Pae Namu
Pear tree

Another thing stupid Korean guy on the subway said to me: "If you earn money in South Korea you should spend it in South Korea." Sure. I'm going to spend $26,000 in one year when I don't have to pay for my housing. He'll be lucky if I spend $6,000 here. Which reminds me that I keep meaning to wire transfer money from my Korean bank account to my US account...It's a favorable exchange rate right now for that. It'll probably take me 9 years to do, however, since I need to get "pay stubs" from my school in order to transfer money. And my school never knows what I'm talking about regarding that even though I've asked (and got) it before. Why does everything have to be so complicated, I ask?

Less than 2 weeks until my dad visits!!! Woo-hoo!!!

So I looked out my apartment window/balcony the other day and was surprised too see hills of trees in the distance covered in white blossoms. It was pretty pretty, although it was a crappy day outside (very dreary and grey). I wasn't sure what kind of trees they were because most of the cherry blossoms are past their prime now (I'm sad that Dad and Brighton probably won't be able to see any of the cherry blossoms). I asked my co-teacher today and she said they were pear trees. Pyeongtaek is known for growing pears. And rice. So here are a few pictures from my balcony of the pear trees:


A couple weekends ago I went to Osan for Elissa's birthday party. Here's a pic of me, Wes, and Andy at a bar in Osan. It was a pirate themed bar, which was kind of funny. The had mini wooden kegs that they brought to your table. Your beer mugs were sheathed in a cylindrical ice tube. When you finished your beer you extricated the ice tube and played this game where you hurled it at a target in the hopes of winning a prize. It was a big rip-off, though. People in our party hit the damn target more than once and never won b/c "you didn't throw it hard enough." Whatever, they were thrown pretty damn hard. One kid did manage to win, and guess what he won? A can of Coke. And cans of Coke here are like half the size of US Coke cans. Yippee. Whatever, I guess it's the hurling of ice that makes it fun.

I had a horrible day today. It's a day where I teach 5 classes plus a teacher class. But the last week and this week the students are gearing up for a big school Sports Festival (I don't really get what this is, but it's on the day my dad flies in and I've been told I could leave early). So anyway, I guess it's a big deal so they've been missing a lot of classes to practice for it. I went in today thinking I wouldn't have to teach my 1st hour class (which is really nice b/c that's a class I have to teach by myself) or my 5th hour class (which is nice b/c it means I'd be finished at lunch). But I arrive at school to find out that all the practice has been cancelled because of the "yellow sand" and the students weren't allowed outside. Dude, it wasn't even that bad...it wasn't like you were being physically pelted by sand when you were out. But that's just me being annoyed that academics weren't taking a back seat that day. So that was a crappy start to my day.

Then, I got the biggest headache of my life that morning which lasted all day...I still have a bit of one now. I don't really know what constitutes a really bad headache and what constitutes a migraine, but holy crap it was bad. Horrid throbbing pain. I couldn't think. Good thing I had to teach. After my student classes my teacher rushed me into the music room next door to have a music lesson on this Korean instrument whose name I've forgotten. Normally this is fairly enjoyable, but not when I have a huge headache.

Then I had to teach the teachers. I had them play Guess Who? for the beginning (they had just learned vocabulary for describing appearance). Most seemed to enjoy it, but then I got one group who playe donce then said to me, "We are done. We are bored now." Dude, you've played it for like 5 minutes. It's a friggin' game. This is more boring than having me talk to you for 50 minutes? But then I had them look up a bunch of English words in a English-Korean dictionary. So that was easy for me.

So the traditional Korean instrument I've been 'learning' to play is called a gayageum (or kayagum). It's hard to learn for various reasons, the main reason being the teacher doesn't know English so I can't understand her instructions. I just have to watch her fingers, but she facing me so it gets confusing. I have sheet music, but 1) I don't know what notes are what strings, 2) They call their music notes different things, and 3) I swear they have a different music note system all together because it really confuses me. I was trying to explain my confusion to my co-teacher who then told me that the Western and Korean scales are different--Western has 7 notes (which she called do ray me fa so la ti do, not a b c d e f g) and apparently Korean has 5. I wasn't sure what she was talking about. But anyway, it's really confusing to learn. And it's really rushed because it's at the beginning of a class full of little 3rd graders. After my first lesson I got a gigantic blister/callous on my finger from plucking the strings so damn hard. Anyway, here's a picture of the gayageum (no, I don't wear a hanbok when I play it):

Well, my headache is coming back again and I need to go to bed soon. Bye.