Reveling in my Oegukery

This is my photographic masterpiece, called, "It was Very Early. And Cold."

A 외국인, or 外(國)人 in Korea is a foreigner (literally, outside-country person). Last weekend, I embraced that part of my Korean identity, with the help of my Korean friend H from work (and of bamboo forest fame). We headed up to Seoul at what seemed a distinctly unnatural hour of the morning on Saturday, there to do the things that tourists do. We started our day at a museum in an effort to be cultured, and Internet, boy were we cultured! We got three hours of cultured. (H has a fancy phone, which takes quite nice photos, and she is something of a photo hound, so there are rather more pictures of myself on this day than I absolutely like or planned for. Apologies all around). First we saw the sculpture outside the museum proper.







Then we spent some very necessary time in the museum café.

Perhaps it is not so bad as all that.

Morning is the devil's time.

I will drown my sorrows.

The museum was architecturally very swanky, and had boatloads of both traditional and modern art. Museum 1 (which reflects a saddening lack of creativity on the part of the curators, I feel), was our first destination. We flashed our tickets at their fancy ticket-reading machine and took an elevator to the 4th floor, through which we wandered, ogling pottery of the distinctive green whose name I have now forgotten but is a tell-tale sign of ancient Koreans artists at work. The technique of making it has sadly been lost, but about 800 years ago, they had it down real well and made some extraordinary pottery.  One doesn't really fancy them for immediate contextualization in the modern home, but they are very pretty. Once completed the circuit of display cases, we found ourselves in one of the museum's famed architectural spaces.


It feels very like being in a sci-fi movie with heavy-handed genetic symbolism.

If I could be an enzyme, I'd be DNA helicase... just kidding. Obviously, I'm much more of an Adenine.


Anyway, we went around and down this to the next floor, which was full of white pottery from a slightly different era. Not to knock the work of guys who can pot much better than I could ever hope to, but these were very different in aesthetic, to the tune of looking like they'd been painted by zealous elementary schoolers, rather than adults with artistic inclinations. Old pots. What are you gonna do?






Below the pots were scrolls and paintings. The particular exhibit up at the time was for a famous brush artist whose name escapes me at the moment, but who did some awesome work. I love screens and brush paintings in general, and these were very neat to look at. There were a few that surprised both H and myself - they were apparently Korean brushwork answers to the Kama Sutra, displayed right along next to nice mountain scenes totally devoid of human life. They were... different.

After paintings, we got into nifty metalwork and the fancy science of the day, namely bells and locks involving bars you slid across doors to keep bad people out. There were gold slippers, beautiful wrought things of tremendous complexity in their design, that seem utterly un-fun to wear in every way. I believe them to have come from the mind of one of my sister's previous incarnations. Her present one tells me we all suffer to be beautiful, and I can think of nothing else that so well embodies that sentiment.

That finished off the first Museum, and we moved on to Museum 2, the abode of the modern art. A great deal of modern art fails to speak to me, generally, and I had about the same ratio of success to failure of appeal here that I have experienced elsewhere. There was a really interesting piece that was nothing but an enormous case with a mirrored back on the wall, about two inches deep, filled with little shelves on which were arrayed all manner of pills. Each was a real-life replica cast in resin. It's kind of unsettling to see how many pills we've created and that people take, especially knowing some of them are things like Viagra. It brings the concept of Big Pharma home in a pretty visceral way. There were a few other pieces that were interesting, but the best part was definitely Museum 3, where we came upon some awesome new stuff.

I... I just thought this was funny. The awesome is below.

This is actually a sculpture, made from hundreds, maybe thousands, of photographs all varnished onto an underlying sculpted form. There were several different such forms around the open floor of Museum 3, all of them landing somewhere close to the Uncanny Valley, but in a cool way.













In another part of the exhibit not seen here, there was a poster on the wall that said, "New Year's Resolution: less biting." Art, man, it's crazy. This shiny fellow had some fantastic insights on the artistic process.








This was a cool thing on the wall that didn't photograph wonderfully. Enjoy!

Man, that was a lot of art. We couldn't take a lot of photos of the other art outside of Museum 3, but if you want to check out the museum further, you can peruse what it's willing to put up on its site.


I'm seeing that this is really long, so I'm going to make a different post for the other stuff of the day. It's markedly less artisty and more touristy.

Raising Funds, Hating Hostels

The second weekend I was up in the great frozen north (Seoul to my Daejeon, that will only refer to Canada when I am back in the States), there was no rehearsal, just a fundraiser for the choir on Saturday night, and me helping a choir friend move her newly-adopted cat from Itaewon to the pseudo suburb she lives in south of Seoul. I chose to stay in a hostel this time, rather than brave the restless natives at R's apartment.

The fundraiser was loud and musical, and a good time was had by most, though the MC crossed the lines of both decency and common sense a few too many times for my taste. What do I know, though, I grew up under Plymouth rock. My sense of humor is... attuned differently. Anyway, we worked and earned money and that was good. At around 2 a.m., two friends from Daejeon and I taxi'd over to the hostel. We were all abed around 3 (not wholly unusual for people on hagwon time) and thought not too much of it.

At 7 a.m., the whooping cacophony of disturbed cormorants woke me. At least, that's what I assumed it to be. I have never heard anything quite so shriek-some as seabirds when disturbed, but the actual cause of the noise gave the seagulls a run for their money. It was a toddler. ("Man often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it" and all that. Ha, Universe. Ha. And, just because you're special: ha.) Apparently, a whole family (3 generations, all rabbit's friends and relations, etc., etc.) was in the room two doors down from us. Several of the people in said family were under 3 feet in height and astonishingly vocal. The repeated cry of the local species was a variant on the Korean omma-will (like the whippoorwill, but louder). This child was one of the same species R is raising, which almost whispers the "om" and then bugles the "MA!" Their m.o. is to run with frantic, stompy tread as fast as they can, a horrific tattoo dopplering past the doors of those trying to sleep. Once at the end of the hallway, they stand facing back down the way they came, and release their piercing cry, "omMA!" (Korean for "mother"). There really isn't a font size differential big enough to impart the sense of impending apocalypse this cry brings out in the unwary.

To address this un-neighborly display, I executed the Zombie Shuffle. I am not the most graceful person I know, and my coordination (such as it is) is not in peak form at ungodly hours of the morning. Apparently the omMA who beheld me shambling the shamble of the undead was sufficiently concerned that I might sate my obvious and unholy hunger for living flesh with her children, and she put them away. Hallelujah, indeed.

Don't people know that hostels are for university students and serial killers? What a world we live in, internet.

After the hostel, I had to meet my soon-to-be-cat-owning friend in Itaewon at 11:30 or so, and we, after a lot more hills than I thought were entirely necessary, collected the cat and its 50 pounds of baggage (mostly two enormous containers of litter) and hopped on the subway. The cat, having infinitely better manners than any of the human offspring of my recent acquaintance, was wholly silent throughout the entire hour-plus journey. The kitty litter itself was less well behaved, making a frantic bid for freedom down the stairs in the station where we had to transfer. Naturally, it was the open container, so on landing at the bottom of the steps, it deposited a great deal of its contents, making a tiny ski slope for the weary commuter. As though we had not gotten enough stares for being white and in Seoul and carrying a cat-carrier, we were now the founders of Mount Litterloaf. The nice people selling walnut cakes at the top of the stairs lent us their broom, though, and we soldiered on.

At long last, cat and accoutrements arrived in... well, wherever we were going. It's a nice area, and J (my friend) has an apartment much nicer than mine. The cat was phenomenal. She was totally silent the whole way there, and as soon as she was freed from her carrier, she was right at home. She was like a dog. She sniffed everything and then rolled over on the floor, demanding attention for her not-so-noble girth. She is a low-maintenance lady. Once happily ensconced, we left her to dominate the house while we headed back to Seoul proper for a friend's birthday party, which was delicious in every way, and then I took a train home, which is a mercifully baby-free zone. Huzzah!

Distractions, of the 200 round variety

I'm not sure if or when this will make it into the US news cycle, but North Korea fired on South Korea today, a few hours ago now. It's making it difficult for me to concentrate on my work. They fired on an island off the western coast, an area long contested between the two countries. North Korea fired 200 rounds of artillery at the island and its surrounding waters, and South Korea fired back 80 rounds and sent a couple of jets up. 14 military personnel and two civilians have been reported injured, two of the military guys critically so.

I don't know anyone on the island, but I do know people in Seoul, which is frighteningly close to the border. One of my best friends in this country is in the U.S. military, stationed in Seoul, and another friend is in the Korean military (C, of C-is-a-soldier fame). I do not even know how much I should worry right now, but knowing how much not to rarely helps anyway. This news comes hard on the heels of reading articles all about uranium enrichment capabilities being higher than expected in the North. Oddly, I do not feel the confluence of these two news issues is terribly calming, nor helpful to me in getting a working memo on the winter intensive courses completed. The other teachers, however, are just going about their days, laughing at things, planning classes, acting normal. It is the foreign teachers who are all clicking over to CNN every few minutes, checking the CIA world factbook to find out how many troops North Korea actually has, and if we would know if they mobilized, talking about whether China will really get into this hardcore, or if they'll just maintain a kind of lend-lease agreement with the North. Maybe we are just alarmists. I hope we are just alarmists.

In the interests of full disclosure, part of me just wondered if I will be able to get home in less than a month. The airport from which I am scheduled to fly is right up to the west of Seoul. I kind of miss the built-in geographic security of having oceans between me and potential-or-declared-enemy powers, and I really don't want an active warzone to get between me and that security in the next twenty-eight days.

So hi, Internet. These are my thoughts. Now I'm going to go talk about team-building exercises for students.

So much Seoul

I overnighted in Seoul for two weekends in a row, and after the summer of Pirates, that was just too much. I shouldn't have to do it again until the weekend of my departure, so I guess that's all right, but boy, it makes me feel old to have to say I'm not down with it. Here is my harrowing tale of adventure from the first of the two.

I'd planned to go to Everland (a big amusement park up near Seoul) on Saturday and just stay into Sunday for rehearsal, maybe burn a few DVD's of Pirates that night. As it turned out, the Everland trip kind of fell apart at the last minute (a bunch of people cancelled and it was going to rain), but I had a place to stay and I needed to go to a place in Seoul (Yongsan) to get double-layer DVD's so I could burn Pirates and get it off my computer for once and for all (calloo callay). So I took an evening train on Saturday, made it to Yongsan, got DVD's, had dinner with a friend, and went to my director's new apartment to stay the night.

Director R has a baby. Perhaps it is a toddler. It toddles. It does not speak coherently, so I call it a baby. The baby, like all babies, is the devil. Also, it hates me. I guess I could should call it a "she." We do not have a working relationship. She is definitely her father's child, as such small lungs could otherwise not possibly produce the mind-shattering shriek she lets out at the slightest provocation (read: none whatsoever). To add a shiny bow on this package of drooling charm, she bit me. I was trying to prevent her from first sticking her finger between the magnetically attached part of my power plug and my computer (which would have resulted in a shock, as the other side of it was still connected and electricity does not discriminate well between drool-soaked-baby-finger and other conducting materials), then from touching the very-hot transformer leading to said plug, and then from pulling a glass of wine off a shelf onto her head. Apparently, for frustrating her plans, my finger had to be sacrificed to the sharp-toothed demon of child entitlement. Next time, I'm just going to let her zap herself.  It will be educational. (Some day, I imagine I will have a better working relationship with children under 12, but at the moment, my plan is to donate all the ones I find to my sister, and she can ship me all the adolescents she doesn't get on with).

Anyway, Shrieky McShrieksalot All the Time with the Shrieking was up the next morning at what seemed to me the crack of dawn (I lead a very decadent lifestyle, as you know, dear reader), and she used her increasing mobility (which, at a walk, I must admit is way better than the creepy tripod crawl thing she used to do, during which I could only imagine her holding a cleaver and giggling maniacally) to walk over to the sofa on which I was sleeping, yank the covers off my head, and poke me with her frigid, razor sharp claws of death. (That child has no sense of personal space. Respect the bubble, kids).  I'm sure I was eloquent and distinguished and made my position on her actions clear in grammatically correct and stylistically enviable prose. Actually, I'm pretty sure I said something regrettable at that moment, but I don't actually remember the exact words. One can only hope the baby will not, either.

So that was my Saturday night into Sunday. I was not the most rested I have ever been during rehearsal, and afterwards, I helped a friend help another friend with an English thing he needed some help on, and he bought us dinner for our trouble, which was nice, and eventually I collected my things and escaped from the hellion with no further damage to my person or equipment. Huzzah!

Running Rampant and Unchecked

(The subject of the titular verb is "sociology." The unchecked part implies that nothing so mundane as an education in the field checks my curiosity and speculation).

A few weeks ago, an ex-student of mine invited me to his school concert, and it was such an experience that I have at least two, perhaps three blog posts to publish as a result. This is the first, and it is pretty much awesome about Korea's support for the arts in schools.

The kids I saw were doing music and dance stuff with their whole school all day. Their teachers and administrators attended and supported them, and it was like a party for the performing arts. Coming as I do from a country that seems to cut budgets for the arts every month, it was wonderful to see all the students rocking out, many of them dancing.

First of all, it was a side of them I very rarely get to see. My students spend all the time I see them in class doing (home)work, taking tests, or falling asleep while they're supposed to be doing one of the other two. I work for a hagwon, so there's not really the geographic cohesion that other teachers have, which makes it likely that they'll see their students on off-days, out and about and being normal. I hear, sometimes, about their extracurricular lives, but I have only seen two students out in the world in all the time I've been here (now three, but only by invitation, and it was at a school function).  So it was great to see them not just doing something non-academic, but having such a good time. Those who weren't performing were cheering wildly and having fun of their own. Some people had made a video for in between sets that showed all the different groups preparing their stuff, which was fun to watch, even for me (though I didn't understand it, it met all the requirements of such things: exaggerated movements, fun pop music as background, sped up dancing of a ridiculous nature, teachers acting silly with their students). It was nice to know that somewhere in their hectic lives, they are having fun.

Two, many of them are very talented, and it was awesome just to be in the audience! I was especially impressed by the dancing, which was not part of my performing or observing experience in high school. Several groups and one notable individual performed very demanding routines, and many of them were boys. Perhaps it has been only my experience, but in that, the gender divide in the West does not encourage this quite the same way. There was a particularly fantastic group from the second grade of the middle school (about 8th or 9th grade US, I think) who were five boys, four of whom acted as puppets and the fifth who was the marionette master. It was remarkable. They were extremely coordinated and athletic, and the crowd loved it. Maybe now, if I were back in the States, I'd see us doing more of this as talent shows on t.v. become more popular and star more dancers, but when I was their age, that was... uncommon. I'm happy to see performance doing so well here as a part of kids' experience in school.

My student is a guitarist and was on last, performing with his bandmates two songs, a K-pop number I actually know and like (!) and an American song (surprise!). There were some technical difficulties, but generally, I thought they did very well. (The music bits reminded me a lot of pops concerts at my high school, so that part was sort of expected - but they did REALLY well!)

The sociological component to all this that burst out of me so forcefully that I found myself taking notes during the concert (you can take the student out of the U of C, but...) has to do with gender relations, double standards, and what constitutes "sexy" versus "sexual" across cultures. It's a bit of a jumble and I'm still putting it together (some stuff got in the way of my together-putting, which I will talk about in a different, totally unrelated blog post, soon!) but as soon as I have something worth committing to... screen (?) I will have it up here.

A Lack of Swords

Last Saturday, my coworkers P and H and I (that's a first-person pronoun, not the initial of one of my coworkers) went on an adventure. We had meant to go zip-lining, and planned for it, even. We met at the bus station, ready to clamber aboard and endure 2 and a half hours of busing so long as it meant we could make Tarzan noises to ourselves as we hurtled through the forest canopy. It occurred to us when we were all together waiting for our bus, to call and be sure we didn't need something like a reservation at the place in question. For the record, dear readers, you should check that before the day you intend to go. They were full up through the month of October. Since we were already at the bus station, we exchanged glances, shrugged collectively, and decided to try somewhere different. I've put in a jump because this is very long. Go ahead and click it to see many photos and hear tales of great wonder and bold adventuring.

Abysmal, Beastly, Contemptible, Damnable, Epic Failure*

Long ago, I was a Pirate King. I'm retired now, but it was a heady time for a young and foolish adventurer. The video records of this wild time were mine to cherish, edit and burn to DVD (you know, like you do when you're a Pirate King. That's what makes it glorious). It cannot be denied that I wallowed in the deep well of placidity that comes from confidence in both oneself and one's machine in turning out a relatively terrific product in quite a short time. There was pride. I'm sure from the title you've guessed there was also a fall. If all you need know is that danger befell, know it and move on with your life. For those interested in the gory technical details, they are available after the jump.

Surprise!

Again, I apologize for relaying events so long after they happen, but they just keep happening, and I keep getting behind them.

Several weeks ago, I awoke to a pounding on my door. Usually, this heralds the Gas Lady, who comes to trot briskly and non-judgmentally through my apartment to the laundry room where the gas meter lives and figure out how much I owe for the month. She invariably comes several hours before what I consider decent awake time, so I am not always at my intellectual best when she arrives. This explains why I was not really thinking about what day it was (not the Feast of Our Lady of Gas). I did my best impression of the restless undead (moaning, shambling), over to the door, opening it to discover not the Gas Lady, but Dr. P (now so called to differentiate him from my coworker, P who is not a doctor). There was surprise, as Dr. P was supposed to be in Chicago, land from whence I came. There was also great rejoicing.

Sadly, I had no vacation time, but Dr. P is a good sport and just sort of bobbled along with whatever the schedule dictated. He also has impressive talents as a mule. Those of you looking to smuggle fine food items into or out of any number of countries should look him up. Along with the fantastic gift of bringing himself across the world, he came with a full backpack of pesto, cheese (fresh mozzarella, Camembert, and haloumi), Genoa salami, and maple syrup. If you, in your culinary exploits, have never had any of the things on this list, you, dear reader, are deprived. If you, in your life experience, have never had anyone arrive unexpectedly and amazingly on your doorstep when you are far away, not unlike Santa Clause with a bag of loot, you should consider it. It is not a bad way to wake up.

Dr. P was able to stay for just 10 days, three of which we spent in Seoul, as I had to be there anyway for our German concert (Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzer). It comes to my attention now that I have extremely few photos from his time here (partly because I ran around like a crazy person, and partly because I'm bad at doing photos properly). I believe he has a few, in disparate digital locations (Dr. P is a notorious gadget fiend), and if he sends them to me, I will be happy to share them with you. For now, revel in these lovely photos from the historical site quite near where we stayed and where the concert was held.


 This one is of the name of the gateway, which I forget, but it involves "dae" at the beginning and "mun" at the end. This quite formidable gate and its wall (you can see a person at the bottom left for scale) surrounded a palace complex that we toured around. Just for fun, I picked up the Chinese guide, and Dr. P (who is Taiwanese) picked up the English guide. The arty, off-putting angle of this shot is really just to get the whole breadth of it in one try, as my phone camera is actually quite small.


This is the corner of the gateway. The detail on the eaves is really fantastic. The colors are brilliant and the designs complicated. Somehow, I think in terms of heavy beams and both aesthetic and functional carving, it reminds me of the little I've seen of Pacific Northwest Native American architecture. The color scheme, however, is entirely different, much more toward the green end of things, which may explain why I like it so much...




This last one shows the ceiling for those going through the gate. It, too, is very ornate in a way that would look Baroque if in a slightly different context, but here seems to work. This part, unlike the eaves, reminds me of the ceiling of a mosque in Toledo, which has very similar inscribed-circles-in-a-grid patterns.

 Anyway, Dr. P's visit was a very lovely surprise, though I wish I'd had more time to slow down and enjoy it, and I hope all of you are shortly (or have been recently) the recipients of equally wonderful unexpected things.

Thousands of Words

Lo these many months ago, I said rash things. Vast overstatements of the intimacy of my relationship with phones and cameras and the internet. Promises were made, only to be dashed on the rocks of my photographic ineptitude.
Today, however, is a day of great rejoicing, for I have slain the Blue-toothed dragon and retrieved photographic evidence that I am not actually making this all up from a basement apartment I secretly live in. I couldn't really figure out where these shots should go into previous entries, so I'm just going to dump a bunch of them with little explanations of what they are. From now on, I will try to be more orderly.

This particular photo dump will be from vacation with Mom in Busan:

This is a night view of the beach we stayed on, Haeundae (해운대). We had great timing which landed us in the midst of our vacation just during monsoon season, so we did not compete with anyone for this space, which is the most popular beach in a popular beach town. Admittedly, for beaching in high beach fashion, we might have chosen a different time, but it was lovely and uncrowded.

This is the stream/waterfall you cross to get to Beomeosa (버머사), a temple in Busan to which we went. It's pretty high up on a mountain, which you climb in a rickety bus on a very narrow road, so you are glad to get to the top and have a place specially designed for the finding of peace! One thing I'm particularly sorry I couldn't seem to get a shot of is the population of magpies. They have an ignominious reputation and name, but they are very pretty birds, and they were flitting all through here, far too fast for my phone camera to capture or do justice to them.

This is the view from the top of Beomeosa, looking at surrounding mountains of about the same height. The roofs (of which I got more pictures, but with which I shall not bore you) were straight out of the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I kept looking across them, hoping to spot a gravity-defying ninja type monk. I didn't see any (but that just means they're doing it right).

This is a frog doorstop at the temple. It is hard to see, but it looks very happy and expectant, just as you'd want someone to look who's holding a door for you. Sadly, the door in question has a painting of a ferocious, sword-wielding demon on it, so it's a bit of a mixed message, but I don't consider that the frog's fault.

I am Old and Wise Now

I turned 23! On August 10th! It was a weekday, so not a day of great adventure, but I have never received quite so much free food in my life. Every time I turned around, someone fed me something. From G, I received all his stamp cards for local businesses, effectively giving me free coffee and cupcakes for a week. O the loot!

One of my students, as per my policy for those who do not have their homework, drew me a picture, of myself, which may be my favorite student picture to date... I took a photo of it for you, internet. I don't know how to make it zoom, but if you do, you will see a little speech bubble next to my head that says, "My name is Rebecca Lovering Johnson. Today is my birthday. Also, I talk to myself very often in class." (not false) and the writing down at the bottom left says, "Happy birthday!! and!!! you don't look this fat."

What more can you ask for on a birthday?

The stream of loot continued as boxes came from the Mother- and Fatherland. I am infinitely better attired and accessoried now and look as classy as can be. May all of you with birthdays have been likewise pleased by them and their attendant riches.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns

O Internet, like unto the story's eponymous character to which my title refers, I have been living a life of exorbitance in the months I have been away from you. I have indulged in such excesses as farewell parties, concerts, a surprise visit and even a birthday. I have seen myself become the senior foreign teacher in my office (a terrifying circumstance for all concerned, like unto the moment in the movie when the two heroes look at each other and realize, sickeningly, that no one is driving the boat/train/tank). I have become beholden to a terrible addiction and battled it with relative success (no, not colored pens, a much deeper, darker well of dependence - a Korean drama). There've also been some weird social/personal events.

All in all, it has kept me busy, but that is no excuse for the abandonment you have suffered, dear readers. Mostly my mother.

I promise to overwhelm you with updates, (up to and including photos I have finally rescued from their phone purgatory with my superfluous cunning and guile, and not a few indulgences bought from the priests of the phone photo gods) and in the few remaining months of my Korean sojourn, to make a more concerted effort to write faithfully.

Summer is Wretched

Whoever invented humidity should be shot.

That is all.

Back to your knitting.

I have a problem

I like colored pens. I think I like them a little too much. Gels are glorious, ballpoints are beautiful, and felt-tips are freaking fantastic.

You think you can stop at one, you know, just for color coding your grading. Maybe one color just for mistakes with articles? Suddenly it's the second time in a week, and you find yourself powering through the late-night Timeworld crowds, hearing the soft click of the 0.3mm turquoise and the  0.25mm magenta burning a hole in your pocket. Finally you get home, sit down, get out the paraphernalia, and look for the right place to poke. There: a wrongly capitalized letter in the second sentence. You unleash the tide of fuchsia judgment and...

Ahhh.

It's a terrible affliction.

Summer Intensive in Every Way

The first way I mean that is the freaking ridiculous heat and humidity combo Daejeon has going on currently. I remember saying I had much more specific requirements for places that insist on including "South" in their monikers, and Korea has accepted my challenge with vengeance. Every day is in the mid-nineties with humidity in the same range. It's brutal. I am planning to move to Antarctica.

The second way I mean that is in the scheduling. Summer intensive period brings with it two more hour-long classes per day. It is a lot of children. They are bored. There is nothing more dangerous, Internet, than bored children. They threaten my sanity daily. On the bright side, I now get out of work at 9:40 p.m. instead of 10:40, so the night is younger when I get out, more like a sprightly 35 than wheezy 49. Of course, on Wednesdays, when I teach 7 classes, six of them in a row, I feel closer to the 49... Let's call it a draw.

The third way I mean that (originally, I was only going to write two, but today has changed my mind) is in annoyance. Avalon just told us that it will be fiscally unable to pay us our full salaries on payday. We will receive half when we are supposed to (the 5th) and the rest of it 10 days later. Supposedly. The exact words were, when pressed, "it's not a guarantee." Ah well, another day, another... 50¢

All that being the case, it is not a terrible thing to be me. Choir has started back up, which makes me feel like my life has resumed from the dull sluggery of vacation. It's always nice to be returning to a company, where you feel like you know people and have a social place to come home to. My job sometimes does not feel as real to me as the time I spend schlepping to and from Seoul. You know when you take a shower, and there's one part of you that you have to wash in order to feel clean? For me, it's my hair. I can't feel clean, even if I've taken a CDC-approved decon shower everywhere else, if my hair's not washed. In that same - totally irrational, I know - way, I don't feel like I'm really back into the swing of my life without choir.

It's nice to be back (even if "back" means torrents of sweat and hours of cursing the concept of adolescence).

Virtual Room of Requirement

Internet, I require a micro-pig. You know, whenever you have a minute. I will take this model in whatever color you have available.

A moment of linguistic alchemy

From one of my students, whose English name is (no kidding) Obama, to his friend John:

"Put a sock in your pie hole!"

John is the one on the upper left with the enormous hair, Obama has the glasses.

Vacation Cetera

Performance Weekend

I. Pirates, catch me please!
   Great consternation and woe.
   Gravity wins. Ow.

Food

I. Mom doesn't eat meat
   Spicy is not her fav'rite.
   "Why'd she come?" asks G.

II. Mom likes daikon lots
    I think it's disgusting stuff.
    Where's the lasagna?

III. No meat, no spice Mom
    Finds Korean food she likes:
    Dulsut bibimbap!

IV. You want the fish grilled?
     (Many looks of confusion)
     Result: delicious.

V. Special white, house white
    Why, mysterious difference?
    More cc's: "special"


The Hotel

I. Mom thinks whispering-
   Conspiratorially-
   Elevators, sly.

II. Seventh floor sauna
    Naked ladies everywhere
    Shame I'm no straight man.

IIa. Twenty-five won scrub
      Many layers of skin, then -
      Oh, look how we glow!

Busan Market

I. Swimming eels in tubs
    Kitschy Buddhas wave smugly.
    Busan Market: grand.

II. Mung bean pancakes, hot.
    Flowered shoes for just ten bucks.
    Good day for shopping.

III. Brown dirt becomes art:
      Pots, tiles, vases, plates and bowls.
      Gracious potter smiles.

Busan in General

I. Busan transfer tune
    Cheerfully whistles to say,
    "Disembark, dingbat!"

II. Mom's lost her ticket
    Exasperated, I sigh.
    Hello, role reversal.

III. TV everywhere,
      Not Mom's very favorite.
      She desires silence.

IV (The World Cup):
    Shouting Korea
    They don't kid about the name.
    Red Devils have won!

Weather

I. Blue sky? Hard to tell.
   Raining for so very long,
   Harder to believe.


From Mom, about her own adventures (I will try to get her own account of this day and post it later, which may help explain some of the following. Know that we both found this place on a map and in Mom's guidebook, but the locals had no freaking idea this entire temple thing was there. It made finding the place pretty difficult, though after the trek she underwent in order to see it, it becomes kind of clear why the locals don't know it):

I. (섬버사):
   Locals are in awe!
   Mom finds mythical temple
   Should have worn Nikes.

II. So hot, so weary
    A foreigner made welcome
    English? No, just grace.

III. Mom's in a temple
      I am vacationing right:
      On the beach, with book.

IV. New York to Tokyo,
      Man's harrowing tale: two days
      Thirty thousand miles!

Unpleasant Surprise

I. Vacation ho! What?
   Avalon was just kidding.
   Early meeting, Wed.

II. Snores drive me from bed
    I have a revelation:
    Don't sleep in the tub.

Addenda

I. I have so much loot
   I will look so very posh!
   ... so nice to see Mom.

(She came up with that last line, there).

Japan

I.  Children "singing" high
    Stretching what we call "music"
    Can we muzzle them?

Oh, Japanese PA systems! Is there nowhere a choir of piping prepubescents does not belong? This was Mom's and my first impression as we landed in Fukuoka (Hakata) and caught our train to Nagasaki.

II. Hospital wants cash
    Endoscope "to see deep throat"
    We do not charge him.

My mother had a bad case of laryngitis (it turned out) so we had to go to a hospital in Nagasaki, where a very nice otolaryngologist (ENT doctor) met with us and examined her. His English was great, especially in comparison to pretty much everyone else we saw there, but he did say quite clearly that the endoscope was to see her "deep throat." It was the chief moment wherein our diplomatic negotiations were most threatened by our need to giggle like my students. (The alternative last line, actually very accurate and demonstrative of great generosity on his part with regards to uninsured foreigners and expensive tests, but hilarious in light of the phrase previously uttered was: He does not charge us).

III. Japan likes hard cash
     ATM: "Invalid card"
     Three cheers for Starbucks!

This was the most miserable part of our adventure. While my mother sat in the hospital waiting room, I told her (with the foolish confidence of one who places great faith in the Visa and Mastercard logos) that I would pop over to the Post Office (which is apparently where you get your strange foreign money in Japan) and get the cash to pay the hospital. I'd be back in a few minutes, I said. It would be no problem, I said. Oh, how I lied. Hours and three stops with minimal English and seven receipts later, I still had no yen. 

I tried to call the hospital (I figured asking for the only person with my mom's obviously Western name wouldn't be that hard, but it was). The lady at the bank I was currently in helped me as much as she could, finally saying, "Your mother? She go out." I walked back, intending to go to the hotel where I thought she'd go. When I passed the hospital, a twinge of doubt assailed me as to my assistant's accuracy in translation, so I popped in to see and sure enough, there was Mom, still waiting for me. The hospital - and this was a ray of sunshine I totally hadn't expected - said it was fine for us to go away and come back tomorrow to pay them. So we left, and continued the ill-fated mission to find money. Many maps were helpfully drawn to other places who helpfully drew us yet other maps and apologized in bewilderment for their machines not accepting our Visa card. At long, long last (it seemed) we came upon a Starbucks and Mom said to me, "surely corporate America will help us in our hour of need!" (I'm paraphrasing). We went in, ordered, and Internet, I was not emotionally prepared when our card went through. IT WORKED. We proceeded (not having eaten so far that day) to burn a swathe through their food stores not unlike Sherman on his way to the sea.

IV. Nuclear bullying
     My grandfather's legacy
     He thought, "I'm helping!"

So the next day, which ended with a revelation (at 10 p.m. after speaking to another American guest at our hotel) that money could be had from 7-11 (of all places) in quantities not exceeding 10000yen at a time for four times (it is possible I had to light black candles, dance around widdershins and recite the backwards names of Beelzebub. The world will never know), we went to Peace Park. It is a very beautiful, open space with fountains and statuary.

Peace Park exists because Nagasaki is the site of the second nuclear bomb dropped in World War II. My mother's father worked on the Manhattan Project. She is a total pacifist, and it is especially hard from that perspective to think about someone you love believing strongly enough in a war to participate in creating the bomb. She could not tell me exactly what my grandfather thought, as it seems they did not out-and-out discuss it, but she did say she truly believed he thought he was helping; he thought he was doing something good. That led our conversation around to just and unjust war, nationalism's unbridled power, and the classic: man's inhumanity to man.

When I was in poli-sci classes in college, it would sometimes hit me very hard how casually rooms of exceedingly young people talked about leveraging the power of the bomb to accomplish political goals.  I imagine that to be effective in politics, you cannot afford to be constantly overwhelmed by what we have done, and by what we have the power to do. I hope, though, that there are still people making important decisions who are just as bowled over as I am.


In total: not as vacation-like an atmosphere as could be devoutly wished, but the kind of adventure that teaches you you can land on your feet, even if it is a long fall and you land in a latté you could have bought in Connecticut.

A Vacation Haiku

Temples in the rain
We are getting very wet
Sunglasses useless

Okay, so I don't actually have photos of the rainy temple. This was a different one.

It was, it was a glorious thing to be the Pirate King! Part I (of III)

... I was, it must be said, somewhat surprised by this revelation. Most of my stage experience has been backstage or in a choir. I do not like to stand out, but Internet, this weekend, I stood. In an outward manner. And it was okay!

This past weekend, (June 19th and 20th), we performed The Pirates of Penzance at Seoul National University of Education. These performances were the ones we hoped to make money from, beyond the very first performance two weeks ago for which we were sponsored. Our director, due to a nasty infection scare, remained hospitalized, but in this day and age, no paltry physical distance can separate a dedicated and internet-ready director from his thespian flock.

Three cameras and two laptops later, through Skype and Ustream, our motley assemblage was rehearsing under Captain Gimpy's watchful digital eye. It would not be accurate to say that he "never, ever, ever said a big, big 'D.'"* (It wouldn't even be accurate to say that I never ever said one, even though my mother was present). 

While there were actual doors off to the left and right side of the stage this time, they led to closets, rather than wings as I understand them, which made them less helpful than they could have been, but infinitely more so than the unbroken walls of our first performance space. (I... did not think so kindly of them when I discovered one of their unlit walls with my face during the performance. Hindsight, however, has the blessing of being bruiseless). They were serviceable, if intimate, offstage areas.

At any rate, this marked my fourth rehearsal as the Pirate King (third, if we're counting ones where I played only the Pirate King... last weekend was an adventure in identity).  It was not so raring a success as I'd hoped. We did not have time to run the entire show before we performed at 2:00, so we focused on Pirate-King-heavy numbers, which was very nice and accommodating of everyone.

This meant, of course, a special focus on "Oh better far to live and die," which is the actual name of the Pirate King song. The choreography for this song involved a sort of leaping trust fall on my part into the waiting arms of my pirate crew. Now, internet, my pirate crew includes a number of perfectly attractive gentleman pirates, and even those at whom I do not look appreciatively, I enjoy personally. It is not a problem for me to leap into their arms. It is a problem when, in the unending struggle against gravity, they lose a battle. I got dropped, internet. Twice. This was in rehearsal, so I started our 2:00 show with serious Old Lady Syndrome (my hips! My back! Get off my lawn!).

On the bright side, I warmed up my projecting muscles with loud shouts of "SON OF A-!" and "MOTHER-!" (They really did sound just like that, as I stifled the other bits so my actual mother - present at the time - would not make the Face of Deep Disapproval. You may not know it yet, dear reader, but you fear the Face of Deep Disapproval, as all wise people do). So, swears and bruises and all, we deployed for round one.

We hadn't sold more than half our tickets for this show, so our maimed-but-fearless leader had taken the opportunity to invite the residents of the place where we'd been rehearsing. They are, by and large, lovely people who are just a bit touched in the head, and there are many of them, so the auditorium was pretty full. A few needed to leave during the performance, but all in all, I think it was fine. It was well that we filled this show with them, as I think they were a more forgiving than discerning audience, and our first run was... suboptimal. It proceeded apace, but lacked the cohesion and energy, the groove, that we got into by the second show.

Voila, preamble accomplished! Next: The Good Show, Chaps.

*This is a Gilbert & Sullivan reference to HMS Pinafore, talking about how the captain never swears. ("What never?" "Well... hardly ever!")

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Put on an Archaic But Nonetheless Delightful Show*

 Our first performance of Pirates, the only one people promised to give us money to do in advance, was to be given in Wonjoo, a charmingly rural area (it is a town only to people with a very special definition of "town"). Specifically, we were to deliver our great masterpiece of theatrical fireworks to a camp for 'multicultural children' which is Korean for 'not Korean enough.' They were all very nice kid-type people, but it must be said they did not have the grasp of English necessary to enjoy Gilbert & Sullivan to the fullest extent possible. Anyway, our day of performance started far earlier than the moment we first saw the actual kids.

I stayed from the previous night with a cast member who had access to an apartment just down the road from our rehearsal and storage space, and then, at ridiculous o'clock in the morning (that is, before 6) I woke up and set in motion some of the things that needed to happen that day. We needed to get all the things necessary to our performance to a bus, get that bus to the second place we'd be picking up people, and then get all those people and things out to Wonjoo. This does not seem like it would be, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, the science of the rocket.

A number of helpful actor-type people assembled, ready to load themselves and their gear onto the bus, but the bus was not nearby, and we needed to move all our physical set-pieces onto it, too. This involved the noble sacrifice of at least twenty minutes in the lives of several strapping young men, but soon enough we were all assembled outside the bus we had had to track down, ready to load and leave.

It was at this point that we discovered that a major part of our set, the stairs, would not fit into the bus. As I think I mentioned, the stairs were made from quite... frugal materials, and though they were quite sturdy when left alone, the screws especially resented any kind of reorganization. By that, I mean they were cheap little buggers that stripped if you looked at them. We needed to remove something like 12 of them to get the top panel off the stairs so it would fit in the bus. Many were lost in this action. I also had the joyful experience of being a woman in South Korea, by which I mean that I pointed out that the kick plate to the top step came up to be flush with the platform, so that removing the platform would not actually lower the clearance of the whole set of stairs, the kick plate would need to be removed also. "Pshaw," said the driver of the bus, who, we were told by translation, had A Plan. When his Plan collided with the laws of physics, I do not need to tell you who won. Conservation of Mass: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.

Our altercation with fundamental laws cost us about half an hour, but eventually we had all the keen actor-types who were getting on at that bus stop and all their baggage and all our set-bits. Huzzah! We then went to collect the other people, which, after we determined that, of the two possible gates to the University on whose campus we were meeting, they had chosen the other one, we succeeded in doing. Off to Wonjoo!

On the bus, we chatted and sang and ran lines and sewed buttons on last-minute costumes. There was rollicking. It was good.

Some hours later, we arrived in the beautiful mountain retreat that was the camp, and unloaded our junk into the space we'd been given. Internet, it could not be called a theater. It was a gym with a stage in the wall. Now, in high school, we put on many a show in our gym-theater, and we were pretty amazing at it, actually (SLS, what up!). It cannot be denied, however, that our gym-theater was considerably more accommodating of performers than this particular establishment. There were no wings at all. Offstage was steps down from the stage to the ground floor. We created backstage-ish areas with curtained panels not unlike those at a blood drive, and were totally screwed when some of us (I say "some" to make myself feel better... I can only remember it being me, but I live in the perpetual hope that I was not alone in my idiocy) exited the wrong side of the stage, as the only way across to enter on the other meant going through the audience. There was also no really feasible way to hang our backdrops, as they had been produced in great haste, looked lovely, and were entirely without eyelets or grommets or really anything useful for hanging. Some enterprising people on a rickety ladder, the stage-manager-who-wasn't-me and the production manager, used an inordinate quantity of tape. It saved us from doing theater in an altogether Shakespearean way, but sagged a bit in the middle, making our jolly island appear weary of this mortal coil.

Oddly for an establishment that had invited us to perform a musical, the camp had not seen fit to provide us a piano. Or a keyboard. Or anything that made noise. (This is not totally true... there were a number of traditional Korean drums, and of course many children. They make noise). So we warmed up and began entirely without anything useful of that kind, relying instead on our pianist's perfect pitch, and other members'... slightly less perfect pitch.

The run-throughs were fun, especially before we got on the stage itself. We performed for one another in a big circle on the floor where we'd warmed up, and gross exaggeration was the order and joy of the day. Frederic and Ruth were especially delightful as they tangoed their way through their scenes, dipping dramatically on "circumspect" and flinging legs with wild abandon on "I have deceived you?" (well, Ruth flung, Frederic caught). Fun though it was, it was accompanied by a continual string of misadventure. Policemen's helmets were still drying, was the Sergeant's hat okay, what did these switches do, should the stage be making that loud thumping noise, where are the Wards' fans, can H sew some more buttons for us, what if we don't get a piano, do you fit properly into the PK costume, what's the choreography for this number... I was not, dear reader, only the Pirate King this day. I was still the stage manager in most minds (my own, too), so when I was not riffling the air with my very kingly sword, I was consulting on a number of these items. I have had more restful days, I think. Finally, finally, we had a piano, the backdrops defied gravity just enough, my costume was pinned together enough to avoid citations for indecency, and we were as ready as we could be to begin.

They gave me swords! Two of them!

It was far more a dress rehearsal than a performance, but we were lucky, and the kids were forgiving. We dropped lines, picked them up, entered on interesting sides of the stage, had our wonderful pianist-and-Jane-of-all-trades translate a bit of the show for the kids when their boredom threatened to bring the whole affair to a grinding halt, did something really weird for the curtain call, and stood in front of awkwardly placed lights. It was an adventure. I had a beard.

After we'd mingled and given autographs and packed up our wayward equipment, we headed back to Seoul on the Norebus. Norebang is the Korean word for what we think of as karaoke, and the bus was equipped to be one in motion. I learned things about the cast and crew I had not known before, and it was delightful knowledge to receive. In due time, we staggered home, laden with the trappings of the show.

And oh, dear reader, though it cannot be said I did any more than hold my finger in the dam of the show, and it cannot be said that this show diverged at all from the "natural course of the theater" according to Mr. Henslowe,** (indeed, I dare say this show really reveled in living up to that description to the fullest extent) it was fun.

*Strangely, dear reader, this is not a common English expression. I think it high time we give it a permanent place in the idiom database.

**"The natural course is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster."
"What do we do?!"
"Nothing. Strangely enough it all comes out right in the end."
"How will it?!"
"I don't know, it's a myst'ry."

The Hobo and the Cheese-stick

As an interlude, here is an anecdote about one weekend when I came up to Seoul for rehearsal. Frederic, the Props Mistress, and I were all convening and staying with our pre-Gimpy Director, but I was the only one coming in at Seoul Station. The PGD was coming to pick me up, because I arrived after midnight, at which time the Seoul metro does not run. I had some time and was pretty hungry, as catching the KTX after work precludes dinner, so I picked up a lemonade and two cheese-sticks from the 24-hour fast food place.

Sitting on a bench (the others mostly being occupied by sleeping homeless dudes) while on the phone to Frederic, trying to coordinate meeting,* I became aware of someone shuffle-wobbling toward me. He was clearly not all there, speaking and gesticulating at people who were all not there, and shambling ever closer. I mentioned to Frederic that I was being approached and was not sure what to do, speaking as I do substandard Korean and distinctly accented Crazy. He reassured me that this was Korea, and Koreans are all very polite, even the mad ones. The hobo crept ever closer.

Cheese-stick One was in the air between the box and my mouth when he burst into motion, zipping the remaining 8 feet and snatching the cheese stick out of my airborne hand. He quickly shuffle-ran away while stuffing the cheese-stick into his mouth. Dear reader, I do not know about you, but my education did not prepare me for this moment. (Frederic's suggestion was that I should go and demand it back, but he quickly became aware of the inadvisability of this plan). I was, in a word, flummoxed.

In my startlement, I had jolted in such a way that my remaining cheese-stick had fallen to the floor, so I was left only my lemonade to sip as I waited, nonplused, for my ride. He arrived, I mentioned the cheese-stick incident, and he offered to go and get it back from me, or wreak bloody vengeance on my behalf. I did not want it back, thank you, and bloody vengeance seems a stiff price for deep-fried cheese (though I understand Wisconsin people take a different view where cheese is concerned). Respecting my wishes, the PGD went instead to buy sandwiches to disperse among the needy, and I was alone again on my bench, Cheese-Stick Man hovering again on the edges of my perception.

I sipped my lemonade nervously: a mouse in a clearing as the hawk circles in for the kill. I make that metaphor because THE DUDE CAME BACK AND STOLE MY LEMONADE. Again, out of my hand, in the air on its way to my mouth. (Do you get extra points for that? This dude is the champ).

I haven't had a cheese-stick since, out of the primal terror that a hobo will swoop out of nowhere and seize it.

*It turned out this was all in vain, because Frederic was arriving at a totally different train station. He did not figure this out until considerably later.

How the British Play, put on by American, Colombian, Korean and South African players in Korea became The Scottish Play

(The title is in reference to the bad luck that follows that play, and how it seems to have found us, though we are totally innocent of speaking the name of that show during the entirety of our misadventure. We have put a moratorium on all Scottish accents involved in the production, just to be safe).

(This was in my classroom. The Korean on the bottom says, "Rebecca I love you")

So, Internet, I have been doing this show, this Gilbert & Sullivan show, The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty. It is a delightful show, full of the tongue-in-cheek Britishness for which G&S are so well-known. We started off, as I believe I have noted here, with only one month to get ready for our first performance, for a camp of multicultural children (which, in Korea, means a kid who is not Korean enough to be with the others, and must be sent to a special place far away from the real Koreans to get to know its place in the world with its own kind). I was the stage manager, a role rife with the liaising with actors I had assiduously avoided for so long by being a pure techie...

... Sorry, I lost my train of thought. There is an adorable baby next to me. I find its smile and giggly bits distracting. I don't want one, but this is the first public transportation baby I have ever seen so well behaved. Anyway, back to our story!

We probably should have known that this was too good an opportunity for Murphy to pass up. A month to take total G&S newbies and make them performance ready? Our casting alone miscarried when the dude we wanted for Frederic turned out to be leaving the country right after our first performance, so we couldn't use him for the others (off of which we laughably hoped to make money). So we had to get a different guy, one who, we later found out, couldn't read music. He also lived hours away and was a miserable memorizer. Not an auspicious beginning.

Our rehearsals were held in the basement of a home for the mentally infirm. By and large, the residents were very nice, and the pastor who ran the place was an exemplar of generosity. There was, however, a woman who worked there who took (what I consider) an unreasoning dislike to me from the very start. She would yell in Korean at me and slam doors in my general direction. She was unpleasant. The residents also sometimes got very much in the way, and occasionally upset about the disruption to their routine. Still, most after a while smiled when they saw us and said hello. (Annyeong!)

We couldn't seem to get suitable building materials. We weren't building a full-scale model of Manhattan or anything, but we did want two 3-step stairs. Alas, the materials we had bought (at great expense - building stuff in Korea ain't cheap) were too flimsy to distribute over two cases, and we could only build one. Props acquisition was slow and difficult (Korea is not overrun with Victorian English props and costumes, imagine that!) and costumes was complicated by the presence of personalities with notions counterproductive to our aims. Things got done eventually, rather than efficiently.

Then, the cast. The Wards were spot on practically from the beginning, though one of them promptly got sick and lost her voice. The gentlemen were plagued by absences and a lot more complicated choreography. So we worried. Oh, and our production manager went on vacation, so half of our preparation time, I was both stage manager and production manager. During most of these weekends, I stayed at R's apartment, often with Frederic and the props mistress. Frederic snores and the props mistress talks in her sleep. Also, R has a baby and two dogs. They were not restful times, and they were all the respite we had from 15-hour days. (The actors didn't go for 15 hours, but the behind-the-scenes people did).

And then the medical problems. Our older, more portly, Major General had a heatstroke. I spent one rehearsal day mostly with him in the ER, which I don't at all regret as he is a charming and wonderful man and I felt very bad for him, but it did throw a bit of a wrench in. He lost quite a bit of what he'd memorized, and was very understandably weak on his pins after it. Our sick Ward still had no voice, but her role had been sort of farmed out to other wards and she still came to rehearsal faithfully. It appeared we would have a rough, but ready, first performance. Luckily, it would be for children, who are a forgiving audience as these things go.

Three days before the show was due to go on, I was woken by a phone call from the props mistress. "[the director and Pirate King] has been in some sort of accident," she said, "I'm a little vague on the details, but I thought you should know."

"Thanks." I said. At the time, I meant it, in the sense that yes, I did like to be kept apprised of things like that. (She also reports that I said, "That might be the worst news I've had all week. Or month. Maybe year." which was not inaccurate). Afterwards, I would have given anything not to be the person people call. Call they did, all day long, and the following picture took shape: R had been hit by a car while riding his motorcycle, sustaining an open fracture of the leg. We were down a Pirate King with three days until the first performance. (For those unfamiliar with the show, the Pirate King is a distinctly non-trivial role).

As we took stock of our options, it transpired that none of us had really ever considered something happening to R. We'd never had understudies for anyone, but we had especially never worried about R, up to and including not always writing down his blocking. He was the director (we thought), he had good instincts (we thought), he'd be fine even if he invented the whole thing on the spot! He would not, it seemed, be fine if he had to invent it from the hospital, which is where doctors confined him for a week at the very least. So our options were: M, the production manager, who had just returned from what had been intended as vacation but had turned out to be a miserable trip to Chicago and who had never been asked to look at the PK, only Samuel and Major General; K, a policeman and pirate baritone who would be vocally very well suited but whose absence it would prove difficult to work around, and me.

The reason I (sopraniest soprano you ever did see) was on this list is that I had memorized the show. The whole show. I could do all of it by myself with puppets. I'm not particularly proud of this, it was mostly a byproduct of running lines with Frederic who was such a miserable memorizer that I spent about an hour and a half every weeknight being every part except Frederic, and feeding him his own lines about half of that time. I was the last resort, for obvious reasons. I spent all that day fielding calls, making calls, doing emails, working (I was at work), and telling myself it would not come to that. M and K had all day to figure out if it was even possible for them to memorize the whole role in two days.

M called that night, saying he could walk it, but couldn't talk it. K called the next morning to say that regretfully, he couldn't memorize it in the time allotted. R called from the hospital the next afternoon to say that I was it. So, the Thursday before our Saturday performance, I became the Pirate King.

This is the face I made.

Here ends chapter 1 of our saga. To follow: opening night.

My name is Rebecca (Hello, Rebecca!)

... and I am a bad blogger. I have been a bad blogger for about two months now. I had determined to become a better blogger this glorious month of May, but events conspire against me. I owe you the brilliance of my observational and deductive (not to mention descriptive) powers as applied to the concert I was in the weekend before this past one ("Music for Dead People: a Couple of Requiems for the Discerning Listener," or at least, that's what I would have called it). I would like to tell you of the adventurous romp through Seoul that weekend became, and all the musical geekery leading up to and away from it, but there are a few things in the way.

First is the new musical production by the same company. We are putting on The Pirates of Penzance or The Slave of Duty, by Messirs Gilbert and Sullivan. We are putting it on with a full production time of one month. Those of you not Shakespearean actors may find this shocking. It is. A month to learn a 200+ page score and script in all its lovely British nuance is not a lot of time. I am the stage manager, or assistant production manager, and the dialogue-y accent person. (Personally, I prefer the call-sign Bosun - I get a whistle! - and Layman's Phonetician. Or Pygmalion. I haven't decided). So far it is ludicrously, but delightfully busy in every imaginable way. Saturday from 1 p.m to 8 or 9, and Sunday from 3 p.m to 8 or 9 is when the actors and actresses are called. Busybodies like me will stay up to two hours after that (but personally, I won't on Sundays anymore, as that soundly compromises my train-making abilities). During the week, there are notes to review and meetings to be had via Skype, some with the dreaded Management, and some with actors to do accent-y stuff.

To add to this list o' stuff, the foreign teachers under the GLE schools' umbrella are having a debate. I'm not sure why, but I do know it's about whether kids should be taught only by native English speakers. We are the con side and will argue that students should learn from both. This debate is next Wednesday. We discovered the teams and the topic today. We are supposed to occupy an hour. Luckily, one of our teammates has professed some dance experience. Nothing like a little language-education soft-shoe to loosen judges up.

In three days, I discovered an hour ago, I am supposed to give a presentation with two other Korean teachers about teaching reading . Internet... I have never taught reading. Of any kind. To anyone. It transpires that next quarter, foreign teachers will begin teaching reading at the most advanced level, but the presentation is supposed to be about teaching reading to the most basic level. This bodes ill, people. My hope is, at this moment, built on nothing less than Google's might and the search string "ESL/EFL reading pedagogy." (If you have knowledge, dear reader, which you have been keeping by in case of a rainy reading-pedagogy day, today is the day to let it shine forth!)

So really, I'm gearing up to be an even worse blogger in the near future. In the meantime, for pictorial versions of many of the stories I would tell if I were a better blogger, check out roketship.

Where all the...

... foreigners are expected to be astonishingly, irredeemably, heartbreakingly stupid.

Returned to the bank today to restore the check to my account. Forty-five minutes later, victory of a sort!* The teller called Avalon again, (at least this time I was right there, and it wasn't a huge and unpleasant surprise) and spent somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes in back-and-forth with one of the Korean teachers in the elementary campus (not even in my own office anymore, this privacy thing is really a winner) and with me. Most of it was them trying to convince me I really didn't want to put the check back in. Some minutes were spent talking to other bank people, and a great many were spent frowning at the screen and tapping away, as though some magical key combination would make me leave. (I can't really blame her, though. After the whole check thing and the ATM incident, I imagine they have flagged me at that bank. There will come a day when they will bar the doors if they see me coming).

The interpreter started by telling me the woman was sure I could send the check. I explained that the post office woman had not agreed. Was I sure? Well, she had definitely refused to send it and written down the words, "banned item" for me, just to be clear, so yes. Pretty sure. Did I know the interpreter had an American husband to whom she had sent money successfully through the post before? No, and congratulations to you both, but I was still sure I did not want to continue carrying around a functional cashier's check, redeemable at Citibank. I wanted the money back in my account. I understand accounts, I understand money that stays in them. This was truly All I Wanted. I was warned  that there would be a pretty serious penalty for undoing the check. Was I totally sure I didn't want to go back to the post office and try again? In the end, I got to pay $22 to unwrite the thing.

From the exchange, it eventually came out that it is not illegal to post a money order. It is illegal to send a check through the mail without an envelope. I spent ten minutes getting told by the post office that my check was a banned item, and a further forty-five minutes today undoing it, because the post-office lady thought I was showing it to her with the intent of sending it through the mail without an envelope.


Really? Really, Korea?

*This is the traditional call of triumph in the perennially Pyrrhic war of the Individual versus The Established Bureaucracy. It is optimally accompanied by the also-traditional Three Big Finger Twirls.

This Author as a Person of Interest to Men in Fedoras

Internet, I am a suspicious character! Like anyone else, I'd like to be writing an entry with this title about how someone looking just like Indiana Jones in his heyday is remarkably interested in me on multiple levels. Sadly, I am writing because I have had a paranoia-inducing experience that leads to late-night, wide-eyed wonderings about G-Men.

As for anyone who earned money in the US last year, I spent the days leading up to the Ides of April crouched over the many lines, forms, and checklists of the taxpayer. For the first time in my young life, I owed the government more than it owed me. Yay, solvency! Unfortunately, my solvent crowns and pounds and guineas were not banking compatible with the IRS. I needed to use my American account for my American taxes (funny thing, that). Having a whopping $40 in the US and no time to move money from here to there, my dad kindly floated me the amount I needed. It was supposed to be a matter of a few days of post time to resolve the issue. My taxes were paid, in the meantime I would get a money order and mail it, for less than a wire transfer, and scant days later, everything would be peachy. For the record, I am neither a mouse nor a man, but I have a lot of sympathy for them and their plans.

First, I went to the bank, my bank, trying to get a money order, because I was not sure I could buy one at the post office. Because they are sent everywhere from the United States, I foolishly thought they would be available to send to the US in most/all places. It took a good bit of convincing that yes, I wanted a money order and no, I couldn't/didn't want to wire money, that being the normal Korean thing to do. I filled out more forms than I think I should have had to, and finally got a check-like thing that could be redeemed at Citibank in North America. Triumph.

Then, I went to the post office, where the language barrier barred me from getting anything more than frustration out of my encounter with the service woman. I wanted to be sure I got the stupid check insured, as it was quite a bit of money, so I made no bones about the fact that it was a check. I even showed it to her. She spoke very fast and then went to find another woman who took great pains to show me that it was money, or of a value above zero, and therefore could not be sent. I was naturally confused, as I had asked at the bank that this be a money order, because I wanted to send it to my father in the US. At the bank, they assured me that yes, they had given me the right thing, a money order for the sending to people. I pressed the post-office lady to tell me more, but what ended up happening was that she took further great pains to tell me that what I had was paper, not money. You may notice this neatly countered her previous statement about why she couldn't send the thing. Without more Korean, I could not hope to prevail, so I left.

It was recommended that I simply submerge the check in a letter and send the letter certified mail. Really wanting to just send the damned thing and have done with it, I wrote a (quite nice, actually) letter, bought an attractive blue envelope, and put the package together. I wasn't able to get to the post office again in the same day, so I waited and thought I'd send it today.

Here's the paranoia: someone called the school, asking about me and the money I withdrew. They tell me it was the bank, though my coworkers managed to tease me for about ten minutes that it was the government looking for me, but I am still very creeped out. The bank has my cell phone number. They do not need to call my employer about my banking activity and should not have done so. Maybe they did it for ease of communication, knowing my Korean is crap, but they just spoke to a secretary, outlined the story of it for her, and went on their way. I only found out about it because the front desk lady came in and spoke at length to my head teacher, who then asked me about it. That is neither common sense nor respect for my privacy as a client and it is extremely unnerving.

The annoyance in this to me is the whole right hand/left hand, not-knowing-what-the-other's-up-to element. I was specific at the bank about what I wanted and what I was planning to do. Assurance, assurance, huzzah, huzzah. The post office was evidently not apprised that this was supposed to be an assured and huzzah-ful affair. Apparently, per the teachers I work with, it is common knowledge that sending money through the post is forbidden. I would have thought that commonality would have somehow trickled up, down or sideways to the people at the bank. Furthermore, it's my money! It's not like I was sending a check on credit and they needed to investigate my risk factor. It is nobody's business if I want to use that money to repay my parents or buy myself a dancing hedgehog farm.

Anyway, am still irked, put out, and a bit on the paranoid side, but slightly mollified by the mental image of the dancing hedgehogs. May your days be full of respect for your personal information, and ease of navigating torturous inter-institutional waters.

Hello, Internet. I have been absent from your haunts because I have been sick. A lot. More. Plus. In addition. Also. I am now at the point that although it sounds like my lungs are trying to make a break for it, they are really just grumbling about how they could secede if they really wanted to. During this latest and greatest negotiation of systems various in the pursuit of rest for the relief from fever and its accompanying throes, I renewed my faith in the whole nationalized medicine thing, and lost my faith in bureaucratic goings-on, namely in my hagwon.

So I was sick before, and then it went away for a bit after Dr. #1, and then it came back and brought all its friends. One of its friends was a fever, which left me shivering and miserable on Easter Eve. I will not swear that there was no pity party. There may have been hats.

Easter day saw me trucking down to the 24/7 clinic where I met my boss (who very nicely came and took me to the doctor) and saw a new doctor.  He spoke very nice English, gave me a prescription for some spiffy drugs, and sent me on my way. My boss was very sympathetic and I went home as hopeful for a swift recovery as I could be. I should note here that my concept of "recovery" is the one inculcated from childhood in most Americans (I think). As most school systems seem to believe, you return to public life when you have spent 24 hours free of fever, lest you endanger said public. I thought this was common knowledge/sense, but it is apparently a Western conceit.

The following day, still feeling like death despite drugs, I phoned my boss, to double check that no, I should not come in to work. It was like suggesting that plastic sheep were running Tajikistan's puppet government in a deadly pursuit of all the world's yams. So weird it's not even wrong. When finally I made it clear that yes, the noise of a convulsing water buffalo that kept coming out of my throat, and its accompanying chartreuse eject, would prevent me from teaching effectively, I was told the process by which I could procure one day of rest.

Step one, return to the clinic. Obtain doctor's note of diagnosis. Bring said note to school. Return home.

If this already seems ridiculous to you (as it does to me, being, in fact, a legal adult employed by the school, not a student thereat), no worries, how it actually happened is even better!

I went to the clinic. I saw a different doctor this time, whose English was distinctly subpar. Eventually I whipped out my legal pad, drew a stick figure of myself and an arrow to the word "hagwon" (in Hangul) with a question mark. The doctor nodded earnestly, told me I needed a shot and meds, and tried to look in my tiny mouth to see my normal-sized throat. I tried to explain that actually, I had been there yesterday, and still had meds to take, I really just wanted a piece of paper saying "yes, sick." He waved that off and conveyed that I should finish those meds and take his new ones next. The shot would happen either way. Lacking the arguing stamina one gets from being afebrile, I may or may not have said, "Whatever, man, it's cool." and followed orders. A nurse gave me a shot in the butt and a paper to show the hagwon, I paid them four dollars, and I left, picking up my new drugs on the way out.

Upon arrival at the hagwon, I brought my paper to my boss and waited as she called the clinic to verify that indeed, they had made that fancy paper just for me, and I had not been hiding some heretofore unexplored knowledge of Korean and forgery. Satisfied on that front, she brought the thing in to show the owner. When he was satisfied, she came back to say I could go home and take my snot with me, but if they could not find someone to teach my middle class, I would still have to come back.

In the end, she did find someone, and I was well pleased that indeed, I could have one recovery day from the flu before I stuffed myself back into rooms full of the germ factories that are children. Huzzah.

It seems so bizarre that a country with such accessible and affordable healthcare has no leeway for the patient to take care of him or her self. There are only two degrees of health, according to Korean employers: death's door, and bloom-of-health. I was told that if I were so sick I was actually in the hospital, I could bring my doctor's note the following day.  Perhaps they are cracking down on wanton attempts to influence doctoral judgment, but it's just plain sense to wait until people aren't contagious before bringing them back to highly populated areas.

Anyway, I am down to only the occasional honking cry of the Enfeebled Anglo, and hope to be all the way better at life and posting things soon.

CostCo... Glorious Font of Consumerism

Although I spent the day miming,* I did have a profitable and sociable outing to Daejeon's CostCo (I wouldn't have chosen to go today, but all the people I know with memberships were going, and I don't actually know how to get there by myself, so along I went). I finally found a reasonable duvet for my bed! Up til now, I was using two really chintzy twin comforters together, but now I have one that is nice, and with it I am well pleased. Also, I have enough canned tomatoes that I need never worry about being able to make pasta sauce again. Ever. The third marvel is that they had tortillas! I have had no Mexican food available to me since my arrival, neither in restaurants nor grocery stores, and I really like tacos and quesadillas, so I am very excited. Seeing as how it was CostCo, I am now the happy owner of 40 tortillas, and plan to have something of a party.

The last, glorious piece of the puzzle is BACON. Korea doesn't do bacon. They use the same part of the pig, it's very widely available, but they don't cure it. When you are lucky enough to get to a restaurant that has bacon on the menu, real bacon, they do not cook it properly, but leave it a floppy, anemic pink color that's so stomach-turning I have just stopped ordering it. I am, however, the ecstatic owner of two pounds of actual bacon. To be cooked, properly, by yours truly. VICTORY! (There will be no party this time. This is a private sacrifice of my arteries to the heathen piggy gods).

*I have something of a cold, in the same way the ocean has something of water, and it has totally stolen my voice away.

And America is one step closer...

Being sick and working for Avalon is not a winning combination. Being sick and being in South Korea? Pretty awesome, actually.

I called my head teacher this morning, asking to see a doctor, and she told me to meet her at the school an hour early. Once there, she led me one block and around a corner to a clinic, where there was a form to fill out. A form. Like, just one. They ushered me down a hallway to a nice waiting room where I stayed for all of five minutes before seeing a doctor, which took perhaps ten minutes (and would have been even briefer if everything had not needed to be translated) as it was determined that I had no fever, so probably no bacterial infection, and I should mainline Sudafed (슈 다 펟 ) and Robitussin (or whatever it's called in Korean) and some other usually-OTC's for two days. The doctor explained that if I were still feeling bad after the two days and all the meds, I should return. I thanked him and we left, paying a whole $4.20 on the way out. Down the hall from there was the pharmacy, where we took the sheet the doctor had given me, gave it to the pharmacist, and a whopping two minutes and $3.60 later, I had meds for three days. No waiting, no consternation about coverage, just done.

I'm so impressed, it's almost okay that I have to work today.