Money Worrrrrieesss (in a singing voice)

Oct 11-17, 2010

After having a rocky end to last week regarding my pay, this week didn't start much better. I got up Monday to head to a doctors appointment that I had to get some results back from a skin test I had done. It was earlier than I usually get up, so I was already no super impressed. Then on the way to the hospital a homeless lady decided it would be a good idea to slap me as I walked by. I know that I didn't say anything or even look at her, but being that she was old and a bag lady I let it slide and continued on my way. At the hospital I was hustled between a few rooms before the doctor came in to tell me everything checked out fine, and that I could go home. I felt like saying, "Hey Doc, why couldn't you just call and tell me?", but being that it was good news I just left. Once home I grabbed a quick nap before heading to work. Work was the usual, kids not doing their work and me not really caring. After work it was straight home to catch one of the Sunday football games on replay.

Tuesday, the day the title of this blog eludes to, stared out well. I went to the gym, hit home to make some lunch, and then headed of to work. Since we did not get paid on Friday we were supposed to have been paid Monday, but I hadn't checked yet. After getting to work, I walked down to the bank to check if we had and do transfer some money home as per usual after getting paid. Good thing I checked my balance before I started the transferring process, because it turned out that I was $350+ short in my account. By my calculations I should have had 1.85 million Won, but I only had 1.5 million, immediately throwing me into a Rage Factor of about 7/10. Leaving the bank I marched into work and demanded to know where the hell my money was from our vice director, who quickly came out into the main lobby to address our secretary in charge of accounting. Before too long they were telling me that it was my back payment into the National Pension Program that they have forgotten to deduct since I started. Still at Rage Factor 7, I told them that it was complete bullshit having to deal with Friday's payment issue and now this without being given the slightest notice, and followed that up with letting them know how budgeting works and that when they do shit like that it totally screws with my monthly budget plans. They were quick to apologize, which I 'accepted', but still let them know that it can't happen again. After that I was in a bit of a foul mood at work, and the office staff didn't talk to me for the rest of the week. C'est la vie. I left work still a little pissed and went home to watch some football and play with Goah, and try to forget about the way Koreans do business, especially since I know it's not just the foreigners they do this to.
Waking up Wednesday, still feeling some lingering effects of my cold, I hit the gym as usual, then it was off to work. Like I said above, the office staff weren't talking to me, so I went in in silence and got ready for my day by doing some crosswords and checking Facebook, the usual. After work it was home for some more football and high hopes of getting to bed early to rest off my cold. Just as the game finished and I was brushing my teeth, Goah started pacing around my kitchen counter. She will generally do this if she is stalking a fly or other bug, but then give up after it evades her or she looses interest, but not this time. This time she was more serious and chirpy than I had ever seen her. I decided to go and have a look, but at first saw nothing. getting down beside her, I tried to follow where her eyes were going and that's when I saw the gap between my stove (hot plate) top fan and the wall. Taking a closer look I saw a HUGE bug back in the corner. It was too big to have come through any cracks, and being an avid cooker I haven't noticed any bug problems with my food, so what was this thing and where did it come from. Getting out a flashlight, I went in for a closer look, only to discover that it was a cockroach the size of my thumb. And I have quite sizable thumbs. Immediately springing into Intruder Alert Mode, I grabbed a shoe and a long stick (the stick is attached to a Canadian flag) and went at this thing, trying to crush it against the corner of its hiding place. When that didn't work I cleared off my counter and got ready to lay the smack down on it. I got the shoe ready and quickly scraped it out from between the fan and the wall, and at once hammered the crap out of it with my shoe. It was obviously dead, but surprisingly not splattered all over the place like I assumed it would be. No wonder roaches have survived for so long. After that I was all jacked up, because nothing escapes once it's in the kill zone, so I decided to kill some zombies until I was tired again, making it a much later night than anticipated.Due in part to my late night roach rampage and my cold, I slept in Thursday and skipped my morning workout. When I finally dragged myself out of bed it was almost 1230, so I had to quickly put a lunch together, shower and head off to work. Work was par for the course, and seemed to go by rather quick. After work I decided to make up for my morning laziness, and hit the gym for my workout; which I might add, is way fuller at night than in the mornings. I was there until just after 11, before heading home to catch yet another football game and just relax before the weekend.
Friday morning rolled around and it was back to the gym, home to make lunch, then off to work as usual. After work, since it was Friday, I planned to meet Blake and his new coworker Wes in Jonggak for a few drinks. None of us had been there to drink in a long time so it was a good change of pace from the usual Sincheon or Gangnam. I met them there around 11 and we hit up a Ho Bar (popular chain in Korea that has nothing to do with the name on the inside) for a drink before deciding to leave on account of a group of stupid foreigners from France that we trying to do a conga line in a bar not meant for it. Outside we grabbed beer and took up shop on a set of steps to people watch, and boy were we ever glad that we did. To follow is the story of what we saw while outside.

--There was a guy in a suit (suit) and a guy in a blue shirt (blue). Blake, Wesley and I walked out of the bar to have a sidewalk beer while Wes was on the phone. Out of nowhere we heard the sound of two bodies hitting, looked over and saw them heaped on the ground not far from us. At first we thought, "oh it's a fight and they fell". Then suit got up and helped up blue. It turned out they were friends but blue wanted to take on the world starting with his friend. After a couple minutes of angry staggering blue wanted to be friends again and they hugged and shook hands forever because blue was so drunk. Then instead of putting his friend in a cab suit let blue stand around until his next anger fit came and he grabbed a stranger by the jacket. Getting between them suit managed to keep blue from starting anything serious and the other guy was cool about it for the first couple minutes, but when blue wouldn't let go he got angry and thought about beating him up. Suit then focused his attention on the random and not letting him beat up blue, while blue wandered around like nothing happened, then wanted to be randoms friend. Random eventually walked away and suit took blue out to the main street.
We finished our beers on the steps and several minutes later walked that way to find another bar. Going around the corner who do we see, blue shirt sucker punching some guy out front of Lotteria. Random 2 was on the ground because he looked a bit soft and blue was ready to fight him. Suit was stopping it, and nobody was really doing anything. Random 2 got up and yelled at blue then called the cops. While yelling at blue, blue tried to be his friend, until he realized the cops were called and wanted to fight again. We were watching (something we usually don't do) and wondering why suit hadn't knocked out his own friend or why someone hadn't knocked them both out. Not being our country we decided that unless something bad happened (it was all minor punches and slaps) we would stay out of it. Blue continued to try and take on the world and when some people were thinking about getting involved suit was able to keep them at bay. THEN he took a swing towards a girl, presumably random 2's girlfriend, and that's when a bunch of people rushed in yet did nothing but move the girl away. Suit dragged blue to the side of the street and open hand slapped the shit out of him and for the first time we thought it would be over. At this point we were seriously talking amongst ourselves about who was going to go and choke him out while the others held suit out of it because it was getting retarded. Luckily it didn't come to that and the cops showed up just as blue made another rush into the crowd and was taken down by suit. You would think that would end it but no. Once blue realized the cops were there for him he started to struggle and swing. The cops grabbed him and like complete fucktard Koreans didn't put cuffs on him, so on the way to the car he grabbed some girl by the shirt. The girls boyfriend quickly got between and as the cops were taking blue shirt down to the ground he managed to kick random girl's boyfriend in the face. Boyfriend exploded with anger and kicked blue in the back, to which the cops allowed. then boyfriends friends dragged him away (if I was his friend I would have been stomping blues head while they were cuffing him.....but thats me). They picked up blue and forcefully put him in the car thus ending about 45mins of total entertainment.
As bad as it was, nobody got hurt and that's what made it so funny. --

End of the story. From there we continued around the corner to a new bar called The Table. We went in to check it out and ended up staying for a couple hours because it was so cool. There were just large tables with chilled beer in the centre that you would take back and drink at your table. Then at the end of the night they would count what you had drank and give you the bill. Plus they were playing good music and there was a good non-foreign crowd in there. Calling it a night around 230am we jumped in a cab and headed home dropping Blake and Wes off first and then myself.

Saturday was a day of hanging out. I got up mid morning and sat around watching football games and napping while making plans to meet up with Thomas and Jeanne (Dave and Kate's replacements) for dinner and drinks. We hadn't seen them since Dave and Kate's going away, and Blake's brothers visit, so it was good to be ironing out plans. We decided on Itaewon since a lot of other people from the group expressed interest in going there. So around 7 we met at the station, myself, Frank, Blake, Wes, Thomas and Jeanne and went to Sam Ryan's for some western style food and a few beers. Joined eventually by James, we then went to Roofers where Jen and Matei showed up, Rocchi came by, and Garret made an appearance which was followed by Garret trying to tackle me and me almost punching him in the face. We hung out at Roofers until some time after 230am before checking out of there and heading over to Seoul Pub for one more round. That round took a lot longer than some of us expected, and before we knew it it was 5am and time to go. Thomas, Jeanne, and I went outside to grab a kabob before heading home, and then it dawned on us that if we waited another 20 minutes the subway would be open and we would save a ton on cab fare. So we waited and caught the subway home when it opened. I was home and in bed by 630 but having food in me and the smarts to drink some water, was feeling fine.
Waking up around noon on Sunday to Blake's call about our planned touch football game possibly being a no go, I laid around watching another NFL game until he confirmed it at 230 that there was indeed a major backing out of people, and we wouldn't have had enough guys to get a game going. With that news I took advantage of not having to leave my area for the day by watching some more football and then getting some groceries around 6pm, coming home and precooking some dishes for the week and watching yet again some more football. Eventually it got late and I went to bed so I could have a fresh start to the coming week.

New back home this week was that Nan had been taken to the hospital after being up north to close the trailer. Hopefully she will be feeling better soon.