FRUSTRATED PILL POPPER

I've been battling with one of the worst headaches I've ever had in my life, and I've been fighting it since Sunday night. Teaching kids on Monday and Tuesday was an uphill battle, and it got to the point where I had to call in sick today.

I went to the doctor's office today to see what was up with this long lasting headache, and told the doctor my symptoms, that Tylenol had not been helping, and that I'm somewhat worried because it has been going on for days. The doctor's response was pretty infuriating; all he did was take my blood pressure and tell me something along the lines of, "there are many causes of headaches, like drinking, smoking, eating spicy foods, eating salty foods..." while smirking.

First of all, I'm not hungover. Secondly, a lot of Korean food isn't as spicy as Koreans like to claim--I can handle your (sometimes bland) food, you arrogant asshole. Why didn't the doctor take my temperature at least? Or examine my swollen, blood-shot eyes? Or show some concern as I've had this headache since Sunday. Instead he brushed me off with a prescription for 12 sets of four pills to be taken three times a day. I'm not sure what the pills are or what they'll do, because the pharmacy will never give me any information on what I'm taking, not even information in Korean. (After some google-fu, I found out one of the pills is acetaminophen...I told him Tylenol was not helping!) Korean doctors love to throw medication at health problems in hopes of making the problems go away, as shown by the many, many, many pills other foreigners have been prescribed. I've also seen Korean kids having to take five or six pills at a time when they're sick. I'm just surprised I didn't get a shot in the ass, as that is most common when going to the doctor's, no matter what the health issue might be.

ONE MONTH OF TEACHER LEFT

I have now been in Korea for 11 months. Imma coming home soon!

BUCK YOU, TEACHER

I teach a lot of young kids who have trouble grasping pronouns. This is troublesome because they love ratting each other out, and so when they're trying to tell me something, it will usually come out like this: Teacher! You [pointing to the perpetrator] buck you me! (It's weird hearing really young children yell, "buck you!") They will also say, "teacher! Bad talking!"

If they don't know how to verbally explain what the other kid had done, the offended will mime and moan what happened, like so: Teacher! You [pointing to the perpetrator and making weird moaning noises while miming the offending action] me!

This was cute at first, but this shit starts to wear you down after 11 months. I've taught them the meaning of "I don't care." It's gotten to the point where I'll high-five the perpetrator just so they'll stop trying to get one another in trouble.

Yeah, I'm a great teacher! (This was actually shown in gifts, as I got the most out of all the foreign teachers in my school on Teacher's Day.)

DRUNK TEXTS

http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/ is my new favourite site at the moment.


(919): so I was just driving high and I stopped to let a pinecone cross the road because I thought it was a hedgehog.

ENGRISH

If you're a Korean, the cool thing to do is to wear clothes with English splashed across the clothing. A lot of the the time the English doesn't make any sense, or it says something that if you knew what it meant you probably wouldn't wear it. My favourite to date was an old lady wearing a black t-shirt that had "I Heart Crap" written on it.

WHO HAVE I BECOME?

My last day of teaching is on June 23rd. I'm going to miss several things when I blow this Fudgesicle stand, but there is one thing I'll miss that surprises me the most: my favourite kids. They always brighten my day, even when I'm at my worst (read: hungover). They are so much fun, and we spend a lot of class time laughing at stupid shit. They've inflated my ego because they'll laugh at just about anything I do. (I made the mistake of teaching them the K-I-S-S-I-N-G rhyme, and now they'll always sing it about me and some other foreign teacher, ddong, or a toilet.) I also love how every dispute is solved by a round of rock-paper-scissors. I have gotten into the habit of playing RPS with them, with the stakes being if I win, they're crazy, and if they win, I'm crazy.

But I have to wonder if it's not the cultural and language barriers that are filtering out how these kids really are. Maybe these filters are allowing just the cuteness to shine on through. I hated kids and everything they stood for back home. If I were teaching kids back home, I think I'd get annoyed easily with them because I couldn't fall back on the, "oh, those crazy Korean kids." Also, the fact that my day with kids end as soon as the last bell rings really helps me avoid seeing how these kids really are.

I think I'm going to give my favourites my e-mail address and home address so I can receive stupid letters. Though I might not want to do that because one of my kids threatens jokingly that he's going to throw a nuclear bomb on my mother's house. (We usually spend part of the class describing how we're going to destroy one another's families.)

IT COULD BE FROM THE WIRE

One of my 9-year old students insisted his English name is Bubbles. I can't help but giggle whenever I have to call his name.

Also, Kings is probably the best drinking game in the world. Breaking out a deck of cards to start a relatively rowdy game of Kings while everyone is already in a semi-drunk state has become the norm. The last time we played, all but one of us African-American-ed out. That might have been because someone made a rule where whenever you used some one's name, you had to buy that person a shot. Four or five people said my name right after this rule came into play, and, well, it was the beginning of the end.

I can really see how easy it is to come back to Korea for another year. It's just so easy here. I think my biggest responsibility is trying to stay out of the casino. So many people have left Korea for, in their words, "good." But after a few months of living back home, they got sick of it and ended up coming back. I think a year in Korea is enough for me. I think if I were here for more than a year, my laziness would really shine. It just becomes monotonous. Plus I really miss home and the people who reside there.

TRAVELLING

1.5 months left in my contract. My travel plans so far:

Korea -> Thailand -> Laos -> Vancouver -> Toronto!

I'll be returning to Korea for a day or two to gather the stuff I left in Tory's apartment. (Tory, can I leave my shit at your place?) And with the round trip ticket to Thailand being only ~$350, this trip will be a lot cheaper than I originally planned for.

I think visiting two countries in six weeks will be more rewarding than seeing six countries in six weeks. From my experience, trying to see a country within a week makes for a rushed vacation.

So, yeah! Toronto soon!

FUCK THE CHILDREN

Tomorrow (May 5th) is Children's Day in Korea. It's one of their nine public holidays, and all the students get the day off (depending on the school it could be a few days) and apparently they're spoiled with butt-loads of presents. The parents who also get the day off will spend the day with their children, celebrating...how wonderful they are? I don't know.

At first I thought this was a little ridiculous, but I've come to realise it's one of the few days kids have an entire day to themselves. They're in school/hagwons for pretty much 80% of the day, six (though sometimes seven) days a week. And the kids who are not in school on the weekend are sometimes forced to watch their parents have fun, which is what Tory and I witnessed one Saturday while at the gym. The parents who were involved in a squash tournament brought their children with them, who were forced to watch their parents enjoying themselves while they just sat there, probably daydreaming about something fun.

I wasn't going to do much for my students, but someone kindly reminded me that Teacher's Day, where apparently students (are forced to) give many gifts to their kind teachers, is around the corner, and if I want to be showered with gifts, I should probably put some effort into a Children's Day-related activity. So today my present to all of them was an episode of the Simpson's, followed by People Getting Punched Just Before Eating.

GUILTY PLEASURE

Boy bands and girl bands are incredibly popular here. And a lot of the K-Pop that comes from them is pretty, well, annoying. They all sound exactly the same as if there was some algorithm they use to crank out their top hits, which, I guess, is what you could say about the music back home. It's just worse here because the selection isn't as vast, and so you'll hear the same song multiple times in the same store. But everyone in Southeast Asia is in love with k-pop, and friends have told me they've heard k-pop in Thailand, Cambodia, and I've heard it in Taiwan. My students love to sing random verses from whatever song is popular at the moment (and the songs are popular for months), and love it when I do the same.

I will admit that there are some songs (ie. two or three) that get me excited enough to dance. The following is one of them. They're a nine-member girl band called Girls' Generation, and...yeah. It's totally my guilty pleasure at the moment, and this is the song I sing in class to get my students excited.