My anus is unhappy with me these days.**

The head teacher of my department (not the English department - the extracurricular activities department), also known as Mini-Me by her not-so-affectionate underlings, asked me today if I could use chopsticks.

Um. YES. What do you think I've been DOING in the school cafeteria all this time?

In other news, I'm constipated for the first time in 4 months. Turns out, that 3-day weekend where I cooked most of my own food wasn't so good for my bowels. The 3-pound chunk of cheddar cheese Mom sent me for Christmas might also have something to do with it. Tell me, please, what is it about Korean restaurant/cafeteria food that gives me the most satisfying poops of my life?

I've just finished the planning (minus making all the worksheets I'll need) for the winter English camp I'm teaching to students. Now, I have all of 2 days to throw together 15 lesson plans for the teachers' winter English camp. I HATE LESSON PLANNING. Also, I'm super-stressed about the teachers' camp. While I wouldn't say I'm confident at all about my teaching skills, I've long since reached the point where standing in front of a class of 25 students and telling them what to do is a comfortable place to be. It doesn't intimidate me anymore.

What does intimidate me is the prospect of teaching English conversation to 7 co-workers, none of them terribly good at English, all of them older than me (I've told you that age is a huge deal here, right?), 5 of them very experienced teachers (the other 2 are support staff at the school). Their levels of English are extremely different. Sung-Min (tech guy) is probably at the highest level (and coincidentally, also the youngest person in the class, at 30 years old). While the conversations I have with him are slow-going, he is able to communicate most of the things he wants to after a bit of mutual brainstorming and (sometimes) dictionary consultation. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Kim Yeon, the supercilious teacher I've told you about before. Her English consists of "Hello" "How are you?" "I'm fine." and "Touch later!" I've tried telling her that "Touch later!" isn't a common expression (or at least, I don't think it is? Sometimes I get so used to how people use English here that I lose sight of how most of the native speakers I've been around use English). But try though I might, I couldn't convey to her that she should say "See you later!" instead. She still says "Touch later!" every time she leaves my presence. She's 65, and if this is all she's absorbed of English at this point despite studying it through university, I have serious doubts about whether I'll be able to teach her anything substantial in a 3-week camp.

The point is: how can I teach all of these people effectively? Surely I have to make the lesson material simple enough that the lower levels will be able to follow it, but what if it seems too childish to them or makes them feel condescended to? What if they finally realize that I am a terrible teacher?

**I use "these days" to excess these days. Every Korean speaker of English loves to say "these days," and I'm ridiculously hooked on it. Part of that is that I often purposely alter my natural speech into expressions that I know are more likely to be understood (i.e. "lately" --> "these days"), but part of it is that I have always absorbed the language usage I hear from people around me really naturally. It's inevitable; I knew it coming here, and as much as the people I am here to teach want me to speak "authentic" English, I cannot help but be influenced by what I hear here. And anyway, I refuse to correct people every time they use an expression that I've never heard before but makes sense anyway - after all, isn't the different ways that language can be used what got me interested in it in the first place?

Finally, some real snow.

Finally, my boots slide when they hit the road. KBS News says we're getting 1-3 cm, and that's a big deal, believe me. I'd realized it was snowing early on in the day, and felt irrationally cozier in my apartment because of it, but I just made a run to the convenience store on my street and realized we actually have a little build-up! Borderline temperatures mean that it will get icy soon, and if the snow stays long I'll definitely tire of it. But! I'm definitely taking a nighttime walk tonight. I'm definitely reveling in the crunchy-and-slippery that will probably be completely mush by morning.

weekly pop music profile #4

Teen-bop girl band f(x), with the only song they have come out with so far: "Chu <3."

"Chu" is not a Korean word, by the way. It supposedly represents a kiss, because the motion your mouth makes when you say "chu" is kind of like puckering your lips.

The short-haired girl (@bird_esque dyke hair! real dyke hair!) who dresses in masculine clothing throughout and starts rapping about two-thirds of the way through is Amber. She is Taiwanese American (but now lives in Seoul), fluent in both English and Korean. She is easily the group's most popular member, especially amongst teenage Korean girls, who think she is "so handsome!", confirming my suspicions that everyone in Korea is queer and just hasn't figured it out yet. Internet rumors abound, but so far, no official news of her sexuality or gender orientation. But not to worry - she's only 17. There's still time.

Despite the fact that she regularly dresses in masculine clothing, these pictures still caused a huge controversy:

Four of the f(x) members in traditional female Korean clothing (hanboks). Amber in a male hanbok, gasp!

Heartz.

메리 크리스마스!

Here is a direct transcription of a text message I received from Mr. Bae, the head computer guy at my office. He has a daughter my age, and sometimes I get the feeling he fancies himself my father figure.

:*:..Merry..:*:
:*Christmas*:
<3(^3^*)<3
....Y...Y....
=(^O^)=
....( ```)~*
HS Bae <3

My co-workers love playing dress-up with me when they take me places. I secretly love succumbing to them.

Wednesday and Thursday this week, we had debates about why Christmas was stupid vs. fun, and I wore a Santa hat all day and gave free cookies to all my students (about 130 cookies, in total, just for my Wednesday and Thursday classes).

The meditation club end-of-year (party? It wasn't really a party, we just meditated like usual) was yesterday, and everyone went around and told the group how this year has been for them. And it was the first time, really, that I've thought about the trajectory of this year; I just haven't grouped events that way before. This year, grouped together, has been really strange. This spring I was still in university, working at HIO, printmaking like my life depended on it. Then graduation happened. Then three months of alternately feeling hopeless and happy: hopeless because I had no job and couldn't find a job despite hundreds of resumes sent out, happy because I had so much free time and could read poetry and bullshit with my friends all the time. Then: suddenly deciding I was going to Korea. One month of working for U-M English Language Institute and feeling crazy and spending hours at the Secretary of State trying to get my documents in order.

Now, Korea. I want to say I've changed a lot since I got here, and I think it would be true to say it, but I don't really know how I've changed. It's just that my sense of reality is so different from what it was in Ann Arbor; maybe the reason this year has been strange is that my sense of reality has changed many times.

I know I've spent a lot of time telling you guys how stressed out I am here, and it's true. I am a consistently anxious person here, which is something that I have never been before. But never think that it means I regret this, because I am so so happy I came here, and so many good things have happened to me here, and I would never take it back.

These days, I am optimistic. These days, I sometimes think I can feel myself turning truly happy here.

Happy Christmas, guys.

weekly pop music profile #3

I am lazy today, and busy streaming "Iris," my new favorite Korean drama. But here, watch this video of T-ara, singing "Bo Peep," and tell me they aren't the exact Korean replica of the Pussycat Dolls. And please, pay special attention to the cat-tail (bestiality?) that shows up near the end of the video. (also, @bird_esque can you spot the chest-thrusts?)

This video is super-scandalous for Korea. Granted, the video that gets shown on TV, etc. is the 15+ version (the above is the 19+ version). But frankly, the 15+ version isn't interesting, so I don't care.

And no, even after reading the lyrics and translated lyrics, I have no idea what "Bo Peep" has to do with anything.

I face my own mortality once every week or so at Namtaeryeong Station

It's not often I take the blue line home (it's only a 20-minute
walk to Sadang, and after all the bus is faster)

but at just after 4:20 pm Namtaeryeong is deserted, the trains
come only every 15 minutes or so,
I like that, and the escalator goes down that
unbearable distance between the tickets and the platform.

Walls painted like the pastel
anus of the 70s, anywhere else
I'd walk. Everywhere else the escalators come
in blocks of 20 or so, but Namtaeryeong is deep. It's

best if there's no one else in sight, it's best if I'm wearing
heels that day. I stand still, the wait is unbearable. It will take
my whole life to get to the bottom, and then where will I be?
It will take my whole life for a train to come. I like that.

It's best if a middle-aged woman
stares at me from the other end of the platform. It's best
if I have a clementine with me that day.

YR GONNA LOVE MY FONDANT POO

I accidentally woke up two hours early for work today, and I'm spending the interval watching a show called "love love cake." @bird_esque @twcwar, my fondness for cake-making shows is entirely your fault.

Since I spent almost this entire weekend grunging about in bed, I watched a lot of TV. Top finds include:

1. Anne of Green Gables, dubbed over in Korean. It was at the blue-puffed-sleeves dress/Christmas ball scene when I found it. Hilarity ensued.

2. When I did the celebrities lesson, I found out about a new TV drama (called "Iris") that is all the rage with my students. Saturday, I found it. Starring Lee Byung-Hun, Seoul's current heartthrob.

These days, it's pretty normal for me to watch Korean soap operas while I'm making dinner/pretending to lesson plan/writing my blog in the evening times. And even though I understand almost nothing, I've gotten to the point where I know the characters from all of the most melodramatic shows, and can cruise channels for my favorites. (@bird_esque @twcwar new "smut" addiction?)

Cake-time is over. Pretending-t0-get-ready-for-work-time is now.

dear swine flu:

You can't just take over my whole weekend like that, and then leave me Sunday afternoon, just in time for me to be well enough to go to work on Monday.

Seriously, I feel like I've been reasonable over the course of our relationship. I didn't complain when it was your fault half of my students went missing a month or so ago, and I didn't even complain when you finally decided to lodge yourself in my throat the morning of the day I had to finish giving speaking tests.

So let's be reasonable. You can have my weekend, but I'm gonna need something in exchange. I was too sick to get anything done Friday, Saturday, and half of Sunday, so it's only fair that I get a couple of weekdays off. So if we could hang out together until Monday or Tuesday, that would be awesome.

Heartz,
Pam

(p.s. dear people-who-are-not-swine-flu: I don't actually know if I had swine flu. I felt like shit this weekend, which included: a high fever, sore throat, headache, sinus pressure, and body aches. All of which, my internet research tells me, are symptoms of swine flu, but also of a lot of other less funny things. I didn't think my condition warranted going to the hospital - though I briefly considered calling Park Mi-Ran because a) it would make a better story later, and b) I kind of wanted the hospital to give me a test to determine whether I actually had swine flu or not. [But what if the test was negative? All my dreams would be crushed!] Anyway, I didn't go to the hospital, so I don't know what I had.

I feel better now. Almost normal, aside from my continued runny nose. Sadly, I'll almost definitely be feeling well enough to go to school tomorrow. WHEN will I get a break. WHEN.)

The end.

weekly pop music profile #2

or: reasons why language education in the U.S. needs to get a goddamn grip on itself.

Here's another Super Junior song ("Supergirl") sung in Korean. Here's the same song, in Mandarin. I think the Mandarin version is the original. (Because the Korean version sounds a little awkward, doesn't it? Like the lyrics weren't originally meant to go with the music?) But maybe that's just because I found the Mandarin video first.

You see, one day SM Entertainment discovered that a number of Super Junior members were fluent in Mandarin. And so they decided to create a subgroup, called "Super Junior M" (the 'M' stands for Mandarin) that sings and performs in both Korean and Mandarin, for both Korean and Chinese audiences.

Imagine we're back in the golden era of American boy bands (and let's be real, American boy bands never had anything on Korean boy bands). Then imagine that one day the Backstreet Boys discover that 3 of them just happen to be fluent in Spanish. And so those 3 members start performing in both Spanish and English.

And it's not even that the other members don't know Spanish -- they know some, and probably a little French, too -- they're just not fluent.

Seriously, guys, wtf.

thursdays I meditate after school,

and then I climb the mountain behind my school with KoHo.

Remember when I was conflicted about meditation club? My attendance was spotty for maybe a month after I first tried it, but I'm addicted now. The club leader was too busy to hold the meeting last week, and I can't even tell you how much I missed it. I missed it like only a person as awkward as myself could miss it.

It's really soothing. I've gotten used to the sharing of feelings at the beginning and end of each session. At the beginning, I tell them what things are stressing me out lately. At the end, I usually try to find a silly way to describe the sensations that go on in my head during the meditation (for example, at various times I've told them it feels like: "my head is filled with water, and the tide keeps rising and falling," "electricity on my scalp," "there's a crab crawling around in my hair," etc). Today I told them it felt like someone was gently pulling my head upwards, like my head was a balloon and someone was pulling on my string.

The room where the meetings are held is so cozy. The floor is heated, and we sit on blankets/cover our laps with blankets. After the sharing of feelings, we sit in lotus position, close our eyes, and concentrate on our breathing. Then, the meditation leader (U Young-Hee) kneels in front of all of us by turns and puts her hands on the top of our heads for about 1-2 minutes each, ostensibly to share diksha (the energy of the universe) with us.

To be perfectly frank, it's this part of the meditation that I'm addicted to. The meditation itself is soothing, and it does calm me, truly. But I'm not sure that I would be making such a habit of Thursday meditation club if it wasn't for the 1-2 minutes of having someone's hands on my head. I have always loved the feeling of someone's hands on my head. It makes me feel so calm and under control and "everything will be okay." For a few minutes, U Young-Hee is my master/mentor and she will take good care of me, I know she will.

After we have all received diksha, we leave the lotus position for whatever position we find most comfortable (for me, my legs remain in lotus position, but I lay back flat on the floor). And we listen to soothing music and breathe deeply and sometimes briefly fall asleep and dream a little. After a while, we regroup and share what we felt during the meditation session (this is the part where I make up silly things).

And then we leave school, and I hike over the mountain with KoHo to the subway station that is second-nearest my school. It takes about 30 minutes. I get home at 6:30 or 7, make dinner, watch Korean soap operas, try to study Korean or lesson plan. But I am scattered all the time lately; it is hard to make myself do work.

Enough about me. How are your Thursdays?

I'm definitely watching an infomercial for digital bidets.

And I definitely just saw an animated anus between two animated buttcheeks.

"If You Seek Amy" is the background music.

(Never mind that. The background music just changed to "Jingle Bell Rock." The bidets have red bows on them. Get one for your lover for Christmas!)

the mountains stretch the soles of my shoes until they no longer fit me on level ground

Sweet Morning Choco Cream, hello. (clementines, hello!)

Autumn Coming

This summer
I shielded myself from the heat
with a thin hempen weave,
and now as autumn at last draws near
sunlight a thousand li away
touches my body just gently;

and having rinsed my mouth
this summer
with garlic wine,
as autumn draws near
the winds above my head flow clear.

The bi-lingual copy of Pak Chaesam's Enough to Say It's Far that I ordered online arrived today. English and Korean bi-lingual books of poetry are hard to find, even in Korea. I can't really do much with the Korean yet, but I'm glad it's there. I would have liked to write it out for you, but I can't reproduce the hanja (the Korean word for kanji/Chinese characters) on my computer. I don't have the tools.

What I can do with the original Korean is this:

I'm not really sure how they decided on line breaks in the English translation. In the Korean, the first lines of both stanzas are "This summer," and the third lines are "as autumn comes/approaches" (maybe, approximately, I don't really know very much about this). And everything in between is contained in one line, no breaks.

Maybe something like this:

This summer
I shielded myself from the heat with a thin hempen weave,
and as autumn comes
sunlight a thousand li away touches my body just gently;

this summer
I rinsed my mouth with garlic wine,
and as autumn comes
the winds above my head flow clear.

I can also tell you that the semi-colon that divides the poem in half is entirely accurate; the last syllable of the first stanza is 고 (ko/go), which is used to abridge the final verb of the first part of the sentence and lead into the second part of the sentence.

My final year at U-M with all you beautiful people was the first time, I think, that I've really come to love and value how poetry sounds. Before then, I'd never really gotten into read-arounds; reading things aloud was something I did alone in my room in a soft voice so that my neighbors couldn't hear me.

Now, after having gotten used to our read-arounds for such a short period of time, I miss them here. Can we skype and do nothing but read poems to each other?

Seriously?

The guy I got raw on hasn't stopped participating, by the way.

A significant portion of the English language selection at the local Bandi&Luni's bookstore.

I only want to eat clementines these days.

The positioning of this family tree intrigues me.

demon tree?

My students are insane. That is not a TREE, that is a HAND.

lolz.

Thanksgiving week, some of my 2nd grade classes were ahead of schedule. So we talked about the differences between American and Korean Thanksgiving/Chuseok, and these are the results. It would have been easier to just transcribe the funny sentences, but I felt like transcription couldn't do them justice.

Aww. Hugs!

I love this student. He is so nice and funny and tries so hard. And he came up with the words "appreciate" and "oxygen" all on his own!

Foolproof way to get the immediate attention of 95% of my students: mention sexy girls. They love talking about sexy girls.

Not sure why this student wrote "delicious" next to his name, but I like it.

This girl is awesome. She loves Britney Spears and everyone knows it. "happy good smile ^o^"/ "Idol is bling bling very new Idol comeback eyes happy" :)

This is shy-girl.

I love #2.

"Dog b/c dog is cute"!

Bana milk is a Korean drink brand. "Korea b/c Korea is peaceful"!

This guy is funny. It sounds kind of bad, but he explained it to me as approximately: "I am thankful for my friends surrounding me because it means I don't have to use guns." So, being surrounded by friends is a kind of power.

My students love it when I say, "blah blah blah," and they love parroting "blah blah blah" back to me. :)

Finally, the suck-ups. That day I was wearing baggy washed-out construction jeans (w/ 9 pockets). I guess that makes me stylish. Like a New Yorker.

weekly pop music profile #1? (@bird_esque)

Maybe this will become a thing, we'll see.

This past week I did a "describing celebrities" lesson with a lot of my classes. I taught them how to describe appearance & repertoire (he/she sings ______, etc.) and then we played guessing games with Korean and American celebrities for the majority of the class.

The result of this is that I know way more about current Korean idols than I did before, a) because of the internet researching I did while lesson planning, and b) because of all the other celebrities that my students described to me.

All of this, to tell you that I've found a new boy band to be obsessed with: DBSK, or Dong Bang Shin Gi, which apparently translates to "The Rising Gods of the East."

Listen to my favorite song (so far) here.

Reasons why I think I like this song/video more than I like the other songs/videos I've watched (and let's be honest here, I watched DBSK videos for about 3 consecutive hours today):

1. BONDAGE IMAGERY. And it's the MEN who are being bound, at various points in the video, but notably at 1:00-1:02 and starting at 1:12.

2. Weird power dynamics. I'm creeped out by the ethereal woman-figure with gauze over her face, but she seems to be dominating all the men in the video. I think I'm interested in seeing (for once) men being made physically vulnerable by a female force (mysterious and face-less though she may be), instead of always the other way around. (See this video that Nora recently posted on the fb for why I've been thinking about women being threatened by a mysterious male force lately.)

But then, she's faceless! And towards the end of video, she's running away from them but then disappears! "My infinite crystals flow through your veins"/"I've got you under my skin." Both the "you" and the "I" in the song hold power over the other? The lyrics say "You can't escape me"/"You're my slave." Who is the "you," and who is the "I"? I can't tell. So, weird power dynamics.

3. Crucifixion imagery, wtf?

4. I don't know, maybe I like all the splashing of water that's going on?

Korea thinks the phrase "I got you under my skin" is inappropriate for minors, here for more.

The more I learn about Korean pop music, the more I discover that SM Entertainment is the immovable force behind the vast majority of top Korean hits. Super Junior, Girls' Generation, DBSK, BoA... most of the super powers of current Korean pop, all produced by SM Entertainment. The band members don't even come together on their own; they are recruited from mass auditions that SM holds and then built into a massively advertised performing machine. It creeps me out a little. (But I'm still obsessed with them.)

In other news, I saw snow in Seoul for the first time ever today! It didn't stick or anything, but the windy gusts were super fun to watch from the open window of my cozy 4th floor room.

There is too much to tell you, how can I say it all?

1. I had an open class with Park Mi-Ran this Wednesday, which means: people watching me teach, all my co-teachers watching me teach, 3-4 other teachers watching me teach, the principal and vice-principal watching me teach, no parents watching me teach (for which I am infinitely grateful). Which means: forcibly inserting myself into Park Mi-Ran's good time, no longer waiting for her to make space for me as a leader of the classroom. Because if I wait for her to hand control over to me, she will take control and then the class will be over and no one will know I was there.

2. These days, my relationship with Park Mi-Ran reminds me of my relationship with my mom before I moved out of the house. She is maybe the most significant person in my life here. She arranges my schedule and protects me from unfair treatment and makes me feel so powerless sometimes. She has so much control over my life, she choreographs my entire life within the school and a significant amount of my extracurricular activities; I want to rail at her and assert my independence. But (instead of the explosive fights I had with my mom) the tension here remains all under the surface. Park Mi-Ran is my immediate boss; she has 30+ years of teaching under her belt. If I create a conflict with her, it would essentially guarantee that virtually the entire staff would be hostile towards me for the remainder of my contract. Irony of ironies: sometimes I feel as trapped here as I did during my days at Grandville High School.

3. I've been eating nothing but clementines for hours.

4. I know that it's December now, but I can't quite make myself believe it. No snow no snow no snow no familiar Christmas tunes no Christmas lights lining the streets. What will I do for my 3-day Christmas vacation? What will I send you for Christmas?

it is harder and harder to get out of bed these days.

I have dreams sometimes lately. (This is really unusual for me. As long as I can remember, I have rarely dreamt, or at least have rarely remembered having dreamt.) My dreams now are often about teaching; sometimes, I wake up certain that I have overslept a class or that a certain class went really well or that a certain class went really poorly. More often than not, my dreams are filled with anxiety. This doesn't surprise me; after all, I have a lot of anxiety about teaching.

Last night I had a dream/nightmare about a lot of people that I didn't know very well in Ann Arbor. Lauren Keils, for example, featured prominently in my dream. The plot of the dream is blurry, but the main setting was definitely Orchid Lane in Ann Arbor, and Lauren was definitely the protagonist. There was a serial killer on the loose, and a lot of other people that I only knew vaguely in Ann Arbor were the victims. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I think there was a team of serial killers on the loose. Maybe they were siblings. Maybe there were three of them. Maybe only two.

Lauren was the owner of Orchid Lane (which was where all of the people were being killed), and maybe she decided to track down the serial killers in a mysterious and carefree sort of way. I have no recollection of what my own role was. There was a lot of blood in the dream, a lot of corpses.

My first thought when I woke up this morning was "what the FUCK" promptly followed by "oh FUCK, I've overslept." I rushed around to get ready for work, arrived at school, taught five classes and spent most of my in-between-classes time being depressed and deciding that I am a failure. And now I have finished my last class of the day, and my first thought when I sat back down at my desk was "I had a dream last night, what the FUCK."

My dreams bewilder me. I bewilder myself.

I begin to insert myself into my co-teachers' good time.

You all know by now that I have doubts about my teaching skills. Most of the time, I ask a lot of advice from my co-teachers and defer to their judgment in times of uncertainty, trusting that they know more than I do about what's best for our students.

The exception to this is Han Jin-An, the older male teacher who barely speaks English. I know from the other teachers that he has a reputation for not caring very much about the students or how much they learn. Generally, about 90% of the students sleep during his class (the English classes he teaches alone, not the ones I teach). He makes no effort to wake them up. His participation and attendance in the classes we "co-teach" are spotty to nonexistent, and so I have had to rely on my own judgment from the beginning in his classes. I have had to decide what is best for my students in the 50-minute time slot that I have influence over their lives.

And this reliance on my own judgment is beginning to spill over into the rest of my classes, I think. I am starting to knowingly go against the will of my well-meaning co-teachers on occasion, over small things.

For example, last week I taught family vocabulary and expressions to both 1st and 2nd graders. To get their attention, I made up a poster of my family tree, using pictures that I printed from my computer's photo collection and from the photos Mom has scanned and put online recently. While making the poster, I hesitated over the little red hearts I was cutting and pasting to represent marriage. To lie to my students and tell them my parents are married, or to draw a zig-zag line through the heart and teach them how to say "divorce"?

Divorce is a taboo subject in Korea. It's really, really looked down upon. Prior to doing the family lesson, I hadn't told even the teachers I am closest to that my parents are divorced. And it's not because I'm ashamed of it, or because I'm still upset about it. I don't think either of those things are true. But they just assumed that of course my parents were married, and you know, Park Mi-Ran is the immovable force.

But a lot of my students come from so-called "broken" families. Many of their parents are divorced, many of them were raised by single parents. Some of their parents died when they were young, some of their parents deserted them, some of their parents abused them. Some of them were raised entirely by their grandparents. Etc. And these students are so ashamed of this, so ashamed that their families are not picture perfect.

How could I not tell them my parents are divorced? How could I not laugh along with them when one student said "goodbye, heartbreaker!" when I asked them to think about why the heart over my mom and dad was different from the hearts over my grandparents and my aunts/uncles? How could I not give them a reason to be more open with me, to show them that a different family doesn't have to mean a sad family? They look up to me. Maybe knowing that I am the product of divorced parents will help them believe that they can be happy and successful, they can do exciting things too. (Because to them, my life is so strange and exciting.)

So in every class, I purposely highlighted the reason for the zig-zag line, despite the fact that it was easy to see that my co-teachers were uncomfortable with it. Because I thought: "this is a good thing for my students."

Then, today, one of my students said, "Pamela, you like black men? Black people what name?" They are so curious about the existence of black people in the U.S.; it is strange to them to think that I grew up in the presence of black people (and not even that many! I grew up in suburbia, for christ's sake!). Most of them have only ever seen a black person in the movies, usually represented as a gangster. There's a lot of racism directed towards black people here, way more than in the U.S., and way more blatantly.

When the student asked me those questions, my co-teacher immediately tried to steer me away from the situation. But I said, "No, please help us talk about this, this is important." Because this student wanted to learn something real, for once, and I wanted to teach it to him. And maybe now he thinks of black people as a little less like "others" than he did before.

The point is, I still let myself be guided by my co-teachers in a lot of situations. But I'm starting to think that sometimes I know what is good for my students, too; I am capable of teaching them something real.

I can't stop listening to Super Junior.

Please, no one ever tell South Korea how homoerotic it is, because then it will stop and then I will be sad.

For example, this video. Please note the pumping/thrusting gymnasium action that starts at about 0:35.

For example, this video, too. Obligatory sad heterosexual breakup story & brief appearance of the heartbreaker-woman at beginning, followed by 4 minutes of men giving each other longing looks while singing "it's you" (nuh-rah-ko).

For example, women holding hands with women walking down the street.

For example, my students putting their hands on their friends' shoulders and giving each other massages and running their fingers through their friends' hair. Casually fondling each other in ways that would immediately scream "we're a couple!" in the U.S. They do it most frequently when one of their friends is sick/has a headache. I generally allow the sick students to rest/sleep during class, and their friends will usually sit next to them and casually rub their backs or massage their necks/scalps while participating in class and/or diligently doing the activities I assign.

It's so cute. I love it. I hope no one ever makes these kids feel ashamed for the physical way they express affection for each other.

RU HAPPY NOW, JANE?

Hello Kitty subway card (@twcwar), as requested.

Today I went to Dr. Fish with some people from orientation. The fish are fed very little to keep them hungry, and when you put your feet into the water they eat the dead skin off your feet. It's famous as a pedicure method. I am conflicted about it (how inhumane to constantly keep the fish on the edge of starvation!), but my curiosity about how it would feel got the best of me.

And it feels fucking terrifying, for the record.

Delicious (and cute!) strawberry-rhubarb pie.

"Did you poop on my head?"

A lot of the students at Seoul Electronics High School smoke. In Korea, smoking is typically seen as an exclusively male habit (read: many women do smoke, but never in public. There are special smoking rooms in many public restrooms for women). But both girls and boys at my school are frequently caught and reprimanded for smoking on school grounds.

On a practical level, what this means for me is that when students ask to go to the bathroom during class, they usually don't have to go to the bathroom. They want to go to the bathroom to smoke. Which means: as much as I am opposed to the public school system having power over students' bodily needs, I can't just let them go without a fuss.

This conversation happened in one of the 2nd grade classes I have with Han Jin-An yesterday:

Student: "Teach-ah, toilet!"
Me: "Oh, you mean 'Can I go to the bathroom, please?'"
Student: "Yes, can I go bathroom please?"
Me: "Okay, you have 1 minute."

Student clutches at his stomach and makes groaning noises, then appeals to his classmates to help him explain the situation to me.

Different Student Who is Very Good at English: "Teacher, it's poop!"
Me: "Oh, really? Okay, 2 minutes."

Entire class erupts in laughter.

Student: "Teacher!"
Me: "Okay, okay, just hurry!"

Student hurries to bathroom.

One of my favorite things about South Korea is the absence of poop-phobia. What students in any American high school would have been willing to tell their teacher that they had to poop? My co-teachers are also occasionally frank with me about their indigestion and poop issues. <3

If you want to read more about South Korea and poop, click here.

sometimes Park Mi-Ran terrifies me.

Sometimes, I overhear Park Mi-Ran speaking to the other teachers in Korean, and she makes the noise at 1:15-1:17 in this video (mixed in with her normal Korean speech). And everyone seems to think that it's normal.

I am guff, how did this happen.

Guff does not come naturally to me, it never has. I am not an outgoing person, I do not like to hang out with people simply for the sake of hanging out with people. I do not share my thoughts with people who are not close to me. And while it's not terribly unusual for me to go out of my way to help a stranger/acquaintance (I like to be useful), if you don't need any help or if I don't feel close to you, there's a good chance that my time and my energy are inaccessible to you.

All of that, no longer. I am guff in Korea, and I am definitely guff at school. I have been from the beginning, it just took me awhile to figure it out. It's a combination of factors, I think. Part of it is that as a native English speaker, as a foreigner, a lot of people want a piece of me. Normally, I wouldn't necessarily take kindly to this, but another part of it is that I have a huge gaping canyon of want in my torso that urges me to learn everything, to experience everything and everyone that I can. (This is strange to me. I will honestly admit that I censor my own experiences sometimes, I withdraw from people or situations that I find uncomfortable. I'm not censoring, here. I'm not withdrawing.)

And a third factor: my thrice-damned desire to help, to be useful. So many of the people (both teachers and students) at my school want to learn English, want to practice English. I can help them, they want me to help them. I can't say no. There are two exceptions: 1) Kim Yeon, the high-faluting teacher who tries to monopolize my time, and whose supercilious attitude towards both the students and the lower-income teachers I absolutely refuse to respect, and 2) more recently, Kang Eun-Shig, a militant Christian who will not cease in his efforts to convince me to attend his church or to teach me "Hallelujah, Jesus is with me" in Korean. He knows I'm not a Christian, he knows (or he should know, at least) that it's inappropriate to put religious pressure on me. And I don't think I'm being insensitive to cultural differences here. Other teachers have gently let me know that they are Christian (opening the door, I take it, if I want to join them). Park Mi-Ran, for example, told me once that she prayed for me on the first day she met me, the day I was so sick and panicky. I don't mind these gentle hints from teachers who are otherwise very much my friends. In a way, it's actually kind of sweet. But everyone knows now that I am not religious, I have gently let them know that too. One of my good teacher-friends is KoHo, who is Buddhist in a flexible sense. I attend meditation club with him every Thursday, which in turn gives me a slight association with Buddhism. Most of the teachers accept this and don't bother me about it. But Kang Eun-Shig is out of line, and I don't know how to fix the situation.

Anyway, that is not what I meant to write about. The point is that except for Kim Yeon and Kang Eun-Shig, I make myself purposely friendly and effusive with anyone who approaches me with a question or a desire to speak English with me for a few minutes. It never matters if I am busy, or behind schedule on preparing for classes, or if there is something I would rather be doing (like Tweeting, listening to Bad Romance on repeat, etc). They are asking for help; I will give it to them. Especially especially especially my students, I love it when the eager students come in to the teachers' office to interrupt me, sometimes to practice whatever it is I taught them in class that week, sometimes to talk about Michael Jackson or Prison Break (@bird_esque they love Prison Break here, too). Sometimes to stare over my shoulder at my computer screen and comment on whatever it is that I am doing at the moment (which is why, friends, I never go on the fb at work).

Yesterday, one of the most eager students (oh so eager) called Kim Yeon seon-saeng-nim (seon-saeng-nim = "teacher," except more honorific, more like "professor") a "New Yorker" because of all the makeup she puts on, making her skin look very, very pale. Personally, I prefer to think of her as a New Yorker for entirely different reasons (@bird_esque).

In conclusion:

눈 = nun ("noon") = eye

빛 = bit ("beat," with force on the "t") = light

Eye color in Korean = 눈빛 = eye light, the light from one's eyes.

Seoul Lantern Festival 2009

This isn't even all of the pictures.

Walk 400 meters, turn right when you see a huge spiral pointing at the sky. No street names here.

Cheonggyecheon at night. <3

FAVORITE.

Anthropomorphic Chinese Zodiac animals, the Year of the Rabbit. (Does the noble pose of this rabbit remind anyone else of Redwall?)

Ssireum (Korean wrestling).

RAWR.

Mythic animals guarding the entrance to the lantern palace.

@twcwar I made sure to include "The Little Penguin" sign, in case you couldn't tell what it was.

It's the solar system, if you can't tell. And a rocket labeled "Korea" being shot into space.

Heartz.