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.

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 joys of cultural intolerance.

Speaking on instant messenger about a Korean acquaintances’ name.

Once again, yes, I am five.

Greg: do you really say it hong see-ok?
Greg: or is it ay-ok?
Lady X: it’s ‘ㅓ’ from Inc’EO’n
Lady X: Hongsuck
Greg: lol
Lady X: is closer.
Lady X: yeah
Greg: like dong-suck?
Lady X: yes
Greg: lol

Now that I’ve calmed down a bit . . .

Yes, I still think people are stupid. You probably knew that.

Yesterday, I started learning to skateboard. Yes, another former fruitbooter getting started way too late. No, I don’t want to flip my board all over the place, I am just not interested in lugging around a bike, considering my needs. I just want to get between point a and point b on something I can pick up. A  bike is slightly more useable, but also takes a lot more storage space. Yesterday I was goofing around on a wide-ish modern twin-tip skateboard (“popsicle”) and it was okay – it’s borrowed, and the thing is obviously not set up right, and the bearings are awful.

Further adding to the entertainment, I push mongo, and I’m goofy. (Apologies to non-skateboarders. “Goofy” means “left-footed” and “mongo” means I push with my front foot. This is bad because it means I shift my center of gravity every time I go to push the board.) Every time I try to push correctly, I fall. The board flies. That said, I can tic tac . . .

Otherwise, I went to a spa yesterday. It was sort of a letdown, as the hot water was out. So, I went back and forth between a really hot room and a not-so-hot room where you walk around in and then lay down in salt. They have traditional Korean pillows all over the place. A traditional korean pillow is a 4″x4″ or so stud with a semicircular cut in the middle for your head.

Here is a picture of me covered in salt.

I have given up on humanity.

Immediately after posting below, I followed up on a promise to a friend to check http://www.cnn.com occasionally. I usually prefer nonprofit news sources.

My family keeps wondering why I want to stay outside the US.

I can’t leave politics alone.

 . . . but the scheme of political subjection is more subtle in America. And though McKinley was the chief representative of our modern slavery, he could not be considered in the light of a direct and immediate enemy of the people; while in an absolutism, the autocrat is visible and tangible. The real despotism of republican institutions is far deeper, more insidious, because it rests on the popular delusion of self-government and independence. That is the subtle source of democratic tyranny, and, as such, it cannot be reached with a bullet.

-Alexander Berkman, on President McKinley’s assassination by Leon Czolgosz

iTunes network fun

There are presumably 3 people in my building who EVER use the “share” function in iTunes.

Me, a female who I suspect is either English or Australian (maybe a Kiwi?), and what I suspect is a Korean male. I got a “warning, someone is connected” message when I tried to close iTunes a minute ago. Only the Korean is online.

Now, for those of you who know my taste in music, what would be your immediate response if I told you that an Asian male who owns the N’Sync Christmas album and about 6 hours of Bjork has been connected to my library for 2 days?

Recent set of keystrokes.


open /Applications/iTunes.app
(return)
fxn-l, (tab), (tab),
type "sasha"
(tab)
fxn-a
(delete)


New toy, new fun.

Okay, since I’m bored and tired of being worried that I cannot keep a steady tempo, I’ve decided to replace that with a form of music that will instead make me question my capacities in composition and timbre.

Highlights so far include making “Kick Out the Jams” and “I Wanna Be Your Dog” into passable Acid house basslines with the mc-505’s legendarily bad presets. Tinkering with all those pretty knobs makes it sort of work.
I can put these warm squishy sounds over some awesome 909 and 808 samples.

I just started making my own waveforms, and stumbled across something frighteningly similar to the keyboard intro to “Beat It.”

The latter tells me I have made a wise investment.

May I borrow your . . . POO COLOR? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This was a six year old’s adaption of “May I borrow your red crayon?”

He wanted a light brown crayon. For those of you following this closely . . .

Yes, it’s my beloved Woods. The same child who once thought spit on a finger was superior to a pencil eraser at the latter’s dedicated task.

I have no idea how he learned the word “poo.” Lucy, one of the standard spoiled little rich girls (the one who gave me The Ralph Lauren Tie) is now his girlfriend, and this served as an excuse for her to nag him. (sexist comment omitted) The brighter kids in the class know that Greg Teacher thought that all of the above was really, really funny. Because I am really a six year old boy and can’t control my emotions.

*edit* For any of you who noticed, yes. I am wearing a blue tie with black pants in the link above. I just remembered the shoes and belt were also black.

Does that work? I forget. Is the tie too light for black pants?