Back to the Grind

Feb 7-13, 2011

Monday was back to the grind this week. With the weather warming slightly, it wasn't so bad to be back in Seoul. Given the time difference between Korean and home, Monday morning was in fact Sunday night, which was Superbowl Sunday. I am pretty passionate about my football, and made sure to get up earl enough to make it to Itaewon so that I could watch the game. I could have watched it from my home on my computer, but I like being around other people for big games like that, and I convinced John to go with me to Sam Ryan's pub. The pub was offering hamburgers and sausages at a reasonable price, so with a couple of those and a couple Bloody Marries in me, I started the day/week out pretty good. After the game I went home to change my clothes, but since I had failed to get groceries on the weekend, I didn't cook for myself and just bought some food on the way to work. When I got to work Chrissy had already told some of our coworkers about our "Trip of 1000 Fails", as we called it, but I shared some more stories and had some laughs with them while we all talked about how the holiday had been. Also, during the month of January 6 of the 10 Korean teachers in our Chess program had given notice that they were quitting, which is a story too long to be told in my simple blog. Nevertheless, while I had been home for Nan's funeral, some new teachers had been hired and they began to show up here and there at the school, when they weren't at training. We met a couple of them Monday, but it was brief, and uneventful. After work, I came home and did some laundry while I watched a movie, and then fell asleep.
Tuesday and Wednesday were simple days. I got up and without food to cook, killed time in the mornings before going to work, and then came straight home after work and did some exercising to try and stay in shape until I could renew my gym membership at the end of the month. While at work on Tuesday I took a few minutes to book a trip with the USO to teh DMZ on Feb. 19. Though I have been to the DMZ with Adventure Korea, the trip withthe USO takes you inside the "no-mans" land to the shared military border with the north; and Chrissy had asked if I would go with her so that she wouldn't have to go alone. Wednesday was also a bit different I guess. I called my dad to wish him a happy birthday since it was would still be his birthday back home. Then at work I received the good news that one of the most troublesome student in the Ace program had been removed from the school, so my classes with that group of students could go beyond me punishing him the whole time.
Thursday was again, just as plain as the couple before it, save but one instance at work. While teaching my last class of the day, my conversation class with my 8th grade students, one of the boys came up with a response that was one of the more humorous things I had heard a student say. It was almost as good as the Spider-Man story Alice from my 5th grade LSD class had written. We were talking about aliens and UFOs, and space travel in general. The students were giving relatively small and basic answers, but they were more engaged than when we were talking about going to high school, or family life. Then when I asked the question, "What would you need before you could survive on the moon?", one boy simply answered "Girls", with a look of pure charisma on his face. The class went silent, and we all looked at him. I think I was the first to laugh, and the rest weren't far behind. It was a great way to end the day, and reawakened me to the fact that, these kids, though schooled to the max and slow to develop socially, are no different than I was when I was a child. After the class, I shared the story with the other teachers, and then headed home to get lay down and let my stomach that had been churning all day settle.
Likely due to the double meat sub I ate the day before from Subway, I woke up Friday still feeling sick. I went to work hoping it would go away, but it didn't and by the end of the day I kind of just wanted to go home and sleep it off. But I didn't. Instead, I went to meet meet Rocchi in Haebongchon at a pub called Craftworks for some beers. I knew I wouldn't drink much, and even planned on coming home at a respectable hour, but Rocchi and his friend were over an hour late getting there, so I stayed longer than I had planned. After it was last call, we finished our beers and they convinced me to head to Hongdae with them. It had been Rocchi's plan the whole night to go there to meet a friend of his around 3am, but when we got there she was MIA and we settled for one more drink at a Ho Bar before getting some food and heading home. Even though I hadn't drank much, my stomach was still upset, so when I got home at 430 I chugged some water, then went straight to bed.
Saturday I woke up around 11 feeling pretty bad. Apparently the the kebab I had before coming home fuelled the fires of my indigestion , and I spent the better part of the day laying in bed or in the washroom chugging Pepto Bismol. In the late afternoon I got up the nerve to head over to Sindorim, to pick up some things at the E-Mart, and to price out a new external hard drive at TechnoMart. I was looking to price out a 1TB portable drive, so that I could transport files between work and home or friends without having to carry a large desktop external. The prices were standard it seemed across all the sellers at around 158 000W, so with that in mind I went back home to try and rest up for Louise's birthday party.
After a short nap and a quick shower, I got ready to head to Shincheon to have dinner at Aladdin's Lamb with all our friends, before going to Gold Bar for some drinks. I was feeling a bit better, but didn't eat too much at dinner, and saved the drinking for Gold Bar. It was the first time we had all been together since the last time and the fight at Gold Bar, so we shared the story and had some laughs about it, then went over to see if we could have a less eventful evening. It was a great evening, with no trouble, and lots of good times. We took our time drinking so nobody got sick, and having felt pretty bad all day I took it real slow up until about 4am. After that, I had a few more drinks at an accelerated pace, and then headed home on the subway at 6am. One back in my apartment I drank some water to save myself from dehydration, and then went to bed at 730.
Sunday was a brighter day. I was feeling a bit better, and having not drank too much the night before ,I was up in the early afternoon and ready to go. I hung out watching some movies, got groceries, and called home before calling it a night and heading to bed shortly after 1am.


Winter is losing its grip on Seoul. Hopefully the rest of you are experiencing a break from the cold as well.