The more things change...

,,,the more they, well, change.

After five years living in the same neighborhood and teaching at the same school, I'm now in a (radically) different neighborhood and a (mostly) different school.

The last school year was an utter nightmare. Through a combination of horrible business decisions and, somewhere along the line by somebody, malfeasance and probable embezzlement, the school was constantly in danger of closing mid-year, a bunch of teachers and a lot of students quit, and we the teachers got cheated out of our legally mandated pension money and other benefits and lost three months of pay. Overall, we were shorted somewhere near ten thousand bucks apiece. At times I dreamed about going into a less stressful business, such as bomb defusing.

The school staggered on, somehow, to the end of the spring semester and then quietly expired. (This is gonna get complicated, so take notes, kids: there will be a quiz.) The owners of two hagwons (evening academies), called Proud 7 and British Columbia Collegiate, formed a partnership and contacted Saint Paul's parent organization in (duh) Saint Paul, Minnesota. They bought the name and insignia and opened a new school, in a new neighborhood, with 30-some of our former students. This is where I, along with a few of last year's teachers, work now.

The old school started as Saint Paul Preparatory Academy and changed to Saint Paul Preparatory School when we got accredited in the US. (However, according to Korean law, we were still an academy--a hagwon--because our kids aren't foreign and haven't lived for years abroad. They didn't care that we had an American curriculum and credentialed teachers, were fully accredited in America and had kids admitted to Notre Dame, NYU, Boston College, and USC. The inflexibility of Korean bureaucracy is a nightmare.

A local TV station ran a sensationalistic, biased report on us... it was so slanted that it made Fox News look, well, fair and balanced. This certainly didn't help the cash-flow problem.) This was the same station that ran a "news" report saying that Americans' purpose in coming here is to despoil virgins and spread AIDS.

The new school is called Saint Paul Preparatory Seoul. My friend Bob Ellison, the math teacher, is the principal. It's a teeny-tiny place, more or less an elongated log cabin with six classrooms, most of them rather claustrophobic. We have just seven teachers, and of that only three (Bob, Billy Stewart, and I, the remnants of the old SPPS) are full-time.

This is not it.

After six whole days of classes, I can say I like the school. I like that every student in school is in one or another of my classes, and we have really good kids. It's a very homey, friendly atmosphere. The back wall of the school is all glass and we're at the base of a hountain, so I can always see trees and birds. Also mud, but what the hell, it's organic.

The glass-walled offices on the first floor are decorated with four-foot-high photos of Ivy League colleges. Also an NFL photo labeled "rugby"; go figure. Anyway, all the college photos are simple shots of boring old buildings, except Cornell's, which is this one:

It's really nice to walk past this every day and remember what a beautiful place I come from.

I guess it's not as unique being a Cornellian here as I thought; our college counselor at the old school was a Cornell alum, and so is our new math teacher, Min. She and I were practically classmates; only missed her by 30 years. (No, I'm not implying that she graduated in 1950.) And now I hear we've hired a part-time science teacher, who also has a Cornell degree. Apparently they're giving the damn things away in Cracker Jack boxes now.

As to my new digs, sometimes I feel I've made a terrible mistake. My apartment in Daegu was in a quiet, residential area, and for my five years in Seoul I lived in a very (literally) green neighborhood a few blocks south of the city. There was an institute across the street with a big empty soccer field, there were two big, beautiful parks with, no exaggeration, thousands of trees, and I was 200 yards from my beloved Yangjae Cheon, the landscaped stream that runs from Gwacheon City to the Han River in  the middle of Seoul: ten miles with no cars, lots of wildfowl and trees, and mostly soft, rubbery surface for running. I could see hountains from my windows.

My new apartment is bright, modern, and airy, but all I see around me is concrete and bricks. I'm a couple of blocks from one of Gangnam's busiest avenues, an eight-lane, traffic-choked street lined with hundreds of stores and businesses. Cars drive across, and sometimes down, the wide sidewalks to park in front of storefronts, and I might get clipped by a bike, because only idiots with death wishes would ride a bike in that street.

Straight down the end of the street, a couple of miles to the east, is the half-built Lotte World Tower, which will top out at one hundred twenty-three floors, a good deal taller than the Empire State. Right now, it's a mere stripling of 70-some stories.

Note the giant-gorilla-proof tip.

It's just like living in midtown Manhattan, which for a small-town boy like me is a shock; every time I've visited New York City, I've loved it for three days and then couldn't wait to escape back to Ithaca, where it's green and quiet and the buildings are on a human scale.

It's also eight-tenths of a mile of running on cement and brick, with heavy traffic, to reach the Cheon. My legs are taking much more of a pounding, my left knee stiffens up faster, and I may not make it to my marathon this fall.

On the other foot, sometimes it's good to walk out the door in the evening and find a myriad of restaurants, grocery stores, miscellaneous shops, and people, mostly teens, because there's a hagwon every few feet. Compared to my old digs, there's a lot less nature and a lot more life.

It may not help my marathon prep that there's a Baskin-Robbins, a Krispy Kreme, a churro stand, two Dunkin' Donuts outlets, and a soft ice cream shop within five minutes of my place. I wish I hadn't typed that; it's 10 p.m. and suddenly I feel an urge to take a little stroll...

It's also centrally isolated, farther away from everywhere I want to go than I'd thought when I was being driven around to scout apartments. It's right in the midst of Korea's ritziest area, but the subway stations and bus lines don't line up to go anywhere quickly. It's a 30-minute walk to school, barely closer than my old place would have been, or 20 minutes combining walking and the subway, which in itself is a treat during rush hour.

Great honk, I miss greenery.

But hey, Krispy Kreme...

Pheeling phully phlebotemized

You know when it would be really good to speak fluent Korean? When you go to the hospital for tests, that's when. (Speaking of "fluent", it would be nice to know, when the guy hands you an empty paper cup, that you're supposed to fill it.)

Yesterday I went to the Catholic University's St. Mary's Hospital, where I go for my BP meds, for tests to determine the cause of my recent mysterious fatigue. Hardly any signs are in English and hardly anyone there, outside the small International Health office, speaks it. And the floor plan that IH gives out is in English, but wildly inaccurate.

Interior design by M.C. Escher.

I finally found a sign that said "phlebotemy", but if I didn't have such a marvelous vocabulary, I would still be wandering around on the third floor.

I had a chest x-ray and wandered into an office that I hoped was the place for an EKG. (Fortunately, since I was unbuttoning my shirt, it was.)

Then it was time to go find the blood-testing office. I walked only about as far as Frodo in the Rings trilogy, but finally found it. The attendant gave me a little paper cup mysteriously devoid of Kool-Aid, and I intuited that I needed to fill it in the men's room. (Jeez, I hope I was right! Otherwise, whoever picks up the cup is in for an unpleasant surprise.)

I'm proud of my blood test result; I didn't even study for it and still ended up with an A+.

Afterward, the guy who took my blood asked his neighbor how to tell me, in English, to press down on the gauze for five minutes. Then he told me, in English, to press down for five minutes. And then I went home.

Oddly enough, I don't like going without food all day and being impaled by big needles. But it wasn't too bad and I'm eager to hear the results. It's kind of a big deal; Dr. Wilder, our new principal, let me know, frankly but sympathetically, that the school can't deal with a chronically ill teacher, so if it's Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I'm out of a job and have no purpose in this country. Also, I'll have to say goodbye to the Hash and to marathoning; the way I've been feeling, I can't drive 26 miles.

I really believe, though, that the cause is something more innocuous. (Sleep apnea? Stress? Something environmental?) I'm feeling better now, anyway.

I know I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Sleeping thickness

Yesterday, our school had its Family Day, with all the students and parents gathering for tug-of-war, dodge ball, and assorted sports and games. I confess to doing ten percent more than the required grumbling about holding it on Saturday, thus making me miss my beloved YK hash; in past years, the school had always held Family Day on Friday.

Since I couldn't hash on Saturday, I did on Friday night, where I ingested a grand total of one beer. (One light beer, at that.) We ended at our fellow hasher Panzer's house, where I promptly fell asleep on his couch in the midst of the merriment. Val woke me at 2 a.m. and shepherded me home via taxi.

As it turned out, I missed both YK and Family Day, as I woke up at 10:15, too late to go to either. Apparently I'd forgotten to plug in my cell phone the night before; it died, preventing my alarm, as well as phone calls from work, from waking me up.

Swell. Way to make a good impression on the new principal! How professional of me.

I have been just exhausted every day lately, fighting to stay awake past 9 p.m. I don't know what's wrong. Yesterday, in the afternoon, I went for a gentle hike on the hountain near me, in hopes that the sunshine and breeze would wake me up. I ended up nodding off sitting up on a bench. Last night I fell asleep fully dressed. I woke up and jumped out of bed, ready for the day... till I checked the clock; it was 1 a.m. I went back to bed and got up at 7:00. It's four hours later and I'm still nodding off at my desk; I feel the way I do when I get up for a bathroom trip at 3 a.m., all disoriented, grainy-eyed, and walking through knee-deep pudding.

It's taken me twice the usual time to write this blog entry. Clearly it's not twice as interesting.


To sleep, perchance to dream...

It was the better of times...

...it was the worse of times.

Our school has been having its spring break this week, and some of my colleagues have been jetting off to Malaysia or Thailand (or, in the case of our counselor, Brian, a honeymoon in Italy--but he's a Cornell graduate, and you know how privileged they are). But I feel I've made good use of my time at home.

Qin Jie and I had a Korean class on Monday and reviewed together on Tuesday; we've gotten to the part where we're supposed to remember which verbs go -어요, which ones go -아요, and which go -애요 in the present tense. "Supposed to" is the precisely appropriate term here.

On Monday, I went to Itaewon for a farewell drink or four with my departing hashing friend ToT and other friends.

On Tuesday, I went to Itaewon for dinner and my first good talk with Tori, another hasher. She's a good example to me about prejudices; I didn't take to her at first because she's a heavy smoker, her arms are completely covered in tattoos, and--because she's Southern and in the Navy--I jumped to the contusion that she's a redneck. Turns out, she's a terrific person and very well-read and interested in the same kinds of New Thoughty, Buddhish spirituality that I am. Shame on me for prejudging her like that, missing the mark so widely, and losing out on months of good conversations we could have had.

Then, after dinner, we had drinks with ToT et al (whoever he is) again, because why not?

On Wednesday, Qin Jie invited me to her apartment, in the building next to mine, to show me how to make fried rice. You wouldn't think a Chinese person would suggest putting ketchup on fried rice, but she did, and it was good. Then our new colleague Dave--who incidentally is a great running partner and is becoming an enthusiastic hasher--was passing by on the way up to his apartment and invited us up to join a couple of our other friends/coworkers for drinks and pizza.

Yesterday, I went to Bongeunsa, the Buddhist temple across from the COEX Mall, which once a week holds a 2 1/2-hour Temple Visit program for foreigners. But I'll post about that soon. Then I came home and made fried rice; it's probably not as good as Qin Jie's, but I didn't get sick or burn anything down, so good on me.

Today I rejoined the gym near my house, which in the past I've only used for running during the coldest winter months; I need to build up my gerbil-like upper-body strength. Dave, who speaks excellent Korean,went with me and he was so damn charming that the lady at the desk let me start today, even though the membership is for April. The downside is that I worked out and now my arms are quivering as I type.

Meanwhile, I've also done spring cleaning to the point where the cat has space on the floor to lie down. Hey, it's not as bad as it sounds; he's a pretty big cat. (I exaggerate the messiness for humorous effect.) (Not by much.)

(Happy Easter, by the way!)

So I've been making strides at getting my house (mentally and physically, as well as literally) in order. It's the better of times. But, also...

All of my closest friends here are about to leave and who knows if I'll ever see any of them again? This, as I've said before, is the hardest spiritual lesson of all for me: learning to let go, knowing how to say goodbye. I have leaned on these people, Kat, Jane, and Val, when I've needed someone to lean on, and tried to be there for them as well. I'll miss them--Kat's leaving in a couple of days, Jane in a couple of weeks, Val in a couple of months--very much. And Tori, whom I'm just getting to know and care for, is gone in a few days as well.

There's uncertainty at school, as Ron, our principal ever since I've been at St. Paul, is leaving. I've enjoyed working with him, as he trusts his teachers, and his laissez-faire attitude has allowed me almost free rein to teach the way I want to. If you know me at all, you know I bridle under close supervision. I think I'm a pretty good teacher and I've enjoyed being my own department head. I'm grateful to Ron for that.

A few weeks ago, two men jetted in on different days to see the school and be interviewed, and Mr. Park hired one, Dr. Wilder, to take over in the fall. But now he's going to start *this Monday* instead. It's always a little stressful (though often in a good way) to get a new boss. Dr. Wilder is obviously very well qualified, but the uncertainty of how things will change...

And then, of course, everyone in Seoul could be evaporated in a nuclear fireball any day, so there's that.

"I don't speak the language...

...Latin yes; this Eastern babble, no."- Bhuta, Help! (the Beatles movie), 1965

In four and a half years here, I've acquired shockingly little Korean; I can say "I have a book" or "I have a pencil" or "I have a bag", or, in a dazzling display of virtuosity, "I don't have a duck".

There was the time in Daegu when I told my little-kid class, in English, "I like to drink kopee", which means "I like to drink bloody nose", rather than "I like to drink keopee", coffee. They thought that was pretty funny. Brats.

Of course, I can read hangeul, the Korean alphabet, which my friend Bob, who has been here just as long, can't. (Ha ha, Bob, I rule.) But that's of extremely limited use when I don't know what most of the words mean. I know computeo and keop and keopee and left fieldeo and centeo fieldeo and right fieldeo...

Hangeul was the world's first methodically designed alphabet, as commissioned by King Sejong (the guy below). Give me a minute or two and I can make all the noises in the word balloon, but the only words I recognize are "Sejong" and "people".

I've tried, kind of, to learn more; I had a brief beginner course back in Daegu and I have bought so many books, generally used and marked down, that I can't recall them all offhand; I have Korean Made Easy (can't be done) and Survival Korean and Korean for Dummies (they weren't kidding... it doesn't bother with the Korean alphabet) and phrasebooks from Lonely Planet and Berlitz and Jimmy's A-1 Korean Emporium and Muffler Shop.

Before I ever came over here, I got Rosetta Stone, which is useless because we don't learn languages the same way as adults that we did as children. And I don't really think one of the first words they needed to teach me was "elephant". Maybe I should have learned it better, though, as in the line for Safari World at the Everland theme park I tried to amuse some little kid by saying "Koyangi" and making elephant noises and waving my arm like a trunk... later on I remembered that koyangi means "cat". (Koggiri is "elephant").

 This is us.

And I tried "iSpeak Korean", an audio program of useful phrases that loads onto an iPod... but that interspersed "That's too expensive" and "My hovercraft is full of eels" with my Pink and Clapton and Eagles songs. That can really harsh your mellow, dude.

I tried to register for a free class last spring, but when I went to sign up right after school, I found that the course had been filled up by 8:05 a.m.

I had just about given up--after all, I get by pretty well without a solid knowledge of Korean. But not being able to speak to people really adds to my isolation. I live such an American life, limited to a few TV channels that play the same few movies over and over, or going to the mom-n-pop store and only being able to say "Hello", "How much is it?", "Thank you", and "Goodbye". I'd like to say, "It's really cold" or   "How is your cat?" (Although around here the answer might be, "Needs more salt.")

Ladles and jellyspoons: the hardest languages for native English speakers.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, my school arranged for a teacher to come after school once a week. (They did that last year, but she never got past hangeul, the alphabet.) I decided to try one last time.

The teacher this time was very nice, but she had no idea of how to teach anything. She would ask what random phrases we wanted to know, teach us how to say them, and move on... no order, no logic, no system. So I was ready to give up again, maybe once and for all...

...when we got a notice that she had other commitments and we were getting a new teacher.

Ms. Jeon is very good. Last week our class consisted of Kris, our art teacher's husband,...

Kris is an artist who's making waves here; you can buy his stuff (like this) on coffee mugs.

...Qin Jie, our Chinese Chinese teacher; and me. I was 'way ahead of them, since they're new in country and I'd had a class. Ms. Jeon's English is limited, and I knew the very basic stuff we started with, so I went as a go-between. I hope I was more helpful than insufferable; at my age, I'm very open about my strengths and weaknesses, and I know I can be infuriatingly smug. But it went really well.

Last evening, only Qin and I could make it, and we learned a lot more. To my dismay, though, Qin had to help me understand some of it... Ms. Jeon's English knowledge may be finite, but her Chinese is excellent, so she rattled off a lot of grammatical info to Qin, who translated for me. (spoken Chinese--nasal and singsong, to my ear--and Korean are really distinct in sound, but Ms. Jeon spoke so fast I couldn't always tell which one she was using.

Many Korean words are homophones of Chinese words, Ms. Jeon's explanations to her are more extensive than Qin's to me, and Qin is after all a language teacher, so she's progressing a lot faster than I am. If she can teach Korean kids Chinese in English (with her Chinese accent and their Korean accents), she can help teach Korean to an American by translating Chinese to English. Got it?

I get very frustrated when I struggle to learn stuff in front of other people. (That's another of my many flaws that I'm aware of.) But the class went well and Qin and I get along very nicely. We live next door to each other, so we talk over what we've learned on the walks home. Maybe, as soon as I get 30 years younger, she'll go out with me.

Next week, we should have our full complement of students: Qin, Kris, Amber (the art teacher), Casey (the other English teacher), Harry (the Korean-Australian gym teacher), and me. Amber, Kris, and Casey have basically no Korean at all, so it will be interesting to see how Ms. Jeon keeps us all involved.

Already, in just two weeks, I've learned to tell a taxi driver, "Itaewon Yeok ga juseyo" (Please take me to Itaewon Station), rather than "Itaewon Yeok juseyo" (Please give me Itaewon Station.)

At this rate, I will be fluent in hanguk-eo in the year 2525.

Closing time? Not yet.

My school is apparently going ahead with the decision of mandating a retirement age. As I mentioned in my last post, in Korean public schools the age is 62; Saint Paul will make it 63 (in Western years, not Korean), and allow teachers to complete the school year they begin at age 63. For me, that means I could be here another four years. And that would mean I'm halfway through my stay right about now.

In practical terms, that seems olay; four years is a long time, and if I complete that, I will have been in Korea for nine. (When I came over, I had a nebulous idea that I might stay here ten.)

Then again, it's possible I could catch on elsewhere, if only at a hagwon (evening academy) like the one I started at in Daegu.

But emotionally, it's another matter. It makes me think about endings, as if there's an inaudible countdown going on to the day I'm out the door, and it saddens me.

I'm not in love with Korea; it's sometimes fascinating, sometimes maddening, and mostly just where I am. I actually live a pretty damn American life; not being able to eat most Korean food because of its animal ingredients, and not being able to read the contents of most packaged food, makes sure of that. And I'll never master the language or get very far into Korean movies and TV. But I like my life here and I am in love with my hash group. There are hash kennels all over the world, but many of my friends who've left Korea say there's nothing quite like the hashing here.

Whenever I do leave Korea, I know what I want: a place with low living costs, a hash, decent weather, and no need to own a car. But I'm nowhere near ready yet.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

FWF

I had an exhausting weekend full of sunshine and hashing, including my 80th YK hash and my 20th Southside, all in the last 18 months. My legs are sore and my lower back feels as if it's been given a Swedish massage by an angry golem.

Totally worth it.

Every day has been just gorgeous, sunny and hot with the early-summer convection-oven heat and breeze we get here before the steam bath of the long, real summer sets in.

On Friday, the school traveled south of the city to a picnic/sports area nestled in the hountains for our annual Family Day. I tossed a football, ran around being cheerful (which, for me, is exhausting in itself), and, with Billy Stewart, won the faculty water-balloon toss. By the time I got home at 6:00,  all I wanted was a nap in a cool room.

But there was no time; I had to get ready to head out to Itaewon for the Full Moon Hash. The sadistic hares led us aaaaaaaall the way up Namsan Mountain, on the trail and up the innumberable stairs, in the dark, to the deck at the base of Seoul Tower... and, of course, back.

It was one of the clearest nights we ever get around here (clearer than in this Google Images photo), with a big, bright moon, and the view was spectacular. The deck has a 240-degree view and, on this lovely May evening, was crowded with young couples and families. Half of them wanted to take their photos with our hasher friend WPOS, who is 5-foot-9, bald, black, and very outgoing. My theory is that they thought he was Michael Jordan.

Back at the bar in Itaewon, I succeeded in getting all stinky from smoke, leaving behind my best running shirt, and barely making it home before the subway closed.

In the morning, I overslept and all too soon it was time to go 'way north to Insadong for my home hash, Yongsan Kimchi. It was another glorious morning as we met in a big, open park across from Gyeongbokgung Palace. We had the biggest pack (about 40 people, including a couple of guests from Tokyo) that we've had in many months... I've been terrifically encouraged by the turnout of new, enthusiastic members; not too many months ago, I was worried about our survival, after 24 years, as a hash kennel.

The pack stayed together and somehow missed a vital turn; after 20 minutes we found the true-trail arrow, to go back to the start, that we clearly weren't supposed to see till much later. Most of the pack went back to find the right trail, but I... I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. (What? Oh, sorry.)

I mean, I was already exhausted from Friday and was committed to Sunday's hash, so I joined a couple of other guys and cut back to the start. Since we were in no hurry, we stopped to watch the changing of the guard at the palace:

We had a long wait for the rest of the pack, serenaded repeatedly by a traditional Korean drum group accompanying that ancient Korean folk song The James Bond Theme. Eventually it was time to go home and get some work done. So I did.

Today, the Southside hashers held a hash and barbecue on the occasion of two members' birthdays. This one started less than two miles from my place, so I biked there. Gorgeous, sun-drenched day again. The trail was varied and spectacular, up and down several hountains and along my beloved Yangjae Cheon. It was wonderful, though if it had gone another five minutes, they'd have had to drag me back, my head going bump, bump, bump, like Winnie-the-Pooh up the stairs.

The start and finish were at a shelter in a small park at the base of one of the hountains and we were all trying to have a nice time; there was potato salad and macaroni salad and burgers and dogs and Boca Burgers, because I have great friends, and beer and hard cider and a box of wine. And then one of the locals called the cops.

Apparently it's against the law to cook out in a public park, or by a mountain, or something (although there was no sign in any language to that effect). I certainly understand that they don't want people starting fires; I have no problem with that, though the grill was completely enclosed and on concrete, not near any greenery, and with 25 adults to watch over it. After a certain tense negotiation, our guy with the grill moved it way out to the sidewalk. Case closed, right?

Not so. The local guy who'd called the cops on us in the first place sat and stared at us like a hawk, the cops tried to take the name and number of the Korean hasher who was helping everyone out by translating, and eventually some park monitor dude ordered us to leave--even though nobody was drunk and there's absolutely no law against congregating, singing, or public drinking (a Korean passed out on the sidewalk is not a rare sight and heavy drinking is a big part of the business world here.)

Once we'd complied by moving the grill, we were doing absolutely nothing wrong or illegal. But they kicked us out anyway; we'd been busted on a charge of FWF: Fun While Foreign.

White Westerners have it easy here, unlike southeast Asian workers or sometimes, I hear, darker Americans. But there's a huge double standard: every expat knows that, in any dispute between a Korean and a waegook, the Korean is always right. It's against decorum for a man to run without a shirt, but only Westerners get told by the cops to put their shirts on. Koreans never get shushed on the subway, but waegookin do. And so on. The word is that if officers try to hassle you, all you have to do is try to take their picture or get their names and they walk away...

It all felt very Officer Obie at Alice's Restaurant.

Anyway, the pack started off to haul the table and the bowls and the now-cold grill and the coolers and trek off down the sidewalk for some blocks, looking for a place to finish the after-hash circle and picnic, and I biked home.

Because nobody is going to hassle you for FWF when you spend your afternoon grading ninth-grade Alas, Babylon tests.

Not even in Korea.

Prose and (re)cons

With a week off from work, I'm looking for reasons to get out of the apartment. Yesterday, I stopped in at school for a bit. I seem to work better there than at home, perhaps because the school offers bare, flat surfaces larger than a deck of playing cards.

When I was done, I was halfway to the subway station anyway and looking for something to do. I nearly went up to Gangnam because I felt like watching a movie, but paying to see John Carter, whose reviews range from "It stinks" to "It doesn't stink that bad" didn't appeal. So, on the spur of the moment, I took the train south to Jeongja Station in Bundang. If Mr. Park gets his first choice of location for our new building, our school will be right near Jeongja next year.

I've been to Bundang a few times, most notably when I took the KTX up from Daegu for the interview that got me the job in the first place, but I wanted to get a better feel for the area. Jeongja is three stops, 12 minutes, down the new subway line from Citizen's Forest, the nearest stop from my current location. The subway stop now is a 15-minute walk from my apartment, so it wouldn't cost me extra time to get to the places I go to now, provided, of course, that I actually live on the Jeongja Station platform.

Upon emerging on the street at Jeongja, I felt as if I were in a different world: there is so much sky. You have the buildings on one side, a sidewalk, an eight-lane road (or, as we say at the hash, an "eight-road lane, because things in Korea aren't... quite... right"), a sidewalk, a grassy bank down to a walking path, a wide, soft running path, a wide, perfectly straight stream, a running path, a walking path, a rise back to street level, a sidewalk, an eight-lane road, a sidewalk, and finally buildings.

All in all, it must be 100 yards from building to facing building, which is about 95 yards more than in most of my current neighborhood. I've been taking for granted how constricted life is here; you have to go way up on a hountain to get a feeling of space, and then there are all those damn trees in the way. (I kid; Mother Nature and I go 'way back.) Here, it was both exhilarating and somehow unsettling. I felt like a gerbil taken out of his cage and dropped on the 50-yard-line at the Rose Bowl.

Bundang is the land of the 40-story apartment buildings; I didn't even try to count the officetels (commercial-residential highrises), but they were everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people living in one block of Bundang than in all of St. Augustine. I'm not so easy being above, say, the fourth floor, so when we all move there, it will be quite an adjustment.

And not for all the kimchi in Korea would I live here:

You want me to live supported by 180 feet of air? Nuh-uh. Even Seoul air isn't that thick.

Once I got off the main street, I found narrow pedestrian malls lined with shops and restaurants, stacked up for a half-dozen floors, as is so common in Korea. I admit it felt more like what I'm used to. In particular, I found three establishments of interest:

• A hot dog and burger place called "Dog and Bug". (Perhaps the locals should learn the difference between "burger" and "bugger".)
• The "Drunken Bob Cafe". Nice to know where I'll be able to find my friend and colleague Bob Ellison.
• "Hera", which judging from the name and the sign, which shows silhouettes of four women sharing cocktails, is the first lesbian bar I've ever seen in Korea. I would have gone up, but they're only open from 4 p.m. to 6 a.m. and I realized that, if you want to get really technical, I'm not a woman.

I love being outdoors, and I don't think I'd like running along the wide, slow-moving, stream that stretches straight as an arrow as far as the eye can see; with no landmarks, it would feel as if I weren't moving at all. (Which, actually, at my speed isn't far from the truth.) But I do like that there's a big hountain for hiking just a few blocks away.

I don't know quite where we'll all live, or even where the school will be, when we move next year. But my recon reinforced what I already know: Bundang is the opposite of Yangjae. Here, the buildings are low and set close, pedestrians play Dodge 'Em with the cars wending down the narrow streets, my running path on the Yangjae Cheon winds around and up and down and across and feels organic, and I can walk to work in six minutes. There, not so much.

I don't know if it will be good or bad. But it will be different.

Bundang it all

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Park, the school's director, called the faculty together to make a huge announcement. A few days later, he met with the students' parents to relay the news to them: the owners are planning to buy land, put up a big new building, and move the school to the southern suburb of Bundang ("Boon-dahng"), all by the start of the spring semester next year.

 Beautiful downtown Bundang.

I've been waiting until my feelings sort themselves out before I blog about it, but my feelings refuse to sort. It's like herding cats on amphetamines. (I mean the cats, not I, are on amphetamines, although maybe you need to be on uppers to herd those hopped-up cats... ah, forget it, this simile has been extended past all reason, like the 100-Years War, the Oscar telecast, and... ah, jeez, it's just getting longer, like a roll of toilet paper being played with by a rambunctious toddler who... ah, hell, never mind.)

Anyway, here come the hyperkitties:

I tend to be inert in my living arrangements; in fact, I despise being ert. I lived in Ithaca for 41 years and in St. Augustine for 13, and have been in Korea for 3 1/2 thus far. I am so used to my neighborhood. I'm right near E-Mart and Costco, I walk to school, and I'm a minute's stroll from my beloved Yangjae Cheon (stream), which runs for ten solid miles, from Gwacheon City to the Han River in the middle of Seoul, without a single car.

On the other hand, it's not really a neighborhood at all, in the sense that you could walk down the street and stop to look in shop windows or chat. The only street that even has a sidewalk is the one between the two big stores; everywhere else, you're counting on the drivers to not run you over. (Hint: Korea has the highest pedestrian death rate in the world.) It's not a very posh area; there are a lot of little mom-n-pop sit-on-the-floor restaurants and some folks wheeling handcarts around to pick up cardboard for cash.

Bundang,where the school actually started three years ago, is ten miles south of here. Unlike anything in Seoul, it's a planned community, laid out specifically to be an upscale exurb. (I suppose it's a suburb, actually, but I'm trying out new Words With Friends words here.) It has a ton of restaurants and stores, as well as a multiplex cinema, and the teachers' apartments are liable to be a lot nicer and bigger than we have now. Paradoxically, it's a lot more urban than where we are now, which is in the city. Bundang has a cheon, too, but I don't know if any of the paths are rubberized for runners or how far from it I'd be living.

But it will take longer to get to absolutely anything in the city, including all of the hashes that comprise 99 percent of my social life. Depending on exactly where the apartments are, I'd guess it will take between 15 and 40 minutes longer each way to go anyplace. And I'm told the apartments will be far enough from the school to require a shuttle bus to get to work.

We’ve been offered the option to stay in our current apartments and commute, but an hour each way from home to work, five days a week? Thanks just the same, as the patient with the DNR order said, but I’ll pass.

As for the school itself, it’ll be a whole ‘nother animal, going from 7-12 to K-12, from 120 students to 300—and eventually 600—and, if we get our first choice, just on the other side of the hill from, and competing with, the huge and prestigious Korea International School. It will mean a lot of new colleagues and a shiny new culture, the nature of which none of us can yet see.

That’s assuming it all happens, and I have to say it seems terrifically ambitious to think that it will all manifest in 11 months, without a signed contract for the land or final blueprint for the building. But Mr. Park is a good businessman, and this country didn’t get the fastest-growing economy in history by thinking small.

My attitude is que sera, sera—which Koreans never say. That may be why I don’t have the fastest-growing economy in history.

That Was the Week That Was

It's been a busy time.

It's Day 11 of the 11-day Nash Hash, the annual event when there's a hash every day. I've been to six of them: Friday night to run, Sunday afternoon to walk, Monday and Tuesday nights to run, Friday night for a social at the VFW bar, and Saturday morning to run. Last Sunday's endeavor was the best hash, heck, the best walk, ever.

The running trail was advertised as long and intimidating, so (having run for 2 1/2 hours the day before) I joined the walkers, who took the subway a few stops to cut off half the trail, then hiked up a mountain and down and up again, witnessing bulldozers clearing away large channels to prevent future mudslides like the ones that killed so many people this summer. The trail came down the mountain to the Seoul Arts Center, home of the opera house and art museum, and on this gorgeous sunny fall day, the expansive plaza was hosting a wine festival.

 

 
Seven of us (ToT, Nut n' Bone, TKO, Little Leaguer, Crystal, a Korean newcomer named Gina, and I) came down together into the festival and couldn't resist buying red wine and Ghirardelli raspberry-filled chocolate and the most incredible custard/fruit tarts ever and sitting back to enjoy the sun and the breeze and the mountain at our backs and the culinary delights, and it was so nice. And then Gina somehow got the host to bring us a free bottle of red and Little Leaguer somehow got them to start the dancing fountain show early and it was perfect, one of those moments with a happiness so simple and so complete that I know I'll remember it decades from now.

The previous day, I had set out to do an 18-mile training run and just completely ran out of steam at 12 1/2 miles, a very worrying thing with the marathon five weeks (at that point) away. The knee pain has completely gone away since I've been running in my new "barefoot" shoes, but the two weeks of missed training took a lot from my conditioning. However, I did the 18 miles yesterday and feel pretty confident again. Sore, too.

On that 18-miler, I ran down the Yangjae Cheon four miles to Gwacheon City, and on the way back heard fireworks coming from the soccer park (a full-size soccer field with a few thousand seats) on the banks of the stream. I went up to investigate and found some kind of sports festival. There were several hundred people, all adults, mostly middle-aged, seated in groups on the field, each group in its distinctive brightly colored jackets. A few hundred more people were in the stands, behind banners and balloons and traditional Korean drummers. Rock songs were blasting from huge speakers and there were cheerleaders-- real, American-style cheerleaders, not dancers like the ones at baseball games-- doing their routines.

I went around and around the track as the preliminaries... uh, preliminated, and even got some applause and thumbs-ups from people in the crowd. (That's more than I got for actually finishing my marathon last year.)
It was heady stuff, very Chariots of Fire, and I kept going until somebody told me politely it was time to clear the track. I brought back a couple of silver and gold streamers to remind me of how it was, for a little, to feel I could run forever.

Midweek, The Korea Herald, the country's top English-language paper, had an article about hashing in Seoul. A lot of my friends were mentioned, a few quoted, a couple pictured, and despite a few factual errors it was a fair and complete summation of what we do. It was the best free publicity we could hope for. Here's a link, in case you're interested:

                http://www.koreaherald.com/lifestyle/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20111004000577

In the midst of all this, our school had its overnight trip on Thursday and Friday. We rode four buses a couple hours down into the heart of South Korea, way out in the sticks. The venue was a bit of a letdown, as the place we'd booked called at the last minute to say they'd double-booked, but we did manage paintball (yeah, I played), a sports competition, a talent show, a competition field day, and a bonfire with DJ and wild group dances. I know you won't believe me, but I danced in the middle of a circle of students and teachers and was declared the winner of my round. (Apparently they like the miming of a circus bear with his shorts on fire.)

I dreaded bedtime, as we were at a bare-bones youth hostel with no beds. Eighteen months ago, when we took our three-day trip to Jeju Island, I woke up in great pain, as if I'd been racked. And not with guilt, with a rack. But this time we brought grabbed comforter after comforter, and with five (doubled, so in effect ten) under me and two over me, I slept the untroubled sleep of the exhausted and woke up to bluebirds and unicorns.

On Friday morning (a crisp, clear fall morning, perfect for running, I might add), I went for a run down the road, surrounded by mountains (well, hills) that a sign rather hyperbolically called the Chungbuk Alps.

 This is me, only lumpier. I swear.

We were in the heart of farm country; every flat square centimeter of Korea that isn't city grows something. I passed acre upon acre of rice...

 (This is what it looks like before the -Roni is added.)

, as well as vines bearing dates and hot peppers and greenhouses where they grow little mushrooms on lengths of wood...

...which I am now recording in my travel log. (See what I did there?)

Eventually I came upon a little Buddhist temple. (It's interesting to note that the Buddha may have renounced worldly goods, but the temple had a Mercedes in the garage.)

It was wonderful to get out of this huge, overcrowded city for a short while, seeing stars-- I've never seen more than one in a night in Seoul-- and breathing clean air and listening to the breeze in the woods and the rushing of water.

 On my run I saw more chipmunks (four) than people, aside from some of our kids who were being punished for having a party after lights-out the night before; they were helping a local farmer by snapping the stems off hundreds of his hot peppers.

If you're keeping track at home, that's a hash Friday, a long run Saturday, hashes Monday and Tuesday, a school trip Thursday and Friday, a social Friday night, a hash Saturday, and a loooong run Sunday. As that's about as much as I generally do in, oh, a decade, I'll kick back a little this week and get my strength back.

The arduous marathon, after all, lurks just around the corner, like... some arduous lurking thing.

Four weeks to go. I think I can, I think I can.

School's out for summer

The final exams are done, the grades are in. All that's left of the school year is today's school trip to Lotte World, the indoor/outdoor amusement park here in the city, and tomorrow's performance day, eighth-grade promotion, graduation, and staff/parent/graduate dinner. I'm a little nervous but very pleased that the seniors want me to MC the commencement ceremony. I'm practicing my insult stand-up act so I'll be ready.

Just kidding. Probably.

For those of you who've been losing sleep over my last blog entry, about the wonderful student-- I'll call her Haesun-- who is one of my favorites and who, after I caught her giving clues on a quiz, told her mother that I don't like her (Haesun), your long international nightmare of sleeplessness (note to self: edit this before posting) is over. Thank God, so is that sentence. It lasted longer than the Gulf War.

We worked it out, thanks largely to that very blog entry. I asked Ryan, our dean of students, for advice, and he suggested that I let Haesun read my last blog entry; that never would have occurred to me. I printed out the entry (minus the pic of me in a red dress, even though her mother had petitioned the school for a reddress of grievances) and gave it to Haesun. It showed her that I really meant what I'd said that I do like her; we talked awhile and everything's fine.

I gave the American Lit class an optional extra-credit assignment on To Kill a Mockingbird; the other students either did nothing or made a drawing, but Haesun spent many hours cutting chopsticks, folding paper, molding and painting figures, and building a diorama of the famous scene in which the people in the courtroom balcony stand to show respect for Atticus as he leaves:

It's another example of the tremendous amount of work she puts in every day; she aced the final, her grade for the semester is 100.01 percent, and everything is beautiful in its own way.

So... I hate reviewing for finals, writing finals, proctoring finals, and grading finals. But it's finally over.

In two days I'll be concentrating hard on keeping my plane over the Pacific rather than in it and then I'll be in Ventura, north of LA, visiting what's left of the family. (I've been a little out of touch... is Blossom still on TV?)

Then it's back to school for the summer, with two two-hour classes a day. (So the title of this post is a little misleading, but Vince Fournier didn't get famous by singing "School's out for two weeks".)

When summer school's over, I will have been in Korea for three years, at St. Paul for two, and I've just signed a new two-year contract.

...yeah, that's not a very snappy ending for a post. Hmm... okay... true story: most of the teachers were at a bar last night celebrating the end of finals and there was a soccer game on the TV. Somebody asked who was playing and I said, "It's Korea against Ghana... hey, it's Ghana-rea!"

Yes, I'm wicked impressed with my wit. Somebody has to be.

"Are you crajy?"

Well, I'm mystified.

I have a student who is one of my very favorite kids. She works harder than anybody in school, asks a lot of questions (which I encourage), and really wants to do well. I had her in Creative Writing, where I continually praised her work and she earned an "A". I have her in cross country. I have her in English 11, where she responds to more of my questions than anybody else in any class. I've told her I really want her to be in my Advanced Placement class next year.

Yesterday I saw her making gestures in class, hinting at a quiz answer to another student. I went really easy on her, even though it isn't the first time she's done this kind of thing in somebody's class. I gave her a detention and a zero (out of a grand total of seven points). This dragged her semester average all the way down... to 101 percent. I specifically told her, "I'm disappointed, because I think very highly of you."

This morning, I woke to email from our executive secretary that said that the girl's mother had called saying that her daughter was upset because I don't like her and never listen to her in class.

I shouldn't take it too seriously, but I just can't get why one of my favorite students (not that I have any favorites, mind you) thinks I dislike her.

Meanwhile, last Friday was Teacher's Day in Korea. A student I haven't had since last year, and whom I never paid any special attention to, brought me a wallet as a present (the only gift, I think, she brought any teacher) and gave me a lovely card that said I was the nicest teacher she's ever had.

(An apparently total digression that isn't, really: the Korean language has no "z" sound, so the Samsung Lions are the La-ee-own-juh, my ex-colleague Zach was Jack, and kids go see animals in the Jew.)

...when the little kids in my hagwon classes in Daegu asked silly questions, I'd crack them up by crossing my eyes, sticking out my tongue, rotating my finger by my temple, and saying, "Are you crajy?!"

Concerning the current situation, I can come up with three possible explanations:

1) Koreans are crajy.
2) Teenagers are crajy.
3) I'm crajy.

Of course, all three may be true, and though I know I shouldn't put this picture out on the wild, wild Internet, I do have a clue to offer...

...it might be me.

Life goes od

The last ten days or so have been a slow, somewhat off time for me. After the half marathon two weeks ago, I ran with the cross-country kids on Wednesday, feeling fine, but on Wednesday night I had that ominous tickle in my throat: another cold coming on. I only ever get colds, but they whomp me upside the head pretty good.

My hashing friend Choopa contends that an extreme running effort leads to lowered immunity, and God knows my effort at the half looked extreme...

...though this was just in the last minute of my race, when I was busting a (n ample) gut to try to finish in 2:20.

But really the race wasn't that hard, and the last time I was sick, which was enough to cost me two work days, was under three months ago, three months after my marathon. So I don't think that's it.

The next day, Thursday, our school took a field trip, to a farm a couple of hours outside Seoul. I was feeling pretty cruddy. (As you can see, my hair went mysteriously white overnight.)

 

We had a good time, though, picking strawberries,

learning how to make tteok (rice cakes), which involved whacking huge mounds of rice with big honking mallets ("Okay, when I nod my head, you hit it with a hammer"),  and tofu...

...and riding rail bikes, four-person pedal-carts on a railroad track.

We got rear-ended at one point; somebody's car got derailed, my spine separated slightly, and I said a word I really shouldn't say at a school function.

I got home exhaustipated and each day thereafter I went through more Kleenex, slept less at night and more in the daytime, and blew my nose more frequently but less melodiously than Chuck Mangione on the flugelhorn. (The song I kept playing was "Feels So Bad".) According to my scale, I lost six pounds in a week, and I think it all came out my nose. (Sorry for the lovely mental image!)

I sleepwalked through the height of the cherry-blossom season...

(It's nicer when you can smell them.)

...and tried to focus on my planning and my classes, but I've been just so fuzzy and so snotty. (And not in the usual ways.)

I haven't run in ten days; I attended the Yongsan Kimchi hash each of the last two Saturdays, but could only walk each course, rather slowly last week and with a bit more alacrity yesterday. Every day I wake up thinking I'll be all better and every day I'm not quite right. (Actually, the last six words are always true for me.)

In the realm of longer-term importance, it's only six weeks till Lauren's gone for good and most of our teachers scatter for the summer. The school is going to find me a new, larger apartment. And the noisome recycling center across the street from the school is being demolished to make way for an apartment building.

It's got to be good for the school that we're accredited and the kids will no longer be telling the cab drivers to drop them off at the garbage dump.

So, even working at half-speed with a bad cold...

...life goes od. Bra. La la how da life goes od.

(By the way, it's a sharp picture; it's me that's blurry.)

Walking on mostly sunnyshine

Today I'm about as close to sunny as I ever get, which I suppose is like saying the drunken bear's triple Salchow is coming along nicely.

I know I'm not Little Gary Sunshine, but it's a good, good day.

The spring is finally, really here, the cherry blossoms are out along the Yangjae Cheon, I'm still on a bit of a high from Sunday's race (enough that I'm thinking that, maybe, yeah, I just might do another full marathon in the fall), and I had a good, fast run after school today.

Most of all, though, our accreditation visit is over and the visitors' report was better than we'd expected or hoped for. To put it briefly, they classify schools on six levels, the top four being accredited. They gave us the second-best rating, which for a third-year school (at which almost the whole faculty is in their second year) is excellent. They look at seven different categories; they rated us higher than we rated ourselves in five of them.

The twelve-hour days are over (for awhile, anyway) and there are no more reports to write. As for me, while the visitors were here, I was on-task, personable, charming, and bright. You know... somebody else.

So... I'm sunny and carefree today.

Take a photo, quick.

There will come soft rains

The Yellow Dust has finally been dissipated...

...by the nuclear rainfall.

So, kind of a good news/bad news.

There's been a gentle rain all day today; the authorities say that there's no danger of measurable radioactivity in the rainfall. (Let's hope they're not speaking precipitously.) There really isn't much radioactivity in the atmosphere despite the nuclear incident in Japan, and anyway the prevailing wind is from the west, away from Korea.

But Koreans can be kind of paranoid. (The students in cross country told me they don't run in a drizzle because Seoul's acid rain makes people's hair fall out. Also, people believe that sleeping in a closed room with a fan on can kill you, if American beef doesn't. And so on...)

Several of the public schools in Gyeonggi-do, the province that completely surrounds Seoul (and in which I, technically, live) closed today to protect the little nose miners from fallout. Hey, you never know.

I do know: everybody's fine.

This is 80 percent of this spring's cross-country club. As you can see, we haven't mutated.

(On the other hand, this photo was taken yesterday...)

Chin up, nose to the grindstone, head in the clouds

In the West, we all think that Asian students work immeasurably harder than our kids do. After two and a half years in the Mysterious East, I can say that that's definitely a case of selective perception; we see the ones who've gotten into American universities, who are the best of the best. Very much as in American schools, some kids here work hard and some don't give a rat's clavicle.

Incidentally, so far this year our kids have been admitted to Illinois, Tulane, Michigan State, SUNY Stony Brook, UNLV, Cal Irvine, three Japanese universities, and Yonsei, which is one of the three schools in Korea's "Ivy League". So I guess we're doing okay.

Once, not too long ago, I would have said that it's the Asian parents who care more. That would certainly seem to be borne out here in Korea by the huge number of families who send their kids to hagwons in the evenings for additional study; some kids go to school from 8 a.m. to midnight. Certainly the parents who spend big bucks to have their kids attend our school, and the much pricier international schools, care enough to pay for their daughters and sons to get a valuable introduction to Western education.

But they don't always put their mouths where their money is.

Eww... that wouldn't be good, actually; you never know where your money's been.

Anyway...

We have a ninth-grade student, let's call him Cole, who's a very pleasant guy, popular with the ladies, but just doesn't give a damn about school. If we let him, he'd sleep through every class. He will admit to going to bed around midnight, so it's probably 2 a.m. or so. I suspect video games and handepones-- cell phones-- as the culprits. He has a "C" in my class-- probably because I'm a brilliant teacher, although conceivably not-- and is okay in art and phys ed. He's failing everything else, generally with averages in the 30s.

Last week we had an SST-- Student Success Team-- meeting to talk with his mom and him about how to improve his performance. It was a an hour-long, awkward meeting, with Cathleen Won, our teacher who is Korean, translating back and forth throughout.

About ten minutes in, Cole's mom started crying quietly and kept it up for the next 45 minutes or so. It was positively the most embarrassing meeting I've ever been in, if you don't count my first marriage. She said she knew he was doing badly, but she had no idea just how badly. This is despite the fact that all the parents know that the kids' grades are posted 24/7 on our Gradebook Wizard site.

It was painful for me, and I'm sure for her and all the adults, to sit through her crying. What I'm wondering is whether it was equally painful for Cole. I don't know how he could sit through a long session of watching his mother cry in front of his teachers, knowing that he's the one who caused it, and not feel humiliated and determined to do better.

In his first class with me afterward, he positively did not put his head down on his desk.

He only practically snapped his neck as he sat up with his face pointing straight at the floor.

For about five seconds, till I got to his desk.
---
I'm so happy! I know I have a weakness in my writing style: I use parentheses far too often. But in this entry I didn't use them even once! (Isn't that great?)

I got a name. And a medal.

Yesterday, Saturday, December 11, 2010, a date that will live in inf... ah, heck. I'll start again.

Yesterday, Saturday, December 11, 2010 was a long, full, good day. Cold, though.

On any normal hashing day, any normal hasher my age... if there are any normal hashers my age... if there are any normal hashers at all... would have stayed home. First, it was bright and clear but colder than Lindsay Lohan's career, with a wind chill in the teens. Secondly, it was advertised as a "Danger Hash"; that usually means climbing and jumping, two things I wasn't any good at 40 years ago and mysteriously haven't gotten any better at as I've gained weight and gotten creaky. But it was my naming day with the Yongsan Kimchi Hash House Harriers and I wasn't going to miss it.

About two dozen insane hashers took off eagerly to follow the hares, only to find, ten seconds later, an eight-foot iron gate we were supposed to go over. One guy, the infamous Mr. Blister, did; the rest of us found our way around. The rest of the course was up and down steep rocky stairs (with a magnificent view from on high of the sundrenched, windswept Han River and all of central Seoul), through prickers and weeds and up muddy slopes, in the first floor and out the fourth floor of buildings, over (and under!) fences, and around the backs of houses.

(The YKH3 on Red Dress Day earlier in the year. Something's Not. Quite. Right with them.)

Somehow I finally made it all the way back. (My fellow hashers' climbing-and-jumping help... um... helped.) I had had to carry a toilet plunger-- symbol of some trifling behavior from last week that the pack found humorously objectionable-- the whole way, too. As everyone had cookies and sandwiches and beer (no cooler necessary) and shifted their weight and jumped up and down to keep warm, our pack leader took turns interviewing two other sixth-timers and me. The questionnaire was all about the great moments and humiliating moments and... ahem... highly personal moments of our lives. Then we were sent around the corner to shiver while she gave the info to the pack and they called out prospective names and voted.

Finally, when we namees had almost run out of shivers, we got called back. The pack was huddled together like raisins and constantly shuffled to left and right to stay in the sun. I have to say that I'm delighted with my name; someone took my tv appearance with Regis and a certain story about a trip I took to Iowa and the name of a recent movie and came up with my now-and-forever hash name:

CORNDOG MILLIONAIRE.

Oh, that is so clever! But the amazing thing is that nobody here knew that, ever since my stint playing fantasy baseball 20 years ago, Corn Dog has been my nickname. Let's just say that I feel at home with my new name, which will replace that boring old "Steve" at all hashes for however many decades I'm still capable of hashing. (It's ironic that a longtime veghead such as I will be using the name of a meat dish at an event named after a meat dish, but hey...)

I made it home to thaw for an hour or so before heading out again to our school's Performance Night. We had an evening of our students' singing, dancing, playing instruments (Western and Korean), and four minutes devoted to my class' Six-Word Memoir project. (If you haven't seen it, please go back to my previous post and watch it, would you? It's really good, I think. And free.)

When the performances were over, I headed out on the subway again; the Seoul Flyers were holding their annual banquet at a pub in Itaewon. It was just bad luck that the one night they do that was the same date as the school's biennial show. I made it to the Dickens Lounge long after dinner was over, just in time for the last award of the night. But I did get to talk to friends and finally pick up my medal for running the Chuncheon Marathon seven weeks ago. (I ran a marathon... did I happen to mention that on my blog at some point?) The medal bears the name of the guy whose entry I assumed and my gastropod-like finishing time, but I've hung the medal with that side facing the wall.

In my long and picaresque running career, Saturday's prizes are the two awards I'm most proud of. And in the Flyers and the Hashers I've gained two running families-- one sane, one in-. It's nice, so far from home, to belong.

Happy Holidays to all,
Corndog Millionaire

The joy of six

It's late and I'm tired; I just got in from a night of four very nice things in Itaewon: veggie burgers, onion rings, carrot cake, and my friend Shawn. Wet snow is dropping determinedly down and I want to go to bed.

But I had to take a moment to post this: In a Six-Word Memoir, you have exactly that many words to sum up your life. (Please hook up your speakers or headphones and press "play"!)

This is the Six-Word Memoir project by my creative writing class. I just provided minor grammatical and typographical fixes. I'm very happy with it and proud of them.

Coach Dog says thanks, kids

The Mighty Mighty St. Paul Cross-Country Club.

It's Thanksgiving Eve. (Is that even a Thing?) I'm thinking about how Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday, with lots of food and relaxation but without all the pressure of Christmas. (Yes, I'm a twentieth-century-never-learned-how-to-cook slob; at least on Thanksgiving, unlike on Chuseok in Korea, the women, after fixing all the food, can eat with the men.)

The holidays are the hardest time to be away from your family and country.

Today, I called a halt to Cross-Country Club till spring. I'll be running all winter, but it's getting pretty cold and pretty dark pretty early and I wanted to stop before the kids get run over on the way back to school or, worse, quit. I loved actual cross-country coaching more than anything else I've ever been paid for; I lived for those fall days and mourned when each season was over. (This is a shout-out to all those Flashes and Jackets I helped coach... I love you guys!) :: sniff ::

This has hardly been the same; we've just gone out twice a week to the park and the stream and all but a couple of the kids have run a few minutes and walked and talked for a half-hour each day. Korean girls seem to think that running makes women muscle-bound. (Koreans also widely believe that your blood type determines your personality, getting rained on makes your hair fall out, and sleeping in a closed room with a fan on will kill you.)

I'll miss it, though... they're good kids and I like to think I (or the experience) helped them somehow. Maybe in the spring more of them will see how running can enrich their lives. If not, that's okay, too.

Meanwhile, I'm thankful for Monica, Stephanie, Susie, Ecllid, Leo the Swift, Yuri, and little Christina and Kelly (who hold hands everywhere they go-- sometimes while running), and for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Well... all right

...in the words of one of my favorite Buddy Holly songs.

 

 (Do you like my new glasses?)

My funk seems to have lifted. (Not the funk from running in ninety-degree heat, just the one in my mood.) The Seoul weather is still hot as the hinges, as they used to say in my family. (Implied: as the hinges. Further implied: on the gates of Hell.) But it's just August hot; that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad skin-crawling humidity has abated. School's back and my classes look good and my schedule, unlike last spring's, is quite tolerable.

I feel back on track with my running, having done six one-mile runs below goal pace this morning wearing my wonderful new sockses and shoeses. I'm counting on the cooler weather 11 weeks from now to help my speed, along with my weighing less (and for the first time in a long, long time, I've actually dropped a few pounds: six in two and a half weeks, or roughly half of what Buddy weighs in the above picture.)

The cross country club is back, though of the eight kids who came out the first day, six were wearing Chuck Taylors (which will rip up the kids' lower extremities if I don't make them buy running shoes). On our first day out, Wednesday, we got a half-mile from school and started running when the skies opened up and we all became drowned rats, even the girls who huddled under the bridge as long as they could. I wonder how many will come out tomorrow and still come out next week after they have to buy new shoes.

Still, the air's better, school's better, and I still have that crazy marathon dream...

Well, all right, so I'm being foolish.
Well, all right, let people know
About the dreams and wishes you wish
In the night when lights are low...
Well, all right, well, all right.

Marathon Day is November 7, which I hope won't be the day that I die.