Poppycockish Orts of a Turophile

(NOTE: I tire of a 24/7 diet of five (or less) letter english words...I offer this as a humble explanation/apology for this post. It actually does make sense, they're not nonsense words. FYI this post contains all of the funniest words in the English Language. He who ears to hear, let him hear)

On the way to work there were zaftig womyn in the gazebos and on the wharfs, lollygagging and jabbering - waving pickels around their perambulators. It's like our podunk is out to take over the world!

I felt at once prestogiatorial and bovicidal today. I was gruntled when I got there, but the brouhaha raised by the boogleish students in regards to Me, Amy and Roger sends me into constant conniptions. For a commited turophile like myself, this is very off-putting. Hornswoggling is a constant danger.

As if the Roger thing wasn't bad enough, our hirsuteness is a constant topic of conversation - as is the trenchermenlike appearance of our snouts. Their snooty, hoity-toity obsession with the callipygian ideal is borderline neurotic. The words hurt like the time I broke my zygomatic arch and other bones surrounding my oralmeatus. A person barely has any time to masticate on breaks. One day, one of the bespeckled weasels from the boogle is going to be grabbed by the cankle, defenestrated, and end up in smithereens. Closely followed by one of us heading to the Wonju hoosegow.

To make matters worse, I blunderguffed like 12 times. Smegma. Borborygmusmaximus. Definitely had the blamps. Just when I was trying to explain 'tittle' , the subject of Pogonotrophy came up again. Like that matters a nipperkin. It's either that or spittle. Sometimes I wonder if noodles cause logorrhea. When I was but a hobbledehoy I knew how to behave better than these pooched snorkels! Like a spoon I offer wisdom to their mollycoddled meati, but to the flummoxed and discombobulated it often manifests itself as floccinaucinihilipilification. The flaunting of the scofflaws is traumatizing. Luckily fisticuffs and wenis injuries are rare.

You niggle, you cannoodle, you could offer them a poodle; but nothing but caddywampusness and flibberdigibbets everywhere. Spry mental calisthenics notwithstanding, the kerfuffles and tomfoolery make tutelage difficult and render each class rather higgledy-piggledy. Its easier making a foxy chimp thrive at a cotillion or to transform a kumquat into a thespian. The only ones with garbo are persnickity, reticent and taciturn. I wonder if they would respect a behelmeted mustachioed headmaster from Bangkok. Maybe if he traded his toque flume for a blunderbuss and brought some hubba-bubba and a squeegee to class.

A Day in the Life

Today I eschew the blogs I had planned in favour of a more off the cuff description of the day for your reading pleasure...it was a fairly typical one that should give you an idea of how my life goes along..

Starting from Last Night after work...

20:00 Get home from work...excited that house is warm. Check facebook, email and current events. Not much happening. Eat something.

20:05 Realize it's really warm...I left my heat on max...(old habit from the days when I had no hot water)....the floor temperature now reads 88c and my feet make sizzling sounds when I walk...I throw open the windows even though its below zero.

20:10 Starting watching an episode of The Office online. It takes forever to load. I try 100 other links. They all stink. I curse my computer, give up and leave a slow one to load while I go read about Holy War. Its a really interesting book....Holy War - the crusades and their impact on todays world....

22:00 Episode is finally ready. Watch the office. Episode amuses me because it takes place in Winnipeg. Oh Winnipeg.

22:30 Want to read more...eyes hurt, retire instead. Realize (again) bed has heating pipe right under it....Bed feels like sauna...sleep not possible....play guitar in the dark instead....

??:?? Finally a good temperature, fall asleep.

8:00 Wake-up....magically I am able to fall back asleep again...this doesn't usually happen

10:00am wake up again...pleased with self for sleeping in...make tea

10:01 read CS Lewis talking about heaven, and a chapter from Matthew....I've been doing well at making that a habit in the morning

10:30 Read current events, facebook, email...

10:40 Realize I should eat something....curse my empty fridge and make scrambled eggs....

11:20 Study Korean and write an email to a cute Korean girl 에나 (Yaena) from a cafe I've been frequenting and practicing my Korean on. I don't have a Korean keyboard...so I have to type on a screen based keyboard...it takes 20mins to write hi/how are you/what did you do today?/I'm going to go work out and then go to school/my school gave me a korean name/it's 한솜 (Hansom).

Did I mention I have a Korean name? It's 장한솜 Chang Hansom (chang is a normal last name...but also slang for 'most'...so I am most hansom....hahaha.

12:20 Think about watching the Canucks game.(I know how to watch streams that helpful Canadians post on the internet). Realize I won't be able to see the end....curse the time change y'all in Canada just made.

12:30 Gather Korean skills and go to the gym to inquire about a pass instead...successfully ask why there's no one at the desk, get a locker combination, and find out the price for three months. (about $100...good price. Current exchange rate 80 CDN :( ) Realize I don't know where I live. Am somewhat embarrassed. Vow to learn my address.

13:45 Have spicy chicken with rice. Usually I cook my own rice, but today I'm in a hurry, so pre-cooked rice and sauce...all ready to go. I love that about this place. So many rice and noodle options. I will miss CJ Sauces.

14:00 Shower and go to work.

14:15 practice the Korean I learned on one of the Korean teachers. Sound like a tool I'm sure, and head starts to hurt. Conversational skills are coming along as long as they speak slowly and don't want an answer before 5 seconds of thinking has elapsed.

14:20 Try to decide if there was any chance that my Korean will surpass my Dutch skills....first thought absolutely not because Korean is much harder...new alphabet etc.....second thought....I was never immersed in Dutch for an entire year....so maybe....we'll see I guess. I've been studying hard the last month....

14:20-15:30 prep classes/talk to Amy and the other teachers. Haha. Scare one of them half to death when she arrives...by standing in the doorway when she comes in not looking. It was amazing...she stumbled back and covered her face and almost died. Gives me death glare. She didn't think it was funny. Wonder if something was lost in translation. Feel bad.

15:30-20:00 Teach my seven 40min classes....first class is sad because they took my cutest girl away...into one of Amy's lower classes....Amy isn't happy either cause her class is uber full.

4th class irritates me, I took the time to change a section on American Geography and make a Korean one instead. Why should they learn states and their capitals? They still act like turds and complain. I swear tommorow they will have to do all 52 states and capitals.

20:00 Do some grocery shopping....buy some sausages from the guys who were hawking them because they were cute....their english attempts that is.....picture costco....where there's all those people with samples right? Here, on almost every aisle there's someone standing there, usually in uniform...usually just bowing. You secretly wonder if this fantastic display of inefficiency isn't the cause of the global financial crisis.

Anyways, the ones who do have samples usually do a double take when they see a foreigner, and then for some reason increase the volume and give you the Korean sales pitch. It's kind of annoying. Anyway...these guys were like a comidic duo... 'hi' says boy 1....waves sausages in the air....awkward smile....points at the sausages...asks his friend what sausages is in English (in Korean). 'Soh ssa gee' says boy 2. Points at the price (30% off)...hmmms but can't think of any English.....'sale' I offer.....'hmmm....sale' he nods vigorously... expression seems to suggest he has his identity wrapped up in the outcome of the sale of sausages to the foreigner, so I humour him. They are delighted.

20:30 Go home and check the internet for interesting happenings....realize nothing has happened in the 7 hours since I last checked except the Canucks game.....write a blog.....

22:00 Realize that blog is really long and sign off

Branching out is hard to do

So this week I started making a concerted effort to get out and meet people in Wonju....I don't have many natural connections here, no church, no sports teams, no (English speaking) co-workers (Amy notwithstanding), so it's not the easiest thing in the world. Especially if you have introverted leanings to start with...but I can switch pretty well when I need to, so that's what I've been doing for the last week or so.

I went to a random bible study I found on facebook, went out with some of the public school teachers here in Wonju that I didn't really know and hung around with some of Kyle's co-workers. Also pioneered an evening out with our staff this week. Hasn't happened in the 3 1/2 months I've been here....not that they're not nice or anything....just hasn't happened. People are definitely refreshing sometimes for me....though I would still put myself firmly in the I side of the introvert/extravert scale...

So Gold star for me.

I should write a blog about being an INFJ personality type....in Tesol we had to do an extensive personality test and I was the coolest/rarest type....ok...coolest is an opinion...but rarest is a fact....(I taught my kids the difference the other day)

My Korean has also been coming along....I'm almost half way through my course....my first month I studied a decent amount...my second month like none....and the last month when the colds and the cold have been keeping me indoors, my appetite for korean has increased again. I can tell cab drivers where to go, say basic stuff like where I'm going, where I'm from, what I did on the weekend....argue about prices.....ask where places are, ask how much stuff is....and kick kids out of class for swearing in Korean. Not going to lie...at least a part of my motivation for learning is so that the kids can't just say whatever they want and get away with it :)

Anyway, I'm going in early for a korean lesson....gotta go....stay tuned for blogs on INFJness and also the three wishes I would grant Korea if I could.

~Matt

ppeppero day

Thought I would add a piece on Ppeppero day for your reading enjoyment. November 11th is also a special day in Korea. I made everyone do Remembrance Day stuff in class but we had a joint Remembrance/Ppeppero day November 11th. But what a concept....Ppeppero is the name of a candy...the chocolate covered sticks that you see here...made by a specific company...and they've made it into this national holiday...almost like valentines...give out the candies to significant others, teachers at school whatever....

What a racket....its like if we had a national smartie day or something in Canada....and everyone had to give out smarties...Lotte corporation must make a fortune...and I got SO many of these things. Gave most of them away as prizes....Still have some left.....

PS if you want more Korean Pop Music Amy posted a bunch too.... http://kakorea.blogspot.com

Korean Pop Culture

Um...wow. It's bad, real bad. My first encounter with Korean Pop culture was within 20minutes of being in the country. When we hopped on the bus, they had a TV going and when the commercials came on I had to do a double take and look around to see if it was a spoof or something....but no one was laughing. "Are you serious?" I yelled, "very" the TV said....

How to explain it? For starters, they have about 4 songs that play on the radio. One of them is tolerable, melodically speaking, but they're all pretty tragic. Most have a line or two of English mixed in with the Korean (because English will make the song sound cool......right?) Usually something dumb like "kiss me" or "one more time" or "tell me" or "I love you".

It's systemic too, I mean, try to picture 40 year old women dressed as little school girls, or 50 year old ajummas sporting cutesy Disney apparel and you'll start to get an idea of the "innocence" or "cuteness" that pervades Korea pop culture.

As for TV...I can only compare it to the feeling I get when I watch 80's Batman, and laugh hysterically at the commercials. It's like the 80's ubercheese and sort of innocently dorky ways combined with a bit of a modern twist...add a bit of language barrier plus some Korean flavour and voila Korean Pop.

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: this video includes an appearance by ET and Little Red Riding Hood...go figure....

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=TcWlIajEIxU

(also includes an English translation for your maximum enjoyment)

Happy Hagwons Virulent Viruses

Sorry for the lack of updates recently...I've been in the throes of two consecutive colds, the first one wasn't as bad, but this one is real bad. I pretty much hate life with colds, and not having any hot water for the last two weeks has made it that much worse. Let's just say its not much fun doing classroom control with kids that don't speak english when you can't talk.Blogs from people who hate life general aren't that uplifting, so I've been avoiding.

The blog I was going to write before I got sick was about liking my job, so maybe I'll pretend I'm not sick and write that one anyway.

Our school and the people I work with are really great. A lot of foreigners in Hagwons (academies) get treated really bad and taken advantage of. There's a lot of horror stories, but my school is great. So, though church and friends make me wish I was in Seoul sometimes at least I made a good choice going somewhere where I had an insiders perspective of the job.

And the kids don't bother me half as much anymore...actually I've come really like a lot of them. For the most part I can see them as beautiful, vulnerable, precious, creations. I mean, yea they're still rude and make stupid comments about white peoples eyes, and noses, and clothes, and hair, and whatever else, but they don't tire/annoy me like they did at first. I don't know whether my expectations have changed or they've improved in behaviour but either way its better.

I've learned how to manage them better, released that rabbit trails are a good thing if they're at least attempting to communicate in English. Perhaps I'll regret having written such positive reviews - jinx myself or something - but I suppose its better to be self-deluding positive then the alternative. Anyway, signing off, fingers crossed that m viciously virulent virus has vamoosed by Monday.