Intrepid Girl Reporter

My new blog domain is up:

http://intrepidgirlreporter.wordpress.com.

I would rather, of course, stick with my own name (I WOULD, Wilson), but I understand the Program’s concern re: public blogs, our affiliation therewith. I’ll be keeping this up for archival purposes, at least for now, but please direct all attention to the new blog. I swear, it will be just like this one, except without my name and everything. Kthx.

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.

Considering the typhoon, it was a surprisingly wonderful Sunday.

Full disclosure, as always:  We brought the storm on ourselves. My friend G’s host sister, J, told her cheerfully that a typhoon was coming Sunday, but given the fact that no one seemed to be evacuating, we all laughed it off as typical Korean hyperbole.* Also, the two weather words all my students seem to know on their own are “fine” and “typhoon.” I thought this was funny.

I was wrong.

It’s been a rough week anyway for pretty much everyone I know - my friend A said that atmospheric changes were afoot, which explained my desire on Friday to personally throttle every single student in my second grade class, but I don’t know anyone on this island who made it through the week without at least once casting a longing glance back towards American shores. So ending with a Category 4 hurricane isn’t really surprising, I guess. Yesterday was cloudy, a little rainy, but about 75% of the island crew ended up seeing The Bourne Supremacy and/or wandering around looking for entertainment and/or eating Red Mango (finally), eating Indian food, receiving a free coffee mug from the only GNC in the province, and visiting the English bookstore and buying copies of Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim and Paul Auster’s New York trilogy. (Okay, the last part was just me.) Then G and my friend E and I went to the jjimjilbang with my host fam, where we all fell asleep on the floor and didn’t leave until 2 AM. At this point: no evacuations, no alarms, no warnings from the Big Brother-style speaker on my wall from which the superintendent declaims. I hope you don’t think I’m joking on that last part.

We woke up this morning with a promise hanging over our heads: pudding, or “ding-pu,” as HB has taken to calling it. (The first time I made it - out of boredom, on another rainy night - he called the ingredients pudding, but after witnessing its metamorphosis into dessert, decided that the name needed a change as well.) Because it was HB’s birthday party day, E and G and I ventured out into the rain to the supermarket down the street and to Paris Baguette for breakfast. It was a walk that would cost us four umbrellas. I had trouble standing upright. By the time we realized how bad it was, however, we were on a mission. Also so wet that it didn’t really matter if we got any wetter.

So we got our chocolate and our sugar and our croissants and sticky buns and green-tea-cream-cheese-pancakey-thing, and headed home, where the power appeared to be flickering, to no one’s consternation but ours. We made pudding by candlelight. We ate pudding and fried chicken with HF and HB’s friends by candlelight. At this point, trees were falling. Then we sat around and talked and read our books, in English, and took a nap, listening to the winds batter the window. When we woke up, the buses weren’t running, so we played Uno with HS.

When we finally made it to the bus station, the streets were flooded, windows were broken, and branches littered the streets. We got E on a bus to Seogwipo and G in her taxi to Hallim, and made it home, where HD, HB, HS and I ate ramen and, because I am forever behind every trend, I read more of the last Harry Potter, again by candlelight. (Side note: I can’t put it down. I wouldn’t call myself a Potter fanatic, but what I love about Rowling is her ability to create a propulsive story - i.e., I always always always want to keep reading.) Then the lights came back on, and I was able to discover that what had actually occurred was Typhoon Nari, with winds somewhere between 131 and 155 miles per hour. Oh.

This is so typical, for us to be here and have no idea that we’re surviving a massive storm.  It’s the grand-scale edition of getting on a bus and hoping it goes our way. Welcome to life in a foreign country. My American mother asked me today if people don’t evacuate, and HS said no; I’m not sure if this was the first typhoon to hit the island, or if it was just the first typhoon in a while, based on what she said (see? SEE?), and I don’t know if people are blase or if they’re actually freaking out and they’re just doing it in Korean. You know? I never imagined that I could experience a storm in this way. But then I never imagined a lot of things.

*There is no typical Korean hyperbole. Mistake Number One.

My choir boys are tone-deaf. Stone-cold tone-deaf. We finally got the rhythm down for the first part of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” but it doesn’t exactly sound like anything, yet.

Also, my students are terrible at playing hangman. Why on earth would anyone use Q for their first guess? Q?

I’ve switched the Patbingsu Song punishment - now they have to dance to “When Doves Cry.”

Today’s accomplishments:

- made late students in three (3!) classes sing “The Patbingsu Song”

- instituted the Shoes-for-Pens policy, in which I lend pens to students in exchange for one of their shoes, thus ensuring that I never lose a pen again (unless I lose it myself)

- inadvertently induced fat kid in class 1J to give a solo performance of “Moon River”

- sat in classroom checking New York Times every thirty seconds until the new Dining and Wine section was posted

I know, I work hard.

There has been an absence of blog posts lately due to the fact that I have to anonymify (Program says), which is difficult when your domain name has…your name. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, it’s cooled off here, and I got to judge an English play contest that was probably one of the highlights of the year so far. Imagine, if you will, a fairy tale in which every character is played by Borat, and you might have a starting point. Also recently:  played near a waterfall, met a drunk man who a) quizzed me on what chickens say in America and b) turned out to be the father of one of my students, and discovered that luck is geographic. Did you know that? I’m not afraid to open my umbrella indoors anymore. Koreans aren’t. So until I fly into LAX, I will open my usan whenever I please. Once I hit American soil, of course, all former superstitions apply.

There have been a lot of mistranslations lately, and maybe I’ll blog about that later. Or not.

So my room is filled with decorations from last year’s ETA, including class projects, English concepts, and signs that say “Happy Times with Jullienne” (sic). Monday, after many promises of redecoration, PCT and ACT offered to take me to the stationery store for room supplies the next day. The next day (yesterday), however, it was raining, so PCT came into my room and was like, “What I mean to say is I think maybe it is bad idea to go because the rain is so heavy.” And I was like, fine, whatever, and we made plans to go today. And they went anyway, because the rain stopped, and failed to call me. Although they bought me Post-it bookmarks. Which - granted - I needed. But still. And now PCT says she is too busy to help me make new signs for the classroom, which is fine, but I would be willing to do all the work - I just need to know what to do. I already tried emailing her documents she could print out and I could laminate (again, I would do this, but I don’t have access to a computer with a printer) and she told me that they were too small, or something. I don’t even know. And now ACT just came in - apparently we ARE going to the stationery store today, and I feel really bad, because I would have gone last night had I known, and thus avoided making them trek twice. Sometimes it just feels like there is a lot of stuff that they think/say in Korean and just, you know, forget to translate.

Also: first a cappella practice this morning. Students did NOT like “Lean on Me.” Which I was going to say is positively un-American, but then I remembered I am not in America.

PS. I am debating giving busted laptop to Candace for college, since Acer will take approximately six years to fix mine, and investing in a new one. And - I hate to say this, but I was looking at Glypie’s MacBook Pro, and it is so pretty. But a Mac? Really? In my family, that is akin to buying a Chevy, making cake from a mix, or voting Democrat. In other words, it means admitting the defeat of your convictions. Never mind that I don’t really want to vote Republican or Democrat or Green or Constitution, lately.

One of my students just won a PEZ dispenser in class and it almost caused a riot.

My laptop is 업서요, as we like to say over here in Korea-land. In other words, I opened it last night, the mouse wouldn’t move, and then the entire screen turned a shade of periwinkle. (Yes, periwinkle.) Which means that a) I will probably have to ship it back to Acer for the second time in a year to get this fixed, and b) all entries until further notice are coming to you from English Classroom 1, 1st Floor, Dong Middle School, Hwabuk, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, South Korea. Which is rather inconvenient, because this computer is still in Korean, and also totally slow. But a blogger has to do what a blogger has to do, right?

It started raining shortly after I got to school, and it’s raining harder than ever now, which means that I have to wait to go walk to FamilyMart and buy a soda and a Popsicle. I like the rain, actually; it’s cooling the weather, and it’s rather peaceful. I just like ice cream more.

Should I make it, though, I have to be careful about who sees me eat. Being here is a little like being on the Truman Show; everyone watches you all the time. For example:  yesterday I went to the cafeteria with Pseudo-Co-Teacher, who is a teacher who has been assigned to look after me by Actual Co-Teacher when she’s not around. I took some meat and some rice, skipping the soup and two kinds of kimchi, and sat down. Then we had the following dialogue.

PCT: You do not want soup?

H: I’m not sure how hungry I am, so I think I’m going to wait.

PCT: Oh, okay. (pause) That is all you eat?

H: For now, I think so.

PCT: I think you maybe need vegetables?

H: I’ll go get some soup.

(H goes to get soup, which is not-delicious seaweed soup, which is why it was skipped in the first place, and sits back down)

H: Oh, I need a spoon.

PCT: Why you get up again?

H: Because I didn’t get a spoon the first time, because I didn’t think I was going to eat any soup.

(H gets a spoon, sits back down. Man across table starts muttering in Korean)

PCT: He wants to know why you did not get side dish, like we do. But you can try mine.

H: You know what, I’ll go get some kimchi.

(H gets up again, gets kimchi in a bowl, sits down for third time)

PCT: Usually, we put on tray. Not in bowl.

(H gives up)

Today PCT brought me some grapes. On a side note, grapes here are delicious; they are much grapier than any grapes we have at home. They are also much messier. Neither the skins nor the seeds are edible (although it is the grape near the seed that is the most tangy and delicious), so you have to spit them out, which inevitably involves sticky hands. Ice cream, on the other hand, comes in wrappers. However, if PCT sees me with ice cream, she will think I do not like/appreciate the grapes. And if any teacher sees me drinking soda, they will automatically assume - and tell all the other teachers - that my favorite drink is soda, which is not even true; I just want one. Navigating kindness, I think, is as difficult as the other sometimes.

Apparently “dog baby” is Konglish for “son of a bitch.”

I’ve been watching this music show thing with HS - maybe it’s an awards show? - and for lack of a better word, it’s awesome. A few observations:

• We just saw the lead singer of this band called Banana Boat prance around on stage in a tailcoat
• Um, I just saw a band called Banana Boat
• All of the bands seem to have at least seven members
• Maybe “bands” isn’t the right word?
• No one can sing - at least in America our production values take care of singers who go flat

Anyway I’m about to call Tony and head out to Hallim for the evening, but I think I have to spend a little more time with HF, since I just got out of bed, you know, an hour or so ago. I actually woke up at 8 AM (thanks, school), watched an episode of Cupid, talked to Glypie, and generally was unproductive before falling back into a hangover-induced stupor around 11. I was working under the (erroneous) impression that my host fam was also asleep, so my sloth was acceptable. Actually, my host family was doing things, like normal people do on Saturdays, and they just didn’t happen to be in the apartment.

So now I’m sitting here in a shirt that says “What a Lovely,” thinking about what the rain means for my plans tomorrow with HB and HS, and about last night. I’m still not worried about the island - I think we’re all settling in, trying to establish our places with our families. I can see how one might be concerned. But I’m not, yet. I’m still happy.

What I am concerned about, though, is Monday. If my class of obnoxious eighth-grade girls yesterday reminded me of anything, it was that I really do need to come up with some sort of disciplinary policy and a set of rules - even if there’s another teacher in the room with me. I wish I’d established this routine earlier. Why did I just assume that they wouldn’t be needed? The educational system is different here, but kids are kids are kids. Even if it seems like only in South Korea would I find a student reminiscent of a small, Korean Eugene Levy. Why are the only resemblances I find obscure ones?

I think - I think - we’re having our first a cappella (aka “English pop song? Do you want to join English pop song club?”) practice on Wednesday, where I will begin the process of whipping these children into singing shape. I want to start with “Lean on Me,” because it’s easy, and who doesn’t like it? Co-Teacher has been incredibly supportive of this endeavor, and she also wrote me a really sweet letter the other day that basically told me to keep on truckin’. It made me glad I spent a lot of money to take a taxi to buy us frozen yogurt.