anthropomorphized kimchi :P

It has been a little while, and my only excuse is sheer and utter laziness.  I thought that I would do well to describe a solely Korean phenomenon.  Thus, I give you the AJUMMA.

The ajumma, not to be compared to a Japanese lady of similar, middle-age, is a creature that defies gender, and perhaps even humanity.  They wear brightly colored clothes, typically with flowered patterns of iris or orchid, or other flowers not native to the Korean peninsula.  They are inhuman, perhaps more dangerous than the predators of the Indian subcontinent, the Amazon rainforest, or even the most ferocious of tropical Africa.  They do not hesitate to push, or force their way through any impassable gap, and are even know to use cellular phones as weapons (of mass destruction.)  They cough up venomous phlegm onto marble surfaces indoors, and find no angst in eating or scolding other people's kin with a voracious appetite.  They are to be avoided at all times.  They transcend all of what defines homo erectus erectus. 

They are any Korean woman, married, with children, between the ages of 25 and 60.

I've been trying to clean up my life (read: apartment) for the past week or so now, and I am glad to say I have reached an adequate state of non-squalor.  I finally cleaned my upstairs which was wraught with christmas boxes and wrapping paper, which makes me undeniably happy.  No more dirt or water bottles scattered about.  I also have completed 95% of my laundry, including sheets, pillowcases, AND towels.  If you know me (which you probably do, because my readership is comprised of two former AKP students and my father) you will also know that that is an astounding achievement.  I also managed to find lots of missing clothing that was somehow transplanted beneath said christmas boxes and wrapping paper.

Sungsoo is coming tonight, which was another reason for my spring cleaning.  Last time he visited Daejeon, he said he would be "very anger" if my apartment was in a similar state of disarray.  Therefore, I have cleaned, taken out garbage, and bought scented candles and bath beads.  No, I'm kidding.  No bath beads or candles exist.  Even though I wouldn't mind re-enacting some of my favorite Danielle Steel or Harlequin romance novels.  I don't think there is a place for an unemployed, 30 year old, Korean interior designer or a fallen-from-grace East Asian studies major TOEFL teacher in such books.  I can dream, can't I?  That, or perhaps pioneer a new genre.

I also organized my books and DVDs, which completely appeals to my obsessive compulsive side.  I realized that my books fall into one of two categories: books about repressed people in Asia, or sleep deprivation self help.  Does this say a lot about my personality?  I definitely believe it says better things about me than that damned personality test I took a month or so ago.  That one told me that I was needy, emotionally unavailable, yet dependent, occasionally manic, and unable to save money.  I think only the last one of that list is true.  But who really gives a care?  Do you?  Do you like me?  Please love me.  My life is OVER!

(Jessie Spano runs out of the room in tears)

Did anyone ever see Showgirls?  Best.  Film. Ever.

TOEFL essays need grading.  Pah.

I'm at school yet again, and instead of correcting the ever-accumulating pile of essays on my desk, I have chosen to write about nothing important in livejournal.  I woke up the morning, went to the pool, and came home to wish my father a happy birthday.  A brief note about lap-swimming (or any sport for that matter) in Korea.  Koreans find it necessary to deck themselved out in the most expensive, "genuine" attire for any sport they wish to attempt.  I assume it's the same in Japan, but to a much lesser degree.  I assume that because I can't remember, it wasn't worth blabbering on about.  Or, perhaps, I have become so desperate to find faults in Korea (or reasons why Korea is backwards and fucked up, to be more precise) that I grab onto any small detail I can to disparage it.  Anyway, back to the pool.  There is only one lane open in the morning because the rest of the pool is for 아줌마 (ajumma = older woman) doing water-robics, and it is perpetually crowded with 어주씨 (ajosshi = older man), presumably too manly to partake in water-robics, standing at either end of the pool, in tiny suits that leave nothing to the imagination, NOT swimming.  They get in my way and I give them my meanest, round-eye scowls every time I pass them.  They usually get out of the pool when they see me coming anyway.  Ha.  Again, checkmate, teacher. 

An example of Koreans hiking:


So I came back to my apartment and took a good look around.  My apartment has built up a layer of something (I'm thinking it is orange-juice/soy sauce/soju/something unmentionable) to the point that when I walk around barefoot my feet stick to the ground and turn a blackish color.  As Bobo commented last weekend when she and Derek were in my apartment, "Your DVDs stick together!!!"  Then, armed with my stolen bathhouse attendant clothes from the 로대오타온 (Rodeotown, the outlet mall across the way from my apartment) spa, I started cleaning.  It was innocent enough at first, but as I slowly let my obsessive compulsive side (which rarely makes an appearance anymore, especially when it comes to cleaning) I became a germ-obsessed psycho-cleaner, who would stop at nothing to get a clean apartment.  Anyway, two hours later, my apartment is approaching "clean" and there is no soap scum on any of the vertical or horizontal surfaces in my bathroom.  I still don't know what to do with all of the various holiday shit that has accumulated with every holiday-themed package from home.  My parents like tchochke, to say the least.

I saw "300" for the second time last night, and I am nowhere closer to deciding whether or not I actually liked it.  I can't decide whether or not I can appreciate a movie solely for aesthetic value and boob screentime.  I should just give up and stick to watching movies like "Bring it on," "The Devil wears Prada," and "Step up!"  Then at least I wouldn't get stuck in these conundrums.

OK, essays call.  Now that I have wasted a good 20 minutes of my time I have to come up with a new, innovative way to half-ass my work.  All your fault.

Aigo, the Korean version of "Yoisha" is my new favorite word.  I use it several times in each class, to which my students giggle immensely and call me "ajosshi!!" or "old(er) man."  And to each aigo there is an assa (Japanese=Yatta!) to which I exclaim every time one of my students doesn't fail a test (and believe me, those times are few and far between).  I had an especially aigo moment last weekend, after a particularly long night of drinking.  Sungsoo ended up praying to the porcelain gods for a while while I ate green tea haagen dazs in bed.  It was super sweet.  I'm such a supportive boyfriend.

I have a bunch of new classes that I really like aside from the fact that I teach at least 5 classes straight every day.  I have actually come to really like teaching the stupider kids because it gives me an excuse to get them to teach me Korean as opposed to me actually doing my job.  They laugh at my Korean because I make shit-tons of mistakes, to which I ridicule them endlessly about "studying" English for seven years and not being able to introduce themselves.  Checkmate, Teacher.

I have been spending altogether too much time in Seoul recently.  Every weekend, actually.  So my wallet has taken a significant beating.  That said, Seoul is really a great city.  Totally an eyesore, but there is so much to do there.  And there is Mexican food.  I don't have much to say about it, but I haven't been getting laid nearly enough as I would like to be.  Thus, Seoul.  Plus, this makes me happy:

I also give you, corruption.  Also can be seen on my facebook:

I obviously love my job.

More later.  Sleep now.

So I just watched the movie, "Music and Lyrics."  I am ashamed at how much I actually liked it.  I mean, I'm not a dumb person, but for some reason I really like to watch mindless movies.  I like to think it's because I live in a foreign country and, thus, I like to be surrounded by English (or any other language that isn't Korean) whenever I can, but I really like mindless movies when I'm in America, too.  I mean, I have seen Center Stage enough to wear out my copy of the DVD.  Hmmmm, whatever, it's just part of my wonderful personality.  That's right.  I'm going to stick to that.

This weekend was spent in Seoul.  It was rather uneventful.  We picked up a stray dog, washed and fed it, kept it for the night, and promptly lost it again the next morning.  I think it wasn't meant to be.  I would feel better about the whole situation if it weren't ass cold and SNOWING in Korea right now.  But street dogs (terriers) are tough, right?  Some validation please.  I also ate this thing vaguely reminiscent of eel, with a few distractions.  When you roasted it on the kalbi barbecue, it's SPINE oozed out from it.  Nothing against Korean food, but, as Erin said, there is nothing aesthetically appealing about it.  SPINE.  SPINE.  SPINE.  That's all about that.

Now I'm back in my apart., and I plan on watching "The Devil Wears Prada" before setting off to bed for a night of non-sleep.  My insomnia is really killing me these days.  Anyway, TV calls.  Toods.

Went to bed last night feeling really ill, and I woke up this morning to feel exactly how I thought I would.  Shitty.  I have some sort of cold/cough combination that is just bad enough to make work really shitty but not quite bad enough to allow me to take the day off.  Actually, we're not allowed to take days off in this system anyway.  I remember last time I was sick (sicker than this, granted) and the doctor told me to get rest, my boss' only response was, "Well, you can still teach class, can't you?"  Fuck you fuck you fuck you.

Yesterday we had the day off, which was really nice.  I just hung out downtown with some fellow teachers, spent an ass ton on some new watercolors, and then came home to watch "The Departed" (bloody, hoo-rah) and "괴물" or, in English, "The Host."  I'm pretty sure 괴물 actually means "Monster" but I don't really want to argue about Korean vocabulary when mine sucks enough as it is.  All in all, aside from feeling shitty, it was a nice break from teaching.

My clothes do, in fact, smell like gummi bears.

I have a meeting now, where my boss will no doubt fail to express anything correctly in English, and therefore leaving all of us teachers more in the dark about next term's schedule than we already were.

OK, so after a good night's sleep I feel much better about my busted children.  I had a dream that my school became overrun with mice that could jump many feet into the air and attack people.  In my dream, they had to close the school because of the rodent problem.  Wishful thinking, even though now I don't have to fear the Hanta virus.

I cleaned this morning while watching some idiotic Korean tv show with attractive youths singing pop songs.  It boggles my mind that Koreans go so apeshit for that type of show when it's so fucking stupid.  It has nothing on American Idol, which, for the record, I also disdain.  So I was doing laundry and I open my new fabric softener to smell the tantalizing aroma of gummi bears.  I was happy for a moment, with the hope that I, too, could smell like gummi bears when I realized how dangerous it is to make a fabric softener smell of the delicious confection.  What if some child or drunken adult (read: me) opened it up and took a sippy sip?  Would it be certain doom?  Or is it just some method by the laundry conglomorates (yes, I am in Korea) to weed out the stupider children in the country?  If so, then why are half of my students still alive?  Anyway, I thought it was interesting, and am looking forward to seeing how my clothes smell after the dryer cycle.

Three of my four classes today have tests, so I am a happy camper.  Granted I still have one supremely stupid class to teach, but we'll just play grammar games and it will be gravy.  To give an example of how stupid this class is, I will give you this to ponder:

Nick: "OK guys, what's wrong with this sentence?

Nick writes on the board, "I is eat kimchi."

Pause for three minutes

Students: "Tiiiicheoooo (티처) It is no mistake!"

Nick grabs a pencil decorated with boy band slogans and stabs himself in the eye repeatedly.

-scene-

So, now that I'm back in the swing of things, I thought I'd share one of the funnier moments from teaching today.

Granted, not ALL of my kids are stupid.  Most of them are somewhat smart, even though it boggles my mind that I have to explain things to kids in Korean even though they've studied English for three times as long as I've studied Korean.   Nonetheless, this shant be about how stupid my kids are, but how vacuous and ugly they are.  Ooh, went there!!  No, I typically don't judge my students' appearances unless it's a particularly good-looking high school boy, but this case involves a particularly busted girl (who is actually really nice, despite her down's looking appearance).  As a disclaimer, I claim immunity from people who call me a tard-basher, because I happen to love the tards.  Anyone who knows me somewhat well knows my history with the developmentally disabled community and how a large part of my life has been spent trying to make their lives more enjoyable, more fun, more better.  I just wrote "more better" and thought it was correct for about 10 seconds.

But I digress... One of my favorite students, who couldn't manage to memorize her paragraph long speech about why she wants to be a teacher, instead got up to the front of the class and spoke, with near perfect fluency, "Easy, breezy, beautiful.  Cover girl!" today.  She loves top model, apparently.  Or, in Konglish "Shupeomodel."  Anyway, imagine a down'sy looking 13 year old girl saying that, in front of me, after teaching 5 45 minute classes in a row, and you should get the general idea.

That said, I think I need some tylenol PMs and a bed.  Toods.

So I thought I'd give another go at this blogging thing.  Last time I wrote was in Yappan under the username mr_mcstumbles...and this ROK_stumbles.  I thought writing may be a better outlet for my creativity than, say, teaching meaningful things in interesting ways to my students, lovely as they are.

A brief introduction...I'm 23, just graduated (I think I can use the term "just graduated" until I'm about 30...or is that lying?) from university, and living and teaching in Daejeon, ROK.  Daejeon is a pretty meaningless, characterless city that is pretty much the definition of Korean/East Asian urban sprawl at its ugliest.  I don't really like my job...My students are great and I like most of them, but the bureaucracy of the whole hagwon (private institute...think SAT prep course gone Nazi with shiny stickers on the walls and you should have a pretty good idea) is really grating on what was left of my sanity when I came to Korea.  I've been here 9 months, and I'm thinking of staying.  I live for the weekends, which I spend with my cute, idiosyncratic, spanish-speaking (ole!) Korean boyfriend, Sungsoo.  Stories of him to follow, I'm sure.  I'm finished in May (and yes, I'm counting down) after which I will go back to my hometown of Seattle to watch my sister graduate from Med school and to eat my weight in burritos, teriyaki, and aloo korma.  After which I'm hoping to spend at least a month on the beach in the Gulf of Thailand.  That, officially, is how far I've planned into the future.

I'm hoping to reconnect with all of my old Japan livejournal friends.  dursula?  doommuffin_chan?  Are we still buddies/fag hags?  I promise I will get to Japan soon.  Again (note: Zara, your bad.)  I'm also hoping to impress strangers with my witty reparte.  Anyway, I have to go teach some youngsters who will, no doubt, ask me the color and style of my underwear.

Assa!