Yes yes yes yes yes

I leave to catch the bus to the airport at 6 tomorrow morning (hooray for 3 hours of sleep!) in order to get there early enough to get a re-entry visa and eat breakfast and take a nap; we take off at 11:30 a.m.; we arrive in Bangkok in the late afternoon; and our connector flight gets to where we're staying late in the evening. Weather forecast for the coming week is hot as hell and not rainy. WWJD on his birthday? He'd get drunk on a beach, that's what he'd do. He told me so. Wanna fight about it?

While I've yet to listen to Sonic Youth's Rather Ripped, which is supposedly their best pop-ish album since Goo, the best rock album I've heard all year is The Thermals' The Body, The Blood, The Machine. Go get it! And if you haven't seen either video yet, go check out Justin Timberlake's two musical skits from the last edition of SNL: Dick in a Box and Cup of Soup are effing hilarious.

Here are some more pictures of kids I will no longer be teaching come January, unfortunately. I was really lucky, and had only two unlikeable shitheads out of maybe 50 kids. And, more importantly, the only ugly kid I had dropped out when I humiliated him for cheating on a quiz (not just because he was ugly, but because he was a bully and a cheater--but mostly because he was ugly). In the photo of three girls, the short one, Seo-Young, is eleven years old and speaks nearly fluently. She started learning English when she was 2. She's already decided which med school she wants to go to. She's the nicest robot I've ever met. She is also a good photographer. The two girls touching hands while Bo does the rabbit ears thing over their heads are the most adorable human beings in the world. They both want to be fashion designers. I think they should instead be elective guinea pigs for anti-aging drugs. My friend Sara is standing with her class; she taught Johnny, the kid in the red coat, how to properly employ the exclamations "Psych!" and "Not!". For instance, I stepped on his sandaled foot before taking that photo, and he started screaming, so I apologized and tried to help him up, but he laughed in my face and said "PSYCH! BA HAHAHAHA!" He's fucking cool. The last picture is me trying to give you an aneurysm with my mind. Did it work?

Happy holidays!

Asian children--an excellent source of MSG!

I used to hate kids, but that's because North American children are ugly. Don't believe me? Check out these photos. I've already started shopping for luggage with which to bring a few of them home. Now taking orders!

First, Junior 6 students. Here's Amy. She's punk fuckin' rock (although has no idea who or what the Ramones are). She's a complete klutz, so of course she has decided to refer to herself as "graceful!!!" every chance she gets. She has the manliest voice in the world, and is always coughing like a fifty-year-old chain smoker. If I was certain that she didn't have some horrible disease, I'd say it was pretty funny.




This guy's Andy. He's the one I've dangled by the ankles for not doing his homework. Among his favorite English sayings are "What the shit!" and "I will kill you mother bitch!" I taught him the proper way to conjugate the verb 'to suck'. (FYI: I suck "really bad".) He once asked me how God could be so crazy as to make one human being so handsome, intelligent, and funny all at once (referring to himself); I assured him that God was merely compensating for the fact that he's 150 cm tall, which elicited a hilarious burst of profanity and violence from him. I accidentally gouged his eyeball with my thumb when he tried to tackle me for telling him the wrong answer on purpose on a quiz (just because I wanted to see him go berserk). He's a grade six, and is shorter than all of the girls in his class. I'll miss him when our classes get all jumbled up when the new term starts in January. It's the fucked up kids that make the job worthwhile.



The following kids are in my Junior-2 class on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Yoda in the green hood is Luke, who is pretty smart for a ten year old; the close-up of the grinning goblin-esque girl is Flora, who is prone to fits of barking (I think she thinks it's funny, and after awhile I think I started to get the joke); the girl smiling with her hands up is Josephine, who is so adorable when she begs me to stop beating her for mispronouncing simple words; the girl pointing is Suwan, who has never met an English sentence she didn't like ( "I AM SUWAN!" "Spiders is pretty!" "Strawberries are older than my house!" "Teacher scares me when he drinks too much during class!"); and then there's a group shot of the girls in that classroom doing their best impression of a bunch of Korean kids.







The last group of photos of kids are my Monday-Wednesday-Friday Senior-3 class, who are the same age as the Junior-2's above and two years younger than the Junior 6's at the top. (They don't sort them by age, but by ability here, and then try to keep kids of the same age and ability together to create a more comfortable classroom environment--works pretty well.) Dude doing the peace sign (which in Korea has nothing to do with peace, but simply means "KIMCHI!", which is their word for "CHEESE!") is Hank, who is a year younger than his peers and smarter than all of them. In the group photo of boys from that class, the kid to Hank's left is Alex, who lived in the States long enough to learn lots of fun words! "Hey teacher, what's a pussy? Really? Are you SURE it's a cat, teacher? Are you REALLY sure?" Or "Hey teacher, is it bad to call somebody a motherfucker? Why? I know what mother means, but..." He pretends to be epileptic a lot too. (At least, I think he's pretending... and if he's not, his parents don't care enough to notify me of any medical problems, so whatevs.) The girl with glasses is "soju face", a.k.a. Michelle. Her mom brings me snacks, like eight baked sweet potatoes (umm... yummy!...?!). Michelle is prone to banshee-like eruptions when she gets stuff right, and for the past week she has been throwing ping-pong balls at everyone, playing a one-player game of dodge ball. (Halfway through a test, I'll be marking some essays, and I'll jump three feet in the air when she screams "YEEEEEEAH!!!! I HIT YOU, YOU'RE DEAD PETER! STUPID!" She's a lunatic, and thus one of my favorite students. Every time one of my friends walks into my classroom to get something or tell me something, she tells me that they're a harlot as soon as they leave and that I should not be their boyfriend anymore. She informed me that girls who wear short skirts will never be able to have babies, and that girls who eat sushi with boys who are not their boyfriends are "BAD!" Methinks her mother is the real lunatic there. There's also a group shot of that class.






Finally, some photos of co-workers and the place I work at. Tasha is the Korean girl sitting behind a desk, who is my partner--she deals with parents and yells at the kids in Korean when I don't feel like punishing them, but luckily for her, I ALWAYS feel like punishing them. Dylan has the ear piercing. He's been married for a year and a half, and plays a mean guitar. Sarah is the one making the disgusting face, which is her greatest talent. She's the one that organized our upcoming trip to Thailand. Andrew is the guy sitting by himself. He's from San Fransisco, so you know what that means--yep, he's an American! Jimmy is the guy with glasses. The Korean dude doing the hand thing is Sae-Hun, who does menial office bullshit tasks for us but is a really nice guy about it. There's a picture of my staffroom, and one of the path I take through a park to get to work (which, much like everything else in this country, looks better when covered with snow). And, one photo of myself pretending to work while one of my kids pretends to be a photographer.











Woah, that took a long time. Expect lots more photos when I get back from Thailand.

Virtual Tour!

Are you the sort of person that finds photos of undecorated bachelor apartments exciting? Well, strap yourself in!







I should note that in the previous set of photos, the girl in the red toque is Amanda, Jennifer's friend from Toronto who arrived last month. She quit her job as a writer at Global News to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathens (by which I mean, teaching English). Amanda looks excited, because she enjoys restaurants that provide you with bibs. The dude with the glasses is Colin, from Sault Ste. Marie. Colin's superpower is being able to sleep anywhere no matter how loud the music is. He brought over that new movie Babel tonight, which was good but kind of made me want to kill myself. The second photo is Beomgye-yok (which means Beomgye Station), where we go to catch the subway. It's a ten minute walk from my building. It's usually not all that pretty, but the snow helps. We frequently go there at night, as it's close and far cheaper than Seoul, but doesn't really cater to foreigners so we still waste time and money going into the city to see music or go shopping. There are lots of good restaurants in Beomgye, though, including the dak galbi place we ate at this evening. That's an after and before photo of the stuff. Here's more info about it (although these guys aren't yet hip to the melted cheese option).

Camera!

I own one! It's a Canon IXY Digital 80. 6 megapixels (weak, but whatevs), good zoom, no delay, good flash, and a 1 GB card ($10 extra).

Here are some photos taken on our way back and at dinner (dak galbi, a.k.a. pile of noodles and super-spicy chicken and melted cheese [GOOD!]).

Yes!

Best. Cab. Ride. Ever.

It snowed maybe six inches this evening, which my friend Dylan (here for three or four years now) told me was the most he's seen at one time south of Seoul. Big, fat, wet, flaky stuff, perfect for making snowmen--and wiping out taxi cabs.

After having dinner with a friend, I tried to meet up with some coworkers. Due to the snowfall, and the lack of snow tires in this country, it took twenty five minutes instead of the usual seven. When I finally found a cab, and persuaded him to go where I wanted to go (instead of wherever it was he suggested), the guy drove maybe fifteen kilometers an hour until we hit a big logjam of cars about two kilometers away from where I wanted to be. So, he took a shortcut. We came upon a car spinning its tires, attempting to climb a 30 degree incline. The cabbie dutifully got out and started yelling at the driver of the car in front of us to kick it up a notch (or something to that effect). The driver got out, conversed with my cabbie for a few minutes, appropriately angled his vehicle, and then got back in his car and floored it. He plowed head on into a car coming down the hill, and both drivers proceeded to begin pummeling each other (once they ensured that the other was not paralyzed, natch). My cabbie (the guy personally responsible for conceptualizing this accident) got back in the car and rested his head on the steering wheel and swore a whole bunch. Then, he stuck his head out of the window and screamed something. The two drivers of the damaged cars obligingly moved their wrecks off of the road. My cabbie then let out a banshee-esque wail and stepped on the gas. The Elantra barely made it to the top of the hill, which transformed into a one-lane one-way Mario Kart track which forced him to pull the E-brake and scream like a kamikaze pilot in order to not smash into the retaining wall. I don't know how he executed that turn, but when I opened my eyes we were stopped, safely situated at the top of the incline, through the hairpin turn. I know this sounds ridiculous (or completely unintelligible) but dear god, that was the best bit of driving I have ever witnessed, televised or otherwise. He was literally panting, and when he looked up at me he had this psychotic grin on his face. He yelled "OKAY!" and off we went. The fare was 2.5 times as much as usual, but considering it took five times longer than normal, I was happy to pay what the meter stipulated. My legs were wobbly for an hour afterwards. Awesome.

Funny bone: tickled

You need to check out Wondershowzen on YouTube if you haven't already seen it.

Pitchforkmedia.com says my mom is cooler than yours

Included in the package my parents sent me for Christmas were two CDs: K-oS' Joyful Rebellion, which you've probably heard and already like; and Swan Lake's Beast Moans, which is a collaboration between members of Wolf Parade, Destroyer/New Pornographers, and some other band. I think it's all-Canadian, but who cares where they're from--they're really good. I sort of assumed one of my brothers, or Tom's girlfriend Katie, had picked these out, but turns out my mom heard them while listening to a CBC radio program and is a big fan of both. I shouldn't be that surprised, as her collection of Tom Waits vinyl is pretty impressive, but this shit's hip.

Here's hoping Frampton Comes Alive is in a landfill when I get back, and that I've had my last Christmas with Huey Lewis and the News.

Nice!

We thought everything was all booked up, due to the Full Moon Party that takes place two days after we're scheduled to leave, but we finally confirmed a reservation at a place on Koh Phangan today. Here is where three of my friends from work and I are staying from Dec. 23rd-Dec. 28th.

My good friend Andrew, currently residing in Tel Aviv, tells me that a million or so Israelis will be in Thailand around that time. It's a big hit with lots of obnoxious people who might otherwise be vacationing in Ibiza. Can't wait for the Euro-techno audio onslaught to begin! Rave it up DJ Rave! barfs

Our five nights there will be followed by three or four more in Bangkok. The hotel we're staying in is eight bucks a night, and two of my traveling companions, Tim and Sara, both say it's spotless, has a great rooftop pool/bar, and is on the main street of Koh Sahn Road (however that's spelled). So I'll be steps away from tons of cheap, expensive-looking clothes. Giddy up.

On Friday night a few people from work went to this new restaurant behind our school, and for ten bucks each we had a beer and more meat than I've ever eaten at one time in my entire life. The buffet included octopus, squid, cuttlefish, shrimp, and lots of cuts of pork and beef. They put little gas grills in front of you and you cook the food yourself. One thing I will definitely miss back home is restaurants like that, where the risk of people poisoning themselves with undercooked chicken or pork is too great to obtain a business license. The closest thing is the Mongolian Grill and places like that, and that place is pretty expensive and kinda sucky. The owner took a picture of us and e-mailed it to people who gave him their contact info. Nice guy. Picture is below.

Greg helped me redecorate my apartment today. I had only fluorescent lighting, but now I've got a lamp and lots of candles, and the layout is vastly improved as well. I don't feel like a vampire anymore.

I went to see a band that my friend Dylan (guy beside me in the photo, in the foreground) plays with last night. It was their last show, as the drummer is moving back to Canada. They were really good, and a lot of fun, but this other band, Jet Echo, was pretty unbelievable. I've never seen anyone play drums like that before. I think you can download their music off of their MySpace page, but their recorded stuff kinda sucks. One of the best live performances I've seen in years.

Jimmy (dude to the right of Jenn in the photo) got an X-Box from a teacher who left, and we just got a cross-over cable today, so we can link both of them up and play Halo 2 and lots of other games on two TVs in our adjacent apartments. (It's a long cable.) Greg and I beat Jimmy and Colin pretty badly this evening. It's a lot of fun. I don't know if our neighbors appreciate the loud intra-apartmental heckling, but then I don't appreciate their mangy fucking dogs barking early in the morning either, so they'll have to cope with it.

Colin (black glasses, beside Jimmy, from Sault Ste. Marie) just got Art School Confidential, and we're gonna watch it tomorrow. Movies are like two or three bucks here, as they're all pirated (and the quality is highly inconsistent), so I will be loading up before I come home. Unfortunately they usually only have new releases; when I asked one vendor if he had Harold & Maude, he said, "No! But I have 'The Whole Ten Yards'! Very funny movie, you should buy it! Okay, I put it in your pile!" He was kind of surprised that I didn't want it, but what with the large number of G.I.'s from red states that shop at the electronics market, it's probably one of his top sellers, after Season 3 of JAG and 'Too Fast, Too Furious: Tokyo Drift'.