things I do not love:

Today was my required physical exam for the renewal of my teaching contract. First they measured my height and weight (Korea has this nifty machine that whacks you on the top of your head to measure height). Then they measured my bra size (?!?). Then they measured my vision and hearing and took an X-ray of my chest. Then they drew my blood (to test for HIV), and then they handed me a modest-looking paper cup to pee in and told me to bring it back and set it on the desk when I was done. It was the least ceremonious and least sanitary urine sample I've ever participated in.

But seriously, why did they measure my chest? I just can't think of a medical reason for it.

bikini tribal

disco thong sandals! (RIP)

Obligatory photo of La Casa Rosada.

BALLZ

[the corpse of] Ulises' grandfather is in here.

Alexi's roommate (left) and creepy-ass landlord (right).

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

kiwi licuado, SO GOOD

KY gel valentine's day heart-shaped balloon.

tourists are welcome here?

jesus guarding over the children('s playground)

IT WAS THE BABY

doll/dyke

dyke/doll

THE FUTURE

pam-mom meets pam-mom, suckles tits

for papa, from agus and mama

choripan of DOOM

at the Eloisa Cartonera collective, we painted books.

I painted this one. Obviously.

then the city FLOODED. THRICE.

ewwwwwwwwwwww

skype 3-way

audra and ulises at the outdoor milonga near feria

el caminito in la boca

SHE'S FUCKING THAT HORSE

what would lar-bear say.

red cow-print tango shoes!

I took a nap just now, and dreamt.

That happens sometimes lately.

Everyone was in my dream. Ann Arbor friends: Jane, Jamie, Audra, Hannah, Nora, WhitPow, maybe @megiddings, I'm not sure. Teacher friends: Park Mi-Ran, KoHo, Yena, Shin-Jung, maybe gossip girl #1, I'm not sure. Various "fellow" native-English-speaking teachers from Seoul who will go unnamed, because the ones who were in my dream were the ones I hate and avoid, generally speaking.

There was a party, we were all playing an absurd game where we careened around the room acting like we were ships in stormy waters, rocking from side to side and bumping into each other as much as possible. Then we all took our shirts off, and I tweaked everyone's nipples. But then Hannah's and WhitPow's girlfriends got mad at me for touching their women.

At some point, the party ended, and then all of you were gone except for Jane and KoHo (hiking teacher friend), and Jane and I were wandering the streets of Seoul and/or Paris and we came across KoHo, who was surrounded by twenty-odd feral cats. He was clipping the nails of one of the feral cats, and the cat was very angry. Also, we were all standing on the roof of a building and/or high up on the limbs of a telephone pole.

Then suddenly Jane left me on my own and I was trying to find a place to stay in Seoul, only Jane was the one who was living in Seoul and I was visiting her here and I didn't know where to stay. Then I ended up staying in this really plush lobby of some business place for free, I don't really know why. And I think this is where the rest of my teacher friends entered the picture, we were at some conference or something and Park Mi-Ran probably took care of me, the end.

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 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.

another day, another mountain.

Mountain #2: Umyeonsan (Mt. Umyeon) for the second time. It's the mountain right behind my school, and I climbed it with Shin-Jeong and Park Mi-Ran to get to a photo exhibition close to Mi-Ran's house after school on Monday.

The exhibit was of Sarah Moon (who sounds Korean by name, but is British by birth and French for all purposes).

Common themes:
1. women in high fashion
2. birds (a plethora of parrots. a fair few seagulls. one toucan. pelicans. flamingos. herons. at least 3 peacocks)
3. nipples (see below)
4. naked backs (see below)
5. ballet
6. swimmers

Fairly typical of her fashion photography.

Most of the women in her photos are pictured from behind. Their faces are almost never shown, but their backs are almost always bare and on display.

Some of the backs were photographed in contorted positions, which reminded me a little bit of Edgar Degas. Like this painting, only with more uncertainty about what position the subject is in.

Again, face is (at least partially) covered/obscured. Nipples are another common theme. In some of the photos, the nipples are actually visible; in others, they are obscured. But the nipples are always present.

Normal people/objects photographed as though they were diseased/dying/dead. This is only a pockmarked statue, but doesn't it look like a decaying corpse or someone with the plague?

Finally, at the very end, a photo with movement.

On the whole, the exhibit was a bit of a downer, and both Mi-Ran and Shin-Jeong denounced Sarah Moon as pessimistic (which I have come to understand is a pretty sizable insult here).

"It seemed like a dream. Back to my childhood, I had sad dreams. I dreamt that my mother said goodbye and left me alone." -Park Mi-Ran

Alone-ness seems to be a societal fear, here. Several of my co-workers (male and female) have expressed to me their desire to find a husband/wife so that they will never have to live by themselves. Most of my unmarried co-workers still live with their parents, and will likely continue to do so until they get married. This is a desirable situation to most of them. "I don't want to live alone," they say, and their earnestness is tangible.

melon. collie.

I don't know how to tell you about the way
I sometimes unbutton my pink
plaid all the way down to the pink
bow between my two D-
cups (yes, D! after all that fuss). Then
I go out. Because despite
everything, some days I wake up wanting
someone (a man, I mean) to look at my
breasts like they're the one thing that can
save him.

It lasted for nearly 45 minutes today. I'd
taken the subway all the way to the river, walked
for a while. There was an old man - I stopped, took out the old
men's windbreaker Park Mi-Ran gave me, covered myself.

You must have guessed that my melan-
choly would set in soon (though I hate that word, as much as I love
melons, and collies named Duke). An old
woman was worried for me on the subway today, I
don't know why. Near Hapjeong Station (hop. jung.) she offered me
her seat, and I didn't know how to say "Look, can't you see? I've got my
city legs now" in Korean. The train drivers don't

like how I stand at the edge of the platform, right
where the train slams into the station. I wish I could tell them not to
worry, it's just that I like how the power of it makes me
gasp a little (the same way I gasped when the plane landed, & thought
"I've made it somehow, this is Korea"). But they've

heard stories from their friends, they know what those
spots are, the brownish
stains that won't come out.