Spring in a Bowl

I had these green things when I was out to dinner last week and I just loved how fresh and "springlike" they tasted. I asked what they were called and was told "don na-mool" - which is like "money vegetables."

You're SO money, baby!

I was able to find them in the supermarket and I've been eating a bowlful with every meal since then. You can only get these in spring, so I'm taking advantage while I can - if you're in Korea give them a try!

I drizzled them with a mix of gochujang (in the red container) thinned with a little water and a dash of sesame oil. Nummers.


Here's a perfect meal. Soon doobu jjigae, rice, and money-veggie! I've been making my soon doobu with loads of eggplant lately instead of zucchini. So yummy!

Coincidences

As I was coming home last night I stopped on the third floor because there was a big fat grasshopper looking at me. It got me wondering where he'd come from. I wouldn't be too surprised to see a baby grasshopper, but this guy was already pretty big. Still, he must have just recently crawled out of the ground. By the fall, he's going to be a monster.


So last night I picked him up and snapped a couple of pictures of him and set him back down so he could go on his merry way. Then I continues up the stairs to my apartment on the next floor.

Today I was leaving for work and as I opened the door to head out, my buddy the grasshopper jumped right into my apartment. I gave a little shriek because I didn't know what it was at first, but I saw Hoppy take another leap and land in the middle of the living room. Kamikaze was already getting up, all big eyed, to inspect and eat- so I chased after Hoppy to spare him.

I caught him after a little chase and set him down outside once I'd closed the door. I had a chance to look at him, and for sure - that was the same guy as last night. How weird is it that he was waiting at my door this afternoon? One floor up, and of the fifteen or so doors on this level he happened to be right outside of mine at the same moment I was opening my door to leave. Strange.

And coincidentally when I got to work I had a package from What the Book with Deepak Chopra's "The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence" - a book about coincidences!

Deepak proposes that, "Not only are everyday coincidences meaningful, they actually provide us with glimpses of the field of infinite possibilities that lies at the heart of all things." Good news, that. I've got to figure out what the hell I'm doing with all my infinite possibilities.

In other ethereal news, I keep having dreams where I'm covered in shit. I've had about four of them in the last couple weeks. I always discover, in the dreams, that I've got poo on me and trying to wipe it off, it just gets all over me. I don't find these to be very happy dreams, but my co-workers told me today that they're actually very auspicious. That's good to hear.

Changes to Severance Pay Laws in Korea

The Korean government recently announced changes to its laws regarding severance pay. Amendments have been made to the Labour Standards Act, effective immediately. Article 28 previously stated: "An employer shall establish a system by which an average wage of not less than 30 days per year for each consecutive year employed shall be paid as retirement allowance to a retired employee. Provided, however, that this shall not apply in cases where the period of employment is less than one year."

What this meant for many English teachers working in Korea was that at the end of their one year contract, they would receive a 'bonus' equal to one month's salary. Many Canadian teachers would then return to their home country and direct deposit their severance pay at The Beer Store.

Ministry of Education spokesperson Kim Do-Oh was recently quoted at a press conference, explaining the changes to severance pay allotment, "Our ministry and the Korean government in general has been under pressure for a number of years from hagwons and public school trustees regarding severance pay and foreign teachers. We have received thousands of complaints that having to essentially pay two months' salary and airfare at the end of an employees contract, along with the costs of replacing the teacher was an unfair burden."

The Ministry has come up with a plan that will ease the financial strain on public schools and hagwons, while also benefiting the outgoing teacher.

"We are aware," Kim continued, "the foreign teachers return to their home countries and distribute their severance pay at local bars and clubs. The severance pay allowance was set up for Korean nationals to help at the time of retirement. Severance pay was never meant to be 'Beer Party pay.' The new laws will benefit our education system financially, and foreign teacher's health as well. All teachers returning to their home country after more than a year of ongoing employment will receive our thanks and best wishes, and in lieu of severance pay, milk."

"It's good for health."

Some Beasties

Beastie Number One

Looks dangerous!

Beastie Number Two

He's looking for a smoke.

Beastie Number Three

My, my, my,...what big beastie eyes!

Minnows

Here's something you don't see,..well - EVER back home. It's a minnow truck! But these little guys aren't destined for the end of a fishing line. They're destined for your belly! On the back of a truck is a great big aquarium and there's a big blurry ball of shimmery silver inside.


The Minnow Man will scoop a bunch of them out for you, dump them into a bowlfull of batter and then transfer them into a wok of boiling hot oil.


Mmmm. That's some fresh fishies!
I've never eaten them, so can't tell you if they're awesome.

At Least Tomorrow's Friday

I took a marker and blacked out a few phone numbers in my book. I suppose I'm not a very good friend if I share with the peoples on the internets that I think most of my friends suck. They do. It doesn't even really matter if I DO tell you they suck because they don't read this here blog. They're busy people, you know. Busy, busy. They've got jobs and families and things to do and people to see. Coffee to drink. Bills to pay. Zip zap go go go! Their fingers are broken. Can't type. Can't dial a phone.

I suppose me going to live half way around the world over six years ago didn't help with keeping us tight, but damn! I've got some friends who have called me never. I've got other friends who e-mail me twice a year. Maybe.

Should I still be considering these folks as my friends? Maybe not.

So I thought it was a good idea to remove their phone numbers so I don't have access to them at four in the morning after a few wobbly pops when I could let my drunk little fingers dial them up so I can slur at them about how much they suck. Oh, and by the way, could you gather up those Christmas presents I sent your kids, (Remember those? The ones you never called or e-mailed me to say thanks? But - oh - that's right. You done broke your fingers. I forgot!) and mail them back to me so I can re-mail them back to you with a card reading "Hey! Why don't you stick these up your ass?"

I'd like to say, "What-evah! I'm so over it!" but I'd be lying. The truth is I'm quite hurt by the way a lot of my friendships have panned out. They've gone into comas. They're on life support. They're failing to thrive. They're dying, and in some cases I think they're pretty much dead. So what to do? Stick a mental fork in them? Should I send a condolence card? Should I just move on? What does that even mean? I really don't know what to do, and it makes me believe that friends and family have filled up their lives in my absence, and there's no longer any room for me.

Facebook makes me feel like crap. It should be called "Another way for you to NOT keep in touch with your friends, Sucker!" Sometimes I look people up on Schmacebook. My cousin, who I haven't seen in over twenty years, has 164 friends. My other cousin has 289. She's twelve.

I've really bummed myself out tonight.

Cherry Blossoms

It's that time again. It's cherry blossom season, which I think is the prettiest time in Korea. It certainly improves my town, which, for the other fifty weeks of the year, is pretty much a dump. But we've got a lot of cherry blossoms going on right now. If I was a kid I for sure would call these Jiffy Pop Trees.

Let's take a walk, you and I, and have a look at the Popcorn Trees.
Near my apartment


The little temple at the bottom of the hill.


The street near my school.


They're even pretty at night!


Right?


The view from my balcony. Isn't that a lovely line of blossoming trees over yonder rooftop?


I think tomorrow a picnic might be in order.

Happy Trails

It felt so strange after New Years not being able to visit The Nomad, who I can't even link to now, since his blog has gone all opseyo. He updated regularly and I tended to visit him at least a couple times a day. Then suddenly he said goodbye and the curtains fell on his site.

I won't lie, it plunged me into a spiral of sadness and grief that had me drinking every night and most mornings. And crying. Oi! The crying!

Well,...maybe it wasn't that bad,...but still. I miss him.

If that wasn't hard enough, now another friend of mine has put his blog to bed. Kevin, aka The Big Hominid (or Big Ho') is moving on to greener pastures. Greener ones and flat ones and hills and highways and roadkill and rainstorms and sunrises and rocks and trees and stars and passersby in luxury cars.

Kevin's setting off on a Walk Across America (can you even handle that? I can't) and he's leaving Korea in a very short while to start a new and wildly interesting and ambitious endeavour. He'll be keeping things treading over at his new site, Kevin's Walk which is fairly quiet right now.

I'm selfish, and I wish Kevin hadn't closed up shop so soon and so abruptly. I was so keen to hear how his last few days in Korea (for this time around anyhow) are going to go, and how it's going to be like packing up his multi year's worth of things and saying "so long" to his students, co-workers and friends. Maybe he'll let us know on Kevin's Walk. I hope so.

Still, it feels super weird now. Nomad and BigHo were my go-to blogs. Now what've I got? Nothing!

Nothing but this big bottle of gin and my salty tear stained cheeks.

Happy trails and all my best wishes, Kevin. I'm keeping my eye,...my flooded bloodshot eye,...on you. xo

Come on Feel the Noise

I've been teaching for almost six years now, and I've gathered a whole bag of tricks in the meantime. I've got activities to cover spare minutes at the end of a class. I've got games I can manifest to reward a my good little students. And, I've got an assortment of punishments for my naughty little boys and girls. The way I manage a class of kids varies from day to day and sometimes depends too heavily on my mood. If I'm sick, forget about it, my threshold for pain is minimal and I'm quick to whack my stick on the table and deliver a hearty "YA!" to get my students' attention. Kids who are paying attention can anticipate the slamming of the stick and cover their ears accordingly. See, that's the thing,...it's all about who can be the noisiest sometimes.

I have some students who like to talk. More specifically, they LIKE TO TALK. INCESSANTLY. AND AT TOP VOLUME. You know when they like to stop talking? They don't. If they're not forming coherent Korean sentences, they like to shout random words in English, or parrot everything I say. And if they're not doing that, they're just emitting noise. Humming or singing or (one of my least favourite things) drumming their pencils on the desk. Some kids made some videos awhile back on how they're professional pencil drummers. I'd like to jam those pencils up their,...well. *Ahem.*

I'd like to think that the noisiest of my noisy students quiet the hell up when they're sleeping, but I have no evidence to remotely support that theory.

When I say to these shrieking bags of noise students, "Please repeat after me: 'Do you know where the library is?'" They shout, "DO YOU KNOW WHERE DA LIBRAAAAAAARRRRYYYY ISSSSSSSS?" Sometimes they get the cold stare of You're-Not-Funny-And-Do-Not-Impress-Me. Sometimes they get to stand with their hands up in the ay-er. (But they better not wave 'em like they just don't cay-er.) Sometimes the sound of the thwacking of the stick rings through the classroom. Yesterday I didn't feel like getting bent out of shape over the noise, so I would just stop speaking and gaze at the students until they managed to quiet themselves down. Usually it's those perceptive students who know to cover their ears who urge their classmates to shut up. But as I stare my students into silence, my mind wanders.

Yesterday I wished I could levitate them. I wanted to fix my eyes on the nosiest of the bunch and just lift him up into the air about three feet off the ground. I figured that would get his attention. Maybe floating above his chair would quiet him down. Than I figured that he'd probably think that was fun. All the students would want to be levitated, and they'd bombard me like they do with game requests, "Teacha, game? Onil game hay-o? Today game? Game, game, game?" Only it'd be "Teacha, levitate me? Onil levitate hay-o?"

So I didn't just want to levitate them. I wanted to nauseate them at the same time. I want to nausivitate them. Not so, like, they'd hurl while they were up in the air, but just enough of a bad feeling to turn them fairly green and make them wish they could return to their seats and stop floating around. I was daydreaming, imagining my students hovering around the classroom. Ten quiet green kids just afloat above their chairs. I didn't really notice the class had gone quiet.
"Jelly?"
I snapped back to reality. "What?"
"Game time?"

Korean Tees on Friendship

Stand with friends outstretched!

Make sure your head's wet!

I love friends!

Especially my little blond friend. I love her so much, I put her on my T-shirt.

If I could scape and re?

I want to get way, WEAH!

Profound.

Just remember, made ing boree, I love u!

If It Wasn't Broken Before, It Is Now

One of my neighbours just whipped their keyboard off their balcony and sent it crashing to the pavement below. It's in many smashed pieces now. That'll show it!

April Fool's

Hi! My name's April and I'm a fool! One of those things is not true. Guess which one.

We finally got a new computer at work last week and I was happy, after over a month of not having one, to see it. Today my three o'clock students hadn't shown up for class so I was hanging around in the Teacher's Room waiting for them. Two of my little kindergarten students came in to bug see me, and when the little girl asked for some juice I grabbed a can of orange out of the little fridge and gave it to her. I didn't notice that she took a drink and then set it on the narrow space in front of the monitor, but as I was playing with the little boy I heard a "clunk" and turned around to find the juice knocked over and pouring into the keyboard. Awesome! I cleaned it as best as I could, but still - now when you type a letter you get the added bonus of another letter! So typing in "Jelly is stupid" looks like "Jhewlflfyu iusa satruyphiuds." Seriously.

My boss? Not too impressed.

Actually, she was very cool about it and told me it'll probably be fine once it completely dries out. No bother. It's not like the time I dumped a whole hot jumbo Starbucks coffee into my very expensive company phone my first day on the job at an advertising agency. My boss then? About to blow a frickin gasket. Good times.

I'm still not sure what happened, but something REEKED at school today. It was during the middle school student's classes and it smelt like someone had crapped their pants. Really, it was more like a horse had crapped in someone's pants. My boss had the students move to another classroom, thinking that the smell was wafting in from downstairs, but then the smell followed the students to the new classroom. It really was awful, and when I asked Karen, "What is that smell?" she told me she'd tell me later. After the bell rang and the students left and the odor finally started to dissipate, Karen told me the new student, the shy quiet girl I named Emma, had crapped her pants.
"Impossible!" I argued. That's exactly what the students in my class had told me, and I wouldn't believe it then, either. The kids also said that their whole school smelled like shit all day, and what with it being April Fool's Day I doubt very much that one girl's alleged poopy pants could so completely fill a school with stink.

"Emma's not retarded, you know," I told my boss. "If I had an accident in my pants, I would go home, which I'm sure is what she would do if that's what happened."
"Yah," Karen agreed, "And she's wearing a skirt. She could just take off her panties and throw them away."
"Uhhh, yah." I said. (Not an idea I wanted to have in my head - commando middle school girls stuffing soiled undies into the garbage, but still.) "I'll bet someone wiped something on her, or on her school bag as a prank." I told my boss I wished I could have taken Emma aside and asked her what was up...and tried to find the source of the smell. Instead, Sunny just kept the windows and door open and tried to teach class pretending like it wasn't smelling like they were in an outhouse with the kids snickering at the thought of Emma needing a diaper.

In the middle of my class, I headed toward the Teacher's Room at one point. Emma turned and smiled and gave me a little wave. That's not something a girl with crapped pants would do. I worried about her afterwards. I don't what her to become known as "Poo Girl" at her school. I told my students about how when I was in elementary school way back when, I had been fighting with one of my friends. I arrived one morning and reached into my desk to find a big slobbery dog bone in there. I was just horrified. Luckily I didn't end up being known as Dog Girl, (I might have if I'd exclaimed "Mmmmm! Lunch!" and took the bone out to gnaw on) but kids can be so vicious.

They Smell Good

Magnolias are in bloom.

I'd never seen a magnolia up close before I came here. I used to think they sounded like such a lush flower. Magnooooolias. Makes me want a mint julep, which I've never had either. I want to be sipping mint juleps under a magnolia tree. Instead, I'm off to work. Blah. Frickin' Mondays.

Plastic Surgery Schmastic Schmurgery

I ran into a former student of mine the other day. I hadn't seen her in a long time. She was the girl who treated my apartment like a hotel when I left her to cat sit while I was in Japan. Anyhow, she was pleased to see me and exictedly pointed to her face and said "Look!" I didn't know what she was talking about. "What?"
"My eyes!" she exclaimed.
"Yes," I thought. "There they are. Two of 'em, even."
Then it dawned on me what she must be talking about. "Ah, soosul?" I tried to remember the name for eye surgery. "San coupal soosul?"
"Yes!" she said.

I honestly couldn't tell the difference.

Lots of Korean women are concerned about their Asian looking eyes. They want eyelids. "Double eyelids," to be precise. So some go under the knife and have some procedure done where fake folds in their eyelids are carved out. You can even get this clear tape at some stores that you wedge into your eyelids to make a "double lid." Only it looks really stupid, like you've got tape pressed into your eyelids. But, whatever. That tape is one genius remedy to avoid the surgeon's knife and the hefty cost of plastic surgery.

Here's another one!


For just ten bucks you can get this gizmo and exercize your way to having a SLIM MOUTH! Yay!
I'm not sure why someone would want a slim mouth. Aren't big fat kissy Angelina Jolie botox lips all the rage these days?
So you can tape up your eyelids, and head on out the door with your exercized Rachel Ray/The Joker mouth,...but still, your face still isn't right.

That's why you need THIS:

Coco Beautiful New Look of Nose.
With Antibiotic Deoderization! Awesome!

BE A CLEOPATRA NOSE!!!!

You wouldn't miss a chance to have a new Cleopatra look of nose, would you? I know I wouldn't. I'm sitting here right now with my oral thighmaster and my noseclothespin praying that my face will be much better tomorrow and I can spend the money I was saving for surgery on something really important.

Like, gum.

Rest in Peace, Pretty Girl

I've been thinking about my friend Sher from What Did You Eat? all weekend, ever since she sent me an awful e-mail on Friday letting me know that her gorgeous cat Upsie had passed away. It was only just over a couple weeks ago that she found out Upsie had cancer in her kidneys. Sher knew the prognosis wasn't good at all, but the vet said Upsie could still perhaps have a few more months. She went downhill quickly, however, and was in a lot of pain on Wednesday. Sher got some pain killers for Upsie on Thursday and made the sad arrangements to have the vet come and euthanize her that night. Upsie slipped away before the vet got there, though.

Sher spent a lot of time with Upsie in the last hours of her life. She got brushed and petted and I'll bet she felt better because of it. Upsie was well loved around the internet, and she was my favourite cat besides Kamikaze. I looked forward to seeing new pictures of her and her fierce tomato worm stomping paws. I'm going to miss her.


My heart goes out to you, Sher.

Mix It Up

I've been trying to get through Elizabeth: The Golden Age for the last three days. I don't know why I keep wandering off and forgetting I was watching something. This is the second time I've rented it and not watched it. If I don't get 'er done tonight, I shall return the DVD and fuggedaboutit.

In a similar vein, I went and saw The Other Boleyn Girl at the theatre last Saturday. I wasn't really interested in seeing that film, but it was pretty much the only choice playing. The costumes in the film were gorgeous and Scarlett Johansson has some big huge kissy lips. It wasn't so bad, but about half way through the movie by butt started to ache and the theatre felt too hot and I was like, "Alright, chop her head off already." Have you seen that film? Could Henry's coats be any bigger? He's so SpongeHenry SquareCoat.

At five o'clock we have middle school classes, and they always show up starving. After our school they all have to go to other academies and study their poor little heads off well into the night. My boss has been feeding them before class starts - and you know what she makes them and they willingly eat? Toast. Just a dry piece of toast. Whoopdeedoo! Anyhow, I've been making them something different on occasion over the past couple weeks. They got sandwiches a couple days last week - PB&J and ham & cheese. They went over very well!


This week they've gotten waffles! I made them the night before, cooled them off, wrapped them up in foil and we toasted them before class.

These were chocolate chip buttermilk waffles. The school smelled like a bakery and all the kids leaving the four o'clock classes whined about not being able to eat whatever it was they were smelling.

Tonight I made chocolate chip/coconut/almond buttermilk waffles which are so light and crisp, they're going to be awesome tomorrow. They were a little troublesome because they were a bit sticky on the waffle iron, but all in all they turned out well.


What's that?
You want a recipe?
Mmmmm'kay!
I made this recipe up myself after reading other waffle recipes on the web for some ideas.

Jelly's Super Happy Chocochip Coconut Almond Buttermilk Awesome Fun Time Waffles
3 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar (I used brown as that's all I had)
1 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
3 cups buttermilk (I made a substitute of milk & lemon juice)
1/4 cup melted butter
1/3 cup chopped chocolate chips
1/3 cup dried shredded coconut
1/3 cup sliced almonds
vegetable oil

Mix all the dry ingredients.
Separate eggs, whip the whites to soft peaks.
Stir the buttermilk, yolks, and butter together and pour over flour mixture.
Mix that up, add the chocolate, coconut and almonds. More mixing.
Fold in the egg whites.

Brush the oil on a hot waffle iron and ladle the waffle mix on the grill. Voila.
Eat them up, yum!

WCB - 146 Happy Easter

This is the same as last year, but it's Easter again,...so Kamibunny makes a re-appearance!



Kamibunny sits in his giant carrot, wishing you a Happy Hoppy Easter!

Now hop on over to PaulChen's Food Blog to see the other cats for the WCB round-up! Have a lovely weekend!

Joyeuses Pâques! Fröhliche Ostern! Pasqua Felice! 행복한 부활절! Pascua Feliz! Gelukkige Pasen! Ευτυχές Πάσχα!

Easter Breakfast

My title is a little misleading. It's not really Easter in Korea per se. 'Round here we calls it "Sunday." And, though this was the first thing I ate today, I didn't eat it until almost five o'clock - so it was a lot more like dinner than breakfast. Technicalities. Whatever.

Fried Eggs with Oyster Sauce and Chili

Have you ever heard of this? I hadn't until I happened upon a post over at the Steamy Kitchen. Yummy! Reading through the comments I realize that eggs and oyster sauce isn't an unheard of phenomenon - but I would never have thought of it. I hope Jayden doesn't mind, but I'm going to copy her instructions on how to make this easy and tasty dish.

from Simple Chinese Cooking by Kylie Kwong

4 free range eggs
2 tbls oyster sauce + 1 tbl water, mixed
pinch ground pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped scallions
1-2 chilies, finely sliced
3 tbl cooking oil

Carefully crack eggs into a bowl. Heat oil in wok on high heat until surface seems to shimmer slightly. Pour eggs into hot oil. After 1 minute, reduce heat to medium, allowing the underside of the egg to become firm and crisp. The yolks should still be runny at this point. Cook 1 more minute. Gently slide eggs off plate, trying to keep excess oil in wok. Drizzle eggs with oyster sauce. Season with pepper. Garnish with chili and scallions. Serve immediately.

I threw a little drizzle of sesame oil in with the oyster sauce. It was good!

See this?


It's some frozen toaster waffle I found at HomePlus. I thought, "Right on! Leggo my Eggo!" But, this is not Eggo. This is an organic multi-grain vegan trans-fat-free egg-free cholesterol-free dairy-free delicious-free waffle that tastes like cardboard after you toast it. That's not entirely true. It tastes like reconstituted cardboard with sawdust added for extra dryness. Four of the six that were contained in the package are languishing in my freezer. I'm going to test how well they do as frisbees and whip them off my balcony and into the forest.

Now these, on the other hand, are not Eggos either.


They're delicious and they would kick Eggo's frozen ass in a rumble. They were made by yours truly on this cool sandwich maker/grill/waffle iron I was gifted last week. I'm going to make all kinds of waffles on this bad boy of mine. Yummiliciousness.

Mouthful of Eels

Quit looking at me or I will release my mouthful of eels to bite your face off.


Right,...that's it.
BLAAAARGGGH!

Hop To It

I don't miss working with Jane that much. When we were getting along, it was good - but she could be unpredictable with her moods and she was definitely bossy, which got on my nerves. On the other hand, she was really quite organized and by god, she could get things done quickly. Sometimes I'd come into work and ask her to please do something for me - find out some information or make a call to someone, and usually it would be taken care of by the time I finished my first class. Go, Jane!

I really enjoy working with my boss. She's very kind and easy going and we get along very well. However, it takes ages to get things done and I feel like I'm hassling her by having to ask multiple times for the same things. Remember the couple plus months where I was peeing in the dark and rescuing soap out of three broken sinks? That only got fixed because I done fixed it. Unfortunately, there's some things I'm not able to do and I need a hand from my boss.

Our computer's been broken for over a month now. Actually, it's not even the computer - it's the monitor - and it's just something wonky with the power cord connection. She decided to buy a new computer over couple weeks ago now, and I say "YAY!" because the hunk o' junk in the Teacher's Room is super slow and completely infected with nasty spyware and viruses that I can't clean. But exactly how long does it take to buy a computer? I know if I decided to get a new PC I'd go out shopping and wham bam I'd be set up a couple hours later. What's the hold up?

There's a little pipe on my balcony that sprung a leak and I've asked Karen to call someone to come fix it. For about a month I've asked her every few days. But, nothing is getting done and sometimes wind blows my dry clean underwear off the clothes horse while I'm at work and I come home to find it sopping and dirty on the balcony floor. It makes me unhappy.

There's materials I need ordered for some classes. There's a call to my "Water Lady" that needs to be made. I could bug my boss every day, but I've decided not to. I think it's easier if I just calm down and casually mention these things again when the time feels right. In the meantime I'm making do,...clothespins for the panties and me narrating conversations from the textbooks for the students (in lieu of cassettes.) I use various pitches and accents in my voice to denote different people talking. The kids think it's funny. I totally fake them out with heavy Scottish brogues. "Aye there Lassie, d'ya ken weer thuh phoormacy's at, like?"

Oh, and I whine on my blog.

Wild Ride

I think people who say it's boring when people recount their previous nights dreams are boring. My dreams are cool.
Except last night's wasn't so cool.

I was dying of cancer in the dream and I made babies cry and people gasp in horror when they saw me; I looked so shitty and sick. I felt a big lump in my chin and I scratched it and a soup can sized pink jello-like blob slid out and jiggled in my hand before melting. I had a big hole in my face. I could stick my hand up through my chin and wave to people from the inside of my mouth. That really freaked everyone out.

I asked my friend to drive me to the hospital and she did,...going 140km an hour on the highway, with no hands on the steering wheel. I kept asking her to slow down and drive the car properly. She kept saying, "It's cool, man. The car will get off the highway when it feels like it." She was really pissing me off.

I woke up unnerved.

Photobucket Gets Cool

Do you host your images on Photobucket? Have you noticed the recent changes they've made to their photo editor? Pretty cool!


I really love that I'm able to resize photos. I was never able to on my camera's software - so I often tried to take a wide shot that I could crop down to fit onto the blog. There's a lot of other fun stuff you can do with the new editor as well.


Alright. I've got to go play.

Ootheca Watch

Now that the weather's warming up and it seems spring has sprung, I've been keeping an eye on the ootheca that was laid last October by a big fat mama mantis.


So far, there haasn't been much happening, but that's what the ootheca looked like on Saturday night. From what I've read, it'll be pretty lucky if I catch the mini mantii escaping from their nest. They come out as tiny versions of their parents, but they scatter away very quickly.

I only pass the nest once a day on my way to work, but I always stop - give it a gentle pet with my fingertip and quietly say "oooootheca" to it. I think it will help with their development if they know where they are and that everything's alllllright in the oooootheca.

Groovy Kami

Drunks and Cops

I got out of a taxi last night near a "Family Mart" convenience store. I noticed a guy lying in the road beside the curb on the other side of the street. He was struggling to get up, like a turtle that had been flipped on its back. A very very drunk turtle in a T-shirt covered in mud and rain. He finally made it to his feet and staggered onto the sidewalk and grabbed ahold of of a wall which steadied him for a moment before he went barreling backwards toward the spot he had just been lying in the road, as if a bungee cord was attached to his spine. He tripped over the curb and landed on the back of his head. HARD. The sound of his skull smacking against the pavement made me feel fairly sick. I dropped the bags I was carrying and went over to try to help him. He was already struggling to get up again.

"Ohhhhh," I said to him, "You're hurt." I put one hand on his buzzcut head to see what damage he'd done to himself. He was bleeding pretty good. He clasped my forearm and tried to pull himself up. "You should sit down, you're hurt," I said again, but he was already halfway up.

"Jenny!" I heard my name being called. A woman stood in the doorway of Gimbap Jongu - a little restaurant that stays open 24 hours and caters to the late night drunks who nosh on ramen and gimbap. The franchise near my school does a good soon doobu jjigae but the spot the lady was calling me from makes a watery version I don't enjoy as much. I've only been in there a couple of times in over three years, and I was surprised the lady knew my name.

She crossed her arms in front of her. "Hajjima!" she instructed ("stop it!") and pointed at the drunk guy who was up and veering across the street. She looked disgusted, and told me he was a crazy man. "What can I do?" I asked her. "He's hurt and he's bleeding." By this time he'd already connected and got tripped up on the curb on the opposite side of the road. He smashed to the ground and was sitting there in a puddle swaying back and forth. "We called the police," the restaurant lady told me, and she pointed down the street where I saw flashing lights approaching. I walked over to drunk guy and asked him to stay down. He reached up and grabbed my arm again and said "thank you." Then he let go, turned his face to the side and puked. I stepped back. He swiveled onto his hands and knees and barfed some more. And some more. Ugggh.

The police pulled up and I told them he was bleeding at the back of his head. "He's very drunk."
"Yea," said the older cop who was coming around from the driver's side.
I retreated across the road and into the convenience store to get a bottle of water. The two girls at the cash register were giggly at seeing me and one of them loudly showed off her mad English skill and proclaimed, "I love you!"

I never know what to say to that.
Usually it's "Ha ha ha, jinja?" (Really?)

Back outside drunk guy had stopped throwing up and was battling the police. He actually wanted to be taken away, and kept trying to get into the back of the police car, but the door was locked. He was so abusive toward the cops and I was amazed at their patience. If Buddy was in Toronto and had carried on like he was I'm sure he would have been in handcuffs after a couple minutes. Drunk Guy was screaming at the cops. "Ten baby animals! Eighteen nomas!" and so forth. I gathered before I'd shown up he had terrorized the ladies at Gimbap Jongu and the woman across the way who runs a tent where you can sit on plastic chairs and eat jja jaa myun. Everytime that woman would come near him (she was trying to close up shop) he'd lunge at her and the cops would restrain him. He'd already kicked all her supplies all over the street. He went to kick the younger cop, who grabbed his leg and yanked it upwards, flipping Drunk Guy backwards and onto the pavement again. He got up and swung at the younger cop again, but the older cop restrained him - and didn't seem too pleased at having is uniform muddied up in the process.

A couple guys who knew Drunk Guy showed up and started to handle him. One of them kept slapping Drunk Guy across the face full force. Drunk Guy would them bow deeply and apologize. And then he'd run and jump on the hood of the cop car. It was quite the show. His buddy would coax him off and then slap him silly again. The woman from the restaurant brought his clean white company jacket out, and Drunk Guy clumsily put it on over his filthy T-shirt. The cops went away and a van with flashing lights showed up. Drunk Guy's buddies shoved him inside. I wonder where the van took him. The crowd that had gathered dispersed and the show was over.

I headed home.

CrabFish

Weird.

Sauced

I was watching a movie tonight and I heard a strange yet familiar sound coming from the parking lot downstairs. It was weird, though - as the sound didn't make any sense. It was the sound of a snow plow.

Thing is, we haven't had any snow really. It's snowed three or four times the whole winter (and I think winter is pretty much finished now - here, that is) but the snow never stuck to the ground for any amount of time. So it sounded odd to hear a snow plow grating its shovel against the pavement downstairs. I went to have a look off my balcony.

The noise wasn't what I thought. It was a guy driving his very nice SUV around the parking lot with his front end hanging off the vehicle and dragging along the asphalt. It was loud. The guy did about three figure eights around the buildings and he kept passing the spaces that were available. I don't think he could see them for whatever reason. He finally tucked his ride in a spot that wasn't a spot at all. People exiting the building across the way from mine and trying to get to the parking lot are going to have to climb over Mister SUV's hood.

The guy got out of his car and stumbled around to the front end and it looked like he was trying to replace his fender by lifting it and mashing it into to grill. That wasn't working out, though, so he instead tried to rip the whole thing off. He ended up losing his footing and falling backwards into the fence which slungshot him back into the front of the car and he let out an "Auuuggghhhuuuhh" and gave up - trying to steady himself against the hood before attempting the walk to his (my) building.

This guy was drrrruuuuunnnkkkk. He could hardly walk at all - and he pitched and heaved himself home like he was walking the deck on a rough rolling sea. I wonder if he's going to feel like an idiot in the morning and decide drinking and driving is retarded.

One can always hope.

In other news, my mom reported it snowed heavily for the better part of two days back home and the drifts in her backyard are waist high. My grandmother had surgery. After two weeks the doctors finally detected an abscess on her bowel. She's still doped up on morphine and demerol and being bedridden for almost a month now isn't doing her any favours.

Lawd, I wish I was home.

Nads

Well Sunny and her great big balls came back to work today! I was surprised. Karen said that she talked to her for "a long long time" and has decided to give her another chance. Karen's laid down some rules, which I suppose are along the lines of "come to work and stop being a dumbass."

I've been told it's very hard to get a new teacher these days. One of another of our franchises advertised for a couple of months for a new employee and didn't get one call. So in some ways my boss is over a barrel and Sunny can continue to screw around if she wants to. I don't know how long she's going to last - as it seems to me her interest in working is really waning.

I asked her, when we were alone in the Teacher's Room, "So what happened yesterday?"
She laughed, which she always does when she's uncomfortable and said, "Oh, yesterday I hebbu no head."
This makes just as much sense as anything else she says, and it actually explains why she didn't call in to let Karen know she wasn't coming into work. While she may have been able to dial the phone, when she lifted it to speak into she just found an empty space where her head used to be. It's probably better she didn't come in, as I'm fairly sure a headless teacher would really freak the kids out. Now I know that this is an okay excuse, the next time I don't feel like coming into work I'm going to call the boss and explain, "I hebbu no legs."

I can't walk to work with no damn legs now, can I?

I think what Sunny actually meant was that she lost her mind yesterday.
Fair enough. I know the feeling of being so down you just can't get your shit together enough to quit crying and get your ass out of bed. I don't even know if that's what happened, but I assume it was something along those lines. It's a shame we don't have some Mental Health Days - but as it is we don't have enough teachers to even allow me to take the vacation days that are promised to me in my contract, which makes me want to stay at home and cry.

Alright, anyways, check this guy out:

What's up with his legs?

He's all, "I'm just going to sit here and enjoy my hamburger and you - yah, you all there walking past this window,...you can enjoy my nuts."

Soap Opera

My co-worker Sunny called in sick today. Well, that's not really accurate as she did NOT call in. She just didn't show up. Ballsy! My boss ended up calling her cell which Sunny didn't answer, and then called her house where the sister-in-law reported that Sunny was sick and asleep. Karen requested Sunny be woken up to come to the phone, and so the sister-in-law promised to have Sunny call back in ten minutes. An hour later Karen called again and Sunny's three year old niece hung up on her. Three more calls went unanswered.

That's THREE times that Sunny's left Karen and I hanging in the last two months (since Jane went MIA and we found ourselves short a teacher) and the last time she did this was just last Monday! We've already been so busy this week with moms coming in with potential new students, and all new classes and texts starting. Today was chaotic and I found myself at five o'clock - when I wasn't scheduled to teach at all, instead teaching a large loud combined class of pissed off middle school students. They weren't pissed that I was teaching - they love me - but they were angry at having been combined - a girl/boy thing - and whined at and fought with each other the whole time. Oh, Joy! Meanwhile, I spent the whole day being pissed off at Sunny.

So what will happen in the ongoing drama of my school? Will Sunny come back tomorrow? Has she quit? If so, how long can my boss and I juggle all the classes? If Sunny comes back, what will her excuse be? She was in a coma? She caught Alzheimer's yesterday and forgot she had a job? She's a crap teacher who can't speak English for crap and doesn't give a crap about the school, the students, or her co-workers?

Oh wait, that last one's not so much an excuse as it is a fact.

Tune in tomorrow for another episode!

Hwangsa (황사)

The elementary school kids didn't have to start their new school year today as planned. The school was closed due to "hwangsa," also known as Asian, or yellow dust. It was so bad today - it actually looked as if it was raining this morning! It's quite unusual for our local elementary school to close down. We've been through typhoons and they've stayed open!

I've written about this before, as it happens every year. I asked my boss if she remembers if it happened this early last year. She couldn't remember, but did tell me that the yellow dust is a fairly new thing in Korea. It's getting worse and worse. Today's air quality was listed as "hazardous."

It's not just as if a bunch of sand blows in, either. As Wiki notes, this crap also contains "Sulphur (an acid rain component), soot, ash, carbon monoxide, and other toxic pollutants including heavy metals (such as mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, lead, zinc, copper) and other carcinogens, as well as viruses, bacteria, fungi, pesticides, antibiotics, asbestos, herbicides, plastic ingredients, combustion products as well as hormone mimicking phthalates."

Sweet.

I know I woke up all stuffed up and have sported a sore throat and raspy cough all day. I think I'm going to have to buy a mask to wear, I really find yellow dust days to be really brutal. I'm sure the Car Washes are raking it in, though!

WCB - 143 'Ol Big Eyes

Hey, Kamikaze - you cute big ball of fur,...
WAKE UP!


Alright, Giganteyes. You're freaking me out. Go back to napping!


Now's time for shusshing, because of all the napping! So tip-toe over to Mind of Mog and check out all the other kitties in WCB! If you don't, Kamikaze's going to look at you, and that'll freak you out.

That's About Right

While I was riding the bus up to Seoul last weekend I was gazing out the window at the cars going in the other direction when it occurred to me there was something missing about most of them. Colour! In my mind, I listed off the colours of the cars and it went like, "grey white white grey black black white grey white black grey grey Oh! red! grey black white white white,..." I've been told that apparently for a long time the only colours for vehicles were black, white, or a mix of those two.

I just surveyed the parking lot downstairs and there are eighteen cars parked. Six white, five black, four grey, one dull gold, one bright blue Bongo truck, and one burgundy. While I'm typing this, one is beeping. Probably one of the white cars. Those whiteys are troublemakers, I tell ya.


Yah. Like that.
See that white car looking to fight the red car? You know as soon as they get into it, the other white cars are going to turn around and help their homeboy out. I'm not into gangs, man.

If I got myself a car here I'd want it bright purple and super sparkly. Like, you'd only be able to admire it's sparkliness for a moment or two - because then you'd be all blind. You wouldn't be angry about it though. You'd be thankful that the last thing you saw before going blind was so shiny and brilliant. You'd type me thank-you letters on your braille typewriter, you would.

Girly

I like this trend in gradual nail polish. I'm still playing around with it. My boss was talking about my nails a couple weeks ago and was saying we should open up a Nail Shop. I told her that was a great idea, and her wheels started turning. She kept asking me if I was serious and I said "sure!"

Monday


I think the idea is clients could come in for an English lesson/manicure. It's so crazy it just might make us millionaires, no? I'd welcome the opportunity to be doing something else while having conversations. As it is, I'd prefer to doodle or - uh - throw clay on a pottery wheel while I'm talking to people. But I don't. Instead I make occasional eye contact and act like I'm interested in what we're talking about.

I'm kidding.
Sort of.

Thursday

It's Fun to Stay at the...