cheryl ladd bobblehead

calling all angels fans.

i realize that the race for the presidency is probably on everyones mind but there's another important race happening right now. the south dakota minor league baseball team is planning a promotion for 2005 where they'll make bobbleheaeds of some famous south dakotans. the top 3 will win.

pat o'brien from the insider & entertainment tonight has stolen 1st base in the race for the #1 south dakota bobblehead.

It's time for ca fans to let friends and family know to go vote for cheryl ladd.


So angel fans lets make a home run and VOTE for our favorite south dakota angel, cheryl ladd! To vote go to

Links

• www.canariesbaseball.com

halloween party pics

here are snapshots from this weekend.

Links

• www.snapfish.com/share/p=756301099205093113/l=35989045/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

friday night madness

i'm not even sure how to begin today's blog. having missed the last two days i feel there is lost time to make up for. what's left of my weekend now consists of a few hours on sunday. if i learned anything this weekend, its that i'm not 21 anymore. friday night's outing caused my saturday to be spent in bed watching bad tv. it all started out good but the ending was quite explosive…

friday: i got up relatively early since i still had to work on my costume. nothing like waiting til the very last minute. breaking korean tradition i had to wear my boots on the floor since i had to create what would look like knee high boots. i spent 10 minutes taping up each leg. masting tape. you gotta love it. after the boots were done, which turned out quite good, i decided to have fun with the shirt. to cover up the korean writing that was showing through i spelled out "may the force be with you" in black masting tape. now i was ready to go. on the way to school everyone was staring. i'm sure its not every day that they see a westerner walking down the street with masting tape boots.

at school i finished making my light sabor and then printed out a picture of yoda and darth varder. i taped them on the front of my shirt to represent the inner struggle of good vs. evil. the whole luke skywalker costume came together. i'm quite impressed with myself. once my costume was done i spent the rest of the time setting up for the children. they would arrive at 2:40 pm. the haunted hogwan was now ready for business. overall the halloween party was a hit. most of the children did wear a costume of sorts. at one time we had a room full of witches and scream masks. it funny to see what things make it over here. the three boys that i teach were actaully very well behaved. i thought for sure they'd be little maniacs. after all they were wearing the scream and devil masks. their moms were there at the beginning taking loads of photos. it was pretty cool seeing moms getting into the holiday spirit. the only disaster of the day was the "pin the wart on the witch" game. it didn't go over so well so we kind of killed it. the tissue ghosts were a big hit. especially with the little girl dressed as pooh. she was a friend of jesse's. she kept making ghost after ghost after ghost. the other big hit was the mad scientist lab, where we had various types of food in boxes pretending to be body parts. all the kids seemed to enjoy figuring out what the stuff was. well, that is after they were done screaming. by the time the last class rolled around we were all exhausted. since most of the snacks were gone we ordered them a pizza. while they were doing crafts horace, sammy, and i started to knock all the balloons down. horace started popping them. julie came over and then we were playing balloon volleyball. it was such an immature moment but we were sure having a blast.

that night jk took us out for dinner and drinks to thank us for our hard work. i had to meet them there because i needed to take my costume off. by the time i arrived food was on the bbq, which was good. i still prefer the other bbq place. and then the soju was being poured. it all started out innocent enough but we should have remembered what it was like being out with christine. the soju bottles just kept coming and coming. i lost tracked after the 6th shot. from there we went to the singing room. in reality we should have went home. horace and i basically had to carry christine there. she fell once inside the resturant and then outside. it was not pretty. i vaguely even remember entering the singing room. beer was purchased. there was more drinking. i sang "don't stop believing". and that's about all i remember. i spent the rest of the evening inside the bathroom. of course these particular bathrooms were basically a porcelin bowl in the floor. not really a place you want to be sick in. but that didn't stop me. i'm not even sure how long i spent in there. i remember sammy and julie coming into the men's room to talk to me. sammy kept asking me to open the door but i was trying to tell her i couldn't because i was leaning against it. at one point while held up in the john i hit my head on the wall. not a very pleasant feeling i tell you. finally horace came back and i told him i had to go home. with jacket in hand i left the john behind for someone else to christen. the trip home. i don't recall saying goodbye to anyone. i vaguely remember crossing the bridge while horace is telling me about all the singing i missed. the next thing i know i'm past out on the floor. at some point i managed to take my jeans off and crawl upstairs. when i awoke in the morning my eyes were glue shut from wearing my contacts all night, my socks and shirt were still on, and i had a welt on my forehead. i'm sure this is just the kind of stuff my mom wants to hear. her son being drunk and spending most of his evening hovering over a toilet in korea. good times.

saturday:needless to say saturday was spent in bed nursing my wounds. i did manage to shower and go to acupuncture around 2 pm. but once i returned i went right back to bed. like everyone else i do enjoy having a cocktail here and there but what happened friday night was ridiculous. why we let ourselves get suckered into doing all those shots is beyond me. christine is the devil. and soju is her poison. at least i wasn't the only one. horace spent the whole day recovering too. i watched everything from "superman 2" to "american pie 2". i actually enjoyed superman. although whoever though margot kidder was attractive enough to be lois lane must definitely not be working in hollywood anymore. i noticed a lot of soft lighting on her. it'll definitely be interesting to see the new superman movie they're working on. supposedly it going to take place where superman 2 left off. eventually around 7pm i was finally able to eat. grilled cheese and hash browns. doesn't get better than that. through the course of the day i did manage to drink 1.5 liters of pepsi. thats something.

sunday: and now its 2:30 on sunday. HAPPY HALLOWEEN! i'm feeling 100% better except for the welt on my head. hopefully that will go away soon. just got back from the grocery store. thats always a treat. horace told me today that he's not going back to tae kwon do. i'm going to give it one more month especially since i missed most of this past month. i've actually been enjoying it so we'll see what happens. tomorrow will be my first day back. all right i got emails to check. plus i feel like i'm rambling on and on. i'm beginning to bore myself. until next time…

seoul style

shayla worked in a factory
she wasn't history
she's just a number.

one day
she gets her final pay
and she goes far away…

this is my new anthem.

this morning thanks to ho-bag, i discovered my new obsession. her name is liza and she has a web site called seoul style: for hip tips on life in seoul. who is she you ask? well this is how she answers that question: "i'm a sociable expatriate wife living in seoul, korea… …with the popularity of reality tv and on-line journal writing (in tech-speack that's called blogging) i figured that people these days like to be voyeurs. the audience wants real live action and not some contrived work of fiction. so, if you want to follow me on some adventures, then strap on your seatbelts and come along for the ride!"

my hair is already blowing in the wind cuz i got the top down and the petal to the metal. i heart her. we will become friends. thats my mission. here are some other key words she uses to describe herself:

"ringleader, instigator, jetsetter, go getter, flygirl, barfly, mc, hot juma, actress, fighter, writer, a touch of class, a dash of crass, nice piece of !, deeply superficial, all up in your business can i get a witness"

and this is just a partial list. if you all want to check her out heres the address www.seoulstyle.com. the articles are pretty badly written but at least she's trying. and who knows perhaps one of these days my picture will be on the fun page. one can only dream. i'm going to shoot her an email to get the low down on the scene. after all she would know. i'll let you know how it goes.

back to my reality. i had my acupuncture fix today. although they did something different this time after the routine session. the doctor said he was going to perform "yung therapy" whatever that is. of course all i did was nod. he turned me on my side. then the nurse put some jelly-like substance on a pad and placed it on my ankle and another was placed on my chest. little input/output type devices were attached to both pads. the machine was turned on and i could feel a slight sensation. it was like that burning feeling one gets when you have an ice bag on you for a long time. i had to stay like that for 20 minutes. not the most enjoyable thing i've experienced. after it was all said and done the pads were removed. my ankle stung so bad. he told me it would be numb for 5 to 6 hours. i have to go back on saturday.

my return to the office was short-lived because i had to go shopping for halloween stuff with jk and christine. does it ever end. we had to get stuff at the supermarket. we're doing the human body parts game. these kids are going to be screaming. they don't like to dance let alone stick their hand in a box to feel a "human heart". it should be fun. the only good thing about shopping with these two is that i was able to sample the food. i haven't yet because half the time i don't know what it is. after the shopping was done jk treated us to lunch. i had this ground beef stew that was so freakin good. i think its my favorite so far. it was from a food court too. i need to learn to say it in korean so i go back for more. yummy.

its now day 4 of drinking mochas. i've turned into a monster. i cannot get into this mocha trap. although if i buy 6 more i get a free one. the guy who works there already knows what we order. and sometimes we call the koreans boring eating the same soups day after day. i made witch crafts with my students today. figured its the day before the halloween party why not relax and enjoy ourselves. plus i only had two students today: ashley and sally. sally seemed to enjoy it. if she wasn't talking about how crazy the shoes were that she cut out for the witch she was singing to herself. so cute. jk might be taking the staff out tomorrow night. that should be fun. i want to go bowling but sammy wants to go to a night club. i'm not sure i'm ready to go clubbing with work people.

i should go get my disco sleep just in case. until next time…

teaching is hard

tonights entry is going to be short and sweet. not much really happened today. i was actually in a grouchy mood. i basically used up my bitch card for the month. good thing this month is almost over. i think a lot has to do with planning the damn halloween party. i'm beginning to feel like noone else is helping out and i'm left to figure everything out. wouldn't be so bad if there were resources here to help. i realized today while trying to download stuff from the web that there is a lot of crap out there. i must have looked at hundred different halloween coloring pages and the illustrations were shit. i could draw better than half of these witches i've seen and that isn't saying much. two more days. it looks like i'm going to stay with the luke skywalker idea. tomorrow night i'm going to make a light savor. oh what fun.

sally forgot her homework today which made her very upset. it took me 10 minutes to tell her that it was all right. and then during her spelling test she couldn't figure out how to spell higher and she started to cry. she was all upset because on the last test she got 100 and she wanted to get that score again. that took me 20 minutes to calm her down. i decided to help her with the word and once we worked it out she got in better spirits. she too young to put that much pressure on herself. i felt so bad. afterwards we did a little reading then relaxed for the rest of the class period. she's so cute.

i gave my orange b a test today on their reading homework from monday night. that was interesting to say the least. the highest score was a 60. one girl told me she only read part of the story. she scored a 25. not sure why these older kids don't take things more seriously. one girls reading is really bad. i'm probably going to have to give her extra attention. she couldn't even figure out basic words and she just doesn't seem interested. then there's my class of boys. which i'm not even going to go into because that would be a blog entry of its own. it was a very exhausting day.

my solution for that: watch an episode of charlie's angels. not sure what i'm going to do when i finish those dvds. they best start working on session 3. one thing that made my day better was that i recieved some music from adriana. i can't wait to listen to it. thanks for bringing some joy to my grouchy day. you're the best. i think i hear my bed calling me. night all. until next time…

soup is good food

it seems that the pain that was once around my knee and lower leg has turned into a sharp pain in the heel of my foot. how that came about i have no idea. sammy came with me today so that i could have her tell my doctor what was up. i also had her explain to him that the cut on the palm of my hand that i did years ago has left my middle finger slightly numb. i wasn't sure if this might in anyway change the results of acupuncture but since he was putting pins in my left middle finger i thought he should know. he looked at my palm and asked how i did it. i explained it to sammy and in turn she told him. then he felt around my ankle and took my pulse. he asked if i had any digestion problems recently. my answer was no. he had me lay on the table and he started to poke around my stomach. it did hurt slightly. he thinks that there might be a slight digestion problem and recommended having some soybean soup that helps with digestion. i love how the doctor prescribe soups. just like a grandma. for my treatment today he concentrated on my heel. he found the most painful points on my left palm to insert the pins. i had more pins in me this time then the last. however there were no machines. just the heat lamp. it was actually quite relaxing. my whole body just absorbed in the engery that was pulsating through me. the process took ten minutes. as one nurse took out the pins the other started to remove the tape from the last visit. this was definitely more painful than any needle going into my body. when she spoke to the doctor she let out a kind of nervous giggle. it wasn't until i got back to school that i realize her giggle was due to the fact that she removed most of my hair leg. ouch. the doctor wants me to come in at least one more time so i'll be back on thursday. i asked about tae kwon do and he wants me to skip it the rest of the week. he said i could do the strenching but doesn't want me to put much pressure on the foot yet. it looks like tkd will be on hold til november. hopefully i'll be able to get credit for the classes i missed. i'll have to ask shin. can't wait for that conversation.

for lunch i decided to go with the spicy soybean soup. it was so good and hot. i could feel myself sweating the whole time. i'm going to try to make kimchee stew this weekend. thats another soup that is suppose to be good for you. we'll see how it works.

today it got cold. after lunch horace and i went for mochas and lattes. yes its official. i'm addicted again. on our way there we noticed a bunch of people in black shirts and red handbands sitting on the sidewalk. there was a man standing in front of them yelling about something. every once in awhile they'd throw their fists in the air. it looked like some kind of protest. i think they're protesting the dunkin doughnuts. anyway it was quite a site. i only wished i had my camera. i think i'm going to have to carry it with me at all times.

tonight we're going to chill and watch some episodes of "popular". for those of you who haven't seen this show yet rent it. i can't tell you how good it is. time to motor. until next time…

mocha-mocha-licious

after 3 years of being coffee free i had my first white chocolate mocha today. of course i jump right in with the mocha. it was the best thing i've had in ages. i have a sneaky suspesion that there will be more of them in my future. as long as i keep them to a few here and there and not a daily thing i should be fine. i'll probably return to the states a coffee freak. at the post office today, which also happens to be a bank and insurance office, i realized that koreans are pushy. i watched two different people butt in line and don't one person said a thing. and of course when my turn came up they get all freaked out about having to help a whitey. what could have been a 5 minute task turned into a 20 minute nightmare of sorts. i always leave the post office not knowing if my packages will ever find there way out of korea.

last week after horace was yelled at by the cleaning lady in our apartment, we realized that we had to have "special" bags for our trash. we be using the bags we get from carrefour but i guess thats a big no-no. anyway, one would think that you'd be able to find these trash bags in the grocery store. well after cruising up and down every aisle twice i gave up. there were no trash bags to be found. they definitely weren't with the garbage cans they were selling. i finally asked jk this morning if he could get us some because i couldn't find them. he point to a family mart [think 7-11] and said we could get them there. with a sample bag, cuz god knows i won't be able to explain what i want, we set out to find the bags. we looked in a different family mart then the one jk pointed too. this one was closer to our house and we had just gotten the mochas [see above]. so i'm in there looking around and nothing. finally i went to the cashier and pulled out the sample bag i had and asked if he sells them. of course i had to tell him i needed something smaller than 100liters. guess where he pulls them out from. behind the counter. in korean that sell trash bags individually. lets not put them in boxes and sell a bunch. lets have them behind the register where a foreigner would never think to look or ask. i can only assume that my precious carrefour has them too. tucked secretly away behind the register. what a relief that mystery is solved. now we don't have to worry about the wrath of the cleaning lady.

speaking of mysteries and mystery solvers. i was reading the comic news that came with the comic books my sister sent me and it appears that they are releasing new comics based on the hardy boys and nancy drew. how excited am i. very. they are going to drawn ala manga style and the stories are going to be more modern. which is a good thing becasue those books are a little too goody goody sometimes. there are going to be available in feburary as a 96 page book. i'm counting down the days nows. its the little things like this that make me happy.

i think i'm done for the night. time to do some reading. until next time…

snapshots from the weekend

here are snapshots from this weekend.

Links

• www.snapfish.com/share/p=463241098629032402/l=35552099/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

pancakes

pancakes. thats what i had for breakfast this morning. pancakes. warm, fluffy, buttery. pancakes. topped with with everyones favorite white trash syrup mrs. butterworth. although she didn't talk to me like she does to the kids on tv. no matter how i tried to get her involved in a chat she stood there silent as ever on my table. perhaps next time she'll be up for a conversation. one can only hope.

today was laundry and nap day. i forgot how good it feels to take a nap. granted i had only be up a few hours until i decided to go back to bed. there must be something in the water here that makes me sleepy. oh so very sleepy. when i awoke from my cat nap i found seinfeld on tv. of course i watched. then after that i stumbled upon a block of "the oc". now mind you i gave up on this show last year for "one tree hill" but catching it here in korea is another story. i guess i know what i'll be doing sunday afternoons. it was during a commerical break that i caught a preview for a show airing in november which made me realize you just can't escape fads. last year in sf it was all about metrosexuality and the metrosexual male. well it seems that metrosexuality is now hitting korea. yes. that preview i saw was for the "korean and single: metrosexual". god, does this mean i have to hear all about it again. actually i guess not since it'll be in korean. i think they're linking the metrosexual lifestyle to the reason why so many guys aren't getting married so young now in korea. at least thats my guess. hopefully the show will be in english. it doesn't air until nov 14 at 11:40pm so i'll report on it after it airs. i know you'll are excited to hear about it.

all day today it sounded like something was happening in the city. off and on i could constantly hear music and people talking through microphones. finally after i got out of bed for a second time i looked out the window and noticed that something was happening on the soccer field. their were tents, people, and what looked like one of those pirate rides that go back and forth. i called horace and he looked out his window too. there we were. two westerners on our cell phones, sticking our heads out the window. doesn't get any ghettoer than that. it was so 227 minus the stoop. we decided to go check it out. the closer we got to the field we could hear the music. around the outside of the field are these mini hills so we climbed up it to see what was happening. the tents that went around the perimeter of the field contained various food and merchant vendors. in the center were a bunch of people dancing. the music would start and stop. the mc was saying something but we had no clue. it almost looked as if they were having a dance contest. we climbed down and decided to walk around to the entrance. as we entered i saw the ride. which basically was a mini version of the pirate ride but it was all caged in and sat in the back of a truck. yes. i'm not lying they operated this ride from the back of a truck. horace kept trying to get me to ride it. its was very odd. as we stood there some man walked up to us and handed us a brochure. then he started pointing to things on the brochure and the map he brought over. all i could manage to understand was china, swords, reinactment. all we could really do was nod. before we left to walk around he gave us a mandarian orange. that was nice. upon closer inspection of the tents it was basically stuff one would see at a flea market. we made our rounds and then watched a soccer game that was happening on the other end of the field.

while we were standing there i noticed some kids in costumes. they were in black and white outfits with red, yellow, and blue sashes tied around them. they also wore hats with something hanging down that twirled. we waited around to see if they were going to do perform and sure enough they did. they played these drums and were moving around with twirling things in their hands. it was very cool to see. i have some video and photos that i'll post soon. they started moving around the people sitting and gradually made their way over to where horace and i were standing and then proceed to go around the entire soccer field. as they made their way people were following them clapping, and carrying flags. it was like a congo line at a wedding. however, we were in a dirt soccer field with a group of soccer players. they made their way back to the center and perfomed for another few minutes before leaving. what a great way to end the weekend. until next time…

knocking on heavens door

round two of acupuncture was today. and this time there was no sammy to interpret what was happening. when i got there the receptionist took me back to the same room i was in before. i took off my jacket, socks, and rolled up my pants and laid on the table. the nurse came in with some kind of machine. she put one part on my lower stomach under my pants and the other on my leg. it was sort of like being attached to a blood pressure machine. when she turned it on it felt like tiny little pricks going into both my stomach and my legs. she told me i had to lay there for 10 minutes. during the the time there were several different variations of pressure applied. it was so strange because i could feel it digging into my lower abs as well as my leg. there was one setting where the pressure went around my leg and when it got to the sore part i could feel it really dig in. it was kind of hard to relax but i did my best. after that was done the doctor came in and inserted the needles. he attached the jumper cables again but this time instead of my leg constanstly shaking it felt like tiny little pins going into my leg the whole time. once again the heat lamp was applied. afterwards he put more tape on my leg. i have one more session on tuesday.

when i done i walked around ansan for a bit before returning home. i spent most of the day doing nothing. well actually i wrote down all the numbers that were in my cell phone from the states in my address book. i wanted to make sure i got them copied before the battery wore out since i didn't bring my charger. now i have everyone's number written down. i also worked on our halloween party flyer. good times. i still don't know what i'm dressing as but i might go as luke skywalker.

around 8 pm horace and i went to manhatten western bar for some drinks. how sad is it that i can now get buzzed off of three beers. it was pretty dead at the bar. the highlight of the evening was the bartender singing "knocking on heaven's door". he actually sounded pretty good. we spent the rest of the evening taking pictures of ourselves.

today is a short entry. i'm tired and need some sleep. until next time…

strange ways and stranger dreams

ah, friday night in ansan and where am i. at home typing on my computer. let me tell you it doesn't get any more exciting than this. good thing i got loads of music on itunes to listen too. what would i do without itunes. probably go crazy. its like having my own personal junkbox. its a dance party at apartment 804. you want to know something sad, i don't even know the name of my apartment building or my address here. sometimes i feel like i'm in a giant bubble. thats probably why i haven't taken a cab yet because i don't know where i leave. i think next week i'll ask someone at school to write it down for me. i don't even pay my bills. we give them to jk and they take it out of paycheck and give us a stub. its so crazy. my only major responsiblity is to buy groceries. i better enjoy it now because i don't think life is ever going to be this easy again. i jamming out to the smiths again. makes me feel like i'm back in high school. turntable on blasting smiths getting ready to go to e.a. [electric avenue]. those where the days. when punks were punks. sign!! i did find out the in hundun [at least i think thats what they said] where the university is there are some good clubs. someone i met said that they saw a korean punk band there. that's my new mission. to find this place and soon. i want to see a korean punk band. it will definitely be a nice change from all the hairbands they have here.

today i had a nice long chat with me mom at school. its so great having a cell phone now. it was such a chore to go to the pay phone. some days it work some days it didn't and they are so far and few inbetween. we have a bike at our school and today i asked jk if i could borrow it on the weekend. of course he said yes and gave me the key for the lock. now once my leg gets better i'm going to ride all around ansan new city. yee haw. how fun is that going to be. we order greasey fried food for lunch today. it was so yummy. there was fried pork, fried beef, fried fish, fried shrimp, fried crabmeat, rice, miso soup, kimchee, pickles, radishes, onions, salad and a yogurt drink all for $6. you definitely can't beat that.

last night i took a zanax [i have no idea if i spelled that right] since the past two nights i didn't sleep well. talk about bizarre dreams. i watched an episode of charlies angels earlier that evening. it was one where the angels had to protect sammy davis jr. and kris was using the alias taffy. so of course the first dream i had involved the angels. don't really remember all the details but the majority of the dream dealt with kelly. then i work up thirsty. drank a glass of oj. the oj here is so good. ate two crunch bars [thanks misty] and went back to bed. my second dream was weirder. misty and kate were visiting me and we were staying in a hotel of some sorts. it was very retro looking and angular. when we got to our room, which was room 8 we noticed it was connected to room 7. we liked the furniture in room 7 better so we decided to move it. as i went into the other room a naked man entered room 8 where misty and kate were from what appeared to be a communal bathroom. misty and kate stood there in shock staring at him. he started speaking to them in korean. all they could do was stare, mouths wide open. kate was getting embarassed, misty tried covering her eyes. after several minutes we realized we were in the wrong room. we should have been in room 7 from the beginning. which was fine with us since it had the better decor. the man disappeared and then i woke up. i have no idea what any of that means but thought since i'd share it anyway. perhaps i should lay off the sleeping pills.

thats about all i have for tonight. i need to get some rest. i have an early appointment with my acupuncturist tomorrow. good night all. until next time…

west meets east again

EMAIL ALERT!! it seems for some strange reason which the people at earthlink can't figure out my emails are being download even though i'm not on line. what this means is that i only seem to get emails from my sprint account when i'm actually at home on the computer. after 3 various chat sessions with the techies at earthlink no know whys. so for the past couple of days i only received a handful of emails. if you sent one and i didn't respond its most likely i didn't get it. sorry. i changed my password today but not sure if thats going to solve the problem. to be safe it might be best to send me emails to my yahoo account. that address is jethanduran@yahoo.com. hopefully this problem will be fixed soon.

i had my first experience with a real eastern doctor today. there's a acupuncture hosipital near my school so sammy took me there today. i'm giving up on master shin's 101 acupuncture. the energy inside this place, which is called myclinic, was very good. it felt so peaceful and relaxing. the decor was brown and black. there were jars of various roots on displayed and i got to wear slippers that said "love". although the slippers were both for the right foot. hello. don't you have left slippers. i guess not. anyway, sammy signed me in. its a good thing she came because noone speaks english. how exciting! going to a doctor that doesn't speak english. its definitely interesting. a few minutes passed in the waiting room and then i was called into the doctors office for a consultation. sammy interpreted for both of us. i told him how my injury occurred and where it hurt. he felt around my knee and lower leg. bent it a few times and asked if it hurt. it did slightly. then he took my pulse and asked if i ran warm or cold. i have no idea. at times i feel like i run both quite equally so i said i was in the middle. not really sure what they had to do with anything so i asked sammy. she said depending on my answer is how they treat you. everyone is different so its something they like to know. after meeting with the doctor, who as sammy said was a little nervous, i went into the acupuncture room. i guess they don't see too many westerners here. inside this room was a bed and a current. i laid down with my head facing the door. the doctor came in and sammy told me he was going to start putting the pins in. she told me to let them know if it hurt. i used my "tools" that kate taught me to relax. he put about 4 pins in my left hand and arm and a couple around my left leg. then he moved onto my right leg, the one with the pain and placed some pins around my knee and down my leg. so there i was laying on this bed with my t-shirt on, pants rolled up, socks off, and various needles sticking out of him. thats when he brought in the machine. it was a shock machine. he attached what looked like mini jumper cables to two of the needles on my right leg. once they were in place he turned on the machine. my leg shook as if i was having a spasm with every shock. the shock were continuous. it felt so weird to not be able to control my leg. after a few minutes it began to feel really good. like an electronic massage. a few minutes laters he returned with a red heat lamp type thing that he turned on and pointed at my leg. i could feel the heat from the lamp on my leg. it was nice and relaxing. i remained in that position leg shaking, heat lamp on for 10 minutes. it like being a cheese burger at mcdonalds waiting under the heat for someone to order me. when the machine went off a nurse came in and said something to me. i nodded and realized that she said she was going to take out the pins. when she was done the doctor came back and motioned that i could get dress. it was such a great experience. before leaving sammy told me that they wanted me to come back for two more sessions and that i shouldn't do tae kwon do until i was done with all three sessions. i go back on saturday morning at 10am sans sammy. i'm a little nervous but she told me they will be doing the same thing. i just need to remember to bring my korean-english dictionary. i feel like i'm fully emersing myself into the culture now.

we got two new students today who will start tomorrow. guess who's class they are in. mine. the two new boys will be joining by orange a class on friday. now i'll have not 3 rambuncious boys but 5. lucky, lucky me. we also learned this week that another english school was openning up in a few months in the same building as ours. this will be interesting but at least it means more westerners in ansan.

as for more exciting news we made reservations for christmas break. it looks like vickie, horace, and i were be going to an island off of thailand to ride elephants, stay in a bungalow, and sit on the beach. i forget the name but a friend of vickies was just there and she said it was wonderful. it one of these yet to be discovered places by tourists. i'm getting very excited. i can't wait to ride an elephant. i'm going to make some dinner now. all this writing is making me hungry. until next time.

voice mail, check

today i was awakened by a crazy song. it took me about a minute until i realized it was my cell phone. seeing that it was down stairs i didn't make in time to answer it. i couldn't tell if there was a message or not since everything was in korean. after fiddling with it for awhile i was able to find the number that called me and realized it was scott. my first phone call from the states and i missed it. what a drag. after my shower i called scott who in return told me to hang up and he called me back. he told me that he wasn't sure if my phone was working or not since it was playing classical music. oh great. my phone has a classical music as a ring. good times. i chatted with scott for a bit then had to go off to school. it was great talking to scott. it felt like i was back at home. at school i was playing with my phone again trying to change the classical music ring. and then the song went off again. it took me a second to realize it was another call. am i ever going to get use to this obnoxious ring. when i answered i heard the sweet voice of kate w. how great was that. my second call from the u.s. it was so great talking to her. i think we talked for over 30 mins. what a great day this was starting out to be. two calls and two friends. after kate's call we tried to figure out the voice mail. we finally found out that there was a number we could call to speak to someone in english. thank god. the woman help us set up our voice mail in english. so now everyone can leave messages and not have a korean woman speaking to them. it'll be me. yeah!!

the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. i think i'm going to a real eastern doctor tomorrow for acupuncture. i don't think i trust my tae kwon do teacher. plus jk found someone i can go see. i really want to get this annoying pain taken care of. i'll let you know how it goes. i had to call master shin to let him know i was going to skip class tonight. i decided to take a break until i'm 100% better. could this be an end to my tae kwon do. i certainly hope not and if it is at least i got a uniform out of it. guess what i'm going to be for halloween. a tae kwon do zombie. original i know. but its easy. well thats about all i got for tonight. until next time.

bread and smiles go a long way

ok. first thing first. i found out today exactly how you need to dial my number. i changed it in yesterdays blog but figured i'd address it one more time. to call korea you dial it like this 011 + 82 +10 +7744 +0594. hopefully that will work.

i had acupuncture again this morning. not sure how i really feel about my tae kwon do teacher adminstrating it. does he even know what he's doing? he certainly looks like he does. this is what i think about as i sit in the chair with needles poking out of my leg. later on while talking to jk and horace i started to think again if maybe i shouldn't have done this and perhaps went to a specialist. jk told me there are lots of eastern doctors here. its just a matter of whether or not they will understand me. i'm sure i'll figure something out. back to my story. so there i am again sitting and talking with master shin one on one. of course he has to ask out of jenny and heather [two girls in my class] which is my type. i said neither. and then he started telling me about this english club he belongs to and that i should go with him some time to meet korean women. thats all he can talk about yet he's not even close to having one himself. this is one very lonely man. so this goes on for awhile. at this point i'm completely bored with the conversation because its the same as always. then he starts playing this song from desparado. antonio banderas is singing. and he has it on repeat. not only did i have to hear it once but three times. and it louds. i so wanted to pull out every needle in my leg and run. when it was all done he insisted on walking me back to the school. i told him he didn't have to but he said he needed milk. whatever. i really wanted to stop in the bakery so once we finally parted ways i had to backtrack to the bakery.

they didn't have this delicious corn bread i was looking for so i had to settle for a regular looking loaf. before i went to the counter to pay i saw this very tastey looking apple strudel/bread pudding thing. of course i had to have one. so i'm at the counter ready to pay. the lady starts talking to me about the bread. i smile showing all my teeth and say i have no idea what you are saying. then i hold my hands up to say "i don't know." she continues to talk to me and i continue to talk to her and neither of us have any idea what the other is saying. then the other woman starts doing charades to try to tell me what the first woman said. it looked like she was kneading bread or something. i thought that maybe she was telling me the bread was enriched. who really knows. i gave her a big smile and the thumbs up sign pretending i knew what she said. she laughed. i laughed. the first lady laughed. i paid said thank you in korean. we all exchanged goodbyes in korean smiling and then i left. i love the bakery ladies.

today we had to plan out exactly what we are going to do for the halloween party. we decided to have 3 stations set up. one with pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern, two being an arts and craft, and 3 a mummy wrap game. we are also converting one of the classrooms into the mad scientists labortory. so much spooky fun. i'll be sure to capture the day on film. it'll be happening next friday. i really have to figure out a costume. this kid is getting sleepy. goodnight all. until tomorrow.

calling korea

the big news for today is that i got a cell phone. YEAH!!! now you all will be able to contact me at anytime and vice versa. although not really sure how to use the thing. its all in korean. the 120 page manual that came with the phone had 4, yes i said 4, pages in english. unfortunately those 4 pages didn't really tell you much either. go figure. the phones here make noises for everything. if you open the phone it makes a news. you press a menu button it makes a noise. you close it it makes a noise. my first thing was to figure out how to turn those damn noises off. after several unsucessful attempts i finally figured it out. although if you asked me to do it again it would probably take me just as long. next step setting the ring. of course since we're in korea there is no such thing as a simple ring. every single ring is obnoxious. there's everything from a techno version of "halelluyah" to even more bad techno songs. it looks like i'll be keeping that baby on vibrate. actually i finally settle for the lesser annoying song. it so funny trying to save numbers etc. at least they do have english characters to enter peoples name. i'm just happy to have one. whether or not i'll ever figure out all the functions is another story. the koreans do everything on their phones from watching tv to banking. its crazy. anway so that my exciting cell phone story. before i forget here's my number 10-7744-0594. don't ask me what you have to do to actually call me. i just looked on www.countrycallingcodes.com and it said calling from united states to south korea you have to dial 011 + 82 + the number [10-7744-0594 you need to drop the first "zero". hopefully that will work for you. call me. and with any luck i'll actually be able to answer. how exciting. for those of you who don't know the time difference go to www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ its a great resource.

school was school today. nothing too exciting happened with the kids except that my 3 boys are out of control. each one has to be a class clown. not listening, running around, talking about snot. i recently learned the korean word for booger so now i know when they are saying it. they are so bad, but its actually my best class. they definitely keep things exciting.

tonight was tae kwon do. we have an new student heather in the class from canada. class went all right until the jump roping. it was kind of painful to jump up and down so i sat out on that. the rest of the excercising and kick practicing was good. i'm really enjoying. now i just want my knee to get better because i'm not going all out these days. it kind of hurts now as i'm typing. everyone send out good energy to rid me of this bothersome problem. i am going back for acupuncture tomorrow morning before school. lets hope that ends of working because i really don't want to quite. all right midnight is here i this one needs to go to bed. until next time…

sunday, boring, sunday

today was a lazy sunday in ansan. i did absolutely nothing, nothing at all. its days like this that make me miss sf. i'm not sure why. its not like i was constanstly doing things there. i guess it the fact that i knew there were stuff to do. i'm beginning to feel like a lazy bum lately. somehow i managed to do nothing but update and play on my computer. did i practice my tae kwon do moves. no. did i study the korean alphabet. no. and now these things are taunting me. i did manage to get some laundry done. as well as clean the drain in my bathroom. talk about gross. i'm so glad i found a pair of rubber gloves under the sink. because i definitely don't want to touch that crap.

after two weeks of no grocery shopping i finally made myself go to carrefour this morning. i spent two hours there. a majority of that time was spent on the 3rd floor which the the target-like area. i was looking at a lot of these korean graphic novels that i can't read. they look really cool. one thing that i've noticed is that there are a lot of cool books: sticker books, colorform type books, etc. there was a lot of things i wanted to buy but didn't. thats the one nice thing about being here without a credit card is that i'm not tempted to impulse buy.

finally i made it down to the food section. one word of advice don't wait so long to go shopping. i needed basically everything. it took me 20 minutes to find where the sugar was. and trying to buy detergent is also a fun chore. there are far to many and of course you can't read any of them. plus when they tape extras to the boxes i'm also like "i have to have that one, even if its 16,000 won." by the time i made it to the check out i was nervous that i might not have enough money. and guess what i didn't. i had to have the clerk hold some items while i went to the cash machine. my first experience with that. after an unsuccessful try with the first machine and went to another. so far so good until it asked me for my pin. i remember the letters of my pin but not the numbers. of course the machine didn't have letters on it. i decided to take a guess and luckily enough i was right. time to go back to the clerk. now i had to check my previous bought items and get back in line. sometimes it feels the easiest things to do here are the hardest.

back at home i made some yellow rice which my sister sent and mixed it with vegetables and grounded pork. it was so good. i wanted ground beef but its like $9 dollars here. crazy huh. anyway, like i said before the rest of the day was spent being in a giant vortex. or so it seemed. i'm going to head back into that vortex and perhaps i'll even go to bed before 1 am tonight. until next time.

handsome pretty boy

let me first start off my apologizing for that badly written blog. its as if i had "gone korean" with my bad english. note to self. no blogging after drinking. i didn't think i drank that much. it must have been the lack of food in me. i never had dinner last night. one thing i forgot to mention is that last night while talking to ryan we got on the subject of the korean hairbands. we told be that the girls in his class refer to them as "handsome pretty boy". at least i think thats what he said. its all a bit foggy. isn't it a great name.

this morning i finally forced myself out of bed by 11am giving me 45 minutes to get ready to see master shin. i spent an hour watching "love's pinwheel" some bad korean soap opera that has english subtitles. i think i'm hook. there's so much drama. i love bad tv. when i arrived at the tkw studio for my first experience with acupuncture master shin was reading. reading about the pressure points on the knee. not a good sign. i asked him if he really knew what he was doing. he said he was just brushing up. now i know what it feels like to be a guinea pig. at least the needles were new. i sat in a chair with a cup of tea while master shin preped my knee. he was talking about the philospher of acupuncture and tae kwon do. i followed him for a bit then he started to lose him. he was also talking about his own philosphy about tkw. it was very interesting to listen to his story. he told me to make sure that i relax my mind and body. thanks to kate w. and her mediation techniques that she shared with me i was able to focus and do just that. he started out massaging my knee and the pressure points. and was telling me how massages are good but that acupuncture is better becasue the needle is able to go deeper. he hit one point on the front of my knee that really hurt. after doing that for awhile he started prepping the needles. have i told you how i hate needles. well i do. however, since i found myself well grounded and focused i didn't seem to care as much. i had my eyes closed for the first needle insertion which went in on the lower right side just below my knee. i could barely feel it go in. even when he pressed it in deeper it was a very calming sensation. after this one i opened my eyes and watched him do the others. once he was done i had 4 needles around my knee, one on the top of my leg, and one on my hand between my thumb and index finger. apparently theres a point there thats inline with the knee. i sat there needles and all for about 15 minutes. it was really cool. i think i'm hook on acupuncture now.

afterwards master shin asked where horace was. when i told him he was at home he was surprised. for some strange reason he thought we went everywhere together. at this point i had to explain to him that we do have our separtate lives and that i am capable of going out without him. from there he asked what i was doing for lunch. i told him i was going to carrefour to pick up some stuff and he asked if he could come. what could i say but sure. which meant that i had to have lunch with master shin. what an experience that was. we went to the food court. good thing he was there because everything is in korean. we had lunch and talked. it was cool. i had to listen to how lucky i was for being an american. afterwards he asked what i was doing. i said i had class. good thing because he was going to the movies and i think if i didn't have class i would have had to go with him.

i returned to the apartment building and went to horaces. i was actually feeling tired so i decided to skip class today. instead i took a much need nap. after class horace and vickie came by and we went to dinner. we all got some kind of chicken and cheese curry dish. it was really good. we then went to horaces apartment to install software on vickies computer. while the software was installing we played cards and drank. i drank soju. so good. its really cool hanging out with vickie. she's a lot of fun. tomorrow i think i'm going to do nothing. at some point though i will need to go to the carrefour for food. i hate grocery shopping. well i'm off to bed now. goodnight everyone. until tomorrow…

one step closer to yellow belt

happy friday everyone. tonight i went back to tae kwon do class. i made through about half of the class. then my knee starting to bother me. master shin was to give me acupunture so i have to meet him tomorrow at noon. this should definitely be interesting. i need my first headstand tonight. how excited was i. everything was fine until we started doing the kicks then my knee was acting up. i learned the rest of the moves i need to know before moving on to being a yellow belt. i'm going to try to practice this weekend. during class i was asked once again about having a girlfriend. koreans sure do know how to beat a dead horse. master shin kept trying to get horace and i to yell every time we kick or punch. i still don't feel comfortable yelling out but i tried. tb and ryan broke boards tonight and advanced to purple belt. that something to look forward too. i can't wait til i have to try to break a board. how exciting is that.

after class we went for drinks to celebrate. when they brought out the pitchers it was steaming from the dry ice. it was so cool to look at. they also have these colored lights in the center of the pitchers that blinks like christmas lights. what a great idea. of course master shin tried to put me in the hot seat again asking me to tell him a romantic story. i finally told him he needs to subscribe to penthouse form. that shut him up.

at school today horace, sammy, and i went to our favorite bbq place. she brought us out some free soup. i love her. we finally found out that her name is insuk hon. next time i go i will call her by her name. i can't believe how nice she is. i can't even fathom going ot another bbq in ansan. i'd feel guilty if i did. as for classes they were pretty much the same as always. i did have to sit one of my students in the corner today since he wasn't listening. i don't think he like that too much. and in my orange b class i had to lay the law down about homework. it seems like half of them didn't do it agian and i told them that this was the last time i was going to give them a break. we'll see how that goes.

that about it for me. i feel slightly buzzed from the beer and can't really write so i'm going to end it here. i'll let you all know how acupunture goes tomorrow. i still can't believe i have to go there alone. oh well. all right. goodnight and i'll wrtie more tomorrow. take it easy.

halloween at ils

here are pictures of our classrooms decorated for halloween.

Links

• www.snapfish.com/share/p=337141097760471270/l=35021083/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

scooters scooters everywhere

for some strange reason i find myself with a burst of energy every night around midnight. causing me to stay up til 2am either watching very bad american shows or messing with my computer. last night i was messing with my computer trying to upload photos. after writing over 60 captions for my photos which after 40 they start to become less and less original. you'll notice that some are title "temple.01, temple.02, etc.". anyway before loading them to snapfish my machine decided to lock up. so i restarted and everything was fine. thank god. pictures were loaded and linked to my blog. all was good. well that is until i openned my mail program and it said i had over 300 new messages. somehow during my shutdown and restart something screwy happened with the server and all these old messages came through again. needless to say i spent the next 20 minutes going through the messages making sure i didn't delete any i wanted to keep. don't you just love computers sometimes. i know i do.

at school today the ladies [tabitha and ferret*]. *names have been changed to protect the innocent which in this case is me. anyway the ladies showed up looking like walking zombies. ferret was wearing the same clothes as yesterday. did she do a walk of shame? curious. apparently the two of them tied one on last night and this morning were still drunk. not even the hangover soup could cure what ailed them. they basically set the mood for the entire school today: bored and tired. i know that was how i felt. especially since after my 11 am class i didn't have one until 5:40. nap anyone. i made my kindergarteners do nothing but color. that was bascially all i had in me. after that it turned into the "longest day ever!" i've never been more excited to see 7:05 roll around.

during my long period of doing nothing but trying to look busy i realized two things. one: scooters are probably the number one causes of accidents here. its not the cars you have to worry about running stop signs and traffic lights which they do on a regular basis but the scooters. especially the damn pizza hut scooters. they drive both on the streets and the sidewalks. i even saw one ride down the wrong side of the street. its crazy. walking out of my building i'm constanstly checking to see if a scooter is coming. i even had one ride up behind me on the walking bridge one day. there's barely room for two people to walk side by side and here comes this scooter. i literally had to throw myself against the edgo so it could pass. not once did the scooter driver consider slowing down. that would be a big scooter no-no. crossing the streets is the same thing. its not the cars its the scooters. they're taking over and they are a menace. they must be stopped and i feel it will be my mission to do so. not really but it would be kind of funny. maybe i'll just flatten all their tires. that will show them.

the second thing i realized while staring at my computer today is that i want to learn to draw. i want to be able to illustrate manga type comics. this is my new dream. however, i first need to come to terms with my haunted past about drawing. looking back at all the art classes i took i realized that something deep down inside me was stopping me from achieving potentional. something scared me about art class. it was almost like i was afraid to learn. afraid to try. i believe this stems from a tramatic experience in art class when i was younger. we were living in new jersey at the time and my sister and i were taking art classes. i can remember being very excited about this. drawing seemed so fun. i wanted to learn. i enjoyed it. it gave me pleasure and then it happened. we had just finished doing some sketch drawing when snack time arrived. it was chocolate cookies and kool aide. what more could a fat boy want. seeing that separately the sugar content wasn't enough for me i decided to dunk my cookies in my kool aid. now for those of you who are thinking gross. its not. especially when its cherry kool aid. so there i am cramming my cookie in my dixie cup of cherry kool aid. and then like jack and jill it all came tumbling down. my dixie cup couldn't handle the pressure and decided to give causing a flowing red river to cover my sketch book. the teacher was not at all happy. i remember her standing over me yelling. she grabbed my cherry soaked sketch pad shaking out the excess liquid. it wouldn't have been so bad if mine was the only victim but that wasn't the case. i took someone else with me for the wild ride. right then and there admist all the yelling and clean up i realized that i didn't want to return to art class and i didn't. so here i am now twenty something years later with the urge to pick up a pencil. this idea i have for a comic being the catalyst. the writing is no problem but the drawing well i'm sure no one wants to look at stick figures. thats about my ability right now. which means its time to put away these ill feelings toward my art class experience. time to get beyond the discouragement and bad experiencesy. time to move on from this deep rooted scared feeling and pick up where i left off sans kool aid stain. so there you have. i now have a goal for myself while in korea. one that i actually feel quite good and excited about. who knows maybe it'll bring a whole new direction to my life.

well, i think i rambled on quite a bit for an uneventful thursday. my delicious lipton rice mix is done. it smell so good. and i'm hungry. oh, i also took some photos of our decorated classrooms today. i'll try to post them tonight. until next time. wish me luck…

hwagyesa zen center

here are pictures from hwagyesa zen center.

Links

• www.snapfish.com/share/p=393131097683719654/l=34973810/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

chu suk and pyeongchon pics

here are pictures from chu suk and pyeongchon.

Links

• www.snapfish.com/share/p=690131097673364845/l=34965337/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

cream corn glue

today i had to forgo my tae kwon do class. my knee was still bothering me so i fugured it was best to give it another day of rest. its funny because i was actually looking forward to going. hopefully by friday it'll be better. on the bright side i got another package today. this one was from misty. it's like christmas in october. misty sent me a bunch of halloween stuff. there were decorations for the door, which are now hanging on the front door of our school, more banners, a pumpkin scarecrow, a witch and a skeleton. our school looks so festive now. yeah. she also sent some toys and stickers for the kids and candy. i kept the good candy [butterfingers, crunch bars, baby ruths, and reese cups] for myself. in my package of fun was also some pictures of aikea. actually there were 3. one of them is hanging in my class and the other two are going on my apartment wall. she also made me a cd. that god. i needed some new music. and the best of all was a bottle of my favorite chinese hot sauce. i love that i'm being sent me chinese hot sauce from san francisco to korea. i put on my mac and cheese. i forgot how good that stuff is. thanks misty. today i had to tell my kids no candy in class. they were all chomping on it during class and not paying attention. the kids of ansan are going to be hopped up on candy corn before i leave. now that a scary thought. misty also sent some cat peeps. i passed them out to my co-workers. not sure what they thought but they ate it. they'll eat anything here.

most of the day was pretty uneventful. i have to have jk speak to one of my students who keeps huffing and puffing everytime i give them work to do. not sure what she's expecting to do in class. after a week of listening to this i finally had enough. hopefully her attitude will change. i tried to make some cream corn soup that i got at the store. i think i did something wrong because it was thick as glue even with 5 cups of water in it. needless to say it didn't taste so good so i threw it all away. i guess its instant rice for now on. at least i tried. while icing my knee i was some korean sitcom called guys and girls. it had subtitles. its about these college students and its so bad but that didn't stop me from watching. you know how i love my bad tv.

its getting colder here. i can feel winter approaching. time for me to get a blanket. at least then i'll have something that completely covers my body. i put on the pajama top that they gave me when i moved in. the sleeves only come down 3/4 of the way. haven't tried the bottoms yet but i'm sure when i do i'll be sporting floods. thats about it for tonight. until tomorrow…

puddin and popular

pain. pain was the overwhelming feeling i had today in my knee. i think during my leap frog attempts yesterday in tae kwon do i pulled a muscle or something. this morning and all day i found it very painful to walk. my right knee throbbed all day. during the day and sketched periodically hoping to stretch out the muscle. tonight i'll ice it. hopefully all will be better by tomorrow.

for lunch horace, sammy, and i ran errands. actually they ran to the bank while i waited in my apartment for them. since i had some time to kill i decided to make some cheesecake pudding. when they came back we went to find the office manager so we could figure out how to control the heated floors. there seems to be some knob under the sink that controls the heat but we couldn't find it. after we were given a lesson 101 in heating our floors we set out for food. today we went to lotteteria, a korean fast food place. on the menu was squid burger and shrimp burger. i went with a bulgani burger which is beef. it was actually kind of tastey.

back at school i noticed a new plant in my room. they finally got rid of the one that died and replaced it with a new one. jk sat with horace and i to discuss the cell phones yet again. who would have thought that trying to get a cell phone would be so difficult. they didn't want us to buy these used ones we saw online for fear that they wouldn't work. jk told us that his brother-in-law was going to look for cheaper ones from his company. i told him that there was no way i'm going to pay 300,000 won which is around $300 for a phone. he said they might be able to find phones for 50,000 won and if they find ones a little more than he would pay the difference. hopefully this situation will get solved before i leave korea. one of our students mom, who is a home economics teacher in high school brought some rice rolls to school for us. they were so good.

for dinner i decided on mac and cheese. so good. horace came by around 8:30 and we watched popular and had puddin. we were only going to watch 2 episodes but we couldn't stop. i forgot how good it was. we settled on three which means next week we are only allowed to watch 1. we're going to try to prolong the viewing of popular as long as we can. we have 19 episodes left. there's nothing like puddin and popular on a good evening.

i think its time to ice down the knee. watch a bit of bad tv. i noticed jaws 2 is on and then get some sleep. until tomorrow…

cheese nips and kit kats

i'm beginning to feel like carrie bradshaw from sex in the city as i sit at my laptop every night and write. where as she's writing about sex mine is simply my life as i know it. hey what itsn't that a new show on abc? my day started off earlier with a phone conversation with my sister. i love talking with her. it always makes me feel like i'm close to home. after our 30 min + chat session i had to catch a train to ideongang to meet christine to go to the halloween shop. while on a train a korean woman started talking to me. i could barely understand what she was saying but it was still good to talk to a stranger. i met christine and we waited for jane to pick us up. when she did little kelly was in the car too. for some reason i thought this store was going to be near the subway station. i was wrong. it was a half hour drive. when we did get there we entered this building that had a halloween sign. we climbed down the stairs to the basement. there were boxes all along the stairs marked "halloween". we entered the basement store and it was like entering the black market halloween store. there were all these halloween elves, not really but thats what they looked like, filling orders. it was your typical kind of stuff. we grabb ed a bunch of stuff and after about 20 minutes were ready to leave.

meanwhile once back at school it was time for lunch. my morning just flew by. there were also 2 packages waiting for me. one from my mom and the other 20 lb + package from my sister. my mom's contained a bunch of halloween stuff and candy for the kids. surprisingly the candy corn made it and didn't all melt into on large clump. my sister's package was like opening a pirates treasure chest. however, instead of gold coins it was filled with tastey treats from america. i never thought i'd be so happy to see kit kats, farina, mac and cheese, lipton noodles, pancake mix, etc. the best part was the comic books and popular box set. YEAH!!! i can't wait to start watching it. now i know what i'm doing on saturday.

after lunch we started decorating our rooms. one of favorite things was this vinyl witch who looks like she flew into the wall. that was from my mom. i immediately hung it up in my room. i actually feel kind of guilty because i didn't share any of my decorations from mom. oh well. we had a bunch of other stuff from the store for the rest to hang. i did let horace have the hanging bat. as for the bendy skeleton i'm taking him home. he's too good to keep at school. i'm quite happy with how my room looks. i'll take a picture and send it. i also opened a bag of candy corn to place at the front desk. later i'd realize that was a mistake. pure sugar was exactly what these kids don't need. they all woofed it down like vultures.

it was great watching all the kids come in and see the decorations and get excited. they ran from room to room screaming. now we get to have three more weeks of this. they all wanted to have a party today. all my classes went fine. i quized the children on the various decorations to see if they knew what they were. most of them knew spiders and spiderweb. the rest i had to explain. to be young again. now all i have to do is think of a costume.

tonight was tae kwon do and sadly no uniform. we will get them on wednesday. i can't wait. today we did some kind of leap frog exercise where we had to jump over people. needless to say i averaged about a 40% on my jumps. all i kept thinking was that i was going to land right on the persons back. we had to do three in a row. by the time i reached horace i usually passed seeing that he's so tall. we also practiced more kicking and did some more sparring. master shin keeps trying to get horace and i to yell when we kick or punch but i'm not quite there yet. soon i keep telling him. over the class was great although from our last stretching exercise i'm so shore. at one point my partner basically had my face pressed down to the matt. i didn't realize i was so flexible.

i almost forgot to mention. tonight i ate some cheese nips that my sis sent. let me just say they've never tasted better. i also woofed down a kit kat. thank you for those zoe. so good. all right i need to get to bed. until next time. stay tuned to ketv…goodnight.

a day of temples

today we made our second attempt to get to the temple for mediation lessons. yes i said attempt because by the time we got there it was already 1:30pm and once we made the journey to the temple we couldn't find out where the lessons we being held. the temples were beautiful so we spent the day just walking around watching the various people prayer. it was so quiet there and the energy was unbelievable. i took lots of pictures so i'll try to upload them this week sometime. it was great just walking around there. i thought of kate w. the whole time. she would love it there. i stumbled upon the monks sleeping quarters so of course i took a photo. there's also a national park there with trails. we didn't do since we were tired and plus i was wearing the big shoes and didn't feel like hiking in them. i think we'll go back and do that another day. there were some old women filling up water bottles from the spring water. it was so cool watching them sit on the rocks chatting. it was such an amazing place. the temples themselves were beautiful. some had these really cool paintings of budah and other stuff. there was even a giant gong tower. i watched the monks walk around and even watching people praying was cool. their movements were so beautiful and mesmorizing. i think i watch this one lady for 20 minutes. lost in my own thoughts. it was such a great day out too. afterwards we had lunch in the city. i went with the breaded pork cutlet, rice sushi, dumblings, and soup. so good. for dinner i went to a tai place in itaewon. that was good too. i also went to a bar there. it was so weird to be in korea yet everyone in the bar was a western and they were playing 80s music. its times like that where i hate living in the burbs so far from everything but at least this way i'll be saving money. thats what i keep telling myself anyway. tomorrow i have to meet christine and jane at some subway station to go halloween shopping. they're going crazy with this party planning stuff. all right i'm signing out now. hope everyone is doing well. until next time…

bongoo

i had a very lazy saturday morning. stayed in bed til about 11am. showered then did some laundry. that was excitinng. spoke to misty today. thats always fun. around 3pm we headed off for our korean class. we got there late but when we arrived people were standing outside the door. it seems like they could get the door opened. we had to cut through another classroom to get to ours. there were no seats left so we sat on the floor. today we learned money terms. and how to say things like "i want to exchange dollars for won." i was kind of tired and found it hard to pay attention but i did learn some new words like bongoo which means fart. now thats an important word to learn. i'm finding it easy to remember the words, now all i have to do is learn the alphabet so that i can read them. i had a little trouble with the sentence "what is the exchange rate today." i'm actually enjoying the class and i'm glad horace made me go today. this week i'm going to try to learn the alphabet. thats my goal. so now i'm home and i think i'm going to turn in early. we have to leave for the temple at 11am. its about an hour an a half subway trip. thats about all for today. i did wore my jem today. how happy was i. all right until next time. you all know the drill. later…

hae jang guk [hangover soup]

where to even begin today. i woke up around 2am after a damn mosquito bite my foot. when i went down stairs to put some aloe on it i look out the window and all i saw was white. the entire city was covered in thick fog. it was actually quite beautiful to view at this early hour. kind of reminded me of the movie the fog. all i need was some mysterous monster to start wrecking havic on the city.

i got up again around 7am and went out to call my parents. the fog had thinned out since the early morning. chatted with my folks for a bit which was nice. its also nice to talk to people because it makes you feel like your not so far away.

at school they told me i had to go shopping for halloween stuff with christine and jane. this was going to fun. 45 minutes later the plans were cancelled and i was in the kindergarten class teaching sara and kelly. after class jk brought in the mail. how excited was i to see three pieces of mail for me. YEAH! one was from my mom which included the newspaper clipping about my friends death. it was pretty sad to read. especially when i found out that she was a mother of two. it seems that she died from a head injury when her and the girl she was with jumped out of the trunk while the car was moving. its so sad. i also got mail from my sister which include pictures of paige and davis, my niece and nephew. it was so great seeing the pictures. i can't believe how big they are getting. i'm really going to miss seeing them this year. i decided to hang the pictures of them in my classroom. that makes me happy. the final package was from lisa jann who sent me a jem tshirt. how great is that. i love the shirt and can't wait to wear it around korea. thank you lisa. you made my day.

sammy heard about some soup place that she wanted to go to so her, horace, and i went. the resturant serves two things: soup and bib bam bop. sammy told us it was some kind of meat soup. we asked want kind and all she said was meat from the inside. ok. she didn't even give a choice and before i knew it this soup was infront of us. horaoce was poking around the soup when he pulled out some glucinous subtance. it kind of looked like purple tofu. sammy said that was the meat. horace thought it might be liver. my favorite. sammy told us that this is called hangover soup and is very poplular. seeing that i'm living by the philosphy of when in korea… i started to eat the soup. i made sure that ever time i ate this mysterious beef thing that it was surrounded by tons of rice. i couldn't even imagine what it was but i was so hungry. we finished lunch and we never found what what this "meat" was.

after lunch we headed to the stationary store because horace and sammy needed to buy a gift for their student who just finished her first workbook. before hitting the store we saw a bunch of art on the sidewalk so we took a look at it. it was all children art from the art hagwon. some of the stuff was very cool. i asked sammy to see if it was available for sale but it wasn't. the lady was out promoting the school. too bad. i really wanted to but a couple of pieces.

once we were back at school we asked julie the new teacher what hae jang guk [hangover soup] was. she laughed and then said blood. i thought i was going to barf right there. even now as i'm typing it makes me sick to think i just ate blood soup. i really wanted to gag. i guess it sort of like blood pudding, which for 34 years i managed to avoid and now i just ate a whole sick load of blood tofu like crap. all horace and i could do was laugh. i ate a pear, drank a soda, and had a chocolate cake thing but i could just feel the blood soup sitting in my stomach. i've never felt so ill.

during class with sally she got up and walked over to the corkboard where i had the pictures of paige and davis and asked me who they were. i explained that they were my sisters children. she said oh. she talked me out of giving her a spelling test on monday but i still gave her homework. my orange b class which now has 6 students was pretty uneventful. i tried to explain to them about using a dictionary. not sure if it took but we'll see since i gave them words to look up. my orange a class with the three boys was crazy. those boys are so full of hell. i had to yell at them three times. while we were reading the one with the rat tail kept flipping his eyeslids. i tried not to laugh but it was pretty funny. after that class i had to teach laura and anna who had missed three days. basically i crammed three days of work into 40 minutes. they're pretty bright so it wasn't a problem. jk, our dictors was acting as the korean teacher today. i'm sure that class was interesting. when it was time to go i went back into my class where laura and anna had one more class with jk and they asked me who the pictures were of. i told them that they were my niece and nephew. then they asked if i had any babies. i said no and they giggled along with jk. i haven't quite figured out the korean humor yet. go figure.

tonight was tae kwon do. he made us do handstands which i just couldn't do. towards the end of the class he has a sparring with the other students. that was fun. the funniest was when horace and i had to spar. i'm sure we looked like fools. tb, the tall boy, kept doing all these back kicks which i barely blocked each time. it was really fun. i'm so glad we are taking classes.

after class horace and i went to manhatten for some beers. it was pretty dead but that didn't stop the staff from putting on a floor show. they juggled bottles, poured some kind of drink which they set on fire then passed out some free coctails. i got something that tasted like blue kool aid. i have no idea what was in it but it was good.

tomorrow we have korean lessons and on sunday we are going to try ot make it to the mediation class. it should be a good weekend. we also discovered these korean character called dalki. dalki is a girl, sort of a rude strawberry shortcake and she has a group of friends. one the characters dongchimee had a turd on his head and does dung art. how great is that. a dalki theme park just opened up here so you know we are going there. i can't wait. check them out at www.dalki.com. they rock. all right time for my bed time. until next time. thanks for stopping by, stay tuned for more adventures in ketv…

so very sleepy

outside it was foggy all day. sort of how i felt. having stayed out way too late drinking last night, i thought today was never going to end. my energy level was at -10. all i wanted to do was sleep. i made it through kindergarten with no problem. those two little girls always keep me going. however, after lunch i was worthless. i hung out in the playroom and tried to nap in the rubber balls. didn't really work since kelly and sara were in there so i just played with them. my two classes in the afternoon went slow. i could barely stay focused as i listened to the girls reading. i was never so happy to see 7:05 pm. which brings me to now. i really don't have anything witty or wonderful to add. my mind is on one thing and one thing only. that hard as rock bed of mine upstairs. so i'm basically going to leave it at that. until next time…

everybody was kung fu fighting

it's 1:26 am and i just got back from drinking with my tae kwon do class. it was jenny's birthday so they decided to go out for drinks. horace bailed but i figured it might be good if i went that way they would stop thinking we do everything the same. what i thought was going to be one drink turned into i giant pitcher and 2 normal pitchers plus a plate of pigs feets and a plate of sausages with cheese. bm [ame] would be at home in korea with all the sausages they order. it was fun. i got to know the other students a litlle better. i spent most of the time talking to jenny since she's english. the other two guys are korea and seem very nice. of course master shin and to probe me for all my personal details. family, am i married, age, etc. i decided to play the sarcastic card back to him the whole time and turned the tables asking when at age 36 he was still single. most koreans seems to marry early in life. that kind of shut him up for a bit. it was fun. especially now that i have this whole new attitude about everything. the tkd was great. well except for the kung fu fighting remix song that was on repeat the whole time. i thought i was going to kill someone. i'm really enjoying it. it takes a lot of work but i feel like i'm getting a good workout.

school was pretty much status quo. nothing major happened. my oa class with the three boys is such a trip. today i had them color. while two of them used one color and did it very sloppily, william stayed in the lines and was very precise about his colors. its so funny to watch. since it was taking william twice as long to finish his masterpiece i had to entertain the hell boys. i was trying to have them write on the board the word cat. instead one of them started to draw a giant turd. i knew this wasn't going to be good. then he drew a stick figure and made it look like the stick figure took the turd. i tried not to laugh and told him no and erased it. then dave decided he was going ot draw the same thing. this class is definitely going ot keep me on my toes. i'm looking forward to the challenge. i'm so tired right now that i think thats all i got to say. until next. stay tuned to ketv…

john jacob jingle heimer schmidt

now i definitely feel like the vacation is over. i got a korean bank account today. anyone who wants to send me large sums of cash can now do so. we even got a bankcard. that was pretty much the excitiment of the day. sammy teacher bought a cd of children songs. i tried to teach my kindergarten class "ring around the rosey". they couldn't get the words but they loved running, skipping, and hopping around the room. after the third time ethan teacher was tired. plus the giant bruise thats forming on upper leg was throbbing. my first battle wound from tkd. i'm sure tomorrow i'll have to do more "ring around the rosey". i probably should have started with "mary had a little lamb". i can't wait to teach them "john jacob jingle heimer schmidt". i can remember sitting on my grandmother's bed in new jersey watching cartoons and a commerical for favorite kids songs came on and that song played during it. its so catchy. the rest of the school day was pretty typical. i had one new class today, another green a with ashley. she's shy right now. we finished early so i threw in a game of hangman. my life now revolves around hangman. yikes. i'm going to eat doughnuts now and go to bed. until next time. ketv signing out…

free fallin"

had my first official class with master shin today. of course since i was sans bandana today he asked me if i curled my hair. so i repied yes, i curled it just for this class. the new approach to life in korea is to look at everything as a part. when i go into school i am a sunsangnim [teacher], when i go to tae kwon do i'm there as a student and someone who is doing this for myself. this new whatever approach to everything definitely came in handy tonight, especially we i went to do a running jump kick. i'm sure you ALL know where i'm going with this. anyway i was giving it my all and as i lept into the air to kick, which i did no problem, i had this sudden feeling that there was no way i'm going to land on my feet. how right was i as i free fell to the ground chest first and slide what felt like feets. i had a sudden flash back to player baseball and practicing sliding. i was completely embarassed and of course i turned red but i jumped right back into the flow of things. because the bottom line is who cares. no one in the class did. it really helps having jenny there. she's another student who wasn't there on friday but she talks right back to shin which is good. the rest of the class went well. we practiced blocking which i'm having a bit of a problem with so i must practice tomorrow. i felt really good leaving class and i'm so glad i decided to go through with it. i would have never done anything like this back at home. our tkd uniforms will come on monday. can't wait.

now to flashback to this morning. spoke to jojo, thats my nickname for my sister. we had a relative named jojo and for some reason which don't even remember i started calling her that. she use to hate but now—she loves it. don't you jojo. i am now officially in the dalamations room. YEAH! jean is definitely gone so i took the room. i had two new students added to my orange b class. oh joy. two more girls belinda and jennifer. now i have 6 students who don't like to talk. today i started to whisper to them and said if they continue to talk like this so will i. i'll break them all if its the last thing i do. i also got a new class today. orange b with three boys dave, eric, and william. all i have to say is thank god. i was getting sleepy after the orange b or ob class. these 3 boys are definitely going to keep things lively. i love them already. they have such energy. giggles and laughing the whole the whole. and actually speaking loudly. two of the boys are brothers and if i didn't know any better i would say their mom is a hair dresser. both of their is so big. dave's is definitely sporting the feathered 70s look. think matt dillon in over the edge. his brother eric's hair is also big and teased but he has brown highlights which is the thing to do in korea. everyone has brown highlights, even our director. the highlight to eric's hair however is the rattail in the front. there just might be some potentional for korea's youth yet. these three just made me laugh the whole forty minutes. one of our excerises dealt with them coloring in letters. i told them all to pick crayons. william who was sporting a yellow jogging suit went right for the pink. the whole time he's coloring he's singing to himself. not sure if the brothers knew william or not before but they all get along great. we finished out lesson early so i played a round of hangman with them. they loved it. i so needed a class like this. they are definitely going to be fun to teach.

that about sums it up for me. its getting cooler here. which is nice. until next time. thanks for stopping by ketv…

walmart in korea

my legs were still shore when i woke up this morning. went to the bakery for bread and got a doughnut while i was there too. it was gooy, sugary, greasy goodness. we didn't make it to the meditiation this weekend. we had a time mix up, we'll definitely try to get there next sunday. instead we went to walmart. yes, there's a walmart here. 8 stops on the subway in pyeongchong. we took a mini-walking tour through pyeongchong before entering the walmart. a group of small boys said hi to us. it seems like we are always a major attraction with children. then they ran up behind us to say hi again and asked me my name. in return i ask his. i think he said joon henson or something like that. it hard to understand sometimes. we found a park which is so much better than our park here. there were all these water fountains with kids playing in them and man made rivers where people were dipping their feet in. i so hope we get that in our park. there were also a soccer field, basketball courts, and a track for rollerbladers. they also have electronic cars that kids can sit in to rent. what fun.

when we got back to ansan city we decided to get some food. of course we went to our favorite bbq place. its was pretty empty but once we walked in the owner greeted us and called us by our names. we were both shocked. the meal as usual was delicious. there were some new side dishes this time: tempuro sweet potato, some kind of root, little greeen beans, and pickles. so yummy. the owner sat with us the whole time. we tried to have a conversation with her but its often difficult. we were stuffed from all the food but that didn't stop her from bringing us a treat. we were thinking some kind of dessert when she brought these little dishes that looked like they have sugar in it. weren't we surprised when she brought out a plate of what looked like bacon. it was actually beef which is fairly expensive here. didn't have the heart to tell her i was stuffed i ate more food. it was good. she's so nice. bringing us free dishes. it was definitely time for a nap after that meal. at home i laid on my bed and discovered i have more cable channels. i now have some e! shows and mtv korea. exciting stuff. thats all for tonight. until next time. stay tuned to ketv…

back to school again

today i woke up sore from the tae kwon do. it's been over a month since i've done any excerising and let me tell you i could definitely feel it. had a pretty lazy morning. went to carrefour for some pepsi. came back and made breakfast. i was trying to be somewhat creative with my eggs and added seaweed. unfortunately even after soaking the seaweed for a couple of days it still tasted very salt. so i did what anyone else would do and threw it away. i imed horace. yes i was too lazy to go down 3 floors to see what time we need to leave for class. today was going to be our first day of korean class. they teach classes on saturday for a $1. since we weren't leaving til 2:30 i decided to nap. yes, i'm that lazy.

its actually starting to feel like fall here. there's a nice crispness to the air and a slight chill. while i was napping i realized i just might have to buy a blanket. my sheet, which barely covers me to begin with, is not going to be enough in the winter. i had some time before meeting horace so i filled out my absentee ballot. yes, it actually made it to me. that was a surpise. i thought for sure that i'd never see it. it only took about 3 weeks. now all i have to do is mail it.

we arrived at the building where the classes are held. as i walked up the stairs i had that feeling you get on the first day of school. the nervousness and excitement all pile in one. there were a lot of people there. we filled out some form and selected the beginning class [i don't know the alphabet one]. we went into our classroom which was already packed and very tiny. there were no seats at the tables so we had to sit at the little individual cube type desks. remember the ones in the library where you could sit and not be bothered. thats where we were. more and more people piled in. every seat was taking and they starting sitting along the walls.

the teacher started off by saying we were going to learn personal information today. and here i thought we were going to learn the consonants and vowels. the first thing he writes is children and asks if anyone knows how to say it. say it i don't even know the alphabet yet. what happened to learning the basics. then he writes the word in korean and makes us pronunciate it. he does the same for age, marriage, single, driver, teacher, professor, and housewife. at this point i'm thinking, "are we in the wrong class". now i know how my students feel when i'm talking. from these words he said we were going to write sentences. now i really start sweating. sentences. i had a had enough time with the words. and the worst thing is that most people actually knew what was going on. the first sentence we learn is "how old are you." he writes it in korean, i copy. he says it aloud and we all say it and then he drops the bomb. we have to go around the room and all say it ourselves. of course my hands start sweating. sure its easy to pretend you know whats going on when everyone is talking but saying it ourselves. i can't even read the alphabet. as people were saying it i wrote it out phonetically. when my turn came around i actually said it with no problem. i had a little more difficultly the second time we did this drill with the sentence "are you married." i said a "won" somewhere when it should of been a "hon". at least that drill was over. i haven't felt that big rush of nervousness since i was in speech class. it actually felt really good.

the rest of the clas period was spent going over the alphabet. hello, maybe we should have done that first. i was actually quite impressed with some of the people there. they knew a few words here and there that started with the letters we were discussing. i was relieved when the class was over. its time for me to break out the alphabet and study before next time. i'm pretty sure we'll go again. horace is really excited about it. he's a step ahead of me cuz he knows the consonants and vowels already.

tomorrow we're off to a temple to mediate with monks. not sure what to expect but i think it'll be a cool experience. time to watch some more "strangers with candy". until next time. stay tuned to ketv…

master shin

friday already. i love these short weeks. had all my classes today. everything went fine. although in the kindergarten class kelly kept talking to me in korean and i was trying to have her speak in english which she couldn't. she kept trying to leave the class and i was telling her no. finally i figured out she had to use the restroom. talk about communication problems. the rest of the day i spent listening to my walkman working on lesson plans. let the good times roll.

we made contact with master shin from the tae kwon do class. we met him at 8:30 pm in front of dunkin doughnut to go to his class. i was very excited about this. his class is actually right across the street from our apartments. we got there and he showed us around and we talked about cost, how many students, etc. we found out that if we took classes and were very dedicated we could be blackbelts in 8 months. how exciting is that. one thing about koreans is that they are very blunt. he asked us some questions which really set me back. i wasn't ready for someone i just met to get so personal. this has been one of the hardest things to get used to. well that and the constanst staring. after that i wasn't really sure how to respond and wanted to leave but we didn't. we stayed for the class. the workout was really good. i had a little trouble keeping my balance at times and some of the kicks were kind of hard. i was a little nervous at first. sometimes i get embarrassed doing new things in front of strangers. after awhile i just blocked it all out and once i focused on my target being haf which made it all the better.

i worked up a total sweat but it was good. after class master shin asked if we wanted to join but we told him we had to think about it. i'm sure he thinks we didn't like it. as much as i liked the class i wasn't too sure how i felt about him. he did comment that i did a good job for never doing it before. perhaps i have some superhero in me after all. that made me feel good. we left tae kwon do and went to the western bar to have a few beers. we needed to decompress from all that happened. i told horace how i felt really good after the classs but master shin made me feel uncomfortable. after discussing it we decided that this adventure is about us and no one else. so screw him and his questions. this is about doing things we wouldn't normally do, so we are going to take the class. which means i'll get a tae kwon do uniform. how fun is that. i'm coming back to sf as a blackbelt so watch out.

tomorrow we are taking our first korean class. they have classes for free here. and then on sunday we are going to mediate at a temple with monks. i'm so excited. ok, i'm so tired right now i can hardly think. hope everyone is good. until next time. stay tuned to ketv…