doldrums

imagine a boat. sitting idly on a placid sea, an ocean perhaps. you are stranded. for days.with nothing to do but sit and wait until the wind picks up to carry you towards some destination - any destination really. any port is better than this.
i have read all the news i can take. CNN, New York Times, LA Times, Google News. I have sat on facebook for hours, chatting with random people from my past, acquaintances i have not communicated with for months, if not years.
I have watched movies from grade school: Little Nemo, Fern Gulley.
I have drawn pictures.
I have created a semester plan for class objectives and topics.
I wish i had the wits to create a plot worthy of publication. I certainly have the time to write a couple thousand words a day.

I leave for the Philippines on saturday morning. So there is a finish line in sight for this doldrums session. I will be there for two weeks. i return back to the ROK on the 18th. get back in around 7pm. then i have the friday saturday sunday to readjust to the life here. get out of the beach mode. settle in to the school planning. create a couple of power points for the first couple weeks lessons. maybe think of a new morning lesson. maybe ask when im supposed to be paid for my extra hours i worked all last semester.

I'm guessing they are not going to pay me for any of the lessons worked. some kind of bureaucratic red tape they set up to keep me from getting mine.

im ready for the wind to pick up and carry me to somewhere more entertaining than this chair and this computer screen. my eyes are burning from the time spent here.

all the Chinese food at lunch has been nice though.

gone to the beach

I've made it out of the beach. traveling to the beauteous beaches of South Korea. With a group, we went to Boryeong Mud Festival, the weekend of July 17-18. While there, i participated actively in the events organized on the beach.
we arrived in the morning, around 11. Purchased some snacks, some ramien, some beers, some soju, some chips, veggies, all the necessary party favors. the rain was coming down in a light mist, just enough to keep you cool, wet, and had it not been in the middle of the summer, and we were going to a place that required excessive amounts of water to keep the mud, well, muddy (instead of just dirt), then the weather would have been the pits. I thought it was alright. i made the mistake of rocking my t shirt for the beginning of the weekend. we walked the five minutes to the beach from our pension.
a pension is a little hut hotel, no beds, just mats, and pillows and a floor. you sleep there. on the floor. its surprisingly cheap, and after a long day on the beach, and walking about either dodging the mud, or seeking it out, its a welcome sight.
the place was packed with people, all wearing bathing suits, or if Korean, wearing, most likely, a t-shirt and jorts, but short jorts. i have a feeling the Koreans suffer from a serious case of never nude. almost to the level of arrested development, but i can't be certain. all i know for sure is that they don't like to wear just bathing suits, and have to wear some kind of clothes, usually, on top of it.
once we got to the mud, people bumping into people slowly spread the mud, but we were searching for the source. the little taps of mud, covering only a patch of skin here and there was not enough for me. i had to find this fountain of mud that was so thoroughly coating people as to make them look like little mud monsters, coming out of a bog to eat your eyes and feed the rest of your body to the leather head. i kept walking with purpose, only to turn around after a few minutes to find i had lost my entire posse. slowly meandering through the crowd, without cell phones (for fear that the mud would ruin them - a tale two of my fellow ex-pats experienced first hand) it was slow moving trying to keep tabs on all the members of the group. i turned back, played a quite game of where's Courtney, Dana, Naz, Naz, Alysia, Missy, Meghan. in real life, its almost as fun as the book, except there are no wizards, gnomes, trolls, little critters of evil and malicious intent, and other mythical and mystical creatures. i still hold that these creatures were all present and accounted for. some of them just look more like people these days than they used to. its only logical.
the mud slinging was located another three minutes meander down the beach. we could here it a hundred yards away. could see the pandemonium much closer. i leaped into the fray, had mud chunks hurled into me at astonishing speed. one managed to slam into the side of my face. it was awesome. a few hit my body, as i turned around and began to lob the huge chunks of mud i was pulling up from the ground into the group of girls i was with. they wanted to come to the beach for mud fest. so i was giving them mud. i got a few of em pretty good, so i turned my efforts on the kid standing across the divide, on the other side of the tents covering the mud source. he was hurling mud with vicious intent at all passer-bys. i threw a few big chunks at him, hitting him once or twice in the body, never the face. we held a duel, each standing stationary, offering a free shot to hit where you would. I covered my parts, soccer style. i then grabbed a huge gob of the blue smooth clay, the sediments in it where tiny, so small that the mud was perfect. it clung together solidly, could form perfectly into a slinging ball, and when it impacted, it would flatten out into a pancake of muddy mess. i covered Courtney with the mud, started tossing it at the other girls around me, and when i killed a beverage, i decided that my jovial intents were being lost, as annoyance was building out of the remnants of the dead beverage. the spirit of soju never takes kindly to mud apparently. i thought they would be close, being of the same nationality. guess i was wrong.
we went to the beach, stashed our stuff in a free locker, and raced into the water. it was filled with people, far more than i had ever seen at a beach or in the water, excepting maybe for Miami, but even in Miami there was plenty of space in the water for people to space out and have private conversations. not so here. there was people everywhere. the water was spectacular. cool, refreshing, and super salty. they say the yellow sea is dirty, it very well could be. but there is so much salt in it, that i don't think much of anything bad will live long in it, unless they are those crazy extremophile bacteria strains that thrive in harsh growing conditions.
OK maybe not that extreme of an ecosystem, but it was super salty.
the mud washed off, the rest of the weekend went on repeat. mud, water, beach, mud water, beach. food, mud water beach. the sun came out in force on Sunday. scorching the beach with heat i had not known it was capable of. i bought some sun screen, but alas it was too late. my body was parched, my skin beef jerky.

the next weekend, my appetite whetted with the desire of the beach. the taste of an authentic summer, visits to the beach, i had to have more.
Took a short bus (3.5 hours) to Seokcho. East coast. East Sea / Sea of Japan depending on where you're at, its east sea (Korea) or Sea of Japan (rest of the world). there, we stayed in a love motel. continuous porn on the TV. that was an interesting experience. they involve alcohol in the plot a lot. really shows how deep alcoholism runs in culture here. sex is directly connected with alcohol. bizarre.

arrived at the city around 3. confused our starting location, and walked for upwards of two hours to get to the beach that we thought was right next door to us. it was not. it was far. far. far. away. we walked around the entire city. the interior of a harbor. to get to the side where the beach was. good lord. my flippy floppies tore a hole in my flesh between the big toe and the next one. it was gnarly.
the beach was interesting. far more crowded than Boryeong, the water cleaner, colder, less waves, and the beach much smaller. there are sales people walking about the portable shelters assembled in efficient rows up to the water line slinging fried chicken and soda.





Koreans wearing button up shirts and ties, inflating boats for the water, making blatant and hilarious references to the stamina and work used in sex. "Oh man.. Oh man... its so hard..... oh shit..... god i can't stop...... oh shit.... i'm done."
that went on for a solid ten minutes. it was ridiculous. i got a picture of the cat. ill post it up sometime soon.
we went out and got some 물고기 (mul goki - fish) had to cook it ourselves. that was tough work. it was tough to keep up with the cooking of the fish and then the eating of the fish. getting all the bones out of the stuff was the hardest part.
went to a bar that night for a night cap. ran into some other foreigners. shared a drink with them, we were propositioned to come out with them to the beach again, go skinny dipping, live it up. I wasn't feeling it too much, but it could have been an interesting time.
we crashed, went back to the beach the next morning, relaxed until about 4. the bus back turned out to be a bust. 4.5 hours. traffic. vicious. but two grilled cheese sangwishes rounded out that rough day into something special.
until next time.

summer.

summer has hit here, potent in its humidity. you cant even step out the door before it jumps on your back, the burden of it makes you sweat profusely. the koreans here eat a hot spicy diet during the summer to make up for the heat. the food makes you sweat even more, but the evaporative cooling more than makes up for the momentary discomfort.
my air conditioner has been m.i.a. up until this lovely evening, i have endured. now finally, i can close up the windows, lock my door tight, turn off the fan and crank up the cool, controlled climate of my tiny studio. a miniature terrarium, a capsule, of the arctic circle brought south, and placed in the gut of korea. they won't even know i am here. ill be the silent, cool, one on the tenth floor of bobostel.

work has been on and off. teaching it seems, has moments where the work load is enormous and seemingly impossible to finish all of it. other times, the past two weeks for example, i sit at my desk and struggle to fill the 8 hours i spend in my chair. the new york times are a thorough read. several blogs are good reads as well. there would be a great deal more digital ink on my blog as well, were it not for the censoring power of the gyeonggi-do school system. several web-pages have limited access if any: facebook, myspace, bbc, and blog postings (reading posts is a different story) - all in the negatory.
I received a package today in the mail from my parents. it carried with it reminders of the southern united states: taffy, texas pete, and the black spot.

"I think i smeeellll somesin burnin."

it was a pleasant surprise in the middle of the work day, to be interrupted from the complete isolation of my english office and notified of the arrival of a package from the united states for me. my weeks of waiting at an end, i could not wait the whole day to open it back at my humble house. in the middle of the teachers office i broke out the box cutter and opened up that monster to reveal its innards. they spilt out onto my lap and i gleefully stuffed my face with its contents. i offered my co-teacher Min Kyeung some of the taffy. she took it, but did not give any indication as to whether she enjoyed it or not. it might have just been out of politeness that she took it from me.

I have been living for 17 days on a paltry sum of 60,000 won, or about 50 bucks. some unexpected bills came up at the end of july, namely the bill for my housing service fee. it does not pay automatically as i had initially assumed. the number was substantial. im working with 40 for this weekend and the next week. it should be more than enough, but the food from the box sent from home was a welcome addition to my ramian in the pantry.

Mud-fest is coming up next weekend. Its a large festival in Korea, its purpose: unknown, but perhaps it has something to do with the coming of the rains, the monsoon season, and the excesses of mud it brings with it. but for any reason, they have massive amounts of mud in a beach town, with music, and festivities and food, and many people come to join, celebrating for a saturday in the middle of july. the summer is here, and its keeping it real.

over and out.

spent the weekend walking about town, exploring music festivals in HBC, street markets in MyeongDong, small jazz bars in jamsil. it was a pretty amazing weekend, laid back yet productive. still haven't managed to get out of town yet, but in a city of this size, it doesnt really matter that much.

Get wednesday off this week, for election day. i have never been more excited to see an election day come and go. where as in the states, you go to see the candidates, and canvassing always seems really low key - here its a zoo. they have been posting up on the corner outside of my abode, and campaigning begins bright and early at 630 with singing, dancing, hand shaking loud korean speaking and plenty of jingles and bowing. i sincerely tried to get out to the beach this weekend just to escape the worst of the election, but seoul forecast rain for the northern part of south korea, so the trip was post poned. poned by nature is what it was, but good old gaia pulled a fast one on me, and apollo carried the sun across the sky strong. saturday and sunday. only letting a light drizzle drop down on the land for a brief 20 minutes in the evening of saturday, i was played like a fiddle by a young tevey.

my next lesson plan has been taken from codey's genius idea of zombie survival: kids learn the future tense, and they learn the practical skills necessary to survive a potential zombie apocalypse. and lets face it, what could be more useful, more interesting, and more engaging than that. i only hope that the kids don't get nightmares from the graphic nature of zombies eating brains.

Sara, i hope you enjoyed the World War Z. If you find the book Gravity's Rainbow in my house down in North Carolina, can you grab it and mail it to me? i need some serious complexity in my literature now: gatsby lasted a hot minute, two evenings. sure its spectacular, but its too light.

so stoked about this week though. So weds is off, thursday and friday, the kids go to a field trip retreat. I still ahve to warm my desk at the school, but I think i will bring my computer, some movies, and maybe make a rad power point display for the zombies. throw in some animation or something to keep the kdis on their toes. and start planning the after school lessons that I am going to ahve to start doubling up on for the adults and the students, since i have been missing many of the lessons in previous weeks due to outside circumstances.

and rest in peace ipod: you made it through college, and beyond. road trips and beach trips. you kept it real. you carried my tunes, my collection from over the years. if i can resurrect you, i will. you will not be soon forgotten.

full-scale war

title less shall the post be. I recently purchased a new camera, one of the primary justifications for me leaving the patria to go abroad. Glad to finally see my goals come to fruition. I went with a Nikon D300s, with a prime 50mm f1.4 lens. its a pretty dope set up. I am very excited to be able to start taking it out on my forays into the country, other countries, and the town here, locally.
it isnt really a town though. seoul continues to amaze me with its diversity, buried deep within the homogeny of the country. that doesnt make sense at all to yoe, but if you were to visit.... you would see it. I am sitting in my house waiting for the arrival of a good friend to head out for a going away party.
the friendships made here are fast, and from what i feel in the union, i believe they will be lasting. that is an exciting concept. everyone here comes with open expectations, and in this fashion it is very similar to university. people here always give at least one opportunity before a judgement is passed. home, judgement is presented after the first glance at many times, here, at least the time of day is offered before judgement is passed.
there was only one instance where this was not the case. it was for saint paddy's day.Some friends and I went to an all you can drink guinness bar party. it was an amazing deal. not to mention that fact that guinness is the most amazing beverage made for the consumption of human beings in a bar environment. we commenced with the consumption. it was great. meeting new people, jovially conversing, bouncing from conversation to conversation as if at a large party in college. my courage was up, courtesy of the beer of champions, beer of the irish, beer of the best. and well, i was walking to the line, when these two women looked at me in a strange fashion. i glanced back, noticed the strange glare, and then maintained eye contact. they then stated, "you are totally being judged right now. Say something funny."
I had nothing to say to someone who does that. I said as much, and walked away to the grab another round of guinness for the table. but the confrontation has obviously been in the back of my mind for the past couple months. that was march 20th, about (the saturday after st paddy's day) and it is now may 27. i never really thought it was a big deal, but my writing it down ehre must mean otherwise, correct?
possibly it could be becuase it is accordance with my own personality as dictated by the myers-briggs personality test - i turned out to be an INTJ. introverted, intuitive, thinking, judging personality, alhtough i consciously try to minimize my judgements, because i despise those people who consider themselves better than others based on some kind of moral/intellectual higher ground. its preposterous.
my friend still has not arrived, and we have an hour to commute now in 15 minutes. this is going to be intersting. take it easy yall,
oh and north korea has currently been threatening "full-scale war." end quotations. taken from an AP source. its is about to get real here.

now we can see

another weekend down, another week begins. Mondays are usually the worst day of the week, a slow and groggy rise from bed begins the day. a cup of mixed coffee crystals and sugar/cream powder are passed off as a morning beverage to jump start the pep and the smile.
This past weekend was filled with big plans, most of which slowly fizzled out. First a Pension, a trip to a secluded cabin where people relax, socialize and live large. that didn't end up happening, so we planned to meet in Seoul and go see a baseball game. this was an activity i have looked forward to for several weeks now. I plan on going to many baseball games, and many horse races here, both of which are popular and easily accessible from my humble studio abode.
The ball game didn't happen. We ended up playing Foosball for upwards of two or three hours before heading out into town to go to our Project Mayhem meeting to plan mischief and general misdeeds.
Didn't Make it to the meeting either. I ended up going home early, around 2 I believe and proceeded to sleep for the rest of the day, only to awake to find my voice, once again had decided to make off with some one for the day, leaving me croaking with a sorry excuse for a frog in its place. i wonder, if someone were to kiss my vocal cords, would they turn into a prince charming voice? or would it remain the croaking bullfrog they have morphed into for eternity? a spell cast by the pollution of Korea, a potent and powerful magical entity. one you wouldn't want to cross paths with often, if ever. and one you certainly wouldn't want to have you its bad side. otherwise it might just rain yellow dust on you as you walk around and about the country.
the weather this weekend was the first deep breath of spring the planet has thrown at Korea. and my god it was glorious. a pleasant 20-24 degrees, with sun, and no rain. a light breeze would blow aorund about the roof tops, enough to keep the heat from building up. Julian, Dave and I sat on a roof top fora couple of hours, talking about everything and nothing all at once. planning for activities that may or may not happen in the future. making big plans for our lives, wondering what it will take to actualize the visual predictions. We left the rooftop and went to Dave's residence where we played a little wii, and then ate some massive cheeseburgers. those Jacoby's cheese burgers are rapidly becoming a weekend staple in my diet. I don't know if i can survive without the consumption of a pound burger stacked 8 inches high with various toppings such as eggs, salsa, tortilla chips, pineapple, hash browns, relish, the works really. the burger is epic.
This week follows the GEPIK training workshop we had last Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. it was on this retreat that my voice decided to first begin its hiatus, and a sore throat took up residency. viciously holding on to its territory until the end of the weekend. only yesterday did I lose the sore throat. and It was glorious in the extreme once it left. to be able to swallow and drink without a grimace at each bite is a pleasure I rarely take for granted anymore.
I learned a great deal at the workshop, and met a good deal more people there than i had before. It was a great opportunity to network, meet some new faces, and gather up stories of experiences and places to go when i do decide to take vacation. I need to organize a trip somewhere, perhaps a large pension of sorts with a group of people from the trip and see what happens. I think it could be quite fun and interesting to see what happens. maybe we could even get the pension somewhere far away from here, in the country, near a mountain or by the ocean. Especially now that its finally warming up, the beach could be quite an amazing thing to do. I do not know what an Asian side pacific beach looks like, but if its anything like Cali beaches, it should be pretty incredible. i only keep my fingers crossed for sand, and not rocks. rocks on the beach just really aren't for me. its like trying to take a bath in yogurt, or drinking milk with the consistency of cottage cheese. you get this archetypal form of a beach set in your head, and when the reality of the situation is not what you expected you aren't upset, but just well... i don't know how to verbalize the feeling that comes afterward, its not disappointment, there is always the elation of the beach, but the malcontent of the rocks seems to gnaw at it, especially when your toes get bloody or stubbed in the mixture of heavy earthen materials.

so it has been a while since the last entry. Slowly falling into place all the pieces of life in korea have been. I think I may have finally fallen into a groove of living, sans the gym. Still haven't gotten around to joining a gym. Thats still on the list.
Finished another work week here. It seems that I, like the rest of the english teaching workforce of South Korea, live for the weekend. a time of unforeseeable events. No one knows what could happen. its a page unwritten, blank in a fresh journal, waiting for the ink of a pen or the graphite of a pencil to smudge and deface its surface with untold memories and actions, until the page is nothing more than a dark covered scribble of action, passion, and folly.

who knows what this weekend will bring. it's hewlian's birthday. he has a grand scheme brewing in that chaotic mind of his, and until it hatches, there is no telling what direction it could take.

The weather is finally starting to look up. the days are warmer, the sun shines much more often, and the cherry trees just outside the rear window of the school have begun to blossom. the blossoms line the bank of the han river and are said to be beautiful beyond comparison. the pink and white flowers all open, catching the light, making every passerby think of witty haiku's or other poetry in an effort to make words match and communicate the beauty of the natural world.

except people probably don't conjure poetry in their minds anymore, the everyday person. especially over nature. a tragic loss that will echo in the human psyche for ages, or at least until a cataclysmic even realigns the species with the moon and our necessary bond to the immortal gaia.

have a lovely day everyone.
best friend 1.
over and out.