today, my 13 year old girls grabbed my belly. then they asked me how the baby was.
i’m going to end up with a complex, i swear.
in other news, let me tell you about my magic phone! i got a used cellphone for $30 (30,000 won). this cellphone does not have an mp3 player. it does not have a camera. i can’t download ringtones, play more than one game, or check my e-mail.
this is what my phone does do: it calls other phones. sometimes, it sends some text messages.
amazing, i know. a phone that performs only its primary functions.
anyway, i was very pleased with this find. i was thrilled to buy a phone that would serve my needs without my having to pay for all the other crap. i already have a camera and an mp3 player, and because those pieces of technology are performing their primary functions, those which they were designed for, they perform those functions much better than my cellphone would.
so i have this very cheap economical little phone that performs its primary function admirably, and then i decided that i was going to make chicken soup.
it was very nice, chicken soup. i made it from scratch, and i had to explain to the clerk at the market why i was buying chicken bones because she thought i was a crazy westerner who didn’t know what she was buying and also so she could practice her english.
(this is related to my phone i swear)
so i made this wonderful little chicken soup, and i took it to work one day for my lunch. i threw the airtight liquid tight tupperware with my soup in it into my schoolbag. then i threw everything else in: wallet, books, ipod, and yes, the magic cellphone.
i am still scraping jellified soup off the lesser used cards in my wallet. a book is ruined – a new book i hadn’t read yet. “everything is illuminated” – can anybody tell me if it’s worth buying two copies of??
and the cellphone. oh dear, the cellphone. absolutely covered. luckily, i was listening to the ipod, so it escaped, which is fortunate because at this point i have a much closer relationship with my ipod than my phone (sorry).
so i pulled the battery off, cleaned the phone as best i could, and fell into a deep peaceful sleep.
when i woke up, none of the buttons worked. oh noes! however, i remained calm. i went to work. i left the phone sitting out.
three days passed. one morning, i woke up, and my phone was vibrating. it still received text messages! i couldn’t reply, but i knew the phone was not a lost cost.
another few days passed. this time when i woke up, and received a text message, i was able to reply. i had to choose my words carefully, because only a few of the buttons worked, but we were making progress.
slowly, surely, all of the buttons were restored to working order – without any assisstance from me! the 1 has to be hit at just exactly the right angle, and i can’t use the send button, but that’s ok because i can use the ‘ok’ button instead.
like i said, MAGIC PHONE.
Filed under: idiocy (my own)
i am, always have been, a strong person. i am a smart person. when i speak, people listen, and i am usually right. i like being a person who is usually right, a person who can be trusted to be right. i like arguing, and i like winning. i have never been afraid to be right, or afraid to offend, and i have always been ok with not being liked.
until now.
now, i sit at a table full of people who are not as smart as me, who are far more judgemental than me, and i bite my tongue and listen to them say ridiculous things. now, i don’t even trust myself to be right, and so i nod and agree and keep my mouth shut. no, when somebody criticizes me, i believe them, instead of rolling my eyes and walking away, confident in my own ability to assess my progress. i feel my stomach sinking, my mouth going dry, and i believe people when they tell me that my students are getting worse at english since entering my class, believe that that is a criticism that they are qualified to make, believe that they are right, and i lower my head and try not to stir the waters.
this is not me.
tonight, i decided that i had been at the school long enough to have a handle on some of the things that worked well and what might not. i do not have a lot of experience teaching, but i do have experience with children, and i know how to handle them and how to communicate with them. i know when to push the rules and when pushing the rules is unproductive. and so i decided that it was time to be assertive and speak up when something didn’t work, when something needed to be fixed, or when i needed something.
tonight was the night my counselor, the korean woman i work with and who is supposed to provide me support, criticized me in front of my students. wholly unproductive.
and so after class i told her exactly how i felt. that i felt unsupported. that while i was not denying that she was more experienced, or questioning her right to criticize me, i did have a problem with her timing. i also asked her to trust that if i was doing something a little unconventional that it was for a reason, and that even if it didn’t work, that it was something that had been thought about in advance.
and goddamnit, i’m right. everything i said was right. i know the kids better than she does. i am not guessing – i have had these nine students for six hours a week for two months. i am not just doing some of the things i am doing on a whim – i am doing them for reasons, and the things i am doing work.
but i sounded like a whiny, petulant child. i had to hold back tears. adults do not behave like this. when she expressed a different opinion, i backed up and changed mine so that i didn’t offend. when she acted offended, i immediately apologized and placated her, and felt placated in return. this is not productive.
i am tired of not being ok. i am tired of waiting for the medication to work. i am tired of being afraid and weak and quiet instead of fighting and right and strong. i am tired of being tired, of having no energy, of wasting whole days in bed watching tv and checking facebook and sleeping. i am tired of my mood being dependent on what other people say to me, and my ability to crash because of an empty inbox.
and i miss people who will fight with me over a beer in the bar. i miss fighting, with people for whom an argument is not necessarily personal, for whom anger does not mean a loss of respect.
i miss myself.
“teacher, i wanted to do my homework, but my brain wouldn’t let me remember.”
i’ve become the grown-up who gets angry with children when they swear, who makes them do their homework, who can illicit apologies with a sharp glance.
i know. who am i??
so i was trying to explain cause and effect to my 12 year olds today, and i got this little gem:
“teacher! i get it! when my snail eats vegetables, snail needs to take a poop?”
i hate this stupid country.
i’ve decided i’m never going out of my apartment on a sunday again. i’ll stock up on rations on saturday and HIDE. sunday is when they all come out – all 65 million of them – and do they approach crowds in a polite, friendly, PERSONAL-SPACE respecting manner? hell no. it’s more like a game of bumper cars, one in which you get extra points for making children bleed. also? the mcdonalds sells corn salad and shrimp burgers, and i have to use my fingers to order combo #7. and these people have an unnatural love of octopus. and tall buildings. everything’s stacked. i think they’re compensating for something. and there are no street names, so maps are basically useless. everything has directions from the nearest subway station, with landmarks. which are all on the 8th damn floor of the stacked streets so i’m walking with my neck cranes, which is dangerous because there are 65 million koreans lookingfor opportunites to run into me. scooters are on the sidewalk because the roads are too dangerous, and crossing the street is a seriously risky undertaking. i take my life into my hands every time i leave my apartment. and! the koreans walk around in skirts so short i can see their fallopian tubes, but i get dirty looks for wearing a tank top.
…..breath.
i went shopping this weekend. it was unsuccessful. i see koreans wearing cloths i like, but can i find them? no. just the weird stuff. and no shirts fit me, because i think i have the largest breasts in korea.
this is my frustrated face.
Filed under: touristing
i went to the DMZ between north and south korea today.
i’ve been awake for 22 hours, and will write more about it later, but for now, let me say this:
1. the south is just as good at propaganda as the north.
2. sergeant han was worth the price of admission.
i actually said these words today:
“henry, pretending to die from a poison gas attack will not get you out of doing grammar. get off the desk.”
…..i need a quote board.
well, after a string of some rather unfortunate (read: bloody awful) nights, i’ve decided that the next step in finding something that will help my current issues and health problems is to lay off the booze.
it is, apparently, not mixing well with the medication i’ve been put on; medication that i am ambivalent about at best, but i’ve been convinced to give it a fair shot, and that includes dropping things like the beer to allow it to work. so i’ll be the sober one, which means no more hangovers, no more inappropriate sex, no more empty wallets, no more drinking games i should have grown out of….
actually, apart from the fact that this means admitting that i’m not that healthy, i can’t really find a downside.
my students have been teaching me korean, and are loving it. i know. i KNOW. i’m shameless. but i taught myself the alphabet, and can now sound out words with some degree of accuracy, and they are loving giving me pages of words to learn. still have no idea how to construct a sentence. baby steps!
yesterday, my thirteen year old girls pulled out a ruler and measured how wide my eyes are.
you’d think they’d never seen a foreigner (and i know that’s not true).
whelp, two of my co-workers saw me bringing home a bottle of wine after work today. it’s going to take me a month to convince them that a) i am not teaching hungover tomorrow and b) i’m not a sad, lonely acloholic with cats. lots of cats.
listen. a glass of wine with dinner after a long and stressful day is CIVILISED, people. it’s not like i’m drinking it from the bottle at noon in front of Oprah on a workday.
they don’t know that i’m drinking it from a mug (i don’t have wine glasses yet. don’t JUDGE), or that i’m watching downloaded episodes of weeds on my laptop with a tub of ice cream, a bottle of coke, and a tube of grossly overpriced pringles, or that i’m on the second day of my period and as far into my depression as the drugs will let me go.
or that i’m getting crumbs in my bed and i’m far too lazy to do anything about it before i go to sleep.
i know. i KNOW. this is my own fault. there was no reason to have the period, except for my own goddamn hypochondria. i decided that in light of the fact that buying a pregnancy test is very difficult in korea, at least if you don’t know the language and don’t know where to look, that going through a week of hell to make doubly (triply!) sure i wasn’t pregnant was a good idea.
i do this every time, you know. its actually a pretty good thing i don’t get laid that often.
especially given how well it went last time.
ok, so i went out with a bunch of people i don’t know/just met. we went to a few bars, we played a few highly inappropriate drinking games, the like of which i was sure i’d grown out of in first year, and we went to a noraebang*. by the time we stumbled home, carrying cans of beer down the street, the sun was coming up and we stopped to get breakfast. beer and scrambled eggs go really well together at 8am.
well, one of them came home with me. i hate it when that happens! and he…well, he tried to fist me, shoved a finger up my ass so quickly and roughly i nearly cried, passed out under me, fell asleep naked and standing up against my door, and spent the rest of the night sleeping on my bathroom floor because he liked how cold the floor was.
when he sobered up he was quite lovely, actually, despite the fact that he was american, 32, and ‘pretty sure he had broken up with his girlfriend’. not that a girlfriend is any of my business, but: a girlfriend is none of my business. don’t tell me. you’re leaving in the morning.
then he spent the whole day and we…cuddled. which…i don’t…do.
ever.
he was supposed to be kicked out as soon as he was conscious.
and THAT is the magical night that led to this magical night, and i’ll be crampy and depressed and sleeping in chip crumbs for days.
because i am just neurotic enough, not only to like the bumbling idiots instead of the suave charmers, but to not then trust the safety measures i use, and willingly put myself through the very hell they are supposed to help me avoid.
i hid the rest of the wine in the freezer.
*noraebang – private singing rooms. drunken karaoke without an audience. amazing.
