Today at work my boss made a comment to the new teacher about how I was losing weight and how much bigger I had been when he hired me.
He then went on to proceed to tell her that he didn't hire me as a business decision, because if it had been a business decision he wouldn't hire a big person like me. Instead...he hired me because he thought I was sent to him by God to be saved.
How do I know all this? I was standing in the room while he relayed this.....
What. The. Heck?
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
12 year old bitches
I am convinced one of the girls at my school is trying to get me fired. I have no idea why she hates me the way she does…but she has been going all out to get me fired. Joseph my co-worker feels the same way, as he has heard them discussing me (in Korean) in his class, It all started last Thursday (6/17/10) when she told my boss that I hit her. This was of course backed up by another student. On Monday, the class she is in said I was sleeping in class and reading a magazine. Then on Tuesday, she said I was trying to steal her property.
In response to the stealing of property, she pulled a rope, (yes, a ROPE) out of her bag and tried to throw it around me. I grabbed it and tried to take it from her. She wouldn’t let go and a tug of war ensued. My boss walked in, he made me let go of the rope, and nothing was said to her. In regards to the sleeping in class….this is obviously not the case, unless I have developed a skill of correcting pronunciation while sleeping. However, with the lack of enthusiasm these kids put in to the reading, it would NOT be hard to fall asleep.
The magazine, I will admit I was reading….but only because the kids were listening to a story on CD. I listen to these kids read the story 100 times, I do not need to be listening along with the CD while they do. As soon as the CD ended, I put the magazine away, and continued with the class.
Not I will address the alleged hitting of a female student, backed up by a “witness”. Obviously this is a complete fabrication. Why the hell would I, a 28 year old man, hit a 12 year old girl? There is absolutely no benefit for me to do something like that, and it really pisses me off. What pisses me off more…guess who’s side my boss is on this whole situation? He is ALWAYS on the side of the students when they complain about Joseph or me. It’s really frustrating when I can’t get any kind of support from my asshole boss.
At this point, I swear Korea is just out to get me.
In response to the stealing of property, she pulled a rope, (yes, a ROPE) out of her bag and tried to throw it around me. I grabbed it and tried to take it from her. She wouldn’t let go and a tug of war ensued. My boss walked in, he made me let go of the rope, and nothing was said to her. In regards to the sleeping in class….this is obviously not the case, unless I have developed a skill of correcting pronunciation while sleeping. However, with the lack of enthusiasm these kids put in to the reading, it would NOT be hard to fall asleep.
The magazine, I will admit I was reading….but only because the kids were listening to a story on CD. I listen to these kids read the story 100 times, I do not need to be listening along with the CD while they do. As soon as the CD ended, I put the magazine away, and continued with the class.
Not I will address the alleged hitting of a female student, backed up by a “witness”. Obviously this is a complete fabrication. Why the hell would I, a 28 year old man, hit a 12 year old girl? There is absolutely no benefit for me to do something like that, and it really pisses me off. What pisses me off more…guess who’s side my boss is on this whole situation? He is ALWAYS on the side of the students when they complain about Joseph or me. It’s really frustrating when I can’t get any kind of support from my asshole boss.
At this point, I swear Korea is just out to get me.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Annoying my students
Sometimes when my students piss me off, I like to point at one student, then another and make my hands in to the shape of a heart. The gesture is big in Korea to mean two people who are dating, and since my kids are all in 4th grade or under they realllly don't like the idea of dating one another. They usually get really upset and angry. It's hilarious. If I am particularly annoyed, I choose a same sex person and make the gesture. Koreans are not big fans of the gays so this REALLLY gets them.
On a side note, I had a one on one class today and the director walked in and sat down and told the girl that God loved her. I had a puzzled look on my face, so he explained to me that he was trying to get her to accept God' love because she (and her family) are Buddhist. Way to abuse your power!
On a side note, I had a one on one class today and the director walked in and sat down and told the girl that God loved her. I had a puzzled look on my face, so he explained to me that he was trying to get her to accept God' love because she (and her family) are Buddhist. Way to abuse your power!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Things as of late...
You know, when I first started this blog, everything was so new and finding new topics of things to write about was easy. I just wrote about the stuff that happened in my daily life, tried to throw a humorous spin on it, and there ya go. Instant blog update. I am now 5.5 months in to the adventure in the orient, and things are really starting to run together. I can only write so many blog posts about drinking too much with my friends on a Friday night. Mostly now it is a little sprig of an idea that works great as a status update, but isn’t strong enough to support its weight as a blog entry. So for those of you who have been reading my blogs and asking me to write a new one, I apologize for the delay, and sparseness of my blogs. As Ricky says to his father in American Beauty, “Thanks for not giving up on me”.
So I just got a flip hd camera a few weeks back off of ebay. I have been uploading the videos to youtube, and will be sharing them on facebook and on here. They should give you a bit of a view in to the day to day of my life, as well as a glimpse of the cast of characters that make up my daily life. So far I have about 10 videos or so up…so feel free to check em out at http://www.youtube.com/narconis
There has been a lot of drama lately in Jeonju. Even though we are all adults, and we try to get along as best we can…there are so few of us that it can’t help but feel like Jeonju is a small high school some times. We all drink way too much, stay out way too late, and gossip travels as fast as phone calls are made. Just an example of the drama/gossip, in the last two months we’ve had: 1 girl removde herself from the group because she was called out for lying, a few big fights, an unwanted pregnancy, and 1 professed unrequited love. I swear we could write a season of Degrassi based just on our lives out here.
I bought a rice cooker. There aren’t many restaurants near my apartment…okay, scratch that…there are tons, but I don’t feel like walking more than ¼ mile in this humidity. I love it. I spent 50,000won on it and it is supposed to have all these cool functions and settings on it, but since they instructions are in Korean, I can only do 1 function…make rice. This reminds me. In the USA, when you buy almost anything…the instructions come in like 6 different languages, and Korean is usually one of them. It would really be nice if in Korea they returned the favor. I think that until Korea corrects this injustice, we should no longer include Korean in any of our instruction manuals.
I tried making dakalbi the other night. I was starting to get a little cocky since I was starting to see myself as a bit of a cook because I can successfully pour water and rice into the cooker and press a button. I found a recipe for the sauce online and bought the ingredients at Emart. I was so proud of myself as I mixed the ingredients and stirred them over the stove as I added the cooked rice and mimicked what I saw at the restaurant. Unfortunately, it tasted NOTHING like what it does at the restaurant. I’d even go so far as to say it was almost inedible. It was terrible…and sadly I have a lot of unused sauce ingredients sitting in my cupboard that I expect will stay that way.
So today at precisely 2pm I heard a loud screeching noise outside my window at work that sounded oddly like an air raid siren. This went on for a solid 15 minutes. It was quite annoying (although not as annoying as those stupid horns at the World Cup matches). I later found out that this in fact WAS an air raid siren and that on the 15 of every month Korea has an air raid drill. This makes sense since the Korean War is technically not over, and with all the drama the last few months it is a reminder that these drills might be needed. As it turns out…technically everything is supposed to stop during these drills. Joseph explained to me that 12 years ago when he got here…even the cars pulled over and stopped…including taxis (that continued to charge you during the drill). This doesn’t happen now-a-days anymore. No one even flinches. What the hell is the point?!
So it’s World Cup time and Korea has the fever. Everyone is wearing red, they are yelling, cheering. It’s pandemonium. I was in my apartment the night of the first game, and I could hear all the screaming whenever Korea scored. I’m been rooting against Korea and letting people know it just to annoy them. They do love the soccer here. Then again, so does Priscilla. She has made it her duty to watch EVERY match of the world cup. EVERY MATCH. I’d like to point out the 3rd game of the day starts at 3:30am in Korea. I wanted to watch USA/England but no way am I STARTING a soccer match at 3:30am! On a side note, most of my Korean friends are supporting North Korea in the cup as well as Korea. That would be almost like the US supporting Iraq in the fact that we are in a military conflict against them. I understand Korea is Korea…but just 3 months ago they sunk a ship and killed several hundred of your countrymen. Personally, I hope NK gets trounced out of the World Cup without scoring a single goal.
For those of you worrying about me over here with the news of the North Korean aggression….know that I am safe and not even slightly worried. Hell, I kind of WANT something to happen. It would make things a little more interesting around here. To be honest, I am in one of the safest cities in Korea if the shit were to hit the fan. Jeonju has NO industry whatsoever. It is purely a cultural city. Furthermore, Kim Jong Il considers Jeonju sacred and would never bomb here because his grandparents are buried in this city. If the ish hits the fan, I am in no real danger…as upsetting as that might be to some of you out there.
My friend Allie got to go back to Wisconsin yesterday. I am jealous. Most of my friends over here are getting to visit the states, or having someone come from the states to visit them. Actually…now that I think about it…I am the ONLY one I know who isn’t doing at least 1 of those. So if any of you want a free place to crash in Korea, you are more than welcome.
So I just got a flip hd camera a few weeks back off of ebay. I have been uploading the videos to youtube, and will be sharing them on facebook and on here. They should give you a bit of a view in to the day to day of my life, as well as a glimpse of the cast of characters that make up my daily life. So far I have about 10 videos or so up…so feel free to check em out at http://www.youtube.com/narconis
There has been a lot of drama lately in Jeonju. Even though we are all adults, and we try to get along as best we can…there are so few of us that it can’t help but feel like Jeonju is a small high school some times. We all drink way too much, stay out way too late, and gossip travels as fast as phone calls are made. Just an example of the drama/gossip, in the last two months we’ve had: 1 girl removde herself from the group because she was called out for lying, a few big fights, an unwanted pregnancy, and 1 professed unrequited love. I swear we could write a season of Degrassi based just on our lives out here.
I bought a rice cooker. There aren’t many restaurants near my apartment…okay, scratch that…there are tons, but I don’t feel like walking more than ¼ mile in this humidity. I love it. I spent 50,000won on it and it is supposed to have all these cool functions and settings on it, but since they instructions are in Korean, I can only do 1 function…make rice. This reminds me. In the USA, when you buy almost anything…the instructions come in like 6 different languages, and Korean is usually one of them. It would really be nice if in Korea they returned the favor. I think that until Korea corrects this injustice, we should no longer include Korean in any of our instruction manuals.
I tried making dakalbi the other night. I was starting to get a little cocky since I was starting to see myself as a bit of a cook because I can successfully pour water and rice into the cooker and press a button. I found a recipe for the sauce online and bought the ingredients at Emart. I was so proud of myself as I mixed the ingredients and stirred them over the stove as I added the cooked rice and mimicked what I saw at the restaurant. Unfortunately, it tasted NOTHING like what it does at the restaurant. I’d even go so far as to say it was almost inedible. It was terrible…and sadly I have a lot of unused sauce ingredients sitting in my cupboard that I expect will stay that way.
So today at precisely 2pm I heard a loud screeching noise outside my window at work that sounded oddly like an air raid siren. This went on for a solid 15 minutes. It was quite annoying (although not as annoying as those stupid horns at the World Cup matches). I later found out that this in fact WAS an air raid siren and that on the 15 of every month Korea has an air raid drill. This makes sense since the Korean War is technically not over, and with all the drama the last few months it is a reminder that these drills might be needed. As it turns out…technically everything is supposed to stop during these drills. Joseph explained to me that 12 years ago when he got here…even the cars pulled over and stopped…including taxis (that continued to charge you during the drill). This doesn’t happen now-a-days anymore. No one even flinches. What the hell is the point?!
So it’s World Cup time and Korea has the fever. Everyone is wearing red, they are yelling, cheering. It’s pandemonium. I was in my apartment the night of the first game, and I could hear all the screaming whenever Korea scored. I’m been rooting against Korea and letting people know it just to annoy them. They do love the soccer here. Then again, so does Priscilla. She has made it her duty to watch EVERY match of the world cup. EVERY MATCH. I’d like to point out the 3rd game of the day starts at 3:30am in Korea. I wanted to watch USA/England but no way am I STARTING a soccer match at 3:30am! On a side note, most of my Korean friends are supporting North Korea in the cup as well as Korea. That would be almost like the US supporting Iraq in the fact that we are in a military conflict against them. I understand Korea is Korea…but just 3 months ago they sunk a ship and killed several hundred of your countrymen. Personally, I hope NK gets trounced out of the World Cup without scoring a single goal.
For those of you worrying about me over here with the news of the North Korean aggression….know that I am safe and not even slightly worried. Hell, I kind of WANT something to happen. It would make things a little more interesting around here. To be honest, I am in one of the safest cities in Korea if the shit were to hit the fan. Jeonju has NO industry whatsoever. It is purely a cultural city. Furthermore, Kim Jong Il considers Jeonju sacred and would never bomb here because his grandparents are buried in this city. If the ish hits the fan, I am in no real danger…as upsetting as that might be to some of you out there.
My friend Allie got to go back to Wisconsin yesterday. I am jealous. Most of my friends over here are getting to visit the states, or having someone come from the states to visit them. Actually…now that I think about it…I am the ONLY one I know who isn’t doing at least 1 of those. So if any of you want a free place to crash in Korea, you are more than welcome.
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