They Call It "Payday" Because They Make You Pay.

A Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of students getting excited and participating should have tipped me off...the God of Balance was just waiting to smite me. As the first payday of my "adult" look-at-me-I-have-a-full-time-job life rolled around, I thought today might be my first moment of Korean glory.

No, life calls it "payday" cause it makes you pay.

This specific toll came in the guise of 6 consecutive classes of 40 sixth graders staring at me like dead fish. I probably could have chucked my whiteboard marker at a kid's forehead, right between the eyes, and not gotten a reaction.

"So who is stronger? Ironman or the Hulk?"

:: blank stares ::

"Who has a cooler cape? Superman or Batman?"

:: inspecting fingernails, sighing, slipping into comas ::

"Who is scarier, Wolverine or...um...me?"

:: blink of recognition ::

"Teacher!! Teacher scarier!!!" :: a few laughs ::

"OK. Good! So repeat after me! Teacher is scarier...than Wolverine!"

:: blank stares ::

Come on, the topic was comparing superheroes! I even showed the intro to the X-Men cartoon! An average of maybe 5 kids/class had done the homework...that just seems like bad odds. All they had to do was draw 3 superheroes to compare in class. I mean, you could just draw a dot or something and call him Speck-Man...whose power is being too tiny to see. You could have brought in a spaghetti stain and called it Fire-Cloud Invisible Woman...whose power is...being indistinguishable from leftovers. If you're going to be lame, at least try to be creative about it.

My co-teacher informed me later that they thought that the content was too easy. But when I introduced harder words and more complex sentences, the reaction was the same. Except they smelled a little worse, as it was after recess. As the day came to a close, I kind of just wanted to follow suit and nap at my desk. But no, I had to try and complete an internet bill payment for my utilities. Two extremely frustrating hours later, I was somewhat informed that my bills might be taken automatically from my account, but on the other hand, they might be being subtracted from the previous tenant's account still. So we really didn't need to have spent the last 2 hours doing what I was doing.

And finally, 4:40 rolled around. And I was free. I got out of there faster than I ever left school while still a student.

On the plus side, as of today, Dathan and I have a net value hovering somewhere above 5 million. That's right, we are high rollers. Of course, if you convert that number into USD, the effect is somewhat less impressive.

But this is Korea ...so I guess you can say we won.

A Whole New World

...is stuck in my head. Today will be my last day of 5th graders (and youtube Aladdin singalongs) for the week and for the second time in my life, I am about to become a bona fide alien.

Dathan and I are leaving school early to go to the Seoul immigration office to pick up our foreign/alien registry card. Henceforth, we will be able to get reliable internet service instead of pirating off of classy identities such as "kumho2." In our desperation for internet access (to work on endless law school app. stuff and perfect our pirate dialect on facebook) we discovered an awesome cafe above Starbucks that is really cheap, really good, and best of all, does not charge by the hour for wireless. After about 5 visits of only ordering beverages (which are conveniently translated into English), I gathered the courage to scour the hangul (Korean characters) section of the food and, to my extreme pride, was able to decode one item: romanized, it would be "ba-bee-cue chee-can san-doo-wee-chee"!! YEs! And it was delicious.

Idioms aside, Korea is definitely a whole new world, sans the magic carpet, with a lot of kimchi and soju thrown in for good measure (spicy cabbage and strong alcohol, respectively). We have met a lot of good friends so far. Over the Chuseok (like Korean Thanksgiving) holiday, we went to a free traditional Chuseok dinner, hosted by 2 Korean NGOs (G.O.A.L. and KoRoot) that serve expat Korean adoptees, assisting in legal matters, birth family searches, social events, and language exchanges. It was an eventful night and we met Canadian Korean adoptees, French Korean adoptees, Denmarkian (?) (OK, or Danish) Korean adoptees, Italian Korean adoptees, and American Korean adoptees. Woah. One of the best lines of the night was when I told Stephano (an extremely friendly, excitable Italian-Korean) that Dathan played soccer too (some of the guys are trying to get a G.O.A.L. soccer club together). He pumped his fists in the air and yelled, "YES! He is so big! He will add power to the team! He is like tower of strength!!!" Later, Dathan confided that he's going to have to practice just to not let the guy down....but is that not the best exclamation ever?

The answer is yes.

We went out afterward with them and when we asked the director what time the subways closed (we were about an hour from home), he kindly reassured us that subways open at 5:30AM, so everything would be fine!

Oh Korea, I have not developed my stamina for this yet!

I now have another tallymark to add to my lifelist of "I'm so ashamed!" moments (involves the ensuing 17 hour-long adventure involving 2 dinners, lots of Korean food, a music performance, crazy people, karaoke in a place that looks like it can host weddings, high heels, 5AM coffee, lots of shots and ends in a bit of disgrace). However, overall the event was fun, a success, and I am looking forward to seeing these people again soon.

[pictured below: excerpt from the 17-hour escapade]

[My first reaction on seeing photo: they had maracas there?!?]

Dathan and I also went to a great little Italian restaurant with a bunch of friends the other night. It is on the 2nd floor of a random giant apartment building a few blocks from home. Korea is like a world of mysteries stacked on top of mysteries. Since we don't understand Korean, we don't know what most signs say for stores/restaurants above ground level, so we don't venture up into random buildings very often. However, hidden away on the 2nd floor was an Italian restaurant (along with a jumble of maybe 10 others), a family mart, a dry cleaning service, and who knows what else. So, great discovery. The Korean above-first level world continues to astound.

Afterward, we went to a bar (Uncle Don's) that played all American music and had a free pool table, fooseball table, and either Jenga or a funny plastic monkeys game at each booth. The beer on tap was only $2.50 and a kettle of soju and lemonade was only $5. Loves it! (a nod to Joe). The plastic monkey game was a lot of fun - it is like Kerplunk meets Monkeys in a barrel meets Pickup sticks meets beer. The group of friends we have fallen in with happens to include a lot of couples...seven in all (I think) counting me and Dathan, plus a few other completely awesome people. They are all very friendly, inclusive, easygoing, funny, and intelligent. Plus I am loving the different English accents (honestly, did you ever know that Australians say "zed" instead of "zee" in the alphabet??).

All in all, this is shaping up to be a great year.