solar powered

The car that is usually parked immediately outside of my window went on a three day vacation, leaving my 3" view of the ground and 3" view of the sky fully unobstructed! People were free to pass within mere feet of my window while hocking loogies and, like last night, fart apparently. Life is great.

Well today the car is back, but the sun's output (from what I can see through the 3" gap) is at 80%/maximum power. This kind of makes me wish I had left the building before now (5:33 PM) but I was too busy sleeping until 2. At any rate, the return of the sun has certainly heightened my spirits. The removal of trash also helped clear up the perpetual funk odor that was wafting through my window last night. So we have 80% sun power and relatively fresh air. If I had a TV, PS2, Katamari Damacy, and some Orville Reddenbacher popcorn, it'd be just like home!

Man, I have a hankering for KFC. There's something about the chicken in this country that is just positively mouth-watering. The only gripe I have is that they have the tendency to slather on too much sauce, but that's easily remedied by just squeezing it out of the sandwich prior to consumption. Oh yeah, and I'm talking about the Zinger Burger. It's a mystery and a damn shame they haven't exported this idea to the States.

I'm currently debating what shirt to wear outside. It's not as if there's a huge selection available to choose from, but this weather really has me chagrined. When I go out, it'll be warm. When I come back here, it'll be chilly. Most people solve that by just dressing too warmly in the first place, but I'm the kind of person that likes to take full advantage of the warmth and wear sandals/short sleeves whenever possible. I may be regretting my words in July when I'll be bursting into a sweat the second I step foot outdoors.

And with that... I'm off to "work."

On recent activity and thought

My computer is a better heater than the boiler that is trying desperately to heat my floor. This thing is on fire!!

Tomrrow it's going to be 74 degrees... fahrenheit of course. A nice day, but I'm desperately worried about my clothing situation. Dear lord. In the year and two months I've been in Korea, I've never worried this much about style/fashion. It's almost as if appearance matters more than teaching (what a revelation!!). Recently I've had this strange discomfort with clothing 'reruns,' although I'm pretty sure no one else gives a shit. Perhaps it's time for trip #35094820394823 to Myeong Dong, my most hated place on earth.

But hey... the last time I went to Migliore, the big mall over thar, the shop worker actually gave me her business card. We seemed to have some employee/shopper chemistry going on. Perhaps that's why. I came in, tried on some jeans, she complimented me on how thin I was, I bought the pants... the best case shopping scenario. I could barely breathe in them, but she said it's how they were supposed to be. I'm inclined to believe her, since either way, she was going to sell some jeans. Relatively expensive, but that's what I get for pants that are "made in Korea" and not that cheap "Chinese stuff."

I have a problem, which is that I have an addictive personality. Part of the reason I hate clothes shopping is not because I hate clothes in and of themselves, but that once I start buying shit, I can't stop. This leads to a severe depletion in my already swooning bank account. My brother made a dangerous precedent by purchasing nearly 100,000 won (approximately $90?) worth of clothes including one pair of jeans, a leather belt, a dress shirt, and a t-shirt. When you put it all together like that it doesn't seem like much, but the belt alone was $28. Coincidentally, the jean shop owner had the exact same voice as Hwayobi, an old pop singer now featured on "We Got Married," a Korean reality tv show. This may mean nothing to you, but it was a little hilarious at the time as her voice and way of speaking is very unusual and induces laughter whenever heard.

Well, the point of all this is that spring has sprung in Korea. It's time for a change not only in wardrobe but attitude. In the end, everyone's searching for their own happiness. For now, seeing green on the trees is enough. A car to take midnight drives in would be nice but... gotta take baby steps into adulthood...

Fleeting Moment of Childlike Wonder

Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit a friend in Jamshil which lies in the eastern part of Seoul. Whenever I go to Jamshil, I have a strange feeling that it's not actually Seoul, but a smaller town in which the buildings are not towering overhead left and right, the streets are broad, but less congested, and the air smells a hell of a lot better.


Near Jamshil station is a popular amusement park called 'Lotte World' as well as a medium-sized lake, open to the public. The walkway is bordered on both sides by cherry trees. Unfortunately most of the flowers had given way to greenery, but there were still enough to produce a shower of petals when the wind blew hard enough. This made me full of girlish glee and even dared to utter the words "It's magical!" out loud in front of a friend who had perhaps thought I had gone temporarily insane.

On Sunday, I had the chance to go for a car ride with my brother. Since neither of us are particularly familiar with the roads of Seoul, we spent a fair amount of time being lost. That, however, also gave us the chance to take in the sights, breathe some good air, and enjoy the reawakening of the earth that is spring.

All of this made me realize how much I've missed the sun, the smell of fresh air, and driving a car around I guess. However, having those things for even a short time was quite energizing and helped shake the bugs of winter out of my head.

In other news, I had to take a local bus today. The light was red, and the car in front of the bus left about 2 meters of space between himself and the car ahead. This apparently made the bus driver angry, who honked repeatedly so he could move up ... 2 meters. I'm not sure if the bus driver thought he was about to drag race someone to the next light, but he was angry enough to start muttering curses and things under his breath about how people don't know how to drive. Someone needs to take a trip to the park and chill out.

positive and negative

So I moved into this tiny basement apartment. It's the same price as the previous one, except crappier. During the day, the air is ok, but for some reason it turns into this rotten egg funk at night. That is not cool because I'm usually sitting next to the window (at the chair in this picture) primarily in the evening. Another problem is that the fridge randomly unplugs itself. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a free hand that unplugs the cord but it tends to shut off at night or when I'm gone for several hours at a time. So I shove it back into the socket... but who knows what's going to happen 12 hours later.

I discovered that there are actually other people living in the basement on the opposite side of the hall. The door was open this morning and when I came home from work around 10:30 PM. There was a young woman standing there. She looked at me, then closed the door. Maybe I seem like a suspicious person. Or it was just time to close the door.

Well, that is the negative side of my life. My housing situation became significantly worse. Hardly any "options" in here, the air sucks, and it's tiny. However, there are still some positive points in my life.

Work. Who would've thought that work could be ok? And at a hakwon no less? I'm only working part time, which probably has a great deal with my level of happiness. In my last class, which happened to be a conversation class, I asked "Are you guys hungry?!" One kid in the back answered, "Yes!! I want to eat donuts!!" The other students started clamoring that they were hungry and wanted donuts/hamburgers/pizza/drinks. I said no pizza as it's too expensive, but I can buy drinks or donuts. Then they said they have to take a test after class, so I thought the snack thing was out of the question. Well...

After class was over, two students said they were really going with me to get donuts. Surprised, I grabbed my wallet and we headed out. They were skipping part of a test for snacks. Well, that's not my responsibility haha. So I got my stuff, said bye to my coworkers, and we headed out. At Dunkin Donuts, all the donuts were gone... just a handful of regular ones. So we went to Burger King instead. They each got a 진거버거 (?) and I just got some onion rings. They wolfed that shit down. Anyway, I was glad to feed them and hang out a little bit. It's a better way to get to know the students. However, I advised them to eat some gum so the other (obedient) students wouldn't get a whiff of the hamburger in their breath.

At any rate, I just come, work, and leave. No worries outside of class. This is heaven compared to my previous hakwon experience. I dunno if I'm doing the right thing or not, but no one has complained thus far. 송파구 is awesome. The kids are awesome. The coworkers are awesome. The pay is... almost awesome. Work life is far better than before, even if I have to travel over an hour to get there.

So in the end? Life could be better, it could be worse. I'm going to be positive though and say that everything is fairly ok right now though.