DINNER. IT'S WHATS I MADE.

Impressed aren't you, blog?

Oh by 'I made dinner' I mean that that phrase isn't something I would say if I were referring to top ramen or pasta...both of which I eat a lot.

To recap real quick: In S.Korea it's real easy to get real good food real quick from restaurants. In addition ingredients, for at least most of the food I make, is pretty expensive at grocers. So the motivation is not always there to cook at home. However after discussing it with some people I decided to give cooking 'dinner' at home another shot. Which means I had to go to the grocery store, EMart.

Above is half the produce section of EMart. During my Cross-Cultural Studies class in college our professor had a large section dedicated to studying grocery systems around the world. I wrote a paper on this aspect of America's system.

WOOPS.

Foot is currently in mouth, blog.

Here's a long-winded back story... About two weeks ago I offered to clean out the 'storage closet' at work.

First of all, to quote 1991's 'Don't tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead: It needed it. Second of all on some days during my first break I do all my prep and then I have nothing to do; if I sit still I get tired, plus I usually drink a lot of coffee so I want to keep moving. And third of all, I consider it insurance against future mistakes to get on the good side of management before the fact.

IT'S SCIENCE!!

I teach science, blog,

It's what I do. Well on Monday mornings. I have three classes and they are all science. The science activities come in little kits from some outsourced company called Dream Science every month. Usually out of the four weeks in a month one science activity is a puzzle, one is something to do with magnets or something, and one includes a battery! That's usually the last one that has the battery and since this is the last week of April, we made a lamp!

Here is a set of pictures from today's Yale class working on their lamps. Warning: this comparison might upset some former Harvard University Presidents. These two pictures were take within seconds of each other. First it's Alice bringing light to the class. 

Next is William, trying to figure out... well everything. Don't worry after a few minutes everyone in the class had a working light. We also used those scissors behind his head as a conductor (conduit? I teach science, and am not a science teacher haha) for the battery to power the light. It's science!

BACK! AND I COME BAREING GIFTS

It's me, Matt, blog,

I haven't been posting lately, my BAD, the Jack Chronicles have been kicking my butt at posting and I get overwhelmed by the cuteness and forget to check in. But I'm back.

So the ribs are doing a lot better now after the doctor's visit, and on weekends where I don't hike 5 miles. I cleaned up the apartment today and I got a traditional low lying table (like 8 inches off the ground) for the place too! It was free, and now I just need to be able to cross my legs well enough to sit at it and it'll be AWESOME. Work's been pretty decent. There is some drama with the management, and even talks of rebellion from the Korean teachers so at least that should keeps things interesting for the next couple weeks.

Yesterday I went and saw the Fast and the Furious part 5, or I think it was called 'The 5ast and 5urious'...because it's dumb... but anyway it was cheesy and entertaining and fun to watch. The Korean movie-going experience was pretty cool. It's similar to the theaters in Europe where you buy assigned seats instead of general admission style, and there are really no bad seats (like the neck breakers in the front rows of theaters in the States) so it was cool. I got some 'nachos', which was a 6 inch row of chips in a cardboard rectangle with a pretty small plastic pack of nacho cheese. Not quite the same but for $3 it was decent.
 

We'll start picture time this week with a face that Thomas makes when he thinks no one is looking which he calls, "Teacher look, squirrel."

MEDIC!

Good news/bad news blog,

I messed up my right ribs a bit falling down a couple weeks ago. It was causing me a lot of discomfort/sharp pain at points during the day and I was losing some sleep over the discomfort so I went to the doctor's office yesterday.

I don't mean to brag but here's how health care goes down here in Korea -

I walked the two blocks to the office.
I signed in at the front desk and I walked in immediately to see the doctor.
He's a super nice guy and speaks English very well.
He checked me out and gave me his best guess then he said he'll need to get an x-ray to confirm.
I went and got an xray in the next room and by the time I walked back to his office he had a copy.
He said that it wasn't broken, just messed up and probably a little separation. 
He said I should take two days off work, and after I was done laughing I said that wasn't possible so he said I should just take it really easy.
He printed out a prescription and said goodbye. Visit time about 12 min.
I went downstairs and got the three-day prescription in about 4 mins.

TOTAL COST for doctor's visit, x-ray, prescription: $9

GAME DAY

Just got home from the LG Twins game, blog,

IT WAS MADNESS! Honestly, I have a few displaced and vague memories from the actual game itself. Both the pitchers and hitters had funky stances or deliveries. There were some fielding gems, and a well executed hit and run. It was sort of a mess getting everyone (six of us total) tickets and to the gate but once everyone was settled it was a blast.

But the real story was the crowd. There are only 8 teams spread across the whole country and the fans are rabid. Through out the entire game, all the time.

Some highlights:
* The stadium is split evenly between the fans, we scalped out tickets so we were on the wrong side but the other team's fans were unfortunately much cooler than our team (the LG Twins) fans.
* The separate crowd chants the entire time, with out fail, chanting various songs and since all the players names are three syllables long they change and alter the chants to apply to any player.
* The crowd screams for every event (out, hit, strikeout) like they won a playoff series. Seriously. Not like they won the game, but every chant for a hit or a double play is as loud as they just won the pennant. When my self and my friend went downstairs to hand off a pair of tix to our friends I heard this amazing roar I based on sound I thought I missed a home run. I looked up at the tv and it was a ground ball single.
* There are cheerleaders for both teams that lead consistent chants throughout the entire at-abts, including one male head cheerleader that dances on top of this big wooden box during every half inning.
* They do a two-direction slow-motion wave within the crowd that is surreal
* One side had hand held banners that they held up and the other side had orange plastic bags that they tied to their heads with the air still in them (seriously) so they looked like plastic bubbles on their head.

Our team lost 3-1 but it was a good game and the experience was a trip. I am sort of a horrible photographer (Dev got all those genes) but the point is that a picture would not do the energy and the noise justice. Will post more pics as I get them!

SET....HIKE!

Bad play on words, blog!

This last week was breezy. Tuesday field trip and then no school on Friday. Well we took advantage of that by going on a hike during the day on Saturday!

The mountain was pretty close, four subway stops and then about at 12 min bus ride to the base so about 30 min commute. It was a longer hike than we/I expected (I thought I signed up for a outdoors stroll, but no that sucker went straight UP) and because crappy weather and my bruised (broke, perhaps) rib we stopped about an hour away from the summit.

But still we hike for about 4 hours in total up and back down! I get along with all my coworkers (the ones who came) really well so hiking goes by pretty fast when you are laughing a lot and only carrying a water bottle. It doesn't look like it from the pictures, but the trail was PACKED with people and a lot were from the US Army. That was sort of annoying one of the best things about nature is not being around (army) people but some were really cool, a woman who saw us on the bus also gave us a bag of tiny tomatoes too!

Great use of the day off!

UPDATE FOR 4/13, WHERE IN MATT GETS THE MORNING OFF??

Sleepy sleepy blog, 

On Tuesday we went on a field trip to a farm to plant potatoes as we as view some farm animals, and then tomorrow there will be a field trip to an aquarium of which I do not have to attend! That's right I have the morning off!

However because of my schedule I always have Thursday mornings off...so nothing changes. Actually since it will be a day-long trip that goes into the afternoon classes, I have more work to do because I have to cover for other teachers but ain't no thing. Why two trips in one week? Radiation in the rain from last week.

THEN FRIDAY IS A DAY OFF!! I don't think it's a holiday and me and the co-workers have been brainstorming things to do, but have yet to come up with anything the six or 7 of us can do. Meh we'll see, I wouldn't mind just kicking it at home. 

So tomorrow I will be up and hanging out, then the Padres game starts at 11:05 AM here so I will head into work whenever that's done or by 1:30. So far its been great having that MLB.TV... I think I've watched every game so far! I come home between 7 and 7:30, pop on the game while moseying about the apt and it's awesome. Luckily also it's the Padres so the allow no offense and they produce no offense so the games are nice, calm and steady background to have after I come home.

Alright, alright, I'll get to the field day pictures already. Enjoy!

MORE FOOD

Getting close to bedtime, blog.

Not a whole lot happened this weekend. I tripped and fell down yesterday. I don't understand how falling only the six foot distance that I stand when upright can inflict so much damage!! I'm like a big ole bruise convention on my right side.

As you can tell it was a slow weekend in Matt news. So I will stick to old faithful - food pics!!

That, as the sign says, is a Tomato and Carrot Local Wheat Glazed doughnut. Dear Dunkin, just because you can, doesn't always mean you should. xoxo matt

SHEETS.

Read that again, blog.

I got sheets. R.I.P pink child size comforter on a barren mattress. Three and a half months in to my stay here in Korea and FINALLY my order of top-shelf rare Chinese silk worm hand made sheets with ancient Buddhist transcripts woven into the fabric arrived tonight. Entirely a lie. I got a $100 bonus at work for our company's 50th year anniversary (pretty awesome right?) and after some BBQ and triumvirate of beers I went shopping at the EMart across the street and grabbed the first things blue and headed out. I only forgot to get the middle sheet and a couple pillow case but otherwise I am SHEETED UP!

Jealous?? 

SWING AND A MISS

I had grand plans, blog.

Hasn't quite worked out thus far in the morning. I got up early to watch the Padres try to sneak a two game sweep from some random evil team, by the time I headed into work to help out with snack time it was 8-1 the bad guys and although the put up a fight in the 9th, couldn't quite close the deal. Also not quite the nice day to go for a stroll, it's raining and apparently there is radiation in the rain from the reactors in Japan. Sinister sounding isn't it?

Then I went to the bank after my brief stint at work since it's pay day to transfer funds home and the teller had to inform me I had 1/40th of the funds I wanted to transfer available -- apparently in Korea they automatically-deposit paychecks not at midnight but, you know, whenevs. So my big purchase plans have been halted. It's been a rough week in technology in general. My digital lock on my door in my apartment is glitching and only lets me in once in every one or two dozen tries so now I have to carry around the key, and my newly acquired internet logged me out and after a couple days I had to get someone at work to contact them and get the ID and password. 

SO sorry about the tease on the last post, maybe big purchase will come tomorrow or Saturday. I'm going to go play video games.

I'LL POST TOMORROW

Wednesday nights are my official DO NOTHING time, blog

Mostly because I worked bout 35 hours the first three days of the week, but this Wednesday night especially because tomorrow is PAY DAY and I spent my last 4 bucks on this:

MMM one of my favorites. Curry with some pork, carrots, potatoes, and sliced cucumber on top. OH also top left those are some tatert-tots ! They don't always have them but when they do it's divine.

So because of the severe unbalance of our schedules I grind through the first three days, but then on Thursdays I don't have a class until 2:30!! I have to show up at 1:30 but it's still pretty gravy huh?  Anyway I am going to try and wake up at 7:30 am to watch MY PADRES play, and then try to actually get stuff done with the hours in between, including a blog post as well as a BIG AND LONG-ANTICIPATED PURCHASE. So stay tuned.

WHITE ELEPHANT TACO SUNDAY

(i bet those four words have never been put together before)

It was chicken taco night in Hwajeong, blog!

Co-workers had a friend visiting from states side (Washington state to be exact) and she brought tortillas, made some salsa and we made chicken tacos (they made, we assembled). We added on a little cilantro, onions, Mexican rice, lemon juice and were locked and loaded.

I had about 8.