dollop of solipsism

tomorrow is the first day of classes for the gifted program for middle school students. i’m in charge of two of the ‘english literature’ classes. i’ll be teaching an additional 3 hours after school, 6pm-9pm. totally looking forward to meeting the new students; this is my third year teaching this course and i always find the experience rewarding.

to start off, we’ll do poems. they received 6 songs/poems last thursday to read for tomorrow’s class: 바이브’s “그남자 그여자” (that man, that woman, a gorgeous korean pop song), norah jones’s “turn me on,” “fog” by carl sandburg, “do not stand at my grave and weep” by mary elizabeth frye, “caged bird” by maya angelou, and ”the eagle” by alfred tennyson.

the second set of poems for next week’s class consists of: “a narrow fellow in the grass” by emily dickinson, “grass” by carl sandburg, “portrait” by stanley kunitz, “metaphors” by sylvia plath, “dream deferred” by langston hughes, and “i wandered lonely as a cloud” by william wordsworth.

i chose the above poems because they’re easy to understand, but still worthy of analysis. we’re going to glean all the literary devices from those texts so the students have a basic set of reading tools to dissect short stories and the giver with. i’m so happy i got to create my own curriculum this year.

i stayed a couple of hours after school to prepare for the class tomorrow. afterwards, ms. shin and i went to mcdonald’s, then to baskin robbins. apparently, i stress-eat; i’ve just discovered this about myself. do i regret going? no. the gym awaits me wednesday, thursday and friday. a bit surprising to know that i stress-eat; it’s such a normal thing, and i don’t see myself as a normal person.

ms. shin went to the jinhae cherry blossom festival this past weekend (i’m planning to go this saturday). unfortunately, since the last blast of winter continues to linger, the flowers didn’t bloom. some festival! and she had even read news articles, with pictures, boasting of this spring’s beautiful blossoms. “only 10% of the flowers were in bloom on saturday. those pictures were obviously from past festivals.” ::fist in the air:: i hope they bloom for me this weekend.

i found on my desk this morning brochures about jinhae and a box of soft pies/cookies, souvenirs from ms. shin. she was my co-teacher last semester and we have similar teaching methods. i think she misses teaching reading (this year, she got stuck teaching TEPS to the 2nd graders), and i certainly miss teaching with her. oh, korea. why won’t you let teachers choose what they want to teach?

super tired. have to finish lesson planning. perhaps it’s mcdepression. ugh, i want to crawl into bed and sleep. i can’t get fatter. the students might ask me to participate in sports day (or field day, as it is known in the US), and that means i have to wear that hot pink t-shirt i know they bought me. can’t pull off a hot pink t-shirt if i’m fat.

sorry haven’t been writing in a focused manner. my brain is a puddle. maybe even puddle-wonderful.

♦ at school today, all four native foreign language instructors ate lunch together. the quartet included the japanese teacher, the chinese teacher, diana and myself. i spoke to the chinese teacher in chinese, to diana in english, and to the japanese teacher in korean. that was interesting. we’re going to have dinner together sometime next month.

♦ i’m a bit overwhelmed at work with work. planning two conversation classes (every two weeks), one reading class (every week), two teachers training classes (every week) was manageable, but now i have to add an afterschool gifted class (every week) to the mix. that, and the EOZ (english only zone) starts next week—it’s this ridiculous 20-minute ‘class’ during my lunch break (every friggin’ day—i know!) where i play a game with eight random students. it’s not a class i have to plan, per se, but it robs 20 minutes of time i could be working on other stuff. my brain hurts.

♦ thursday evening we did a meet and greet with the gifted middle school students (it’s that class where i get to teach poetry, short stories, the giver and our town). one of my former students, from the middle school i worked at last year, got into the gifted program. i’m glad to be able to teach him again. when i arrived home after the orientation i had a pizza delivered and ate the entire thing. it was good.

♦ the exchange rate is tolerable these days ($1 ≈ ₩1350). hope it lasts / gets better. knock on wood.

♦ i haven’t done my US taxes yet. i hate doing taxes. seriously, it takes me less than an hour to do it, but i hate doing it. like last year, i’m waiting until the last minute.

♦ it is still in the 30s at night. what’s up with that? spring is here, remember? get your shit together, mother nature. it better not rain on april 4th; i’ll be in jinhae marveling at the beauty of cherry blossoms. and then we’re swinging by jinju that night—there’s a souvenir in a particular museum gift shop with my friend kate’s name written all over it.

♦ i have no idea what twittering is. like, absolutely NO. IDEA. and i don’t care to know. i see those weird columns on peoples blogs and from what i gather, twittering is just random, indulgent thoughts that don’t make no sense. 

♦ i am angry and exhausted today. i need to go to bed. gotta crank out like 4 lessons this weekend ㅠㅠ (those would be tears streaming down my face).

spoken in voice-over, while aggressively tearing away at a hamburger, after turning off the nightly news:

Awful, awful, what do they expect us to do with all this information? What am I suppose to do about crack babies? Terrorism? I can’t stand those terrorists, they’re so mad at everybody, I wish they’d just get over it! Maybe I should adopt a crack baby, send it to a good school, get a chance of… Oh shut up! I’m gonna raise an inner city child in this building? I can’t stand the people in this building, with their jeeps and their loafers. Their mean, stuck-up private school kids will make fun of my crack baby, my crack baby will have no play dates, poor kid. Awful, what do they expect us to do with all this information? What am I suppose to do with all this information? Awful, awful, awful.

judith is a recent divorcée. she has pent-up anger about the cheating ex-husband, who left her for a younger woman. she is played (beautifully) by one of my favorite actresses, holly hunter (pulling off the daring bleach blonde hair).

one day, she encounters the night security guard / elevator operator of her manhattan building, pat. to put it simply, he is a big loser—a middle-aged man who has plenty of ‘ideas’ in his head but doesn’t have the gumption to pursue them. he is played (beautifully) by danny devito.

a third main character enters the picture: liz bailey, a buxom lounge singer who is attracted to gay men. she is warm, confident and is played (beautifully) by queen latifah, who proved here that she could act and sing.

living out loud is not a fully thought-out film with story arcs or even conventional acts. the characters go through life like we go through life; they have problems, they have fun, they have realizations, they move on. in the beginning, they seem a bit lost, but by the end, they’ve discovered more of the pieces to their lives. the journey is sad, amusing, surprising, and ultimately fulfilling.

what i love most about the movie is the writing by richard lagravenese. when judith is on the floor of the nightclub, drunk off her ass, having a heart-to-heart with liz, she realizes that she knew the entire time that her husband was cheating on her, but at least she was married, at least she was safe. then she asks the very poignant question, “it’s amazing, isn’t it? the things you find yourself agreeing to?” to this day i still quote lines from the movie when counseling close friends.

however, living out loud is not for everyone. a few of us went to blockbuster and, based on my strong recommendation, rented the flim. we went home, viewed it, and boy, did i get booed. there was no story, they complained. it’s not laugh-out-loud funny. it’s just sort of…blah. okay, for some people, the film is a meandering, character-driven blob. but for me, i’m just glad i get to spend 100 minutes with judith, pat and liz.

the whole picture just works for me: the music is jazzy, the characters are eloquent, the words are insightful, and there’s a lot of quirk thrown in (at one point, judith takes a hit of ecstasy and ends up in a lesbian dance club—amazing group dance ensues). they don’t make features like this anymore; too financially risky. it’s kind of a miracle that this film was made at all, with no big stars or hook. and it doesn’t even fall easily into any specific genre.

based on a pair of chekov short stories, living out loud is, fittingly, more interested in moments and epiphanies than plot points. when done well, this type of movie can affect you more than big-budget dramas, for they are about people, not messages. few people have seen living out loud (it made $12 million its entire theatrical release), but i hope more people discover it. it is a true gem.

a pair of photos taken by the significant other’s camera phone.

this boy we saw at the bus stop near my house. he was with his mother and i must say, his style is off the hook. okay, so maybe his mother dressed him, but check out the little murse (man-purse) and the wool-lined denim jacket; little man knows how to carry off the look. the jeans, they—without a doubt—make the outfit. a little five year old in skinny jeans. so sick.

we were at the salon yesterday and i saw this woman sitting under the most insane hair device i have ever seen in my life. i don’t even know what it’s supposed to do, but there’s something very alien vs. predator about it, no? i bet she had to sit under that thing for hours. beauty is pain, dahling.

today ended up being pretty gloomy. outside rain is pouring. it started out well, though. i woke up early, the sun was shining and the significant other and i grabbed a quick lunch at gusto. there, i surrendered to their risotto, bruschetta and cheesecake. oh well (gym first thing tomorrow morn!).

i arrived at school a little before two. parents and middle schoolers were about the grounds looking nervous. the first round of evaluations happened last saturday; over a hundred middle schoolers in daegu took the (difficult) english exam in hopes of getting accepted into our gifted program (which i will start teaching at the end of the month). this afternoon, the top seventy-three test takers endured the second and final assessment—the panic-inducing interview.

students were randomly placed in groups of three and four. they got assigned a character in a role-play and were given the premise. then they were led into a classroom occupied by three english teachers who were going to score their speaking ability and attitude (and a billion other criteria). now, let me rewind back to earlier this week, when said role-play premises were being made.

diana and i were sitting at our desks in the office when one of our co-workers asked us to proofread possible scenarios. the first question was okay, and the third was passable, but the second one…imagine if you will:

the only son of a korean family is in love with a vietnamese girl. he wants to marry her. a dinner is set up between the son, the father, the mother, and the vietnamese girl. the father thinks that this is a terrible idea and is unwilling to grant the lovebirds his blessing. the mother is more progressive but is worried about the inevitable cultural barrier. the vietnamese girl understands that this will be difficult, but she is in love.

there you have the four characters. each student will be assigned to one of the four roles and will have to act as that character. when diana and i read this premise, we basically stared at each other in abject horror. we both thought it would be awful (and unfair) for one of the students to be saddled with ‘vietnamese girl.’ i mean, what was this? a comedy routine? a racist comedy routine?

i thought it’d be amusing as hell, but that’s neither here nor there. eventually we got the question thrown out. later, i tried to envisage some weird test being held in the US…like an interview thingy for a prestigious college or something. and a bunch of white kids would have to play a black family in crisis. hilarity and racism ensue.

today the premise had something to do with the eldest son wanting to switch from pre-med to music. the father was in opposition. the mother was sympathetic. the daughter was supportive. yeah, i had to watch and score about twelve groups of this role-play activity. that on top of the individual interviews, which each student had to go through after the performance.

five words were given to the student. he/she had to create a story using the five words. he/she had 2 minutes to prepare and speak. to create a story under two minutes is tough, but it was compounded by the chosen five words—transform, exclusive, trail, dessert, tremendous. i had no idea that these five words would be involved. had i known, i would’ve strongly suggested different words. i mean, even i can’t come up with a decent story in under two minutes using those five words:

once upon a time, there was a famous chef. his specialty was desserts. he worked at an exclusive restaurant; only celebrities and politicans could dine there. they were all tremendously satisfied with this chef’s food. on the weekends, the chef would hike the mountains behind his house. he explored different trails and carefully browsed through all the foliage. on this particular day, he came upon a field of wild mushrooms. he took them home and cooked with them. when he ate the dish, he transformed into a mouse.

right? in under two minutes. that’s insane. a handful of students froze and you could see their pride just melt away (it’s painful to witness that). a handful of students decided to use all five words in one sentence, which is a bad bad idea (they obviously didn’t listen to the directions). many of the students got  ‘trail’ mixed up with train tracks (why? i don’t know). and several of them read ‘dessert’ as ‘desert.’ i don’t know who picked these five words, but they need to be bitchslapped.

it was a long process. i left school at around five, just as dark clouds started to form. to relieve the headache i got from scoring students for three straight hours, i scrubbed down my bathroom. a bad thing about spring is that it brings more rain and with rain comes humidity and with humidity comes soap scum and mold on the bathroom tiles. gross.

♦ i have to go to school tomorrow (a saturday) to help conduct interviews for prospective middle school students who wish to get accepted into our after-school gifted programs. it’s going to be a long day, but hopefully the kids will keep me entertained while they perform in group role-plays.

♦ i’m really pushing the loved one to accompany me on a trip to jinhae, a city on the southern coast. every year the city hosts korea’s best-known cherry blossom festival (my favorite tree!). the major tourist attraction will be jam-packed, but dammit, i’m determined to go. tentative date of the trip: april 4th.

♦ i’m really glad spring is here. the weather is warm during the day and cool at night. an especially delicious bonus is that with spring comes apple season. daegu is famous for two things: apples and beautiful women. i’m still on the fence about the beautiful women but the apples are incredible. i bought a batch earlier this week and the famed apples did not disappoint—juicy and sweet.

♦ recently i bought a 600g package of generic, shredded mozzarella cheese to use in my omelettes and salads. yesterday i opened the package and found the contents moldy. i seriously stood there for minutes trying to convince myself that i could scrape the green stuff off. cheese is outrageously expensive in korea (that one package was close to ten US dollars), but i ended up trashing it—argh, what a waste!

♦ the exchange rate seems to be stabilizing/getting better. the won to dollar was hovering around ₩1600 last week. the won closed in the low ₩1400s today. still shitty, but no longer vomit inducing.

♦ diet update: still not missing bread. did eat some white rice on a couple of days this week (lunch at school is hard!). on the days rice was consumed, i made sure to visit the gym. also not missing noodles.

♦ i feel pretty lousy that i have no interest in reading the book club’s latest text, word freak (we had to extend the deadline). instead, i’m way into stargirl, which we’re teaching to the first graders. they seem to be enjoying it…anyway, classes have been going pretty well. no complaints there.

i think i could understand
how it feels to love a girl
i swear i’d be a better man

these words came out of the mouth of my new office mate, mr. do (도).

on tuesday, i invited myself to a dinner held in honor of mr. do, hosted by ms. shin. it’s common in korea to have sunbaes (선배, seniors) take care of their hubaes (후배, juniors) by treating them to dinner. both ms. shin and mr. do graduated from kyungpook national university, so when mr. do filled our school’s vacant teaching position, she thought it her duty to shower him with kindness (and guidance).

though the event was set a while ago, i invited myself to it last minute because a) i was bored, b) i like them both, and c) i knew they wouldn’t object. we scurried out of the school tuesday afternoon and went to ‘bucheon’ (부천), a nearby restaurant that serves traditional korean cuisine. we ordered the bulgogi (marinated beef) with mushrooms (생버섯불고기), and i was pleasantly surprised by how deliciously filling the food was. this in contrast to the unexpected, unfulfilling conversations we tried to have. i’m not sure why, but there was definitely a coat of awkwardness in the air.

ms. shin is a warm person and mr. do has been nothing but gentle and eager to please (like a puppy). i, on the other hand, project a coldness few people choose to be around. my mother often accuses me of having the ability to ’smother others with silence’ (ta neng bie si ni). it’s true, i don’t usually say what’s on my mind and i’m comfortable with complete quiet. silence is golden, they say, and i’ve learned through the years to just keep my mouth shut. if you know my family, you’d do it too.

this withdrawal from social interaction is not a quality koreans praise. much like telling boys not to cry ‘because they are men,’ adult males tell reticent young’uns that it’s not natural to be unsocial. maybe my view is limited because i’m basing my thoughts on what i see at school, but i think i can safely say that the more social a man is, the better. a man, especially a bachelor, should be able to hold his liquor. he should not reject another shot of soju. he should stay out late and sing in noraebangs. he should laugh and converse and joke and blush and accept the affection of women.

i do none of those things (save for the singing in noraebangs), but i’m a foreigner. i get a free pass. with most people, i don’t mind being evaluated as a loner, but i like ms. shin and mr. do, and i need to try harder. i don’t wish to ‘punish’ people i like with my moody crap.

“mr. do, do you like to sing?” i asked after we finished eating. “i like to sing,” he replied, a sparkle in his eyes. moments later, we were at a noraebang near keimyung university. ₩12,000 got us a clean, spacious karaoke room with a brand new flatscreen hanging on the wall. our one hour passed but we received forty service (read: free) minutes. during my rendition of 김동률’s 취중진담, i saw the title of the next song flash in the queue—beyoncé’s hit “if i were a boy.” i might’ve squealed.

when mr. do began “if i were a boy” i couldn’t help but laugh. it was so silly to hear a grown man sing this song (which is about a girl who imagines herself as a boy and realizes why boys are such douches). believe me, i’ve tried to sing this song many a times in the privacy of my bedroom, but i would never ever sing it in public. it’s too ridonkulous (and hard to sing). but mr. do is korean, so he gets a free pass.

eight o’clock rolled around; it was getting late (we’re all teachers, you see). when we said our goodbyes mr. do looked like he wanted to touch my arm, a sign of manly affection, but i inched away, bowed, smiled and politely said, “see you tomorrow.”

i can see us get friendlier every day (we sit next to each other in the office), but i’m seriously at a loss when it comes to befriending men. most of my friends are females…what am i supposed to say to males? “if you want to do something over the weekend, give me a call. here’s my number.” “mr. do, what do you like to do for fun? let’s do that sometime.” “let’s hang out. do you like to drink?”

here’s what i’d really say to a person who is in position to be a distant friend / good acquaintance—”i am interested in forming a sort of friendship with you. is that something you would be interested in? if, in fact, you are interested, please let me know and i can plan a sort of event where we get to know each other a little better. food will be involved.” right? i am a total square. it’s residue from whence i was an uncool high schooler.

ugh, if only i were a korean boy.

ms. shin (my former co-teacher at the high school) sent me two executable files sometime last week titled “야옹아” and “고양아” (which are cutesy korean cat names like “kitty” and “meowy”—i think). i’m not sure what i expected the files to be, but i was happily surprised once i double-clicked their icons. two tiny cats (one yellow, the other grey) appeared on my screen and started frolicking around on my desktop. a good amount of time was spent observing the following behavior: scratching, licking, falling, sleeping, crying, jumping, beckoning, clapping, rubbing…and that was just in a 5 minute period.

the kitties were always on top of all windows (even powerpoint presentations) and i was able to reposition them with my mouse pointer if they got in the way of work. though at first i thought the fascination with these creatures would dissipate, it hasn’t. every morning i turn on my computer at school and double-click these icons. when i have a few minutes of downtime in between classes, i just sit at my desk and watch what my desktop pets (which is what i assume they are, though i don’t have to feed them or clean them) are up to.

i’m not sure how to upload .exe files onto this blog, but i’m not going to waste time trying to figure it out. if you’d like the two cats, just email me and i’ll gladly send them your way. they will surely cheer up your computer monitor and brighten up your day.

every spring this happens in south korea: clouds of yellow dust make their way to and across the korean peninsula, causing decreased visibility and a variety of health problems. who do we blame this on? china, of course, for it is korea’s habit to blame all problems on the neighbors to the west (and east). this time though…well, it is kind of china’s fault. at least partly.

according to wikipedia, these seasonal dust storms (known as ‘asian dust’) originate in northern china, mongolia, and kazakhstan where “high-speed surface winds and intense dust storms kick up dense clouds of fine, dry soil particles. these clouds are then carried eastward by prevailing winds and pass over china, north and south korea, and japan, as well as parts of the russian far east.” every year the phenomenon gets worse mainly due to increased desertification in china.

diana and i left school together. in the far distance, where mountains usually stood, were hazy brownish, greyish clouds. “ugh, you can’t even see the mountains over there,” diana tantrumed (yes, we are making up words), and then coughed. in an effort to cheer her sick self up, i replied, “what mountains, diana? i do not know what you speak of.” charles boyer would be impressed.

apparently dust particles don’t do too much damage to your body, but what concerns the hypochondriacs are the presence of sulphur, soot, ash, carbon monoxide, carcinogens, heavy metals and a slew of other bad things. with enough exposure to asian dust, one can develop asthma and sore throat, in addition to permanent scarring of lung tissue. when a storm is expected, we are discouraged from outdoor activities and encouraged to don masks, to brush our teeth and wash our hands frequently, to wear glasses.

it is not all fun and games here in korea.