1. American music played: Azure Ray (host mom likes, natch)
2. Teaching today, I realized that I sound like Will Ferrell talking to Sean Connery on “Celebrity Jeopardy.”
3. New KFB post…check it out on the sidebar, kthx
Filed under: fondness for analogies, host fam, life in Jeju, music, okay seriously Korea
Good thing it’s around midnight and I still have a PowerPoint to complete for Classes 1-4 tomorrow. In college, to be honest, that would have been a decent track record. But now I am a functioning adult – I am – and so I should be doing these things earlier, even though the rush of excitement I feel about tomorrow is the same feeling I’ve always had before the first day of school, from age five to age now.
Again, full disclosure: I would probably have made more progress had I not arrived at school this morning, achy and congested, to find that my computer was entirely in Korean. This made making a snazzy presentation difficult. It actually made making any presentation difficult, since I couldn’t understand any of the commands. After half an hour of trying to explain to the other teachers that I just wanted my computer commands in English, I did NOT want to type in Korean, I did NOT want to read English-language websites, and I was NOT having trouble accessing Microsoft Word, I was able to move on to asking if I could go home and work on my laptop, where all the commands are in beautiful, blessed English. After deterring me for another half hour with hollow promises of repairs by the computer teacher, it was finally discovered that the computer teacher was too busy to fix my computer that day. But then, of course, it was time for lunch. Not time to go home and get some work done, time (of course) to eat. They told me that if I was not feeling well that I should order some mandu with them, so I did. Then they got me some Tylenol and told me that I should eat some noodles before taking the medicine, and that we would be eating both noodles AND mandu, despite the fact that I didn’t really want any mandu in the first place, much less noodles + mandu. Eventually I managed to talk them down to just noodles, although the moment I came home my host brother and sister were like, “Hey, do you want some mandu?”
But in the interest of complete truth, I will admit that I went downtown exploring with HS and HB today, as we had previously planned, when I had foolishly believed that my morning might be productive. After they left for hagwon I stumbled upon an underground fish and vegetable market, where the fish were so fresh that the market didn’t smell and huge pyramids of Jeju tangerines decorated the stalls. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Then I emerged back into the downtown, went to the wrong Pizza Hut, and finally made it to meet the Jeju-si crew, where – much to my surprise – I almost cried in relief. I told my host mom that I like Korean food better than pizza, which is largely true, but tonight this was the best pizza I had ever had, despite the fact that it was accompanied by really gross and partially frozen lasagna. The crust was filled with cheese and sweet potato. I suggest you not knock the combination until you have tried it.
The operative word around here seems to be “maybe.” As in, “Maybe the computer company is very busy, so they will maybe come tomorrow, or maybe Monday,” or “Maybe that is cuttlefish,” or “Maybe my mother will pick you up.” The element of terrifying uncertainty that’s already inherent in having your language brokenly translated by a twelve-year-old is amplified by such statements; will my host mother be there, or won’t she? Is it squid, or isn’t it? The only explanation I can come up with is that “maybe” is somehow synonymous with “to be,” or that here on this island, nothing is for sure, not even the identity of dried seafood. But it still seems to fit, somehow; after tonight, I have hope for this year. Will it fly? Maybe.
I don’t know if I could drive a car
Fast enough to get to where you are
Or wild enough not to miss the boat completely
Honey, I’m thinking maybe
You know just maybe
– Liz Phair, “Shatter”
Filed under: fondness for analogies, life in Chuncheon, music, orientation, poetry, reading, U S of A
I am sick, which will either limit or heighten the number of blog posts made, depending on the effort I choose to exert when I’m forced to do nothing. As it stands, I sound like a late-stage emphysema patient. People keep asking me how I am, since the uninformed dorm resident could easily assume that I’m dying. They also keep telling me to not talk and rest my voice, which is a little like telling Paris Hilton to stop getting arrested, or telling otters to stop being cute.* I.e. it’s not going to happen.
Today I went to E-Mart by myself to get 약 , medicine, which is – almost unbelievably – pronounced “yahk.” Like yuck. After a certain amount of time around others I tend to get sort of antsy and need to explore by myself, so being sick was actually quite convenient: it allowed me to take a taxi on my own, describe my symptoms to the pharmacist (although, after she proceeded to ask me some questions in Korean and then saw my confused look, said pharmacist asked, “Do you want me to speak to you in English?”), ask questions regarding the location of plastic spoons. Etc. Also, now I have yogurt, and although my yogurt was strawberry, it came with two pomegranate yogurts free (“service,” as they say here). And sushi at E-Mart is sold a la carte for approximately $.60 per piece. I did choose to invest.
Tomorrow I’m going to this “traditional folk village,” aka Probably Korean Shakertown, but Gwi Ohk is so excited, and it’s hard to not feel the same way around her. Then Monday: DMZ. I’m performing in the talent show on Tuesday, so getting my voice back by then would be ideal.
I’ve started looking for some Vachel Lindsay online. Even though I seem to recall not liking him much before, I read a line in After Henry from him –
I brag and chant of Bryan Bryan Bryan
Candidate for President who sketched a silver Zion –
and it really made me want to read more, probably because I think I subconsciously miss America. And cheese. I talked to Candace the other day and started naming off foods I wanted and they all had cheese as a major ingredient. Soon I’ll be sitting around listening to nothing but Aaron Copland and dreaming of QDoba.
I’ve also been listening to Tegan and Sara’s “Walking with a Ghost” on repeat, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the U S of A.
*At the DMZ there’s apparently this Otter Research Center, since otters are the only mammals that can successfully pass from North to South Korea without getting blown up by land mines. I am not making this up. And I am so excited.
tonight’s dedications:
Momma, I got your package 🙂 I will call you when my voice comes back.
Roommates, I love you both.
Koreans seem to love “All You Need is Love.” Everyone knows the Beatles here, and this appears to be the one song on which they all find common ground. And while the assertion that love is all you need may be a debatable one, I feel that as national songs go, there are worse choices.
I haven’t been blogging much lately because I’ve been going through a lot – baggage and struggles mostly, although not entirely, unrelated to The Program, to living in a foreign country, to being surrounded by Americans and then further surrounded by people who are not, to the people with whom I live and will have to live. One of my Korean teachers, Kim ssonsangnim (teacher), kept telling me that I looked sad, probably because I did. But being here for the most part is the best thing for me to have done; I am somewhere entirely new, a place where it is entirely impossible to hide in old thoughts and reside in their physical manifestations.
These circumstances, along with the fact that I have to tell the Program office my exact placement preferences by tomorrow night, have led to me thinking about the line that forms the title of this entry a lot lately. Many people here are dying to go to the mountains or the beach, to work with all girls or all boys or really smart kids or really slow ones. I thought I would have strong opinions one way or another, but honestly, I landed here with very few expectations, and no matter where I find myself, it will be an experience like no other. I wouldn’t mind going to Jeju-do, which is an island at the southern tip of Korea; I wouldn’t mind the mountains. I’d be fine living in a large city, or living in a small city, and even life in a small town would be okay, since it’s not like I know enough Korean to be bored. (Going to the grocery store, I imagine, could take all day.) I don’t think I want an all-boys high school or middle school, unless they’re really high level, and the same goes for all girls, although maybe a bit less so. Whatever happens happens, right? And that’s sort of how I feel about all the things I’ve been dealing with lately. My existence here in Chuncheon is so far removed from any expectations I could ever have had in the past that I find it impossible to be disappointed, and no matter how hard things get for me here, either involving people here or those at home, this is the best thing that could have happened to me. I’m not compromising by being here, and I’m not doing this instead of something better that I didn’t make; whatever happens, I am lucky, and I am supposed to be here. I am sure of it.
I would like to continue with a discussion of tae kwon do and Korean and my skills regarding both, but a wave of sleep just hit me. Soon. (Also soon: more exciting news!)
My excitement over the iPhone was tempered by the following:
iPhone Spin Goes Round and Round (New York Times, 30 June 2007)
It’s nothing surprising, I suppose, but this is what I hate about Apple – the staunch insistence on closed systems. It’s the equivalent of buying a dress at Anthropologie and finding out that it only fits when you’re frolicking in the south of France.
Intrepid Girl Reporter 
