Daisy.  We walked in and I said to myself "Ok, don't name them, don't look at them, just do it."  But I accidentally looked at the fish market lady at the precise moment that she decided to cut the brains out of not one but TWO octopi although I told her that one octopus was way more than enough octopus for me.

Alas, we walked away with our squiggly squirmy octopi (whom I couldn't help but name Steve and Eric), and the time had come.  I had to eat the octopus.  Have I mentioned yet that I'm a vegetarian?  I'm a vegetarian.  Anyway, I stared at it's moving tentacles that contained, in very basic scientific terms, brains (neurons and neural axons, it counts) and I just ate it.  And I could feel it squiggle in my mouth a little bit.  And I was so sad that I was eating my very favorite animal.  But I did it.

And then I asked it for forgiveness and for it not to send its friends out to get me in my sleep because for all I know,  octopi have telepathic powers.  Maybe they hold grudges, maybe this particular octopus was part of the octopi mafia.  I just don't know.  There's just so much that science doesn't yet understand!  I didn't want to take any risks.

So the moral of the story is if you ever want to get me out when playing 'Never Have I Ever' you can now say "Never have I ever eaten a live octopus" and I'll be out...

I believe in Joe

We were driving back to Connecticut from Pittsburgh after a grueling weekend of visiting probably about the twentieth college along the East Coast and Midwest.  I was so sick of looking at colleges, going on tours, and being less than impressed at every single one.  While driving back, my mother saw a sign for Penn State.  She asked if I wanted to swing by on our way home.  I had a feeling that she was becoming increasingly agitated with my unenthusiastic reactions to each school after visiting them and just wanted me to pick one already.  So I agreed to the swing by.

I can't put into words how I felt after just stepping onto the Penn State campus amidst the call and responses of "We Are!" and "Penn State."  The campus tour, being the longest one by far of any of the other schools I visited (3 hrs), was an experience I'll never forget.  It was incredible, and I was in love.  I only applied to two schools, being an out-of-stater, it's really hard to get into Penn State, so I applied to one school as a back up in case I didn't get into Penn State.  Just as I'll never forget the campus tour, I'll never forget receiving my acceptance letter.  And I'm sure my mother remembers how excited I was.  Given that I was a moody teenager at the time, very few things made me feel excited to the point that I would verbally express them, so this was certainly a memorable moment for those around me.

I could go on to talk about how Penn State changed my life on many different levels, and more than that, Penn State lead me to State College, a place which to me is my home.  I've never loved a place so much.  But I want to talk about football.

When I told my dad that I was going to Penn State, he freaked out.  Apparently, my father was and is a huge JoPa fan and has been "since 1968!"  He's followed his career since he was a kid.  He never really talked about college football with me as a kid or teen because, why would he?  Needless to say, my dad was so excited that I was going to Penn State and from then on, I never heard the end of his love for JoPa and why he is so great.

My first day at Penn State, after meeting my roommate Alex, a huge Penn State fan, we walked to the football stadium and decided we would go to the football games together.  More than that, because I'm usually up for anything, she convinced me to go to Paternoville with her the following weekend.

I didn't know what it was at the time, but Paternoville became a very significant part of my Penn State career.  From my very first Paternoville the first weekend I was at Penn State until my very last semester, I can count on one hand the amount of times I DIDN'T camp out for days before a football game.  Some of the most memorable Paternoville camp-outs being the week long camp-outs at the end of October.  I would be frozen to the core, exhausted, unable to sleep because of the cold, my only source of warmth ever being the few short hours I left my tent to go to class, but what kept me going was the intense pride and joy I felt standing in the front row of the student section in the stadium ferociously cheering on my team and occasionally catching a glimpse at JoPa on the sideline.

Penn State has given me so much.  And Joe Paterno has given me a hero, someone to believe in and look up to. I always will look up to JoPa.  I admire him, I think he is an incredible person who did incredible things for my Alma Mater.  Nothing will ever change that.

I could go into how I think that it's a sick world when the media, given a horrible story, instead of focusing on the villian or villains of the case, instead put all of their focus on a celebrity, bystander, and in essence, a scapegoat.  That just tells me that something about the real story is not being told.  Our focus has been shifted away from the people who committed the crime.  And no one is questioning this? 

It's a mad world, and I don't understand it.  I have strong feelings about the events have pasted at Penn State, but I didn't intend for this post to become a rant.  So I'll just say this.  In this crazy mixed-up world where blame is displaced, focus is shifted, and the media controls all of what we are told and lead to believe, there are incredible individuals who stand out.  They are few and far between, but they are there and they are good, well-intentioned, and inspiring.  Joe Paterno is without a doubt one of those people.  And I think it is a complete and utter shame if people don't see that or no longer see that due to biased media attention (where's the morality in that?)

I don't believe in a lot of things, but I believe in Joe.  For me, JoPa is Penn State.  Nothing can tarnish that for me, because I know what's right and good.  And that's Joe Paterno.


We are, Penn State.

Broken Bottle of Beer

Last night, I decided to get a beer at Miller Time (the bar across from my apartment).  I figured, I know enough Korean to order a beer.  I can say 'I like beer" and "one beer please" what else do I need to know?  So I went out and did just that.  As I was sitting drinking my beer and watching Korean music videos thinking to myself how cool it's going to be when I go back to America and can say things like "I wounded my leg...I was in Korea" like an old veteran would (is that offensive?), I was approached by two Korean dudes.  Every guy in Korea is a dude, these are not real men (THAT is offensive).

Anyway, they start talking to me and they don't know any English.  So we're trying to communicate but our conversation is going something like this:  "Hi!  Uhhhh.....gaahhh...ummm.....uhhh...ahhhh" to my "I'm sorry, meinhamnida, I don't know much Korean."   However, through what was basically charades, I figured out they wanted me to go with them to the singing room.  Since I had nothing better going on and I knew the singing room was close by, I went along.

We went up the elevator to meet two of their friends, a couple, who were in the singing room.  They saw I was American (or white at least) and they ordered Spaghetti for me.  I tried really hard not to be offended by this especially because this was after I told them how much I loved Korean food.  Then, after I used my chopsticks to eat a portion of the spaghetti, they called the waiter and got me a fork.  This was after I said no to the fork multiple times IN KOREAN.  But they were trying to be polite I guess. 

It was soon afterward, when the two guys I met started spilling their drinks everywhere and knocking over, thus breaking, a bunch of glasses, that I realized how drunk these guys were.  This was when I realized I really need to learn the Korean word for 'drunk.'

So the one guy starts looking a little sickly, not wanting to get thrown up on, I went to the bathroom.  This is when I realized I need to learn the Korean word for 'bathroom.'  Not because, there aren't signs, but because the guys thought I was leaving and got upset.  So the one guy followed me and waited outside the bathroom.

I went back to the singing room and the one guy left.  Then the other couple started to leave which would have left me with the really really drunk guy.  So I was all PEACE OUT! And I started to leave and then the one guy started yelling at the drunk guy to get ready to leave.  The drunk guy spilled his beer on the guy.  The other guy took an unopened beer bottle and smashed it on the floor (which the Korean dudes do often**) and that's when I bolted out of the room.  I started hitting the elevator button (how are there NO stairs?!?  That's a fire hazard).  The elevator was taking FOREVER so I hid in the corner until it came, then I jumped in and hit the close door button.  I just didn't want them to follow me and convince me to stay and hang out.  "Umm, yeah, you Korean dudes are crazy, I'm good thanks."

I want to stress that I was not in a bad situation at all, I didn't feel threatened, it was a situation that I could have, at any point, gotten myself out of.  (The previous sentence is written for my mother).  Korean dudes are not scary or intimidating, they're just weird.

**My first week in Korea, my two roommates took me to a local bar.  We're sitting there drinking our beer when these drunk Ageshis (old Korean dudes) start chucking full bottles of beer at the bar and they are smashing everywhere.  The people working did seem to care.  They didn't attempt to stop the throwing of beer bottles.  They did not seem concerned.  I can't explain this phenomenon.

Halloween Day

As you would assume, there in no Halloween in Korean.  However, as I teach at an English school, my boss thinks it's important in learning English for the kids to learn about western cultures.  Needless to say, we got to dress up for work and give the kids candy and have Halloween parties.

I decided to be Winnifred Sanderson despite the fact that no one would understand the pop culture reference. As I (finally) had bright red hair on Halloween, I went for it.

My boss asked me if I had any fun Halloween activities planned for the kids.  I kinda joked that I wanted to teach them the "Trick or treat, smell my feet" song, thinking she would shrug off the suggestion.  But she LOVED the song and decided that every teacher at the school had to teach the song to all of their classes.  So now, a total of 400 Korean children from this day forward on Halloween will sing "Trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat, if you don't, I don't care, I'll pull down your underwear."

Go me.

Once I learned that a lot of my students (especially the older ones) aspire to work for the U.N.,  I have started to teach them slang terms without telling them it's slang.  I'm hoping they'll use the terms in perhaps, a job interview for a U.N. position or something.  Should be hilarious.



Or maybe they'll walk in singing the trick-or-treat song...

ESL Students say The Darndest Things

This past weeks have provided a series of amusing classroom scenarios.  Not unlike the time I told my Spanish teacher (in Spanish of course) that if I ever met Antonio Banderas I would feed him money, my kids have some confusion with certain words.

For instance, in one class of 9-year-olds, we are learning about clothes.  Every day I ask the kids to tell me what they're wearing.  We get to Nick who tells me that he's wearing panties.  (Where he learned this word by the way, I don't know).  After chocking back a laugh I tried to explain that boys shouldn't say that they're wearing panties.  And that of course was fuel for the fire because this started a trend with the boys.  They think they're being rebellious in telling me that they're all wearing panties when of course in reality...no, just...no.

So the next day the class gets settled and I ask them all what they're wearing.  This time the boys proceed to tell me "I'm not wearing any panties!"  (thunk, thunk, thunk)

Yesterday, in my 6:00pm class of 13-year-olds, the kids were hungry.  They kept begging me to buy them noodles.  I was all "no I'm not buying you noodles" and thus I paid the price.  In class that day they had to read a dialogue from their book.  The dialogue went something like "Hi Barbara, ready to go to the movie?"  "Yeah, but first lets take a walk around the park."  "Ok, hey that guy is fishing!"  "Hello, I can't seem to catch any fish, I'm not having any luck."  "You don't need luck to catch fish, you need to be a good fisherman."  And scene.  These dialogues rarely make any sense.

Anyway, this dialogue, read aloud by the class turned into "Hi Barbara, ready to eat noodles?"  "Yeah, but first let's eat noodles."  "Ok!  Hey that guy is eating noodles!"  "Hello, I can't seem to catch any noodles, I'm not having any noodles."  "You don't need noodles to catch noodles, you need to be a good noodleman." 

I quit.

A Korean Production

Friday after work, I was hanging out at E-World waiting to go to Karaoke or "The Singing Room."  (It's not really karaoke, it's a small room they put you in where they make you sing in front of your friends in an enclosed space, it's the definition of awkward).

Anyway, I was waiting and one of the older students came up to me and started talking to me.  She was a really good speaker and she was asking me questions and our conversation lead to her inviting me to see a theatre production the next day.

So of course I went, despite the fact that I knew I wouldn't understand what was going on.  I figured I'd at least understand the actions and expressions and whatnot.

So we're watching the play and I'm trying to figure out whats happening, and basically I'm just becoming more and more confused.

The show ended and I summarized the play as such.  The play was about a group of poor children who were wandering around when they ran into an old blind man who told them about all his problems and woahs.  Then all of a sudden, evil clown muggers came out of nowhere in these huge clown fros and beat up the children and stole their possessions.   Then the old man, who apparently had at one point been a part of The Matrix, attacked the clown muggers in slow/fast Matrix fashion.  The end.

As strange as it was, I mean, I stage managed Mrs. McThing so nothing can surprise me.

But I was curious, so I asked the girl who brought me what the play was about.  She said it was about a group of kids who wanted to buy a horse from an old man but the old man lost the horse.

What?  What about the evil clown muggers?  Where did horses come into play?  I never saw a horse!  What does a group of seven children need with one horse?!?

Seriously, what did clowns have to do with anything??

In conclusion, I guess the dialogue was pretty essential, and in this case I wouldn't say the actions spoke louder than the words.  I'm baffled.

Angry Birds

Now, in the U.S., people have spoken of the Angry Bird craze.  People love to play it.  They might even get caught playing it at work instead of actually working.  People are addicted to the game.

But you people have no idea.  NO idea.  In the U.S. Angry Birds is a craze, in Korea, it's an OBSESSION.  An obsession, I dare say, more severe and intense than perhaps The Spice Girls or Pokemon.  Or even Beanie Babies.  Yeah I said it.

Let me give you an idea.  I teach eleven classes at E-World.  Eleven classes of varying ages between six and thirteen.  Not a day or even a class has gone by where the words "Angry Birds" has not been mentioned at least one time.  NOT ONCE.

There are Angry Bird pencil cases, Angry Bird apparel, Angry Bird backpacks, pencils, erasers, phone cases, must I go on....

But that's not all.  I have asked each of my classes to split into two teams and come up with a team name.  Mind you, this would make 22 teams in total.  Now, let me list the team names I have.  Let's see, there's "Team Angry Birds," "Team Angry Bird,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds," "Team Angry Birds,"  "Team Angry Birds," and my favorite: "Team Angry-Bird-Chicken-Dog."

Now can you say originality?

When I ask my young classes what their favorite animal is, about half of them say "My favorite animal is...Angry Bird!"  And I don't know how to tell them that it's not a real animal.  Mostly because there no way to explain this to a group of screaming children who only know how to recite colors, shapes, and animals.  But also, I can't break hearts like that.

They draw Angry Birds in all of their workbooks, and all over my board when I'm not in the room.  EVERY SINGLE DAY I walk into my room and there are Angry Birds all over my board.

My favorite incident involving Angry Birds, however, was the time I had one of my classes playing Pictionary with animals.  Of course I got the expected Angry Bird drawing, but then Nick, the class clown, came up to the board and began to draw an Angry Chicken.  But he was laughing so hard because the thought of an Angry Chicken was so funny to him that he drew about half of it and then ended up on the floor laughing so hard that he couldn't catch his breath.  It was so contagious.  Needless to say, that was the end of Pictionary for that day, and there was no getting that class to focus for the rest of the period.  So I let them draw Angry Birds.

Now, as for someone who has never even played Angry Birds, I don't understand it.  But I'm starting to think I'm really missing out on something here...

Trouble: Part 1

It took me two weeks, but I finally stumbled upon some trouble.  Or at least, an interesting situation.  I decided to go on a hike today along this path I found the weekend I got here.  The weekend I arrived, Yeosu was sweltering in heat.  I went exploring and I found what I presumed to be a hiking path.  I told myself I'd walk along it once the weather cooled down.

Today was the perfect day to go because it was nice and cool out.  So I walked to the path and I started to go along it.  Everything was going fine and I was excited because I was so curious where this path lead to.  The path took a sharp turn, and thus, so did I.  To my surprise, I was suddenly face to face with a bull/cow thing.  Bull cow.  Bull cow?  Anyway, it came out of nowhere.  And it looked pissed.  It was staring at me angrily and it was kicking its hooves and brushing dirt back like a Torro in a bull fight.

I was so shocked and freaked out that I couldn't move.  Nor could I stop looking at it straight in the eyes which is what I'm pretty sure you're NOT supposed to do.  So naturally, I slowly raised my camera, took a picture, and then backed away.  I was too scared to run because I thought maybe it would chase me or something.  I have no idea what these animals are about.  Do they attack?  Or could I have just walked on by it like it was nothing?  Most importantly, WHAT IS A BULL COW THING (?) DOING ON A HIKING PATH???

I seem to always have really weird experiences with anything related to the cow family.  I once was driving back from Pittsburgh after seeing Falling Waters and I was tired.  My GPS offered a more direct route than the highway and I trusted it.  See where this is going?  Long story short, I ended up driving through (what basically was) a field of cows, who were NOT happy to be interrupted.  They mooed at me so angrily and they looked so mad; I could not have driven away faster.  It was terrifying.  I think I'm developing a cow-phobia.

The Alien Card

What a process it is to get your alien card!  Not that I should have expected different considering the Visa process. 

Everyone needs so many pictures of me.  The hospital, the school, the alien card people...and I ran out of pictures, so I had to go to a photo place to get more.  Now in America when I went to get a passport photo, they sat me down, took out a crappy camera, told me not to smile, took one picture and bam I was done, no matter how bad I looked in the picture**.

**On that note, my pictures did come out pretty bad, and the Korean teachers asked me if I was drunk or really tired or sick when I took my photo because I look so bad and I just said "probably."  They're so blunt here, I don't know how to react.  I DO know that I'm going to have to figure it out sooner or later because it's only been two weeks and I've already been asked if I was sick because I "look[ed] tired."  Thanks...

Anyway, here I had to go to a professional photography studio.  They put all these lights around me and they spent ten minutes trying to get me to straighten my shoulders.  Which, consequently, leads me to believe that I have naturally crooked shoulders or something because when they came over to me and "straightened" my shoulders, I felt all lope-sided. Maybe I've been walking around crooked my whole life!  When my shoulders were finally "straight" or whatever, they took a zillion pictures of me, but they did let me smile, which I was grateful for despite the fact I wasn't particularly in the mood because I was so focused on attempting to stay crooked, or straight depending on how you see it.

On top of it all, I have to wait a few days to get the pictures back because they are going to edit them and airbrush them and all, which I'm pretty sure defeats the purpose of a passport photo.  Aren't I supposed to look like myself?

S-T-A-R-I-N-G

I went to the doctors a few days ago because I needed to get a Korean check-up or whathaveyou.  Lydia, a fellow teacher and a Korean, went with me.  I brought along a book because you know, the doctors office, yada yada.

So we get to the doctors office and turns out, it's actually a hospital.  A hospital complete with people walking around with IV stands.  I had to get a dental check-up, a physical check-up, and an X-Ray.  Now, I expected all of this to take about three hours or more, you know, standard American lets-keep-you-waiting-as-long-as-possible procedure.

Well I was so wrong.  I practically had to run through the hospital to keep up.  Here lets take your blood, here let's check your eyes, here lets check your teeth, here lets give you a freaking X-Ray.  Bam bam bam.  It took 30 minutes. 

And I appreciated the swiftness of it all.  It did really freak me out however.  I mean they don't even care about your name or anything, they just get you in and out of every room, it was like some sort of weird scavenger hunt game.  They didn't even ask for my passport.

And believe you me I stick out like a sore thumb.  It is so strange to have to get used to people staring at you everywhere you go like you're some sort of alien.  People literally stop in the street and stare at me.  Children follow me.  Old ladies scowl.  Sometimes it's a confidence boost.  I feel like I'm kind of a big deal.  And the guys think I'm hot.  They like big noses and small faces here, so I'm pretty set.  Barbra Streisand should consider visiting.

We were at the bar last night and these Korean across from us had a bet that Canada was below America.  Now, I'm not going to judge, because I can't say I immediately placed Korea on a map as soon as I found out I was coming here.  I at least I knew it wasn't high above China.

Point is: bars, supermarkets, school, hospitals, nowhere is safe.  I'm not going to fit into a crowd for a whole year.  Strange.

A Deer In Headlights

Oh man, so yesterday was my first day of teaching.  I go into the school a few hours early to figure out what I'm supposed to do.  Now I had assumed (which should send up a red flag here) that my first few days were training days and that someone would be guiding me along or something.  Incorrect.  I was thrown to the sharks yesterday.  (I almost said literally and then I realized I'm teaching English, I should try and use it properly). 

I taught seven classes yesterday, and I had no idea what I was doing in any of them.  I tried to play the name game with them, but this proved impossible.  Nonetheless, I played it with every class for lack of any better ideas.  I hate the feeling of having a class of students looking at you for answers or something and you just look back at them like "uhh well, I guess you all know you're shapes so....ummm, colors?  Damn you know you're colors too.  Smart kids, I'm screwed."

Today I have six classes to teach, and I'm equally as unprepared despite my attempt to figure out some activities for them.  I've decided I'm going to have to learn to do a lot of time-wasting, and procrastination activities with these kids.  They seem like they know everything.

Of course I talked this over with one of the Korean teachers.  I was telling her the kids were so smart and she was like "wait a week, they you'll be all 'these kids are so dumb'."  I doubt it, but hilarious all the same.  Although, I can see where she's coming from after correcting some papers last night.  In all honesty, grading the papers just made me feel sad for my Spanish teachers throughout school.  The things they had to decipher...

Some of the papers were very amusing, and some where just disturbing.  The one essay question was "I wished I looked like...because..."  Reading these responses just opened my eyes to how superficial this culture is in ways.   A lot of the kids (these are 9/10-year-olds) talked about having plastic surgery and bigger eyes and paler skin, yada yada.  But I think the fact that the question was asked is telling enough.

The other question was "If you become a mother or father in the future, how would you bring up your kids?"  These were my favorite to read.  Some of the kids talked about bringing up their kids strictly for revenge.  My favorite quotes was "I would do motherly things so they will think "my mother was very laborious, sorry!"  Laborious, gotta love it.

Moral of the story, I must work on being less efficient.  That's right, less efficient.  Any advice?

Yeosu

Let me start by saying this blog got its title while on a road trip with one Jennifer Stearns. I was telling her that I wanted to start a blog when in South Korea but was having trouble coming up with a name for it. After giving her my ideas such as "this hiker's got Seoul" and things to that effect she suggested I name it "the view from up here." The reason was two-fold. 1) It's ironic because I'm short, however people from East Asia are also notoriously short so the joke is that however short I am, they'll be shorter. Which, on a tangent, is sadly not the case. 2) It's funny because though I'm in South Korea the title can suggest I might be in North Korea. That's definitely a stretch, but I like it. Especially since everyone I told about my move to SoKo was all "don't go hiking, don't get near the border, I'm scared you're going to die Katie, I mean you DID fall into a moat after all." Yeah yeah yeah.  

And now onto my arrival. The trip was fine. It was long but I met some nice people on the planes. It wasn't until I had to transfer airports to get to Yeosu that it because amusing for anyone to watch me, because then I was lugging around two 55 pound suitcases and a backpack and purse. Of course, no one has any sympathy for people in these situations. They just watch, laugh, and occasionally someone will ask you if you need a taxi. I hate when people stop me and ask if I need a taxi. Do I look like an idiot? There are signs for taxis everywhere, if I needed a taxi I would find you.  

When I got to my apartment my roommates were telling me that the kids were asking about me. They said the first thing they asked (which apparently is expected) was "how tall is she?" Oh these poor kids are going to be so disappointed. According to my roommates, everyone is obsessed with height here. Good thing I packed heels.  

Anyway, nothing too exciting to report yet. But I'm sure I'm well on my way to finding trouble to get into.

I'll keep ya posted.
 xoxo