New Artwork!

Well, after a long time of chasing down a "boksa" shop, or photocopy shop, I ended up at this small place near Chungnam University, where the employees allowed me to scan my art (in English Photoshop, no less!) for a mere 3,000 won. It was great. So I have a few new images--and some higher quality scans of the old ones.
(Clicking on an image will take you to a full sized one.)

This one is called "You can't stop this." I scanned it back in January, but the quality was weak. This is a much better scan, despite the water damage, which is almost invisible.

This one is called "Keep it in Perspective", and it was actually the last one I did from my old sketchbook. It remained unfinished for a really long time because of the water damage, but then I came back to it, fixed it up, and now I think it's going to be a prize--as a print, of course, but the original might sell someday, despite the discoloration that I took out of the corner.

I have three more that I'll share at a later date, and a lot more left to scan as well, but that's a job for a different weekend, I think.

I'm taking off tomorrow for a long travel trip, bopping around various places that are on my list. I don't have to work for seven days--which is the longest I've gone without working since I got here. I'm a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of free time. In fact, one of my Korean coworkers said to me: "I don't WANT vacation--I don't want to deal with my son! He drives me crazy!"

Recent notes on the students

I started, at the end of June, writing little notes when the kids did something, or something struck me as particularly interesting or cute. It's helped me to keep a writer's mind as I drift through things, ignoring the teachings of the Buddha and not being present in time. Now I've finished that notebook, so I ripped them out and I thought I'd share a few with you.

6.22.10 / Before classes started

The mean, frustrating make-my-life-hell counter teacher grabs my hand and grabs me to the back closet to show me where the on/off switch for the air conditioner is. It took be 6 months to even get this woman to say hello to me when I walked in. Usually she would just glance up to make sure that I wasn't the post man. Now she trusts me enough to show me the holy grail of energy costs for the hagwon--the air con. [We've recently purchased fans so that we don't actually have to use it to its full potential, an idea put into practice, I believe, by the husband at the second center. It seems like something he would be concerned about.]

6.22.10 / "Mashita" Class
This class is now down to 3 boys--all ridiculously difficult, but of a very warm heart. The last thing they want to do is be in class in the evening, and they make it ABUNDANTLY clear. Today they are watching Heidi--a rather pitiful, flash version where the characters don't quite move right. The same boys who made fun of Helen Keller when we studied her are 100% enthralled. Captain Gregory screams "NO!" when Peter kicks Clara's wheelchair down the mountain.

6.23.10 / During Class
They cleaned out my cubby. Apparently it was too dirty. They make my books the public books. I get really, really frustrated--but I only barely make it clear. I don't say anything. The next day I buy a book stand for my own classroom and take my books back and keep them in my room.

6.24.10 / Mashita
They tease the fat one until he breaks. He's about to hit them, or throw a desk, or both, but I ask him to leave and he DOES. I howl at them--telling them that they are so much better than their behavior and it works. They listen. They don't laugh in my face--suddenly these boys are taking me seriously, trusting me and respecting me because I love them to death, and they know it--but I am making it clear that I hate this behavior. I go outside to talk to John (the fat one), and he listens too. I control the situation. The others are watching at the desk. I am still annoyed and still want to beat them senseless, but I am so proud of them. The simple ability to control these boys, and the respect it takes to get them to take care of themselves is so gratifying. They couldn't have done it nine months ago.

6.25.10 / Kindergarten class
I notice that the really squirrely new one has half a hand. I suddenly like her just because she's different. She likes to talk in big, scary voices, and her absurdly large eyes roll around in her head and she giggles like mad. This whole class drives me over the precipice of cute-attack. Half of them don't have both of their front teeth, and their laughs are just electrifying. They are really intelligent too. The Korean teacher is great.

6.26.10 / Saturday / Out at a Bar
Nicole drops a glass and I accidentally step on a rather large curly piece--it slits my foot open, and I don't notice at first, until suddenly my shoe is slipping around on my foot. I go into the bathroom, stick my foot in the sink, and run water over it until it runs clear. Some drunk Korean girl comes in, sees me engaging in this odd act, and becomes my own personal bar mom--she runs to get tissue and dabs lovingly at my foot, whispering sweet nothings in Korean, until the bleeding stops. I don't care what anyone says--the things that happen in the girls bathrooms at bars are probably the most universal thing in the world. (Besides Coca Cola and beer.)

6.30.10
One of my favorite students, a ridiculously intelligent girl who feels a lot of pressure from the outside world, but is slowly starting to manage it, is having a good day. I tell her about my two favorite Little Fox stories--the two stories that happen in obviously Muslim countries. The first is about a character named Ali. She tells me "Teacher, my name is Ali." But I explain to her that that is a boy's name. [Most Korean names can go both ways.] So she asks me to tell her some female ones. As I list off names, she tells me, "Teacher, I am Aisha." And it is SO PERFECT. She is 100%, from head-to-toe an Aisha. Little spitfire with a desire to know everything, do everything well, and possess people's hearts. Nobody really understands how much joy I get from discussing Muslim names with this little girl, but I think for some reason she CAN see it. She is so alive that she can see the little changes that happen to me when I talk about the old life I had--and I think she knows how much it means to me that she cares.


7.1.10 "Mashita"
This class has been playing all day. We didn't really have anything to do. There's only two of them today and I'm just ragging on them, teasing them and they're teasing me back, and we're just having a grand old time. Jijun has taken to answering questions that he doesn't understand with: "Question number 11, what is the meaning of life?" So finally I stop and make him answer the question. He replies "Getting money." We don't really settle down, and suddenly in the middle of our laughter, Jijun cries: "Kim-to-the-Jin-to-the-JU!" [My Korean name: KimJinJu"] and continues to rap our names for the rest of the hour.

7.2.10
I traded classes with my boss for convenience purposes--she wants to give them a test and knows I won't be able to deal with them [this is the special needs class.] But I traded it for another class with special needs--one boy in particular who left the hagwon after having two violent episodes. He's back now--I don't know why--but on the day when I'm not supposed to be there, he goes off his handle. He tried to stab the kids with his umbrella, waving it menacingly in the air with this half-grin, squinty "this is the only way I know how to get attention" look on his face. I think he's drugged most of the time to prevent these outbursts, but he still knows that this is how he threatens others. He knows I'm afraid of him, and he knows that all the other teachers are afraid of him too. I use more Korean with this child than I do with a taxi driver. I take him out of class three times. First because he won't give up the umbrella. Second because he falls of his chair in the middle of speaking practice, and starts to cry. Third when he comes back in, and the kids tease him for the crying and the chair. He tries to attack them, and I hold him back. I can't let him hit a student. It's just a disaster. It's a huge disaster and I feel like a terrible teacher, because I can't control this child. I can't do right by him. For the next week I am just too emotionally exhausted to love any of the kids, because through him I feel like I've failed them all.

7.12.10 Monday, first class, my babies
They are so cute. They use English to ask questions. One of them has huge eyes, huge cheeks, huge pigtails, and the biggest smile ever--we'll call her Emmie. It could make you giggle uncontrollably too--and best of all, they're excited about English, and speaking English, to the point where they actually speak to each other in English. Emmie has this joyful disposition that fixes everything for me. She bounces everywhere, shares her glasses with the girl sitting next to her.

7.13.10 Tuesday, before class
One of my students, my baby student who I named (Coby), always comes to class an hour early and waits around in the hagwon. His parents work, and so this is his daycare center. I come in and decide that it is high time I wash my desks, so I go to the counter teacher and she produces some cleaning stuff and a rag. Coby decides that he is going to help me--so he delicately sprays the mixture on the penciled parts of the desks. He takes his job VERY seriously. I speak to him in English that I know he doesn't understand, but I use big hand gestures and he gets it. I really enjoy these moments with the little ones. A few minutes later, the toothless one with the electrifying laugh comes in and I try to take pictures of them with my cell phone. The toothless one is afraid of the camera, but Coby isn't.

7.15.10 Thursday, first class
One of my little 2nd graders sees a spider on the back wall while we're doing book work. They all say "Teacher, SPIDER!" And I say "Well that's nice. Don't touch it." Then, as they're semi-quietly working, this little boy with a big grin and confident English, turns around to that spider and starts talking to it. "Hello Spider! How are you? I'm fine. What's your name? I like pizza! Do you like pizza?" I start laughing hysterically and I carry that thought through the rest of the day.

7.20.10 Tuesday, third class
One of my little girls is just a weird handful--I love her, but she has this really "I'm completely insane" look in her eyes most of the time. That's why I like her. I know for sure that she'll grow up to be somebody's crazy aunt. She's been teasing and poking at this boy behind her all day through class. He's awkward and shy, like her but without the confidence of really enjoying his quirkiness. The other girls were teasing her for liking him--but I can see it too. Suddenly she lashes out at him with her hand--kind of like a cat--in an attempt to slap him across the face, but she knocks his glasses off instead and makes him cry. I have to be harsh with her, but I can see what happened. "I love you! Look how strong I am!"

7.23.10 Friday
Outside it's like an ocean. Suddenly the whole world has turned into water and I was just lucky enough to have started work before the roads turned to rivers. The students, on the other hand, were not so lucky and so they are furious--really testy. The little ones are screaming at each other. I'm tired and annoyed. During my 15 minute break, I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and I hear a crash and one boy cry "TEACHER!" in Korean. I look into the boys bathroom in the mirror of the girl's bathroom--they face each other--and I see two of my Monday students try to kill each other. Without even thinking, I go in--toothbrush still in my mouth--and grab one off of the other. After a Korean teacher arrives to figure out what happened, and I finish brushing my teeth, I realize what I just did. Mousy little Maggie ran into the bathroom of the opposite sex to break up a fight.

Anyway, those have been the most important parts of my life as a teacher lately. There's a fair amount more to say, but lately I've just been doing my thing. Going to see Inception tonight, which I'm pretty excited about.

I'm not dead.

I just haven't had anything to say lately. Life in Korea has been business as usual, and I'm really itching for a change. Lately I've been going to Taekwondo in the morning instead of the evening, which gives me a lot more energy. I've also been working on my novel, but it's sticking at the end, and I'm frustrated with it, and with my plans for the future--I'm having a hard time putting things in perspective.

I just desperately want to be the one studying, not the one teaching--at least right now. I whined and moaned a lot about university and the ivory tower and the lack of "real, on the ground" influence one has in university--but I think that's always a choice. And these days I just feel like I'm getting dumber (and meaner) by the minute.

But I am happy to not have to go to TKD at 9:30 pm.

No news recently.

I mean, there has been news, but I haven't felt like talking about it. The most frustrating thing was a couple of dreams that I had last night about going home and being lost.

The first one, I went home, but it was too early. I got the chance to go home, and I leapt on it, and I couldn't say goodbye to my students, or my Taekwondo Teachers. I just disappeared. And while I feel like my students (and other teachers) do that pretty frequently, I still felt sad.

The second one, after I woke up and went back to sleep, was about going home and trying to get a six pack of beer from a convenience store. I had no ID, possibly because I left it in Korea, or something along those lines. How telling *that* is. No identity. Left it in Korea. Oops.

I went to the gospel choir concert that I go to at the beginning of every month, and it's always a good experience but this time I was drained. Lost. I just cried and cried, and it didn't feel like a good kind of cry. I just lost it.

Also, someone thought it would be a good idea to use a jackhammer in the house next door before 8am. Wtf.

Good news from writer land!

I finally plowed through the final scenes of my book! I might write one more epilogue style scene, but right now I'm reserving that for after I do some serious reconstruction work on the last several chapters. It feels really good, but there's still a lot of work to do in the writing--and then after that, after that I get to start the difficult process of looking at agents--understanding what that business all means--and sitting on my hands while I wait for someone to tell me if it's good. Publishable.

But this time I really am going through with it. This time I am going to close and finish one of my many projects, and maybe for once in my life I'll be able to walk away from something without leaving it unfinished.

Also, in Soccer News: North Korea lost to Portugal by SEVEN. SEVEN TO ZERO. How on earth do you lose that badly??? How did they even get into the World Cup in the first place?

And today

Even though my patience completely expired, and I wanted to hide in the bathroom--I still left the school loving teaching and loving my kids. I feel this way.. maybe 1 week out of the month.

I started to write things down when they struck me. Today in my 2.25 class, the kids were role playing the story (which they call "CHARACTER, TEACHER!!!") when one of the student's pants started to buzz uncontrolably. He had a wind-up monster in his pocket--and no that is not a keyword for some thing children should not get a hold of. He literally had a monster doll stuffed in his cargo shorts, and some part of the mechanism had been tripped when he moved--and amidst his perfect pronunciation of "Here you go, Sally" the thing started to go wild. And I just stared at him with this "wtf" look, and he gave me the biggest "I am so guilty and I am enjoying it so much" grin I have ever seen.

I also gave this kid his English name. I named him Paul after my dad and brother's middle, and I knew he was going to be one of those over enthusiastic, slightly-trouble inducing fellows.

In my 3.30 class I am so proud that my little student--Mina--who refused to talk until maybe a week ago, is raising her and and answering questions. Her voice is still tiny, but she answers them. It's so amazing.

At my 4.35 class, I walk into the wrong classroom. They changed it around, switching two of my classes around--but nobody thought it prudent to tell me. But I just turned around and walked out, because I recognized immediately that I was in the wrong place, and my brain connected the two occurrences, and it was just "business as usual."

In my 5.50 class, I called the desk on a student who was pissing me off. Another student refused to talk to me for the entire class, I thought because I failed to produce the stickers I had promised. I honestly went looking for them, and then I discovered that a student potentially stole them out of my unlocked desk drawers. Or I buried them under presentation papers. Who knows. After class, her two friends explain to me, in very broken English (and with a drawing on the board) why she was angry. It had nothing to do with me. But I think maybe the failure to produce stickers kicked her off the edge.

In my 6.55 class, one of my older students insists on screaming the Korean word for "delicious" in a demon voice. We have a great connection, this kid and I. He exhausts me when I'm already tired, but when I'm in a good mood I love to tease them. They tease me back and its hysterical. In this class I have a student, no joke, named "Major Joseph." He has an epic stutter and is the most nationalistically indoctrinated child I have ever met. I love him, but today I was so exhausted that I could barely deal with it. They drove me up the wall, but I loved them anyway, after walking away from the class. "Delicious" kid came back and talked to me for a while. He erased my board for me too. I used to buy coffee from his mom every day at the Dunkin Donuts below us. I always bow and wave at her now, if I come in that direction and catch her eye.

In my 8.00 class, there are two students. Ricky does his work, which is rare, and then the new girl, the one who has a really cool English name, and walks like she is from the hood, tells me all about her exploits as a teenager. She tells me about alcohol and smoking, and her friend that died because he crashed his motor bike at 160 meters per hour. I don't know if I believe her, but I keep asking her questions, and keep asking her: "Why are these people your friends?" She shows me her fake ID that she supposedly stole. And a visa card that she supposedly stole. I'm not sure what is what. They use English and I think it's kind of a joke to them. They don't know that they're really communicating, because all matters of substance to them happen in Korean. And I'm not sure she really thinks I'm a real person. She might be trying to impress me because there's this stereotype that Foreigners only drink and party. She tells me about clubs. I don't have the guts to ask her what clubs she's been to--or to tell her that they are all epicly lame. I'm not sure if I should even be having this conversation with her. But the hagwon camera is on, and she's doing all the talking. I'm asking questions--and occasionally telling her that she should make good, safe decisions. At one point, I tell her that the most important thing that anyone, anywhere, in any country can learn is how to choose friends who make you feel safe and happy. Hastily, after the bell rings, she tells me that she goes to church and believes in Jesus. I wonder if it wasn't just a joke to begin with.

I leave Little Fox and I go over to Taekwondo, where the dojeong is empty except for her brother. I sit next to him, ask him a few questions (he acts out just as much as she does--but mostly he charms the ladies), sit with him for a minute before I change my clothes. When I get back, he's on his way out and I start training.

Then I come home and I go to buy a beer at the corner mart next to my house, and I run into another foreigner, who lives next door to me but I've never really met. She's freaked out my my word-vomit "Hi, how are you? Who are you? I can't believe we're neighbors--can I have your number?" -- and she says, "Actually I'm leaving in three weeks." So I give up, don't make a new friend, and buy a liter of beer instead.

And I've been reading testimonial stories on Teach for America's website. Hence the out pour of love for the students, even when I hate their guts. I feel weak because I don't have enough patience, but I think the more I write it down, the easier it gets to keep that patience up. Who knows.

World Cup and My Neighborhood

There are a lot of things I love about this country--and partially about being abroad in general. It's always amazing to watch soccer with people who really, really care about soccer. When Korea played Argentina on Thursday, it was a wild mess. Classes were canceled. (Not mine, though.) The streets were empty, and the game could be heard or seen from every television in the entire city. In the bar, everyone wore red--the Korean team's color--and howled and cheered with a kind of fanaticism that only comes from doing things in crowds. It was truly amazing--even though they lost.

And they didn't just loose. They REALLY lost. Soccer is a low scoring game, and to loose 4-1 is something that takes skill. In fact, the Korean players actually scored two goals in the game--one of them was Argentina's first. Bad luck, guys.

Anyway, next they're playing Nigeria, and Nigeria's not been having a good season. They lost to Argentina and to Greece. (Which the Koreans beat.) I am secretly rooting for all the African teams (but Ghana the most--duh.) Lucky for me, I have like 3 teams that I want to win, so I've got a great chance of being pretty excited with the final outcome.

In other news, I'm spending a much deserved and much wanted weekend being lazy at home. It's great. I am cleaning, fiddling with my decor, and finally getting my kitchen into shape. My neighborhood mystifies me for the contracts that I see here. I live in a non-descript, typical Korean small-size apartment building. An elderly woman owns it, collects money for bills, and maintains general order. On the other side of the street, there are the megolith blocks of 25-story buildings, all identital to each other, with their numbers painted on their sides, but here on this side of the street, strange things sit next to each other.

The trash dump across the street from me has been cleaned up. The lot used to be blocked off with aluminum siding, gated, and full of garbage. The lot across from me used to be a cabbage feild. Now it's an expensive looking duplex--the exterior is finished and now they're starting on the interior. There are men skirting around the skeleton structure on the outside. Next to me is the little mart, filled with all sorts of household items and food. It's family owned and the owners are excited to hear every new Korean phrase I learn.

But in addition to that, there are enormous houses, suburban enormities that for most Korean families are not the things they, themselves dream of owning, but the things they would buy for their parents if they suddenly won the lottery. One house looks as though it was designed by a rockstar architect in the sixties--it's all square and sharp lines, and Frank Loyd Wrighty--f-the Victorians. Though the expensive windows of that house don't look out onto a open feild, a forest, or even another house. They look into a cabbage patch the size of another suburban lot, and next to that there's another new apartment structure going up, and there are tanned men, covered head to toe, jumping around on scaffolding on its edges. There's a Chinese delivery restaurant that always has two or three moto drivers speeding food around town. One of them always waves at me when he sees me driving by. He invited me to drink coffee with him once, and I was really disappointed that I couldn't do it. He speaks no English. I have no idea what we would have talked about.

And in all these expensive houses, little plots of farmland, and construction projects, old women walk around with bent backs, picking up good cardboard and putting it on carts. There are no dumpsters even in rich suburbia, and piles of garbage sit outside in bright green bags--the color prescribed by Yuseong's garbage collection agency. One of these tan, ancient women recognizes me as she goes through the houses looking for boxes. She smiles sometimes, if I give her a little bow.

It doesn't seem to make sense--all this richness living right beside the farms, and the trash-picking grandmothers, and the little corner mart that would be in a poor but successful small town. This is one of the reasons that I really do enjoy Korea.