But nobody talks about it...

The Story of My Heart Pt. 1: My Achy Breaky Heart

2009-07-11T04:26:01Z

When your heart decides it no longer wants to do its job properly, it feels a little bit like a betrayal of trust.    Maybe you didn't always get as much exercise as you should have or you gave in and ate that hamburger, but overall you did a pretty good job of taking care of your heart. And the rest of your body hasn't decided to defect, no matter how well or poorly you've treated it. Your muscles are still propelling your legs forward, your stomach is still digesting its food, your liver is still filtering your blood, despite all the runs you didn't take, the ice cream you ate, the gin you drank.

Really, it's a little ungrateful. Even though the brain is doing most of the heavy lifting for the body, the heart gets the credit. The Egyptians believed the soul resides in the heart. So did Aristotle. After all, the heart is an exciting organ. Anyone who has ever seen one of those gruesome surgery shows know that the heart is the most vital of the vital organs, pumping and beating and flip-flopping like a fish. There will never be a song called "Total Eclipse of the Brain." The brain is the most undramatic of organs, a quivering mass of greyish pink goo, more like jello than a little engine. Everyone has experienced sensations of the heart, a rapid heart beat at the end of a hard work out, the rushing, swooping feeling of a heart in love. The only sensation most people get from their brain is a headache.

So what gives, heart?  Everyone loves you, yet you're so quick to disappoint so many of us.

The first time I noticed something had gone wrong was while I was sitting in one of my favorite Chinese restaurants with my boyfriend James, waiting for our order. I started to feel...off. Suddenly, it all came on at once, a dip and then a rush to my head. For a split second I had time to contemplate what would happen if I passed out right there in the restaurant; how everyone would come running, how they'd offer to call an ambulance, how I'd sit up and say, "oh no, I'm fine. Just got a little lightheaded there." I didn't pass out. Instead, I was left feeling flushed and nauseated, so I excused myself to get some fresh air, severely alarming James in the process. When I returned from my short walk to the car and back, I sat and watched James finish his meal, feeling slightly guilty for having ruined what was to be a perfectly nice meal. (I had previously ruined a nice meal a few weeks earlier by spectacularly vomiting in a parking lot.) Something was off, I wasn't sure what, but the walking had made me feel better, whereas sitting was making me slightly queasy, so we drove home silently and then took a walk through the neighborhood. It was a pleasant evening, and we laid on our backs in the park, watching the birds go by.   We briefly contemplated what caused some exhaust trails from airplanes to disappear almost immediately, while others stuck around for longer. Verdict: we still have no idea. A dog owner threw a ball near us, not realizing we were there, and we almost got wiped out by a golden retriever. All was well and we returned to my apartment.

At home, I puked up all the food I hadn't eaten. By midnight, my heart was racing again and would not quit. Even though I was laying in bed, I felt like I had just run a marathon. I made James feel my heart over and over, silently hoping that he would say, "No, you're crazy. Your heart feels perfectly normal." But he didn't and it wasn't, so I made the difficult decision to go to the emergency room. In the waiting room I whispered "I love you" to James, partially out of the morbid fear that if I didn't say it right then, I wouldn't get to say it ever. It was the first time I'd said the words out loud, but the fear of something being catastrophically wrong with me outweighed the fears of saying the "big three" words. He told me he loved me too, but we later essentially pretended these initial "i love you"s had never been said and had our own first "I love you"s later on, when not spoken under duress. Funny but true: the thing that made me realize I loved him simply because I did rather than because I was scared was seeing him win my little sister from Big Brothers/Big Sisters a giant stuffed pig at Worlds of Fun and then proceeding to cart it all the hell over the park.

But I digress. It is impossible to convey how boring it actually is to be run through tests for your heart without actually boring you in the process, so I won't try. Just trust me; it wasn't half as exciting as it could have been. There were definitely no George Clooneys running around throwing out awesome medical terminology. I had blood work done, was given some fluids, and an EKG was taken. Meanwhile, I was hooked up to a heart monitor and blood oxygen monitor, which was actually the most stressful part of the whole experience-watching my heart rate yo-yo up and down and wondering if a heart rate over 100 meant that the nurses were going to rush in and shock me into oblivion with those paddles. (I am exaggerating. A little.) My EKG was "normal."  Normal, the glorious medical opposite of "abnormal." As for my blood test, my thyroid levels were normal and some other stuff was normal too, I forget exactly what because I was reveling in the glory of "normal." My potassium levels were a little low, but apparently not low enough to cause heart palpitations. "Eat a banana," the doctor told me. Other than that, the diagnosis was *shrug* and follow up with your primary care doctor.

So James and I went home at something like 3 a.m., tired and defeated. I would like, right now, to point out how great and supportive James was and continues to be, through all this nonsense. A lesser man would have definitely been headed for the hills by now. In the morning I did the only logical thing I could do: called in a half sick day at work to catch up on sleep, bought and ate two bananas, and found a primary care doctor through my insurance to set up an appointment.

In my boundless optimism, I expected the doctor to blame the palpitations on stress and some of the intestinal issues I'd recently been having. He did. Turns out he was (probably) wrong - what exactly is causing my problems is still unclear, but most likely resides in my heart itself. My disfunctional, ungrateful heart.

TO BE CONTINUED

1girl @ 2008-11-01T17:25:00

2008-11-01T22:35:13Z

I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month this year. The goal is to write 50,000 words in one month. Since I don't use LJ for anything else, I think I'm going to post about my word count on here and maybe put up excerpts. Hopefully that will keep me motivated.

Right now I'm in a coffee shop trying to get some work done, but it's not working out very well. It is not a good sign to have writer's block on Day 1. Maybe part of the reason that I'm having trouble writing is because I'm so distracted by the group of people at the table next to me. They are some sort of weird third party group who are planning a protest against the Federal Reserve. There was also talk about the Amero.

Some other choice quotes:
"I wrote a song inspired by Ron Paul. It's called 'Freedom.'"
"I should have brought Leslie in. She's in my trunk."
"We could burn our stimulus checks in front of the IRS."
"Everybody thinks I'm a closet John McCain supporter!"
"Those people are totally obsessed with Barack Obama." (After talking about how everyone should only vote third party candidates ever.)

One of the guys just gave me a flyer that says the following:

End the Fed
The FED is a PRIVATE bank controlled by unelected officials.
The FED charges the US Government a fee to print OUR money.
That fee is then paid by YOUR Federal Income Tax!
There is NO LAW stating the (sic) you HAVE to pay a Federal Income Tax.

Good luck with not paying your income tax, weirdos.

1girl @ 2008-08-30T17:16:00

2008-08-30T22:18:55Z

Someone outside of my apartment has been yelling "HEY! YO! HEY! HOW ARE YA! I'M ERIC! HEY! HEY! HOW ARE YA!" for the last two hours. Some sort of sale and/or festival or just a crazy person? You decide.

Meet Moose

2008-07-17T03:32:38Z

This is Moose.

I got Moose last weekend and so far he's not too thrilled with my existence, but he's warming up to me a little bit more every day. His attitude toward me has shifted from outright hate to curiosity, so that's good. Usually I just have to bribe him with bits of apple or the cardboard tubes in the middle of paper towel rolls. He's not at all interested in leaving his cage, despite my best efforts to bribe him out. The idea is to let him run around freely while I'm at home in the evenings but I guess he feels safer in his cage for now. I'm trying to be a good bunny mom and I'm letting him do things at his own pace. He has a big enough cage that he won't be too cramped if he decides not to come out for a week or two. He keeps putting the front half of his body out of the cage, so it's only a matter of time. I also wonder if the hardwood floors are weird for him. I might get him a small rug or bathmat to put in front of his cage.

He spends a lot of time glaring at me out of his cage. What a jerk. (Look-he even has a big pile of toys waiting for him when he decides to be more social.)

He also shoots lasers out of his eyes at me sometimes.

On an unrelated note, I bought a pretty cool little bit of artwork at the antique store this weekend. I'm not sure exactly what the medium is...it looks like ink and pastels, maybe. Now my walls are somewhat less blank. Now to work on procuring furniture...

1girl @ 2008-07-02T12:55:00

2008-07-02T17:58:50Z

Life is tumultuous.
Caleb and I broke up. He is an idiot.
I am an idiot, for other reasons.
I should start going to church or something.

1girl @ 2008-06-26T17:38:00

2008-06-26T22:39:37Z

I think I have an ulcer. How gross is that?

Here comes the bride...

2008-06-18T03:48:19Z

It's June, which means that everybody and their brother is getting married. Luckily for me, all of my marrying friends live far enough away that I can justify not going to the wedding. Next Saturday, however, one of my best friends from high school is getting married 2 hours away from here. Being that I was originally supposed to be in the wedding party and it's a short drive away, I can't really excuse my way out of this one. I love my friend. I think her fiancee is great. I'm glad that they are getting married-they are a great couple and will be very happy together.

But I hate weddings. Weddings seem like such a waste of money, time and everyone's patience. Let me make it clear: I am not anti-marriage. I'm anti-wedding. The money alone seems tremendously wasteful. The marriage industry has managed to make everything unbelievably expensive: invitations, cake, flowers, dresses. All because of the prefix "wedding." A batch of birthday invitations are relatively inexpensive, but slap some gold embossing on that shit and call them wedding invitations and suddenly the price is through the roof. And have you ever met a calm and collected bride-to-be? Hell no. People getting married always seem to be totally stressed out. Talk to anyone getting married in the next two months and all they can talk about is how much time it takes to plan a wedding. Why do you think there is such a big market for wedding planners? Note to all wedding planners out there: your job is not hard. Planning a wedding is pretty much just making a series of reservations and orders. Any dumbass bride and groom with a telephone and some free time can plan their wedding. But they don't want to. Because planning a wedding sucks.

Obviously, this post means nothing. People will continue to have abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous poofy expensive weddings because that's what they they are supposed to have. Yet I'm still annoyed that I have to participate in the obligatory dyed-to-match shoe wearing and funky chickening and champagne drunkening. When/if I get married, you are not invited. I am taking the money and going to Egypt or India or Cambodia. And I'll still probably save money.

Bzz

2008-05-10T03:14:34Z

A bee somehow managed to get trapped in my bathroom today. A BEE!

An ode to me

2008-04-29T05:00:32Z

I get up at 7:30 for work every morning. I have a little ritual where I turn off my alarm and stay in bed for about 5 extra minutes (eyes open, usually), thinking about all the things I need to do that day, what I need to take to work, what I'll do after work, etc. Today I managed to fall asleep within five minutes with the alarm clock sitting on my chest. I woke up at 8:32 and I usually leave for work at around 8:40. But I still made it to work on time!

The reason I think I fell back asleep is that I actually have a life again. I'm working 9-5 at the International Relations Council and trying my best. I've been going out at least a couple of nights a week with friends. I've been dating someone (not a boyfriend per se.....yet). And I've been going out every weekend and buying more and more things to fill my apartment which is finally becoming not totally empty. Even when I'm not "busy" I've still been occupied with other things. I got a library card and have been reading a lot because my office is across the street from the library. And I've spent a decent amount of time organizing and cleaning my apartment. It's likely that I've been tired all this time but have been too busy to notice, and it came to the unfortunate conclusion of oversleeping. Oh well. I'd rather be tired and happy than well-rested and bored.

On a side note, I think it's really unfair that couples who are getting married can have a wedding registry to get all of this new stuff for their future house when most couples these days live together before they get married and probably already own household items. I think single gals like me with no furniture should be able to have a new house registry and people should feel obligated to send ME a toaster and wine glasses and a blender.

Emo-tastic

2008-02-22T06:17:55Z

I got new glasses. They are plastic. And black. Next thing you know I'll be cutting myself and listening to My Chemical Romance or whatever it is that emo kids listen to nowadays. But I like them.

I applied to that CELTA program in Berlin after a ridiculously long application and long-distance interview. I was accepted, but then decided not to go because I'm an indecisive wuss and I just couldn't decide if that's what I want to do right now or not. But my acceptance is valid for 3 years, so I can change my mind later on down the road. One of my best friends talked me out of culinary school, and I think he's right. (He also thought I should have gone to Germany, and maybe he's right about that too. Not sure yet.)

Right now I have seven applications out to jobs that I think I could enjoy doing. Hopefully one of them will work out and I can finally get my life back together.

Decisions, decisions

2008-02-07T07:34:13Z

Despite my post a couple of weeks ago, about not knowing what is right for me, I'm starting to feel better about things. I don't know what I was so freaked out about before. I'm young and can do whatever the hell I feel like. I still don't know exactly what I am going to do, but there are basically three options I need to decide between.

1. Get my CELTA in Berlin. This is a three week intensive course which would give me certification to teach English as a foreign language basically anywhere in Europe. Pros: Live and study in Europe, opportunity to travel. Cons: Sort of expensive and far away from family.

2. Go to pastry school. This one might come as a surprise to some of you, but I have always wanted to make and decorate cakes. Pros: Learn something I've always wanted to learn about, potentially fun line of work. Cons: I'm not really sure I would be good at it, the pain of finding the perfect program and then paying for it.

3. Continue looking for office work in the States. Pros: Could be a great job out there that I just haven't found yet, can start settling down. Cons: Looking for jobs fucking sucks.

What to do, what to do. I'm reading the massive tome that is the Truman biography by McCullough and Harry Truman didn't get married until he was 35 and didn't even figure out that politics was what he wanted to do in life until he was 40. So I'm going to assume that I'm simply following in the footsteps of a former president. And things worked out just fine for him.

Query

2008-01-22T20:50:04Z

I have a strange question.

In America/Canada etc., there are certain common dog-specific names. Things like Rover and Rex. What do people in other countries commonly name their dogs? I've googled around and haven't found anything really useful, although I've found lots of lists of common dog names in English.

I also found a list for Japan.
Common names for dogs in Japan:
1. Momo (meaning "peach")
2. Koro (a dog-specific name)
3. Lucky
4. Nana (a girl's name, not specific to dogs)
5. Hana (also a girl's name, meaning "flowers")
6. Taro (a boy's name)
7. John
8. Cocky
9. Bell (specific to dogs)
10. Chibi (applied to lots of pets, meaning "small" or "petite")

But what about other countries? Thoughts? Links?

ROBOCOP

2008-01-16T06:53:40Z

This weekend I went to Lawrence to visit two of my best friends, Aaron and Drew. As you can see from the following picture (one of only two I took the whole night because I was too busy drinking, I guess), Aaron is a lumberjack and Drew is a guido.

We to several different bars, but the second that we went to displayed artwork on the walls. The table we were at had a name plate of a painting or drawing titled "Date Night," but alas! The artwork wasn't there! Apparently someone had bought it or taken it down for some other reason. So we decided that we would rectify the situation by putting up our own artwork titled "Date Night." Enjoy.

Text:
Panel 1: "I really liked your facebook profile."
Panel 2: "...and if you compare Naruto and Pokemon..."
Panel 3: "Wanna come back to my place?"
Panel 4: "Fuckin' Robocop! Call me!"

The bar can thank me later.

In retrospect, I think I was pretty stoned that night. Later I rode a bicycle in a skirt. And had an entire conversation consisting of nothing but the word "robocop." Hmm.

Give and take

2008-01-15T07:39:43Z

When speaking of a wedding, the phrase "giving the bride away" creeps me out.
Blech.

waiting

2008-01-08T06:52:18Z

My life feels a little strange right now, but I'm not sure exactly how to explain it. Every day I wake up feeling like I'm waiting for something to happen, but it just won't happen.

I'm living with my parents while I look for a job, but nothing is turning up. Maybe I'm being too picky, but nothing feels right so far. I can't complain about my life overall, I have had opportunities to do some truly cool things, but all of those things happened as a result of doing what feels right. When I graduated from college, I pretty much hated all colleges I visited, but William Jewell came along and I just knew it was the right place to go. My junior year of college I was supposed to go to Ireland for a semester, but for money-related reasons I wasn't able to go, but to my surprise, I wasn't disappointed. Not going to Ireland felt right, and lo and behold, about a week after the Ireland thing fell through, I had a job in Washington DC. Once I graduated, I applied around for some jobs, but wasn't feeling thrilled about any of them. Then the Korea thing fell into my lap and it felt right. When I went on my little vacation last month, I originally thought I wanted to go to Costa Rica, but then, out of nowhere, Germany came into my head and I knew it was the right place to go. Writing it out like this makes it seem really crazy, but it's truly the way I live my life. I get this feeling...it's not exactly an emotion or an idea, it's almost a physical sensation, located somewhere between my heart and my stomach. It's impossible to describe exactly.

But back to my point. I wish I knew what was supposed to happen to me next. In a way, I feel like I'm letting everyone down. I've always done pretty well in whatever endeavor I get myself into; I was a good student and a good employee. So people around me seem to have these expectations that I should have some important job or be doing something big and important, but I'm not. To make matters worse, I recently submitted two stories to McSweeney's quarterly. Being published in their quarterly has been a dream of mine for a long time. I emailed the stories and about four days later the email bounced back to me. I checked the email address twice and it is correct. I'm sure there is some logical explanation, like their server was down or something else totally rational, but it just feels like a bad omen.

All this nonsense is making me feel weird and emotional and irrational. I need to move on to the next stage of my life, but if I just take the first thing that comes along, I will be miserable. I know this. But being stuck in Great Bend with nothing to do is also making me crazy. Just writing this all out is making me feel even more crazy, because now all my crazy is just hanging out there for anyone to see. Tonight on the news I saw this story about some desert town in New Mexico or Arizona that flooded and then the flood waters all froze. And of course nobody expected it because deserts don't just go around flooding every day, and the weather hasn't typically been below freezing. For some reason, that particular story made me feel really weird and uneasy. It's like things in the world are happening that I can't categorize into my brain.

Forgive me if none of this makes any sense. It all makes sense in my head, so maybe that's where I should keep it.

TIME FOR SOME FUNNY STORIES

2007-12-17T08:13:15Z

I promised you bitches some stories about my vacation in Germany, so I have come bearing stories. Most of the things I did were not that interesting in and of themselves. I did quite a few traditional touristy things like the museums and castles. I also went to some less touristy museums like the Medical History Museum and the Erotik Museum.

The first thing I found interesting about traveling in Germany was the realization that my mind had actually stored away a fair amount of German from when I took it in high school. All in all, I probably know more German than I do Korean, and I lived in Korea for an entire year. And I found that Germans were generally much more supportive of my shitty German than Koreans were of my shitty Korean. It's amazing how a tiny bit of encouragement can totally change your motivation. I found it really hard to find the desire to study Korean, but being in Germany for two weeks has sort of made me want to try to pick up with my German studies again. As a result, I'm thinking of trying to find an ESL job in Germany instead of going back to Korea. I'll probably continue to look for jobs in both countries, but we'll see what ends up happening.

But really, Germany was all about the people. I met so many interesting, cool, and/or weird people, especially in the hostels.

The first leg of my vacation was in Berlin, and I stayed in a really great, friendly hostel. One night a guy walked into the dorm at the same time that I was walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I asked him what time it was. Based solely on this interaction, he struck up a conversation with me the next day and became subsequently obsessed with talking to me. I found out he is from Chile but lives in Dublin and had been in Berlin for three weeks. His bed was right in front of mine, and he slept naked except for a single sheet swathed across his groin, like some Biblical painting of Adam. Every night he would loudly announce that he was going to the grocery store, disappear for three or more hours and then reappear with no groceries. He woke me up at 5 or 6 a.m. to ask me if I wanted to go out and get a beer with him and then was confused when I sleepily replied that I didn't want to. In that same hostel I met an Australian guy who went to the sex museum with me, thank goodness, because I didn't want to go there alone. Except afterward he wanted to watch porn in one of those porno booths, so instead I entertained him with stories from when I used to work in the porn store.

Giant golden penis!

I love that this chastity belt has an angry face on it. >:(

Then I went to Bonn, where I met Sebastian aka tuppe, which was really cool. I accidentally fell asleep on the train on the way and ended up stuck at the airport so I was at first afraid that I made a terrible first impression. I ended up having a great time because I discovered that he shares my love for useless trivia and strange conversations. We discussed what would happen if cats had opposable thumbs, for example. He is also just a genuinely generous and nice guy, so three cheers for Sebastian!

Also because this picture makes me laugh. In Fat-Girl-Angle-Vision!!

After Bonn I went to Mainz, which I only went to for the Gutenberg Museum, because a museum devoted to the inventor of movable type makes the geek in me very very happy. There wasn't quite as much English signage as I would have liked, but it was still worth the journey because I got to see some copies of the 42 line Bible (sadly not the original) and some other cool old books and printing presses. Mainz was pretty, but not much to see there other than the museum, so I went to Wurzberg the next day.

Bonus Picture: A CHURCH!!

Würzburg was gorgeous. It was one of the prettiest towns I have ever been to. Everything about it, even the residential areas, seemed very picturesque. I went to a really big castle/royal residence place which has the world's biggest ceiling fresco above a staircase. That made me laugh because it's an oddly specific "world's biggest..." to have. The hostel in Würzburg was cheap and had free internet access, but it was also full of old guys. One of them was in my room and kept trying to give me travel tips while I was trying to sleep. I realize that he had the best of intentions, but seriously dude, if I'm in my bed it's sleeping time, not talking time.

Oh no, fucking skeletons!!!

Next, I went to Munich. My hostel in Munich was completely rank. I was the only female there, which I think weirded out some of the guys. I was in a full 10 bed room. In two of the beds were a super old Russian guy and his son. His son was a traveling magician and they had been living in that hostel for like three months. There was also a hippie Belgian guy who was trying to learn German as his FIFTH language. He was really nice and actually made me feel a lot more comfortable about being there. The other guys were obviously a little uneasy about me being in their room, which I found funny, because it seems like if anyone would be uneasy it would be me. They were super-conscientious to the point of almost being annoying. If I was in the room, they would suddenly be quiet and ask me if I needed to turn on the overhead light or if I wanted them to close the window, etc. etc. I guess I shouldn't be complaining (although the room smelled like a stinky foot).

Before I came home, I did a little day trip to Füssen to see Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. Before I left for Germany, my dad told me that he wanted me to take a picture of a castle in the mountains for him. Since Neuschwanstein is sort of "the" German castle, I thought I'd go. On the train from Munich I met a group of five Korean tourists when I helped them figure out the train schedule. Once we got up to the castles it had started snowing pretty hard. A group of demon German children started throwing snowballs at each other which was amusing for a while until we got caught in the crossfire. One of the Korean girls took a snowball pretty hard, so I tried to convince her to throw one back at them. She wouldn't, but I enlisted the help of one of the Korean guys and we started throwing snowballs back. We got a little too into it and I accidentally smacked a kid right in the face with one of the snowballs. I felt bad about it for a few seconds, but then I got over it because he was obviously a total dirtbag who deserved it.

My journey ended there. My flight back was fairly uneventful except that in the row next to me was the fattest man I have ever seen on an airplane. He was so fat he needed a seatbelt extender and couldn't fit the tray table down because his gut was too big. When Plato spoke of everything having an idea form, this guy is Plato's archetype of a fat guy. Slobby, snoring, wearing a ripped and stained t-shirt. That was a little annoying because he snored really loudly for the entire trip unless he was eating two (!) airline meals.

But I digress! My trip to Germany was fantastic and I can't wait until I get the chance to go back.

Sarah, Sarah, uber alles

2007-12-10T15:49:34Z

So I'm in Germany. It's pretty fucking awesome, I must say. So far I've been in Berlin, Bonn, Mainz, Würzburg and I'm currently in Munich. Right now I'm in a disgusting hostel, but I figure staying in at least one gross place is part of the overall backpacking experience. As long as they have a bed and no serial murderers, I'm okay with it. I've had lots of interesting adventures since I've been here, so expect lots of pictures when I get back (on Thursday, boo). I went to a sex museum in Berlin as well as one of those medical history museums with jars full of pickled babies with two heads. Plus some of the usual touristy stuff, of course. I've also managed to totally fuck up my ankle. Not sure quite what's wrong with it or how I did it, but I'm hobbling around with it until I get back. It's also been raining 80 percent of the time. Despite fate's attempts to screw with me, I am having a great time. So screw you, fate.

Watch for pictures and more fun stories soon!

BOO

2007-11-12T04:57:29Z

So I'm back in the States. It's been pretty uneventful so far. Things are going to pick up soon though. I'm going to be in Kansas City this Wednesday-Sunday, then it will be Thanksgiving week. After that I'm going to Germany/France for a couple of weeks, and then it will be Christmas, of course. I hope to be back in Korea in mid-January, pending visa stuff.

But really, I just wanted to share some Halloween pictures with you.

Eric dressed as Jesus for Halloween. I helped make his costume. We made it out of a sheet and some rope. It came out looking sort of toga-ish, but it was effective. What you can't see in the picture is that we also made some fake blood and gave him a nice crown o' thorns head wound as well as wounds on his hands.

Eric smote me. [Smited?]

But it was okay, he brought me back to life. He's Jesus, he can do that you know. Please note that Jesus also watches Law and Order.

We also made some kick-ass pumpkins. My aunt Lisa made the traditional looking one on the left, Eric made the small one and the dino one, I made the cannibal pumpkin on the right.

Eric and I play too many video games. If you recognize what his pumpkin is of, so do you.

A close up of my pumpkin. I was pretty proud of how awesome it turned out. Even better than the year I created a pirate by using a vampire stencil and adding an eyepatch to it.

People.

2007-10-20T04:36:51Z

Seriously, people. The Tokyo airport is wicked boring.

You say goodbye, I say hello

2007-10-12T07:48:53Z

Yesterday (Thursday) was my last real day of classes. Today is a teacher's work day, which I am exempt from, and on Monday and Tuesday I get to train the new native teacher, but I'm not actually teaching. Basically I'll just be able to hang out and make a nuisance of myself. I'm going to try to catch the bus into Seoul on Wednesday and spend a few days there. My flight leaves at 11 a.m. on Saturday yet I'm going to be arriving in Kansas City at 5:30 p.m. Saturday due to the magic of time zones. I have two, yes two, layovers, so I will be traveling for over 16 hours all told, including a 3 hour stop in Tokyo. I've never been to Japan, so maybe it will be quasi-entertaining as far as layovers go.

Anyway, my last day of classes was bittersweet. I had all 5 of the "special" classes, which are the advanced students. I've seen these classes either three or five days a week for the entire year. So I've grown pretty attached.

My first class is called Apex, four rowdy boys and two quiet girls. I had told them earlier in the week that I would be leaving soon, but it didn't really seem to register. So yesterday I said to them, "Today is my last day." The boys, being the little pains that they are, immediately began making a rukus, splitting the time between complaining about losing me and complaining about having to get a new teacher. As I was occupied with calming them down, I hear the saddest little ragged intake of breath ever and see that one of my girls is absolutely bawling her eyes out at the thought of me leaving. I admit it made me a little misty eyed.

Note the girl on the right, Sunny, who is still crying, and her friend Jenny who seems bemusedly sympathetic. Then we have on the left Edward, the most disgusting boy in the world. He spends most of his free time eating things, anything that fits in his mouth. I caught him gnawing on the desk once. Seriously. And of course Brian, Luis and Sean, rowdy but adorable.

Then I had Flair. When I first started teaching, another native teacher had them. They were so terrible for her that she sometimes would CRY after teaching them. So of course my boss decided to give them to me. Thanks, boss! But they ended up being a really fantastic class. They already knew I was leaving. One of my students made a card and sent it around the room for everyone to sign, which was cute. I got such messages as "Good bye teacher. See you letter." and "Goodbye teacher. Go to the America and everyday happy and healthy!"

I think this picture sums up the class pretty well. We have the three girls, Julia, Grace and Siera, well behaved and cute. We have Steve way in the back, not doing anything. We have Charlie, Chad, Devin, and Oscar, the boys who are rowdy but reasonably controlled. And we have Alex, James and Dylan who are apparently trying to kill each other. Yep, just another day with Flair.

My third class was Genius, and they are my hands down favorite class ever. They are smart and inquisitive and thoughtful about any topic given to them. They hate the new teacher (and she isn't even here yet!) because she's not me. I spoiled them a bit, and gave them lots of candy for the last class. They are sad that I'm leaving, but they all talked about how happy they are that I am coming back to Korea again and they told me to say hello to my parents from them.

Back: Kelly, Samuel, Brandon, Tina, Gregory
Middle: Damian, Jessica, Alyssa, Cathy, Ryan (this picture accurately shows what he is like in real life: an insane blur)
Front: Melissa, Sierra, Danny, Alex, Julia
Don't you like their American flag pinwheels?

Then came Zenith class. I used to hate Zenith, but lately they've been doing better. When I broke the news to them, they actually seemed to care a little bit more than I thought they would. But they didn't seem too torn up about it. Which is fine, because I'm not too torn up about not teaching them anymore either, hahaha.

Back: Kelly, Andy (he wore that orange shirt 3 out of 4 days this week), Amy, Susan
Middle: Shue, Janise, Lauren, Brandon (Brandon is evil. Pure evil. You can't tell in the picture, but he is. Trust me on this.)
Front: David and Bryan

My last class was Prime. I forgot to get a picture of them, but they would probably hate getting their picture taken anyway. They are middle school students, so they're too cool for that sort of thing. They're another class I'll miss. I've consistently had them 5 days a week, so they've always felt like "my" class. I gave a couple of the girls my Scrabble board. Vincent is in that class, but he has my email address, so I'm sure I'll be hearing from him again. I hope so anyway. It would be interesting to know what becomes of him someday. Hopefully he'll go to college in America. He's too weird for Korea.

At the end of the day, my boss gave me a nice going away present. She also gave me a present for my parents. She's been very nice for the last month or so. And she told me that she was sad that I was leaving! Hmm...I don't know about that. Maybe she really is. Despite all of the complaining she's done, I think I've been a good teacher for her. Good enough to make students cry at my departure anyway.

It's a very Vincent update!

2007-10-02T16:48:24Z

I've told you about my student named Vincent before: the reigning Scattegories champ and all around crazy human being. He's reached all new levels of insanity. He has taken to referring to himself exclusively as Vincent Van Gogh. I also gave him my email address recently because I agreed to help him find an English song. He had heard the song in passing, and wanted to try to find the title. Since then, he has enlisted my help in various insane quests for song titles or other assorted nonsense trivia.

Today the students in his class all turned in an assignment. The topic was simply "compare two things." We were talking about the structure of an essay in which you talk about the similarities and differences of two things. The original prompt was to compare two movies, but Vincent insisted on writing about something else. So I told the class they could write about whatever as long as they compared and contrasted two things. Vincent was the only one who did not write about movies or TV shows. Here's exactly what he wrote, and I feel that it really demonstrates what a smart, perceptive, and crazy student he is.

TWO DOGS I HAD by Vincent Van Gogh

I had two dogs. Their names were Choboek and Malboek. Both of them were young and noisy. They liked sleeping and hated washing. I had to use some violence, and they resisted a lot. They were born on the same day, and there was always something in their mouth. Their names means almost same thing.
Although these two dogs seem similar, they were very different. Choboek was female. She really hated me. She always bit and clawed me and never listened to me. Her favorite food was leaves. Her name means the first day of dog days.
Malboek was male. He always followed me and gave me his food when there was no one around me. He always try to avoid my father. Even though he always got something in his mouth, he didn't eat a lot. His eyes were really frustrated. His name means the the last day of dog days.
I didn't like Choboek, I even suggested my family to COOK her in the first dog day-but I only had a chicken on dog days. Now my family gave them to friends, but I do not miss them (!).

All these places feel like home

2007-09-30T07:40:20Z

I haven't posted in a while, but nothing much new is happening. I'll be back in the States at some point in October, not sure when yet. I'll be spending a lot of time in Kansas City visiting people, I'm sure. I'm also considering a tour of the East Coast, because I have a lot of friends in DC/NYC/Pennsylvania. Haven't figured out the logistics yet, but if you're willing to host me in November or December (November, more likely), let me know.

It's strange to know I'll be leaving so soon, even though I plan on returning to Korea again. I did some hardcore cleaning of my apartment today to hopefully make it easier to pack when the time comes. I got rid of a lot of old clothes that I never wear and some other assorted junk I had collected during the year. But I can still tell that packing is going to be a total pain and I'm going to have to get rid of even more stuff when the time comes.

Now it mostly just feels like I'm killing time until my contract is over. I have a couple of dinners planned with Korean friends, and I'm going to some lantern festival next week. I'll spend a few days in Seoul before I fly out of Korea to buy some gifts for people back home and spend time with the boy.

Living in Korea has not always been a particularly pleasant experience. In fact, it is a distinctly uncomfortable experience in some ways. It's the first place I've ever personally experienced racism. I'm unable to communicate on a basic level with most of the people around me. If I need to do anything more complicated than buying something off of a shelf, I have to either write everything out in Korean first or have a Korean friend come with me. I've had to make all new friends. I've never been stared at so much in my entire life. Yet the discomfort eventually settled down around me to the point of becoming comfortable. Korea got under my skin, and I'm excited to start all over again in Seoul in January.

Once again, I am totally annoyed.

2007-08-27T17:07:18Z

If I weren't tied to this school with my visa, I might have quit my job today. The complaints I have been getting are so ridiculous.

At my school, there is one teacher who is in charge of ordering new books for each class. I write my lesson plans a month ahead of time, then give him a piece of paper that says what books I need and when I need them. Which I did last month. This method has always worked out fine and dandy and my books have always been on the shelf in time. Today one of my classes were starting a new book. I assumed they would be there on time because the new book was written on the master list of "when to order books" which is hanging on the staff bulletin board. And like I already said, they've always been there before.

So I came into work today, but no books were to be seen. I sort of asked around a bit, trying to see if maybe they hadn't been un-boxed yet. Finally I hunted down the teacher who orders the books. He looked at the schedule, and then looked rather concerned. Honestly, I thought HE was the one who was going to get in trouble, so I said, "No big deal, they can review today." So I go about my merry way and start teaching my first class of the day. I'm about 10 minutes into my class when one of the teachers interrupts me in the middle of class and says the principal wants to talk to me.

For a good five minutes she bitches to me about how I should check all of my books ahead of time (despite never being told to do this) and goes off on some random tangent about "not being able to check up on everything" blah blah blah. Keep in mind my first class is sitting around totally unattended as she is doing this. I am at this point totally sick of being pushed around and somewhat bolder about my contempt for her in my last few months, so I firmly said, "I really don't think this is my fault. I assumed the books would be here because they were on the list on the wall and there was never a problem before. I gave the list a month in advance." She seemed annoyed that I would respond to her instead of just taking it, yet totally ignored my comments and told me that it would take at least three days to get the books in! And looked at me like I should be horrified. Whatever. Again, I said that reviewing with them really isn't a big deal. She again seems annoyed with the fact that I am not ashamed or weeping or something. I'm sorry, but I really can't bother getting worked up about this. It's really only an inconvenience to me for having to do a different lesson plan. Mistakes happen. Get over it.

Later in the day I heard her talking about me in the lobby. My Korean's not quite good enough to understand what she was saying, plus she was in the other room, but her tone of voice conveyed the general gist of it. Plus one of the teachers looked sort of shocked and gave me a nervous glance when she heard it. I was probably not giving the most appropriate facial reaction. She probably expected terror, but I'm sure my look was much closer to a "Bitch, please."

The funny thing is, I'm not even that upset about the actual situation. Nowadays I'm just x'ing off the days on my calendar until I'm finished, and I don't give a flip what she thinks about me. She can't fire me this late in a contract, so her every thought can be filled with how much she detests me and I don't care. I was mostly just annoyed because I had a good time in Seoul this weekend, and was in a great mood this morning, and she crapped all over my good mood. She needs to step off, because other than her, I've been feeling quite good lately for lots of reasons. *coughcoughregularsexlifeagaincoughcough*

Dear boss,
Chill the fuck out. You're harshing my buzz.
Love,
Sarah

English in Korea

2007-08-22T17:14:59Z

Despite the fact that there is a huge push to learn English in Korea, very few people actually seem to have any workable knowledge of English. Everywhere you go, there is bad English on signs. Here's one of my favorites (although let's face it, the fact that it is called Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!! school is just as funny as the bad English):

But bad English, besides being a great 80s hair band, is more than just people using English incorrectly. There's a subset of this phenomenon called "Konglish," which are English words co-opted into the Korean language. These are real English words, but used in a way that your average English speaker would not recognize. For example, there is, of course, a Korean word for pencil, 연필, but your average student is going to call a mechanical pencil a "sharp." When my students say someone is "cunning," usually pronounced "cunn-ying," they mean cheating or copying.

I particularly love the phrase "skinship," touching between couples. Another favorite is "cut the film," which is a black-out during a night of drinking. You know, "One minute I was dancing on the table and then the film was cut."

But it doesn't stop there. Many Korean companies have Konglish slogans. There was an insurance slogan: "Bravo your life!" My all-time favorite is "Let's [verb]ing!" For example: "Let's baseballing!" I went to a sex store recently that had a sign that proudly proclaimed "Let's Condoming!"

I'll admit, sometimes I'll hear a Konglishy phrase from one of my students and think that it is actually a clever way for them to try to convey their meaning. A guy we might call sleazy, my students call a "butter man" or an "oily guy." My favorite student Gregory once told me to make sure my boyfriend isn't a "windy man." I wasn't sure what he meant, so he thought for a minute, and went with "Cassanova" instead. Basically he was warning me against having a cheating boyfriend. Another student told me he had a "star head," by which he meant he had just whacked his head on the desk, what we might call "seeing stars."

This is a problem as an educator of English, because obviously English teachers aren't doing a very hot job of teaching what with all the bad English everywhere. But sometimes it is sort of useful as someone living in Korea, because if I don't know a Korean word, sometimes I can bust out the English word and they'll still know what I'm talking about.

I was in a HomePlus department store yesterday looking for one of those kiddie miniature golf club sets for a class activity. I'm fairly certain that there is a specific word for "golf" in Korean different from the English word, but I had used the word with a younger class, and they seemed to understand. So when a HomePlus employee came up to me as I was wandering around in the toy aisle, I thought I would chance it and ask in English. I was especially encouraged because he said, "Can I help you?" in English. "Golf?" I asked. He leaned in closer. "Golf?" I asked again, loudly and clearly. This was going nowhere, but he seemed bound and determined to figure it out. He leaned in even closer, so I said it again. He shook his head, so I imitated a golf swing. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "Golp-uh!" Good grief.

Another big fun-time rant

2007-08-13T15:48:06Z

I am so ANGRY right now. My boss is so fucking ridiculous it's unreal.

Over the weekend, I brought home a CD from work that went with the magazine I teach (TIME for Kids). This was because the magazine comes with this weird software CD that's mostly in Korean, so I wanted to play with it and figure it out before I tried explaining it to the kids. Monday rolls around, and I've walked halfway to work before I realize that I accidentally left the CD in my computer. I figured it wasn't a big deal because I am the only one that teaches with the book, and they didn't need it today anyway. So I figured I could bring it in on Tuesday.

Flash forward to about 2:45, about 45 minutes before my first class of the day is to start. One of my fellow teachers/my boss' personal minion is rifling around in my stack of my already prepared materials for the day. She's looking for the TIME CD. "Oh, sorry," I say apologetically. "I accidentally left it at home. But they don't need it today." It was an honest mistake, I really don't think it was unreasonable of me to expect that it wouldn't be a huge deal. But the minion needed the CD case so she could make a fucking COVER for it. The original CD came in a regular paper sleeve. The day that it came in, my boss threw it into an empty CD case from an old CD and gave it to me. But now the minion was making a fucking title sleeve for it or some shit. "Oh, maybe I can just use another case," she says, and goes to consult my boss. As if this were a problem that seriously requires boss-consulting. I can hear the two of them talking in the next room. Apparently my boss is angry with me. I'm NEVER supposed to take materials home, even though the other teachers do it all the fucking time. It's not like I'm going to run off with a goddamn TIME magazine CD that's in Korean. It was a little mistake, and I tried to explain that, but then the minion says, "She wants you to go get it." I'm sure that my facial expression did little to mask the utter contempt I was feeling for both her and my boss. "NOW??" I asked, not even bothering to conceal my disgust. It was about 3:00 by this point.

So let me sum this up for you: I had half an hour to go back to my apartment to get an old crappy CD case so my boss' lackey could make a FUCKING COVER for it. Walking, it takes about 15 minutes one way to get to my apartment. So I took a fucking cab to my apartment (which my boss should have to goddamn pay for). I live kind of on the outskirts of town, so while it's not hard to get a cab TO my apartment, it's practically fucking impossible to hail one in front of my apartment. So I walked. And it was downpouring. My shoes got all wet, and so did my pants, about up to my shins. I didn't even look at my boss when I walked past her desk, because she probably would have died from my eye death rays. I slammed the CD down on the minion's desk. Even though she wasn't there to witness it, it was pretty satisfying. The other teachers looked at me like I was insane. Then I had to five minutes to sit down and relax before my first class. I was sweating like crazy, because I was speed walking the whole way there. Plus I was furious, so that made it even harder to calm down.

Sometimes I amaze myself with my ability to put on my happy face with my students, because even though I was in a crap mood all day, I was my cheery self for the kids. And actually, they made me feel a lot better. I had my absolute favorite class today, and they were a hoot. They always bring me little trinkets and whatnot, which is sweet. Today I got a mechanical pencil, a plastic fan, and a cell phone charm. And my favorite student, even though he's a total little dirtbag, made me laugh so hard. He sits in the back of the room and writes weird notes on the back of his paper and holds them up for me to see. Usually they are things like "Choose me!" and "I am smartest student!" Today he got upset because I wasn't choosing him enough, so he drew a big unhappy face and wrote "My life is so poor." I adore him, because he's a pain, but he's so smart. Today he gave a really good explanation of what the suffix -holic means. I was impressed.

So anyway, I moped around between classes, but my classes were fine. I got myself a milkshake after work and walked home really slowly and calmed down a little. Then I came home and tooled around on the internet for a while. Then my roommate came home. The boss' evil minion? My roommate. And as a roommate, she's a total clean freak. She once "reminded" me to do the dishes because I had a mug sitting in the sink for more than 24 hours. Anyway, she knocked on my door, and had in her hand, my daily report. We have to write a little log of everything we do at work, not a big deal, just a couple of sentences per class. Up until now, all of the teachers wrote them in the morning and turned them in. Now I was told that I'm supposed to write it "at home" every night. Apparently she couldn't tell me this at work, she had to disturb my perfectly nice non-work time to tell me this. But the stupid thing is, I get to work way later than the other Korean teachers. So even if I write it at home, I'm still going to be turning it in at essentially the same time. What a fucking joke. I should "forget" it at home just to be an asshole.

I'm so sick of all this bullshit. I'm sick of not ever being able to escape work. I was supposed to have a single apartment. I didn't mind my last roommate; she was crazy as hell, but we didn't mess with each other. She got fired. I felt sort of bad for her. She didn't even have 24 hours to get out of the apartment. Poor crazy broad. She's better off.

I'm also tired of not ever knowing what's going on. Half of what I know at work is strictly because I'm fairly observant. I'm never actually told anything. At the beginning of August, I got a new class to teach, but nobody ever told me. I just happened to notice that I was on the new class' schedule. I didn't even really have a reason to be looking at all the schedules on the wall, but my spidey sense was tingling and I felt compelled to check it out.

I wish I could quit, but I would have to put in a month's notice anyway, and I've only got three months left. Plus I would lose out on my completion bonus and airfare home. I'm sure my boss hates me, but I really don't give a damn. Amazingly, this hasn't turned me off of Korea. I still want to stay for another year, but this time I will be smarter about what I'm looking for, and will be picky about my contract. I got stiffed out of 4 vacation days, because we had a "5 day" holiday, but the 5 days included Saturday and Sunday (This happened twice...winter and summer break). So they were actually three day holidays.

ARGH