Mr. Rand McNally

So, Chusok is the Korean holiday and/or Thanksgiving. I went to Bali, Indonesia.

Steve and Marie were...'classy'

...i was me

....Bali

September 28th, 2010

A year ago I got off a plane in Gwangju greeted by Homeboy, whos name I'm am still unaware of. A year ago i didn't know a lot, i figured confidence and self-efficacy would transpire from culture to culture, from situation to situation. I was right, but also...oh so wrong.

Steve, Marie, Joel and I just got back from Bali, needless to say, it was heaven.

It was a bit annoying before I left as I had to desk warm from 9 to 12:20. Then catch a flight from Gwangju to Seoul at 2. Although I did get these awesome pictures out of it:

October 4, 2010. 9:55 AM

I just said goodbye to all the munchkins on the broadcast this morning, I’ve been avoiding the sadness that is leaving but its beginning to hit me. I took the last cab to Emart-uh, today, and saw “those bitches” for the last time. I listened to Mirage on my walk of fire, and said “good morning” to Hanna one more time. I feel awkward for one of the last times as I hear my name mixed in with Korean. I always figured to angel myself towards the co-teachers in hopes of insight as to what is going on today. That’s one thing I definetly won’t miss, hearing my name in Korean. My-ee-kuh.

The things I’ve been through here will fail to compare to anything.

October 5^th, 1:14 AM

So, after hours of packing, 3 million won short of the correct pension/bonus, and an annoying day living in a culture obseyo to the language…I finish my night cap in my hammock. Today and the last year wasn’t easy, I speak to the 23 year old kid who came here a year ago. Who was venting away on a laptop with the keys illuminated and the texan fall stimulating his sweat glands. Now I look to the inner-hon-gookin. The 24 year old guy so confused about everything, but always offer the comfortering and safe:

…agit sam-ne-ca

When the teachers had their usual tedious meeting today, I provided a sense of entertainment with my terrible pronuciation of the language and tawdry sense of nostaliga. I will never forget when I made the same group of korean’s crack up my first week, this time it was a bit more…understandable:

Annyong-ha-say-o. Minihamneda, hangeul mal mo-lyo. Crom young, comsamneda, sungsang-em duel, keyok-cagit simneda.

Your pronuciation is as good as mine. “hello, sorry, Korean language I don’t know. And then, thank you, all teachers…I’ll never forget you.” I’ll never forget the amazing ness that has preceded over the previous year.

The ways I’ve been challenged, the wallets I’ve lost, the passports too. The TV show’s I’ve disovered and the munchkins I’ve taught. I’ll never forget the amount of challenge a mountain in Haenam gives me or an egotistical d-bag for a co-teacher provides.

Instead of depressing about what has happened, I’ll stay stalwart to Glasser’s cornerstone and raise my iced americano at 11 AM to:

Cab drivers

Gorgeous weather in Mokpo right now and cori coming tomorrow

The swamp

To my hammock

Flying down a black diamond in Muju

Teaching 31 little 3^rd graders all alone

Hunni

Cheers to Café Bene, Paris Baguette with my favorite Korean

To school lunches

Here’s to the walk on fire from E-mart to school

Moes

Oxford seminars and their little help

Oedaldo

Here’s to Sam Gyep Sal, to Kimchi Ggegae, to dongkas and to dried squid

To B.B Guns

To Getting hammered at Uncle bar and being promised a yager by an agashi

Ajemmas

Cheers to:

Bali

Shooting an AK with my Dad in Vietnam

Climbing through tunnels

Getting lost in Mokpo, then getting lost in Gwangju

Here’s to Orientation in Seoul

Yudal-son

Here’s to the challenge I face everyday, but misconstrue as opportunity

To Climbing the great wall in February with the padre

Figuring out Winter Camps with a tyro english speaker

Nanta Pizza

To P-club in all its shady glory

The bartenders at Sexy Girl Bar who used to work at Moes

Joel

OB blue, Cass, Makoli

Here’s to the munchkins, don chim, being 55, and married to carrie underwood

Here’s to Seoul

To the song playing at 11, just keep on moving

Here’s to negative space

To parking on a sidewalk

Hanna sung-say-eem

To the illusive Mrs. Park

Oma, homeboy and Silly V

To the 6^th grade boys

Heres to my freaking motorcycle

To busan, ttanguit, jimjebongs, PC bongs and Noreabongs

Here’s to the waygookins

To the fucking…GRE

Dr. Philpott, Ms. Zanfield, Ms. Lazaro, Dr. Osbourne/Ceballos, Chris Devison

To deskwarming

To a pension I never expected

Here’s to leaving every expectation I ever had at an apartment in San Marcos

To sammy, both the beer and the canine

To Rose street

Combey to Mokpo...to everything I will never, ever be able to explain.

I’ve never been able to put it into words, the whole living in Korea thing. Its not easy, there’s too much to say. The little things that I go through everyday have become routine, I can’t speak Korean and normally people know that. It’s impossible to admit how much fun its been, how hard to…The best I can say is:

…boomdeyada.

Caffe Bene

Korean t-shirts are in a very distinct language called "Konglish." Literally, an attempt at the English language by over worked Koreans. Things like:

Sitting around at a coffee shop called Caffe Bene, a Korean girl walked by with a shirt that says:

"Adventure, its pun."

Haha, i don't think it means "pun" as in play of words, as much as...the f and p thing that gets confused from culture to culture. Few examples??

Thanks Brad for the awesome pictures...you're super hardcore.

Anyway, adventure is fun. This is why:

Tiny little town at the southern most point of mainland Korea.

About 45 minutes outside of Haenam, yes that gorgeous place, is __?__, its awesome. Go if you're in Korea. (seriously all I know is that it starts with a "T")

82 people just arrived in the general area that is Mokpo/Gwangju. About 45 minutes apart, Gwangju has become my new Austin, and Mokpo is my new San Marcos. Odd, as I've got a week and a half off in Korea, and I chose to apply to graduate schools and watch burn notice.

Pardon my psyche switch which just was activated by the 3 applications I'm working on. I've always been very hardcore about behavior dictating cognition. I'm not saying that I'm bored with Korea, its a great life which I love. However, I've spent these 12 days in Mokpo for a reason.

Probably because of this:

Fremantle, Australia. Notre Dame. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHA. Ok, so its a 2 year MA degree in counselling (note the 2 l's), and its about the same price as Texas State or University of Houston. Not that money should decide which graduate school to attend, things like my cornerstone "Choice Theory" my friends know way too much about.

Notre Dame offers extended training in Choice Theory and all things Glasser. I think that is the coffin nail.

Other schools won't even let me email a fucking piece of paper...remember the grace of dr. grayson? thanks texas state...remember, I'm 14 hours ahead of you, and your professors tell me that...

"your personality can only take you so far" (ugh)

I got off the phone with Ms. Cassidy of Notre Dame, and saw this Korean girl with "Adventure, its pun." Jesus, it is. I'm literally between 3 continents as to where I will end up next June for my 25th birthday. Korea, Australia, America. I guess Don on Mad Men was right...

"the problem with young people is they don't know they're young"

Cheers from Mokpo. See ya soon C!

The exact same reason I had for coming here, is what is sending me back.

Korea isn't easy. This is part of why:

31 kids, 5 days, 4 hours....vs.....me

I'm blogging at a coffee shop and I just got bit about 129 times by mosquitoes. This apparently doesn't kill the damn things.

So, having explained the last few days with pictures instead of a tedious and confusing read through my mind, I choose to bore you now. Mwahah.

Jon and I always talk about how lucky we are and how easy it is to lose focus of what Korea really means for us. This isn't a career for either of us, much less any white person in Korea as of now. Most of us are in search of a fun, eye-popping experience, and in a desperate struggle to combine work and play. Its a struggle that sends me home by 10:00 on week nights and gets me up at 6. It is a cognitive fuck everyday, you want to try new things, go to new restaurants or bars but you're exhausted from the previous work day.

Nanta is a pizza shop in Mokpo that sells 5 dollar medium pizzas, I go there about twice a week and, dissonance aside, I beg for a new "nanta" but frankly am too exhausted to look for it.

To any waygookin reading this, or understanding the last 10 months of my life. Korea isn't easy. You want to travel, you need to try new things. But there comes a point where 5:00 comes too soon and you just go home to watch Entourage or Son's of Anarchy. Two great shoes granted, but limiting in the inordinate growth gained by traveling.

Every morning I bounce out of my plywood bed, and hustle to my 'coffee' for 2 hours with JB and Sandy, irregardless of the poor quality my computer records it on. I then walk about a half hour to school, sweating the entire way, change at school and teach alone for 3 hours. By then, the 2 hour coffee break of life I named my "introduction" has created the most debilitating coffee-crash and I'm just ready for TV. Usually, my perfunctory habits in the morning leave me with 20 minutes to kill while I download an episode of TV.

Thank god pre-season football starts in just a little.

The weekdays are full of professional possibilities; studying (and apparently failing) the GRE, publishing articles, finding Notre Dame in Fremantle. The weekends full of personal and every other kind of possibility you could imagine in Korea. Flying down a black diamond in Muju, stealing the hat of a dude from Georgia (the country), eating live octopus. Getting hammered, singing "Let it Steve" in a bogota next to a famous bridge in Jindo. Seeing some of the most amazing people I've ever met or drinking mock-o-lee in a tent with agashis. Sleeping. Ferrying 40 minutes to one of the most beautiful places in the world, or taking a cab 15 minutes to another gorgeous place called "Yudalson."

As awesome as the weekends sound, the weekdays have their bad-assery associated with them too. I came here to do two things: do something I've never done before and have fun. I get to do both everyday I go to 'work.' As shitty as it sounds to wait to watch TV, or to listen to a horrible recording of a morning show, or to be away from the fam or anything else associated with living abroad...(like the lack of Dr. Pepper)...It is exactly what I love about Korea.

I've got 2 months left and chances are I'll leave 3 weeks after my contract is over. Giving me all sorts of chances to finish what I've started. The fun and the novel experiences will come, all I need is patience.

GO NOTRE DAME!!!!!

한국어 모르겠

Those are from a seafood market across from my school, i had this for dinner that night:

Bahah, ok. So I go to a place called Angels-in-us to blog and study. Well, study not anymore, I'm supposed to get my scores back in 3 days. I sat down and started and this old man (akashi in korean, use 'g' for 'k.') came up and started hangeling to me and I had no clue as to what he was saying.

So i just said "hangel mal, mo-ly-o." (korean language I don't know) : featured in Korean in my title, as I've been working on writing and reading it.

His granddaughter (prolly 12) came up to me and asked me a few questions, regardless of her nervous and diffident giggling, she said:

what's your name
where are you from: seoul (haha, she laughed and said, 'really??')
how are you?

It was pretty funny, I love this country. This is part of why:

We left for Waydaldo Saturday and caught the 2:20 ferry out there, it took about 40 minutes and runs until 6:30 for anyone who is in Korea and needs that info. It was amazing.

Mokpo has 1000 islands surrounding it, some inhabited, some not...

Carlo was not impressed with our minibok:

Carlo and I shared it, and one MASSIVE dude named Chris.

Hey Chris, I found your sleeping bag...

They had a water park on the island, filled with chlorinated saltwater, that was a bit different from the water park I'm used to seeing...haha.

2 weekends ago we celebrated Steve's 213rd birthday, on Jindo Island. In a bogata.





Marie did good with Steve's birthday


haha, i love these pics

"let it be" quickly turned into 'let it steve' (which really made no sense)

Monday through Friday its a job, Friday at 5:30 til Sunday at 11:00...its a vacation

Monday was a bit odd. I found out that I've got 31 3rd grade munchkins, 19 4th graders, 19 5th graders and 7 6th graders for my 4 week English camp. It wouldn't be Korea with out an odd one week 'preparation-teaching-time.' Haha, I've got all my lesson plans on google docs and all the games ready to go. I'm set.

So, during the week of being at work from 9 to 5 not teaching or lesson planning...I will apply to grad school at:

THE University of Houston,
Texas State University,
Florida Atlantic University,
Pepperdine University,
Chaminade University (in hawaii),
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. haha, IUPUI. I love saying that one

Next week will decide if I will apply to the University of Notre Dame Australia, in Freemantle...If they have the same accreditation as the other schools, I'll prolly go there...for REAL!!!

A year ago I graduated college, and a year later I'm deciding on graduate schools stretching from Hawaii to Florida. What am i doing with my LIFE?!?!? haha