ALWAYS BE LOOKING GOOD

Been mulling this over for a while, blog

Like some European cultures, there is a very pressing importance to always appear well groomed and fashionable here. The thrift shops (chain or otherwise) that line the streets of Hillcrest growing up in San Diego would turn an astounding profit of absolutely nothing if they were to open a branch here. It's possible to go outside in sweatpants and a tee-shirt, however those sweat pants better be the latest Nike brand and that tee shirt needs to not only be clean (I'll get there one day) but it should also show the world that you have an up to date sense of fashion-awareness.

I was told to expect this and so I only half notice it anymore. But what I always notice is how people treat mirrors here. They are constantly checking and double checking the status of their glamor. All (all) elevators have at least one mirror and it is customary to with in 5 seconds of entry to give a good amount of attention to your reflection. The escalators in supermarkets are lined with mirrors and people spend the whole ride re-evaluating their facial circumstances. In America I feel as though most people do this to an extent, or if they don't it might be because they don't want to be considered vain. But we don't take it this far. The only place that is comparable back home was at the gym, where mirrors where watched more than the TVs -- but that was sort of the point of the gym right?

I wouldn't feel strange trying to snap a picture of someone checking themselves out on an escalator, so instead I got the next best thing:

I took this at a subway station a few stops up. That's a full length mirror that's obviously been imported to stay next to the ticket machine.  Because, after you buy your tickets then you have to get on the subway and you absolutely have to look your best on the subway, right? Any opportunity available to look in a mirror, take it.

QUIT UNDERMINING ME, INTERNET

Hey guys sorry about the post from last weekend that just cut off. I wrote it, posted it, and it didn't process. Now I seem like I'm teasing, and I've gotten NUMEROUS emails (one and a half) from people dying to know what was next to come in my journey of the weekend.  So I'll pick up where I left off, or where the internet decided to say get e-lazy, when I was out to dinner with co-workers:

I had a beer and watched the end of a Korean baseball game and hung out. But about halfway through the chef and the waiter came to our table. Both were men about 50, the chef spoke great English and he said he was Japanese but he lived in Germany for 6 years, so he's trilingual and really nice.  They asked me why I wasn't eating, I just said I was not hungry but complimented their spread, and then the waiter came by later with a free plate of this:

That's deep fried flounder skin. The darker pieces are the back and the lighter pieces are the stomach. It was okay, the waiter and chef def stuck around to watch me eat like half of it. Very thoughtful of them.

UNIQUE KOREAN PIZZAS ARE A SAVIOR

Strange day blog,

I was planning on waking up early and going to the bank before work to transfer funds home, and I didn't start until 11:30 so it was all going to work out. Then I got a knock on my door at 9 AM, and as usual I thought the door bell was my alarm clock so I almost threw that across the room when I couldn't shut off the noise. Step two in that process is yelling 'who is it' quickly followed by 'go away' (there are usually religious fanatics who roam the halls during the day and disturb one's slumber). But the knocks persisted so I got up and stumbled to the door and it was my boss. He said that one of the teachers had her father in-law go to the hospital and he was wondering if I could come in early and cover shifts. Some say that a simple phone call could suffice in that situation, others apparently disagree.

So I got up and I worked 9 straight classes, ten total, going to the bank during lunch and barely making it back on time for 4th period. On a pace of going 9:30 - 5:30 with out more than a five min break to get food or take a load off. I was pretty hungry and not looking forward to staying hungry till about six UNTIL pizza saved my day.

About a ten pizzas (like the potato wedge/bacon/corn/mushroom one above) were brought in from one of the families of two brothers (the ones with perms) who are both morning kindergarten students. They welcomed a new baby sister last Friday and so (I am assuming) the family brought in pizzas for everyone to celebrate that arrival. Sorta dwarfs my gift of a dozen Krispy Kremes to celebrate Baby Jack's birth, but the couldn't have come on a better day, I was so hungry. More unique Korean pizzas after the jump!

WEEKEND OF MAY 21ST, FEATURING COST EFFICENT FUN AND A MUSIC FESTIVAL WITH NO MUSIC

Time to hunker down, blog

I've been making budgets for the first few months before I got here and since I arrive in the South K as well, trying to keep tabs on everything. During that time I knew that the first three or four months here I would not be really focused on saving money. When you are in a new environment you (I) have to go out and explore. That includes seeing the sights and getting to know the culture, finding and making new friends, figure out what is too expensive, what is cheap, what is middle. That can be an expensive process of knowing what not to do. But now that It's been almost 5 months I am pretty familiar with what I can expect from my spending in a given week or month. So it's time to start saving up some funds.

Coincidentally my empty pasta jar (like my dad says, never throw away good jar) of coins finally got filled up (do you like my spice rack below? Salt, pepper, tabasco sauce, and some flowers from Teacher's Day). The jar of coins feels like it's about six pounds, but I think there are a lot of 50 cent pieces so I am hoping for a big haul! Will take it into the bank tomorrow and cash it in so wish me luck.

On Friday night I decided to skip our usually co-worker Korean bbq - well don't get me wrong I still went and hung out, but I jetted home first and cooked up Matt's famous raman and fried dumplings.

Delicious! Or at least I have to keep telling myself that. After dinner I walked a couple blocks down  and met up with the crew at a new bbq place we hadn't tried before. The interesting thing about this one was absolutely the duel lettuce troughs that the bring for you to wrap your meat in.

IT'S NOT EASY BEING FIVE

My job is never stale, blog,

The kids make sure of that. It's a perk to this work. But some days I'm reminded that it's not easy being really young, because if when you are earnest and well-intentioned, somethings just don't work out. Here are a few examples:

1. The doors. At our school the doors are insanely heavy. I can't open them without leveraging my weight in the right direction. So it takes at a minimum 2, if they are small 3 or 4, kids to open the doors. One kid alone is nearly impossible. The kids know how the doors work. They've experience it everyday in some cases for years now. But STILL, everyday when it is time for them to lineup to go out the door they line up like this:

Here's the rub...That door to the left opens IN. So everyday, I say, "Okay, line up, please." And everyday the kids (no matter what the age) spend a minute cramming into each other and jockeying over position, and then I have to slowly back everyone up three feet to open the door while they all fall over each other and slightly bicker about lost positions. I think I need to draw a line-up-line for them to stand behind. When I get my own homeroom, I'll do that.

Also, as I can personally attest, spelling in the English language can be really difficult. There's a lot of tricks and anomalies with some words that one has to account for. Unfortunately for kids, all words can be troublesome. For example:

This is an art project by a student after about his second month at English school. The student's name is 'Jason'. Or 'SJEAOES' if you believe this particular project. hahaha like I said, spelling is tough.

MUSIC IN THE MONTH OF MAY

 Live music is the best, right blog?

Now that I think of it, I've seen one or two live shoes since I've been here, but certainly not any recently, or any shows that weren't foreigner bands. So last night I got my live music fix! First I went for a walk about 7:30 because the weather is starting to get San Diego perfect and so it was a nice day for a stroll, and when I ventured by the public amphitheater in the park a few blocks away there was a free show of people singing some poppy stuff so I took that in for a while and it was great.
 

Then myself and two friends went to a thing called a 'Round Robin' show, and it was awesome. The idea behind a Round Robin show is that there are five or six stages and each stage has one band, and each band plays one song and then they rotate in a circle around the stage. Great idea right!? But also because there are no bad seats in the house because if you are in the back for one song, you will be in the front a few songs later.

SCHOOL DAYS

Gotta love Thursdays, blog

Pretty relaxed right now after a not-so strenious day. Made some delicious dinner, cleaned up the apartment, and now I'm enjoying some forwarded pictures from my cousin Jenny's wedding this past weekend in Santa Barbra! I heard it was beautiful and I'm sorry I couldn't make it but the few pictures I have seen from the day it all looked amazing!

Can't ask for a more chill evening right?! As far as my work day went, on Thursdays I come in at about 2pm, have one class, a break, then two classes back to back and then I'M OUT by 6! Don't get me wrong, I still need a lot of coffee...

First is a decent mid-level class with four boys and one girl. They think it's hilarious to try and bar me from getting in to the class, so today this is what greeted me at the door:

They got creative and put their chairs in front of the door today as a nice added touch.

DAYS OFF!

Kicking it still, blog!

Due to Children's Day last Thursday, and then a company-wide day off on Friday, I had a four day weekend. I had to go to work yesterday, Monday, but then due to Buddha's birthday today, I have another day off! So five out of six ain't bad right?!

I opted not to join my coworkers on their vacation down south for a few days Thursday through Saturday. They went two hours by train to a nice, sort of old and traditional touristy town. I joke with them that I didn't go because I would have been the 7th wheel with three other couples, but I decided to stay home and relax and save some money at the same time instead.

Instantly on Thursday I knew that I had made the right choice. It was 72 degrees and sunny on Thursday, and when my friends had to wake up at 7am to catch the train, I slept in a bit, watched some baseball and after a while went and played basketball at the local high school which was nice and relaxing. My rib is doing fine, except for when I jump up and come down hard (so sadly I couldn't do my patented tomahawk jam move (not really)). So after basketball I went home and showered and picked up some lunch and took it to a place I found out about in our building up on the 17th floor:

I'm not saying the view was remarkable but nice enough to enjoy a quick bite. I spent the rest of the day hanging out, relaxing. Went out for a bit that night but came home early and went to bed early too.

LONG WEDNESDAY

Recovery day, blog

Yesterday was Wednesday, May 4th, the day before 'Children's Day' holiday break, and our school sure made the most of it, taking the kindergarten classes to a park for a field day.

Wednesdays are usually pretty long for me, I have morning snack duty at 9:30, which means I have to come in earlier if I need to do prep, I also give up my lunch breaks on Wed. to help the kids return their library books and check out new ones, in addition to the 9 classes I teach which is the most of any day (the last one of which gets out at 7:45) and I usually leave about 8pm. It can be a 10 or 11 hour day.

Back to the morning though, after snack we had what is called 'circle time' at about 9:45 where we put all the kids in the playroom and play a game.

The kid on the left facing the camera about to sit down is Brandon, and he's new to the school but speaks English well. They were playing a game where Zach Teacher (guess which person he is in the picture...) calls a kid up to the front and he whispers an animal to the kid, and then the kid acts out the animal -- hopping up and down for rabbit, roaring loudly for a tiger, etc., etc. -- and everyone who is sitting yells out their guesses. Well Zach whispered an animal to Brandon who smiled and nodded, so Zach took a step back and said, "Okay Brandon, what animal are you!?" And Brandon stood perfectly still and said aloud: "Dinosaur." Hahaha so that started the day off with a laugh.

REACTION

One student's reaction to Osama Bin Laden's death, blog:

I don't actually know why he did that, I think I said "smile" and John did that, ahaha. Either way that news story hasn't really been prevalent over on this side of the Pacific, and I can imagine why. I also don't read the newspapers so I'm not really sure.

MOSEYING SUNDAY part 2, Wherein Matt Can't Find A Massive Lake at a Place Called Lake Park

Hey again, blog

Back to the sojourn. I headed out of the gallery in search of those basketball hoops I had originally set out to find. The gallery/opera house/library is set on outskirts of Lake Park, the biggest man-made lake and park in the whole country. I have looked it up on Google Earth and the lake looks huge.

So I walked around to a side of the park where on G.Earth looked like there was athletic facilities. I didn't see any hoops, just trees and a big hill inside the park where I saw people walking. So I said 'Why don't I just walk over to this trail and check out the lake and then maybe I can see the basketball courts." I hoofed on up to this top of the hill and all I saw when I looked deeper into the park was more hills and all I saw below was some sort of concert. So I walked down the other side and the concert was roped off so I  decided to go up this OTHER hill on the south side of the concert to get to the like. That hill was huge, and beyond it? Another hill, no lake. I was wearing some lop top sneakers that were getting muddy and jeans and I was slipping and tripping and all of these retired people (retired people here are probably the single most in-shape people as a whole I've ever seen, all the trails and gyms are full of them) were blazing past me decked out in power hiking get-ups.

I climbed the third and final hill and guess what I saw! MORE HILLS and a wooden deck with exercise equipment that all the retired people were working out on. Still no lake, only trees and hills. I was sorta of huffin and puffin and so I did what any rational, full (7/8ths worth) blooded American would do and swore a little bit and went back down the hill I came from to go to the mall.

I took this pic before the last hill with the retirement gym-ercise. That's the non-hypothetical-lake side of the park looking back over to the mall.  

MOSEYING SUNDAY part 1, Where in Matt Sees an Elk

Good Sunday, blog,

It's May 1st here, so naturally the Padres won. I watched the game in the morning and into the early afternoon spiced with some time spent on video games and getting a bagel + cream cheese + coffee 'set'(combo) from Dunkin. The bagels here are not toasted, the are just warmed up haha and then schmeared with cream cheese so they are this flat, bready, warm thing with cc in the middle. Delicious?

Anyway on to the good stuff! I decided to go back to CostCo as something to do today. So about 2:30 I geared up with my backpack (in case I bought something at CostCo), Pads hat, headphones and black fancy Pumas (foreshadowing). CC is two stops up the line so that was easy and once I got inside I started roaming for about 30 min. My paychecks will start to be bigger this month because I'm done with the deposit for my apartment, so this trip I was more or less making notes of what I would get and how much cash I should bring next time I come to really stock up. Also note to self/everyone, if you want to go to CostCo and absolutely make sure that you don't make that atrociously easy mistake of spending too much money -- don't get a cart. If you buy only what you can carry you'll be limited to like 3 (massive) items. Either way I didn't buy anything, not even a slice of pizza! I know, jaw-dropping right?

Okay you can wake up now, this is when my day gets interesting. So I head back towards the subway and I remembered that this guy from Texas I met at McDonald's a while back said that once the weather gets better there will be pick-up basketball games at the Lake Park in Ilsan. So I thought while I'm already on a scouting trip I might as well try to find the hoops for future reference.

Another two stops up the #3 line I go and when I go get to the station I decide to take a different exit, you know, spice things up a bit. When I came up for daylight, this is what greeted me: