The urban mosquito

The thought of mosquitos only existing when its hot out I know now to be a farce.  They don't care, at least not here.  They also don't care if I live on the ninth floor.  You think of mosquitos and you think of a warm summer night out camping.  You look just above your head and can see a shape shifting, polka-dotted mass of mosquitos hovering, waiting to strike.  You don't think anything much about it 'cause you put on some repellent and thats that, right?  At home in the summer you hang outside for beers and bbq and you have to be careful not to get bit too much before you remember to put on that repellent.  But you don't really want to because soon you will be safe inside and don't want to stink up the house smelling like OFF.  Well being indoors in Korea is not a haven, safe from the wrath of the mosquito, not in the least bit.  A few nights ago I woke up to that pestering bbbbzzzzzzzzing about my right ear and then it stopped.  "Where did you go you little fucker?"  I waved my arm about like man suffering from sleep deprivation and sudden bout of turrets.  I try to fall back asleep.  Bbbbbbbzzzzzz . . . stop.  "You sonofa . . .,"  followed by more frantic waving.  Bbbbbbzzzzzzz . . . stop.  By now I'm angry and nothing will put me to sleep except for the satisfaction of seeing his smashed, blood filled body between my fingers.  But I can't be bothered to get up.  I also know by now that mosquitos over here have the quickness of most flies.  The mosquitos back home are sloth-like.  You can nail the suckers fairly easily, with satisfaction every time.  But here they sense your giant hand coming and speed away with passed down ninja abilities.  The little shits.  This is what I call the urban mosquito.  Maybe they have their own mini mosquito Starbucks and fuel up before the evening starts.  Or maybe they just hit up the people sitting outside Starbucks before making the long journey across the street and up to my room.  "Hey guys!  This one had a grande quadruple latte!!"  "This one had a steamer, don't bother with him!  I'm heading right over, mister quadruple latte and then I'm headed across the street to pester that white guy with the kimchi in his fridge.  Doesn't he know that he's supposed to have a seperate fridge for that stuff?"  I was in and out of sleep for hours.  The next day I looked like the zombie in my halloween presentation I've been giving to my first graders this week.

I wonder if urban mosquitos have their own hipster versions?  What about metro-mosquitos?

Speaking of Halloween!  I'm showing the Charlie Brown's "The Great Pumpkin" to my first graders.  I'm stoked.  I'm sure they won't understand most of it.  But I'm going to write down a simple synopsis  and give it to them before the screening.    Then I'm going to have them read it before and after watching the show.  There are great scenes with little to no talking like my favorite where Snoopy gets on the roof of his dog house and has the whole dream about being a flying ace in a war (I'm still a kid).  Its great too because this week I gave a big talk about Halloween and then discussed jack-o-lanterns.  The opening scene to "The Great Pumpkin" is Lucy and Lionus picking out a pumpkin and then carving the sucker up.  Oh yes, good stuff.  

Turkey stuffed

I'm in pain as I sit here, unsure of what else to do with myself because I stuffed myself to the gills. Its kinda like an earache, toothache, migraine, or *insert your own pain here. Its like all these, except it was self-imposed and delicious. The others can't be averted. This, I could have, but did I?

I don't know what to do with myself. Shall I lie down? No, I'll just be staring at the ceiling. Do I watch a movie? Nope can't do that either. I'll just be focussed on how icky I feel. What to do, what to do. So I'm here complaining about my gluttony. But oh man was it good.

One of the music teachers at school took me and four other teachers from my school out for dinner. We went to, I think, one of the nicest Korean restaurants in town. I also think we ate no fewer than 7 courses. The nature of the traditional Korean meal promotes itself to nibbling. Side dishes, or banchan, make up most of the meal while other side dishes are just bigger than others. Such dishes include kimchi (of course) dried mystery fish with 'special' sauce, squid with 'special' sauce, fresh raw mystery fish, grilled pork, whole cooked mystery fish (which you just tear into with your chopsticks), ground sesame seed paste tastiness, baked mystery fish with 'special' sauce served over mystery bean sprouts, some sort of fresh salad, more squid served in a yummy brine, fried clear noodles, broccoli with 'special' sauce, teeny tiny anchovies in 'special' sauce, brined lotus root, and the list goes on forever. So if you think Thomas Keller is unique for his tasting menu at the French Laundry, think again. But the guy is a genius chef, I'm not knocking him for his abilities as a chef.

Real quick to all of you in Portland - GO TO CAFE NAVARRE! Its just off of 28th and Burnside. Navarre offers fine French cuisine at an affordable price and has a tasting menu. You can order whole portions from anything on the menu such as entrees, apps, ect. or you can order half portions and have it be a tasting menu of sorts. I'm converted after being here for a while. What's the fun in having a huge plate of one kind of food when you can sample and nibble on bits and pieces of tasty goodness. Also a plus from Navarre is that you won't be trying mystery fish or 'special' sauce. You speak the language and can therefor know what you are eating! Wow what a concept.

Oh buddy, still so full. This was a night where I was gonna head out running and then do some yoga. Yeah, no I did just the opposite. I stuffed myself inappropriately full, turkey stuffed if you will. Then if that wasn't enough, she invited us back to her house for tea and fruit. I think we were seriously surrounded by food this evening for four straight hours. This was just a random Wednesday evening as well. No special occasion at all. Koreans like their food possibly more than I do.

Speaking of inappropriate . . . I get a ride to school every morning from a real nice guy. I can't remember his first name so I still call him Mr. Che. I think he sets his car to "inappropriately hot" every morning before I get in the car just to watch me sweat. There are windows in the car and I do roll them down. BUT Koreans have a funny thing about tunnels. They believe the air is somehow stagnant within them and never gets recycled. "Air is bad." Is what I hear. So up the windows go. This wouldn't be that bad, but you see I live in a mountainous area with lots of tunnels. You might even go so far as to say there is a 'sequence' of tunnels that line our route to school. Right before I begin dripping with sweat just sitting in the car on the way to school we finally exit the tunnel system and I'm free to roll down the windows again. Yay!

Other weird things . . .

During dinner the music teacher asked if she could take a picture of me. I said, "Sure of course you can." Then she proceeded to tell me that she works at another middle school. She works at an all girls middle school and said that her students wanted a picture of me!? What? But this was after the picture was said and done. Oh man I'm just Jason, dude. I'm being stuffed at your house and you are taking some kind of crazy, quasi, celebrity shots of me. Very interesting indeed.

Visions

Today in music meditation I had a vision. I would describe my state of being while this happened about halfway between consciousness and a dream. This is what I saw:

I'm standing on the beach of a small island wearing (no joke) nothing but a loin cloth. I'm thin, but strong from weeks or perhaps months of eating nothing but gathered fruits and vegetables, fish which I catch from the sea, and climbing coconut trees to gather, well, coconuts (duh). The sand was shimmering white. Its texture very fine, almost silky to the touch. The skies were blue as blue as they can be on a hot summer day. The sea looked as though I was somewhere in the Caribbean. Its color a turquoise blue. The island I was standing on had a circumference so small you could walk around in fifiteen to twenty minutes.

I could hear the calls of passing seagulls. I could hear the waves gently crashing upon the shore. The water was rolling over the sand and then made a light popping sound as the water receded. It left behind small bits of bubbly foam. The sun reflected off of the water as it slowly was absorbed into the sand. The wind was warm yet cool at the same time. It was just windy enough to rustle the leaves of the coconut trees and the nearby bushes. The foliage carried a clean scent mixed with the salt of the sea air. The smell was so refreshing and cleaner than anything I've ever smelled before.

I was standing still for the whole dream staring at a white Siberian tiger. He was standing about fifty feet away from me. I was not afraid of him, nor was he to I. It did not make any aggressive snarls or gestures. It just looked into my eyes and stared. From time to time he would calk his head like cats or dogs do sometimes when you look at them. He waved his tail to ward off unwanted bugs. From time to time he would look down to the sand and lick his dried lips. The blink of his eye was slow and almost welcoming. I could see small grains of sand were stuck to his fur as clear as the period at the end of this sentence. We stood there for most of my vision. Trying to understand each other in some sort of other-worldly telepathic sense.

The parts of my vision where I wasn't standing there staring at him I would be sitting within the interior of the island and look over to see him observing me through the bushes. A large leaf fell over his left eye. He stood still. The buzzing of a passing fly came and went. It was as if he were just watching over me like a protector or some sort of guide. The two of us were alone on this island. Then I woke up.

Am I to learn from the Tiger? Am I the Tiger? Who is; why . . . the tiger?

Entering into this dream memories from the last year rushed through my head, particularly those from this time last year:

Sitting in the basement of Neubergher Hall printing out articles and chatting online to Tami while she was at the helpdesk or making plans for the fakesgiving trip to the beach.

I was still feeling amazing from my experiences in Guatemala. At this time hearing Kim Carne's "Betty Davis Eyes," would still bring me back to sitting on top of that mayan temple in the middle of the jungle. The guides brought a small radio to the top and this song played, among others. This song was one of moms favorites when I was a kid. But I have to admit that I never liked it so much, not until Guatemala.

Cycling to and from school and swimming in the PSU pool.

Passing silly notes back and forth to Brittany in Ottoman History class.

Reading in the park blocks and watching the autumn colored leaves fall around me.

Playing cribbage and guitar with Sam.

There were more things I thought of but these are the really vivid ones I remember before the vision began to happen. These memories were so vivid it felt like I was next to myself watching them happen. Then waves of energy began to flow from my chest and out through my arms, legs, and head. It was like a tingling sensation that ran through my body like a tennis ball through garden hose. I felt as though if I opened my eyes I could watch it happen. Next thing I knew I was on the beach with the tiger.

BTW this whole post may sound cheesy but, HEY YOU, READING RIGHT NOW!!! YES YOU! This was a dream/vision ok? So leave me alone! After I wrote this and was wandering around the grocery store I thought about how cheesy this may have sounded. I'm sure you were waiting for me to mention the half naked Indian guy wandering around Jim Morrison's vision quest or the Space Coyote Homer saw from the Simpsons. No this was the real deal. I wasn't feeling so hot today about being away. So when I saw this . . . I was a little touched and even perhaps a little emotional, maybe moved by this. So cut it with any snide comments about the cheese factor. AIGHT! thanks. I've never had something like this happen before. I've had out of body experiences and hmm, well, lets just say I've had deep moments of thought before in the company of good friends. But I've never once had a vivid experience such as this where I could touch, smell, taste, think, hear, see . . . use all of my senses in a dream like that, ever.

Milos yours is an Elephant. Is mine a tiger? Remember that painting we saw at the new brew house on Powell? I kinda want it now . . . only seriously.

Pick and Roll

I'm prisoner to my school at the moment. Miles away from anything, even a subway station. Other public school 'native speakers' are going home at noon. Everyone, except for me. Since monday the kiddies have been taking their midterms. The school has never been so quiet. This means that I don't have any classes. Just lounging and coming up with the lesson plan for the last two days of the week. Not bad, not bad at all. So I've spent most of my time chatting online to hot babes, I mean friends with gmail accounts (AHEM for those of you without!), keeping up with the elections, and marveling at the state of our economy. As we speak the value of the Korean won is going down the tubes. When I arrived the exchange rate was about 1,000 won to $1. Now 1,000 won gets me a whole whopping .78. Great. Effing sweet. So much for paying off the loans in a hurry. Anyways back to my current hostage situation. For the past two days we've been getting off at 12 and heading home. Not today. Nope. I never know who is going to give me a ride home. Its always changing. So I stay in my office until someone says "Hey we are leaving . . . Now!" So twelve rolls around for me today, then 12:05, 12:10, and by 12:15 I sauntered over to the teacher's offices and asked my co-teach, "Um is anyone leaving early today?" As I asked the question I felt like I already new the answer. Looking around the office I saw that no one was in a hurry to go anywhere. "Is today a full day?" "Yes it is. We all stay." MMMMkay, alrighty then. Well I guess I should eat lunch then. Thanks for letting me in on that wee bit of news. Remember what I said about communication here at work? Yep still non-existant. Well there are ways to cope with this . . . stay on top of EVERYTHING! ASSUME NOTHING! This is a battle field and I'm a lone soldier, wait, like . . . the Lone Ranger! Hells yeah. Except i'm not wearing that fruity red scarf around my neck. Hate those things. Where's my trusty steed? Oh yeah both of them are in Jenjen's basement. I miss both of you wheeled beauties. Well when I start including Tonto in the rest of my blogs you'll know that they haven't released me (pssst SEND RAMBO!). K so I had lunch and I thought I had till then to do all my work. Needless to say I'm sitting here in my office writing this blog in retaliation "Hi ho Silver, awaaaay!"

So I haven't really said much about school life since the dreaded first week. I thought an update might be appropriate.

So my classes . . . um, well they like to stare at me, a lot. I come into class and ask "How's everybody doing? How was your weekend? What did you do last night?," all depending on what part of the week it is. The best responses I get are usually (insert quarter here) "I'm fine thank you. How are you?" I was told when I arrived at the school that these are low level students and I shouldn't expect much from them. I still want to disregard that statement, but its becoming harder and harder as time progresses. I'm optimistic that these kids can learn some English. I just have to make it fun for them. The English curriculum in Korean public schools revolves around repeating and memorizing useless dialogues. Its really rough to watch. The teachers know its boring but to some this is a tried and true method for learning Englishee (as my students call it). Yeah there might be some merit to it but I wouldn't give that merit too much weight, maybe about a pound (and thats being generous).

Speaking of staring . . . in one of my classes today three kids in the front row decided to entertain themselves by staring a hole through me. I think they were having an unprecedented staring contest by seeing who could stare at me the longest. Thanks. This doesn't help with the teaching. I tried ignoring them. But out of the corner of my eye I could see the unmoving whites of their eyes as they stared into the back of my head through my nostrils. Oh yes the classroom antics. 

I remember when I used to do this with the substitute teachers at Alameda. I also remember thinking back then that of all the possible jobs in the world I would never become a substitute teacher because of all the junk they have to put up with and I was only in fourth grade.

I'm in full charge of coming up with lesson plans and have free reign to do whatever I want to do, for the most part. So it is difficult to come up with lesson plans that still include the material in the book and that won't bore my students and me to tears. Last week I did a segment on Korea's first astronaut (Yi So-Yeon) and then introduced the names of the planets in English while drawing silly pictures of the planets on the board and trying not to laugh when they would say Uranus (I know, I know, I'm thirty and this is still funny to me, but whatevs). The other week included a chapter on MLK and was about equality, segregation, discrimination and the such. So half the class was devoted to this and then I introduced the whole third grade class to Sly and the Family Stone's "everyday people." The song is about equality and I thought it would be a great excuse for them to listen to one of the greatest funk bands of all time. I liked it when my Spanish teachers would bring in songs from Latin America, even if I didn't like the song.

So those are the two most recent and best of my lesson plans thus far. I am still trying to figure out how to make the lesson plans for my first graders amusing. Their level is really low and I'm feeling limited to what I can do with the class. I'm sure there are millions of possibilities but I'm still figuring that one out. I've been spending hours online scouring esl websites and teaching forums for things to do. The problem is that most 'beginning level' games and activities is still above these kids' level. But I'm still looking.

I teach the first graders with two different co-teachers who really don't care what I do. But as I said before these guys are challenging for me but I'm having a hard time coming up with stuff to do. But these kids are more willing to engage in activities and are more lively as a class than the third graders. There is an opening activity I tried last week based on the idea of "Find someone who . . . fill in the blank" and then get their signature. This is theoretically a great activity because it promotes real life situation to talk with other students in the room and gets their minds thinking in the target language. I found out that this doesn't work in my situation and I think I lost some hearing in the process. The kids weren't speaking in English. The room resembled popcorn kernels in a hot pan of oil *poof *ping *pop as they tugged at each other's shirts, all while screaming and squealing like no other. Oh buddy. During the last class and fourth run of this lesson of my co-teacher and I looked at each other in utter disbelief. This was Ms. Ha, the very soft spoken teacher. She said something to me. I couldn't hear her over the raucous so I leaned in for a better listen. "I don't think the kids are using English." Yeah, no kidding. I didn't think they were communicating in Korean either. I thought they were imitating dolphin calls.

So for the most part I have to really focus on eliciting answers out of these kids. I have to make things as simple as humanly possible for them to get them to say anything other than:
"I'm fine thank you. How are you?"
"Do you hab a girlprend?"
"Teacher bery handsome." "Handsome man." (they love this one for some reason)
"How are you today?"
"Hi teacher!"
and I'm sure there is one or two more but I can't remember them at the moment.

I can only imagine what it would be like teaching a room full of students who actually signed up to take English. S Korea made english a compulsory subject in 1997 and aims to increase English curriculum in the public school system in the years to come. The program is called the English Program In Korea or EPIK, which is modeled after Japan's Jet program. But unlike the Jet program, EPIK is very young and the administration is still working out the kinks. They really have only had 'native speakers' in Busan for just over five years now. There is a whole other set of private schools and 'institutions' called Hogwans that use 'native speakers' as well. I am the third 'native speaker' at my school and it feels good to know that just recently these kids might possibly feel like they have a reason to learn English. The school was making it compulsory for them anyways, might as well shove an English speaker in front of them. I don't know if I've mentioned it before but the vast majority of these kids come from broken, low-income homes. Most of these kids' futures are already set because they have to remain close to home to take care of their parents or are not expected to move away to pursue an 'American dream' type of life. So a lot of them have little motivation for learning English when they might never leave the small neighborhood of Bansong. I don't mean to be a downer here this is just how it was explained to me and I'm noticing it to be true. There are, in fact, a lot of really bright students who do help the others and I believe that a lot of them will go far in life. I'm also sure that their study in other subjects is of way more value to them than Englishee.

Did I mention that my computer at work is in Korean. I hate this thing. Just trying to use power point is a challenge. Its as slow as the hills too. I tried doing stuff on my computer but it wouldn't connect to the internet here at work for some reason. I tried to ask the TA guy but Mac's are foreign here. Not too many people use them. People have loads of Samsung PC's though, go figure.

The most challenging thing is not making the lesson plan. Its actually in the classroom. I have to be so into what I'm teaching them, so animated and so willing to bend over backwards to get them interested in what I'm teaching them that they actually stop talking to each other and listen to me. I have to get them all to repeat after me. I have to get them to speak up when I ask them to read something aloud or answer a question. Man this is difficult. Its really interesting because this is challenging to me in such a different way than school or cooking ever was. This gives new definition to challenging. Now when I have an interview and they ask me to describe a 'challenging' situation and describe to them how I mitigated it I don't have to dig. I don't have to make something up. I don't have to embellish a situation. I just have to recall any given day teaching. But I like this. I like the challenge. I am looking for ways to become more creative here and within myself. This is a year of their education and I want to stick out to at least a few kids as Mr. Brown or Jason the American teacher who made English fun or not nearly as painful as it was with most teachers.

I now would like to attempt to explain what I call the "Korean Pick-and-Roll". For those of you who are basketball fans you can skip the beginning part of this:

The pick and roll is a move used in basketball used to get rid of a defender and open up the guy with the ball for a free shot. In this case there are two sets of two, each offensive player has a defensive player. The offensive player that doesn't have the ball stands close to the guy who does have the ball acting as a human wall (generally behind the defensive player). The guy with the ball then runs around his motionless teammate and ideally the defender of the guy with the ball smacks into the human wall and can no longer defend said ball handler. This play, when executed correctly, works amazingly well for opening up a free shot. I hate to say it but Malone and Stockton were amazing at this. I know, I know, two sheisty players but they used this all the dang time and they were amazing at it.

K with that said:

Koreans use this on a daily basis when walking on the sidewalk, or anywhere for that matter. They don't team up with others though. This is the magic of the "Korean-pick-and-roll." They do it all on their own! What power they harness! Or maybe they have some sort of telepathic powers that I'm unaware of. They communicate with each other so in reality it doesn't look like they move out of the way for each other but, they just know . . . I, on the other hand, am but a naive young man who gets the Karl Malone treatment every time I need to buy some milk.

I've actually seen two males run into eachother and one literally pivoted and rolled right off the other's chest. I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw this as I was in the back seat of a car. I turned in my seat craning my neck to watch expecting to wtiness a fantastic yelling match as they got up in eachother's grills. But nothing happened. They got into their respective cars like nothing happened and off they went. This is normal?!!!!! WTF? How many times have I almost been mowed over by cute little old ladies just walking to the store? This is now beginning to make sense to me (sort of, lets not get carried away here).

What it all boils down to is their concept of space and the firmly established heirarchical system

of people on the food chain. I'm the one that gets eaten. I feel like an Untouchable in India, an injured gazelle in an African savannah. I'm not going to make huge generalizations about 'Asian' culture here so I'm just going to mention Korea and what I've witnessed thus far. So there is a maddening amount of people here. A 'plethora' of people if you will and a high populaion density right? K well growing up in an environment like this you just don't have the same concept of space as us 'Mericans (I know I keep saying this over and over again like an old man with Alzheimers in my posts but there is reason for this! I just can't seem to wrap my noggin around this quite yet). So this combined with the heirarchical system where old people get upmost respect and you get older men and women that walk down the street like they own the place, fair enough I suppose. They have their system and we have ours. I just don't get it. What confuses me to no ends is that little kids and people of my age or just a bit younger than me seem to display the same attitude. Do you think that they actually feel that they are of higher status than I ?Maybe I do look like a gazelle? Or is it the telepathy thing and the kids just work in greater numbers? Beats the heck out of me.

My ass has finally completey healed thank god and I'm back into the trail running! YAY!!! In the states if you are trail running you basically have the right of way, or at least it seemed. I always gave right away to runners when I was walking anways. Other people were always very generous with their space (hey wait a second, I think I just stumbled onto something . . . !) and politely would step aside to let me pass. Its kind of like, "Hey he/she is working hard to be in shape. Go you guys!" Here they just don't give a rats ass. You could be Buddha himself going for a run here and you still wouldn't exist in their eyes. I feel like I'm playing frogger here. I'm leaping, dodging, and narrowly missing trees to get out of the way of 'native hikers' (ha!) that wouldn't move for the world. When I'm running towards a group of people through a vacant street in the park no one makes a move to let me through. Its like a game of Red Rover. "Red Rover, Red Rover lets knock Jason over!" They don't budge until the very last second and they barely move at all. I would call it a slight shift of the shoulder more than anything. Even when I'm approaching someone from behind they don't seem to be paying any attention to the world surrounding them. I'm no ninja when I run. At the moment I'm fairly out of shape and I'm huffing and puffing quite loudly and my feet are making this 'clump, clump' on the ground. I THINK I'm pretty audible. But aparently not. People keep on keepin on and sometimes even move in the way. Now I don't mean to come off like I'm bitching and the whole world should look out for yours truly. Its just a huge cultural difference and one that I'm really, really struggling to figure out. It gets to the point where sometimes I have to try not to let it piss me off. I clearly do more walking than running but when I run the ole Pick and Roll routine is exaggerated because, "I'm trying to move here people!" Ok maybe these are bad examples. . . here's one: Dave and I are waiting for the elevater in this gigantic department store. There is maybe a foot between us and we are just being quiet minding our own business. Then this woman in her mid thrities talking on her cell phone plows her way through the small gap between us. She does this with enough force to knock us aside as we stared in amazement at eachother. She didn't look back or anything. Can you chalk that up to heirarchy? How about beeyotchery?! She's been watching too much Utah Jazz footage I think.

Yeah and then why don't we take this to a whole new level and add the fact that sidewalks are not a sanctuary for walkers. You have to be on the lookout for passing scooters as well who take on the same "get out of my way" attitude as everyone else. The scooters really get to me. They haven't run over me . . . yet. I've heard this is nothing like India or Mexico city. This is a childs playground with the cushy ground mats compared to other big cities. I'm just glad I'm starting off on the toddler level.

The joys of trying really hard to be culturally understanding and acceptable. When do you learn to let go of what you learned and to accept a new way of doing things and when do you say "I hate you Karl Malone!"