Intrepid Girl Reporter


Sunday, 10/26: the starting line
October 26, 2008, 11:37 pm
Filed under: life progress, pipe dreams | Tags: , ,

I have this thing about finishing, which is to say that I can’t do it. I don’t finish sandwiches or the crusts off slices of pie. I read like thirteen books at one time. (And then I forget to return them before they’re due, which is why I won’t be going back to the Johnson City Public Library any time soon.) And, needless to say, I have five million projects going on at any given time.

I’m not sure that the subconscious reasons behind my failure to complete anything bear deep analysis – I sort of know what they are and they’re nothing terribly important or life-changing – but I do believe that this failure, itself, might pose a problem at some point. Which is why I am starting a new movement in my life in which I will make a sincere effort to finish things I’m already doing before moving on to other projects. To wit: THE ORANGE HAT.

The woman from the Embassy who worked with us on MSYDP (I’ll leave out her name, although, as previously mentioned, it’s not liking knowing a Korean person’s name will help you to identify them in any way) just had a baby, and I wanted to practice my circular knitting skills and make her a gift. I realize that the color of the hat makes it look like Baby’s either cheering for the Vols or Going A-Hunting (possibly deer or turkey), but I chose that hue because the hat is going to be in the shape of an orange*, which makes it both an orange hat (color) and an orange hat (shape). This will be the most delicious baby on the block. Anyway, I am planning on finishing it before starting one of the million other projects I have lined up. Largely because I don’t want the baby to outgrow it.

Speaking of the Vols (awkward segue apologies), I had a brilliant inspiration this weekend while watching yet another marching band competition. Here are the new divisions of collegiate football, as conceived by me.

TEAM NAMES: REAL

  • LSU Tigers
  • Louisville Cardinals
  • Florida Gators
  • Texas Longhorns
  • Michigan Wolverines
  • Oregon State Beavers
  • Wisconsin Badgers
  • Michigan Tech/UConn Huskies
  • Minnesota Gophers (please note: there would be a separate championship bowl for rodents, with the Badgers grandfathered in)
  • Oregon Ducks
  • Texas (San Antonio) Roadrunners
  • Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens
  • et al.

TEAM NAMES: IMAGINARY, HISTORICAL, AND/OR DIFFICULT TO QUANTIFY IN MASCOT FORMAT**

  • Indiana Hoosiers
  • Tennessee Volunteers
  • Oklahoma Sooners
  • any school with the name “Raiders” or “Blaze”
  • North Carolina Tar Heels
  • Alabama Crimson Tide
  • Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
  • Purdue Boilermakers
  • Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish
  • Florida State Seminoles
  • Wake Forest Demon Deacons
  • Virginia Tech Hokies
  • Penn State Nittany Lions
  • Syracuse Orange
  • Akron Zips
  • Miami Hurricanes
  • Georgetown Hoyas
  • et al.

TEAM NAMES: RESEMBLE AN ACTUAL ANIMAL BUT ARE NOT FOR WHATEVER REASON

  • Kentucky/Arizona Wildcats (category too broad, as many cats are wild: bobcat, mountain lion, ocelot, feral house pet)
  • Kansas Jayhawks (looks like a real bird but can find no record of such)
  • Arizona State Sun Devils (too cute to be as evil as claimed)
  • Cincinnati Bearcats (real animal but neither bear nor cat)
  • Iowa Hawkeyes (despite Scooter and Soccer’s assurances, NOT A REAL BIRD. Also, the mascot itself is a hawk, which is simply deceptive)
  • and so on, and so forth.

This way, all athletic matches can be visualized as actual fights, and the odds of a gopher beating a duck in general play can be fairly speculated upon. What say you, O Best Beloved?

*Actually it’s going to be a hallabong.

**Funny story: I, too, have suffered the indignity of a vague mascot. When I was in middle school, our school’s mascot was the Crusaders (because the school’s name was King – yes, really), and during my seventh grade year we had to choose mascots for our teams as well. Almost unbelievably, the teachers selected my friend Holly’s selection: the Everyday Heroes. This is why King Middle School eventually collapsed into a sinkhole and had to be vacated.

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Thursday, 3/6: I just want some trail mix
March 6, 2008, 2:38 pm
Filed under: U S of A, host mom, host sister, life on Jeju, life progress, pipe dreams, the future

The first thing I should establish here is that I’m not going to grad school next year.

To be fair, Columbia’s rejection letter was really nice – they think my academic credentials are stellar, they encourage less than 5% of their applicants to reapply but they really want to see me again, I just need to get some more work experience, blah blah blah. And as Miguk Oma says, they certainly didn’t have to write all of that.

I found all this out yesterday morning, before I had my laptop back, i.e. sitting in the freezing living room squinting at the stupid host family computer. I was not initially fazed. I found out on Tuesday that I got an interview for the AIF fellowship, which is promising. And I’m reasonably sure that if I apply again, I not only have a good chance of getting in, but I might actually get some money to fund my poor educational dreams.

Subconsciously, however, this information started to stress me out. Basically, yesterday just sort of spun out into this sort of nunchi nightmare. Nunchi, for those of you who are not schooled in Korean culture, is the ability to sort of suss out a situation, to avoid making the sort of social miscues that Korean society abhors. I guess the news that my future is a lot less certain than I was hoping sort of dulled my nunchi, because I kept upsetting the kibun everywhere I went, including but not limited to: overextending myself at the inconvenience of other people, accidentally making Omma take me and some other teacher she knew to a really expensive eel restaurant near the Jeju Student Culture Center, accidentally sitting in the wrong seat on the bus, etc. I think the low point of my day was when I went to both E AND Lotte Marts to find some trail mix and I just couldn’t find any and I almost started crying in the store. I knew perfectly well that Korean stores do sell trail mix, but apparently none of those stores are in SinJeju, so I ended up having to buy separate trail mix components, which, for the record, are really expensive.

Despite my own discomfort, however, I want to take note of a recent source of pride: Host Sister has refused to go to hagwon anymore. Not even joking. I can’t even come up with an analogy that will make the significance of this apparent to my American readers – all I can say is that Korean students go to hagwon. They just do. To give you an idea of why, here is the Korean life plan:

  1. To be happy, you need to have lived a good life.
  2. To live a good life, you must be successful.
  3. To be successful, you should probably have gone to a good university, preferably a SKY (Seoul, Korea, or Yonsei) school.
  4. To get into a good university, you have to have done well on the admissions tests.
  5. To do well on admissions tests, you should have gone to a good high school.
  6. To get into a good high school, you have to have done well on the high school admissions tests.
  7. To do well on the high school admissions tests, you need to study all the time.
  8. To study all the time, you need to go to hagwon.

I partially credit this decision to her time in America and the fact that she saw that her life as a ninth grader does not have to be perpetually miserable. She told Host Mom that she can study just fine on her own, which is true, since she has been known to skip major family holidays in favor of studying. “Every day,” she told me, “I think about hagwon, do I go or not go. Every day.” Also in America: she got really good at SkipBo. But I played her yesterday and I still won.

Anyway, moments like this sweet SkipBo victory remind me not to feel too sorry for myself, even though maybe I will spend another whole year abroad and if I don’t who knows if I’ll get a good enough job to get me into grad school? Maybe I should see if they have hagwons in America.

1 Comment


walking in the air
December 12, 2007, 2:39 pm
Filed under: IGR Recommends, Jeju crew, host brother, host fam, host mom, host sister, how we roll, life on Jeju, life progress, pipe dreams, poetry, weird metaphors

So I downloaded The Snowman, which is only THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIE OF ALL TIME*, for use in my classroom, during these last two useless weeks after exams. Playing it, I noticed that this version featured a live action introduction with a narrator who looked oddly familiar. Google reveals that this mysterious fellow is, in fact, DAVID FUCKING BOWIE. Perhaps more importantly, his presence does not improve the movie at all, aside from the fact that you get to see David Bowie.

Moral of the story: The Snowman > David Bowie > the rest of us

I’ve had the past three days off, effectively creating a five-day weekend, which was nice to say the least. “Nice” might not even be the best word for Saturday, where Aewol’s co-teacher’s boyfriend proceeded, at noraebang, to rap along with popular artist G-Dragon, as well as 2Pac. Also, his name was Steve Son. As in, “My name is Steve, son.”

Of course, five free days without drama is an impossibility for the Jeju Crew and for my host family too, I think. We can’t help it, really; being thrown into this immediate closeness, spending so much time together, it’s almost inevitable that we’re going to make mistakes sometimes. When you finally start to know people, it’s so much easier for you to hurt each other. I got in a massive fight with HB; I got into another fight, not as large but just as difficult, with Scooter. I didn’t want either of them to happen. But these things, they feel like fires: you can avoid them, yes, but the brush collects and blazes later. And I’d much rather burn them out now.

But later HB told me that he likes me, although he doesn’t love me, which someone told me means that he does, really. And Scooter and I went suit shopping on Tuesday and had just a good friend day – we ate pizza, and Christmas shopped, and made fun of the guy at Zini’s (who is now – if you are interested – featured on the poster outside the cafe. He is reading earnestly), and split a chestnut 빙수 (sundae). Then today I had lunch with Oregon and Transy, and went to the five day market with HM, and she told me to sleep in the car as the Weepies played in the background. Then we went out for 갈비 and 냉면 to celebrate HS’s finish with finals, and I know it’s such a tired theme, how lucky I am. What should I compare this to, my favorite pair of shoes?

Speaking of shoes: I went into Athlete’s Foot this morning to try to get a pair – I currently have NO shoes that protect me from the rain – and I asked the guy if he had my size in these shoes, and he was like, “Yes.” Silence. After an uncomfortable pause, one that went on far too long, I was like, “…Can I try them on?” Then he seemed to take it as a personal affront when they were too big. As it turns out, they’re for men. Who knew? (Not Korea. Take that, gender stereotypes!)

Now I have a personal statement to finish – I have, rather suddenly, decided to apply to what the Koreans call 대학윈 now that TFANY is out of the picture. I’m applying to Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), which is quite a long shot, but it’s also the only program I’m pretty sure I’d attend sight unseen. I don’t know if I’ll get in this year or not – if I don’t, I’ll just apply next year, although getting in this year would be pretty much unbelievable. It’s so terrifying to think that This Is What You’re Going To Do With Your Life, but as Miguk Oma (in her infinite wisdom) pointed out, one has to make some sort of choice at some point. And as the life of Miguk Apa has proven, you don’t have to stick with it.

In two weeks I’ll be home. But the days here feel so bright sometimes.

Finally, someone found my blog by searching for “burnt toast poem,” and I feel obliged to provide.

Eating burnt toast or kimchi -

The decision seems easy to me.

Beautiful it is not,

But toast don’t smell like rot.

I sure hope that this breakfast is free.

I’ll be here all week, kids.

Today IGR Recommends: The Snowman, and concurrently, bittorrenting. I cannot actually share a copy due to filesize, but I can direct you to Azureus, and from there recommend that you Google “the snowman” + torrent. And realize just what has been missing in your life all these years.

*I do not make such statements lightly.

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Wednesday, 12/5; the art of losing
December 5, 2007, 4:50 pm
Filed under: ACT, Jeju crew, actual transcripts, life on Jeju, life progress, of course, okay seriously Korea, pipe dreams, poetry, skool, students, teaching, the authorities, volunteering

The time between meeting and finally leaving is sometimes called falling in love

- Lisa Loeb

Yeah, I quoted Lisa Loeb. You want to make something of it?

2L (boys) movie reviews, part 1

  • okay for the most part but loud
  • got through everything

2M (boys) movie reviews, part 1

  • usually lower-level kids seemed interested
  • except for that kid in the back who kept asking why he had to do it
    • I thought I made real progress with him but maybe not?
      • although he is obv smart because when he wrote “fuck” on his paper and I yelled at him he told me that it was just a joke, and that maybe it was bad in America, but “I am Korean”

1J (boys) – personal ads, part 2

  • TOTALLY redeemed themselves today
  • v. participatory
  • titles: “‘Who Likes ‘Muhan Dojeon’?”
  • Malcolm X is my favorite kid ever
    • ad title: “I Am Seeking My Future Wife”

1K (boys) – personal ads, part 2

  • as usual, not as adorable as the class before them, but reasonably well behaved
  • made The Smartass hold his hands above his head
    • should have been a desk, but he claimed to have some sort of rib injury (?)

Malcolm X is fat – not obese, but unquestionably fat – and he has Malcolm X-style glasses, hence the name, and he has the sort of permanently disgruntled look that only the fat kid can possess. I wish I could put his roster mugshot on here; he’s looking at the camera as though he’s asking it, Are you serious? But his English is amazing and he, himself, is pretty great. Today I let him rent a pen – the pen costs a shoe, which they get at the end of class when they return my pen to me – and he managed to finagle another one shortly afterwards and kept demanding his shoe back. When I forgot, he yelled, “Teacher! MY FOOT IS LONELY!”

The Smartass, on the other hand, is whom I suspect to be the ringleader of this whole groping Thing. For his level and his age, he speaks English pretty well as well – and I have so few of those students, maybe fifty of my thousand, that I’m loath to alienate any of them – but he’s become the leader of this gang of maybe four boys in the class, all of whom need him in some way; he’s already hit puberty, obviously, and he’s reasonably tall and good-looking, and the other boys who circulate around him are, in order, incredibly short, a little chubby, and…obviously forgettable, because I can’t remember exactly what his thing was. At any rate, they tend to talk about sex a lot and ask really inappropriate questions, which I ignore, because I don’t want to encourage them, but what I thought might have been a groping incident happened with one of those boys a few weeks ago. I’ve seen him around my classroom when I’m not generally there, e.g. at lunch, and I’ve seen him try to get in through the window too, so I suspect him – or someone associated with him – with the vandalism I’ve dealt with, too, but I can’t prove anything. The major thing I hate about him is that he’s a terrible influence on kids who might otherwise be decent human beings. Plus, you know, he could be one of my best students if he weren’t one of my worst.

So. Progress on a few things my loyal-est readers will have followed: TFANY is almost surely out. I talked to The Program today about what would happen if I terminated early, aside from the fact that I’d have to buy my own ticket home, and the answer was that I would no longer be able to claim any association with The Program at all. Ever. Which is problematic in that I’m depending on The Program to help me get into grad school, and also psychologically demoralizing in that my entire year would be annulled. If that was what I wanted, I would just have done TFA in the first place. I’m trying to see it as liberating, but really, honestly, right now I’m just depressed. Because even after the fact that I have to lock my classroom, that a few of my students see me less as a teacher and more as the object of some sick game, I still wanted to be part of TFA. And I know there are other things I can do, and that I should probably cultivate my interest in things besides education so I get a wide range of experience before I figure out on which area of development I want to focus. This is, however, a dream I’ve had since the age of sixteen – and, honestly, much longer. I’ve only wanted to do TFA since the age of sixteen; I’ve wanted to teach kids who needed teachers since (and this is rather embarrassing) I read the condensed version of My Posse Don’t Do Homework in my grandmother’s Reader’s Digest. See, my life is almost unbelievable, but not in the entertaining way, more in the are-you-SERIOUS-that’s-really-dumb kind of way.

So there’s that, and the aftermath of yesterday’s incident – ACT is horrified, as I believe I mentioned, and held a powwow with the other teachers today about teaching the other kids about respecting women and the fact that, if you’ll pardon me, I AM THEIR FUCKING TEACHER. The student in question continues to insist that he did nothing, that it was a “mistake,” which I am absolutely positive is not true. This was not a misunderstanding. I am still so angry, so appalled, and more so that he can sit there and say that it didn’t happen, that he can lie with such sincerity. Miguk Oma suggests taking that kid out of my class, and I’m starting to think that it’s not a bad idea, but I am also about 98% sure that it is not just him. Honestly, I don’t entirely know what to do.

But then there are moments of such unbelievable delight – I LOVE Malcolm X. I love being bowed to by one of my most disrespectful students. I love how my students scream my name in the halls. Today I gave Canada a copy of one of my favorite YA novels, The Westing Game, to read instead of doing classwork, and she was so excited. And one of my students from PopSong – who also, of course, happens to be in 1J – turned in a personal ad describing himself as a “just student.” I love him so much; he is the kind of boy whom you just know loves his mother, and she him. He will be teased by his friends for being “the sweet one” long into his twenties. AND I received this personal ad from another student, which I sort of promise is the last one I’ll ever offer:

I am a 1. dark and bright, 2. don’t need glasses and 3. kind person. I like 8. warm 9. sleep and 10. friend. I have 6. brown eyes and 7. short hair. I am as attractive as water. I am 155~ cm tall. If so, please send me an email at 15. you look like happy.

This has nothing to do with mistranslation and everything to do with the fact that a magical alien has apparently landed on my doorstep.

I met with Soccer at Zini Book tonight to finish writing our grant for the after-school program. We talked, as always, about how it is with emptiness and changing love, and the unchanging (thanks, Coleman Barks). Also about Jeremy Piven. With all the stress I’m dealing with right now, there are other shifts in my relationships here that make me afraid I’m going to lose the state of affairs with which I am very happy – but surfaces change, and I can’t do anything about that. And I know that no matter how ruffled the water on the surface becomes, the floor of it remains the same. But it’s hard not to flail out in fear, and also hard not to get more specific, so I’ll leave it at that.

We also talked about the island and the year, and how we’re all here together for a short period of time before we get thrown apart again. But that’s how it is with everything, right.

I would recommend something, but my congestion is making me lightheaded, so maybe not tonight.

1 Comment


victory
October 15, 2007, 1:24 pm
Filed under: ACT, Pop-Song, life on Jeju, life progress, music, pipe dreams, skool, students, volunteering, yoga

My PopSong boys – the boys who had left because they were embarrassed that they were the only boys, the boys who skipped out for two weeks – came back today! I LOVE THEM. I was so happy. They still can’t hear pitch, but their presence, you know, it just adds so much.

Today I wore a plaid flannel skirt and met Scooter for coffee, which is almost usual now, and then Soccer and I went to see this art thing at the Art and Culture Center, and then I went to yoga and had dinner with ACT and her daughter so that we could talk about the winter camp I’ll be teaching. I am exhausted exhausted exhausted – and tomorrow will be the same; I’m going to school, then to pottery, then to Korean class, and THEN I will go home. That will be around 9. Today ACT asked me if I wanted to do any more volunteering, and I felt bad, but I was like, NO. Now I am going to take a shower and watch “The Office” and dream about my students singing sweetly. Or showing up, whatever.

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no need to argue
October 8, 2007, 2:26 pm
Filed under: Jeju crew, U S of A, how we roll, life progress, of course, pipe dreams, skool, students, teaching, travel

My well-documented dream jobs:

1) Working for Sesame Workshop

2) Being Geoffrey Canada

3) Other things along those lines

4) Chubu*/breeder of beedogs**

Today it is raining on Jeju-do, and I am starting to think, with the change of the seasons, about the fact that I may very well need to find a job next year. The big “if” at the heart of my Teach for America deferral is making me uncomfortable – and that doesn’t even take into account the fact that after my last class today, in which this stupid eighth-grader with a perm and a navy cardigan proceeded to imitate my manner of speaking RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, I am tempted to never look at children again.

I can’t go to grad school next year. I’m not sure that I want to spend another year in Korea, either, to be honest. I didn’t expect to come here and make American friends, but much to my antisocial surprise, not only do I like everyone on my little island, they – and my family – are what is making my experience what it is. I’m not sure if I could come back knowing that it would be different. Nothing gold can stay, as those famous poets New Found Glory said.

Which isn’t to say that everything is perfect, obv. The extended blog hiatus is largely a result of a trip last weekend to Busan, one that proved rife with misfortune. An abbreviated list of what happened:

- got lost looking for “love motel”

- slept on a round bed

- had entire crew of Program Kids come to the area of town where we were, only to find that there was nothing to do, felt guilty

- found that four tickets bought for Busan Film Festival were useless due to the absence of my co-teacher’s ID number

- saw documentary on butoh, Japanese performance art that exists “on the far edge of death” (yes, really)

- took ₩15,000/half hour cab ride that dropped us off in the exact wrong part of a town we did not know, a part that had nothing but a Trump Tower, some construction, and an apartment building called “Golden Towers” that was actually gold

- took bus ride to Lantern Festival in Jinju; bus ride was supposed to take one hour, ended up taking THREE AND A HALF; meanwhile, Program friends left after us, got there before us, in some sort of space-time warp I don’t care to contemplate

- stayed in this motel that I’m pretty sure was the setting for Psycho

- nearly got in fights with: movie ticket clerks who would neither allow us in the movie nor give us a refund, old gross motel man who tried to charge us extra after the fact

- got lost at Lantern Festival

A lot of these, of course, were classic travel mishaps, adventures that – even at the time – seemed funny. Others weren’t quite as humorous. The mixing of the kids from the Island and the rest of the Program caused me some apprehension even before we got there, and the big group dynamic ultimately caused an anxiety attack enough that I had to go home. I’m comfortable with the fact that I have social anxiety disorder, even though I hate the name, and I’m okay with occasionally recusing myself from certain stressful situations; it’s something I’ve come to terms with. Other people, however, are not usually as used to this information as I am, and having to explain why I’m doing what I’m doing is not my favorite thing in the world. There were issues of other sorts as well; I’d love to be able to dish like a real anonymous blogger, to discuss the ups and downs of love, of emotional involvement, of relationships and entanglements and accidental, unintended heartache, the fact remains that this blog is only anonymous to a certain extent – i.e. most of the people who read it probably know who I am. So. Suffice it to say that things have been harder, but they have also been easier.

But the world spins madly on; there was a woman who befriended us as we searched for the subway in Busan, and ultimately told us that the next time we were in Busan we should stay with her and her family, and a restaurant owner who, seeing our sweaty and tired faces, plied us with weird creamy soups and kielbasa covered in mayonnaise, on the house. (Which is good, because we wouldn’t have paid for it.) I spent almost the entire weekend with G and E, and on the way from Jinju to Busan we traded music and watched the mountains.

So I’m not afraid of the future, and I’m not afraid of the present. Apprehensive sometimes. But not afraid.

*Just kidding.

**Not kidding.

3 Comments


here we go round
September 29, 2007, 1:56 pm
Filed under: Jeju crew, U S of A, actual transcripts, dumb miguks, food, host brother, host dad, host fam, host mom, life on Jeju, miscommunication, okay seriously Korea, pipe dreams

I have no winter job, I might not have a job next year either, I have a helmet haircut, I live with a fucking card sharp, and I’m through with men for at least a year. How are you?

Things are not quite that bad – I did, after all, get to attend HB’s Sports Day today, where I ate chicken on a stick and that candy we bought at Dollywood years ago, fool’s gold, except this candy was made on a skillet out of the back of a truck in the rain. I also got the chance to watch:  mass hula-hooping, mass choreographed techno dancing, and this event where these people wearing masks that looked like the Clintons had balloons in their pants and the kids had to compete to see who could pop them first. HB did samulnori, and he ran what they called the Marathon, which was actually just a race. Not 26.2 miles, no siree. HB and his best friend were in the same heat. HB kept on trucking. He’s pretty fast. HBBF is not, but his effort was valiant.

Today was also Apa’s birthday. After we got back from Sports Day, I made lunch for my family (fettucine with chicken and the pesto my American momma sent over; inexplicably, the pesto was much more popular than last dinner’s homemade roasted tomato sauce), and then Oma offered to take me for a haircut. Having been opsoyo last weekend, I was (am) in need of some family brownie points; besides, I’ve gotten to see the Jeju Crew a lot lately. Also, my host brother and sister have great hair, so I assumed it would be all right. She took me to her hair place, which turned out to be in E-Mart – and not the nice one in Sin Jeju, the ghetto one down by Tapdong. Good Deal. I really loved my haircut last time; this time, however, I look like a member of the Brady Bunch. And not in a good way. My bangs are a) too short and b) sticking up and c) I look like an idiot and I’m kind of mad about it. And, in retrospect, Oma’s hair is nowhere near as cool as that of HB and HS. But what could I say? “I don’t really trust you?” I don’t even have the vocabulary for that.

Sometimes, however, I don’t think that vocabulary is the problem. Oma asked me, yet again, exactly why I was single – and if I had a good answer for that, I imagine a lot of things would be very different. And on the way home, after omija cha and ice cream at a cafe in Chungangro, she asked me my American parents’ hometowns, which is an innocuous enough question (as well as an impressive one for her to ask in English). But hometowns are a more complex issue for us than they should be; I don’t really have one, my mother never really had one, and my father…the workbooks we were given in class didn’t have any sample sentences like “His family escaped because they were wealthy and well-connected” or “My grandfather was an idealist trying to reform a corrupt government from the inside out” or “I still struggle with the fact that all American history curricula suggest that my family’s role within the colonizing French government was essentially that of a collaborator.” I still can’t say, “I took a taxi.” Really, I don’t know how to say what I want to say in English, just like no one here seems to be able to explain why on Earth children are trained to dance King Tut-style to techno, regardless of how fluent they are.

Anyway. Meanwhile, I’m still looking for a winter internship – ideally, I’d love to work with an NGO or a newspaper or UNESCO, but what that requires is me getting in touch with those people, which, you know, I still need to do. I also got an email from TFA, and it looks like unless I can talk my school into letting me out reallllllllly early, I’m only going to be (barely) eligible for New York or California (or, God forbid, Las Vegas), which were not my first choices. And even then, I have to talk wherever I go into letting me either skip Initiation or make it up over…Christmas? Which is coming soon. ADULT WORLD STOP IT I just want to get a job with Sesame Workshop. Really. At this point, I’d even consider applying for grad school for next year, but I still need to take macro and micro to go to school for IR, and I’m still working on a bigger portfolio for J-school.

After we went out for a raw fish dinner with Apa (where I made the same mistake I always do – I ate what they told me to, assuming that no more food was coming out, when in fact there were three more, and better, courses still to come) HB and I played Uno, where he managed to shuffle his cards multiple times while still keeping his loaded hand on top. Twice. Then he made up the following song about me, to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”:

(IGR) is mischief, mischief, mischief

(IGR) is mischief, oh I’m sorry

And now we are watching Muhan Dojeon.

2 Comments


one of those people
September 17, 2007, 7:03 am
Filed under: Pop-Song, how we roll, music, old stuff, pipe dreams

My new MacBook will be on its way to Jeju-do very, very soon. I’ve come to peace with it. My father, he has deep-rooted, principled objections to Apple Computers Inc., and I understand them; anyone can make a PC or a PC part or a PC program, but if you want something for an Apple, well, you have to go through Apple. But I’m really, really excited. It’s like a toy. Have you seen iLife ‘08?

Today I taught my kids the word for “flood” (hmm), ate a yogurt popsicle, and had one new boy show up to choir and two girls quit. Cool, whatever, we didn’t want you anyway. I also saw the student body president being a jackass in the special ed classroom – it appears that all student body presidents everywhere are alike – and told ACT that I’m down for yoga and pottery classes. I really want to take up cello again too, but they’re telling me that a used one costs around $400, so I have to think about it. I think I need some extracurriculars, though. I’m ready to do more on my own, to get more involved in this city, to be less reliant on others. And in that spirit, even though I don’t really feel like it, I’m going to go walk around Hwabuk and see what I can see.

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