Lost...

Tokyo...

2007-04-17T16:56:00.000-07:00

...is not all that different form Seoul, we've decided. A giant, hulking metropolis with too much neon, too many people and too confusing a metro. Granted, Sarah and I only spent two days there, not nearly enough time to make a very through impression, but as far as we're concerned Tokyo is pretty meh.

We left early Monday morning and spent most of the hour and a half train ride perfecting our ticket scam. You see the trains work like this: You buy a ticket at a station, put it in a turnstile and hold on to it until you exit your destination station where you put it into another turnstile which eats it. If you have to pay more fare an alarm goes off and you take your ticket to a fare adjusting machine and pay some extra money to get out of the station. So what we did was buy a round trip ticket, which is actually two tickets, one for going there and one for getting back. We bought a ticket to only the next station, i.e. the cheapest ticket possible. When we got to Tokyo we used the fare adjustment machine and paid full price. Or we would have had I not lost my ticket. This took some explaining to the guard who, after not really understanding us just charged us the normal rate and didn't penalize me. Sweet. When we left Tokyo, we bought a cheap ticket again, to get into the train station but used our return ticket from the day before to get out of the station once we got home. It worked like a charm but was really convoluted and had lots of "what-ifs" attached to it when we were coming up with it. But, half price to Tokyo isn't bad.

We got there and went directly to our hostel to drop off our stuff. Then we headed for Asakusa, one of many Japanese temples that all look alike and have lots of rituals and incense burning that I don't really understand. It was nice, though crowded and we stayed for an hour walking around in the rain taking pictures. After that we went to the Akihabara electronics district which I thought would be amazing. Maybe it was just the shitty weather but the whole place felt kinda seedy and run down. Not the bright technology filled party I was expecting. After that we left to meet our friends at the concert hall.

Now the concert itself was good, though our seats were in the very back of the hall. We could see and hear fine though so it wasn't bad. Beck came on at 7:30 and played a really great set. They opened with Loser and played a bunch of my favorite songs. The annoying thing was they seemed to play only the verse and chorus of each song then stop. The songs came to only a few minutes long. It was weird. I don't think they played the entire version of any of the songs. Which meant, when the concert ended at 8:50, they had only played for an hour and twenty minutes! We were a little pissed at the length but the quality was there and we thought it was a good show.

Left with a lots of time after the show, we headed to Shinjuku, supposedly a happening place to wander. The whole area was closing down (at 9:30?) and reminded us of the PNU area of Busan. Just a tad cleaner though. It was a bit disappointing. We walked around for a bit, ate some noodles, played the Taiko drumming game in an arcade and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we checked out and headed to the Yasakuni shrine, which had caused/is causing controversy all over Japan. The shrine holds the ashes of 2.5 million people who died in war since the mid 1800's. Enshrined there are the ashes of 14 Class A war criminals from World War 2. Visits to this shrine by Japanese prime ministers over the last decade or so have sparked outrage from China, SK, Taiwan and other Asian nations that were affected by Japanese militarism. Sarah and I found the shrine beautiful and very peaceful. Certainly an excellent reminder of the mistakes of war.

We left Yasukuni for the Imperial palace. We walked around the gardens surrounding it since you can't actually enter the palace (the Imperial family is living in it and probably don't want to be bothered). The gardens were beautiful and were easily my favorite park of Tokyo.

We then left for Ueno park, which looked cool in our guide book. It though, felt really run down and shabby and was nothing really impressive. Besides Sarah being dive bombed by a large, hungry crow who wanted to steal her ice cream, nothing impressive happened at Ueno.

That was it for Tokyo. There's plenty more to see and do, I'm sure but my first impressions were pretty unimpressive so I don't think I'll be tripping over myself to get back to Tokyo. It is nice knowing it's close in case I want to get back though.

I'm going to see Beck!

2007-04-10T18:06:00.000-07:00

For my upcoming birthday, Sarah and I are going to go see Beck in Tokyo. He's playing in the Nippon Buddokan Hall near the Imperial Palace, apparently the same place the Beatles played when they came to Japan. We haven't been to Tokyo yet so we are going to spend the night and hopefully see a bit of the city the two days we're there. Should be great. I'll have a post up with descriptions and pictures next week.

Kannonyama

2007-04-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

To celebrate our first day off that wasn't overcast and rainy, Sarah and I decided to hike up to Kannonyama a huge 120 foot tall statue of the bodhisattva of compassion, Kannon. It took us a little over an hour to walk accross Takasaki, where we will be living next month and then up into the surrounding hills where the statue was. Check out the pictures below and for more, click on the link to the right.

We had to walk accross the city to get to the hills. That bump on the hill is the statue.

Almost there...

Kannonyama.

To give some scale, here's me at the feet of Kannonyama.

Awesome Blossoms

2007-04-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

This week Sarah and I were officially trained to teach kids classes and will be starting those this weekend. I can't wait.

We had Tuesday and Wednesday off and spent it with our upstairs neighbors, a Canadian and an American themselves and had a great time. The highlight though was yesterday when we drove for 45 minutes to get to a park way up in the hills to go view the newly arrived cherry blossoms. Not only did the park not have flowering cherry blossom trees, but it started hailing the moment we got out of the car. Not to be defeated, we drove to another park and found it sunny and full of blossoms. The trees were beautiful and held my attention, for, oh 4 minutes or so until we found the playground complete with a zip line. After finishing there we started throwing around a football, much to the amusement of the Japanese park-goers.

All in all a good weekend. I'm back to work today (but not till 5 pm) but I can pick up my Gaijin of foreigner card from the city office which hopefully will lead me down the road to cell phone ownership. I have my fingers crossed.

Check out new pictures on the right of my apartment, the Thorpedo, and the awesome blossoms.

Nova teacher murdered

2007-03-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

A 22 year old Nova teacher was found dead yesterday in the apartment of a 28 year old Japanese man in Chiba prefecture. She was apparently murdered and buried in a bathtub of sand. The man escaped and is still at large. The full story is here, but it has shocked everyone at Nova and is all over the news here.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23390482-details/British+teacher,+22,+victim+of+macabre+Japanese+killing/article.do

I'm back online

2007-03-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

It took a while and a 20 meter long cord extending from my Canadian neighbors house upstairs but we've got Internet back.

Work has been going great. Everyone has been really friendly and the classes themselves are pretty easy. I'm teaching 8 classes a day and Sarah and I both have Mondays and Tuesdays off which is great. We've done nothing spectacular yet, eaten nothing strange or have had a frustrating but amusing travel experience. Give us time. Something is bound to go wrong soon. We've actually been spending a lot of time getting our apartment set up. I'll have pictures of it up soon but it's much bigger than I thought it would be (though the door jambs could be 8 inches taller). We like the place a lot but we've already found a new place to live starting May 1st. We will be paying half the rent there and will be living in the same complex as a bunch of other Nova teachers. It'll be great.

I'll have more up soon but I've gotta go watch about six episodes of The Office.

McEnglish

2007-03-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

I just got home from my second day of training at the local Nova branch. So far, everything has been great. The staff and the foreign instructors have all been really nice and very helpful and the training itself has gone smoothly. Mostly it's just been learning the "Nova" way of doing things, which in comparison to a lot of the other places I've taught, is pretty good. All in all, it seems like it will be a pretty easy job and I should be learning a lot along the way.

It is different though. Nova's biggest selling point is how many branches they have and how convenient they are to find. Most are located a block from major subway stops. The branch Sarah and I will be working in is actually located on the 5th floor of a department store. 4th floor Menswear, 5th floor Conversational English. The branches themselves are also incredibly tiny. The branch we are currently training at has doors I have to walk through sideways; my shoulders are too wide for me to walk through normally. And the classrooms themselves are actually the size of Office Space cubicles. I've been introducing myself to students as Samir Naga-Nagonnna-teach-you-English but they don't get it. Maybe it's my delivery.

Anyway. We have our last day of training tomorrow, get to come back to our apartment and repack all our stuff and move into our permanent place on Thursday morning. It'll be nice to get settled and start work at our home branch. Assuming I'm not too tall to work there.

Japan: Day 3

2007-03-16T16:26:00.000-07:00

So I'm in Japan. Really quick recap: Went home for four months, saw friends and took a three week trip to Canada to visit Sarah, applied for and got a job for NOVA a Japanese English teaching company and I flew in three days ago.

I'm planning on being here for a year (like I did in Prague, and Korea, 6 and 10 months respectively) and so far it sounds doable. I'm living with Sarah in a two bedroom flat which is much bigger than our place in Korea. The job sounds to be a lot easier, less classes, much more professional and it seems like the teachers we've talked to all like their jobs. We have three days of training starting on Monday and then we start our jobs officially on Friday. With our experience, I'm sure this year will be cake.

So far though it's been the usual first few days in a new country. Sleeping, cup ramen, registering for a foreign card, getting lost, drinking, unpacking, getting really lost, yelling at self for forgetting to pack various items, determining if TV here is watchable (answer: yes, based only on weirdness), getting in fight with girlfriend over how lost we are. Honestly Sarah and I have both noted how we don't really feel like this is a foreign country. Is it because of how Westernized Japan is as a whole? Is it because we just spent a year (ok, 10 months) in Korea, a similar Asian country? Is it because we are such awesome world travelers that the entire globe feels like home to us? We'll find out.

In the meantime, I am committed to posting again and I will have pictures up as soon as I take 'em.

Hiatus

2007-03-16T16:16:00.001-07:00

So I haven't posted anything for the last... five months. What happened? I just stopped writing. That's all. I have been busy moving home, readjusting, applying for a job, and getting ready to move to Japan (where I am now) but I could have easily been posting about what I was doing during the last 5 months, but I didn't. Apathy I guess.

Anyway. I am in Japan now and I will be posting more so stay tuned.

Unemployment, bitterness and the Japanese language

2006-10-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

I get antsy really quick. I have about a 17 minute sit in quiet silence capacity. Any amount of time greater than that and I start fidgeting and devising ways to annoy those around me.

If I'm working this isn't a problem since I'm usually talking, explaining something or trying to coax a small Korean child out of the cupboard they just crawled into. But this unemployment thing blows. Sarah's apartment lacks both internet access and television which means the entire apartment is eerily quiet once she leaves to go to work. So I'm left with my boredom.

I've been reading tons and I started studying Japanese and I've been going to the gym regularly. Still, these thing kill only so much time. Japanese, especially is frustrating and I can only take 2o minute bouts at it before I want to throw my book in the trash (three alphabets?! WHY?!?).

I have been getting a lot of errands done. I got my tickets home (November 20th can't come soon enough). I've been getting my pension and banking stuff squared away. I've been looking at Japan jobs online and getting references and applications in. But again, I'd rather be working.

Having this much free time in a country that I'm slowly starting to hate is not a good thing. Though I settled everything with my boss and got most of what I was owed, I am still really bitter over the whole thing and it has stained Korea for me. I am frustrated by little things that I used to laugh at or chalk up to cultural difference. It's harder to let things go and I am literally counting the days til I'm home. I've never done that while I've been abroad before.

But things aren't all that bleak here. I have a few weddings to attend in the next 4 weeks and there are still things that I want to see in Korea. Plus, I have a good chance of getting a part time, two week gig, next week which would help immensely.

We'll see how the next few weeks pan out.

OH MY GOD!!!

2006-10-13T04:52:00.000-07:00

I just heard a story from Adam regarding what else has been going on in my school. Our new head teacher, Una, apparently was teaching one of the kindergarten classes. During the class she got so upset that she shoved a desk. The desk hit a student, Anna, who started bawling. Una then MADE THE CLASS PROMISE NOT TO TELL ANYONE WHAT HAPPENED!

The next day, Anna's grandfather shows up at the school demanding to know what the fuck had happened and why his granddaughter came home with A BROKEN FOOT!!!! Mrs Lee, in all her wisdom, starts yelling at the headroom teacher who had no idea what had happened. Finally she asked the rest of the kindergarten class and they told her that Una made them promise not to tell anyone.

And her punishment? Her punishment for breaking a students foot in anger and making the class that witnessed it keep quiet about it??

A warning.

I take a day off and I'm fired.

I hate this country and can't wait to get home.

New issues

2006-10-13T04:47:00.000-07:00

Long story short, my director promised to pay backpay and 30 days severance. I went to collect and before that she asked for the utilities money (which I agreed to pay) and a refund for what she has paid into my pension fund. I was confused by this since she has not ever mentioned our school having a pension plan. Basically you pay 4.5% of your salary each month and your director matches this. At the end of your contract you go to the office, turn in your documents and they transfer the money (around $2000 by the end of an average contract) into your bank account back home.

So my director is asking for $325 that she has paid since August. I was really confused by this and I called the Pension office. They looked up my account and told me a.) there was zero dollars in the fund and that b.) I was only registered in August (I've been here since January). I told my director this and she called them. She said that they said that there is a computer problem and it will be fixed by Monday. And she insisted that the $325 in the account is rightfully hers. I told her the pension is for the workers and that it should go to me. She says that since I haven't been paying money into the account than the money belongs to her. I told her that I had never heard of the account before, how could I pay into it?!?!

Then she says that we were asked by our old supervisor months ago to join the plan but we declined (why would we decline free money?). I tell her that is completely untrue. Then she says that since the pension isn't mentioned in your contract she doesn't have to pay it. I tell her Korean law says everyone must be in the pension plan (I've called the office twice to confirm this). THEN she says well it was my responsibility to sign up for the plan and I was supposed to talk to my recruiter about it (my recruiter who has absolutely no affiliation with the Pension office).

She is clearly lying and the Pension office assured me that she has broken the law (again) by not registering me or paying into the account. I go Monday to the Pension office to figure this out and hopefully I can make her make the pension payments retroactively. Either way, I'm demanding my money and so are my coworkers. We are going to fucking destroy this school.

Vietnam and Cambodia

2006-10-11T01:56:00.000-07:00

The first week of October was Chuseok an important Korean holiday that I'm told is kinda like Thanksgiving but with more ancestral worship than pilgrims and indians.

Tuesday, Thursday and Friday were days off and my school was closed the Wednesday between which left only a Monday of work to ruin a possible 11 days of vacation. I wanted this day off and asked my director and was denied. I took the day off anyway which eventually ended up costing me my job (see above).

My coworkers Adam and Michelle and Sarah and I left on Saturday for Seoul. We flew out that night and arrived early Sunday morning in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh, if you dig the communist name). We checked into the hotel and found that even at 2am shops, bars and restaurants were still open. Tourism is a huge industry there and it showed. We had dinner and a few delicious Vietnamese beers and then headed for bed.

The next day I resisted the urge to yell "Good Morning Vietnam!" every five minutes and we went on a private tour of the Mekong Delta. The Saigon river has a bunch of little islands that make up the delta and we spent the afternoon touring around on a boat and hopping from island to island. We had a strange/delicious lunch and Michelle fed watermelon to a waterbuffalo. We rowed boats down small jungle tributaries and to a small shop where they make coconut candies and traditional Vietnamese alcohol. One bottle of alcohol had a cobra inside with a scorpion in it's mouth. It was crazy. And the alcohol itself was disgusting. We eventually made our way back to our hotel and ate and drank till bed.

The next day we left for Siem Reap, a city in Cambodia and the site of Ankor Wat, the largest religious structure in the world (take that pyramids!). We got in that night and met a great taxi driver who ended up being our guide and driver the whole time we were there. The hotel we found was made up of small bungalows along the river and it was beautiful. We went out for a buffet/dinner show that featured traditional Cambodian dancing, which, as far as I can tell is comprised of a beautiful cambodian woman making complicated hand gestures while a man dances around her pretending to be a monkey. The show was cool and the food (like it was the entire trip) was amazing.

The next day we drove to Ankor Wat and spent the entire day touring 4 different temples, including the gigantic temple of Ankor Wat itself. They were indescribable. Each were surrounded by jungle and every surface of the temples hand intricate hand carved pictures telling the stories and myths of the Hindu and Buddhist religions. Each temple was different regarding how they were laid out or where they were. There are dozens of temples in the area and we saw the biggest four, including one in the middle of the jungle that was used for filming the movie Tomb Raider. That temple was actually my favorite since it had enormous trees that were rooted and grew through much of the temple. It was beautiful. The large temple of Ankor Wat was also very impressive if only for how huge it was. We climbed to the top of the main tower in the temple and had a pretty impressive view of the entire valley.

After the temple we drove to another temple and found a dozen or so monkeys sitting by the side of the road. We spent half an hour feeding them bananas and watching them chase each other around. We left and rode elephants (!) to the top of a nearby mountain and climbed the temple on top just before sunset. It was amazing.

We spent the next day shopping and Adam (despite problems country wide concerning Visa cards) bought a diamond ring and proposed to Michelle. His choice of doing this in the dusty Cambodian bazaar was perhaps strange, but Michelle accepted and spent the rest of the trip staring at her finger. That night we flew back to Saigon.

Once back in Vietnam, we had three more days which we spent touring the city, visiting temples and parks, eating lots of food and shopping. We bought so much stuff that we had to buy two more bags to get everything home. I bought a bunch of cheap DVDs and had a suit made for $90. We visited the war remnants museum and museum of the tunnels used by guerrillas during the war which was cool but claustrophobic. The last night we went to the main park for the moon festival which was in full swing. We wandered around with a thousands of people in the park blowing noisemakers and playing with the kids.

We left Friday night and got to Seoul early Saturday and headed back to Busan. We had all day Sunday to decompress after our trip. And Monday morning, I got fired.

Was it worth it? I'd do it again in a second.

Um...Fired?

2006-10-11T01:44:00.000-07:00

It's been almost two months since I've posted last. Lots happened but I just couldn't be bothered to write any of it down. This week though gave me lots to write about, and the extra time in which to do it.

Monday was pretty shitty. The Padres lost the division series, North Korea started blowing shit up and I got fired. I had just gotten back from my week long vacation in Vietnam and Cambodia (See blog below) and I went to work on Monday and was promptly told that I was fired. Yeah. Six weeks ago I told my boss I was not going to be here the Monday of Chusok (think Korean Thanksgiving, where tues-fri are days off). Having taken no days off in 8 months of working here and giving written notice 6 weeks before the day off I figured that I would be shown some consideration. I got none and was given back the notice without even being spoken to by Mrs Lee. Having already made flight and hotel reservations I was not about to miss our trip so I left, fully knowing that Mrs Lee would be pissed and that I may get fired. But weighed against a whole week of vacation with my girlfriend and friends I didn't care. I have hated the ever increasing schedule, watching other teachers come and go and being constantly ignored by my director when I come to address problems.

So I went on vacation and had a wonderful time. Monday morning I was asked to meet with our new head teacher Una (who's been here all of two weeks) and it was her, and not Mrs. Lee, that told me that I was being fired and that I was expected to be out of my apartment by the end of the day. She berated me for missing a single day of work calling me irresponsible and childish for my handling of the situation. She was also dismissive when I claimed (rightly, I've been researching all day) that it is illegal to dismiss me without 30 days notice. She said that I should just do as the director says and leave immediately. I told her that I was finished talking to her about it and would talk to Mrs Lee in person.

I did and explained that I was happy to be fired and no longer wished to work for LCI. I asked for one week to move out (I'm going to be living at Sarah's apartment) and asked for a formal letter of release that proves that I was fired without notice. I got both and I took the letter to the labor office to make a formal complaint. They called my director and told her flat out that she was breaking the law and that she owed me 30 days pay. The next day I went to speak to Mrs. Lee and I explained that if I am given my back pay and the 30 days wages I'll withdraw my complaint and quietly walk away. She asked for 24 hours to consider it and it seemed like she was willing to pay. We'll see.

Meanwhile, the other four teachers at my school are scared shitless that this will happen to them, and two of them who just started say they are going to quit since the director seems deceitful/batshit-crazy. Adam and Michelle are two months from completing their contract and if they are not given their return airfare home by the end of the week they'll walk too. So firing me could cost the school it's entire foreign staff.

So that's how my tenure in Korea ends. Sarah is here till November 20th and I will be staying here with her until then. There are still a few things I want to see in Korea and I have two weddings to go to in the next month so I'll be busy (though I won't be teaching 9 classes a day anymore). I'll try to be better about posting. Talk to you later.

From the Onion

2006-08-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

Words of Wisdom

2006-08-17T04:50:00.000-07:00

"And what am I supposed to do with this class, the first in my whole teaching career...pelting each other with chalk, erasers, bolgna sandwiches? When I walk in and place my books on the teacher's desk they'll surely stop throwing things. But they don't. They ignore me and I don't know what to do till the words come out of my mouth, the first words I ever utter as a teacher, Stop throwing sandwiches. They look at me as if to say, Who's this guy?"

--From 'Tis, by Frank McCourt

Well we finally made it rafting...

2006-08-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

...and like most things in Korea, it was kinda lame. We all had a good time but it's not something I'd recommend doing nor would I ever do it again.

We had been out till 3:30 on Friday night eating Turkish food and drinking to celebrate Michelle's birthday. So when my alarm rang at 6 am, Sarah and I slept right through it. My coworkers knocked at 6:30 and we jumped out of bed to get ready. Adam opened the door to find me in my underwear groggily trying to wake myself up.

"You ready to go?" he asked.

Pause. "Umm. I'm gonna need a minute."

We threw some things in a bag and hopped on the subway to Busan Station, picking up friends along the way. There were 17 of us, Korean's and foreigners alike. We got on a bus and what we were told was a 90 minute ride turned into a three hour ride due to traffic. This was made worse by the hangover and the old Korean woman who would yell "NO" and hit my seat everytime I tried to recline it.

After a few stops and a break for lunch (Why did you put corn on my hotdog? Why?) we arrived at the river, ready to raft. But is it really a river if you can safely walk across it? At it's deepest points it was maybe 10 feet deep and no portions of the entire stretch could be described as rapid. It was beautiful though if you could look past the parts where the river that wound under a huge concrete overpass... We sat through a safety demonstration where we learned how to put on a lifevest and a helmet both of which were unnecessary considering the river we were about to conquer. We broke off into two teams and carried our raft down to the water. Which turned out to be lukewarm due to the heatwave we've been experiencing. We were given an explanation of how to paddle which was translated by one of my coworkers and we set off down the river.

Again, at no point during the 90 minute ride did we encounter any actual rapids or feel in the least bit frightened. It was rather peaceful, floating along trying to splash other rafters (there were probably 2o rafts on the river at a time). But peaceful was not what we were expecting. Apparently it was much better the year before, the level of the river being so much higher. We had a good time, laughing and enjoying the sun but 6 hours on a bus for two hours at the river was hardly worth it. Oh well.

Sinpyeong

2006-08-12T20:22:00.000-07:00

It's been 7 months and I haven't put a picture of home up yet. Sarah took these pictures a few weeks ago during a rooftop BBQ with my coworkers.

Note the smoke stacks and poluted river in the background.

In Prague lots of people lived in panalaks, big, goverment subsidized aparment buildings that were made completely of concrete and each was indistiguishable from one another. Here is the Korean version.

These are warehouses, of which there are many in my neighborhood. They are surrounded by small shacks and shanties thus giving my neighborhood an air of industrial revolution era quaintness.

While you would be hardpressed to call Sinpyeong beautiful (fucking ugly more easily springs to mind) it's my home and it's kinda grown on me. Once you look past the litter and get over the pervasive fishy smell it's really not that bad...

What?!? Why?!?

2006-08-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

So I live about twenty minutes from Dadaepo beach, a nondescript swath of sand which would be beautiful if it wasn't fed into by the slightly polluted Nakdonggang river. It's a really strange beach too. It's probably 200 yards from the seawall to the surf; a long, flat stretch the entire way. The water, brown and cloudy, extends into a long bay and into the South Sea beyond. It remains flat the entire way out which means you can walk a good 60 feet out into the water and only be submerged up to your chest. And probably due to the flatness, not a bit of current or undertow can be detected.

It is a nice enough place to swim, or would be if not for the evil lifeguards. At 6 o'clock the lifeguards blow their whistles and call everyone out of the water. Swimming is done for the day and no one can go in the water. The first time we had been to the beach we had only been there for half and hour before they shut everything down. We were perplexed. How can they close a beach? We searched for signs of sharks or giant, man-eating squid but found nothing to explain the closure.

This comes, however, from a culture where beaches are only "open" from July till September 1st. The beaches are crammed with Koreans during this "swimming season" and are abandoned as soon as the 1st of September rolls around, regardless of the weather or outside temperature.

The second time we visited the beach, we got there early but were again called back by lifeguards when we started swimming. We were waved at and whistled at until we were only 7 feet from the shore, where the water was up to our ankles. Whenever we tried to sneak back out we only made it to knee-deep water before being called in again. "What?!? Why?!?!" we asked, but only received vigorous head shaking and more whistle blowing in response.

We couldn't understand it at all and were forced to stand in the surf watching as children frolicked around us blissfully unaware that you could actually swim if you went in another 30 feet.

Anyway, the uber-controlling lifeguards, moderate level of pollution and not uncommon sightings of people wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts to the beach have put me off for a bit. I'll just do what all the other foreigners do: wait till the beaches are deserted in September. It'll still be hot then and I'll be able to swim wherever I damn well please.

Summer Break

2006-08-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

The trip to Seoul and the Incheon concert went really well, despite the high travel costs, torrential rain and (later) blistering heat.

Sarah and I left Busan Wednesday night and arrived in Seoul a bit before midnight which left us just enough time to check into a hotel and have a few drinks with Katie before we both crashed for the night. Thursday we had planned on going to the DMZ but we opted out of that saying that it was too far away and too expensive ($60). Also, Katie made an excellent point: "It's just a line that you can't cross with people staring at you on the other side. I'll stare at you for free and you don't have to go anywhere..." So we braved the rain and went shopping instead, ultimately spending $120 on used books. We may have gone a bit overboard but books in English are gold here. We spent at the evening at Carne Station, which is quite possibly the best restaurant in Seoul. It's all you can eat, all you can drink (liquor, wine and beer) for only $22. We were the last people out of the restaurant and afterwards found a nori-bong where we sung till 2.

Friday Sarah and I left for Incheon a suburb outside of Seoul for the concert. It was an hour or so by subway and we managed to find the venue without too much trouble. It started raining as soon as we got in and we set up our tent and arrived just in time to miss the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, which was a big disappointment. At this point it started pouring down rain, and this, when mixed with the dirt field the concert was being held in created a bog of mud that we wallowed in for the next three days. We headed back to the campsite to find our tent in a puddle and spent an hour finding a new spot and moving our things. That night though we saw Snow Patrol, Jason Mraz and The Strokes (who I had confused in my mind with The Stills). Snow Patrol and Jason Mraz were great and The Strokes were OK, though I would have rather they had been The Stills.... After the main shows we went to the DJ stage and I danced my ass off while Sarah looked on with what I'm sure was a mix of confusion and pity for my hapless dancing. Whatever. I had fun.

We returned to our tent to find that water had seeped through the floor (and ground mat) and soaked my sleeping bag. Despite the uncomfortable conditions, Sarah was asleep instantly leaving me awake to plan an early morning escape.

I was up at 7:30, packed and ready to move. One night sleeping in a damp tent was enough for me. I woke up Sarah and we were in a hotel before 9. A love hotel actually, which are quite popular here and where you have to pay in 12 hour increments. The rooms themselves are nice and have complimentary condoms and free porn to go along with the circular bed. (Side note: Korean pornography is horribly non-explicit and in only remotely arousing). We spent the next two nights there and it was great not to sleep in a puddle.

Saturday evening we returned to the mud and saw The Black Eyed Peas which was entertaining but not really our thing. Also, they spent so much time mentioning Korea in their set that it eventually became annoying. After BEP's was Placebo who I had listened to before I left and thought was just OK. They KICKED ASS LIVE and after a second listen I'm sold. Do yourself a favor and download Meds, their new album.

Sunday was the day we were both looking forward to the most and the weather that day changed from cold, wet and muddy to fucking hot. Franz Ferdinand was the headliner and we were twenty feet from the stage when they went on. And they were awesome! Definitely the best show we saw and worth the two hours of waiting near the front holding a spot near the stage. We spent most of the time there continuing a game we had been playing all weekend: counting the number of foolish Korean wearing high heeled shoes. IN ANKLE DEEP MUD. We counted 28 women on Sunday alone.

We headed back to Seoul on Monday, exhausted and near broke. We stuck around in the city long enough to check out DVD Burger, an awesome restaurant that rents DVDs and sells hamburgers the size of pizzas. Despite these luxuries, the heat in the city was too much so we called it and headed back to Busan two days early. We spent the last two days of vacation drinking and playing cards with our friends, BBQing, watching 24 and going to the beach. The whole week was great and exactly the break I needed.

Rafting...

2006-07-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

...didn't happen. Since it rained for three weeks straight (including the typhoon) the rafting company canceled all trips for the weekend citing unsafe conditions. This was extra disapointing since the weather was beautiful the whole time. Not that we didn't have a fun weekend:

We spent Saturday afternoon at a temple an hour outside of the city. It was a pretty average temple but it did have a beautiful river running alongside.

A statue inside of the temple's main gate.

We stopped for lunch and dong-dong-ju, traditional Korean rice wine.

That night, we went for drinks and wandered to a nori bong where we sang till 2 am. This is Michelle and I singing Piano Man.

Jake and company dancing along to Locomotion.

Adam and I embarass ourselves while trying to dance.

Sunday was spent helping Sarah move into her new apartment, drinking, and playing cards. Tonight we are all getting dressed up and heading to a casino in the city center. Our week long Summer break starts on Wednesday and we are trying to pack in as much fun stuff as we can before our friends Jake and Maren leave for home next week. I'll keep you updated.

Third Strike

2006-07-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

1. I live right up the hill from Sinpyeong subway station which is pretty convenient if I need to tell a cab driver how to find my apartment. Trouble is I suck with Korean and I had the Korean word for subway station confused. The word is jiachol but I had it confused with jigalchi which is actually the name of another subway stop. So I'd get into a cab and tell the driver sinpyeong jigalchi which is like getting into a cab in New York and saying Brooklyn Manhattan. Every driver I said it to would give me this really confused look as if to say "Well, which one?" and I would get really mad that no one understood me. It was 6 weeks before someone corrected me. I felt like an ass.

2. I got a coffee maker for Valentines day and was really excited to try it out. I went down to the supermarket but had some trouble finding ground coffee. With all the labels in Korean I had to squeeze every bag to see if it felt right. I found one and brought it home to brew a pot. It was good too, much better than the shitty instant coffee that I had been drinking for months. I went to empty the used coffee grounds from the machine and was surprised to find no grounds at all. After discounting the possiblity of having a magic coffee maker I realized that I had just brewed a pot of instant coffee. I felt like a moron.

3. After coming back from the mud fest Sarah and I both had bags full of damp clothes to wash. Sarah started a load of laundry and called to me inside.

"Where's your detergent?" she asked.

Exasperated, I replied "Right next to the machine, dear."

"You mean this?" she asked, showing me a container of liquid soap.

"Yeah," I said.

"This is fabric softener."

Turns out I had been washing my clothes for 6 months using fabric softener instead of soap. It explains why my clothes have been so soft but stains have been a real bitch to get out. I felt like and idiot.

Mud Fest

2006-07-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

Yeah. The mud fest sucked. It sounded like so much fun. What with the mud and the beach and the fireworks and everything. It was cold, though, and it rained on and off the whole time.

In the first place, it took Sarah and I 6 hours to get to the fucking beach. Two different trains, a couple of cabs and a bus that was standing room only. Katie called me, drunk, while we were jammed into the aisle of the bus. "What is this, fucking 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles'?!" she asked. We got to Boryeong around 5 pm after promising Katie that we would be there around 1 and we checked into our shitty room that we were paying 3 times more than it should have been. Katie and her friends were already drunk and we quickly tried to catch up.

A drunk Korean guy kept talking to us while we were eating ramen and drinking on the shore. He kept ofering us more alcohol and disgusting pastries. He was smashed though and spent the majority of the time looking down Katie's shirt. We eventually moved on down the beach and found more alcohol. It gets a bit hazy after that but highlights included: me accidentally knocking Katie to the ground while trying to push her into the surf, jumproping, unsuccesfully trying to give everyone airplane rides and having beer thrown at me by Sandy. We found a few other friends and drank more on the boardwalk and watched the firework show, which was pretty good. Around 2 we headed back to the hotel and fell asleep. The entire first day was mud-less.

We woke up late the next day and wandered around in the rain. We did find the mud though. It wasn't the mud filled beach we had expected. They bring in large garbage cans full of mud and you have to scoop out handfulls to put on yourself. Lame. The mud slides and wrestling looked cool but the lines were rediculously long. Despite all that we did get a bit muddy and swam around in the surf with the couple hundred other people on the beach. We left around 4 and made our way back to Busan, getting in at 11. It was a long trip for a really mediocre weekend.

Rafting this weekend has to be better. Right?

Stuff

2006-07-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. It's been awhile so I thought I'd get a post down.

It's been raining off and on for a week now, despite July 9th being the official end of the rainy season (and beginning of the Sweat-your-balls-off season). Everyone is saying that we're experiencing a typhoon, but if this is a typhoon, then typhoons are lame. It's just really rainy and windy. It did manage to cancel a half day of classes on Monday so I guess I should be more appreciative.
Took the bullet train an hour north last weekend to the Costco in Daegu. There is only one store in the whole country and Daegu's got it (though I have no idea why, Daegu's small). Anyway, Sarah and I both went and bought as much food as we could carry back. Highlights included: Spinach ravioli, tomato soup, guacamole and two large boxes of honey nut cheerios. We're planning on going back in a month.
My school is lame and everyone is starting to get really stressed. With everyone working overtime, open classes, birthday party preparation, unrealistic kindergarten expectations and our kinder director leaving in a month it's normal to be stressed. We start a new Summer intensive in August so we'll be working different and hopefully shorter hours and the new teacher (another Canadian) gets here in a few days.
I've discovered www.torrentspy.com. It's great and I've been downloading like it's my job. The shitty weather is a perfect excuse for me to laze around my apartment watching entire seasons of 24, which kicks ass, by the way.
I moved. There's been an apartment open down the hall since June when Joey and Suzy left. I finally took it and it's great. More room, a bigger bed and an air conditioner that doesn't drip all over my floor. They did, however, put my bathroom door on backwards and now water leaks under the jamb and onto my kitchen floor. And the light in the kitchen doesn't work. I've complained to the director and they should be fixed by the time I'm returning home.
Sarah got a job teaching adults in a cool-sounding business scholarship program. She starts in August and will be moving into a new apartment in a closer part of the city.
Mud festival, rafting, and Seoul concert are all still a go. We're trying to figure out how much we can fit into our vacation but it looks like we will be hitting the DMZ and some coastal islands as well. We bought an awesome tent that is self assembling (?) and all you have to do is remove it from the case and throw it and it pops up, ready to go. We had to try it in the mall and it worked, though we spent 10 minutes trying to fold it back up into the case.

That's the latest. Keep checking in. I'll have mud festival pictures up after the weekend...

Jeju-do (June 2-6)

2006-06-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

Sarah and I spent a long weekend in the beginning of June on Jeju-do, a large Korean island 11 hours (by boat) from Busan. Check out the pictures here.

It was kind of a last minute trip and so we put little planning into the whole thing. We booked the overnight ferry the day we left and surprisingly, there were no private rooms available. We were left with a "sleeping hold" that held 32 people. Having no alternative we took it hoping for the best.

We left around 8 on Friday and the ferry turned out to be pretty memorable. Our room was just that: a big empty room (probably 12 X 25 feet) with only small cushions available to use as pillows. Everyone came in and claimed a spot on the floor. Sarah and I got a corner and held it fiercely against encroachments by our roommates. We had 18 people in our room and we couldn't imagine 32 people crammed inside. While walking to the bathroom I found that one of the rooms had a karaoke machine and inside about twenty people were singing and dancing their hearts out. They saw me watching them and invited me in. I ran back and grabbed Sarah and we joined them. It was mostly old women in the room and they offered us beer and made us dance. It only lasted three songs because a ship employee came around and told them that they had to keep it down. It was cool though and while leaving I was given a shot of soju (Korean rice wine) and a piece of dried squid as a chaser. Honestly, I'm not sure which was worse.

We returned to our rooms and managed to fall asleep around 12 despite the lights being still on and a group of old men drinking, talking and gambling in the opposite corner. The floor was as uncomfortable as you would imagine and the drunk Korean woman passed out next to Sarah kept inching closer until they woke up nose to nose. Getting to Jeju was fun despite the lack of privacy and one of those things that is really funny afterwards.

We arrived around 6 am and after searching around for a bit, checked into a super nice room at the Raddison which was given to us at half price for some reason. After a much needed nap we took an hour long bus ride to the southern part of the island and walked around near the beach and checked out not only a gorgeous waterfall but also a pool that was home to some eel that was named as a Korean Tourist attraction. Everything in Korea is numbered and labeled as some sort of wonder of Korea. Including the eel, which we actually saw and deemed to be unimpressive. We discovered how nice Jeju-do was pretty early. It's sub-tropical so there were palm trees everywhere which was a nice reminder of home.

The next day we attempted to rent scooters so we could drive around the island. When I told the rental guy that I didn't have an international drivers license I had to quickly lie when he asked if I've ever driven a scooter before. "Of course" I said. He told me to drive a scooter around the block to see if I could drive. I could and I did, though rather slowly, but I guess I didn't meet the owners expectations since he said he couldn't rent to me. He wouldn't budge despite showing him my expired California drivers license. We tried renting one scooter with Sarah's license (she drives a motorcycle) but after only a block of riding on the back of a scooter I said it wouldn't work; it freaked me out not to be in control of the bike. So we returned the bike and took a cab to our next destination.

Which was Korean tourist attraction #98: a 8 km long lava tube. A lava tube is a big cave created by, well, lava boring through the earth and it was impressive for the first ten minutes of the 60 minute walk to the end and back. It had a rock inside that was supposed to look like a turtle and (this was written on the advertisement) show "the magnificence of God." It fell short on both counts. We had more fun making fun of the cave than the cave itself provided. Leaving involved a missed bus, what would have been a two hour wait and another cab ride.

We then left to see THE MYSTERIOUS ROAD!!!! which was a tourist trap where things would roll up hill. The "hill" was more like an slight upward tilt, but things did roll against gravity. Amazing? Not really. We would have called the mysterious road a waste of time if not for the Love Park.

The Love Park was a normal park with grass, trees and a nice lake in the middle. And about 2 dozen pornographic statues, suggestive signs and a huge thirty foot penis in the center. It was an erotic park that catered to the many honeymooners who visit Jeju-do. About twenty other people were in the park, wandering around gawking at the statues. Definitely a highlight of the trip that more than made up for the two mile walk we had to make afterwards cause we couldn't find a cab back to the main road.

The next day we traveled back down to the southern coast and hung out on the beach. We found a group of the famous Jeju-do lady divers. It is a family tradition to be a diver on Jeju-do and harvest fish and seaweed to sell at the market. They dive in groups just off the shore and supposedly can stay underwater for up to 2 minutes. One approached us and gave us a sea urchin. Unsure what the hell we were supposed to do with it, we put it back in the ocean after she left.

In the afternoon we went on a harbor cruise. We couldn't understand the tour operator since everything was in Korean so we were left to assume that he was pointing out rocks that were supposed to look like stuff. We did see a bunch of sea caves, an impressive view of the coast and a flying fish. It was fun. Afterwards we went to a nearby temple, which was amazing. Usually you aren't allowed to take pictures inside but we could in this one. It was huge, 4 stories tall and it had three large golden Buddha statues and dragons curling around the central columns. And the hallways and stairwells were decorated with paintings depicting the history of Buddhism. Really cool.

After the temple we wandered around for a bit more and found another waterfall and some hiking trails. We spend a few hours hiking and wading in the pools at the base of the falls. We couldn't stay long, however, since we had to catch an evening flight back to Busan. We got to the airport early and despite worries that the flight would be canceled due to weather, we made it home with no problems.

It was a great trip and it once again demonstrated how well Sarah and I travel together. Both of us are able to shrug off the numerous mishaps that come with wandering around a foreign country. Hopefully, our trip up to Seoul and the islands in the north at the end of July should be just as fun.

Plans

2006-06-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

It's raining here now and its making it very difficult for me to walk down to the grocery store. I'll post instead.

Things here have been really great lately. Work has been good, we get a new teacher in two weeks. World Cup (though now over for Korea) has been fun. I've been traveling around and doing a lot. The biggest news, though, is that my girlfriend Sarah has decided to extend her stay here in Korea so we can be together. I'm really happy that she's decided to stay and we are making tentative plans for the next 6 months.

At the end of July everyone has a week vacation and we had started making plans to go to the Philippines or to Viet Nam. When tickets turned out cost twice what was advertised online, we decided that we'd have to stay in country for this vacation. We're planning on going to a big three-day concert up in Seoul and hopefully get up to see the DMZ as well. Any extra time we have we are going to spend on an island somewhere off the coast. It's too bad we can't go abroad but it'll still be fun.

Until then, we have a month and a half of hot humid weather and work to look forward to. In early July we are going rafting with some friends of ours which is going to be a blast. And the weekend of the 15th we are going to the 9th Annual Boryeong Mud Festival. It's a weekend long party at a muddy beach. Drinking, mud wrestling, bbq and fireworks. It's going to be awesome.

That's the latest from Busan.

Dae-hamin-gu!

2006-06-19T06:34:00.000-07:00

The game against Togo was a blast! All of us were decked out in red and Jake and I both wore viking hats colored red in support of the red devils. It went over really well and we spent the entire night cheering and screaming for Korea. Filing out of the stadium after the 2-1 victory, we were mobbed by people singing and cheering. We posed for at least a dozen photographs with complete strangers and everyone thanked us for supporting Korea. Pictures below:

Probably about 20,000 people showed up at the stadium to watch the game. Most of them in the stands. But as the stands filled up people started to run onto the field for better seats. The 100 or so police officers there could do little to stop them. When they turned off the TV's showing the game, though, everyone hopped up and ran back off the field.

Us outside of the stadium, posing for one of many pictures with random fans.

Not my best picture but it makes me laugh everytime I see it. I blinked during what I'm sure was a loud pro-Korean cheer; I wasn't drunk, I swear.

_____________________________________________

I wrote this post a week ago and I've been trying to add pictures to it since. The three above were the only ones I could get to work... In the meantime, Korea tied France in their second game making it very possible to move onto round two.

Unfortunately, France beat Togo on Saturday and Korea couldn't get anything going against Switzerland and we lost 2-0 bumping us out of the tournament. We stayed up all night Saturday morning and were with a hundred other fans in a bar watching the game and cheering on Korea. Like I said, Korea could do nothing offensively in their game and a horrible offsides call that lead to a Swiss' second goal didn't help either. So now Korea's done and with the Americans and the Czechs getting pushed out, I'm left to cheer for...someone else. Too bad Korea got knocked out, I was just mastering most of the chants.

Red Devils

2006-06-12T20:12:00.000-07:00

Today is Korea's opening game in the World Cup. The Korean "Red Devils" are facing off against the football powerhouse of Togo. Anticipation has been building for weeks now and on the day of this storied match-up one question begs an answer: Where the hell is Togo?

It's on the Western coast of Africa apparently (and finding it on a map just now reminded me of the end of "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?". Remember that show? The giant map? I would have lost had I pulled the Africa map in the final round...). Anyway, Korea is facing off against Togo tonight. With Korea ranked #29 and Togo weighing in with a #61 seed, Korea is favored to win. Our next opponents of France (#8) and Switzerland (#35) should be much tougher opponents (rankings). But numbers shouldn't matter. This is a game of heart and passion and the Korean team has plenty of both. I'm assuming. I actually don't know the first thing about the Korean team. I know the coach is Dutch and we have one player who plays for Manchester United. Beyond that I don't know shit. I will venture a guess that 90% of our team is named either Kim, Park or Lee.

I say our team because I'm an American and don't follow soccer in the least. This, I think, allows me to support any team I damn well please. Korea is the easy choice though I will be keeping an eye on the Czech Republic, who today handed team America their ass in a 3-0 loss. I will be watching the games but more from a "I need an excuse to drink on a Wednesday night" than a "God I love this sport" kinda way. Tonight we're heading to the stadium across town to watch the game with a few thousand Korean fans. I just spent 2o minutes coloring the horns on my Viking hat red and we'll be waving flags, chanting in Korean, and cheering on team Korea. And drinking of course. We'll be drinking too.

Sorak-san (May 26-29)

2006-06-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago my friends and I took a long bus ride up Korea's Eastern coast to Sorak--san, Korea's largest and most beautiful national park.

We left Busan Friday night around 11 o'clock. It was a seven hour bus ride and we expected to all sleep on the bus and wake up around 6:30 in Sorak-san refreshed and ready to explore the park. It was a great plan. We didn't count on having a bus driver who was trying to set a land speed record. We were in a full size bus and the guy was averaging 100 km/hr (this is from one of the Canadians in the front and I don't know what the conversion is from metric...I don't want to know, it was fucking fast). And the route was along the coast so it was curvy and switchback-ridden the entire time. All of us were being jostled back and forth. No one got any restful sleep.

And our plan of arriving at 6:30 was a bit off too. We arrived at 4:45 am. We were half and hour from Sorak-san with nowhere to stay. We considered sleeping in a park and someone suggested a rice paddy (that was lack of sleep talking). We managed to find two cabs that took us to the park and a nearby hotel. It was really nice and as we found out, pretty expensive too. But with 8 people in one room, it tends to bring down the price a bit. We found our room, claimed beds and spots on the floor and tried to fall asleep.

Some of us, though, were past the sleep stage. We had been up long enough that we weren't tired anymore. Someone suggested a sunrise hike and five of us took off. We walked from the hotel and found a huge riverbed which we crossed to find some really beautiful hills and pools, discovered what may have been a North Korean landmine (more than likely a bee hive) and a troublesome fence that we all had to fight our way over. And all of this in the rain.

The rain was the theme for the weekend. We went back to the hotel a bit damp, woke everyone up and after a quick breakfast left for the park. By this point it was raining pretty steadily and everyone but me bought silly-looking rain ponchos. I was betting my rip-off North Face jacket could handle the rain, and it did successfully for the first half an hour of hiking. After that it just got too soaked and I was cold and wet the entire day. My poncho-clad friends didn't do much better, hiking in a plastic bag can get pretty hot and eventually everyone chose to be wet and cold instead of humid and sweaty.

It was awesome though. When you enter the park you are greeted by an amazing 5o foot tall Buddha statue. Continuing on through the park we passed over a few rivers and through a really beautiful forrest to the base of a mountain. We decided on the short uphill hike instead of the long flat one. The hill we started on turned to a rocky mountain and then to a really frightening cliff. We were all panting getting up to the cliff face and found we had no view because of the thick fog. You could tell though that we were high and with my fear of heights I'm glad I couldn't see out. If I had been able to, I probably wouldn't have taken the stairs to the cave.

Cold, slippery industrial metal stairs were anchored into the side of the cliff. They were the only thing keeping you from (at least) a hundred foot drop. With both the rain and the fog the stairs freaked all of us out, but no one was turning back after the hike up. We took the stairs up another 5o feet to a cave in the side of the cliff. The cave was no more than 20 ft deep, 15 ft tall and was used as a Buddhist shrine. Inside was a golden Buddha statue, food offerings and traditional paper prayers hanging from the ceiling. An old couple oversaw the shrine and the man would etch your name into a small medallion for a few bucks. It was pretty amazing and would have had a spectacular view if not for the fog. We spent 2o minutes there then slowly made our way back down the stairs and hiked back to the bottom of the mountain

Cold, exhausted, and soaking wet we returned to our hotel and after a stop at a small market to purchase our dinner (Pringles, cookies and beer) we stayed up late playing poker and fighting over who got to sleep where. We woke up the next day and caught the afternoon bus back to Busan. It was a much longer ride with the driver actually following the speed limit and we arrived back home late Sunday night. Besides the drunk Korean guy on the subway yelling at Jake for wearing a Viking helmet, the trip back was pretty uneventful.

Despite (or maybe because of) the long travel times, bad weather and cramped accommodations, it was an awesome trip. Check out the pictures below...

Sorak-san pics

2006-06-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Not finding ourselves tired, some of us left for a "sunrise hike" that we joked the entire time, was leading us into North Korea.

Our cramped hotel room.

Spectacular Buddha statue at the park's main gate.

Rocks and the river along the hiking trail.

The river.

These were the easy stairs. The ones higher up were even worse.

View (or lack of) from the cave on the side of the cliff.

This is the peak we climbed. You can see the cave and stairs along the face is you look closely. (Click to enlarge)

After a long day of hiking, Jake felt horny.

"It's their fault...

2006-05-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

...If they didn't want us to break anything they shouldn't have given us footballs."

That was spoken by Kevin, one of three Canadians in town visiting my friends Jake and Maren. He had just accidentally thrown the promotional soccer ball that the bar was giving out into a glass pitcher of beer that tipped over and cracked on the table. This happened midway through my comment of "Oh, this isn't going to end well..."

We were told that we'd have to buy the broken pitcher and were all shocked to learn that they are $50 a piece. They were nice enough pitchers, with the name of the bar on them, a heavy silver handle and a cool freshness stopper but they certainly weren't worth fifty bucks. We talked the waiter down to $40 and a free order of nachos. We laughed about it for the rest of the night which ended around 3 after a trip to a karaoke room.

This incident doesn't top last weeks drunken bar-b-que that ended with a trip to the emergency room (A sliced foot and 8 stitches later and Casey's fine...). These are both prelude to our 8-hour bus ride today to Sorak-san, Korea's most popular national park. We're spending the weekend there and it looks like its going to rain the whole time so we'll see what exactly we get up to. Hopefully we'll return with no one injured or anything of value broken.

Kimchi!

2006-05-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Since I got here I have been rather unimpressed with Kimchi, a spicy, pickled cabbage and Korea's prized national dish. Like national dishes around the world, it is heralded as a cure-all. Here, it is believed that Kimchi can cure everything from aging to hangovers to SARS (yeah...). In my limited experience, it hasn't cured shit, and is actually likely to cause heartburn.

While reading the LA Times today, though, I found this story. Supposedly researchers have created a special Kimchi for Korean astronauts that will prevent them from getting constipated while in space. Also: "At the Kimchi Research Institute in Busan, hairless mice fed kimchi were reported to develop fewer wrinkles." Not only was I shocked to discover that Kimchi prevents wrinkles but that there is a Kimchi Research Institute right here in Busan! How I have lived here for 4 months and not visited this monument to science?

New day

2006-05-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

I wanted to say thanks to my friends who wrote, concerned that the job situation here was turning sour. It's nearing the 6 month mark, which is when culture shock/boredom starts to make my eyes wander to new countries but the I'm happy to report that things have gotten a lot better in the last two weeks and I'm not planning on going anywhere.

With the "new" teacher leaving after only a day of work, we were left severely short staffed and all of us were given new schedules. I was given the schedule I asked for in the first place, 10 - 6 working with the kindergarten kids. So far I love it. Working with those kids can hardly even be called work. We sing and color and play the whole time. And it's balanced by my afternoon classes with the elementary school kids, where I do actual teaching. The best part: all but one of my high school classes were canceled or given to other teachers. I teach at least 8 classes, sometimes 9 or 10, a day and I have three classes a week that are overtime so I'm earning a bit of extra cash.

Our director has also made a few concessions. She signed a contract addendum that we wanted, clarifiying how much we pay for utilities and finalizing our end dates. It was nothing major but it was nice to be given what we asked for. Also, we've been accomodated on a few tweaks we wanted made to our schedules and classes. In the coolest move though, the director gave us June 4th off. June 5th is a national holliday so that means we get a 4 day weekend. Adam, Michelle and I are planning a trip to Thailand and I think Sarah is going to come along as well. Flights a super cheap and we think we can get away with under $500 for the entire weekend. It's nice to see that overtime money go somewhere cool.

Ok, I gotta run. It's that first beautiful day we've had all week and we're having a BBQ at our "rival" school across the street, followed by a baseball game (the Giants are on a 17 game losing streak...) and then a trip to the college area to drink some more. Talk to you later.

Kyongju (May 5 - 7)

2006-05-15T03:36:00.000-07:00

Everyone had May 5th off for Buddah's birthday so some friends and I decided to stay in Kyongju, one of Korea's oldest cities. We stayed in an amazing hostel that had traditional Korean rooms and a huge courtyard. We spent a good deal of time hanging out there, singing songs and eating smores around the campfire. During the day we wandered around the city, toured a temple and a grotto high up in the hills surrounding the city. It was a great trip. Pics:

To celebrate the big guys b-day, the temple was covered in lanterns. Thousands of them. It was really amazing to see.

More lanterns and a big group of people listening to a concert in the courtyard.

Adam, Jake and I attempting to sing.

Betty, a teacher from the school across the street, right after she fell off her bench and nearly into the pond behind her.

Marin's t-shirt, though not true, speaks for itself.

Kids Day (May 4th)

2006-05-15T03:18:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago was Kids Day, a celebration just for kids here in Korea. All schools were canceled and we had a party on the roof of our building to celebrate. Pics:

This was a strange game where the kids hit piggy banks down towards us, rounded the chairs and raced back all the way back to the start. Fun if you're a kid I guess...

I didn't trust all those kids with golf clubs...

When the teachers were asked to participate, Joe decided to handicap me...

...we still won.

The kids played with bubbles

and played games.

I entertained them by acting like a jackass.

and lifting them up by their ears, of course. (Though it looks like Eddie here is is terrible pain, he's not. He's grabbing my forearms and that's how I'm lifting him

To Ailey

2006-05-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

Don't forget: I have pictures of you drunk, making an ass out of yourself too...

Get off my back. As the last post detailed: I am fucking busy and I am going to be a hell of a lot busier the next month or two. I'm sorry that I'm making it hard for you to live vicariously through me. Why don't you quit bitching and get to Japan already so you can do your own cool Asian stuff?? I'll be in Seoul this weekend, probably touring the DMZ. And you know what? I'm not going to tell you anything about it. Ha.

How do you say "we're fucked" in Korean??

2006-05-11T00:33:00.000-07:00

Joey and Suzy, two of the best foreign teachers this school has probably every seen, had their last day of work here at LCI Kids Club on Wednesday. Tired of broken promises from the management and daily schedules that just kept getting longer, they gave their two month notice in March. While we are all going to miss them (as they begin a whirlwind trip around Asia) we all feel a little jealous that their fight is over. They don't have to deal with the problems left here at the school, which, though perhaps small, are starting to add up.

Last week, I asked my supervisor and the director of the school to be moved from the exhausting night shift with the practically mute and disrespectful high school kids to the morning schedule with the kindergarteners. I had been given the late shift because the other four teachers were couples and the school didn't want to separate them. I understood this and accepted it. I hated being away from the other coworkers though, as I was constantly missing out on after work dinners and socializing. With Joe and Suzy leaving though, and a single teacher moving in to replace them, I thought it was a great time to ask to be moved.

I presented a great case. The school makes most of their money from the kindergarten and I already know most of the kids and have a good rapport with them. My older students could easily be taught by Korean teachers. And, after all, I did them a favor (at my own expense) in taking the late schedule and I felt I deserved some consideration. My director was dismissive at best. I talked to my supervisor and she attempted to explain the directors position. She wants to make sure their are existing teachers here for the kinder graduation in February and is concerned that my leaving in January (and Adam and Michelle's) would be disruptive and could cause students to leave the school. I assured them we all would do our best to make the transition as smooth as possible. My director refused.

I was pissed. I didn't want to continue my shitty schedule, isolated from my other coworkers and I was furious that no consideration was being given to me after I had done them a favor. Now, I fully realize that the director is boss and that her word is final, but this is one many examples of her unwillingness to cooperate and her refusal to have any dialog with her teachers about what is happening at this school. I was insulted and I threatened to quit. I posted my resume online immediately and three days later I've been offered 6 jobs.

After I threatened to leave, my director acquiesced and now I teach mornings Tuesdays and Thursdays. Certainly not ideal, but I lost my three worst classes in the process and my threat to leave was not wholehearted (though I made it sound like it was). Also I didn't want to cause a big stir right before the new teacher arrived.

She arrived Tuesday. Canadian, older woman and seemingly real nice. No previous teaching experience. She had one day of observation (7 classes) on Wednesday and was told she was starting a full schedule Thursday. That was today and from what I've heard it's been pretty rough. Even with a year or so of unprofessional teaching, my entire FIRST MONTH was horrible. And I had help, mostly from Joe and Suzy. The new teacher said if the first day didn't go well she was going to leave. And after just talking to her, she's decided to head home.

I don't blame her in the least. The school refused to pay for her airfare here, since she was traveling in Thailand right before she got here and she hasn't even been given a contract yet! It's another example poor management here. Our director turned down two couples who were interested in working here because of their nationalities (Aussies and Brits) and we were left with a single teacher with no previous experience. Our director has left us in the lurch and now all the current teachers are going to have to pay for it. Hopefully this will teach her a lesson about how to treat her staff better but I doubt it.

Ya-gu

2006-04-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

"For it's root, root, root for the Giants, if they don't win it's a shame..."

Being from southern California and cheering for the Padres and Dodgers my entire life, it's tough to bring myself to root for the Giants. Here in Pusan though, rooting for the home team Lotte Giants is easy. Yesterday I spent my first day out at the ballpark and I'm going to be making a habit of it.

Baseball (ya-gu) is extremely popular here in Korea and the Korean national team had a stunning outing in the World Baseball Classic, going undeafeated for six games before dropping the semi-final to Japan. The
Korean Baseball Association has 8 teams all of which are sponsored by local businesses, Kia, Hyundae, LG, Samsung, etc. The Giants are sponsored by Lotte, a huge Asian corporation bent on world domination. The Giants, however, haven't dominated anything as of late and have been low in the KBO standings for years.

They had a good showing on Sunday against the Unicorns however. Yup, that's right. One of the KBO teams is called the Unicorns and apparently they suck. Spotty picthing all day by the Unicorns gave way to a 9-1 route. Such a lopsided game led more to drinking than to actually watching the game.

Tickets cost $5 and you can bring in as much food and drink as you can carry. We took them up on that offer and brought in a case of beer. Thoroughly drunk by the 5th, we applied ourselves to learning the Korean chants and songs that were constantly sang by the near capacity crowd. They cheer and chant for every player and every play. Yelling "No, we don't like it" when a pitcher checks the runner at first and "Give it to a kid" when a ball slices foul into the stands. I picked up quite a bit of Korean with the help of two Korean teachers that went to the game with us. My friend Todd also helped this learning experience, but not in a way I appreciated.

"Try this one," he told me. "She-bal. It means 'way to go, good job'. Try it." I did try it. Yelled it, in fact, right after the next good play. When Todd started laughing hysterically and I was hit on the shoulder by the Korean teachers we were with, I knew something was up. I hadn't yelled "good job" but rather the Korean equivalent of "son of a bitch". I spent the next five minutes punching Todd as hard as I could and calling him a son of a bitch in English.

Great times at the ballpark. The Korean fans are so much more into the game than are Americans and with a smaller stadium it feels much more personal. Like I said, I'm going to try to get out there as often as I can. I'm spending next weekend on Geoje-do, an island an hour from here. I'm going with Sarah and I think we're going to have a great time. I'll have pictures to post and a description next week. Take care.

Monkey Butts

2006-04-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

I can't really explain this one. All I know is that I love it.

I hate being sick

2006-04-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

I've been sick for two weeks now. Stuffy nose, coughing, mild fever. For two weeks. I'm sick of it (pardon the pun). This morning I woke up at 6:30 with a earache that felt not unlike someone pushing an icepick into my brain. I downed some aspirin and made my way down to the doctor who I was assured was great and spoke English.

Both counts turned out to be true, thankfully. She gave me a cursory inspection and told me that (tada!) I have a cold. She said my ear looked fine but would prescribe a few days worth of antibiotics just to be safe. And to top it off, she gave me a shot in the ass. In Kyrgyzstan it was really common to take injections instead of pills and I think I was told by a doctor that it really doesn't work any better or faster if you inject the medicine. Regardless, the doc here gave me a shot. It was kinda strange, I've never had a shot in the butt that I can remember. The nurse who gave it to me spoke no English so it was accomplished by awkward hand gestures. She also slapped me a few times which weirded me out. "Is this some sort of holistic thing?" I wondered. I discovered she was just distracting me from the shot since she told me I was done before I felt anything. So I got slapped on the ass by a nurse and should be better in a few days.

And all for the grand total of $20 including meds. Korea certainly has the medical system figured out. I can't imagine how much more a visit to the doctor, an injection and a filled prescription would cost back home. It's all part of the delightful, "everything is so much cheaper here" phenomena.

Take haircuts for example. I got my haircut last weekend for 5,000 won ($5). It's not a great cut (like Kerrie would give back home) but it'll do. How is it so cheap? Well, parts of it I found are do it yourself. After it was cut I was asked if I wanted a shampoo and I said yes. I was led to a back room, shown a sink, soap and some towels and then left to fend for myself. It took me a few minutes to figure out that I was supposed to wash my own hair. Not that I'm opposed to that it's just that washing your hair in a tiny sink isn't exactly easy. I made a mess of it and ended up soaking my hoodie but it was funny more than anything. It's those weird little differences that make being here so much fun.

Seoul Man

2006-03-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

Sorry.

I spent last weekend in Seoul and thought I'd jot down my impressions of this bussling metropolis: "Ehh."

It's pretty much a bigger (much bigger) version of Busan and I didn't find anything that awesome about it. It was crowded, smoggy and neon laden just like it is here. Also, westerners tend to be much more indifferent and cold than they are down here, to the point of avoiding eye contact when you pass them by. That just doesn't happen in my city. I shouldn't judge to harshly though since I spent much more of my time drinking crappy beer and hanging out with Katie than I did exploring the cultural aspects of the city. Mind you, I don't consider my time misspent.

I went up to visit Katie and we spent most of our time reminiscing about Prague, complaining about our relationships and trying to figure out just what the hell we're doing here. We went to see a DJ from Brno, the Czech Republics second largest city, play in a really cool club in the center of the city. The club was brand new and very cool. Problem was nobody was in it. I counted 18 people on the dance floor when we walked in at midnight. Hoping it would get busier when the headliner went on we stuck around. Turns out though that they didn't sell enough tickets and the DJ refused to play. So we hung out, drank and danced till 3, much to the amusement of the small, predominantly Korean audience.

The next day I resolved to see something unique and cultural and Katie and I got lost. Seoul's 12 million residents are served by a 10 line metro system and it's easy to get confused. We spent most of the time yelling at each other instead of seeing the sights and at one point I remarked to Katie "I hate you and I hate your city". It wasn't all that bad though. We found a shopping district that had people juggling while crossing the street, some weird promotional show going on and guys dressed like cats. Also we found this little gem while on an art walk of sorts. As far as we could tell it was a rainbow colored mosaic piece of shit. Korea is weird.

I took the KTX bullet train back down to Busan Monday morning and was treated to a spectacularly unimpressive view of the Korean countryside. Maybe I'm wrong but isn't stuff supposed to look better in the Spring? Everything was brown still and very, what's the word, hideously ugly. Maybe the train just doesn't go through the nice areas. I have made plans to visit a traditional village and temple in early May and hopefully I'll be reminded what it's like to live outside of a industrial area.

Bunch of things of great and little importance

2006-03-14T04:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a month since I've posted. I've been busy, I've been lazy. Lot's has gone on but since it's been a whole month I'm not going to put it into any coherent order. Bullet points:

We got our new schedules, and predictably, got screwed. The promises of less hours turned out to be just that, and we were left with the same classes or more. It sucks and we're all kinda pissed. Two teachers have decided to leave in May.
I broke up with Michelle. We had both felt different since we got here and we had been spending way too much time together. This is all for the best (I tell myself) and we're going to remain friends.
Started working out everyday and studying Korean. After a month, I'm still working out. Where is that text book anyway?
Taught adjectives to a class a few weeks ago and couldn't find anything in the room with which to demonstrate 'long' and 'short'. Lines on the board weren't working neither was my "shoot an imaginary arrow across the room" technique. A student pointed to her pinky finger and said "short". I applauded this and said "Yes! Short!" pointing to my own pinky. "And this is long..." I said before I knew what I was doing. I managed to stop myself but the kids all began to display their middle fingers. I got flipped off by a dozen eight year-olds. (And, yeah, they knew what they were doing.)
Watched all of season 1 and what is available from season 2 of Lost. That show is kick ass.
Korea has gone undefeated in the World Baseball Classic, beating Japan AND the US. This is awesome. Baseball season starts up here April 6th. Tickets are $4 and you can bring as much beer and food into the stadium as you can carry.
My youngest brother has been accepted to UC Riverside and my middle brother turned 21. God damn I feel old.
A student of mine brought a syringe to class yesterday. Where he got it or what he was going to do with it I have no idea. I took it away and never heard if he was punished or not.
I've discovered that I am a mediocre poker player at best and I have lost whatever skill I once had at Tiger Woods video game golf.
I've gone to a nori-bong (Karaoke room) five times since I've been here. Still haven't been to the famous fish market, Busan tower or any temples of note.
I'm reading that "A Million Little Pieces" book that everybody was freaking out about. Halfway through and I'm unimpressed.
I've developed a "Spider-sense" that alerts me to the presence of students who wish to poke their fingers into my butt. It's amazing. All the teachers here have this ability.
I went to get my Alien Registration Card at the immigration office today. Instead of writing my name as Sean LaMar Brown, they spelled it Sean La Mad Brown. I'm going to ask to be called "La Mad" from now on.

That's all that's going on. The rest is just teaching, drinking and spending way too much money. I'll keep you posted.

First month

2006-02-12T18:48:00.000-08:00

Besides working my schedule, I've been branching out a bit and trying to explore more of my new home city. Busan is weird and I think I'll be enjoying the weirdness for quite some time.

Last weekend, Michelle and I hiked around Busan's tallest mountain: Geumjeong. It had a gondola thing that took us to the top where we wandered around trying to find a big ass fortress that was at the top. It couldn't have been that big a fortress since we couldn't find the damn thing. It was fun to wander around at the top though. There were small monuments and statues everywhere and a bunch of strange restaurant/tents that served noodles at the top.

At the bottom we found a Buddhist temple that we explored a bit and a really strange 'fitness park' of which there are tons in Busan (There is one on the mountain behind my flat, I'll write more about it when I get pictures, you have to really see it to comprehend the weirdness).

And this weekend we went with some coworkers of mine on a boat cruise around Busan harbor. Besides being cold and foggy it was an amazing day. The beach we left from was really cool and will be great in the Summer (though we hear it's insanely crowded). We watched a man make a huge sand sculpture of Buddha on the beach which was pretty impressive and then headed up the pier to the tour boat. It was only an hour cruise and would have been nicer if it was clear but it was still fun. For half of the ride we were followed by a large flock of seagulls which would dive down and catch food that people tossed into the air. This one nearly took my finger.

After the cruise we went for to a delicious Thai restaurant which I'm sure I'll never be able to locate again. Then we went to the university area and met up with a dozen other foreigners and went out drinking. It was nice to meet new people and there were even some Americans in the group. So far it's been all Aussies, Canadians and Kiwi's. Everyone was really cool and it's always great to hear stories from people who have been here for awhile. We stayed out till 3 or so drinking and playing cards. Twister was also brought out (the bar had a bunch of strange games) but that dissolved into a Judo lesson that ended in someone seriously hurting their shoulder.

All in all, I've really enjoyed my first month here and I predict that I'll enjoy the next 11. I know that the bet based on my previous abroad ventures is that I'll only last 6 months but I think Korea is a good fit. It's common to talk to teachers who have been here 3, 4, 5 years. Some lifers too that have been here for over a decade. In Prague we were impressed to meet people who had lived there for more than a year. I need to get on my language and find a few more extra curriculars but so far it's been great.

New Schedule

2006-02-12T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hey. It's been a little while since I've posted but I've been busy teaching, exploring and fighting the man.

And anyone who has fought the man knows that the man is tenacious, a fighter who won't back down. Strong, proud and not unlike that big fish in The Old Man and the Sea (which I read on the Metro this morning).

The man, in this case, is my director who imposed upon all of the foreign teachers at my school an unfair and rather shitty new schedule. We all knew that Winter intensive was over last week and we were promised a lighter schedule in the new semester. When, Monday morning, we were given our schedules we were surprised to discover that all of us are teaching more classes than ever. I'm teaching 9 classes a day compared to the 7 I was teaching before. I'm ok with teaching 9 classes a day as long as they are real classes. My schedule had 12 "special classes" a week which I later found out were private lessons with the director's son! This, my friends, is some bullshit. Also, I volunteered to work the 1-9 shift so I wouldn't have to teach kindergarten and would have the advanced students. I really like my classes but I work 1-9 with NO BREAKS! I was given no time during the evening to, you know, eat dinner, relax, not have erasers thrown at my head. This I complained about pretty quickly and I get a new schedule today that I've been promised will have at least one period for dinner.

I was told this is all temporary and will only last till the end of this month, when we'll be given a easier schedule. I'm not sure how this will be accomplished since two Korean teachers quit this month and one is leaving March 1st. According to the two teachers who have been here for 9 months, this is the fourth time they haven't received what was promised. There could be quite a few people leaving if promises aren't kept next month. I'll keep you posted.

I get paid for this?

2006-02-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

I really love (most) of my classes. There are a few troublesome classes (Purple class) but mostly they are all so cute that you can't get too mad when one of 'em runs up and punches you in the nuts. Examples:

We have a big birthday party every month for those kids whose birthdays all fall in that month...

The ubiquitous nose picking

Graduation day. They reminded me of owls dressed in their graduation gowns.

Extremely portable these Korean kids.

Fukouka

2006-02-01T03:07:00.000-08:00

I spent last Thursday and Friday in the beautiful Japanese city of Fukouka with some coworkers of mine. We were only there long enough to pick up a Korean work visa and see a bit of the city but we all left feeling a bit disapointed to be teaching in Korea instead of Japan. It's definately on my list of countries I want to live\teach in. Pictures below:

The view from the 3 hour ferry ride to Fukouka.

Me in our hotel room sampling the free robes and checking out the *ahem* extensive porn list.

My Canadian coworker Adam and I at what turned out to be a $160 traditional Japanese meal. It was delicious.

Trying to catch peanuts with chopsticks.

After dinner, we wondered over to a bar called The Happy Cock. I drank lots of cheap alcohol and felt horrible the entire day afterwards. This is on the bus to the embassy.

It was a fun, though short, trip that I hope to make again soon.

First week impressions

2006-01-23T03:37:00.000-08:00

Great week. My students are pretty good. There are a few demons (many of them named Harry) but nothing that can't be handled. I only teach 6 or 7 classes a day and we work out of books so it isn't difficult. Should be a pretty easy job. Plus this is 'Winter Intensive' so this is a busy month. Next month I get a new schedule and probably won't start till 10 am or so. Not quite sure how I feel about that yet. I'm usually not good with downtime.

So far, I've seen very little of the country. A bit of my neighborhood and a lot of Michelle's (which is downtown and has more parks, shopping areas and bars). I have however found 4 karaoke bars in my neighborhood, a gym, lots of fish stands and a place that teaches Kendo (the fine Japanese art of hitting others with sticks). I haven't checked out the gym or Kendo dojo yet but I will.

Over the weekend I went with some co-workers and some other teachers from nearby and we volunteered at an orphanage. The kids there were great and were really happy to have us there to play with. Wish I had brought my camera. It sounds like it's a monthly thing though, so I will have another chance for pictures.

In fact, the only pictures I've taken so far are the one's below that I just took of my apartment. This Thursday I'm taking the ferry to Japan to get my visa. I'll be sure to take pictures there.

This is my flat. Pretty big and with internet and cable. Not pictured is the Winnie the Pooh comforter that was on my bed when I arrived.

The awesome shower. The sink, toilet and shower are all in one room. You just stand in the middle of the room and shower and the water drains through the floor.

That's about it. I'll let you know how Japan goes (it's just a two day trip) and how the upcoming Lunar New Year goes as well.

Kids in Korea

2006-01-16T02:49:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a kick ass year. I had my first day of work today and it couldn't have been easier. I was a bit nervous going in, though I was more nervous to meet my co-workers than to teach really. My co-teachers are all really cool and I think we'll get along great.

And the classes were awesome. I started at 8:30 and taught taught six classes, observed three. I teach kids from kinder to elementary and all of them are insane. I was kinda hoping for the stereotypical model Asian student. Quiet, polite, well behaved these students were not. Half of my classes were pretty good, though I think they were pretty excitable due to the fact they had a new teacher. The other half spent a good portion of their class out of their seats, screaming and running around. One kid spent a good twenty minutes running up to the front of the class to hit my butt. Between classes I would chase kids around the corridors and under their desks with them howling with laughter the whole time. It was a riot.

So I learned pretty quickly any lesson plans I might have are out the window and I'll have to switch to a rapid fire technique: quick excercises and games to keep them entertained before they take matters into their own hands. I've been told that the emphasis is more on fun and entertainment than on actual learning which makes sense if you understand the school system here. My school isn't a state school at all and is more of an afterschool program. This is EXTRA school. For 4-5 hours a day. Even more impressive is the fact that it's now winter break for these kids and they are still going to school. Learning English here is like what playing a music instrument is in the states. You do it for a few years while you're a kid then drop it after you grow up. This leads to a much more lax system at the English agencies (called Hagwons) around the country. That's not to say that I won't be doing real teaching, it will just be a lot different from the Czech businessmen that I was teaching before. I mean, none of them ever made a game out of hitting my butt...

In Busan

2006-01-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. I made it in ok and I think I'm going to really like it here. I don't have time to say too much since I'm at a public internet station and my minutes are dwindling but I'm here and so far things are good. Good and really crazy foreign. I can't even begin to describe the "shower". I'll be back with picures and details once I get internet at my flat. Probably in a week. Hope you're all well. Late.

Next stop Saha

2005-12-12T05:35:00.000-08:00

I got a job! After a few weeks of sending out my resume, filling out applications and speaking to school directors in Korea over the phone I finally found a position that fit. I start teaching January 16th and will be living in Busan (a.k.a. Pusan) South Korea. Details:

One year contract
Fulltime schedule teaching kindergarten and elementary age students
Airfare to and from Korea paid for by school
Single apartment, fully furnished, entirely rent free
Monthly salary more than twice what I'm making here in the Czech Republic
Located in Saha, a suburb of Busan, Korea's third largest city
Near the beach and the prestigious Dong University (anyone who wants a Dong U. tee-shirt just email me)

Michelle is still looking for a position but she's been shown a job in Saha as well so hopefully we'll be close by each other. Also my friend Todd will be in Busan and I have a friend Katie living in Seoul, three hours north. Should be a blast. I'm really looking forward to it.

And now I'm left with just a week left in Prague. It's been a great six months and I'm really glad I came. I plan on spending a few days here in the city sightseeing and saying goodbye. On Thursday I'm heading to Madrid for three days and then next Monday I'm heading home to San Diego. It'll be good to spend a month at home with friends and family before I start my next journey to Korea.

Cesky Krumlov

2005-12-12T04:50:00.000-08:00

Hey. I had a great weekend in Cesky Krumlov, a small village three hours south of Prague. Below are some pictures:

A view of the village church next to the Vlatava river.

A view of the village from the top of the castle

Snowy park just outside the town

Michelle and I both went. We ate lots of great food, drank delicous southern Bohemia beer and wandered around mostly. Highlights: real hot chocolate in the snow, horseback riding in the hills around the town and a bear moat at the castle.

Blah, Blah, Blah...I'm moving to Korea

2005-11-23T00:49:00.000-08:00

Hey. First off, let me say that I'm sorry for not updating my blog at all as of late. I've been really busy (read: lazy) and just haven't been able to find the time (read: I've been drinking my time away). I am planning on writing a bunch of articles, each one highlighting a particular quirk or feature of Czech life. Each one will be funny or tragic as the subject dictates but more than likely I'll never get around to it so don't hold your breath.

Honestly, nothing that phenominal has happened lately. I've just been working and hanging out mostly. It's started to snow here and I've aquired a deep, burning hatred for the cold. A few funny stories and happenings but nothing too big. Mostly I've spent the last few weeks planning my escape. Come December my Czech chapter is going to end. I'm heading home to SD on the 19th and by February I hope to be in sunny South Korea (Fun Fact: South Kora is not sunny, it's just as cold as Prague).

That's right. I'm abandoning this former Communist country in favor of the next best thing: a democratic country neighboring a current Communist country. Why, do you ask? Because I hate the teaching system here! A twenty hour workweek, a combined three hour a day commute and teaching old boring businessmen who honestly don't need English anyway. I have a handful of students I actually like working with, but most of my classes are about getting through the hour instead of having fun. I miss teaching kids and having a classroom and wroking a full day. These are all things I can get in Korea. Plus with a salary that is three to four times higher and a free apartment, I'd be a fool not to go there. I have some friends teaching there now and I'm going to go with my girlfriend so adjusting to Korea should be easy. Minimum contract length is 1 year so I should be out there for a while. But first I'm heading home for 4 - 8 weeks. I hope to see as may people as I can and make a few trips. See everyone in a month.

This week is my last week teaching for my agency and I plan on spending my last month in Prague visiting museums, the castle and any pubs I might have missed during my tenure. Plus a few day trips to areas around the Czech Republic and, hopefully, a trip to Spain and a trip to Budapest (City of Cathedrals! I see you right there on the Bridge of the Danube kid...) I'll be applying for Korea jobs as well and I'll let you all know what the specifics are once I know them. Talk to you later.

Dear Prague,

2005-11-19T08:15:00.000-08:00

Yeah. Not gonna lie to you: Not really digging the whole sun setting at 4.30 thing. Anything you could do to change that would be great. Thanks,

Sean

P.S. And could you make Hlavni Nadrazi not smell like ass while you're at it?

Culture

2005-11-13T02:45:00.000-08:00

There are three things that the Czechs really dig. Ice hockey, football and the opera (beer would certainly take the top spot on this list, but it’s so ubiquitous, it’s not necessary to mention it). Since I’ve done nothing cultural since I’ve been here (except sample the beer) I decided that I should experience these three things. Admittedly, I would have only considered the first two if only one of my students hadn’t given me her ticket to the opera, which, was an experience.

I had never been to an opera before and I kept thinking of that Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer Fudd is a Viking singing that he must “Kill the wabbit, Kill the waaaabbit!” Anyway, when I was given the ticket I was excited to be trying something new. I got dressed up and made my way to the opera house for the nights performance of Rigoletto, an Italian opera about a court jester, his master and some servant girl that the master’s boffing. I got all this information from the synopsis in the playbill which is good because I didn’t understand a God damn thing while the play was going on. I knew it would be in Italian but thought I could follow along by just watching the actors. The Czech translation that flashed above the stage certainly didn’t help any and I was bored after 20 minutes. And it’s trouble when I get bored. I started fidgeting and singing the Czech translation under my breath. I considered punching the man next to me in the leg to see how he would react. I counted the globes in the chandelier. Decided which of the cast members I’d most like to have sex with. Needless to say I would have been hard pressed to stay through a whole 3 hour production. I bolted at the intermission. “How was the opera?” my student asked later. “Well the building was beautiful…”

Hockey was another matter. Sparta Praha vs. a team from Znojmo, which is located either in southern Czech Republic or on the planet Mars. We sat in the stands drinking beer and eating fat Czech sausages (which I’ll trade for a Dodger Dog for any day). It was a lot of fun and the crowd was pretty excited despite the arena being only half full. We got there ten minutes late and Znojmo was already up by a goal. Sparta answered back in the second period to tie it 1-1. Then in the third, Znoymo scored on a bullshit shot that barely managed to squeeze past the goalie. We lost 2-1, but while we were there we were singing and cheering as if we actually knew a thing about hockey. I surprised to learn that unlike American hockey, there is no checking allowed in the Czech Republic. Taking away the player’s ability to slam their opponents against a wall of reinforced glass seems wrong. I mean, that’s hockey. A sport that averages 3 to 4 goals a game needs something to keep the spectators entertained, and that something is violence. Get on that Czech Republic.

As far as football (soccer) is concerned, I’m pretty sure the rules are the same. This is the last cultural event that I want to experience while I’m here. I made plans to go to a game earlier in the week but found out just hours before the game that it was being played in Amsterdam. This lead to a stern talking to with my flat mate Kirsten that when I ask “when’s the next Sparta game?” of course I mean the next home game. I’m sure I’ll get to a game soon and when I do I’ll cheer my little hometeam-bandwagon heart out.

Halloween kinda sucked

2005-11-03T01:25:00.000-08:00

I was really excited for Halloween this year. Coming from UC Santa Barbara where Halloween is an epic, week-long event I wanted my first (and last) 'ween in Prague to be awesome.

It started off with a great costume idea. You see, in Prague there are no parking meters anywhere, and in the old Communist spirit of giving everyone a job even (or especially) if they are useless, there are parking attendants everywhere. They usually sit on the sidewalk on a folding chair or in a nearby pub waiting for someone to come along and park their car. The attendant then gets up, takes the driver's money and puts a ticket on their windshield, then resumes either his newspaper or beer. Is this the noble working class that was once so well regarded under Communism? Either way these guys wear some snazzy clothes. Big, bright colored overalls not unlike those that the Mario Brothers wear. Passing an attendant on the street one day inspiration struck and a great costume idea was it's fruit.

I first pitched the idea to Michelle who said that "couples costumes are lame". Fair point. I then suggested the idea to my friend Nikki who agreed on the condition that she be Mario. I agreed and the hunt for a store that sold those uniforms began. It took only a few hours but since we had put it off til the last minute, there was a certain degree of suspense. Seeing the genius of our costume others tried to jump on the bandwagon. There was talk of Toby being Toad and Katie being "that Raccoon dude" from Mario 3, who we later learned was named Tanooki (file that gem of information away). These ideas fell apart and the only one to really embrace the idea was Michelle who made a great Princess Toadstool.

We had a surprisingly crowded Halloween party at Nikki And Katie's flat and after everyone was sufficiently trashed, wandered down to Nebe, our favorite hangout. Nebe (heaven in Czech) was having a Halloween party of their own. A half hour into the party we realized that Katie was missing. I went to look for her and found her swaying on the stairway. I helped her down stairs but then decided she was too drunk to stand and I suggested that we head outside to get some air. She protested and the bouncer noticed her and told us both to leave. With some difficulty I got her back upstairs where she kept demanding be be let in again. We sat outside for half and hour or so in the cold where Katie decided to try to make out with me.

Seeing this night spiraling out of control I enlisted the help of a friend and we tried to get Katie into a cab to take her home. This was interupted by Katie breaking away and trying once agin to get into Nebe an once again being kicked out by the bouncer. We got her into a cab and were told by the driver (in gestures and Czech) that if Katie puked the ride would cost 1000 crown. We made it to her flat without incident and somehow got her upstairs and into bed. The whole process was exhausting and by the time I got back to Nebe I was sober and pissed off. Not my ideal Halloween, babysitting a friend and losing my buzz in the meantime, but certainly not an uneventful one.

It's getting cold

2005-10-26T02:03:00.000-07:00

Hey. This one will have to be quick since I'm using the computer at the office.

Briefly: Plzen Fest kicked ass. Lots of drinking, fried food and carnival games. Good time all around. We ended up leaving early since it started to rain but it we couldn't drink any longer anyway.

The weekend after I visited a really cool castle in Karlstein an hour outside of Prague. It was beautiful and I bought a sword.

Teaching is fine. I have lots of hours now (a few private students) and I'm being asked by another agency to come work for them as well. Might be switching in January since they pay more. We'll see. It's getting cold here and I'm on an unending quest (read: kinda looking for) materials to complete my Mario Bros. Halloween costume. Since I'm tall I have to be Luigi, the eternal understudy. Probably not get that done before this weekend's party. Again, we'll see.

Ok, gotta run. Keep in touch and check the link to the right -- I'VE POSTED PICTURES, CHECK THEM OUT. (And realize I just resisted the temptation to spell check as Czech. I'm getting better). Later.

Plzen Fest

2005-09-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow begins the beer fest in Plzen. I'm taking a hour and a half train to the small Czech village and after an educational tour of the Plzen brewery, I plan on getting shitfaced. We haven't figured out where we're going to sleep (maybe in a park, maybe in the train station) but we know there will be beer and music and if the rumors are true, a magician. I'll post pictures.

Beyond looking forward to Plzen Fest, I've been working. Not the 25 hours that my agency promised they would give me, it's a little closer to 18 which leaves me with way too much time on my hands. I've been wandering around a lot and I begin Czech lessons next week which should be good. And the drinking. Don't forget the drinking. I'll survive.

Not really digging teaching business English to adults either. I'd rather be in a real classroom goofing around in front of a bunch of kids but hardly any agencies specialize in working with children. I found one that has offered me a few hours working with high school students which will be a nice break. and I think I'll look into switching to kids permanantly next quarter.

That's the plan at least. I hope to be here at least till next July (we still doing the World Cup guys? Let's get on that...) and after a cool Summer spent somewhere cool (that's right) I plan on heading back to Asia. Korea is on my list. From everything I've read there is tons of money to be made in Korea which would be very useful in getting set up in Japan. Or Thailand. Or Vietnam. We'll see.

The sinking ship

2005-09-05T01:33:00.000-07:00

These were three text messages I either sent or recieved, that, upon rereading them, has brought me joy:

No red light. I hate prague no one is going to sing Karaoke. We are realy drunk. I am going to sleep in a park. I hate this shit.

~~Text I sent to my friend The Todd (aka, The Game) after he asked whether or not we were still on for Karaoke at the Red Light bar last Saturday.

We are reeealy drunk. At some bar. We are going to burn down Praha. We are the middle children of history man. We're not your fucking khakis. You are beautiful.

~~ We had watched Fight Club the night before. I sent this text to my friend Nikki in response to her question of "Where the hell are you guys?" We were at a bar drinking way too much tequilla. 58 shots between five people. I was sick three times and was kindly escorted home by my girlfriend.

Don't know. I've been drinking wine and sucking dick since I saw you last. I do know that Prague is a sinking ship.

~~This is a text I recieved from my friend Katie after I asked her if she knew where her roommmate Jeff was. A clear example of too much information. And we have taken to calling Prague "the sinking ship" ever since.

Karaoke and the French Foreign Legion

2005-09-01T07:05:00.000-07:00

So I found a bar not too far from my flat that offers free wireless internet. As long as you order a sandwich and order coffee every once in awhile the incredibly beautiful, but bitchy, waitresses leave you alone. This allows me free reign to check email, baseball standings and download rockin new music. I'm not really sure what's going on right now but some Czech guy is trying to sell T-shirts to the waitresses while I sit here. I'll add it to my list of shit I just don't understand here in the CR.

There are a lot of weird things that go on here. Why are there only 19 cigarettes in a pack that could easily (and usually does) hold 20? Why can I not find a liquor store open past 9 pm but there are four casinos that are open twenty-four hours all located on the same block? Why did that guy try to pick me up (seriously, physically lift me off the ground) when we were waiting on the tram? What's the deal with picking mushrooms? There are probably no answers to these questions and if there were they would undoubtedly lead to more questions. I'm just going to go with it.

Things here are great. I start teaching at one of the largest English language schools in Prague on Monday. I'll be teaching 25 hours a week which is the average work week and this will provide me with a lot of extra time which, more than likely, I will spend drinking. With beer costing a dollar a pint, one can do a lot of drinking. Also, the usually schizophrenic weather has calmed down and it's been hot and beautiful. This also leads to drinking but at the park while playing Frisbee. Good times.

Another side effect has been the rash of Karaoke outings that have been occurring lately. I didn't know of my love for the ancient and beautiful sport that is Karaoke, but now that it has grabbed hold of me, I am a better man. Thirsty Thursdays at Aqua Club 2000 offer beer specials and the "Largest collection of Songs in the Czech Republic!" (though I'm not sure how tough the competition is on that last point). It's an awesome time but I'm not sure how accurate some of the lyrics are. Last week we sang Loser by Beck and were told the chorus was sung "Sooo, just open the door" instead of the correct Spanish lyrics of "Soy un perdidor". Close enough I guess.

And I've met tons of great people here as well. Mostly people from my TEFL course but a few others as well. Sadly, however, I am finding that Prague can be a very transient city. I've already seen a few people leave for home or for the ever popular teaching destination of Asia. And now one of my good friends, Jeff, has decided that he hates to teach and since he is quickly killing his bank account, he is going home. We have tried to come up with some get rich quick schemes but they mostly all boil down to robbery in one way or another. Also, he thought seriously about joining the French Foreign Legion. Interesting fact: You don't have to be French to join the FFL. You just have to enjoy crossing the dessert and be able to properly use a bayonet. They provide the white, floppy sun hat. So, I guess if teaching falls through I can always help the frogs conquer whatever it is there is left to conquer.... Take care.

Unemployed

2005-08-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

Ok. So now that I'm done with the TEFL course I have shit to do. Mostly I've been wandering around Prague to kill time, but there is the occasional trip to the park to play frisbee. Sure, I've been applying for jobs, writing resumes and lessons, but mostly I just laze around. I had an interview last week and I fucking nailed it. They asked me to bring with me a prepared, 90 minute lesson which I spent an hour making that morning. During the interview they gave me a topic and asked me to come up with a lesson on the spot. I came up with three. They were like "Whoa. Ok. You know, we don't need to see your prepared lesson. Do you want the job?" They pay lower than I'd like and the benefits aren't great but it's work. I have two interviews next week and hopefully I'll be working part time for at least two schools. Problem is, schools don't start back up till early to mid September so I have all of August to kill.

I've posted some pictures on the link to the right. It's only really a BBQ that we had two weeks ago and a few shots I've taken while wandering around the city. I'll get more up soon I promise. Take care

Bad Grammar

2005-08-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

Hey. I haven't posted in a while because I've been insanely busy with the TEFL course. Between that, finding an apartment, looking for jobs, getting drunk on the weekends and hanging out at the park I just haven't found the time.

That will soon change. I just wrote six pages about English grammar and in turing that in, I completed my TEFL course. I'm done. No more mock interviews, no more workshops, and no more classes where I have to force my students to hit each other with inflatable bats or make a forced Titanic refference just to please my instructor. Tomorrow we have a Czech lesson in the morning and then we get our grades and TEFL certificates. On Sunday we are kicked out of our apartments and I'll be moving to my new apartment just six blocks away. It was getting down to the wire and I thought I might end up living in a park for a few days, but I found a guy who was moving back to the states and needed someone to take his lease.

And now that the course is over, and now that the prospect of homelessness no longer looms large, I have to find a job. I guess everyone is on vacation now and it's hard to find work. I'll be subing and teaching private students (note to self: find private students) throughout August but I don't think it will be tough to find work when the quarter starts in September. So August will be spent lesson planning, searching for jobs and exploring Prague. I hope to have pictures up as soon as I get on that tourist kick and actually unpack my camera.

But for today. I am heading up to a pub that was a memberrs only club during the Communist era. They've kept everything the way it was back then, huge oak tables, elk heads on the wall, and party slogans and banners galore. The prices are dirt cheap and the beer is the best I've had in the city. God it's great to be in a country that makes it's own beer instead of vodka...

Yedno, Dva, Tre strikes your out

2005-07-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

So I actually wrote this entry last Sunday, but since I’m an idiot I accidentally deleted it while typing. Let’s try this again.
Things here are great. The course is going really well and I’ve learned tons in just a week and a half. The first week went pretty slowly, however. Everyone getting to know each other and our teachers just giving us a basic intro to teaching. Not to say it wasn’t fun. I got my luggage Sunday night around 12 and was pretty pleased to be able to wear clean clothes to meet the other students in the course. Eleven students, three guys, 8 girls, and I’m only one of four who has previous teaching experience… Monday was half a day in class and a tour of Prague in the afternoon. The tour, however, was canceled due to a torrential downpour. The streets (coble stoned, beautiful) were flooded and it hailed before nightfall. Really weird. So our tour was postponed till Friday which turned out to be cloudless and scorching. We wandered around the city with one of the head teachers, Brian, giving a pretty entertaining tour filled with ghost stories, tips on where to pick up girls and drunken ex-pat stories. This was a perfect lead in to the course sponsored pub crawl that evening. But is it really a pub crawl if you only go to two bars? It was more of a pub sit-in but fun nonetheless. I tried absinthe at the first place (and drank it incorrectly, apparently) with no peculiar effects. I did however end up dancing till five with a few people from the program and left feeling much more at home in the Czech Republic. You really don’t feel at home abroad until you are rejected by a local girl on the dance floor.

On Saturday I went to watch the Euro Cup Baseball Championships. Czech Republic vs. Italy. I was pretty excited to see the best Europe had to offer on the baseball diamond and it was easily the most embarrassing baseball game I’ve ever witnessed. I didn’t think that many errors was possible in one game. The Czech pitcher walked in a run in the first inning with no outs! Brian and I spent most the last three innings yelling at the Czech third base coach who we blamed for the Czech loss, 6-1 We were also the only ones who (a) sang ‘Take me Out to the Ballgame’ and (b) knew the answer to the trivia question was ‘Cooperstown’. .It was a fun time, despite the loss and I got a great picture out of the deal. The man in the green hat scowling at the camera is actually the Czech President. He was there to throw out the first pitch and this picture was taken just as he was leaving. He stood not ten feet from me, apparently angry that an annoying American was taking his picture. I wish I had had the balls to overcome my total lack of Czech language and shook his hand. Hopefully I’ll get another chance.

So that was my weekend. This week in class has been much more intense than the first. We have been studying English grammar all week, teaching a lesson a day to actual Czech students, and we just began our Czech language lessons as well. The course is supposed to be intensive and it’s in no way overwhelming, but I’m glad I have the experience teaching in Kstan. Looking back I notice so many mistakes I made when I taught there. After this course I know I’m going to be a much more effective teacher. Two weeks left and I still need to find a flat and a job. That’s what this weekend is for.

McPrague

2005-07-10T05:16:00.000-07:00

Hey. I made it to Prague ok though I had to participate in the O'Hare Airport Sprinting Marathon to make it to my flight to Europe. I ran two terminals and made it just as they closed the doors. It was awesome. Unfortunately my luggage is another matter. I have no bags. I'm calling the airline and hopefully I get them today since we start classes on Monday and I've been wearing the same clothes for two days.... It's raining now but I had McDonald's for breakfast so it's ok. Yup. McD's and KFC here. It's great. There is a certain soviet feel here that reminds me of Kstan but at the same time it is really western. I share an apartment with a girl from New Mexico and we have a running shower and a washing machine! Plus a patio and hardwood floors. A palace compared to my Bazar Korgon hole. It should be a good time.

I bought a phone. Country code is 420 and the number is 720-555-276. Yes it's real despite the 555 beginning. I double dog dare you to call me. First person to do so will win a dollar. Ok, I'll keep you posted.

Six Days and Counting (again)

2005-07-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

I got back from my family road trip last night and damn is it good to be back. It wasn't a bad trip by any means, just a long one. And the majority of the time was spent driving. The West coast is fucking huge.

To make a long trip really short: Stayed in Santa Barbara, went to my favorite restaurant and I had drinks with some college friends. Next day we drove to Hearst's Castle. Very impressive. Drove to Oakland and saw an A's game. A's destroyed the Giants 16-0 (!) and we all decided that the Oakland coliseum is the ugliest place to see a game that we've ever been to. Drove to Carmel, drove around Pebble Beach golf course which was beautiful. Drove further up the coast. Found giant talking Paul Bunyan statue. Drove more. Got to Seattle. I hung out with Ailey and had a great time getting drunk and reminiscing over Kstan stories. Didn't make it to Canada since my brothers don't have passports. But that left an extra day in Seattle. After that we were back on the road heading to Portland. Then to Merced, a very hot and very small town in central California (I pity the kids that will be attending the new UC Merced; nothing to do in that town...) The next day we went to Yosemite, a first for me and my brothers. It was beautiful but we didn't stay long, all of us were ready to go home.
We got in last night and now I am getting everything I need for my next trip. I'll be in Prague in a week and I have lots of little things to do before I leave. I'll keep you up to date. Talk to you later.

Road Trip!

2005-06-24T10:52:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in awhile I know. Highlights of the last few weeks:

Saw The Faint play an awesome show at Soma. Batman Begins kicks ass. Formally change my allegiance from the Dodgers to the Padres. Disneyland. Six Flags. Sloshball in Santa Barbara. My brother Ian getting his disc caught in a tree during an outing of disc golf. Getting drunk and dancing my ass off at a wedding reception. My last day of work (no more Super Sonic Sean...).

That's really about it. Today I leave for a classic American road trip up the West coast with my family. We're going to an A's game in Oakland, seeing the redwoods, cruising through Seattle and hopefully will make it all the way to Vancouver. Yosemite on the way back. Should be awesome. Or it could become that family vacation that we must all vow never to speak of again. The fun lies in finding out which.

I get back the 3rd and leave for Prague on the 8th. I'll keep you posted.

cool site

2005-05-29T10:11:00.000-07:00

Check out www.icecreamlandia.com for a cool site design and some pretty funny comics. Enjoy.

I love my new job...

2005-05-13T08:50:00.000-07:00

...And would love it more if it was more than 2 hours a day. Currently in search of something more diverting, though not challenging, to add to my days. Starbucks, Borders, B&N. Hell, I'd go back to stocking shelves at Zany Brainy if they hadn't gone bankrupt...

Teaching the kids is fun though. I taught "Energy Burst" this week and asked the kids to give me an example of a type of energy. One kid, a jedi in training obviously, answered: "The force". I had to write it on the board. Also cute was the constant mispronouncing of the term 'kinetic Energy'. "No little Timmy, KINETIC, not Connecticut..."

No stories involving goats or strange things witnessed at the bazaar however. Somehow I'm envious of the people still in Kstan.

"I am not Joyful"

2005-05-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

I just got up from a well deserved nap. I spent the whole weekend in Vegas and was operating on only a few hours of sleep. It was a great trip, mostly because I got to visit Ailey, who I hadn't seen since she left Kyrgyzstan a few weeks before I did.

   I got in Friday night around 7 and had to kill some time (five hours!) until Ailey's plane arrived. She called to say that her flight was delayed and I actually didn't see her until 1:30 Saturday morning. I spent the interim drinking in the sports book and was pretty sloshed when she arrived. She flew in with her friend Denise and we stayed with another friend of hers, Adam, who lived just outside the city.

   Saturday we went and saw a Cirque du Soleil show and it was awesome. I had never really had an interest to see an artsy French circus, but I was blown away by the performance.

   Sunday we went to a free show at the Rio. Some ventriloquist guy who's audience consisted of mainly kids and senior citizens. He became a lot funnier as we downed the drinks we were forced to buy to make the show 'free'. Halfway through, he asked for a volunteer from the audience and Ailey and Denise happily volunteered me. I was brought up on stage and had to be the guy's dummy (shut up). He made me sing a song and afterwards shamelessly promoted the merchandise he gave me for being such a good sport. It was a good time though.

   Later Sunday night, we decided to go to a club in the Bellagio. Admittedly, I am not a club kind of guy and wasn't too pleased to be in a line with about twenty other guys. The bouncer noticed Ailey and Denise, though, and went to let all three of us in, until he noticed I wasn't wearing dress shoes. I had left my dress shoes at home, and as far as I know, they are still covered in dust from Kstan...So I couldn't get in and told the girls to go without me. I stormed off, pissed at the situation, and wandered around for an hour. I finally made my way to O'shea's, a crappy little casino that had cheap blackjack. An hour later I was up $300. Great night. The girls found me a few hours later. They liked the club but left early after some guy accidentally punched Denise and made her bit through her lip. Ouch.

   We took a cab back to Adams' and the cab driver got lost mostly by his deviating from our precise directions to take a proven shortcut that he knew because his nephew lived in that area. We finally told him to go our route and the meter read twice as much as it did the night before. Ailey and I sat in the back and bitched about the driver in Kyrgyz. "We will not pay him", "No problem. He will not get our money", and my favorite from Ailey: "I am not joyful". We paid the guy exactly what we paid the night before and after complaining for a while, he took the money and left.

   So, I had a great weekend and came home with the trip basically paid for by blackjack winnings. Not bad.

Jobs, Speeding Tickets and Praha

2005-05-03T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well my two (nearly three, God...) weeks of sitting on my ass watching movies and playing video games are finally at an end. I got a job. That's right. No more lazing around for me. I will now have two, maybe three, hours of actual work each day.

I was hired today by Mad Science (insert maniacal laughter), a company that teaches after school programs dealing with fun science experiments. I get to wear a white lab coat play around with acid and stuff. Thing is, I have to come up with a cool science name. Some science word + Sean. While alliteration is probably preferred, I'm leaning towards...wait for it...Combust-sean. Clever huh? I doubt a cooler name could be created, but if you have any other ideas, feel free to leave a post...I also volunteered to teach the after school chess program, which is less cool, but pays better. I have no formal knowledge of chess. In fact I barely know the pieces (guy on horse, castle, little fella, pointy guy) but I'm sure I can wing it.

In other news, I had a great time last weekend visiting Santa Barbara, my old college town. I learned that revisiting college has a unique ability to make you feel really old, but this feeling fades the more you drink. It was a great weekend despite the speeding ticket I received on the way up. 84 in a 65. And no proof of insurance or valid registration to boot. I'm sure traffic school will be a good time...

Most importantly though, is my recent acceptance to a TEFL certification course in Prague. It runs from mid July to mid August and promises a teaching job upon completion of the course. I went to Prague last Summer and loved it and am really excited to be going back. The school provides an apartment and a few other amenities and comes pretty highly recommended. I'm not sure where I'll go from there. Japan is still top of the list, but I might stick around in Europe for a while. I can't wait.

Now what?

2005-04-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Ok. You all know that I'm back from Kyrgyzstan after deciding that Peace Corps wasn't for me. Now I am back in California and desperately trying to figure out what to do next. I'm looking at TEFL certification and have applied for jobs in Japan. I really want to go to Japan. I'm not sure why I've chosen Japan but I guess I'll find out when I get there. I'll post whenever something interesting happens, which, unfortunately, is less frequent here than in Kyrgyzstan. Talk to you later.

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?!

2005-03-27T23:24:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a little coup to make your spring break interesting...

This is the first real chance I've had to get on the internet and post about what has been going on here. And what has been going on here? I don't really know. You probably know more than I do since I have been locked in my apartment for a week with five other volunteers. We got secondhand news from PC and our families, and heard constantly changing reports from BBC radio. I haven't had a chance to read any news but from what PC is saying, Bishkek is calm and they expect no more problems. They told us yesterday that everyone can return to their sites, no longer needing us consolidated in case of evacuation. Consolidation was tough and very stressful since we didn't know if we would be staying or leaving, none of us really knowing how to feel. We made it through, though, withoutout killing each other (at least not in my warden group). All PCV's are fine as far as I know, and we're just waiting to see how this new government pans out.

Now. Again I haven't read any news so these comments might prove moot. Problems that I foresee deal with Russia, other central asian nations, legitimacy, and conflicts within the new government itself. Russia I guess has a Monroe Doctorine kinda thing with regards to Kstan and could step in if things become escalated again. I don't think that will happen. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and other CA nations could follow suit and mount their own coups since these nations all share common problems with regard to poverty, lack of jobs, and government corruption. We have to wait and see. As far as the new government is concerned, they are reportedly getting things under control and a representative council from the EU (I think is what I heard) is comming in to evaluate the situation. The next few weeks will show how popular the new government is and if it can stick to the changes that the protestors initially demanded. Also problematic is the Security Minister and the acting President. They are both from different areas of the country and have different outlooks on how to organize the new parliment. Clashes could arise over disputes as to who is the ligitamate governing body: the former parliment or the newly elected and highly contested one. All of these are things that will play out in the next few weeks and I'll be here to see it. I'll keep you posted.

I Live There!

2005-03-18T23:48:00.000-08:00

"Opposition-led protests over the election results spread on March 16. Protesters occupied government buildings in the Kochkor District in eastern Naryn Province and in the Bazarkorgon District of southern Jalal-Abad Province...In the Bazarkorgon incident, a district government official was reportedly being held in the building. Police later broke through a window in the building, freeing the official... "

Eurasianet.com article, 3-16-05

That's right. Our governor was effectively held hostage by protestors half a mile from my apartment in the government building I walk past everyday on my way to school. The police that rescued the official were actually special forces militia, who have begun patroling the streets wearing their trademark army fatigues and bullet-proof vests. SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN HERE! Not content to only protest in Jalalabat, 50-100 protestors have moved to my village to speak out against Askar Akaev. They are peaceful (but really should stop singing, its annoying) and no serious incidents have occured (aside from the semi-kidnapping thing). I have heard stories of protestors being injured in Osh, a two hour drive from my site. I really have to start questioning Peace Corps policy if they think we are safer spread around the country instead of being consolodated together in the capital...

So with everything going on, rumors are flying. The possibility of being evacuated from the country has been tossed around. With protests now and presidential and parlimentary elections scheduled for October, the chances of us being yanked out of here isn't too farfetched. We'll see... Now I have to head back to the bazaar to catch a taxi. It's just a ten minute walk but the militia members in full riot gear that I have to stroll past are becoming a bit disconcerting.

Unrest

2005-03-16T00:02:00.001-08:00

Well things pretty much suck here in Kyrgyzstan. Because of political unrest all over the country, our in service training (IST) has been postponed for a week and all travel during the next ten days (aka our spring break) has been canceled. We have been ordered to stay in site until the 28th, when, supposedly, things will have quieted down and we will be allowed to travel to Bishkek.
We found out yesterday about the postponement and being grounded for ten days. Everyone is pissed, including K11's who have had their vacation plans canceled as well. A friend of mine in Jalalabat was accepted to a program that allows him to travel to Uzbekistan for a week to work with kids who will soon be visiting America as part of a highly competitive scholarship program. This is exactly the kind of work we are here to do and the Peace Corps has sent volunteers to help since 1994. His trip has been canceled.
Another friend is now not allowed to fly to Bishkek to visit is father, who was flying in from America to spend a few weeks with his son and see where he has been serving for the past 2 years. The trip has been canceled because Pezce Corps has deemed it too unsafe. His father, more than likely, won't be able to see his son.
As far as I'm concerned...I'm furious that I don't get to see Elise. We planned on spending ten days together during training and had been looking forward to it for a month. We've only seen each other 7 days out of the last 100 and being apart is horrible. We were both crushed by the news. I will get to see her in two weeks (if IST isn't canceled all together) but will only have five days and more than likely won't be allowed to leave the hotel in Bishkek.
From what I've seen in Jalalabat and from what I've heard from the north(check right for a link to the latest Kstan news). None of the volunteers are sure the postponement is neccessary. Roads have been closed and many demonstrations have been held, but from what I have heard there has been no violence. Our new country director might just be overly cautious and he is certainly not endearing himself to the volunteers by effectively canceling our spring vacations. I'm left with ten days alone in my site, something I am frankly dreading. Christmas break was almost unbearable. I was going out of my mind with boredom. And I was allowed to travel during that break...We'll see how this vacation pans out.
Ok, hope everyone is well. I'll keep you informed.

Words of Wisdom

2005-03-07T21:29:00.000-08:00

“I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Henry David Thoreau

“Christ! Seven years of college down the drain…I might has well of joined the fucking Peace Corps.”

John Belushi, “Animal House”

So You Say You Want A Revolution?

2005-03-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

Hellllllooooo Students. Things are popping down in the south of the country I now call home. I was in Jalalabat last Friday and witnessed what the Peace Corps during training termed “civil unrest”. The name is a little sexier than the actual thing unfortunately but it was interesting to watch nonetheless. About 200 protestors held a rally outside of the governor’s office. Anti-Akaev protestors. Akaev, the current president, is serving his third term despite a constitutional ban on serving more than two terms in office and has been accused of a number of crimes ranging from simply shady to downright dictatorial. Most notably, a recent Newsweek had some Central-Asian-Expert-Guy quoted as saying “Akaev is going apeshit” regarding his restrictions of the public’s role in elections in the wake of the Ukraine turnaround. Despite this colorful quote in the very reputable newsmagazine Newsweek (that’s my tongue in my cheek right there), Akaev isn’t exactly hated in Kstan. Many support the president, but have no democratic alternatives to compare him to. At best they are living the status quo. My friend Ailey and I discussed last week that the public here doesn’t seem to question Akaev and don’t seem to have the anger that is often required to spark a drastic change.

I guess they found their anger on Friday. After a few hours of peaceful protesting, things escalated and the mob began to force their way into the governor’s compound. Someone climbed the ten foot tall fence and managed to get the electric gate open. Police, being helplessly outnumbered could do nothing to stop them as they began to push their way into the offices. This is what I and few other volunteers witnessed on our way out of the city. PC called us the next day to report that protesters in fact did make their way into the governors office and rumors said that they also stormed his house and that he and his family were forced to flee. How much of that last part is actually true is questionable, but it shows that obviously the people here are starting to really question their leaders and are not afraid to show it. Don’t misunderstand, however. Things aren’t chaotic here and I’m not at all worried about my safety. No one was hurt during the protest and the PC is really on top of things when it comes to volunteer safety. Frankly, I’m kind of excited about the whole thing. These protests are coming on the wake of last Sundays deputy (congressional) elections and they show that come October, when presidential elections are held, we are going to see an interesting show.

That’s the latest from here. I’m in the city today because it is International Women’s Day and I have no class. I had no class yesterday as well, because, you know, it was the day before International Women’s Day and students shouldn’t be asked to work that day either. Anyway, to the ladies out there, happy IWD…Also! Movie quote help needed: “I can’t promise I’ll try, but I’ll try to try.” What the hell is that from? Let me know. Talk to you all later.

P.S. Ailey, you smell.

Stupid!

2005-03-03T22:35:00.000-08:00

Hey guys. So I'm in Jbad for the afternoon. I fled my classroom minutes after the bell rang as if the place was on fire. It's not that I don't want to hang out at school, its just I wanted to get into the city as fast as possible. I've had a long week and need a few hours eating decent food and sipping good coffee.

To start off with... I came back from Bishkek on Sunday. I had a great weekend with Elise and I got to see lots of friends as well. Three days wasn't enough time. I flew back with no in flight emergencies but started feeling ill when I got to my apartment. Turns out I had the flu and I spent three days lying in bed,watching movies and reading Newsweek. This wouldn't have been so bad, but this was the first week of great weather in Bazar Korgon and I hated to miss it. I taught Thursday and Friday and I've been walking around in a tee shirt and jeans. No more huge coats, long underwear, or wool socks! I have never really known what spring is until now.

Great weather notwithstanding, I managed to ruin my day yesterday by accidentally destroying my cell phone. I was doing my dishes (my normal way, on the kitchen floor using a bucket of water) and my phone was in my front pocket. I leaned over and the phone toppled out and landed in a bucket of soapy water. DOA. I had the same phone for 3 years in America and I can't make one last four months here. I bought a new phone today ($75) and managed to keep my old number, which is something to be happy about.
That's about it. Visiting to Osh this weekend and I'm looking forward to what I'm told in Kyrgyzstan's only brewery that serves dark beer. I'll keep you posted.

Happy Men's Day!

2005-02-23T22:08:00.000-08:00

“What’s Men’s Day”? you might ask. I’m not exactly sure myself, but I know it gets me out of my classroom and into Jalalbat for the day. Half class yesterday and no class today, the Kyrgyz don’t screw around when it comes to holidays, even if the holiday is an obscure holdover from the Soviet era. I’m told that this is the first year that school was canceled for MD, but after all, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. So MD is more of a Memorial Day of sorts. A day to remember the thousands of heroes who bravely fought for democracy in the 1940’s, of those thousands probably 12 of whom were actually Kyrgyz. No, that’s not fair. I have no knowledge whatsoever of Kyrgyz involvement in WWII and shouldn’t poke fun. As far as I know they turned the tide of war and are responsible for the freedoms that we all now enjoy.

So I’m in the city for the day and it looks to actually be a nice day. It’s been hot here (I’m wearing three layers instead of four. Whew! When will this heat wave end!). It’s actually been a great week, made greater by the fact that I am barely teaching this week. Monday I allowed some teachers to persuade me to skip my afternoon course in favor of lunch and shots of brandy in a local café. This is how things work here. If a teacher doesn’t want to teach, they skip. Having a few shots of vodka during lunch is not unheard of. This is, however, the first time I have let them talk me into ditching class. But, come on, it’s two days before Men’s Day! It’s justified! My 11th grade students took a cue from the teachers and skipped their class as well and threw their own party in the same café. I asked them why they were celebrating on Monday when MD was on Wednesday, to which they replied: ”But we don’t have class on Wednesday, a party today means we get to miss class…”

So no class today, and after my morning class tomorrow I’m hopping on a mildly well put together airplane and flying to Bishkek, lovingly known as the ‘kek. Good food, expensive drinks in real bars, and tons of stories from northern volunteers. It’s going to be great as long as my airplane’s wings remain attached during the flight...Should be a fun time.

Quickly. I got a haircut this week from my friends, the un-understandable Uzbek kids. During the haircut, the assistant kid, probably 16 or so, donned a Muslim prayer hat (see: Yarmulke) and poured me a cup of water. He told me to drink it and said it was water from Haji, or religious pilgrimage. I drank the water and Ailey, who was with me, also drank some. We wondered later if it was safe to drink, and if the possible parasites it contained were holy. The kids then asked if I studied or had been to the local Mosque. Saying that I didn't understand (which wasn't far from the truth) I kept silent. I really don't like to discuss religion when someone is holding a pair of scisors a few inches from my head.

Ok, that’s the latest. Now, I’m off to sip coffee and read all day at Terry’s. Talk to you later.

Great Story

2005-02-18T23:23:00.000-08:00

I wanted to get down one of the best stories I’ve heard yet in country…

My friend Karl lives in a village near the lake. I heard from Elise a few weeks ago that he was in Bishkek on medical. She told me that he thought his back might be broken. Turns out, his back was hurt, but thankfully not as badly as had been earlier thought. The way he hurt is back is the interesting part.

It starts out with Karl coming home from work and his host family telling him that they have sold their home and plan to move to another village. This leaves Karl literally in the street. He tells PC and they recommend some guy who has a spare room in his apartment. He’s told that the owner of the apartment is young and has a girlfriend who occasionally stays in the apartment. Karl moves in and, from what I hear, was really happy with the setup…Until he is woken up in the middle of the night by someone pounding on the front door. From his bedroom, Karl hears the door open, then people yelling, then the sounds of someone being thrown around and furniture breaking. The girlfriend is screaming the entire time. Karl doesn’t know what to do, and can only listen behind his locked door. Suddenly, whoever was in the apartment begins pounding on Karl’s door and yelling hysterically. With only minutes before the door is broken down, Karl is faced with the possibility of getting the shit kicked out of him. In what I admire as a ballsy move, Karl takes the only slightly less dangerous route, and jumps out of his second story window. He lands in a patch of snow, seriously hurting his back. He is able to limp his way to the local militzia who contact Peace Corps. Karl doesn’t learn who the assailant was until a few days later. Turns out it was the girlfriend’s husband.

I don’t really know what happened to Karl afterwards or where he is living now. I can only hope he’s doing better now.

What else is new? Just heard from the PC gossip line that another volunteer is going home. That makes 5 from our group in the last 3 months, and added to that is another 3 volunteers from the K11’s. The first winter is supposed to be the hardest time, and the numbers seem to prove it…Beyond that, I’m going to be in Bishkek next week. I’m flying up on Thursday to visit Elise and see some other friends. I kinda hated Bishkek during training but I’m looking forward to a weekend in the big city. What I’m not looking forward to, however, is the hour long, Kyrgyz Air flight. An hour in the air is much better than the 12 hour taxi ride through icy mountain passes, but I’ve heard bad stories about flying in this country. One friend told me the airplane door opened during the flight, which prompted the stewardess to calmly get up and shut it again. Her control implied that this sort of thing isn’t uncommon. Wish me luck.

Ok, hope everyone is well. Check my link for new pictures…I’ll talk to you later.

How much for Electricity?

2005-02-16T23:19:00.000-08:00

You know, it’s just not a trip to the bazaar unless one of the kind old women who work in the stalls out front offer you her daughter’s hand in marriage. Not wanting to offend (especially since the daughter is standing behind her mother) I explain that I’m seeing someone and that in America, 22 year old men don’t take 16 year old girls as wives. Its just one of the many cultural differences you come to appreciate here in Kyrgyzstan…

Let’s see, there’s also the local teenage boys who have started a cute little “steal money from the hapless American club”. My counterpart at school owns the apartment I live in and he told me that someone would be coming by to collect some money to pay for water and trash. He said it would be about 100 som ($2.50). Sure enough, a few days later a kid came by with a housing register and asked for 120 som, payment for the last three months. I gave him this and he gave me a receipt, that had the totals on it and looked very official. The kid then turned and asked money from my neighbor, who also paid and received a receipt. A day later, however, the kid came back, again with the register and asked for an additional 200 som. I asked why and he kept saying it was for something different and showed me my name on the register with 200 next to it. I said ok and paid him and again got a receipt, but it was different this time, it was in Russian and I couldn’t read it. I gave both receipts to my counterpart and asked why the second was different. Turns out the second was fake and that the kid had made off with my five dollars! I was pissed, but impressed by the scam itself. The next day a different kid came by, again with a fraudulent register and when I opened the door he was busy checking my electric meter. This time they asked for 450 som to cover electricity. I saw my friend, the water and trash kid lounging out in front of my apartment. Despite my bad Kyrgyz, I was able to tell them: “I will not give you money. I will never give you money. I am not a fool.” With this the kid took off pretty quick, taking his shady friend with him.

I figured this would be enough, but that night the first kid came back. He was really weird. He asked if I had a guitar, then an accordion. “No. What?” I replied. He then motioned to his shoes and asked if I would give him 50, presumably to buy new shoes. I almost admired the kid’s tenacity when I slammed my door in his face.

Beyond the young extortionists, I’ve just been working. Classes are great, but I’ve decided to start cracking down a little more. Gone are the days that I teach Ultimate Frisbee instead of English vocab. Tardiness and lack of homework are the most common complaints. It’s hard to discipline kids that I actually like to hang out with. Today I chatted about Kyrgyz vs. American politics for an hour with my English Club. Despite outer appearances, there are actually many similarities between the two countries. One country is ruled by a president who wields considerable power over a unquestioning population, offering little explanations as to his rather befuddled and foolish policies. The other is ruled by Askar Akaev. There is an election in October and Akaev has been quoted as being afraid of something like what happened in Ukraine could happen here. I could be a witness to an actual birth of true Democracy baby! I could watch as this country is transformed into an example of freedom and peace for the rest of the Central Asian nations. I could behold a brand new Kyrgyzstan, free from corruption and greed, a country that throws off the oppressive chains of ‘post-soviet-hood” to become prosperous and successful… More than likely however Akaev will run for a fourth term, despite the constitutional ban on being president for more than 2 terms, and win by an overwhelming (read: purchased) majority. Only time will tell.

Nothing huge

2005-02-11T22:02:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody. Nothing really big happened this week so this is a short entry. I started teaching the 8th form instead of 10th and I love it. This was by far my favorite week teaching...I was told (thanks dad) that both my phone nunmber and my address were incorrect on the blog so I fixed those. It would be awesome if you guys at home would give me a call. Check out www.uniontelecard.com, where I think rates are $20 for three hours. Hearing from people at home would make my week.

Speaking of people from home. Congrats to Matt on the UN Tribunal job, that's awesome buddy. Also huge thanks to Miss Wendy (Moira Angela Darling) Lee for the Christmas package. It was such a huge surprise. I got it Monday and already I've burned through the box of hot chocalate and the Corn Pops are long gone. Thank you so much.

Ok I hope everyone is well. I'll talk to you later.

Hakuna Mattata

2005-02-03T01:24:00.000-08:00

I flipped out today...

This week I gave tests to my two tenth grade classes. Yesterday was 10A, and, as predicted, they did horribly. One could argue that the test was too hard. 10 questions, mostly multiple choice and fill in the blanks. Also a few grammatically incorrect sentences that needed to be fixed: “I am student”, that kind of thing. Maybe the test was too difficult, but after a month of study, one would hope that the students can fill in the blank for “I ______ an English book”. It was amazing how many “I am an English book” responses I received. This is the same test I gave to my 11th graders last week, and they all did well on it, despite one student changing “Mr. Sean have a blue coat” to “Mr. Sean have a blue cat.”

Today, however, I saw a record number of blank stares. We reviewed the material two days before the test, and gave them practice examples taken from the actual test minutes before the exam was handed out. I explained the kinds of questions that the test would have, saying in English and Kyrgyz that these are the same questions that will be on the test. “Do you all understand?” “Yes, Mr. Sean.” “Does anyone have questions?” “No, Mr. Sean.” I handed out the test and spent the first five minutes trying to make them understand that that they have to write their names at the top of the paper (“Yes, please, in English.”). I took one student’s test away from him for cheating, having explained earlier that looking at others papers would not be tolerated. One student kept repeating to me, in Russian, the only language he speaks, that he doesn’t understand. No shit. The test (10 questions) took the better part of half an hour. When I had finally collected all the tests, I was shaking I was so frustrated. I immediately turned on “The Lion King” and had them watch that for the rest of the period. I graded the exams and was amazed at their performance. The average was a two, the Kyrgyz equivalent of a D. This obviously didn’t help my mood, but some of the responses were great.

One of my questions was “Mike ________ engineer” with three possible answers, the correct being “is an”. I explained in English and Kyrgyz, that ‘Mike’ is an American name and ‘engineer’ they knew, since it is a Russian cognate. Later in the fill in the blank section, I had two sentences “A lemon _____ sour” and “Basketball and Baseball ________ sports”. All the students had to do is chose from the list on the right, either is or are, and write them in the blank. One student, in an amazing display of misunderstanding wrote: “A lemon mike sour” and “Basketball and baseball mike sports”. WTF?!?! How he came to these answers I have no idea, but it when I read that I couldn’t help but laugh hysterically and then slump down onto my desk. My students could tell that I was on edge and nervously continued watching “The Lion King”. For twenty minutes I stared out the window at the falling snow and contemplated everything from quitting and going home to saying screw it and teaching my 10th graders Spanish. Obviously they are getting nothing from my teaching and would use Spanish about as much as they will use English anyway. While contemplating switching to una lingua nueva, Timon and Pumbaa started singing ’Hakuna Matata’. “They have a point,“ I thought, “No worries sounds pretty good.”

I decided their and then that I won’t teach 10th grade anymore. Since we are not actually employees of our schools, volunteers can pretty much demand schedule changes at any time. I told my counterpart that I can’t teach those kids anymore. He asked that I give them another chance, since it wouldn’t be fair to deny them the opportunity to work with the American volunteer (this from the teacher who hand picks his students, taking the advanced speakers, and leaving the other teachers with the leftovers). I told him flat out: no. I won’t waste my time any longer teaching students with whom I can barely even communicate and who frankly don’ t care about English anyway. I want to work with the students who have an interest in the language. I do fine with my 8th, 9th, and 11th grades because they speak some English. Those grades have English lessons twice as often as the 10th grade and it shows. I can do fun activities that emphasize conversation and vocabulary. I can communicate to the other classes. I don’t have the Kyrgyz skills necessary to teach 10th grade, most likely never will. My job is to teach conversational English to kids who will actually use it, not grammar rules and parts of speech. I love teaching my other classes, especially the advanced English club, but if I have to keep teaching 10th form I’m going to flip out and eventually end up on an early flight home.

WHEW! Ok, that’s really enough bitching about 10th grade. They are good kids (for the most part) and I really wish I could help them, but I’ll be much happier if I never teach them again…Beyond that, nothing really new to report. Elise visited last weekend and we had a great time. Only seeing her one weekend a month definitely doesn’t help my stress level. Also it has started to get bitterly cold. We are halfway through a “childaire” which I’m told is Kyrgyz for “forty days of ass-cold weather”. It’s freezing here now, and lots of snow has fallen. I can’t wait for spring. This weekend, I’m off to a remote village a few hours north of here to hang out with a some other volunteers. Should be the usual drinking, eating way too much and bitching about why this country sucks. Should be fun… (2-6-05 addition: Party was great, very cold though, and I just ate it on a patch of ice...)
Ok, I hope everyone is well. I’ll keep you up to date on the latest. Later.

Nothing to report

2005-01-21T01:46:00.001-08:00

I've just been working the last week. No crazy stories, nothing strange eaten, no brides offered. It's good to be at work again. Starting clubs next week. Today is a religious holiday and everything is closed; Jbad is kinda dead (which is appropriate since the holiday is a remembrance day for the deceased.) Only thing worth posting is the story of a fellow volunteer (at the lake?) who is also an English teacher. Turns out he is alergic to chalk. Sorry Luke, but, come on, it's pretty funny...That's about it. I just wanted to say I'm still alive.

Sean

P.S. I'm cold.

And we're back...

2005-01-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

So I started back at school today, and in a rare display of forethought (and effort) I actually wrote a lesson out beforehand. It went a lot smoother than my usual “show up and think of something on the spot” routine. I covered singular and plural nouns and started in on my favorite: pronouns. After teaching the same lesson to three classes, I’ve decided I hate grammar…

With the new school year I hope to break out of the lazy funk that I fell into during break. I have started running at the stadium (dilapidated yes, but safer than the pothole strewn streets surrounding my apartment.) and it’s going well despite the fact that I come from a long line of people that only run if something is chasing them. Also I’m going to start reviewing my past Kyrgyz notes, and should start tutoring next week sometime. AND, I should start teaching an after school English club next week as well. I plan on playing lots of music and showing movies to the club. Also I want to start discussions about current events and maybe start a debate club with other schools in the district. Contrary to the students in my actual classes, there are some students here that speak English very well and would benefit a lot from a advanced class.

Speaking of class. During a break I was walking back from the teachers lounge and I noticed smoke coming from a nearby classroom. I opened the door and found a group of 6th graders huddled around a student who had lit a sparkler in the classroom. He grinned and held the sparkler higher, exclaiming “New Year!” A little late kid. I should be glad it wasn’t a roman candle.

And today I got a package of Christmas cards sent to me by my former 4th grade teachers current 4th grade class. I agreed to start writing to them about my experiences here and this was the first I’ve heard from them since I left. It was so great to get the cards and hear the questions they had about Kyrgyzstan. My favorite card was signed “From Curtis, the coolest person on Earth.” Nothing wrong with that kid’s ego. I’ll try to write back as soon as I can, I promise.

Bizarre bazaar story: I went to the bazaar yesterday to get a few things and as I was leaving I noticed a large group of people gathered around the entrance where all the taxis and busses park and pick up passengers. In the middle of a large circle was a woman yelling hysterically while her friend attempted to restrain her. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, in fact I couldn’t even tell if she was speaking Kyrgyz or Uzbek, she was speaking so fast. The only word I did catch was ‘machina’ which means car. Her friend finally talked her down and she walked away. Thinking it was over, I started to leave until I saw the woman walk back to the entrance, this time carrying a large stone in each hand. She started towards a nearby minibus and threw the first rock, denting the hood, and the second, which shattered the windshield. She screamed and screamed until some guy came over and dragged her to the side of the road. Everyone stood around wondering what the hell was going on when suddenly a man, apparently the owner of the minibus, sprinted out the bazaar. He hopped in and sped off a fast as he could with the woman, who noticed his escape, in hot pursuit. I still don’t know what the whole thing was about but it was fun to watch.

In other news… It seems as though two more volunteers from my group (K12’s) are on their way home. We lost two volunteers during training, one to illness and one to a more gainful graduate program. The two leaving now are a couple and according to the PC gossip line (which despite technological disadvantages, is blazingly fast) they plan on staying together once back in the states. Either way, good luck to both of you.

Beyond that, I’m counting the days till my girlfriend Elise will come down to visit. We started dating during training but we haven’t seen each other in a month since she works at a school in Bishkek, 11 hours away. She should be here next weekend and I can’t wait to see her. I miss you, kid.

Ok, that’s it. I’ll keep everyone up to date on my progress. I hope everyone is doing well at home, and at your sites.

When does school begin again?!?

2005-01-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

When I thought about all of the situations and factors that would make living in Kyrgyzstan difficult, boredom never came to mind. Yet, of all the things I did think of (language, climate, food) this is probably the most pressing problem. Take today for example. I have done nothing today but read and play around on my computer. Nothing. I went to school for a half hour, expecting my counterpart to be there and hoping I could get into our resource center so I could plan some lessons (I can’t work in my apartment, see above: reading and computer.) Anyway, Aleysher wasn’t around and neither were any other teachers. I cleaned my classroom a little and I made a poster describing California. That’s it. I walked back home (which took me longer than it took me to make the poster) and I did stop to play soccer with some kids who greeted me with the ubiquitous “hello!”. Everyone knows “hello!” and “I love you”. I’m glad that they yell the former. I got home and spent a good number of hours reading or playing solitaire. Oh, and drying my underwear on the heater. I woke up this morning and found that the laundry I hung on my porch the previous evening had frozen during the night. I’ve been drying them inside since. Exciting day, huh?

I have to start studying Kyrgyz. Or exercising. Or learn how to juggle. Or bend spoons with my mind. Something has to change. Living here gives you such an opportunity for laziness that it’s very hard to get anything done. I have to become more active or I’ll go nuts. I’ll start tomorrow.

Tomorrow, actually, I’ll be busy. I’m going into Jalalabat in the morning (if your reading this post, then I made it safely) to do internet and a little shopping. In the afternoon we’re having a banya party to celebrate the birthdays of two other volunteers. A banya is a Russian steam bath, and there are public banyas you can rent by the hour. We’re going to hang out in the steam room and drink and then head to the attached café (?) for dinner. It should be a good time.

I start back at school on Wednesday, and sometime before then I have to plan my lessons. And my English clubs. I’ll start Monday. I promise.

Ennui

2005-01-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

So this is the New Year. I’m lounging around my apartment with a few friends, and none of us can muster the strength to get up and brave the cold, twenty minute walk to the bazaar to buy ingredients to make pizza as we had earlier planned. We are all pretty tired from last night. I went to a party at my counterparts house. I stayed up till 2am, an unheard of hour, drinking wine with my colleague and his family all while trying to remember how to speak Kyrgyz. We went outside at midnight and set off fireworks in the street. Then we went back in a drank and ate more. Good times.

My counterpart, Aleysher, and his family insist that I am in need of a Kyrgyz wife. They believe that I can’t cook (true), I can’t do my own laundry (partly true) and that I can’t take care of my apartment (very much untrue). I countered this by telling them that I am fine living alone and that recently I sewed my own curtains. Yeah, that’s right. I sewed my own curtains. I’m the Central Asian Martha Stewart.

Speaking of curtains, (check out this segue) our Country Director Joseph Curtain will be resigning in a few weeks. He is the one who instituted the Big Brother-esque out of site policies that require all volunteers to submit in writing our overnight plans. They must be approved by our program manager a few days before hand and anyone caught spending the night in an unapproved location could be sent home. The K-11’s who have lived here for a year under the policies of Joseph ‘The Iron’ Curtain have been pretty vocal about how much they dislike this system. It really hasn’t effected me since I’ve been here such a short period of time, but I do hope the policy changes with the new director. Who that person will be, we still don’t know.

Quickly:
1.) I bought an oven for my apartment. Now I can bake cookies and pizza. Its amazing. I think this is how people felt when the wheel was invented.
2.) Last week I asked some students to write two things that they dislike and one student listed “Saddam Hussein and predatory animals”. Best answer ever.
3.) While throwing snowballs at chickens last week on my walk to school, one chicken dashed away and slipped on a patch of ice. Hilarious.
4.) My friend and fellow English teacher, Umut, asked me today what a ’tool’ is in American slang. As in, ‘that guy is a tool’. We spent a good half hour trying to nail down a definition. It’s tough. Try it at home.

Ok, I have to go lay on the floor by my heater and read. The new year looks surprisingly like the last year.

Chill Out

2004-12-29T21:13:00.000-08:00

Well my cat ran away. I had him for no more than a week and now he’s gone. Frankly, I’m relieved since it saves me the trouble of abandoning the little bastard somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed his company and everything, and I thought he was awful cute, but I was seriously considering ditching him on the other side of town. He meowed constantly and has scratched the hell out of my already run down looking furniture. He would not learn that I would rather not have him jump into my lap every time I sat down to eat. And the liter box thing. He didn’t get it. He preferred to crap underneath my tub. Last night was the last straw. I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and when I opened the door he scared the hell out of me. He had evidently climbed my jacket to reach the top of my coat rack and I guess I startled him when I opened the door. He leapt from his perch and would have landed on me had I not yelped and jumped out of his way. This morning I took him and left him on my enclosed porch while I went to school. I guess sometime during the day he climbed up on the ledge and managed to squeeze himself through a small window. I came home and was happy to see that he had skipped. Please don’t think of me as uncaring. This is nothing compared to the reported puppies-thrown-off-second-story-balconies that is going on in Narin (You guys should be ashamed…major U-yat)

So, what else is new? I’m on break, like the last entry says. I made it through my first few weeks pretty well considering that I only planed a few of my lessons and kind of winged most of the others. My kids are pretty good. Though I do get a lot of blank stares. My 10th graders I don’t believe have heard English spoken in their lives. We played “Hangman” one day and had one guess left with the word: TEAP_T. “Teapet?” one student ventured. “NO!!! NO IT’S NOT TEAPET!!!” I wanted to scream. They didn’t know teapot! And this in a culture where you can’t get through a day without drinking at least 18 cups of tea. I was honestly shocked at this display of ignorance. It reminds me of the immortal line of the old Bolivian prospector in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: “Morons. I‘ve got morons on my team.”

My site mate Ailey has also experienced a stunning lack of English knowledge. Actually it sounds like her students are even more behind mine. She hates the blank stares as much as I do. We sometimes equate teaching here to the Will Farrell “Jeopardy” sketches on SNL. When, in Final Jeopardy, he asks “Draw a letter. ANY Letter. It could be A, C, S. ANYTHING….Ok, lets look at your answers…You’ve written ’threeve’…Stunning.” It’s not that different to teaching English in Kstan.

This whole last week I didn’t teach anything. The kids were already in a vacation mindset and so I brought in my computer and showed them my pictures or played American music for them. Mixed results on both. One afternoon I took twenty students and we went to play Frisbee in the snow. My plans for teaching ultimate were dashed when I realized that the field was nothing more than a bog of ice and mud. We played catch instead. And yesterday we had our new years party. They don’t have Christmas so much but they do have a strange Santa Claus rip off who is the crux of their New Year celebration. His name is Father Frost (Ai-yaz-Ata, in Kyrgyz) and he looks just like Santa but walks with a cane. His wife is the Snow Princess and there is no mention of living with any elves. Anyway, I was tapped to be FF in the school New Years party. Good times. I wore a hideous Santa mask, red robe and handed out candy and toys. The kids seemed to like it.

Highlight of my week, however, was some kids that decided to yell at Ailey and I on the street a few days ago. This is a popular past time for local kids, but usually it is just “Hello!” or “Whatisyourname?” which they always lump into a single word. These kids though have obviously seen a few American films. One kid, a little brown Kyrgyz kid, proudly yelled “Kiss my black ass!” Ailey and I couldn’t believe what we had heard. We were crying we were laughing so hard.

So now I have a few weeks for break and hopefully I can get some pictures downloaded (check right). And I plan on getting lots of lesson planning done. It’s nice to actually have something to do. Quite a few SEOD volunteers say they do nothing at their NGO’s. One has called Peace Corps “the toughest job you’ll never have”. I’ll keep you up to date with my progress. Have a Happy New Year!

Sean

Venting

2004-12-29T21:12:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. it’s a few days before New Years and I’m officially on break. I have two and a half weeks to plan lessons and recover from a pretty stressful first three weeks in site. My class schedule has been in no way demanding (18-20 hours a week) but I’ve discovered teaching in in this country is damn tough.

Tough is probably the wrong word. Frustrating is closer to the truth. The system of education is so drastically different from the American system that it’s appalling. Grades for example: In America, students take tests and grades are given based upon the results of these tests. Students are expected to do their own work, and cheating is considered a grave violation. Not so in Kyrgyzstan. Cheating is rampant, tests aren’t really given, and the grading system is a joke. The grading scale ranges from a 1 to a 5, five being the best. One could compare this five point scale to the American A-F scale, but this would be a mistake since in reality 1’s and 2’s are not to be given. If a student is behaves poorly in class, doesn’t participate or do work he is usually given a 3; a passing grade. Why? Because if a student fails a course he has to repeat it. This means more work for the current teacher, who already works 40+ hours a week and most likely has a family to take care of (this also is not comparable to America, since day to day living here is so much more taxing; try walking a quarter mile to fetch water a few times a day and you’ll see what I mean.) So the teacher passes students who don’t do the work and the student eventually graduates and is no longer the school’s problem. This is not an isolated phenomenon. In fact, it is unspoken policy from the Ministry of Education. As long as things look good, there is no problem. A particularly Soviet way of thinking.

Another post Soviet aspect is the idea of total control. Quarterly lesson plans must be approved by the state board of education. Sometime during the quarter an official comes to check all the teachers lesson plans. A few days into teaching my school was checked. Most of the teachers there were busy writing their lesson plans a day before. They said they don’t follow the plans anyway but have to turn them in or they will be fired. I asked why have this system if no one really follows it. Everyone shrugged and said that’s just the way it is. The government has this insane English curriculum which they expect every school to follow. Within the first year of instruction (usually 5th grade) students are supposed to learn 700 English words and master a dozen different verb tenses and modes. I have kids that have studied English for three or more years and can’t answer questions like “What is your sister’s name?” . The state curriculum is impossible, especially since students only have English class at most 5 hours a day and have no current materials or qualified teachers (It’s not uncommon for the local English teachers not to speak English, though this isn’t true at my school.) In short, expecting any class to be even remotely proficient in the English language would be impossible.

So where does that leave me, the local TEFL volunteer? Frustrated. My romantic idea of moving to a foreign country and teaching entire classes to speak English and better their lives has been crushed. The majority of my students don’t speak English and don’t want to. They are waiting till graduation and are going to work as laborers, farmers or drivers. There are a few students that I can think of (less than ten) that actually care about learning and hope to go to university and use their English. I had a student approach me the other day and ask if I would soon be teaching after school English clubs. I said I would start clubs in the new year. He said he wanted to practice his English because he wanted to live in the capital and be an English interpreter. After a whole day of blank stares to what should be easy questions, this student was a godsend. I’ve let go of my idea of teaching entire classes to speak English, and have decided that I am happy settling for teaching a handful of students who really have the motivation to learn and will use their skills to actually improve their lives.

Sean

Merry Christmas!

2004-12-24T01:34:00.000-08:00

Hey. I'm in the city and wanted to get a quick post out.

Today is Christmas eve and I'm going to a party with the other volunteers in the South. Should be alot of fun, though I'm sure we'll all be missing our family and friends at home.

Classes are going well. My students are pretty smart, but I need more time with them. I'm going ask for more hours in the new year. Break starts Wednesday and I am going to be Santa at the school Xmas party. Should be fun. I have a two week break and I'll be planning lessons the whole time.

In other news I got a cat. He's a kitten actually and I've named him Manas after the mythical Kyrgyz hero who united the 40 Kyrgyz tribes to defeat someone or other. I was leaning towards the name Lenin, but decided he gets enough advertising here anyway.

Ok, hope everyone enjoys their vacations. Talk to you all later...

Sean

Remember Me?

2004-12-17T23:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know that it's been over two months since I posted anything and tons has happened since then. I'm going to try to start posting regularly and I hope to get some pictures up soon as well.

I'm now in Jalalabat, a large city in the South of Kstan. It's cold and rainy today and I'm in town hanging out with some other volunteers after my first week of teaching. I taught 9-11 grade students for about five hours a day. Not too demanding a schedual but things were tough without electricity. No electricity no lights or heat. It was fun though and my students are pretty motivated to learn.
My village is Bazar Korgon. Village is a slight understatement since 30,000 people live and work their. I'm posted there with two other volunteers and by all acounts things are going pretty well. I am living in an apartment by myself, which is good as far as personal space and privacy is concerned, but bad as far as language goes. My Kyrgyz is passable, but it won't get much better if I don't have a host family to talk to. I'm making myself go to the bazar ever day and talk to people there. Later I plan on finding a tutor. Hopefully my language won't suffer too much. Also a chalenge in the apartment is cooking. I can cook decently, but it's so much more work here. I don't have hot water. In fact I only have water 3 hours a day, which means I have to fill buckets to last the day. I have two heating pads (one of which has electrocuted me three times) and a mix of usable and unusable pots and pans. I'm bound to get better soon.
Ok, Greg is telling me we have to leave. We're off to hagle at the bazar then catch a cab home. Talk to you all later.

Sean

No time to talk

2004-09-27T04:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I'm still alive. Kyrgyzstan is amazing. I'm having an awesome time, but I don't have the internet time to elaborate. I will try to post pics, but I've been insanely busy, so be patient. Hope everyone is well.

6 Days and Counting

2004-09-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone! I've got just six days left before I leave sunny San Diego for not so sunny Kyrgyzstan. I still have a million little things to do but I've been spending most of my time trying to get this site to work. Hopefully I'll be able to update with stories and pictures while I'm away.

I leave on the 14th for Philadelphia, where all of the volunteers will have two days of training. After that we fly to Istanbul and should have a few hours to sightsee before we push on for the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. Our first three months will be spent in the capital where we will learn the language and customs of our new home and will be taught how to be teachers. After training we'll move on to our new homes out in the country. No idea yet exactly where I'll end up or what the conditions will be like. It should be an adventure. I'll keep everyone up to date.