Let’s see…

Well, there was the 2 weeks of sobriety I forced unto myself at the beginning of April.  I had been going out, my alcohol tolerance was getting progressively larger and larger, and my asshole antics were getting out of hand.  I decided that 2 weeks of detox would do my body some good, so I spent two weekends making wire earring stands and partying sober style on Homo Hill.  Of course, the day I decided to go dry was the day my friend informed me that two of her friends from Washington D.C. were going to be in town for a visit, and my presence was expected.  I don’t think I’ve ever done a gay bar while sober, and truth be told, I don’t know which state of mind makes things funnier.  I witnessed one Korean homo pinning another Korean homo against a car while squealing “YOU ARE HIV, BITCH!” and I remembered it the next day.  How novel.

While it was nice being sober for a bit, I of course have returned to drinking.  Things are a little more under control these days.  Yeah, so I ended up naked in a Korean sauna at 4:00 A.M. with 3 of my closest friends this past Tuesday night (don’t judge, Wednesday was a holiday).  People have been trying to drag me to the sauna since my Daejeon days, but modesty got in the way.  Turns out I just need a bit of soju and some whiskey to not give a shit, and honestly, it was pretty awesome.  I got a foot massage, laid on some hot rocks, and soaked in some baths.  I feel kind of stupid for fighting it for so long.

Sleep time!

I am NOT a fan of international-holidays-turned-excuse-for-everyone-to-get-drunk-days.  I don’t chug Corona and wear a sombrero on Cinco de Mayo.  I certainly don’t deck myself out in green and drink Irish car bombs on St. Patrick’s Day. 

You know what I do?

I drink my weight in Jack Daniels.  Just like eeeeeeevery other weekend.

With that said, I figured I’d share some information.

Over in Jongno, there’s a St. Patrick’s Day Parade set to take place this Saturday.  It’s route either starts at or passes by Cheonggyecheon Palace, and it starts sometime around noon…I don’t know.  As I said, I’m not exactly invested in these festivities.  If you live in Seoul, are Irish, are pretending to be Irish, or are just looking for an excuse to get drunk (and really, if you need an excuse…), there you go.

You definitely won’t be seeing me there.  I’ll be holed up in a salon all afternoon getting my hair and nails did.  Why?  Just because.  The very same reason for which I drink!

Amen!

But bars advertising Jack and Cock specials?

Text messages telling me to “hanging tough”?

My student angrily telling me that her skeleton is broken after hugging her too hard?

It’s impossible not to laugh at these things.  Not in an “Oh, you’re so stupid” kind of way, but in an “I can’t help but appreciate the humor in that” kind of way.

Last week, my coworker was talking to two of her students while they were flipping through a book about monkeys.  The students are about 3 years old.  When my coworker pointed at the monkey’s backside and asked, “What’s this?” the little girl proudly responded with, “A tail!”

My coworker then asked, “Do you have a tail?”

One of the girls said no, she did not have a tail.  The other student stood there with a contemplative look on her face before saying “DADDY HAS A TAIL!”

Bah-dum-CHING!

My head hurts.  My feet hurt.  Every muscle in my body aches.  I feel like I just ran a marathon after fighting in a war during which a tank ran me over.  Why the physical exhaustion?

I’m now the “proud” secondary mother to 20 five-year olds and 3 four-year olds who know NO English whatsover.  Sounds and words may be coming out of my head, but I’m not actually communicating with my mouth.  I’m speaking with my body.  My jumping, dancing, thrashing, gesturing, worn-the-fuck-out body.

And pencils?  Books?  Crayons?  NAMES?  Apparently, the higher-ups at my school forgot that these were going to be somewhat necessary for effective teaching.  So while I’m not wildly demonstrating “take off your shoes and don’t eat that paper and for the love of GOD stop licking me” via body language, I’m frantically running up and down 3 flights of stairs desperately searching for supplies and time to suck down the occasional cigarette.

Why, oh why did I insist on teaching this particular age and English level, again?!?  And to think, this week only consisted of two work days!

Kill me now.  Just kidding.  I think.

“Oh, I had to take a shower with microwaved water!”

“Shit!  My clothes froze together in the washing machine!”

“It was soooo nice and warm in Southeast Asia, and then I returned home to the worst snow Seoul has seen in decades!”

I’m a little offended that none of you have called the wahmbulance for me.

It’s getting warmer.  I mean, it’s cold NOW, but the last week contained a few days during which it was quite nice.  I spent an afternoon on the rooftop of my school doing work on my computer.  I basked, coat and jacket free, under the sun like some sort of reptile.  I’ve been riding my new bike, given to me by a now former coworker (thank you, Bonnie), around my neighborhood.  It’s great!

Kind of.

I’m fickle.  I just can’t be pleased.  See, I really do hate the cold and love the heat.  Really.  REALLY.  My hair, however, feels the opposite.  Those who are unfortunate enough to know me in the flesh know that I have some seriously thick, curly, unruly hair.  I’m contantly fighting with the shit, and no matter how much work I put into it, there’s no guarantee that it will look presentable on any given day.  Every day, I play the hair lottery, and the only things that up my odds of coming out victorious are low humidity and low temperatures.

I’m estimating that, overall, I get about 60 fantastic and 90 good hair days out of every year.

All of those days fall during the winter and colder spring and fall months. 

So, winter, thanks for all the cuticle smoothing, but I’m happy to send your bitch ass out.  I truly am pleased to welcome Spring and Summer. 

Just don’t judge me for my hair.

Martha and I were out a few weeks ago.  It got really late and we, of course, got really drunk, so we deemed it necessary to head home around 4:30 AM.  We walked down the street to one of the more obscure subway stations in town and we were trying to get cabs outside the station exit.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a 40-ish year old Korean man in a red jacket appeared.  He walked over to Martha, who was standing 10 or 15 feet away from me, and I saw her look at him and I heard her unenthusiastically say,

 ”What?”

The man spoke again.  Martha’s face didn’t change, except to break eye contact with the man and to establish it with me.

“Hey, Rachel.  This guy just told me he wants to lick my asshole.” said Martha in the same tone and with the same inflection one would say “the sky is really blue today” or some other benign statement.

“Oh, that’s great.  You should totally let him.” I said, just as blandly.

Then, the man turned his back on Martha and walked over to me, where he expressed his desire for me to spit in his face.  Looking back, I kind of wish I had just done it right there.

What was really strange about this whole scenario was how little of a reaction Martha and I had to all of this.  Korea is so chaotic, crazy, and full of super strange things that I can only guess that we’ve become desensitized to the point where when a middle aged stranger asks us to engage in lewd abnormal sexual acts with him, we don’t even flinch.

It’s March, which in the world of Korean kindergartens means the end of the school year.  Kids are graduating and moving on to Elementary school, friends are heading back to the countries they hail from, and coworkers are shuffling around to different jobs and locations within the city.

It sucks.

My students.  My lovely, lovely students.  For the past year, I got into work and when the clock hit 9:50, I locked myself in a room with the same 7 year olds (5-6 years old by Western standards), and we were stuck together for the next 5 hours.  EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I don’t care who you are or what your opinion of children is.  You can’t help but get super attached to these kids when you spend thousands of hours with them.  We laughed at each other, we screamed at each other, we hated each other, and we loved each other.   The little hellions graduated yesterday, and tomorrow is the last day I get to spend with them before they go on to first grade. 

This sucks.

Friends.  The problem with living as an expat in Korea is that life is kind of put on fast forward.  Most people are only here temporarily, for anywhere between one and three years on average from what I’ve noticed.  Because of this, you’re really forced to take advantage of every situation you have to hang out with and form bonds with the people you meet because before you know it, it’s time for either you or them to go.  I’ve made some amazing friends recently.  I’ve also met some acquaintances that were awesome and would have been great friends had locations, schedules, and laziness not all interfered.  February marks the season of expired contracts.  Several people I hold dear are leaving Korea for good this week while several others are going to do some traveling and visit home for a month or two before returning to Korea in the summer.  This means a lot of goodbyes and prolonged “see ya later”s this week. 

This sucks.

Coworkers.  I’ve spent the past year working with such a dynamic, awesome group of people.  I honestly can’t say there’s a single person at my job that I don’t like.  The Korean staff has been fun, supportive, and helpful and we managed to make it through the year without having a single token white weirdo on the foreign staff (or maybe the white weirdo was me…).  We haven’t always gotten along perfectly, and there’s always some sort of drama going on with someone, but I at least like to think that at the end of the day, we all love and respect each other.  They’ve kind of become my family here in Korea.  Just like family, though, a few people are moving on.  Be it to different jobs or to different positions placing them outside the school building, it’s hard to say goodbye to any of the people I’ve spent the past year working, arguing, and drinking with. 

This sucks.

I know everyone will just roll with things, and the current state of things will easily evolve into something new and different and just as good if not even better, but I hate change.  I like the status quo.  Let me be lazy, complacent, and get fat and be happy!

This sucks.

like the earthquake that just hit seoul! the story goes like this: an earthquake just hit seoul! the end. i slept straight through the thing. fortunately, it was only a 3.0 (according to what little information is out there, as it was just barely an hour ago).

i’m always a bit wary about the quality of these huge buildings that get slapped up with korea’s “bali-bali!” mentality. now the ground’s a-shakin’. fantastic!

I’ll finally get around to realizing that I haven’t paid any bills for months, and when I go to get them, I’ll find my mailbox either freshly cleaned out or stuffed with so many overdue bills that I can’t even tell which totals I owe.  I solve this issue by just waiting for a disconnect notice with the latest bill attached to it to get taped to my door.  Then, I can finally go pay my bill, and I’ll swear to be better about checking my mail from there on out.  Inevitably, though, the cycle of irresponsibility and absent-mindedness continues. 

Lately, I had been thinking about my gas bill.  I haven’t paid my gas bill since before my heater got turned on, which was months ago, so I was dreading it.  When I came home from work on Friday, there was a beautiful bright yellow and black disconnect notice taped to my door.  Alas, it had arrived!

My bill was under $150.  Much more pleasant than I had expected.  I paid this bill yesterday, which was the due date listed on the notice.  Everything was squared away.

OR NOT.

I got home last night around midnight, drunk off the magic potion known as soju, and lit my stove to make sure I had gas.  Imagine my chagrin when nary a flame sprung from the appliance.  I didn’t need the stove, and I didn’t even really need the heater, but fuck if I didn’t need a shower.  I drunkenly let out a string of obscenities, accidentally walked into a door, and got to microwavin’ some water.

An hour later, my bathroom floor was covered in pots, pans, and plastic containers full of warm microwaved water.  I armed myself with a tea kettle to use for my hair and got to work.  30 minutes later, I emerged from my bathroom covered in water and entered my freezing room.

I got it all taken care of today, and it’s back on, but seriously.  FUCK WINTER.

After a few drinks at Gecko’s, we headed over to Goldfish where I put flowers down my shirt.

Then, we went to Diggin for a dash or racism and a pinch of soul.

Next, we visited Saab for some dancin’.

After Saab, we went to some stupid place that smelled like a headshop.  Upon seeing a girl wearing a beret, I demanded that we leave.  We went to S Club, which was a little terrifying until it became hilarious.  Then, we went to FF where I made friends and danced until my drunk ass got angry and stormed ou of the bar to go home.

The end!