100

I must stop writing blogs while over the limit.

Sober tonight, so as promised, here's my big, happy, superpositive blog entry. Starting from tomorrow I now have two-hour-long lunches on Tuesdays and Thursdays, three hours on Mondays and Fridays, and on Wednesdays there are three hours and forty minutes between my morning and afternoon classes. You may feel that such a bloated break in the middle of the day would be a bit annoying, but I'm quite looking forward to it. Why? I live a few minutes away from school so can go home, if I want. Even after I've planned my lessons for the rest of the day, there'll still be time to read a good chunk of my book, or even watch a film. I mean, on Wednesday, I could fit in Lord of the god damn Rings. I can just get so much more stuff done. For somebody that lacks motivation some of the time, a big period of free time in the middle of the day is just what I need. I might even start going to the gym. But don't hold your breath. Anyway. Tomorrow I plan go shopping for a phone.

Yeah, I've been in a foreign country for three months, made friends and not died, without the use of a mobile phone... in 2008. It's like being in 1997 again. To be honest I've quite enjoyed the ability to go dark when I feel like it, but I now feel it's probably time to get connected. Last night I lost everyone in the stampede at the station before the fireworks, and only rendezvoused through sheer luck half an hour later. There were apparently more than an million people in the area, so I had been preparing myself for a night of solitude. I lost people coming out of a club in Itaewon later that night too, and was about to get into a taxi on my own when they showed themselves. A phone, I concluded, would solve any recurrences of these social quandaries. Just have to find a salesperson with a basic grasp of English now.

New girl arrived last week, and has settled in ridiculously well. On her second night here she forewent galbi, choosing to meet us for sojuing and noraebanging (with, unprecedentedly, the school's manager!) and, following a trip to Nowon, proceeded to be the penultimate man standing at 7am the next morning. I know this because I was the last man standing.

..I think.

To finish on an optimistic high, I'll mention how I feel after what is today 100 days since I arrived in Korea (I haven't been counting the days, I just happened to work it out last night when Sean brought something up). This is how I feel: I feel great. I would list all the reasons, but jesus, if you want to know read the rest of the blog. Bye!!

Nobody likes a quitter

Today is Sunday, and we've just been noraebanging for the past couple of hours. Which means lots of soju and shouting along to such classics as Wuthering Heights and Careless Whisper. Have to teach in the morning. Ow.

A week last Tuesday a new girl arrived at ECC to replace Rachel, the Teessider who went home this week. She'd been in contact with our co-worker and her fellow Canadian Laura for months, and she'd talked to everyone else on facebook prior to coming, so we expected her to slot into the ECC way nicely. On the Wednesday, the day after she arrived, I was out with a friend when Laura had a phone call from the new girl's mum, saying she'd had a bit of a freakout and could they go and see her.

She was staying in the same love motel as I did the first couple of nights, in Suyu, so a couple of guys went down to see her. They knocked, there was no answer, they went home. Apparently she was asleep - at half past 9? The next night we persuaded her to come to see us in Eunhaeng Sageori for some galbi, but she barely ate anything, didn't drink, and generally looked pretty fed up and it was more than clear then that she wasn't going be around much longer. We called our school's manager to tell her what was going on and the next day a replacement was actively sought.

Sure enough, she didn't stay. We invited her out at the weekend but she declined. We invited her out for dinner during the week - nope. She's made it clear that she hates Korea and wants to get back to Canada as soon as possible... and the reason for this? It's "too foreign" here. It's hard to get into her head to know what she must be thinking. I mean, If I'd decided to quit after two days here, my friends would ridicule me, I wouldn't be able to look my family in the eye, it'd just be embarrassing. Not only that but this contract termination means she has to pay for her flights, out and back, which is more than £1000. If she'd worked even for a month she'd have broken even. I can't fathom the mindlessness of deciding to live on the other side of the world for a year when you blatently don't want to. Yeah, if I sound a little bitter, here's the reason: we have to sub her classes until a replacement can be recruited. Which could be a while.

She's been teaching here since last Tuesday and will do tomorrow, we assume, but her flight is on Tuesday. The atmosphere in the office slightly sour, and obviously so. Like I say, if she'd stayed for a month not only would she be fine financially, a new teacher could be recruited, we'd be happy, and she might even have had a good time. But that won't happen when you lock yourself in your room at the weekend eating low fat Pringles, doing laundry and weeping. Which is what happened this weekend.

Let's hope the new new person isn't such a disastrously weak human being.

Misc

In the absence of anything all that interesting to write about, I'm going to cover several unconnected events that have happened in the week just gone.

1. Today I noticed, when sitting outside Little Jakob's, that there is a bright swastika sign above my window. The whole hakenkreuz as not a nazi thing idea is something you get used to quickly. Still just a touch disconcerting, though.
You'll have to click on the picture for a closer view.

2. It's really really hot. The weather said it was 36 degrees today. I took a nice shady walk to Nowon earlier. Took about half an hour. Wisely got the 1142 bus back. Here's a bus! And some shade!


3. The Olympics. Yesterday I was a bit hungover, and spent pretty much all day supine on the sofa,watching the olympiad. All the best events too: mainly judo, shooting, women's handball, basketball and fencing. When Korea won gold in judo, I had the window open and a roar that was, considering that we're talking about judo, very loud indeed, came up from the galbi place downstairs. We won in the swimming today as well. I'm trying to find a video of the commentary because it was awesome. Reminded me of that commentator's moment of climax screaming when Steve Redgrave won his gold in 2000.

4. I had chicken galbi on Friday. That was quite nice.

5. Woman. There's a woman that works on my road, clearing boxes from the shops, sweeping, generally keeping the place in order. She looks I'd say 70, or older, and I'm pretty sure she works every day of the week from dawn until very late at night. I see her every morning on the way to school, and I can often see her from my window after midnight, still diligently tidying. Here's a picture of her tidying diligently after midnight.

6. Before I finished this post I was invited out to a DVD bang*, but couldn't find it and ended up in a different bang: norae. This of course necessitated soju, which on a Sunday night may prove foolhardy. I'm now watching the community shield.
*As noraebang is singing room, DVD bang is, well, guess. I'll discuss at length another day. This post is too long already.