In which Greg does nothing for a day.

So last night sucked for reasons I don’t feel like sharing with the entirety of the internet. To deal with that suckage, I spent the entire day by myself trying to read one of a couple of books, and failing. Adding to the Charlie Brown-ness, my washing machine has decided to cooperate with washing clothes sporadically. I also discovered that I need to buy a small gift for an exchange on Christmas, with the traditional cost limit.

I have no idea what to get either of the 2 people who might receive my gift. 10,000 Won worth of either beer or cigarettes are the frontrunners. This is really all they have in common.

Yes, I know gift exchanges aren’t a big deal. But, if you’re reading this, you should know that I have the most trouble with things that are “no big deal.”

It’s almost Christmas, and I really don’t feel it. Granted, nobody here celebrates Christmas in a big way. I have gotten a package from my aunt that is alarmingly large, and I apparently have two packages from my parents that have now taken 2 weeks to get here. You would not believe some of the conversations I’ve had on the phone so far.

Also, it is illegal to ship beef jerky from the US to The Republic of Korea. Who knew?

Naked with dudes.

Public baths have a very different reputation in Korea than in North America. This is a good thing. Everyone goes to them. All ages, all incomes, all sexual orientations. Here is what a Korean Sauna/Jimjilbang/whatever is like.

An anecdote from the old hagwon.

I used to work for a company that taught Kindergarten during the day, in addition to classes in the evenings. I now only teach evenings. This means I don’t do as many Real Teacher ™ things. For example, Field Day.

In Which Greg makes a steak sandwich &c.

Korea really likes beef. Really, really likes beef. That is why the family that employs me can employ me. They run an Australian beef importing business that is financing the private English school.

One would expect this would lead to windfalls of beef. One would be correct. However, there are catches.

In the past, one of the part-time foreign teachers at the school received what he calls “a huge box of unseasoned galbi.” For those of you unaware, that means a lot of beef shortribs. Awesome, right? It is. What’s not awesome is how I can’t even feel properly screwed at what I got. Before this begins, please remember that I am eternally grateful to my boss. He has gone above and beyond more times in the last month than I ever could have hoped. He’s a good guy. He treats his family well, he is patient, and so on.

Imagine the thrill. Your boss shows you two giant plastic wrapped hunks of meat in the fridge at work, and indicates, in his signature Konglish, that they’re yours. (“Oh wow, I bet this is some awesome exotic cut I’ve never even heard of!”) So, he gave me a ride home that night, rather than have me take the bus. I put them in my freezer, and didn’t think of them for a couple days. I didn’t know what they were, and certainly wasn’t sure how I should best prepare this obviously primo shit. Beef is insanely expensive here. I haven’t even looked to buy it for myself because I keep hearing about how bad the prices are. Besides, who the hell knows beef prices in metric?

A few days later, I remembered to ask my boss what it was. Now, being a beef importer, he has anatomical charts of cows all over our office. This makes for a surreal atmosphere in English as Second Language education. But anyway, he approaches one of the charts. His hand rises up, his finger goes past the loin, past the ribs, up, up, up . . . to the shoulder. Beggars can’t be choosers, but for fuck’s sake.

I’ve made a few sandwiches out of it, and it wasn’t bad. However, 3 very large sandwiches was maybe 1/8 of the total volume of beef he gave me. I have a feeling this will end up like the time I bought a handle of good dark rum with an ex, and ended up discovering gunfire in the weeks following, just to get rid of the shit. Except I won’t get drunk off tough parts of cow. (sigh)

Yes mom, that is the stuff I was drinking when I confused you with “Mimi” and called you from my cell phone, drunk, at 7 pm.

Now, my boss was thrilled about giving me these hunks of shoulder. Imagine my consternation that recently, this man came into a mess of USDA Prime Rib in Korea. He invited all his employees over to eat it, but (%*@PY*)(&()&(#@L

Now, rather than do what any God-fearing terrorist-hating American would do (make steaks! Duuh.), he sliced it up paper-thin, and stacked it on plates. He then had us make what he called “Vietnamese Spring Rolls.” This involves boiling water, and dipping rice paper in the water. Then you put your choice of vegetables, spam, radish, and a few herbs and spices inside the rolled-up rice paper, burrito-style. ALONG WITH THIN-SLICED, BOILED USDA PRIME RIB.

This was a little infuriating.

I just wanted to vent a little bit here. I’m enjoying my time here immensely, and when I am not enjoying myself immensely, I am reminding myself how comically overpaid I am, and how I am universally regarded as a superhero, and how much fun I have making very subtle uses of slang and watching other foreigners try to maintain their composure. A mention of “playing the skinflute” at my boss’ dinner table made one 40-year-old Canadian visibly uncomfortable.

In Which Greg Attempts to Post For its Own Sake.

So why is Greg posting again? Because someone bitched. That means someone is reading. So why not post? No seizures recently. However, Greg did try something new today. Fresh, salted-and-fried Mackerel. Fresh as in “not fileted, or even skinned.” It wasn’t bad. Mr. Park continues to be good to his word on the fatherly crap.

So, Greg also got his MC-505 sequencer/synthesizer/drum machine repaired. It works and all. But the %&#$(@ers forgot to re-connect one indicator light. Which is not a huge deal. It’s just enough of a pain in the ass to not be worth a 1 hour trek across Seoul in a Samhwa Express bus.

In other news, Seoul is cold. Really, really, nipple-cracking freezing. It’s 39 today, but that’s the hottest it’s been in ages. This is all easily-ignored if not for the mysterious “rising hemline” phenomenon in Korea. There is an inverse relationship between skirt inseams and temperature. There won’t be much left to the imagination by early January. A lot of women are already needing to strategically locate purses on the way out of the subway. This isn’t a complaint. Just an expression of bafflement.

I’m listening to guitar-based rock again. There must be a Hegel joke here.

The Geomdan flopper.

So I had a seizure yesterday. I guess I’m overdue. It happened at work, apparently in front of several of my coworkers, but luckily, not in class. I discovered that my boss is not all talk with his “You wuk hee-ah. You ah mah-ee pam-uh-lee!” business. He has taken me under his wing. He drove me to a neurologist today, and had me over his place for Vietnamese Spring Rolls.

So, what is a Vietnamese Spring Roll? It’s like a regular spring roll, except you boil the rice paper yourself and then roll all the delicious produce and thin-sliced boiled beef on your own. I watched his daughter eat about 20 of them. My boss claimed that we were eating USDA Prime Tenderloin. Now, if you had access to Australian beef, much less at wholesale cost,I promise you wouldn’t be eating USDA anything. I have a chunk of something or other in my freezer that I haven’t had an excuse to go at just yet.

My mind isn’t totally here, and I’m bummed because I was supposed to be skiing with my coworkers right now. Instead, I am staying home and “lesting-uh.” So, patience please.

So I’m going to bed. It’s almost 1 am. And I got the “Let’s listen to Joy Division!” urge. Maybe it’s the “He made shitty music and had epilepsy, too!” connection.

The triumphant return.

Okay, so maybe not triumphant. I have my affairs somewhat in order now, so I’ll write about the last few months (ha!).

Since the last post, I resigned one position and began another, and moved to the middle of nowhere. I like the job itself much more. I think I’m hitting it off  with my coworkers better than I did at my last job, and everything seems to be going well. It’s a mom and pop hogwan, so things aren’t as organized as they could be. However, I’m getting nothing but positive feedback, and I am greeted every workday with a hearty “Did you lunchee?”

My apartment is nowhere near as awesome as the last one, but at least there is no mold in it. It’s brand new, and other apartments in the building are still under construction. This, combined with my 2 pm start time, leads to some strange wakeup times for me.  Korean construction workers pick odd hours to start working, and even odder ones to have loud arguments while chainsmoking immediately outside my door.

I was without the internet in my home for about a month, which many of you know gave me visible tic.

I made one very boring trip to Fukuoka for my passport. Otherwise, I’m grumpy and don’t feel like writing much else. Welcome back to reading about my life, which is pretty mundane.