Alive and Adventurous in Cambodia

Dear Readers,
I'm alive, well, and having the time of my life in Cambodia. I'll do a real post when I find somewhere with internet AND air conditioning...which may be when I get back to South Korea.
Love,
Alex

Travel OCD and mini Spaz update

I take travel preparation to whole new levels of ridiculousness.  My mother commented that she really needs to stop asking me if I've done 'x' because not only have I done it, I've gone even more freakishly organized than expected. My med kit is carefully packed in a quart zip lock (with a smaller travel version inside to go in my day bag for on the road spaz attacks). Every Korean over the counter drug has been labeled in English. Cragon has been quizzed on my existing medical conditions on the off chance that I suffer a severe spaz attack and need to be hospitalized. My passport has 3 copies made to hide in my carry on, checked bag and left with a coworker at work, not to mention the scanned copy that my parents have in the off chance that everything I own is stolen and I need it forwarded to my embassy.

The thing is, nothing major has Ever gone wrong on any of my trips. But I'm ridiculously morbid (but Cragon, what if the elephant throws me and crushes my legs and you need to know my blood type?!!!) and being over prepared helps me feel calm. That way when I finally get to my destination I can just focus on having a good time, taking in the sights, and snapping an inhuman amount of pictures. And you know, not tripping over my own feet.

Spaz updates:
1. I reread my last post to see try and remember what I last rambled about when I realized that in the first line was an apostrophe error that my first year literature professor in college (and adviser) trained me out of. I think she would have smacked me with a giant stack of papers if she ever saw it. Rest assured, it has been corrected.

2. Not my own! I bought a cheap cotton cardigan to take with me since all of mine are cashmere or wool and completely overkill for south east Asia.  E-mart forgot to take off the sensor so now I have to make ANOTHER stop this afternoon to have them remove it. Thank god I saved the receipt but seriously, what a pain in the butt.

Running:
Friday I ran an entire mile...and then I walked the mile on the return trip home. I am so ridiculously out of shape. That mile killed me. I took the weekend off from running but I WILL run again tonight. I have yet to trip ~knock on wood!~ but then again, I'm being inordinately careful about paying attention to my footing.

Never, ever go a year without exercise if you can help it. The return is so painful.

Who do you ask for directions in Korea?

Yesterday, the Yangsan Book Club had its first outdoor meeting. There are these awesome circle benches near the subway station with good lighting so we sat, sipped our beer and discussed Cairo Modern. It felt more ...organic to meet outside. More grassroots somehow. More indie maybe? I can't quite put my finger on it. However, there are interesting complications that arise when you meet outside.

1. The very obvious: bugs. I asked my co-teacher about bug spray but she wasn't entirely sure where to buy it or the generic Korean word for it. Something tells me that I'll be miming in a store in the near future.

2. Evangelists on street corners trying to prevent us from getting to our meeting place. Usually it's the Jehovah's Witnesses but last night it was the 'Our Holy Mother' people. All of them realized that with 70+ foreigners in the area it was time to upgrade to carrying pamphlets in multiple languages. Three of us made it by but they caught Blondie for a minute. Silly polite Blondie.

3. Rubber neck stares. It's like people driving by a traffic accident, they slow down and keep watching as they go by. Fortunately, the conversation was interesting enough that it wasn't too distracting.

4. Interruptions. Now, if you were a lost Korean and there are plenty of Koreans around, why on earth would you ask the group of obviously foreign people for directions? To be fair, we did know where she was trying to go...we just couldn't exactly express it coherently in Korean.

5. Witnesses. Today one of the teacher's at school was so excited to tell me that she saw me last night. Actually, it was kind of awesome because she was so curious that she didn't mind using Korean and English to try to explain what she had seen and her questions. It was our first real conversation together and I really enjoyed it. It means that I probably won't go the entire day without speaking to anyone if I have already had one real conversation before 10am. That could just be wishful thinking though.

To do today:
1. Read another 100 pages in Anna Karenina.
2. Book a hostel for Siem Riep and Kuala Lumpar.
3. Write an article that's due tomorrow... (oh procrastination...why do I allow you to happen).
4. Go for a run. New route today and hopefully it will cool down a little once the sun goes down. Attempt to not trip over my own feet.
5. Attempt to not expire from extreme boredom/ennui while desk warming.
6. Maybe study? Ennui has killed my zeal for studying. Hopefully vacation will revitalize my insane passion for over-achievement.

Desk Warming, a Sad Fact of Life

There have been many posts about desk warming in the blogosphere lately. Mainly because I don't know a single public school teacher who doesn't hate it. It's one thing to be tied to your desk when other people are and there is stuff to do...it's another thing when there are 2 other people in school and you are already a month ahead of schedule in lesson plans. Also, my co-teacher and I like to collaborate on all of the lesson plans so I really don't like to do them without her input.

Yesterday I did the all important:
-Read the Korea Times, the Korea Herald, the JoongAng Daily, the New York Times and the BBC.
-Every blog and web comic that I follow
-50 pages of Anna Karenina
-Watched 2 episodes of Eureka (older sci-fi channel show)
-Studied (a very small amount...have plans to do more today)
-Wrote down the starting and stopping times for the songs I'm doing during summer camp...at the end of next month.
-Made 3 cups of iced coffee.
-Filled the ice cube trays.
-Spent an inordinate amount of time on facebook.
-Started to lose my mind.

Talk about ennui. Most people would say that getting paid to do nothing is a luxury but I hate sitting still for hours at a time. I'm much more productive when I have smaller bits of time to work with. This is how lunch went (the 3 of us ordered in bibimbap): (Conversation has been translated from Korean to English).

Me (to new office worker, referred to as OW): Hi, what's your name?
O.W.: It's __________.
Me: ~repeats to clarify pronunciation.
O.W.: Yes.
Me: My name is Alex.
O.W.: nods.

~We go on eating in silence for a minute.~
O.W.: (to the music teacher) Where do you live?
Music teacher: I live in _________.
Me to OW: Where do you live?
OW: I live in ________ (name of apartment complex)
Me: Really? I live near there!
O.W.: ~Nods~

Then there was conversation between the two of them which got too complicated for me to follow. It is going to be a very lonely time until vacation. Last day of desk warming: JULY 27th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I am off to Cambodia with a quick stop over in Malaysia until the 7th of August. Then some more desk warming until camp starts on the 16th. When I get back from vacation I will deep clean my classroom and decorate for camp. I'm doing a movie themed camp so I have lots of pictures and labels to put up. My lesson plan for 5 days over 9 pages, not including hand outs, examples, scripts and so forth. I need to script a few of the last days line by line (when teaching low level students it's super important to think about how you will say and present everything) but I'm going to save that work for after vacation since I will have far too much time on my hands when I get back.

Running update: No spaz attack yet. I've been very careful. I'm also inordinately sore. I refuse to ever go this long again without exercising. Getting back into shape is supremely painful.

Feel free to leave me the links of your blog or your favorite blogs to read in the comments. I'm so bored I'll check them all.

The Spaz Goes for Run...

...And didn't die or get hurt!

In the past year and a half I have sprained either or both ankles 3 times. For the first time in my life I have been seriously out of shape and it was really starting to bother me. I'm never overweight but not having real muscles is so weird. Yesterday I was uber productive. I came home from school, got my books, met the Partial Asian for dinner, studied for 2 hours and then went for a run.

It was slightly pathetic. To be fair, I was doing loops at the base of the mountain, so lots of up and down but still. There was much panting involved. I also managed to startle the crap out of one of my students when she was out walking with her mother.

The weird thing is, I usually hate running. I have almost never voluntarily chosen it for exercise.  Usually, I find plain running boring and painful, even when I'm actually in shape. It's just that for weeks I've been having dreams where I'm running. Not how running in my dreams usually goes when I'm being chased by something menacing but  just running for the sake of it and feeling incredible. It wasn't as effortless as my dream but it still felt really good.

Things to know about running in Korea:
-Most people don't run in the streets. They go to parks or down by the river to run if they do so at all. Be prepared for staring...but it's not too bad since you pass them fairly quickly. 
-Try to avoid the clouds of gas when they spray for mosquitoes. It makes your lungs feel pretty awful.
-Watch out for the stumbling drunks near restaurants.

Bets for how many times I go for a run before I hurt myself?

Hong Beop Temple: Tea Ceremony

Sunday I went to Hong Beop Temple for their monthly cultural event for foreigners. Usually it's packed but unfortunately for the organizers, this weekend was also mudfest.  Mudfest is a blast but how many times in my life do I really need to look like this?

Don't get me wrong, it's a fabulous look. For me, I think mudfest will remain more of a once in a lifetime experience.  I do recommend the Boryeong mud soap. Counter-intuitive idea for cleansing but works wonders for the skin.

Back to the tea! First there was a lecture on Buddhist painting by Brian Barry, the first ever foreigner to join the Chogye Zen Order of Buddhism. He is actually very famous in Korea for his Buddhist painting, translating and Dharma instructing.  Though the talk was poorly organized, I learned about some of the more technical and artistic aspects that I'd been curious about. English literature in the museums tends to just explain who is who in the painting, which Bodhisattva it is and what not. However, I want to know why it is there, what the colors symbolize, and so forth.

I'm not sure what a talk on Buddhist painting had to do with a zen Buddhist tea ceremony. I would have liked a talk about the actual ceremony or history...because while the demonstration was interesting it was not entirely elucidating and neither was the handout they gave us to read at home. I suppose I'll have to research it myself one day.

The women of the Tea Group entering to perform. Apparently their hanbok (traditional Korean dress) was designed on pre-Joseon (1392-1910)* dynasty hanbok...ie, very old. I love the simplicity of it though.

Can you spot the exit sign?

Okay the woman on the right is the host. She is the one who prepares everything for the ladies which is all very exact. Every motion (that anyone does) in this ceremony has a precise way to be executed. The woman on the left was not mentioned in my informational packet and thus I nicknamed the bitch of the party (in my head only!). I know, that is not very kind or PC but it's what popped into my head.  Her position is to get everything from the host and pour it for everyone else...a bazillion times.

We got to practice the tea ceremony...only we were forbidden from taking pictures. Which kind of made sense since every motion was specified and there was meditation in between a few of the steps.  Next they taught us how to do this super formal traditional bow that I've never actually seen anyone use but it looked cool. There was a separate (and complicated) chart explaining everything for the boys and girls. Look carefully at my eyes in these pictures...you can see how bewildered I am. Just imagine how I looked whenever I took a dance class for PE credit back in the day...

Did my eyes just get wider? Why yes, yes they did. See the complicated charts peeking out from behind the announcer? The only thing that frustrated me is that for the bow part they announced the Korean first and then the English instructions...at an event where the second part is advertised as Korean only and when presumably Koreans already know how to bow properly. Thus the bug eyed confusion as people responded to verbal cues I hadn't heard yet. Sometimes I understood the Korean though...and I will admit, I felt smooth. Or at least, less spastic.

Oh Alex, not quite! I did get lower but remember, I was watching to see what to do next. Thanks to A Connecticut Yankee in King Sejong's Court** for the pictures of my attempt at formal bowing.


Coming up...the Spaz goes for a run. Oh yes, a run.

*Apologies if I made any errors about the history/time period. I fact checked my dates via a Google search but we know how reliable the internet can be.
**Otherwise known as Shoesy in this post.

And the spaztastic continues...

I opted not to go swimming with the rest of the students in school yesterday. I'd much rather work on my seemingly never ending pile of prep for summer camp (I take anal retentive preparation and perfectionism to whole new levels lately).  The real reason was that, in a group of 600+ people I'm more helpless than the first graders since I can't follow the verbal directions or help lead the students. Originally, they were just going to have the music teacher watch the kids who stayed behind (broken bones, ear infections, etc) for the 4 hours that we had them. However, she is Really pregnant and I saw no reason that I couldn't help out and supervise for a couple of hours to give her a break.  There was only one student who I don't teach, a tiny first grader who seemed slightly intimidated by the big kids and wacky foreign teacher but relaxed when I asked her what her name was in Korean and introduced myself.  Having 10 kids watch Mr. Bean and draw pictures isn't exactly a taxing way to spend my morning.

On to the spazy part...

They ordered Chinese take out for lunch and stupidly I ate some fried, breaded looking pork along with my black bean noodle dish.  I just didn't stop to think about how it was made. I was ridiculously sick for the next 20 hours, even with some prescription strength medicine. Nothing like teaching on a morning while nauseous and miserable and NO COFFEE. Ugh.  Milk is evil. However, I was feeling better after lunch today and ended the day with some of my favorite 4th and 5th grade classes.

More spaz from yesterday:
For awhile in the afternoon I was alone in the teacher's room when the phone rang. I've been instructed that I can answer and then just say 'hanguk saram absaeyo' (there are no Korean people). Generally they say sorry and hang up or attempt to get the information from me using Konglish.  Yesterday, I did my very best Korean '_____ Elementary School, teacher's room, sorry there are no Korean people' when the person on the other end of the line burst out laughing. It was the principal. He asked where the other teachers were (in Korean and English) but I really had no idea and sort of stammered that maybe they went to the bathroom. Today, he told the story at lunch and in the teacher's room a few more times much to our mutual amusement. It's nice when I can actually have a joking moment with the staff, even if it's at my spaztastic self. 

Coming up: traditional tea ceremony and Dharma talk at Hongbeop Temple on Sunday. If you end up going, look for the girl tripping over her own feet and say hello!

Quick Spaz Update!

On the way home from my GRE study group last night my mom called me. Normally, answering the phone does not cause bodily injury. However, when you slide your phone open and your rectangular wooden cell phone charm hits your eyeball with some force it does. So. Painful.

Me: Mom, hold on a sec.
~holds phone against stomach to muffle swearing~ F*CK OUCH GAH!!!!!!!!!! ~carefully return phone to face~
Me: Sorry, I'm back.
Mom: What happened?
Me: Somehow I managed to whack myself in the eyeball with my cellphone charm when I answered the phone.
Mom: ~Laughs~
Me: It really hurts! ~laughs too~

Further irony: the charm is something I bought at a Buddhist temple in China. It means happiness. Somehow, having it poke my eyeball was not how I envisioned that manifesting. Go figure.

Crime in Korea: The E-2 Visa Conundrum

I was resisting posting about the increased E-2 visa regulations since the entire blogosphere seems to be writing about it. However, a comment made by Brent on Brian in Jeollanamdo restarted my interest in the subject. Essentially, he commented that as useful as it would be to have criminal background checks and drug tests done for all prospective teachers entering the country, that there will always be perpetrators who have no prior record committing offenses.

Gusts of Popular Feeling also made an interesting point, mainly that the reforms are being passed without any substantial statistics or facts backing up that foreigners are the ones mainly responsible for the crimes or that their crime rates are on the rise.

As well, when Choi did interviews to promote the bills last year, she announced that immigration had lost 22,000 teachers, but had used the wrong statistics, and never corrected her error. Instead of "an unemotional, logical review of the facts of the case," Choi's office used incorrect statistics, offered no evidence that "the crime rate among native English teachers is getting higher," and said something akin to 'I think I read it somewhere,' when asked for statistics regarding foreign teachers convicted of crimes being rehired - which are the main rationale (if you could call it that) behind the bills. Call me "angry," or "up in arms," but it's hard to get behind a bill like this when those who wrote it are unable to back up their reasons for it at all.

For me, I agree that ethnic Koreans who are currently exempt from the criminal background check laws should be included in them. People commit crimes across the ethnic scale. And yet, there will continuously be crimes from first time offenders, people who come from outside the schools and so forth.

Interestingly, the Korea Herald and the Joongang Daily has been focusing on the recent changes to make E-2 visa holder's life more convenient such as:

-The government will ease regulations to exempt foreign language instructors from having to submit documents and update their visas every time they change employers (...)

-Under the measures expected to go into effect next year, foreigners can join domestic Internet sites by using their foreigner registration number or passport number (...)

-The government will also change the current system requiring foreign suspects to provide prints of all 10 fingers every time they are investigated. Only their thumb prints will be collected from the second time, 

(Quotes from the JoongAng Daily, "Work Visas Getting Easier for Teachers")
 These are all useful things I suppose though only the internet one has ever effected me. It would be nice to be able to buy movie tickets online...

Alex goes zip-lining in Daegu...

Friday I was sitting at my desk when my friend Silent Bob messaged me asking me if I had plans for the weekend. No? Well then I should go zip-lining with a bunch of people in Daegu at Herb Hillz. It wasn't too expensive (10,000 for the train round trip, 19,000 for the adventure). His group was planning on taking a bus from Nopo-dong but since there is a train station near my house I decided to just meet them there. Upon arrival in Daegue I call Silent Bob:

Me: So where are you arriving?
Silent Bob: Errr the bus terminal?
Me: You do realize that there are 4 intercity bus terminals in Daegu right?
Silent Bob:....Really?
Me: Could you read your ticket and see where your arrival is?
Silent Bob: ~pauses~...My ticket is all in Korean, I have no idea.
Me: ~face palm~ Does anyone with you read Korean?

We finally figured it out, met up and took a local bus south for about an hour to Herb Hillz.

Here is the thing about doing adventurous things in Korea--the safety courses will be in Korean.  When I went bungee jumping in Seoul, there were enough foreigners that the staff just memorized the key phrases they needed. An hour south of main Daegu we were a little less fortunate. Luckily, between the girl who spoke semi-decent Korean and the girl who used to be a camp counselor we managed to figure out how to not kill ourselves. It was pretty visual anyways and we practiced the key safety moves on a mini ground level practice course before being sent on our merry way. I was much comforted by the fact that all of the safety gear was by Petzl, a well respected French gear company that makes fabulous stuff. I wouldn't have been so comfortable with safety gear made in say, China.

See that lovely face! You are definitely not supposed to hit the crash pad with your back but it took me a couple of times to figure out how to hit it with my feet. Mainly because I didn't realize that flailing a bit really does not help your flight path...

 The things that didn't involve tarzan like moves and flinging yourself into the air felt like a cake walk...or rather, a wire walk...

 The only thing that actually made me scream in terror is when we had to step on a snow board a glide on that through the air. Not the most secure feeling in the world.

 See this? This is me being very bored. Despite the scariness of the snowboard (and the following obstacle, riding a bike across a wee little bridge). I managed to get right on and just do it....and then waited 20 minutes for the other girls in the group to work up the nerve. To be fair, it was pretty terrifying. However, I did have fun talking with Koreans and other expats walking by on the ground. The Koreans pretty much gave everyone universal looks of 'oh my god are you crazy?!' and then asked the usual round of questions.

Voila, my weekend! Today I am going to get bibimbap with the Partial Asian and then do the dreaded x...study for the GREs.  ~shudders~


All pictures are care of Kevin Beale (or whoever he passed the camera to at that moment)--the only one of us who was brave enough to risk his camera.  Knowing my spaztastic record, I definitely decided to keep mine in my locker.

Busan FM tonight!

Hello all. As soon as my friend gives me the pictures you will get to see me on a ridiculous zipline adventure course that I did yesterday. Until then, I'm on the radio tonight at (90.5MHz) about 7:30 pm Korea time though the show starts at 7 with famous K-blogger James Turnball from the Grand Narrative, a blog focusing on gender relations and sociology in Korea. For those of you tuning in from outside of Korea, you can listen to it streaming after the fact.

After the show there will be a post show chat between the 3 of us live on KoreaBridge's webcast. Who knows? I mean if you have nothing better to do, it will be fun to laugh at me!

Spaz update: NONE! I managed to do everything yesterday without grievous injury. Assah!

The Exciting Life of an ESL teacher: 220 copies later...

My life has had very little excitement lately. Mostly, I drink a lot of iced coffee, teach, and study for the GREs. In the two weeks before summer vacation starts my co-teacher and I decided to do a remedial phonics unit instead of starting a new chapter. The problem is that the previous 4 teachers insisted on only teaching the book--which has absolutely no phonics. That means that for the students who aren't inordinately bright or attending hagwons, they don't learn how to read though they might recognize some vocabulary words.

We decided to focus on the vowels since the students have a pretty decent grasp on consonant sounds. Today was 'A.' I basically tried to remember the best of phonics from when I taught at a hagwon last year, using my memory to recall similar exercises from a Scholastic phonics book. That's right, my 4th and 5th grade students are doing stuff that I taught kindergarten students. They had a lot of fun with it though. We ended the lesson by learning how to read a story and drawing pictures to go along with each page. I made an example (that we turned into a power point).I loved looking at the pictures though one student made his can a Hite beer can. I guess I know what his parents are drinking.

Spaz update:
I woke up this morning feeling like an absolute zombie despite getting 8 hours of sleep. I somehow managed to knock into my bed side table, trip over a pile of books and stumble over what I think was just my own feet. All of this in the short walk between my bed and the bathroom. No bruises or more permanent damage though so it's a win!

Busan Museum of Modern Art: What is Art?

Yesterday, a friend of mine from my first year of college got to Busan.  It was so strange to think about how different things were 6 years ago.  He used to be one of my favorite people to sit next to in discrete mathematics and then linear algebra--mainly because his pockets were always stocked with gum and had no problem sharing his mid class snack with hungry 'ol me. I think he liked to sit next to me because I tended to draw cartoons and play strange word games with myself in the margins of my notes when I got bored. Sophomore year he transferred and we lost touch.  This year we are in the city, half way around the globe from where we started and he is dating one of my friends from university when I was in Paris.

It's a small, strange world. Anyways, all future mentions of Shoesy refer to this guy. 

We met up at the Busan Museum of Modern art which had a really interesting exhibit on modern Japanese, Chinese and (a smattering of) Korean artists.  Some of it was derivative but most of it was intriguing and definitely worth visiting.  A Korean surrealist, Lee In-hee, had this absolutely mind-blowing installation set up where you walked down this narrow, dimly lit hall with dark purple 'wall paper' and the sound of the wind blowing. There is a single light fixture illuminating the corner just enough to throw creepy shadows and then you turn the corner and see a framed screen where the wind is blowing through a field. In front of it is a desk, lamp and fish--all covered in this bizarrely British plaid and then there are a few more of the plaid fish half in the wall, as if they were jumping toward and away from the desk and were frozen the moment you turned the corner to see what was going on. There were a few other paintings by the same artist that were also interesting. It was reminiscent of the surrealism that Dali spearheaded and yet it felt fresh, modern and utterly unique.

I had a lot of fun talking about art with Shoesy who brought up the question 'what is art' in front of a stark panoramic photo of the museums surrounding Tiannamen Square.  A common, age old question, and yet it provoked interesting discussion about what we liked and didn't like about the artwork and more importantly, why.  Anyways, Cragon, Shoesy and I had a blast. Surprisingly there was information about the exhibit and a little about the museum available in English. Maybe they read the complaints about the dearth of English language information pamphlets for the Monet to Picasso exhibit.

Since Shoesy is a newbie we should have brought him to a traditional Korean restaurant...instead we hit the food court in the basement of Shinsegae around the corner for gyros. Whatever, sometimes a girl has got to have her Turkish. 

On the way to Shinsegae we passed the Busan comic convention. It was hilarious.

Random life in Korea update:
I hate buying pads in Korea because 90% of the time the sales assistant hovers and tries to help you pick out a brand.  I braved it today and unfortunately there was some sort of promotional deal. So not only did the woman completely ignore my pleas (in Korean) of 'really, it's okay' she pointed out things on various packages until finally I just grabbed one and tried to flee the premises. No such luck. She asked me to wait a moment and then got me a free pad sample of another type and a bright yellow, plastic Shrek mug. What does promoting Shrek have to do with my monthly cycle I will never understand. 

Recording

Recording the radio show was nerve wracking as hell and then it was over. 

Spaz update:
1. Microphones are not fidgeting friendly. I had be reminded a few times not to rustle my papers or tap my fingers on the table. I finally settled for waving my fingers around in the air while I talked. Why yes, I did look ridiculous!

Rainy season has set in. I want to go out and be a tourist but when it rains I just want to hang about the apartment, read, and eat chocolate. Very exciting, I know. 

Anyways, stay tuned for the radio show, Busan FM 90.5, "Let's talk Busan" on July 11th. It starts at 7:00pm Korea time (though I don't go on until 7:30) and should be available steaming on their website if you don't have access to a radio, or you know, Korean airwaves.