Happy Thanksgiving!

I know I already had a Thanksgiving post, but Korea's ahead in time because of the International Date Line, so let's do it again.

Dannyfrom504 (link at right) had a thoughtful and honest post about celebrating Thanksgiving while overseas, so check it out when you get a chance. Reading it made me remember my cousin who served in Iraq and how he couldn't join the rest of us in Ohio when we was away. Thankfully, he's back and none of us are in combat situations anymore. Even though I live minutes away from the DMZ, this place is far from a combat zone.

If I were in the States, I'd be off school and would be on Ohio and Kentucky celebrating with the family, but such as it is, Thanksgiving day's just another Thursday over here. I got up, went to school, taught four classes, and came home before going back out to eat dinner at the school cafeteria. Nothing too much out of the ordinary, but that sounds fine. Ordinary means nothing crazy and nothing bad is happening. That said, I did make it a good day and enjoyed the day.

*the soldiers must have had some training exercises because we heard plenty of gunfire and artillery testing throughout the day. We also some flares and tracer rounds at night.

Update: Wednesday, 21 November 2012/Giving thanks

There must be something about Wednesdays. They're the days when the blogs come calling for fresh material and links to other excellent reading material. Today will go down as one such day.

Some updates:

My girlfriend Rochelle has recently posted about celebrating Diwali with my friends in Uncheon. Writing about this'd slipped my mind, but suffice to say I'll link to her page and say "what she wrote" because I can't add much to it. We all had a great time and enjoyed the fellowship and the food. Special thanks goes to Lisha and her friend for preparing the tasty foods and the festive atmosphere. It was my 2nd time in Uncheon (not counting all the times the bus has gone through there) and Rochelle's first. We'll be back again visit Lisha before long!

To my dear family and friends, I apologize for not having kept in touch as much as usual. The past few weeks have been busy, but thankfully not too busy. A couple of the middle school classes proved especially trying this week, but all the other classes have been fine. Life continues to groove along here. As always, thank you for being here. You're always on my mind. You know who you are. If you've any questions about Korea or life here, please post a comment!

Similarly, it's time to give thanks. Of course I'm thankful for my family and for knowing all the friends and colleagues in Korea, as well as...

-Good health
-This fulfilling job
-My ever-studious, if challenging students
-Getting to experience life in this beautiful country.

It's a bit strange to think about how I was always lukewarm on this time of the year (I'll never like turkey as much as I Iike chicken) prior to coming here, because doing lessons on food and customs is fun. We don't have ready access to turkey over here and the students love hearing about new foods, so even cranberries and stuffing sound appealing now.

Cheers, everyone.

And for those who care to know:
Lastly, here's something I should've written sooner: two of my other blogs are on the right hand side. Investing in Polyurethane Discs is my music blog. I don't write nearly as much as I should for it, especially with all the Kpop I'm soaking up while living over here. Frankly, there isn't too much to say about Kpop other than "It's only pop but I like it." Lately it's been YouTube videos of quality tunes...not that there's much wrong with that. I'll be posting more stuff.
Bearded Menace is an excellent blog about punk rock and its offshoots. The author knows his stuff. He used to do write ups of full albums, but now he's switched to doing his own digital mixtapes and writing liner notes for them. Check it out if you're into classic punk.
Musings of Random Plebeians is a blog I co-author with Cato from Wisconsin. Him and I go back a ways. It's originally his blog, but he made me co-author when I mentioned that I was looking for a space writings about stuff other than Korea and music. We write about relationships between the sexes and about whatever else enters our heads. Lately it's been about relationships.
Dannyfrom504's similar. He's been part of the "Manosphere" longer than we have, of course, but he writes cool posts about guy stuff as well.
Traveling The World I Hope is Rochelle's page. She writes about her teaching life in Seoul and has some quality alternative takes on stuff we do together.
Kimchi Soul's a blog I found about Korea. It's getting linked solely on the strength of it's post about DVD bangs.
Eat Your Kimchi - One of the premier sites about all things Korea, Kpop, and Korean food. They've been around for a while and they're quality stuff.

8 months last week. The rock and roll continues.

Announcement: I'm staying in Korea for two years; possibly three.

One year just isn't enough, not when every day brings as much joy as it does here.

It's a beautiful thing when the students clap for you at the end of a lesson. A couple weeks back, my co-teacher Ms. Jeong and I taught the high school first graders expression "I'm going to the ~ so I can ~" with various places around town and what they can do at those places. They now know what they can do at the bank, the coffee shop, the library, and a few other places here. Throughout the lesson they were taking notes and participating with enthusiasm. They spoke to each other loud and clear in the free speaking part of the class. We coached some of the more difficult words to pronounce and the students caught on quickly.  When the time to finish came I said, "Okay, time's up. Goodbye!" to hear a chorus of "Thank you!"s over the hand claps.

Or how about this: In my high school first grade English Elective class, Min-joon asked me about the island of Dokdo. I said yeah. He said, "Japan maintains that it is their land." He used maintain as a verb. This blew me away. I wrote his words on the board for all 8 students to see and congratulated him for using an excellent word and for using it well.

These are just two examples of what's going on here. These kids rock.

And because I haven't posted in a month, here's a quick review of April 2012:

-- Went to Seoul every weekend for various activities.

-- Drank beer beside the Han River and walked along the park there.

-- Wandered the Chunggye Stream.

-- Had Carrie's birthday party in Dongsong.

-- Attended two weddings of teacher friends. Wedding one was Ms. Yeo and it took place in a wedding hall. We were in and out in 45 minutes because that's how weddings work here. We shot in, grabbed, lunch, the couple say "I do," and took some pictures. Wedding two was Ms. Lee and it took place in a church. Aside from the lack of bridesmaids or groomsmen, and the Korean speeches, this wedding looked like every other one I've seen. The resulting lunch buffet was top notch!

-- Partied in Gangnam, Seoul with my friend Da-som.

--Partied in Hyewha, Seoul with Paula.

-- Bought an Epiphone SG guitar at the Nagwon market the day of wedding two. Got an amp, cable, tuner, strap, strings, case, and stand thrown in as well.

Let there be rock. 

I've wanted an SG since I was 17 and now it's mine. Her name is Ji-young (지영), after the name of recruiter who told me about EPIK this time last year in Madison.

Cheers.

From Seoul to Milwaukee and back

[Originally written on 29 Jan 2012 and edited on 2 Feb 2012]

From 19 to 29 Jan, I came back to the States on vacation to spend time with family and friends. My plane to Korea leaves tomorrow. It's been one hell of a good time here with seeing everybody. Some relatives from out of town even came up to visit us and we had a great time this weekend. I won't name names, but you know who you are, you who reveled in Wisconsin.

 

There'll be more posts about this in the future--coming back felt strange as hell. After 5 months of living in Korea, seeing jacked up 4x4s, sprawling parking lots, and abundant Mexican food seemed alien, as though I'd forgotten they existed. Here are a few other things that I ruminated about while I was here:

 

• The sheer diversity of food in restaurants.
• Friends and family haven't changed--and that's for the best. No one's gone and jumped the shark.
• The massive size of Pick 'n' Save. E-Mart and Lotte Mart may have big grocery sections, but they've nothing on American supermarkets for sheer size and selection. On the other hand, Pick 'n' Save can't match the food and drink samples that the Korean supermarkets offer every day.
• Wisconsin's liquor laws seemed unnecessarily restrictive. More than once, 9pm passed and I remembered that unlike Korea, no store will sell booze.
• I kept wondering where the soju and the 1.6l jugs of Cass were.
• On a similar note, getting ID'd was a change of pace.
• Metered parking doesn't exist in Seoul, but it certainly does in America. Seeing halfway ordinary parking jobs right away seemed strange. Someone did hit my parked car at a shopping mall when I was home though, so I guess normal parking jobs don't mean much after all.
• Parking lots take up too much space. Whatever happened to parking garages and building upward instead of outward? So much space gets wasted on parking lots.
• It felt good to see more recognizable street addresses and signs.
• Driving at night gets more monotonous than I remember.
• Coffee tastes better here. Korean coffee's on the weaker side, but the cafes can make a decent Americano.
• Though Korean energy drinks are cheap and they get the job done, they don't taste as good as Rock Star.
• The cigar I smoked at Lake Country Cigars tasted quited good.
• After decades of disliking spicy food, I've officially made the great leap into Spice Land. It took some time (and a whole lot of kimchi) to get used to it, but once I got back to WI I came to miss it.
• Jamming the blues with Jonny T-Bird and friends in Milwaukee rocked! They backed me up on a few numbers at an open jam at the Astor Hotel. The last time I saw any live music? The Seoul Record and CD Festival in November, where the band played blues and sang in Korean.
• Having to wait for the waiter/waitress to come around to the table in restaurants got to be a drag after being able to push a button on the table or call out "Yeo-gi-yo!" Also, many Korean diners and restaurants will let patrons get water themselves, to saving to wait for that got a bit annoying after a while too.
• I did remember to tip for stuff. I do have to wonder if it's necessary at coffee shops though. After all, it's not like I'm ordering an entire meal. All I'm asking the person to do is grab a biscotti and a coffee for me. Korea's not a tipping culture, so you pay what the receipt says and no more. This includes bars and cabs. Cab drivers will insist you made a mistake if you try to tip them.
• A childhood of long car rides to visit relatives in OH paid off with being able to do 12-13 hour plane rides easily.