The Doctor, Regis, the Girls, and The Boys

My favorite all-time (snerk) TV show is Doctor Who. The Doctor travels through all of space and time in his TARDIS and, wouldn't you know it, sometimes bits of both time and space get squeezed together in, as the Wizard of Oz put it, "an arduous and technically unexplainable manner".

I feel rather like that now: Letterman last night had on Bill Murray in a New York Giants' uniform. (I've been a fan of the Giants for literally 50 years.) He had on my old Millionaire chum (from 2000), Regis Philbin. And he had Girls' Generation, one of the hottest of the K-pop groups that rule Korea and much of Asia. (I heard Girls' Generation blasting from a couple of storefronts in Taipei, as well.)

(If you don't know K-pop, it's all in this clip: dance in perfect but robotic unison, insipid lyrics, high energy and legs, legs, legs.) You should watch it.



In the context of my life, it's, as the Doctor said, "Pieces of Space and Time that should never have touched... pressed together."

I think I like it.

Ah, I seen better cultures in yogurt

After a lifetime slumming, I've been up to my eyebones in culture lately. On Christmas Eve, as I wrote about in my Christmas Day post, we took a field trip to the Seoul Arts Center to see the exhibit of great paintings from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Show me the Monet!)

This past Saturday evening was the school's biennial performance night, sort of a talent show with no judging. There were a dance group, a variety of instrumental performances, several one-act plays, and a short movie. Considering what a small talent pool we have (fewer than 80 kids), they did themselves proud.

But I'd have to say the performances were maybe even a little better last evening. The school was one of the sponsors of the Gangnam Symphony Orchestra's New Year concert and offered us free tickets. Several of us braved the tundra to make our way back to the aforementioned Seoul Arts Center, arriving precisely on time to hear my favorite piece of classical music, Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man. (I gots that one on my iPod.) They followed with some Tchaikovsky, a little Liszt (which they didn't check twice), a can of iced coffee at intermission-- wait, that was just me-- and Dvorak's New World Symphony. As an encore they did Rossini's William Tell Overture and then... um, something that wasn't Rossini's William Tell Overture; I think it was about Tonto.

I'm not much more of a commonsewer of classical music than I am of art. I do like a lot of the stuff I recognize, though that isn't much. I knew the Copland, some of the Dvorak (the part that goes "bom bom bom BOM bom bom bom bom bombom BOM") and the Rossini. Oh, and I can pronounce "Dvorak".

I'm glad I went; I've seen Baryshnikov dance, I've been to the Louvre (and the loo), I've seen the RSC do Romeo in Stratford-Upon-Avon, but I'd never been to a classical concert before. The sound quality was excellent, as far as I could tell the musicians were very fine, the pianist had ludicrously long fingers, and the soloist on the cello sure was purty. Oh, and every time the orchestra stopped playing I knew not to clap until everybody else did. What more could I have asked?

Oh, and... what do you call a band of orcs?
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an orc-estra!

Fri Sun Sat

...is the name of a Korean clothing company. It's been an active Fri and Sun and Sat.

(No Tiki; he escaped fifteen days ago and I haven't found any evidence of him whatsoever in the last ten days and nights. I'm still trying; the next-- and last-- step is to put up posters in Korean around the neighborhood. In the meantime, I can't just sit around home all day and fret, so...)

On Friday morning and into the early afternoon, we teachers from the Manchon school judged the big semi-annual debate competition. That's all I have to say about that.

After that, Joanna, Luke, Jesse and I went to lunch (on Heeduk's dime... sorry, Heeduk's 100 Won) and had wonderful pizzas at Papa John's, where the pizza is way better than anywhere else in town or at Papa John's in the States, since (as far as I know) that's all delivery. Joanna, Jesse, and I were going to go to hike Palgongsan... Jesse and I had been trying for three weeks to get there... but they were both exhausted and the day was brutally hot and humid, so we didn't.

Instead, I walked the half hour to the theater in the Chimsam neighborhood to find out when Up would be showing in English (Western movies are always in English with Korean subtitles, except the animated films, which are generally but not always dubbed in Korean; I had already gone there myself to see it only to wait two hours and then find out that that particular show was in Korean.) The posters and displays were still up, but Up was out. That is, it stopped running the day before.

The theater's a couple of blocks from the yagu jang (ballpark), so at least I grabbed a couple of tickets for my friend Cliff and me for today's game.

That evening, my coworkers and I settled for Johnny Depp in Public Enemies, which I didn't much like. I have gotten to enjoy going to movies again, though, as I did in days of yore. (Yore is somewhere in between the Good Old Days and the Dark Ages.)

I was determined to get back to Palgongsan (Mountain) and Donghwasa (Temple) one more time before I left town, so yesterday I went by myself. I finally got smart and wore a t-shirt, changed into a running shirt that lets the sweat wick through for the (arduous) hike, and changed into a fresh t when I was done. I hadn't been there in summer before, and it's like a different world; there's water cascading down the mountain, the birds are out in force, and the lower stretches are packed with wall-to-wall tents... not backpacking tents, either, Quidditch-World-Cup-sized tents, with families sitting out grilling food, and with a brand-new water cascade, which as you can see, was delighting a lot of local kids. (Stay tuned for the "Hello!" at the end.) Daegu has put millions of dollars into beautifying itself in trying to become an international city; this facility is just one example.

The trail up the mountain, however, was pretty quiet. It was a hot day, but not humid, and in the woods on the slope it was actually pretty pleasant. As usual, on the way down I detoured to Donghwasa. I have such mixed feelings about the ideas and presentation of Buddhism; as a philosophy, a lot of it appeals to me a great deal and I rarely take off the bead bracelet I bought on a previous Donghwasa trip, which has become a talisman that keeps me calm and centered. My Protestant soul, however, finds a lot of the iconography unsettling. I have learned a lot, however, and you can put "Buddhist" on my personal list of hyphenate religious influences. On Facebook, I call myself an "eclectic freelance monotheist", and I guess that will do.

When I got back to town, I was exhausted, but didn't have time to go home and rest before I was due to meet Rob, Cassie, and Molly (new or newish teachers) for dinner. So I went and slumped at a coffee shop for an hour and thought about Tiki, Buddha, and as James Taylor wrote, women and glasses of beer. Then we all went out for a nice dinner and then we (okay, I, mostly) showed Molly, who's been here for three days, around.

I worked this morning and this evening I went to the ballgame with Cliff. It was a great time, just about the most exciting game I've ever been to. There were five home runs, an interference call in a rundown that cost a run, a dropped liner in right that cost three runs... the Kia Tigers were up 10-1 in the third inning, only to have the Lions bring it back to 10-8 with the bases loaded and one out in the ninth but fall short. Cliff is good company for a game; he had never been to one in Korea.

...and that was the end of my career as a Samsung Lions fan; a week from right now, I'll be living in Seoul, where there are four teams. I have just been traded to the Doosan Bears.

...but I may be back in Daegu a lot more than I'd expected; Heeduk asked me today if I'd come back and tutor kids and shoot videos during my breaks at the new school, and I said in principal I'd be open to it. Of course, I will have a cat to arrange matters for... or, if I can just get a miracle this week, two.

Come home, Tiki, before it's too late.

Flambo, Pepto, and the tequila IV

("The flying monkey band started the show for the retired lunch ladies' luncheon" becomes "Consumption of prawn cocktails attracts flying monkeys and causes heads to burst into flames" becomes "The Human Torch and his sidekick Flambo shared their Pepto-Bismol treats with the Witch's flying monkeys." [The last sentence was mine.])

I have been remiss in blogging lately, part of a general lassitude that I choose to blame on the weather; it's been raining, or threatening to rain with humidity of about 130 percent, every day. Also, I haven't done anything interesting because it always rains on my rare days off. Yesterday, however, was gorgeous, a beautiful October day with sun, high fluffy clouds and low humidity; today is almost as nice.

Jesse, one of our new teachers, has been hoping to get to Mt. Palgongsan and Donghwasa Temple, and I promised to take her. Every day we've both had some time free, however, has been precipitional... precipitationous... lousy. Saturday was okay, but she was too tired, and yesterday was perfect but I had an Eat Poop You Cat date.

My friend Suzanne (Bonjour, amie!) introduced me to EPYC. In the game, each player writes a (preferably odd) sentence and passes the paper to the left, where the next player must draw the sentence, then fold the paper over so that only the drawing shows and pass it again, where the next player writes a sentence about the drawing, and so on until you compare the bizarre drawings and mutated sentences.

I played with my friends in the Daegu Writers' Group on the patio of Club That downtown, and we had a terrific time with much laughter, particularly after we all got bag drinks. There are a couple of carts downtown where you order a drink, the guy mixes it up in a vinyl pouch for all the world like an IV bag and sticks a straw in it, and you're good to go. Nothing like a tequila sunrise out of an IV bag to make an already odd game totally bizarre.

This Saturday, I'm going to the Suseong Heat Festival at Suseong-gu Lake-- Squirt gun wars, water park, a giant patbingsu (ice, fruit, and cream dessert), duck boat race, musical performances, and food kiosks-- weather permitting. Wouldn't want to get rained on during the squirt gun wars!

Lost weekend... almost

My ambitious plans for the weekend didn't quite workout. I came down with yet another cold, which has really knocked me out. On Friday night, I decided that spending two hours in a smoke-filled bar and getting home after 2 wasn't such a good idea, even though I love trivia. On Saturday evening, I was supposed to join Justin's noraebang (karaoke) party, but we missed connections. I was downtown anyway to buy tickets for Sunday's ballgame; the forecast was for partly cloudy skies.

When I woke up Sunday morning, the forecast had changed to p.m. thunderstorms, and sure enough, when Joanna and I met, it was coming up a storm. I still felt like crap and sitting in the rain to watch the game didn't seem the best idea, so we gave up on it and settled for dinner. However, by the time we'd finished eating, the rain had passed and we made it to the ballpark ten minutes before the first pitch, and the weather was calm and lovely. We ended up with dinner, a ballgame, a bookstore visit, and ice cream, so the weekend turned out fine after all, even though I was about as lively as a Wal-Mart washcloth soaked in warm skim milk.

Then I came home and slept for ten hours. I'm still beat enough that I can't think of anything terribly interesting to say, but I'm beginning to think I may live.

The social ramble ain't restful

(Luke, me, Ray on Mt. Apsan.)

It's been a busy few days and I'm about socialized out. (As my long-term friends know, I can only manage about a half-dozen smiles a month.) I had Thursday through Saturday off, and as I posted recently-- hope you read it; there's going to be a pop quiz-- I went to the ballgame with Justin on Thursday night.

On Friday, I reprised my Apsan Park trip of the week before, but this time with Joanna, Ray, and Luke. First we went downtown to eat at Gulliver's Travels, whose owner, DJ, speaks the best of English of any Korean I've ever met and thus can make me good food that's actually vegetarian (no lard, no meat sauce, no fish broth) and that I haven't had a thousand times. (I had a delicious quesadilla, and you can have no idea how wonderful something different tastes unless you've eaten the same four or five things for nine months.)

We stopped in at the little Korean-War-and-anticommunist-museum at the base of Mt. Apsan, which isn't very interesting unless you're into black-and-white photos captioned in Korean, and took the cable car up the mountain. At the top, we sat for a libation as we looked out over the city, then took the long, steep, rocky climb down. (Envision the third hour of Return of the King, played backwards.) Then Luke returned home while Jo, Ray, and I took a long hike to Duryu Park and took the subway to a Home Plus store (my fourth... one more and I get a medal!) I'm trying desperately to cut down on cereals and bread and got some nice black beans and fixin's... I'm tryin' here, folks.

Then we went to Papa John's and I'd like to point out that the salad bar provides a delicious meal without high-fat ingredients or breads.

Memo
Re: Salad Bar

In the opinion of the crack SJCintheROK legal team, merely stating the fact that the Papa John's salad bar is healthful is not a legal warranty that the employer actually ingested anything from said salad bar. Precedent: Pop's Place v. Jughead, 1959.

Christopher Darden, Marcia Clark
SJCintheROK head counsels

I'd like to point out that Baskin-Robbins has no cereal in it, so stopping there afterward was perfectly okay as well.

On Saturday night, Luke, Joanna and I went to see Night at the Museum 2, which struck me as pretty funny, especially Hank Azaria's channeling of Boris Karloff. (I find Hank Azaria hilarious in just about everything he does; did you see his brilliant comedy turn in Tuesdays with Morrie?) I'm also deeply in love with Amelia Earhart, as played by Amy Adams. The movie stopped just about a millimeter short of way too frantic; at least in the mood I was in, I had a good time.

Joanna and I have evolved a semiregular dinner appointment on Sunday evenings. We just really enjoy each other's company, even though we're very different. I worked on Sunday morning and afternoon, and in the evening joined her to people-watch on this great burger place's patio. The management cobbled together a nice egg-salad sandwich for me, with some real, genuine, authentic American-style French fries. :: Heaven, I'm in Heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak... :: Then we sat in a park and talked for a bit and ended up at the Natuur ice-cream shop. (No, no, their ice cream also has no cereal, so that's fine, too. Really. What are you, a dietician?)

Anyway, as the days dwindle down to a precious few (Ray leaves in a couple of weeks, for missionary work in South Africa, and I have ten weeks left in Daegu), I'm trying to make the most of the time with my friends. This coming weekend, there's Justin's midnight trivia on Friday, a noraebang (karaoke parlor) trip for Justin's birthday on Saturday, and a ballgame with Joanna on Sunday... if I've recovered from this weekend by then.

As Satchel Paige said, "Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society— the social ramble ain't restful."

Once a triviot...

The Global Trivia team: me, Justin, Shaun.

It''s 3:13 in the a. of m. and I just got in the door from helping to run Global Trivia at Commune's bar downtown. The game starts at midnight, and trivia's about the only thing that would get me to spend nearly three hours in a dark bar full of smoking drinkers. Or drinking smokers. I feel so dirty. And not in a good, don't tell Mom kind of way. But you know I love me some trivia.

My friend Justin spent many hours putting together a really clever PowerPoint presentation for our questions. Shaun did eleven questions on "Arts and Crafts" (literary and artistic figures and their nonvocational quirks), then I did eleven on "War and Peace", followed by Justin with "Cities". Many of the questions had multiple parts, so it's quite a production. I may be a little thin-skinned for this; having a drunk or two boo every time they don't know an answer bugs me. But it went well.

I'm really pleased, frankly, with the questions I came up with. I tried to get a mix of easy and hard ones, from a number of countries.

Anyway, here are my questions.

1) Four individuals have won both the popular vote for United States President and the Nobel Peace Prize. For one point each, name them. For a bonus point on each, name the years each one won the Prize.

2) In Tolkien’s The Hobbit, the Battle of Five Armies brought together forces from five races or species. For one point each, name them. For a bonus point, what sixth force arrived at the last moment to turn the tide for the good guys?

3) Now some questions for you fans of Trojans (one point each):

a. What animal did the knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail build rather than a wooden horse?

b. To what island did Odysseus return, eventually, after the Trojan War?
c. In the final lines of Tennyson’s Ulysses, what four infinitive verbs (such as to run” and “to sleep”) does Ulysses (a.k.a. Odysseus) say he and his men are “strong in will” to do? (One half-point for each.)
d. In what city is the major American university whose teams are called the Trojans?

4)4 4) The semaphore signals for which two letters make up the peace symbol that became popular during anti-Viet Nam War protests in the 1960s? (You must get both for a point.)

5) The flag of Wales displays a mythological creature. For one point each, what color is it, what is the creature, and (according to Arthurian legend) who saw this creature battling another such beast (a symbol of England) in a dream?

6) What city changed hands four times between March 1950 and March 1951?

7) These songs all have titles that include the words “War” or “Peace” or variations of these words (such as “Wartime” or “Peaceable”). In each case, the song title immediately follows the quoted lyric. The number of words in the title is listed in parentheses. For one point each, name the song that has each set of lyrics.

a.“And each time I feel like this inside, there's one thing I wanna know…” (8)
b.“I want to sleep with you in the desert tonight, with a million stars all around, ‘cause I get a…” (3)

c. "Everybody's talkin' 'bout Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, This-ism, That-ism, ism, ism, ism. All we are saying is... (4)
d.“Now I've been crying lately, thinking about the world as it is; why must we go on hating, why can't we live in bliss? ‘Cause out on the edge of darkness, there lies a…” (2)

e.“Good God, y’all, what is it good for? You tell me, say it, say it, say it…” (1)
f.“Make no mistake, for your very own sake, here’s a little word for now: take off your shoes and let your thoughts be kind, and have a little…” (3)

8) What three European countries remained neutral in both World Wars? (One point each)

9) The United Nations has recognized October 2 as the International Day of Nonviolence. Whose birthday was selected for this honor?

10) For one point each, in which book of the Bible is the origin of the dove as a symbol of peace, and which book of the Bible is the source of the Byrds’ ‘60s anti-war song Turn Turn Turn?

BONUS: For one point each, name the person who fits each description. Each person’s name has the letters w-a-r or p-e-a-c-e in that order.

a. Won more games than any other left-handed pitcher in major league history.

b. Wrote Vanity Fair.
c. Played “Puddy” on Seinfeld.
d. Pastor who gave the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration.
e. Played House's former lover Stacy.
f. In early 2008, was listed by Forbes magazine as the richest person in the world.

g. Starred in the movies Meatballs and My Bodyguard.

h. Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969.

Full circle

Today being my day off, I planned on going to the Samsung Lions game, even though I expect to see a game Sunday. That may seem redundant, but there's no reruns in baseball.

Anyway, it's cool and damp and breezy today, the game wouldn't be over till 9:30 or so, and shivering alone isn't as much fun as it's cracked up to be, so I caved and went to a movie instead.

I saw "Duplicity" with Julia Roberts. That is, she didn't go with me; she was in the movie. Almost all American movies that are shown here just have their titles, in English pronunciation, transliterated into Korean. This one, though, was retitled "Dual Spies", then transliterated. Be that as it may, maybe I've gotten too critical-- I always enjoy going to the movies, alone or otherwise, but I sure have seen a bunch of movies lately (e.g. Valkyrie and He's Just Not That Into You) that I have to admit were pretty good, but I didn't especially like. This one is certainly well made, but not fun enough to be a caper movie, not romantic enough to be a romance, and not with a clear enough plot to be suspenseful.

I never did think that Julia Roberts was all that attractive, except on the poster for Pretty Woman, and that wasn't even her body. She's no "how the hell does anybody think she's attractive" case like Sarah Jessica Parker, but unlike me, she's not getting any more gorgeous with age.

Speaking of which, it didn't occur to me until I was on the way down the endless escalators through the empty store beneath the theater that in 1990, when I went to meet friends in Iowa, see the Field of Dreams and stop off for games at Tiger Stadium and Wrigley Field, that I had tickets to see a game at Comiskey Park before they tore it down, and just as I drove into Chicago, I heard on the radio that the game had been postponed, even though it hadn't rained for several hours.

And what did I do on that cool, damp, breezy spring day nineteen years ago in Schaumberg, Illinois in lieu of going to the ballgame? I went to see Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Plus ca change, plus ca la meme chose.

I am still learning

The Cornman banner (a field, azure, bearing a man passant, holding an ear of corn, or, and a cup of coffee, sable) is at half-staff today. Hami Mami's at Club That is closing. (Club That is a funky little bar that's a major hangout for expats; Hami Mami's is the brunch restaurant on the ground floor.) I can't overstate how much Hami's has been my emotional home base downtown; I went there often for comfort food and the homey atmosphere, the Christmas dinner was there, the Writers' Group met there, Hami arranged for me to adopt my cats. I don't know if I can find another such place downtown. It's been my Central Perk.

Speaking of Club That, last night Joanna and I went there to see the local production of The Vagina Monologues. I went just because a couple of my friends from the Writers' Group were in the cast, but I'm glad I did. For a local production, the performers were terrific, and the play is alternately funny, moving, and horrifying. The proceeds went to the elderly Comfort Women in Seoul, so it was a good cause. Oh, and the waffle with scoops of pomegranite and cabernet saugignon ice cream I had afterward? Good stuff.

I spoke up for another good cause on Facebook. The Daegu Friendship Club is taking a field trip to see Korean bullfighting. It's a series of bulls fighting each other, rarely involving death, but with a fair amount of blood; it's an ancient tradition being promoted by the government as a gambling attraction. I posted, hey, if you care about animals, please don't support this. (I quoted an International Herald Tribune article that talked about the handlers binding young bulls' horns with wire to shape them, feeding the bulls live octopus for protein, and giving them soju [liquor] and sharpening their horns just before bouts.)

That got a bit of a discussion going; I found an ally and was attacked several times ad hominem by one guy who called me sanctimonious and belittled my commitment to my "cause du jour", saying that if I was a hypocrite if I didn't go and take undercover pictures and send them to PETA. Because, you know, Koreans care so much about what PETA says. The outcome was that I finally posted that he could impugn away, I was out of this petty squabble, and he sent me email apologizing for getting carried away.

It was a kind of test for me that I guess I mostly failed. My spirituality has been deepening lately. I don't think any religion has it just right, because human religions can't; I've learned things from Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, New Thought, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, and any other source that rings true to me, and I listen each day to Marianne Williamson's five-minute podcast. I'm content with what I believe and how much I don't know, and more positive and peaceful at heart than I've ever been.

The little beaded bracelet I bought at Donghwasa Temple has been a great help; when I find myself getting worked up about little things, which is too often because I have a lot of anger below the surface, I touch the bracelet, take a deep breath, and calm down. But it didn't work with the bullfight conversation; that really got under my skin. But as Michelangelo said at age 86, "I am still learning."

And Tiki's sleeping a foot from my hand and two feet from the electric heater, the morning is calm, and the spring sun is coming in my window.

I think I'm here to learn to trust and to have a peaceful heart, and I am still learning.

And I only am escaped to tell thee.

(Photos: Daegu's greatest writers' group, with too much coffee, and Korea's greatest trivia team, with too much beer. What do these two "greatest" groups have in common? Modesty forbids...)

...okay, the title of this post is a teense melodramatic (it's from Job, and Moby Dick), but it's been one whale (ha!) of a four-day stretch and I'm exhaustipated.

Thursday, I had off as I've agreed to work Sundays. It was cold and drizzly all day and all I did was work out and, in the evening, go see He's Just Not That Into You with Joanna from the Samduk LIKE. Well, actually, there was a huge kerfluffle about where she was (not where we were supposed to meet), so having bought two tickets, I left her a note, got to the theater late, and did my best to sprawl across two seats. She found me, though, a half-hour into the movie. Not a good movie. I don't mind chick flicks and I especially don't mind looking at Scarlett, Jennifer, and Jennifer, but there were too many characters to care about any of them in a dramatic sense and it wasn't nearly funny enough to be a comedy.

Friday, E.J. Koo, the head of the language program at the YMCA, helped me buy a cell phone. There are literally well over a hundred little phone stores in a few blocks downtown, all with the same products and services, and they apparently fire anyone they suspect of speaking any English. E.J. overwhelmed me with her generosity; she doesn't really know me at all and she gave an hour of her time and donated a cell phone charger. Then I ate lunch at Hami Mami's, my number-one hangout (American brunch! French toast! Hash browns! The only place in Korea you can get food without hot-pepper paste and garlic!) Hami is the one, by the way, who set me up with my cats; she's really nice. Then I went to school.

After a long day's work, I caught a cab downtown for a midnight trivia game at a dark cavern of an expat bar. I got hooked up with a bunch of strangers, mostly friends of my new friend Justin, some of whom had come down from Seoul for the weekend, who also didn't have teams. Going into battle under the team name "Han Solo Rocks", we kicked ass. There were three rounds; I helped carry us through the first round, history and politics. (Sample question: Mentioned in the movie Die Hard With a Vengeance, who was our twenty-first president?) I was practically useless in Round Two, rock and roll (not a single Carpenters question!) The third round was movie quotes: name the movie, year, and Oscar winners (for any category in any movie) who appeared in the movie. I helped a little, but my teammates did the heavy lifting, and we won easily. Each team put up 20,000 Won and HSR took home all the cash. My share basically paid for my cabs and beers. God, I miss trivia. I miss Hogwarts.

(During the day, George, the Guy Friday at school, had told me the government allowed teachers a cut-rate cancer screening. This is good, as the bar resembled a fire at the R.J. Reynolds factory. I got home, scratchy-voiced and red-eyed, at 2:45 a.m...)

...and found email that the teaching job in Seoul for next year, the one I really wanted and would have had already but for a timing mixup... is basically mine. This may be the only thing in this post of lasting value, so don't bother reading anything above or below it, okay? Uh...

On Saturday, having had five hours' sleep, I attended the first class of the second-level Korean course. Felt totally lost. Went to work most of the day, then caught a cab downtown to see Watchmen with a few friends and friends' friends. If you don't know Watchmen, it was an incredibly brilliant, multilayered, dark comic book series in the eighties and long considered unfilmable. (Time called the comic compilation one of the 100 best novels-- not comics-- of the century.) The movie was astoundingly done but so brutal and nihilistic that I can't say I enjoyed it. If anybody likes royal blue male appendages, though, that's your movie. I'm not kidding. I have always kept this blog family-friendly, so I won't make any jokes about "blue jobs".

On Sunday, having had five hours' sleep again, I taught a new three-hour class on critical thinking and essay writing, then walked downtown to the writers' group meeting at Hami Mami's. It's really nice to have new, like-minded friends. For five months, I didn't know anybody I didn't work with. Daegu is a different, better place now for me. Then I got home, took the arduous trek to and around Costco (as the boys and I agreed that we needed a thirty-pound jug of cat litter, stat), and came home and fell asleep in front of the tv.

And now it's 1 a.m. Monday and I'm awake. Good night!

Frustipation

Tiki can lick any guy in the house. (This picture is, of course, almost completely irrelevant to this post, but note the clipped left ears, more visible on Tiki; vets do that to cats upon neutering, as a symbol that the cats should not be killed or molested.)

This post is rated F. (Frust-rated, that is.)

There's one more Korean language class to go and I have to decide whether to invest another 100,000 Won for 12 weeks at the next level. The thing is, I don't feel I'm making a lot of progress. Part of it is that I don't practice every day, but also, the instructor, while very nice, manages to both go too fast and not cover enough. Her English isn't great, either. The class, which has 20 students, has had only about a dozen show up each of the last few weeks, so I suspect I'm not the only one who's a bit disenchanted.

The other thing is that taking the series of classes from entry to advanced takes a year and costs over 500,000 Won in all. The other other things are that it gets me up too early and takes three hours out of every Saturday, which is a working day at our school. I have the book and CD from the course, another book and CD I bought months ago, the (useless) Rosetta Stone program, and an online flash-card program called Before You Know It. Whether I sign up for the next class or not, I won't give up on Korean.

But, oh my gars and starters, guys, it's hard. For example: for some purposes, you use Korean numbers, for others Chinese. Also, when you mention a quantity of anything, you use not only the name of the item but also a special counting word that means, more or less, "thing", so to count pencils, f'r'instance, you say, "Pencil three kae", but there are different "thing" words for different items, so for books you say, "Book one kwan", cats, "Cat two mari", and so on. There are different counting markers for small paper items, bottles, cups and glasses, numbers, money, people, animals, books, large things and small things.

I said it before, I'm sayin' it again: everybody here crazy.

Either way I decide about the class, I will regret it. I don't like to be a quitter and I won't learn the language too well on my own. I also wouldn't see my new friends Cliff and Joelle as often. On the other hand, it's a lot of money and it's two hours of frustration with, so far, little payoff. So, in the words of Paul and Artie, "Any way you look at this, you lose." Everyone I in the class whom I talk to is either leaning toward or leaning against continuing, but nobody's sure what to do.

Saturday also brough a trio of metaphors for my situation Saturday. First, I caught a different number bus to the class, as it was headed in the right direction and the sign said it went to Banwoldang, the junction where the YMCA and the class are, but it headed to the far far south of town, where the driver turned around to me, the only passenger, and said to get out. I had to take an expensive cab ride back to Banwoldang and missed the first 15 minutes of class. Avid readers of SJCintheROK (that is to say, I) may recognize this as a reprise of something that happened in my first week or two here.

On Saturday night, I was going to a bar near Kyungpook University to see a band and talk with Joelle and Cliff, and Joelle and I missed connections and I ended up standing at the wrong subway stop for 40 minutes. We finally made connections, though, and we sat so close to the band that I couldn't get out of my seat till breaks between songs. On the first song, I kept thinking the guitar player's back was blocking my view of the singer; turns out he was the singer. Something deep there about forests and trees...

But we did have a good time in a tiny funky bar with 95% American clientele, and I figured out a way in the wee wee hours (couldn't help it, I'd been drinking beer) of the morning to tell the cab driver how to get me home, so there's that.

Meanwhile, the principal up on the outskirts of Seoul sent me email today to say that they will have an opening in the fall and he's definitely interested in my services, so there's that.

And Tiki, who was so scared, likes to stand on his back legs, pull my hand to him with both paws and nuzzle, so there's that.

So it goes.

The Seoooooul Train...

...I'm almost out the door to catch the KTX 200-mph train to Seoul to finally check out the school which, if not for a cruel twist of fate, I'd be teaching at now, and to meet the guy who's been my contact there. Maybe possibly might could potentially be an opening there next fall.

To keep you entertained till I get back, watch this:



(This has been played six times a day, from every radio and every storefront, every day for the five months and fifteen days I've been here. Resistance is futile.)

...I'll let you know about the trip...

Best. Weekend. EVER.

(Don't you hate it when people think that their cats-- who, after all, look like a hundred million other cats-- are so cute they'll stick a photo up even when it has nothing to do with what they're talking about? Me too.)

...well, maybe not the best weekend ever. (My honeymoon was pretty good.) But I'm teaching the kids to use strong, interesting words, and I didn't think "A Really Nice Weekend" would cut it.

As there may be one or two Anglophones to whom I haven't whined about how I got offered my dream job (with 600,000 Won a month more in salary) six hours after I'd sent my degree to Daegu and how FedEx promised to redirect the package but didn't, and how they actually called me to apologize for delivering the package faster than promised to the address on the label... I should put in all the tragic details here. But if I do, I'll be up all night and my tears might short out the keyboard, so I'll save it.

But I've been in touch with the aforementioned dream school (St. Paul Preparatory Academy, an elite international school in Bundang, a new and ritzy Seoul suburb) and this weekend I bought my bullet-train ticket for next Sunday to go up, see the school, and meet my contact there, Tony, who sent me the contract last August with the note: "Please please tell me you haven't sent your papers to Daegu yet." He says that they've expanded their enrollment a great deal already in their first year, there's a good chance they'll need another English teacher, and mine is the first name he'll present to the headmaster... so we shall see. I couldn't spend the rest of my career at LIKE school, but I might could maybe do so at St. Paul... I also hope to see Margaret, one of my ex-St. Joe students and cross-country runners, who is teaching up there.

Besides that... I found Korean class on Saturday morning to be difficult, possibly because I didn't glance at the materials all week long, but I made some friends: Joelle and Cliff, though half my age, have let much more adventurous lives than I, including stints in the Peace Corps. We arranged to meet at Club That on Saturday night for the launch party of Daegu's first magazine for Anglos and locals. (Check it out online at daugupockets.com).

During the afternoon, I did my teaching, then skipped the health club (for the first time in ten days!) and went downtown. I was too late for Joelle's birthday dinner, but met them at Club That, along with their friend (my new friend) James. It was less than ideal, as it wasn't so much a party as a shouting match over the band, but then we went down to the first floor (where Hami Mami's is in the daytime) and had a nice talk. Joelle asked if I wanted to come to the Writer's Group at the same place at 2 on Sunday, and being a decisive sort, I said, "Maybe."

Today (Sunday), I went for a run in the park, then showered and headed downtown. Joelle and Cliff were there, as were Emma from New Zealand, Jeremy from California, Justin the Yankee fan and Princeton grad (who despite it all seems like a nice guy), and Pill-kon, who, as you may have guessed, is local. We had 90 minutes or so of people sharing good writing and exchanging commentary. I hadn't brought anything, so I recited the only thing I've ever written that I've memorized:

***
Tom
(once sperm a secret's size
and egg a whisper's width)
Spoke knowingly today.

"God is dead,"
Thomas said.
***

(That poem, by the way, is older than anybody else in the writer's group and shorter than most Koreans.)

So I have friends (my first in Asia with whom I don't work!) and will be going to the meeting next month. They're all smart, friendly, and talented, but I think I could take 'em all in a 60s-sitcom trivia contest. Maybe.

Afterward, Cliff and I went to see Inkheart at the movies. I liked it very much indeed; it's gotten mixed reviews, and it won't be any hit: too dark for little kids, too fairy-tale for a lot of adults, but it's the best movie I've seen in a long time. Right up my alley, anyway.

...and then I stopped at Kyobo Books, bought a gorgeous, 19th-century-looking hardcover journaling book (Tradition notebook: Precious Memories, Magic Spells), complete with placemarker ribbon, for seven bucks, and came home to begin my procrastination over writing this post by Facebook Friending everybody I just met... and now Justin tells me via Facebook chat that...

There. Is. A. Regular. Bar. Trivia. Night! (As you may know, the only things in the world I'm good at are writing, trivia, and one other thing that modesty and a solicitous concern for the sensitive reader prevent me from sharing with the public...) It occurs to me that I work nights, so I might not make it to trivia... but maybe I can work something out; it doesn't start till 11 p.m.

So, to recap, this weekend brought me:

A ticket to check out my dream job
A magazine that might help me find out what the hell is going on socially in this town
A beer
A writer's group, meaning:
a) a kick in the gluteus for my writing, and
b) FRIENDS!
A good movie
A gorgeous journal
Hope for a rebirth of trivia

...and, oh yeah, spring. It's been in the 50s Fahrenheit through all of late January and early February. (Jealous much?)

I feel as if, after over five months of going to work and going home, my world is opening up...and next Friday starts a three-day weekend! So... sometimes you eat the bear. Or, in my case, the bear-shaped block of tofu.

Tiki Tiki boom boom

(Tug says, "As a matter of fact, I am the boss of you.")

The three cat women (not Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and Lee Merriwether) finally came yesterday to visit their erstwhile charges, and as expected, since I haven't had any guests since I got the boys, Tiki (the scaredy cat) freaked. He went ripping madly around like a furry pinball, running along the walls like an atom in a cyclotron, ripping down the plastic sheeting at eye level (my eye level, not his) on my window, caroming off the stovetop and ensconcing himself behind the microwave on top of the fridge. It was very much like my favorite scene in Tom Sawyer, in which Tom feeds a spoonful of his medicine to the cat, which goes ripping around like... well, like Tiki... and sails, yowling triumphantly, out the window.

Once I extricated the Teekster, he was okay. He allowed himself to be petted without struggle, though he did hide his head in the crook of the lady's elbow, muttering "I'm not here. I'm not here." Tug, of course, was considerably cooler. I had wondered what the ladies and I could possibly talk about, especially as only one of the three speaks English, but they stayed an hour and mostly the head cat lady just kept nuzzling Tiki and murmuring, "Koya, koya" (kitty, kitty). They connected the dotes and decided that Tiki and Tugeu (as they call him) have a good life with me.

***

I've gotten a reputation among the LIKE teachers as the social director. (Yeah, I know; I'm about as social as Ted Katcynski.) In not quite five months, I've arranged for some people to watch the election returns at my apartment and I passed on email about the Christmas buffet. Be that as it may, I did send out invites for dinner downtown last evening, not knowing if we'd end up with two people or ten. Turns out Ray, Joanna (new girl at the Samduk school) and I went out for coffee, bought movie tickets for Yes Man (yeah, I saw it already; shut up), bumped into Kristen (newish teacher at Manchon), had pizza together, and went to the movies, three of us to Yes Man and Kristen to Twilight. Then Ray and Joanna went back to the dorm, I went to Kyobo books and bumped into both Kristen (again) and a guy from Sayre, Pennsylvania, right near Ithaca, who saw my "Ithaca is Gorges" sweatshirt... and I found the British paperback of the last Harry Potter book. For me, all this is a dizzying social whirl. Social director, my flat... never mind.

***

I guess enough time has gone by for me to not be too embarrassed to tell you something totally insane I did on my first night here. George and Glory had picked me up at the airport, brought me to the apartment, driven me on dark, winding streets to E-Mart (where there was a crazy Korean pushing a shopping cart every foot and a half and an army of employees screaming "Come buy my battered octopus or I'll kill you" in Korean) and bought me an odd assortment of stuff... soy milk but no cereal, bread but no butter, and so on. Then they dropped me back at the apartment and left. So.

Here I was, pacing alone in this strange apartment at 11 p.m. (10 a.m. on my body clock), having, in the previous two days, driven from St. Augustine to Atlanta (for my work visa) and back, gotten back home at 10 p.m., gone to bed at midnight, gotten up at 4 a.m. to make my flight in Jax, and made a 26-hour trip. I was half past exhausted and wired like a terrier on speed, and had the brilliant idea to walk back to E-Mart and complement my compliment of food. I thought I kinda sorta knew the way back there. (This was a spectacularly stupid decision, as I can't find the bathroom in a new place without a GPS.)

I walked a block, saw a cab, made the split-second decision to take it, and madly tried to scribble down "Go three blocks, turn past the school..." I bought some more stuff, realized that I couldn't get another cab back because I had no address to give the cabbie, and guessed my way back. I walked for 15 minutes along my best guess of a route, turned down a hilly street I thought might just be the right one (it wasn't), and turned back and walked most of the way back to E-Mart to try again. All this was while I was simultaneously half asleep and fully wired, of course. This time, miraculously, I found the apartment, a bit past midnight. (The first time, I had turned around one block too soon.) Well, actually I found my neighbor's gate, which looks just like mine, but I made it. What in the name of Syngman Rhee would I have done if I hadn't found the place? Wandered the streets all night? Checked into a hotel and called George in the morning? The mind boggles.

I toppled twitching into bed at 1 a.m., woke up at 4 a.m., fresh as a dead daisy, hung over with jet lag and exhaustipation, and went to work for the first time and got my photo taken, looking like Eeyore on a bad day. (This is the photo that hangs in the school lobby now, of course.)

And now you know.

***

Luke and I have had two Saturday-morning Korean lessons so far. They've gone pretty well, as I already knew 95 percent of what we've covered (vowels one week, consonants the next). I have learned to say "Seu-tee-beu yay-yo." (My name is Steve.)

The coming weekend is the biggest holiday on the Korean calendar, Lunar New Year. We have Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off work, though Heeduk's asked me to come in for a little while on Saturday. The regular Korean class won't be held, though I'm attending their special cultural class, where we'll learn Korean drumming. I've seen the sheet music; it reads "BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM". The teacher says we'll be learning "drumming like Nanta".

Nanta is astonishing. Between Christmas and New Year, the school gave Ray, Luke, and me tickets to Nanta's show at the Daegu Opera House. It's a huge Korean tradition, mixing slapstick, juggling, magic, more slapstick, and drums drums drums. And kitchen knives kitchen knives kitchen knives. And a lot of flying vegetables. We had fantastic tickets, third row center, so close I was scared they'd pluck me from the audience for their mock Korean wedding. It was a pretty astounding show. They have five troupes at all times, playing all over East Asia, and I found out later I'd heard of it before; it was a hit off-Broadway under the name "Cookin'".

So after next Saturday, when I'm all trained, come see me in New York, okay?

***

Finally, finally, after ten days of a cold and two weeks of the flu, I think I'm all better today. I'll be testing my energy level soon, as the 37-year GWB presidency will end in 37 hours (as I write this), and I wouldn't miss the inauguration for the world. I'll be up till maybe 3 a.m. Wednesday to watch it, and it will be worth every minute. I'll probably be pretty wired at 3 a.m. Sadly, E-Mart closes at midnight, so I'll be on my own.

yes I said yes I will Yes

... as Joyce wrote in the last line of Ulysses.

Last evening after work I went to see Yes Man, the new Jim Carrey movie. I've never been a big fan of Carrey, because like the early Robin Williams he's never seemed to be able to turn it off. I always have found him very funny for about five minutes, then I want to lie down. But this movie looked a bit more restrained, and it is. It's also aroused great interest here because Carl, Carrey's character, learns Korean. (Say that five times fast.)

Just getting to the movie was an adventure. The ticket, of course, is all in Korean; the sign had the movie listed in theater three, so I hopped into a crowded elevator as the doors closed and tried to hit the "3" button, but there wasn't one, and I had to ride to the 14th floor. On the way back down, a woman with excellent English explained that the elevator didn't go to the lower floors so I'd have to take the escalator. So I did, only to find little shops, no theater. I went back down to the first floor and asked someone who had very little English where the right theater was and he said it was on the fifth floor. I rode the elevator up, bought some popcorn and Coke, and couldn't find the screening room, just seats, a concession stand, and a clothing store. I asked the concession attendant where to go and she told me the ninth floor. I went up the stairs to nine and found a lot of people sitting in the lobby watching trailers on a monitor, in front of two doors marked "1" and "2". The doors to "2" opened and I went in, caught the end credits of something, and the attendant looked at my ticket and said "up". I went back out to the lobby (in front of all those people staring at the crazy American) and saw stairs up to the second floor of the ninth floor. (Yeah, doesn't make a lot of sense to me, either.)

But my point, and I do have one (to quote Ellen deGeneres) has to do with the movie. It's certainly no classic; it's not hilarious and it is a fairly predictable romantic comedy. (It's not as much like Liar Liar as the commercials make it seem.) But I genuinely enjoyed it, I developed a healthy crush on Zooey Deschanel, and it really spoke to me. I've said "no" so many times to different things, scary things, exciting things, everything. I remember repeatedly turning down a chance to go to the lake with friends of the family when I was eight or so; I told my mom, "I'm shy.") Shy of life.

In the movie, Carrey goes to a seminar and decides to say "yes" to every single opportunity he's presented with: do a bungee jump, learn Korean, take flying lessons, fall in love.

I said yes to being here, dangling off the edge of Asia. This is the most amazing reversal of form in my life.

I said yes to free tickets to a drum concert by a famous Korean percussion group and four of us teachers are going tonight (assuming we can figure out where the theater is).

I said "yes" to adopting the cats. (They're fine, by the way.)

Luke and I had considered going out for a drink when I got out of the movie, but I'd said probably not, don't wanna spend the money. After the movie, I had to say yes, and we had a good time, though 24,000 Won for a bottle of Australian blueberry-vodka mixer and a big plate of fries seemed a bit steep. (I guess they charged me for the full appetizer, even then I told them to hold the squid. [I am not kidding.])

I said yes to hiking up Palgongsan (repeatedly) and yes to coaching Anna in running a 5K and yes to the Christmas buffet, hoping to meet a lot of strangers. I didn't meet any, but it was worth it.

Oh, and no to doing the Sky Jump off Woobang Tower.

yes I said yes I will Yes. Mostly.

This is NOT good

...this is scary, and I feel so helpless about it:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iiDlfwqOC5I71KgFjzSBuany-hrAD94E73500

(Now I know why it's horribly smoggy even out in the countryside.)

See that tiny dash of white cloud running east to west, toward the southeast of Korea? I'm right on the right-hand tip of it.

No wonder I see a dozen people or more every day wearing face masks.

--

There's nothing amusing about that, but I've been meaning to post the number one song in Korea this year, so you can get an idea of K-pop and how so much popular culture throws in a few words of English.

So, to distract myself from the killer air, ladies and gentlemen, the Wonder Girls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eptHTEnapH4&NR=1

...you can't go a block downtown without hearing this song blasting from a store.

--
I'm listless and achy with a cold, so a couple of links is all you get today. Sorry! At least I hope it's a cold...

Quantum of Soulless

...okay, the post's title should say something cute about Abba, too, but if some critic doesn't steal my title for the new Bond flick, it'll be a shame. I'm kinda proud of this one.

Anyway, I saw the two most opposite movies ever made. The first was so testosteroney (beefaroney?) I actually grew a chest hair. The second estrogened my moustache off.

Ray, Luke, Alex and I went downtown to see Quantum of Solace, the new 007 movie, which hasn't even opened stateside yet. I disliked it fairly intensely. It was loud and brutal and full of plot I couldn't follow and action scenes I couldn't decipher, because not a single camera shot lingered for more than a second and a half and the sound system was dialed to 111. The movie was dark and gritty and had not one hint of a smile, a heart, or a soul.

The price was right, though: eight bucks for a ticket, popcorn, and a Coke. And as a small-town boy, I'd never been to a theater with a different screen on each of ten floors.

When I got home, I wanted something light, the same way I need something sweet after a spicy Korean meal. I found Mamma Mia online. Gale, who went back to Oklahoma a month ago, said it was the worst movie she's ever attended, and I can understand that. It's certainly goofy and dumb. But it is the brightest, sunniest movie I've ever seen, not counting Jesus Christ, Superstar, which doesn't count due to its rather... downbeat ending.

Speaking of 007, however, whoever decided that Pierce Brosnan could sing should have his brosnan pierced. He's a musical comedy star to the precise extent that I'm James Bond.

The thing is, everyone in the movie obviously decided this is just a crazy, dumb over-the-top campfest, so I'm going to say screw it, let's have fun with it. And they did.

I didn't know my face could wince while my toes were tapping.

And nobody got his head slammed through a plate-glass window. That's always a plus.