I guess I should update my blog

So, it's been over a month and I haven't really written anything down here. Here's an update on life in the land of the morning tedium...

I had (one of my 3) week long vacations during the first week in August. It was a blast. Lee visited from the states, and it was fun introducing him to all of the craziness of this place. We spent the bookending weekends in/around Seoul, and during the actual week we were on the road for the most part...we stayed in Gyeongju and Yeousu...both cities had a distinct feel and both were very different from Seoul, that's for sure. I enjoyed them both, especially Yeousu, and I'll probably be returning to it before I leave Korea.

I've got lots of pictures from that week, but you'll not find them in this post dear reader b/c a)I've yet to receive Lee's pictures via email, which for the most part were better than mine and naturally featured me in the image more (and so of course they'll be worth the wait) and b)my hard drive on my brand new laptop died the other day, and I've yet to resolve that problem.

That's right. My laptop that I bought, like, 3 months ago had had enough of this world and decided to prematurely shuffle off this mortal coil. Well, at least its hard drive had. I suppose that's the equivalent of dying from a broken heart. Anyway I haven't yet made the trip to Yongsan to try and sort out all of the mess, so, well, it's not all bad news because in the last few days I've been able to rekindle my love affair with noisy, smoke-filled Korean PC bangs (that's pronounced bahhngs, by the way, not the other, funnier sounding way).

Anyway, pictures of that week are forthcoming, but likely won't appear until both (a) and (b) are resolved.

Work continues to make its daily demands on me. The job's still none too difficult, it' s just none too interesting, either. I like the kids, and to a certain extent I enjoy being around them and teaching them, but, as I told Lee on the final Sunday of my vacation before I was to return to work, after what you might say were more than a few, "you know, I've been away from the little buggers for 9 days now, and you might think that in that period, after having spent so much time with them for the past 5 months, that I might once have missed them, or at least missed one of the good ones, one of the smart and kind ones that make the job a little fun sometimes, or you might at least suspect that in that period I would have thought about them once, that something would have reminded me of a bungled phrase they're fond of or something clever one of them said, but I haven't, in this period I've not once thought about them, I didn't even consider them. Not once." I guess I was too busy, ya know, having fun. So maybe being a teacher ain't the way to go.

But, hey, it pays the bills.

What else is worth mentioning? Things I remember from the last month: An epic game of Risk (yes, Risk, the geeky boardgame...) in which my fortunes rose and fell as swiftly as the little pin moves up and down on the, uh, earthquake detecting machine...during an earthquake, and which ended with me (represented by a lone soldier piece) exiled, Napoleon like, on the island of Tasmania in the outskirts of Sean's vast empire. Seis-something? I'm not gonna look it up. I participated in and won (along with my group) a quiz competition at the Goose and had to help write the next week's quiz (which was last night and which had a really big crowd). My category? Quotes from famous Waynes. It was the hardest category of the bunch, see if ya can figure two of the more obscure ones which stumped the Goose crowd:

"Our officers and men fought like men who are determined to be free."

"Gun control measures always collapse under the gentlest burden of common sense."

I saw some amazing old American movies at this theater in Seoul, the highlights were For a Few Dollars More and Casablanca. Oh, I had a "meeting" with the parents of my preschoolers (more like a presentation) in which I had to assess each student's progress (in the best possible light) in front of the assembled ajumma-geois. That was fun. Joanne translated for me. Marina's (my new 'boss,' after they canned Sophia -did I talk about that? what a fucking disgrace that whole incident was- yeah anyway Sophia, who was a teacher before she was our manager, was just amazing, she befriended everyone and ran the morning crew really well; she was forced to resign because she was too friendly with us and not friendly enough with management, at least that's what I was told, there may've been other reasons, but from where I'm standing it looked and looks like a mistake) totality of advice before the meeting was something like "please...to smile more..."

It went fine, as far as I can tell. Mr Jong still bows and contorts his moon face into a half smile when I pass him in the building, so I assume things're ok. But I am so fucking sick of being told to smile more. I sometimes feel like this is how the Joker got his start, and that like him I'm going to wind up as some sort of pale giggling loon if I keep listening to the pointers these clowns give me.

Next week marks the 6 month period, and as such pretty much every afternoon teacher's contract is up. Basically no one, and I mean no one, is staying. Of the 10 afternoon teachers whose contracts expire, only 1 is renewing, and hers is on a tentative basis as I understand. Julia, the afternoon boss, is already gone (she just disappeared last week, and a few days later in a meeting it was mentioned that she'd long felt guilty about holding her position because she believed herself to be unqualified...she was, and she was a terrible manager, but that just sounds like more grade A SLP horseshit to me). Katy is the only waygookin who's sticking around, and that's only b/c she signed her contract at the same time as the morning teachers, and has 6 more months. Joey and Sean have already found other jobs around here, Jim (the guy who's been there for 9 years) is going somewhere else or just doing privates (he's married to a Korean so he can do them legally) and Joe is still looking for a place. This time next week there will be 9 or 10 new faces in the office, and 4 of them will be white. Interesting times, I guess.

That's it for now, I spose.