Noraebangin' and Teachin'

It’s been over a week since my last blog, so there is quite a bit to catch up on. It’s hard to know exactly where to start, so I’ll go back to the beginning of last week.

The school week once again found me with nothing to do. Since classes didn’t start until just yesterday, I was faced with another week of having nothing to do. We did have some crazy weather though, two days of snow, two days of sun, one day of warm wind, and one day that a sickeningly humid… crazy. My typical day would look something like this. Show up to work around 8:45am. Check in with my co-teacher, and then go to my classroom in the English Center. At this point I would basically sit around and stare at the computer, check my Facebook continuously, chat with people and just generally wait around until it was time for lunch. At 12:05 I would go back to the teachers’ office, and then go to lunch. Lunch differs daily, but you can always count on having rice, some kind of soup and of course, Kimchi. Always Kimchi. Some lunches are more exciting than others. Some have fish mixed in, others have unknown ingredients, some have tentacles… all are pretty damn good. After lunch I would go back to my office, and wait around until 5 when it was time to go home. There were a couple of days where the after lunch activities varied. On Thursday and Friday for example I had to come help make up new level tests.

Wednesday was the most eventful day of last week. Wednesday found me getting through lunch, and then, at 3 going and playing volleyball with the staff. This is always a fun event. Sadly I will no longer be able to participate as I will be working from 1 to 9, but it was fun while it lasted. After we finished volleyball everyone went to their respective offices and packed up for the day. At 5, when the day was over we all got together and went and had a full staff dinner. The Wednesday before we had had a male staff dinner, this dinner was for the entire staff. It started all 60 or so members of the staff piling into a number of cars and driving to the other side of Namchang, where there was a nice pork BBQ restaurant. We started the event off with introductions of the entire staff. Starting with the first grade teachers, then second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. Then they introduced the administrative staff, and last, but certainly not least, the foreigners. While everyone else was able to just stand up and bow, we had to go to the front of the restaurant (which was completely filled by us), be introduced, bow and then we could go back to our seats. While we were up there Matt was kind enough to remark to me under his breath, ‘this kind of feels like the end scene of Star Wars,’ at which point I had to do everything I could not to start laughing my ass off. Once we were sitting back down it was time to eat.

A note on Korean BBQ: For anyone who has never had the pleasure of having this kind of food let me paint a lovely picture of the surroundings and goings on. The Restaurant will usually contain a number of tables, all low to the ground, with cushions to sit on. In the center of the table will be either a small BBQ type thing in which hot coals are placed, or a burner of some kind. Someone will come and light the burner, or add coals and then bring you a plate of raw meat. In this case pork, but there is a number of varieties. Once you have your meat someone at the table, usually the oldest, will start cooking it on the BBQ. Side dishes are also brought out and things like onions, mushrooms, garlic and kimchi can then be added to the grill along with the meat. Once it has cooked to an appropriate degree, the person doing the cooking will pick up a slab of meat with tongs, and then, using a pair of sheers/scissors, will cut the meat into smaller, more manageable pieces. You then let it cook a bit longer, to your own taste, and then pick it off the grill with your chopsticks. Reaching over people is perfectly normal and acceptable. Once you have your meat there is a number of ways to eat it. Either simply dipping it in sauce, or more commonly, placing it on a leaf of lettuce or some such thing, adding some additional ingredients like sauce, kimchi, onions, garlic or whatever, wrapping it all up together in the lettuce and then eating it. Once the plate of meat has been consumed you finish the meal with rice and soup. It’s amazing. Oh, and did I mention the beer and soju. Those flow freely… very freely.

After around 2 hours the meal was complete and most of the Koreans were intoxicated to some degree. I myself, having partaken in the drinking as well, was feeling pretty content. This could only mean one thing, it was time to go to a Noraebang. A noraebang is a place with rooms you can rent out with your group, in which you sing karaoke style. Copious amounts of alcohol are of course available and everyone is expected to join in with the singing. So here is the situation I found myself in: I am in this small room with 20+ Koreans. Matt and I are the only foreigners. I am having flashbacks of my experience the week before and am not wanting to repeat it. There’s a crazy light show going on, involving lots of colors and a strobe light. The principle and the vice principle are singing a duet. There is a rack of beer on the table. People are pushing me up to the front telling me to dance and sing. This is, by far, one of the weirdest, craziest, most fun experiences I have had. I don’t know how I managed to make it out of there while maintaining some level of sobriety… but I found a way. I also ended up singing a number of songs with Matt, most notably ‘All you need is Love’. This ended with Matt and me holding the microphones, while swaying back and forth with all of the Koreans, arms around each other, at once.

Finally it was time to leave the noraebang after a couple hours. However, Koreans being the hardcore drinkers they are, were not ready to call it a night. At this point I was reasonably buzzed, to slightly drunk. I really didn’t want to get any further than that, but, if you want to be respected by your peers in this country you can’t back down. So, I had to get tricky. We went to restaurant where we ordered eel, beer and soju. The eel was damn tasty, the beer was about what you’d expect, and the soju was as awful as ever. I can handle drinking beer, that’s not a problem. It’s the soju that kills me. It’s nasty stuff, totally sneaks up on you. It’s nowhere near as bad as pisco, mind you, but it’s still pretty rough. Matt kept reassuring me that as long as I could keep with them, keep my cool, and control myself, I’d be in. So I did the best I could to avoid the shots, took only half shots when the time came, and resorted to some other trickery, and in the end I was able to maintain and still feel pretty good by the time it was time to go home. We left at 11, which was imperative because the pizza place closed at 11:30, and if there’s one thing we really needed it was pizza. So we grabbed some pizzas, went back to my place, ate them, and then turned in. Song Ho, my co-teacher, was pretty drunk, so he stayed at my place and slept on a mat on my floor. It was quite the evening, and the next morning came far too soon, but I felt pretty alright all things considered.

Friday was another exciting day. For one thing, I got my alien registration card. This allowed me to set up a bank account… though I still have no money to put in it… oh well, soon enough. It also happened to be Matt’s birthday. So after school I went home, took a shower, changed the clothes, and headed into Ulsan. The night started appropriately enough at a pizza place. From there we moved on to a local bar. We stayed here for some time. There was around 30 people there that night. We got there and had some beers starting at around 8:30. By 11 or so I was really hungry, so I talked Gerard into walking to McDonalds with me. Nothing is better when your drinking than fries and a couple of cheeseburgers. While we were there we talked to a couple of Korean men who were kind enough to inform me that I was handsome. Strange this country. We made our way back to the bar and hung out there until around 12:30 at which point is was, once again, time for a noraebang. This Noraebang experience was a bit different in that it was mostly foreigners there. This didn’t detract from the experience; it just meant I knew more of the songs. Unfortunately this also meant that I sang a lot more. Which was really a pity for everyone else I’m sure. But regardless, I had a really good time. I think we made our way back to Namchang at around 4AM. We were somehow able to cram five people in the taxi, which was great because it meant we barely had to pay anything.

I woke up the next afternoon, around 1:30, feeling really good. I wasn’t expecting to feel good, but I was actually pretty well rested. It was nice. Everyone else was waking up around the same time too. I got on facebook and talked to Cat who asked if I wanted to go grab lunch with her, Clare and Gerard. I was really hungry, and they were getting a seafood soup at a place next to my house, so I was all over that. I met up with them around 2:30 and went into the restaurant where we were treated to a heaping bowl of soup which consisted of homemade rice noodles, clams and shrimp. SOOOO GOOD! And only 5000 won per person. What a fantastic country. After that we went and hung out on the roof of my apartment for an hour or so. It was really fun. There was a St. Patrick’s Day party that night at one of the foreigner bars in Ulsan, so we decided to meet up and go check it out later. I went home and did some laundry, and then met up with Gerard at 9. We grabbed a quick cup of coffee and then went to Ulsan. This was my first foreigner bar experience, and I have to say, I really wasn’t impressed. It all goes back to my theory about hanging out with other Americans when I was in Chile; if I’d wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have gone to another country. So, while it was pretty fun, I was happy to leave at the end of the night. I can easily imagine avoiding places like that in the future. Just really not my scene. It was like looking around the bar and being back in the States, then looking out the window and being in Korea… I found myself looking out the window a lot.

This more or less brings us to the beginning of the week, and therefore the beginning of my real teaching experience. Monday I started on my actual schedule, which means that I got to school at noon, had lunch and then started working. The first day was level testing. Basically all of the students come in at different levels, so we have to give them tests to find out how much they know. My first group was all third graders, and mostly third grade girls. The good thing about third graders is that they don’t have an attitude… the bad thing is that they have waaaaaaay to much energy. Now, evidently I was not supposed to be giving this test alone, as I didn’t speak Korean and they didn’t understand much English. But this is Korea, and what’s supposed to happen is frequently lost in translation. So I found myself in a room with a bunch of Korean third graders who didn’t seem to understand me, and who kept asking me questions in Korean, which I couldn’t answer. This was two hour test also. A two hour test which no one informed how to give them. So I had to make it up as I went. It worked out well enough though. It was pretty crazy, but it was also fun. The test was in two parts, and the second part was an individual interview. There is something somewhat disconcerting when you sit down with a Korean child, ask them what food they like, and they just stare at you, without any comprehension. It’s at that point you realize you may have a problem.
The second group I tested was from 4th, 5th and 6th grade. This time I was fortunate enough to have a Korean teacher with me. So things went way, way smoother. Though I did have some problems with the interview questions. Some students were able to answer me in almost fluent English, on the other hand, one girl couldn’t stop laughing every time I asked her a question. Uncontrollable laughter, which I was informed, stemmed from the fact that she liked me so much. Silly children. By the time we finished it was 8pm, and it was time to go home. I was pretty worn out by this point, but not nearly as worn out as I would be the following day.

Which brings us to the following day, AKA today. Today was the first day I actually taught. Of course, I didn’t know I was actually teaching until I got to school. Yes, Korea operates on a need to know basis, but evidently you don’t need to know until an hour before you are supposed to do something. Awesome. So, since we had just received out books, hadn’t had a chance to look at them at all or anything, I decided it was time for some introduction and Icebreakers. So I put together a quick slide show about myself, made up some questions for the kids and hoped to God that this would take me through a full 50 minutes of class. It didn’t… but thank God for hangman. My first group was intermediate, older students, all in 5th and 6th grade. The lesson went pretty well, but I was left with more free time than I had wanted. I had one girl in the class who I can already tell will be a major pain in the ass. She is in 6th grade and she is anti authority. You say do something and she looks at you and says no. I had to get angry at her once to make her stop doing whatever it was she was up to. The second class was all intermediate 3rd graders… in other words, the most advanced 3rd graders. They were a lot more fun. They were all hyper, and loud and crazy, but fun. This class was almost all little girls. So far I have found out that little Korean girls love me. The bad side of that is that they all want my attention constantly. Which means a lot of screaming and shrieking. I’ve decided to go by Tim in my classes because it is easier than Ryan, so I constantly hear, ‘Tim, Tim, Tim, TIM, TIM, TIM!!!’ in piercing little 3rd grade Korean girl voices. Either that or ‘Teacha’, teacha’, teacha’ TEACHA’, TEACHA’!!!’. They are fun, and very cute, but I am sure that they will slowly drain the life out of me. The third class I taught was all the advanced students. This class was really easy because they all understood me perfectly and answered me perfectly. It was almost too easy. So I will have to up the difficulty in that class. My last class of the night was slightly less advanced, and also very loud. There were also some potential trouble makers in this group too. One boy sitting in the back of the room, with his super cool, long, side sweeping hair, decided he wanted to roll up his question sheet like a cigarette and pretend to smoke. Don’t even know what to do about that. Don’t even know where to start. Oh well.

So, what have I learned in the last couple weeks? Noraebangs are really fun. When the weather is nice Namchang is really cool. Korean food is still awesome. You can never be sure what weather you’ll have. And from my students; I have a beard, I have blue eyes, and I have a small head. Hmmm… Alright then. Well, that’s about it for now. Chao.

One Week Down

Sometimes you don’t realize the small things in everyday life that you take totally for granted until you don’t have them anymore. Simple things like being able to read the labels on boxes that will inform you whether or not you are buying laundry detergent, dish washer detergent or fabric softener. I ran into this problem just the other day. I finally got my first 300000 won (around $300 US) as a part of my settling money from my school. So I decide that it was time to take care of some essential. First on the list was laundry detergent. So I went to the store that is next to my apartment and found the appropriate aisle… and then realized I can’t read Korean. So I sat and stared for awhile before eventually giving up with the hopes of coming back the next day after consulting the dictionary. Today I went back and was able to figure it out. That’s when I was faced with my second hurtle, trying to decipher the washing machine. Again, not being able to read Korean made for an interesting experience. Thankfully, with the help of the convenient little pictures, and pressing a lot of random buttons, I was able to figure that out too. It’s always the little things that you don’t think about in your normal routine that cause the problems.

So I started school this past week. And by started school I mean I went to school, and then spent the entire time sitting around with nothing to do. As it turns out, the classes I’ll be teaching don’t start until the 15th of March. So for now I have a loooooot of free time. Not that that’s too bad. It has allowed me to take care of some things, like getting a physical, and staring at the wall for hours on end. My first day of school started off interestingly enough. The day started by introducing all the new teachers to the staff. In Korea public school teachers change schools every two years or so. So there were a lot of new teachers at Onyang elementary, myself included. The introduction took the form of all of us walking to the front of the room and then having our names read out loud individually. After each persons’ name was read they would step to the center, bow to the room and then go back and take their seat. Guess whose name was read last… that’s right, me. It was all good though. After that we were introduced to the school via the video broadcast system that we have. So again, each teacher stood in front of the camera individually, had their name read out loud, and then bowed. When that was all done we went back to our respective offices. At this point I didn’t have an office, so I went to the teacher’s office and sat around for awhile. Then the entire staff went to lunch at a local restaurant. I have decided to eat anything and everything that is put in front of me in this country, at least once. So I have been able to eat some pretty cool/delicious food so far. I don’t know what half of it is, but it’s a good time. When we got done with lunch I went over to the Onyang English Center, where I’ll be teaching, and got oriented. It’s a really nice building. I’ve been told it’s only three or so years old. So every room has a 50 inch TV and some other nice technology. The day ended at 5pm and when I was done I went into the city to grab a cup of coffee with Hannah. It was a pretty good first day, though a bit uneventful.

Wednesday came around and found me again staring at the wall for the first half of the day. We had lunch in the cafeteria that day and I was happy to discover more delicious Korean food. After lunch my co-teacher took me to the hospital in Ulsan to get a physical. I had to take care of that before I could get my Alien Registration Card, which I need to be able to get a phone, internet, a bank account and basically everything. It was a pretty quick affair. We went in, filled out some paperwork, they checked my vision, my hearing, took some chest X-rays, checked my teeth, weighed me measured me, took some blood and I was on my way. When we got back to school I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was volleyball day. Every Wednesday all the staff gets together and plays volleyball. I didn’t know this beforehand so I was stuck playing in dress shoes and slacks, but it was still really fun. It was pretty hilarious too. The Koreans take their activities seriously. So each person had on a nice track suit. I hear they get all decked out for day hikes too, so I’m excited for the weather to get better. That night the male staff members had dinner with the new principal. This turned out to be a hell of a good time. We went to this nice restaurant just out of the city. The food was spectacular. Duck with vegetables grilled up right there at the table, and what I was told was ‘mountain pig.’ I don’t really know what make it ‘mountain’ pig, but it was sooooooo good. Where there is food in Korea there is also alcohol, and lots of it. Drinking is a national past time of the Koreans. So we drank, a lot. And in Korea it is impolite to refuse a drink when it is offered to you. So more drinking occurred. After about two hours of this I was feeling pretty damn good. We finished dinner and my co-teacher decided that what we needed to do was drink more. At this point it was Matt, me, my co-teacher, and another Korean teacher. It was only 7pm, and I was feeling only a little drunk, and he was the oldest, which in Korea makes him the boss, so we obliged. This took the form of going to the store and buying two bottles of Soju, two bottles of some horrifically sweet Korean wine, and five bottles of makkeolli. Needless to say we didn’t finish all of this. But that didn’t stop us from drinking a ton of it, all in about 45 minutes. So I was pretty hammered by 8 or 8:30pm. Not good. Song Ho, my co-teacher, was passed out in the bathroom by this point. I made my way upstairs to my apartment after an unfortunate incident involving Matt’s sink, and a revisiting of everything I had eaten in the past four hours. I think this turned out to be a blessing in disguise though, because if I had gone to sleep with all of that in my system I would have been in even worse shape the next day.

7:30am came very quickly that Thursday. I have had a lot of hangovers in my life, but that was one of the worst as far as having to be at work. It was good that I continued to have nothing to do, because I was utterly useless all day long. School passed by long and slow that day. I didn’t quite feel right until about 3pm. And even then I wasn’t 100%. I did however get to have pizza that night, so I was pretty happy about that. I also went down to the local ‘coffee’ shop with Matt, Cat, Clare and Gerard that evening which was really nice. Friday was another fun filled day of doing nothing at school. I did however find out that my classes won’t be starting until the 15th, that I will be teaching 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th graders, and that I will have no more than 16 kids per class, but probably closer to 11 or 12. After I was done with my nothing I went into the city to have dinner with some people. It was a pleasant sort of evening. Again with the damn good food. Had a couple beers, but nothing crazy, not even enough for a proper buzz really. But it was still a good time. Today was spent hanging out around the apartment, figuring out my laundry situation, and being generally lazy, which is always nice. Also I had more pizza.

I have been here for just over a week now. That really isn’t enough time to judge everything, but so far I feel like I am adjusting to Korea faster than I adjusted to Chile. I think that this is for two reasons. First off, before coming here to Korea I hadn’t spent more than a few months in a single place for awhile. I was already used to moving around, and think that has helped. Second, I think finding and fitting in with the community of foreigners here has helped a lot. It is really nice to have some people around who know what’s going on and who can show you the ropes. Yeah, it’s only been a week, but so far I love it here. I know that that will probably change. Things like this tend to come in waves. One week you’re happy, the next week you’re miserable. But let’s face it, that’s just life in general. That idea doesn’t just apply to living in another country. We all go through different phases like that, even in if you’ve been living in the same town your whole life. So I’m not worried about it. I’m just going to keep on doing what I do, try to keep an open mind, and get the most out of this experience. Chao

First Blog From South Korea

Well, I have now been in South Korea for four days, I can tell you right now that I love it. Damn fine country. Nice, friendly people. Delicious food. But, I will get to that in a bit. First things first, the story of how I got here.

I left Olympia on Feb. 23rd. Like when I went to Chile I caught a shuttle up to the airport. My flight was at 5:30PM so I got picked up at 1:30PM. The ride up was relatively uneventful. I had a chance to talk to a lady from Minnesota about travel and such, so that was nice, helped pass the time. I got up to Seatac around 2:30PM, and checked in. Then I went to my gate and passed through the fastest security line ever. No one was in line, it was nice. I got to my gate and hung out, made some calls and got onto my computer. As it turned out, one of the other teachers, a girl named Avery, was passing through Seatac and taking the same flight as me to LAX. So we met up and started talking. The flight to LA wasn’t terribly eventful. When we got to LA we had a hell of a time finding our next terminal, what with it being in a separate building. But we got there. I made the mistake of forgetting to empty my water bottle before I went through security, and so had to go through the line twice. But we had a long layover so it wasn’t a problem. I knew that another teacher going to Ulsan was one the same flight as Avery and me. A guy named Jeremy. I got the gate but there was no sign of him. So I made some last phone calls, cancelled my cell phone service and waited. Eventually Jeremy showed up. His flight had been late from St. Louis, so he didn’t get there until around 11PM. We talked and hung out until our next flight was ready to leave. This would be a 13 hour flight over the Pacific to Seoul. I had the good fortune to get a window seat so I was able to spend the majority of the flight sleeping. Which was lucky because 13 hours is a long time to just sit and watch the same movies over and over again. I was sitting next to a very strange woman though. When I woke up she started telling me all about her acting days. She was either the most ditzy woman in the world, or she was completely drunk. I couldn’t tell which… maybe a bit of both.

We landed at Incheon airport in Seoul at around 7AM local time. We got our bags and went through customs. Then we exchanged some money, and went and found a nice quiet patch of floor to sit on so we could use the free wifi at the airport. Our next flight left at 1PM from a different airport entirely. So we had time to kill. After using the internet for an hour or so we went and caught a train to Gimpo airport. This was an adventure because we had to haul all of our bags the whole way, no carts. I was pouring sweat by the end. After a thirty minute train ride, and some wandering around, we finally got to Gimpo airport. From there we would take an hour flight to Ulsan. We had some time so we went and got some food. Then we went through security and went to our gate. We had a two hour wait until our flight so we talked and waited. Finally we got on the plane… which got to the runway… which then stopped because of mechanical problems… which allowed enough time to pass for the weather to deteriorate… which cancelled our flight… and all other flights to Ulsan that day. So we were suddenly stuck in Seoul. All the things we had been worried about had gone off without a hitch. This was supposed to be the easy part. A short, one hour flight to Ulsan, then up to others to tell us what to do and where to go. But alas, it was not meant to be.

We got back to the terminal and tried to decide what to do. Fortunately we had been given a number to call in case of a problem like this. So we called Scott Kim, who told us we should try to exchange the tickets for a flight the next day and then get a hotel room. So we exchanged our tickets for the first flight to Ulsan the next day, leaving at 6:50AM. Then one of Scott Kim’s associates came to the airport and helped us find a hotel to stay at. He called the hotel who told him they would be sending a shuttle to pick us up along with all our many bags. Well, that shuttle turned out to be a sedan. We had to cram all of our bags into the car, and then fold ourselves into it as well. It was not the best car ride I have ever experienced. But we got to a hotel and the driver said he would take us back at 5:30AM the next day. We rented two rooms for the night, one for Avery and one for myself and Jeremy. And so it came to pass that my first night in South Korea was spent sharing a bed with another man. Hell of a story though.

We got up the next day went to the airport. And SUCCESS! We made it to Ulsan with almost no difficulty. From there our various co-teachers came and picked us up to take us to our apartments and schools. We made plans to meet up at 10am with the rest of the group of new teachers and then took off. My co-teacher picked me up last. His name was Myeong Song Ho, or just Song Ho. He helped me take my bags to his car, then we left so he could show me my school and apartment before bringing me to where I was supposed to meet everyone for lunch. As we started off I couldn’t help but notice that we were leaving Ulsan behind us… and we just kept going. Next thing I know we are pulling into a small city called Namchang, fifteen minutes south of Ulsan. Didn’t see that one coming. He took me to my school, which is called Onyang Elementary School. He showed me around and introduced me to some people. Then we went to find my apartment. This proved to be rather difficult, and it took us around thirty minutes of driving around to find it. We went up and I dropped by bags off. Then he took me back to the school for a moment before driving back up to Ulsan so I could meet with everyone.

I met up with the group in front of the Hyundai Department Store. This was the second moment I felt discomforted by where I was going to be living. Everyone else was talking about how they lived just a few blocks away, or just on the other side of the city. I, on the other hand, lived completely out of the city, in a different city. A much smaller city, that took 15 minutes to get to by car or taxi, and 40 minutes to get to by bus. “Well,” I thought to myself, “That blows.” But oh well, such is life. When the whole group was there we went to a restaurant and had some amazing Korean food. Korean food is incredible and I am sooooo happy I get to eat so much of it over the next year or two. While we ate, a teacher who had already been here for six months named Kasham gave a presentation on what we could expect about living in Korea. She gave us a great rundown of proper manners and the like. It was very nice. Our group won’t get an orientation until the end of March, which makes no sense, but welcome to Korea. So this was the closest we would get to an orientation. After we ate everyone made plans to meet up that evening… except me, because I had no idea how to get to Ulsan from Namchang. I wasn’t terribly happy about that, but I decided to look at it in the best possible light. Yes, I would be very removed from everyone I knew up to this point, but it would give me the opportunity to delve much deeper into the culture of this country. So I felt a little better about it.

My co-teacher came and picked me up and took me back to my place. Then he took me to the store and helped me by some essentials. Water, garbage basket, chop sticks, cups, ramen and of course, soju. Soju is the drink of Korea. It is basically some kind of rice liquor that tastes like terrible vodka. But who am I to turn down a free drink, especially from an elder in Korea. We went back to my place and had a couple shots of soju, then he walked me around so I would be sure to know where the school was and how to get there. Only a ten to fifteen minute walk from my front door to my school, not too bad at all. He walked me back up to my place, and then I was on my own. I fortunately found out I could steal internet from someone and was able to get online and talk with some people and check in the family for the first time since Incheon the morning before. On a brief side note, my apartment is amazing. I have a kitchen/dining room, a living room, a bedroom and a bathroom. It is definitely not a small studio apartment. I watched some TV on my computer, and I was getting ready to head to bed, even though it was only 8PM when there was a knock on my door. And who should be there but a fellow foreigner.

As it turns out, there is another foreigner living in my building with me. His name is Matt Smith. He also teaches at my school, but he works during the day and I work the after school hours. Anyhow, Matt was kind enough to come up to my apartment, introduce himself, offer to show me around Namchang, and then invite me out for drinks up in Ulsan that night. So I said, hell yes, and we were off. First there was a forty minute bus ride to Ulsan, during which I met another foreigner living in Namchang, a Scottish girl named Cat. We made it into new downtown and then met up with another foreigner named George. Downtown Ulsan is divided into two parts. Old downtown, or Shanae, and new downtown, or Samsan. We spent that first night in Samsan. It was a fun evening, full of beer and soju drinking. We took a taxi back at the end of the night and I got home around 3:30AM, exhausted.

I slept until 12:30 the next afternoon. Then I took a shower and got ready. Around 2 I went down to Matt’s apartment. From there he walked me around Namchang and showed me where everything was. The best thing about Matt so far is that he may love Pizza even more than I do. So I now know all the best places to get pizza in Namchang, thank God. Not that I don’t like Korean food, because I love Korean food, but there is no greater food in the world than pizza. We walked around Namchang for about two hours, then we caught a bus to Shanae so I could see that. We walked around for a bit then walked over to Samsan before catching a bus back to Namchang for dinner with the Namchang crew.

There are currently nine foreigners living in Namchang. I got to hang out with six of them that night. Brian from Tennessee, Andy from New Zealand, Gerard from Ireland, Clare from Maryland, Cat from Scotland, and Matt from Arizona. We all met up at a Korean BBQ place. Korean BBQ is amazing. The bring you a tray full of raw, marinated pork, then you cook it yourself on a small BBQ built into the table you are sitting at. Combine that with about fifteen Korean side dishes and you have one hell of a fine meal. This paired with beer and the occasional shot of Soju made for a great dinner, which led to us going to a local bar, which led to us going to Ulsan and staying out until almost 4AM.

By the time the next morning rolled around I was pretty beat. This was Sunday, and since there was no school Monday because it was a holiday, we had another day to just hang out. It also happened to be the 28th, which means the Namchang Market was up and going. So Matt, Clare, Gerard and I went to the market. Then we went to the store and bought some beer and went and sat on our roof for a couple of hours and just hung out. My very good friend Hannah had gotten back to Ulsan late the night before, so I had plans to meet up with her and some other people for dinner that night at 7PM. So around six Matt and I went and caught a bus into the city. When we got there Matt took off to go and meet some other friends, and I went with everyone to dinner. It was pretty bizarre for one interesting reason, that reason being that of the six people who went out to dinner, four had gone to school at Western. So it was pretty strange to have four people from Bellingham all sitting together for dinner… in Ulsan, South Korea. After dinner we went back to Hannah’s place, had some wine, played some Korean games, hung out and talked for awhile. At some point during the night I was suddenly hit by what had happened down in Chile. It was a very sobering moment. I had been aware of it since the night before… but it didn’t sink in until then. That’s when I really started worrying about my Chilean friends. I went to bed fairly early that night.The next day, being today, was Monday, a holiday, so no work. Hannah came down to Namchang to visit and see my place. So we hung out for a few hours, read some Nietzsche, talked about stuff. It was a good time. After she left I went to the store, then came back and ironed my clothes for work tomorrow and cleaned up a bit around the apartment, and ate some food.

Tomorrow is my first day of school. I don’t really know what to expect. I’m pretty sure that I won’t be teaching tomorrow. I think I am just going in early to introduce myself to the staff and the students. I think there will be a welcoming/beginning of the new year ceremony, and then lunch. I’m not sure when I’ll start teaching yet, but I am very excited to begin. My first days in Korea have gone very well. I started off being somewhat apprehensive about my living situation, what with being so far away from everything, but now I am very happy about it. There is a very nice, very cool community of other foreigners out here. It’s a small city so I won’t be overwhelmed. I can make it into the city in less than an hour, and then retreat to a more quiet area when I’ve had my fill. It’s really a perfect situation for me. I think that it is going to be a great year. Well, that’s all I have for now. I hope everyone is doing well, and I’ll try to keep everyone updated from here on out. Chao.

And Off I Go Again

So, I had orginally planned to write something when I got back from Chile... But, as you may have noticed, I never got around to it. This is due in part to being busy trying to figure everything out for the next step in my adventures, but was mostly due to me being too lazy to actually get around to it. It's been a couple months now since I got back so I will start this blog off with a breif recap of what's been going on.

After 25 hours of travel I got back to the US on December 10th. When I left Valdivia it was about 85 degrees outside. When I landed in Seattle a day later it was 15 degrees. My system experienced a bit of a shock to say the least. That combined with being stuck on an airplane for a number of hours combined nicely and made me sick for the first four days I was home. Despite the weather, though, I did find a few moments enjoyment in my first warm/hot shower in over a month. The next weeks were filled with visiting family and friends, celebrating the holidays an catching up on all the football I'd been missing so much. Spent a lot of time in Vancouver, WA and Portland, as well as some time in Bellingham. I also spent a lot of time reflecting on my time in Chile. The conclusions I came to are as follows:

Things I loved and miss about Chile
1. The incredible people
2. The amazing scenery
3. The food!!! Especially fresh empanadas mariscos
4. Speaking Spanish
5. Being in the classroom

Why I'm happy to be back
1. Friends and Family
2. HOT SHOWERS
3. Reliable and accessible Internet
4. Driving
5. Being able to speak without thinking or making mistakes
6. Football (even though the season is over now)

All in all I am very greatfull for the time I had in Chile. And, if I ever get the opportunity I will go back in a heartbeat. But now it's time for me to go off on my next adventure.

I spent the first few days resting and relaxing and then got started trying to find a job. Fortunately for me I was able to get connected with a recruiting company based out of Vancouver, BC called Footprints. Their job is to act as the go between for people wanting to teach abroad and the people hiring them. After interviewing with the company I was told that there wer several openings in Ulsan, South Korea. Provided they accepted my application I would be working in an after school program. So I sent my application to them as fast I could. A week later I heard back that I was accepted. Thus started my attempt to get all of my documentation put together. Criminal background check and a copy of my college degree, both notarized and Apostilled; TESOL certification; application; passport; passport pictures; official college transcripts; letters of recomendation; copy of the contract... etc. Took me about a month to put everything together and then send it to South Korea. Fortunately they got everything, and sent me back a Notice of Appointment. This allowed me to apply for an E-2 work visa at the South Korean consulate in Seattle. Last week I got my visa. This week I am buying my plane tickets. Next week I'm off to South Korea to start my new job.

For the second time in five months I will be flying into a new country, in a part of the world I have never been to, with no idea where to go, no idea where I'm staying or living, all alone. I am extremely excited. I don't know much about Korea... or anything really. I don't know where I'll end up. I don't know what the next step will be. All I know is that I signed a year long contract to teach english. I wanted to teach and I wanted to see the world. This is my chance and I am going to embrace it. The next blog I write will be in a couple of weeks. This time I'll b writing from Ulsan, South Korea.

Chao

My Last Blog from Chile

It is currently 6:45pm on tuesday evening. Today is a Chilean holiday so I am the only person in the entire building. Tomorrow, at 7:00pm I leave Chile after just over two months. This is a thing about which I have very, very mixed feelings. On the one hand there are certainly things from the States that I miss. Family, friends, having internet access at home, hot showers, football, decent beer, etc. On the other hand, I love this country, I love the people and I love the food. Not to mention the fact that over this past week the weather here has taken a dramatic turn from cold and rainy to clear and downright hot. The idea of returning to below freezing temperatures is not one that I am terribly happy about. Nor is the idea of going from a place where it's light outside until 9:30 to a place where it gets dark at 4:30. Losing daylight is not something I will be happy about. When I get back to the states I will reflect on these things more. For now, I want to talk about the last week that I've had.

Up until last friday it had been a fairly relaxed week. Students were all taking their final exams, so I didn't have a whole lot to do. One nice little story though involves Fran. As you may recall from my previous blog she has taken to calling me tanto every chance she gets. Tanto means dumb. So that's always fun. I find it all hillarious. Well, the other day, thursday I think, I was sitting in the kitchen talking with Fran, trying to get her to say my name. So I am sitting on the kitchen floor with her while she shows me pictures from her favorite book. And I say, 'Fran, como me llamo?' what's my name? To which she looks at me and replies 'TANTO!', and then promptly spits on me, then starts laughing. That last bit was new a new trick of hers. Gotta love children.

Like most of my experiences in Chile, Friday came along and I had no idea what I would be doing. I never seem to know what's going to happen in the country until maybe an hour before it happens. Not that I'm complaining, as I like that kind of lifestyle. All of my friends were busy that day. Victor had to work and then spend time with Rocio, Marjorie was going to a friend's birthday party. So I really didn't know what I would do. I knew I wanted to do something, since it was my last friday in Chile. So I stuck around the office rather late taking care of some stuff, then went home. My plan was to take my stuff back, get ready, then go to a local pub to grab a beer and see where the night would take me. Instead, 45 minutes later Marjorie called me. Evidently at her friend's birthday were a lot of my students. So they insisted that I come out and party with them. I obliged and walked to the party, which was near the University. When I got there I was greeted by many entoxicated Chileans. It was decided at once that I needed a drink, so I was quickly provided with a rum and coke. Anyone who has ever done much drinking with me in my dark and foggy past knows that hard alcohol and I don't get along terribly well. But for lack of a better option I drank what they gave me. Three rum and cokes later they had dragged me onto the dance floor where I did everything within my considerable power to look stupid (dancing). After I could take no more of that I went outside and talked with some of the guys from my class. As it turns out, drunk guys are the same no matter where you are in the world, as is the humor. As we were talking they were all kind enough to point out to me such important information as why each other were gay and how each other had small penises. Yes, guys make fun of each other the same way the world over.
After we finished at this party we decided to go downtown and continue at a pub. On the walk there a young guy followed us so he could talk to me. We had just met at the party and I had mentioned a few of my thought on life and the significance of things and he decided he needed to continue the conversation. So there I was, walking down the street, drunk, talking to some guy about the meaning of life and the universe and everything. Strange. When we got there we ordered more beer and some french fries that were topped with all kinds of meat, sausage, avacado, and eggs. At the time it was great, later not so much. We stayed there for several hours. At one point they told the band that was playing that It was my last few days in Chile. So they said some things I couldn't understand in my current state of mind and then dedicated some songs to me. It was very cool. Of course I was then dragged back out onto the dance floor, this time to look stupid in front of a even more people, and none of which I knew. It was all very fun, but, unfortunately at a certain point in the night most of the people I was with had decided to stop helping with the massive jug of beer we had. So I ended up drinking most of it. At about 4am everyone decided that it was time to go home and sleep. I, however, decided that 4am was far to early, so I called another friend from the class, Oscar, and he came and met me.
By this point I was pretty far gone. So when Oscar suggested that we go to a 'cafe con piernas' I said 'sure, why not.' A 'cafe con piernas' is a nice, shady establishment where the girls walk around in lingerie and give you drinks and talk to you. I suppose it's something like our strip clubs, but without the stripping and nudity. Upon arrival there it was decided that we needed more to drink. So Oscar ordered us some piscolas, that is pisco with coke. Now, Pisco and I are not at all friends. In fact, we tend to hate each other passionatly. But I was drunk so I just went with it. This meant that during the course of the night I mixed rum, beer and pisco. This is a recipe for a terrible experience. Oscar and I talked for awhile, about life, school and how unattractive all the girls at this place were. Eye candy they were not. I spend most of my time staring at the floor and avoiding conversation with them. After some time, I really have no idea how much, we decided to leave. By then it was starting to get light outside. Oscar lives near Marjorie, so we walked together and continued talking. When I got back home I promptly passed out. And then promptly woke back up to revisit all of the food and drink I had had during the evening. This occurred 3 different times before I was finally able to fall asleep for any stretch of time. Never again with the pisco, never again.
Saturday was spent in bed feeling terrible. I didn't get out of bed until around 6pm, and then just to eat a bit and drink some juice and water. I was back in bed sleeping by11pm.

Sunday turned out to be a damn fine day. For one, I felt a lot better than I had on Saturday. I started the day by going to my office to make some phone calls. Victor had told me that he was going to throw me a going away party on Sunday. So I tried to call him. I couldn't use my cell because I was out of minutes, so I tried skype. Unfortunatly he didn't answer. So I assumed he was probably at work. I walked to the mall hoping he would be there, but he wasn't. I decided to just head back home and wait to see what would happen. Sure enough, while I was walking he called me up to make sure I was still free that night. I said yes and we made plans to meet up at 8pm in front of McDonald's as is our custom. I went back home and took a nice, freezing shower, relaxed a bit and then went to meet Victor. We met up and took off to the store to buy some things for the party. When we were done we hopped into a colectivo and went to Rocio's house. Here I learned what the night would entail. Namely, delicious food, grilled on an old BBQ, lots of beer, and some good people. There were a couple people from one of the English classes I had taught there, and some other people I had never met. We sat around, ate food, drank beer and talked for a long time. At one point they decided that beer was just not enough so we went and bought rum. I, having learned an important lesson on Friday, decided to stick with beer. It was a lot of fun, we just sat on the back patio, telling jokes, or trying to tell jokes at least, kinda hard to translate some of them, and talking about soccer. As the night progressed people started leaving. Until it was just Victor, some other guy and me. This was at about 4:30am, and at about 5:30am I decided it was time to go home and try to get some sleep. I was feeling very good. Sticking with beer was a great choice. I was able to control my intake and keep a nice mellow buzz throughout the course of the evening. Victor called a taxi for me, and I was home by 6am, asleep by 6:30.

Monday I woke up around 1pm. I got up to go take a shower, opened the door wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt I had slept in, and was greeted by Marjorie and six of her friends who were over studying. I knew none of them, so it was a bit on the awkward side. But no matter, I took a shower and then took off for a day on the town. I decided that this was going to be a good day to go exploring and to buy some souveniers. Every time I have ever been in another country, and been trying to buy stuff like that, I have always been with someone else. Another American. This was my first time trying to navigate through all the vendors of a foreign country alone. Gotta be honest, not much of a fan. First off, I don't much care for souveniers. I just find it very difficult to sum up an entire country or city, and an entire experience with a trinket. But I did my best and found some good stuff. After wandering the city for several hours I decided to go back to the house. When I got there Marjorie was getting ready to leave. As she was walking out the door she asked me if I was going out that night. I told her I didn't think so. She told me that I couldn't go out, and that I had to stay there because she was going to do something special for me. So I hung out for a bit and waited for her to get back.
She got back a couple hours later with Roxan. The plan for night was to have a going away party at the house. A nice, relaxed party with plenty of food and, of course, beer. The food for the night was a giant hunk of cow, and a whole lot of chicken and sausage, put together and slowly cooked in the oven. Damn good eatin. Around the time the food was almost ready three other students showed up. Oscar, Diego and Carolina. All very good people. While we waited for the food to finish, the guys went to the store to buy beer. When we got back it was time to eat. Great food. All the different types of meat cooked together made for one hell of a fine flavor. After we finished eating it was time to relax and talk. The subjects of conversation included soccer, music, movies, school and family. I busted out my laptop at one point and showed them all pictures of my family. Meg and Liv will be happy to know that Oscar found them both very attractive and was kind enough to take some pictures of himself with my camera so that I could show them. The night ended fairly early by Chilean standards, and I was in bed by 2:30am.

Like I said before, today is a Chilean holiday, so there was no school. I got up around noon today and started packing. When I finished that I showered and then went downtown to continue shopping for stuff. My last stop of the evening was the office so I could check the old fantasy football scores (I won) and write this blog. The last thing I want to say before I leave Chile is that I am very lucky. I have had this amazing opportunity, and during my time here I have had some amazing experiences. I have made some great friends that I will have for life. The people in this country our incredible. So friendly, so warm and so welcoming. My chilean friends have been great, and I am very fortunate to have met them. I hope to return to Chile someday in the future, hopefully to work as a teacher. It is a beautiful place, with beautiful people. And I am going to miss it a lot. Hasta luego.

Thanksgiving, Corral, "NO! TANTO!" and "Panpo"

I haven't written anything in over a week, so I though I would take a few moments to update everyone on what's been going on down here. First off, things on the school front have quieted down quite a bit. This is the last week of the semester, so all the classes that I work in have been taking tests. So there hasn't been a whole lot for me to do other than help grade. On top of that, since all the students are so busy studying for their finals, it's been a bit on the quiet side lately. For these reasons last week was relatively uneventful. But, a few cool things did happen.

Last thursday was thanksgiving. This was the second year in a row that I was in a different country on thanksgiving, which is kind of unfortunate because thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Nothing like a day when all you do is eat wonderful food and watch football. Sadly, for me, American football isn't very popular down here in Chile. And by not very popular I mean noone ever watches, noone knows anything about it, and it's almost impossible to find a game on TV. That is one of the few things I really miss about being in the US. Oh well. Last year when I was living in Canada during thanksgiving I decided to start my own little "I'm not in the US for thanksgiving" tradition. This tradition consists of going out and eating my favorite food, pizza. I figured that if I can't have turkey, then at least I'll have pizza. And since pizza is something found universally, I figure I will be able to maintain this tradition wherever I end up. So, after I finished up with everything in the office I went down the street to a local pizza parlor and ate a medium peperoni pizza. It was fantastic to say the least. Then I went back to the office with the hopes of being able to call home via skype so I could talk to the family. Unfortunatly, when I got to the office was only able to make a short 5 minute call to my dad before the internet decided to stop working. I waited around the office for a couple hours hoping it would come back online, but alas, it did not. So I was a bit disapointed. I had wanted to talk to everyone back home, and I was hoping to listen to a game online. Oh well, such is life.

Last friday was a bit more eventful. I started the day off right by sleeping in. At around noon I got a call from Victor. He asked me what I was doing and I told him I had nothing going on. He asked me if I wanted to go on a short 'travel' with him. I said yes and he told me to meet him downtown at 1:30. So I took a nice cold shower, got dressed and headed downtown. I had no idea what we would do or where we would be going, so I took the necessary items for adventure; sunglasses, rain jacket, pocket dictionary, camera, money, etc. I met up with Victor and we hopped on a bus to Niebla. Niebla is a small town about 20 minutes from Valdivia. On the ride Victor told me we were going Corral, a small town on an island close to Niebla. He had to do an interview at the local navy post for one of his classes. It all sounded pretty good to me, so I was happy.
It was a really nice day, lots of sunshine, warm temperature, everything you would want for an outing. One the ride to Niebla Victor acted like a good tour guide and pointed everything of interest out to me. Since he is tourism student, he's pretty damn good at this. He told me all about the history of the area, how it was an important Spanish sport a long time ago. Pointed out all the old fortifications and explained how they were used. When we got to Niebla we took a 20 minute ferry to Corral. The island is right at the mouth of the river, so on one side of us was the fresh water of the river, and on the other side you could see the pacific. Very beautiful area. While we were on the ferry Victor continued telling me about all the fortifications. He also told me about the earthquake and subsequent Tsunami that destroyed the area in 1960. I had heared a lot about this before that day. It was one of the biggest tsunamis recorded and destroyed most of Corral, Niebla, and even made its way all the way to Valdivia. There is still no working train system in Valdivia because all the tracks were destroyed in the tsunami almost 50 years ago. So I took it all with a grain of salt when we got to Corral and saw signs warning "Danger, Tsunami zone" and saw all of the signs for evacuation routes.
The first thing we did when we got there was go to the local fortification. It was very cool. Most of us was original, though there were some spots that had been restored. All the cannons were originals though, so that was really cool. After that Victor had to go and do his interview, so I wandered around the town for awhile. When he was done we decided that we needed food. By now it was about 4:30 and I was hungry. We went to a little covered restaurant/food shack and got some empanadas mariscos, empanadas full of different shellfish. They were great. Very fresh, in fact, I don't think they were prepared in any way until we ordered them. Plus they came with some sort of chile salsa that was incredible. I could feel it burning in my stomach for an hour after we ate it, really spicy. As Victor put it, it was manly food. After we ate we walked down the street to a pub and had some beer. The owner was an old guy and he and Victor told me Chilean jokes and we discussed such important issues as which actresses we thought were the most attractive. We wanted to have another beer, but unfortunatly the owner had to close up. So we went back and caught a ferry back to Niebla, then a bus back to Valdivia. When we got back it was decided that more beer was, in fact, exactly what we needed. So we went to a local bar near campus called tratomundos and had a couple more beers. Finally, at 8 Victor had to head back home. So we made plans to have a going away party the next weekend and went our seperate ways.

Saturday day was pretty uneventful. Marjorie was studying and I was doing school work most of the day. She put Fran to sleep around 9pm and continued studying. At around 10:30 she stopped, looked up at me and said, tonight we need to watch a movie and drink beer. I was, of course, in complete agreement. So I went to the store and bought six, one liter bottles of cheap Chilean beer. Six was way too much for just us, but one of her friends was going to come and join us later. So we hung out, drank beer and watched The 40 Year Old Virgin on my computer. I put on the Spanish sountrack and turned on subtitles in English. At around 1:30am Marjorie's friend, Carolina, showed up. Various beer fueled conversations then took place. The topics of which included life goals, family, school, then deteriorated into what we like about ourselves, what we didn't like, and eventually got to swear words in English, and the fact that 'according to her' chilean men were just not well enough endowed. All of this of course took place over several hours during the course of the entire night.
At around 3:30am we ran out of beer. Rather than call it quits for the night and escape with some semblence of well being and good health, it was decided that more beer was necessary. So we called a taxi, which bought the beer and then brought it to the house at a much inflated price. But we were having fun so it was all good. Around 5:30am Marjorie finally hit the wall and had to go to bed. I had not realized to what extent she was entoxicated until she stood up and almost fell over. We much effort she was able to stumble the entire ten feet to her bed and promptly pass out. This just left Carolina and me, though I was rapidly approaching the end of the line myself. She, however, seemed to be going strong. She seemed to just be hitting her stride, and I was inches from falling asleep where I sat. These Chileans really know how to stay up late and drink. My gringo blood just can't seem to get grasp on it. Yeah, I can stay up right there with them, but the next day is always terrible. We ended up sitting and talking until around 7:30am. Finally I had reached my limit and needed to get some sleep. She was staying with a friend a couple blocks away and asked me if I could walk her over there, which I did.
Stepping out into the sun at 7:45am after a night of drinking can only be desribed as really, really bright. I was fairly intoxicated by this point, and so things like sunglasses were beyond my cognative abilities. Carolina was tanked. I hadn't realized it until we got outside, but she could barely walk in a straight line. This fact became evident to me when she came outside, took two steps, and immediatly tripped on the curb and landed on her ass... all in what appeared to be slow motion. I of course laughed my ass off. We then proceeded to stumble down the middle of the street in the exact opposite of a straight line. I could have handled myself fine, but she could barely walk and needed support in this endeavor, which meant that the 5 minute walk turned into 15 minutes. We were walking directly into the rising sun at this point and could barely see. So she opened her umbrella and held it in front of us like a shield to block the sun.
So picture all of this. It's sunday morning at around 8am in a little nieghborhood on Isla Teja in Valdivia, Chile. There are two drunks stumbling down the middle of the street, a Chilena and a gringo. It is a beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky, and they are holding an umbrella in front of them trying to block out the sun, but also making it so they can't see where they are going. It was a pretty good time. We finally got to where she was staying, said our goodbyes, and I went back to the house. This time it took me all of 5 minutes, and I walked nice and straight. I think I drank more than both of them, but I also went to bed the most sober. Hmmm. By the time I finally got into bed it was 8:15am, sunday morning. I passed out. And then got woken up at 10am when Marjorie came into the room looking for something with Fran. I have no idea what she was looking for, I was way too out of it. All I could do was lie in bed and stare straight ahead while I though 1. please leave so I can go back to sleep, and 2. I am going to hurt when I get up in a few hours. As soon as they left I fell back asleep and didn't wake up until 3pm, and then I had a massive headache. It's funny, in the US I never get headaches when I'm hung over, just nausea. Here I just get headaches. Must be whatever they put in the beer.

So that was pretty much my week. Nothing too spectacular, but some new experiences and some good stories. In another update, Marjorie has been trying to teach Fran to say my name, Ryan. Right now I am just 'tio'(uncle). She can't quite get the hang of Ryan though. She tries, but it always comes out something like Rahblahblah, which is pretty adorable. Also, for some reason, I am now called 'tanto' on a fairly regular basis. Tanto means dumb in Spanish. So whenever I try to do something I usually hear "NO! TANTO!" So it will look something like this, 'Hola Fran, quieres ducle?' (Hi Fran, do you want a snack?) "NO! TANTO!" At which point I put the treat on the table and she comes over and gets it. This all usually depends on how tired she is, but it's become pretty common. Marjorie- "Fran, say hello to uncle." Fran- (looks at me for a second, measuring me up) "NO! TANTO!" Me- "Fran, why am I tanto?" Fran- "TANTO!" If she wasn't so damn cute I may be offended, but as is, it's a constant source of ammusement for me.

The other day I had a very nice "Stupid Chilean moment". Chilean Spanish is full of slang. For example they will add the word 'po' to the end of another word to emphasize it. 'po' doesn't mean anything really. It is a shortened version of the word 'pues' which means 'well...' as in 'well, I could do that I guess.' So the other day we were getting ready to have 'once' and Marjorie asked me if I could go to the market to pick up a couple of things. So after she finished I ran back over the last and asked if I'd forgetten anything. To this she replied, "Y panpo." I sat there with a dumb look on my face for a moment and said, "Panpo?" She said, "Sí". "Qué es panpo?" I asked confused (What is panpo?) "Panpo, panpo." she replied. I mustered all of my Spanish speaking abilities and asked "huh?" Then the realization came to her, "Pan! Pan...po." And with that I felt nice and stupid. 'Pan' means bread. I knew this, but the 'po' threw me off. She started laughing and I pounded my forehead with my fist. Stupid Chilean Spanish. Two months and I still don't have the hang of it. maybe after two years, but two months just isn't enough. Oh well. Maybe someday. Hasta luego.

New Experiences and New Perspectives

This past week has been very interesting and full of new experiences. On monday, when I got to the university, I was approached by one of the professors and the secretary. As it turned out, one of the teachers I work with, Raquel, couldn't make it to school that day because her mother was sick. Her mother had been getting steadily worse over the past couple of weeks and Raquel had been increasingly stressed. So when I was approached and told that she wouldn't be at the university that day I understood why. They then proceded to ask me if I would be ok teaching her class by myself that day. I said that I could do that, though I had not prepared anything. They gave me some review handouts that Raquel had prepared, so I would have something to do with them. Then they asked me if I could do the same in another of Raquel's classes, one I had never been in before. I said that I would be happy to do anything to help. This was all about twenty minutes before class started. So I had to rush around and look through the review materials and get to class with not very much time to stop and think. That being said, the classes went OK. No my best classes, but considering how little prep time I had, I'm fairly happy with how they went.
After the classes ended I went and had some lunch with Marjorie, Dayanne and Roxan. Then I went back to my office to do some work for the next day. As I was getting ready to leave one of the other teachers came to my door. Her name is Paola and she is just a couple years older than me. She asked me if I had recieved the email that the secretary had sent out. I said no, so she told me that Raquel's mom had passed away, and there would be a wake at one of the local churches the next day and a funeral on wednesday. She then told me that she didn't want to go to the wake alone, and asked me if I could go with her. As sad as the situation was, I couldn't pass on an opportunity to see another facet of the culture here, so I agreed to go. We decided to meet the next day after classes, around 5pm.
The next day I had class with Ximena at 2pm. I went to school around 9:30am to do some work. When I got there Ximena came to my office to talk to me. She told me about Raquel's mom, and I told her I already knew. Then she asked me if I could teach her class by myself that day so that she could go be with Raquel. I said that it wouldn't be a problem. All the students were doing that day was giving presentations, so I thought I could handle it. Then she asked me if I could cover the next days class aswell. I said yes, so we talked for a minute about what I would do in the class, then she left. The class went fine that afternoon. We had some problems with the computer and the projector at first. But we were able to get everything worked out. The students gave their presentations, and when class was done I went back to my office to get ready to meet Paola.
I have never been to a wake before. Least of all a wake in Chile. I had no idea what to expect. I had no idea what to wear. Was this a formal event, requiring black clothes? What would I be doing, just sitting for some undisclosed time? I really had no idea what to expect. I walked to downtown and met up with Paola, and we started walking to the church. On the way we chatted about classes and things like that. When we got to the church we went and an said hola to Raquel. I was at once relieved to see that my attire, the clothes I had taught in, were acceptable. We gave out condolences to Raquel, Paolo put her flowers next to the open casket, and then we took our seats. At this point I didn't know how to act. I was under the impression that this was a grave, somber event, and that I should just sit there and stare at the wall or something. However, Paola quickly started speaking with me. We started talking about our lives, our schooling, our interests, that sort of thing. She told me that she had gone to Eugene, OR to study English. I told her that I'd grown up only 20 miles south of Eugene. We started telling stories and jokes. All of a sudden I realized that I was laughing and smiling no more than 15 feet away from an open casket, surrounded by the dead woman's family. Shit, I thought, and waited for some reprimand or bolt of lightning. Then I looked around, and everyone else there was doing the same thing that I had just been doing. This wasn't the grave and somber event I had expected. While being respectfully quiet, people were talking, and joking, and smiling and laughing. This really wasn't what I had expected, but such is the way of life to take our expectations and toss them aside like they mean nothing.
The next day I taught Ximena's class by myself, and I have to say that it went very well. The students told me that they really enjoyed it after class. So I was very happy. There is something very special about seeing you students start to understand a new concept. When you see that click, and the light of understanding is suddenly on their face, it's very nice. Thursday I went to another class and did a guest lecture. Great students in that class. Very responsive. I think they really enjoyed having me there. What's better, right before that class I ran into Victor for the first time in about a week. He had invited me out for that night previously because his best friend is a poet, and there was a poetry reading at another school in town that night. So after my class I ran home, took a nice cold shower, then went downtown and met with Victor at 6:30pm. We walked about a mile to the other school and went to the auditorium. It was a very cool experience. I had a hell of a time understanding half of what was being said, but occasionally I was able to comprehend what was going on and I was very impressed. Especially with Victor's friend Claudio. Very good poet.

So it has been a strange week. I taught my own classes, by myself, for the first time. I went to a wake. And I went to a poetry reading. Then to top it all off, last night Marjorie confided in me things about her life that I will not repeat on a public forum like this. Things that boke my heart and made me greatfull for the charmed life I have. Let me just say that that poor girl has not had it easy. Every once in awhile things happen in life, or we meet people, who change the way we think or the way we see the world. Well, I don't know how much effect last night's conversation had on me, but I know that it gave me a different perspective to think about. I am very greatfull for all the bessings I have had in my life. Too often it is too easy to feel bad when something goes wrong. It's too easy to not feel gratitude for what you have. Looking at my life I don't see how I can ever be justified in being unhappy. I have had amazing opportunities, and a loving, supportive family. I have always been lucky in life, things have always managed to work out. Part of that is my own faith that what will happen, will happen, and all we can do is make the best of it. But a lot of it has been luck. I am very fortunate to have the life I have, and I really hope I never forget that. Hasta luego.