The day before Christmas and you wouldn't know it being here

The snow
I walked to E-mart yesterday, and it was really the first time I've had time to go anywhere other than work lately. It was then that I realized there was snow and ice on the streets. It wasn't like full-blown snow, but it was obviously white and it was all over the place. I was told by any number of Koreans that it didn't snow in Seoul. I think I have just experienced another one of those inexplicable lies that people say for no reason whatsoever. I sometimes feel like Korea is an entire country made up of patholical liars, because honestly, what would have been lost to have said "Yes, Duane, every now and then snow does touch the ground of Seoul." Is this some kind of pride thing, which is the reason behind most of Korea's lies? Are they afraid I won't appreciate Seoul more if it ever snows here? Is this the first time EVER that snow has appeared here? I seriously doubt that last one. Still, people told me it never snows here. I'm not sure why, but that's what a lot of people have said.

iTunes
Sometimes, this service really pisses me off. It's expensive to buy things from there, yet sometimes it's your only way of getting access to the things you want. I downloaded two tv shows yesterday (Sarah Connor Chronicles) and it cost me $4 total. Not much, but that sort of money adds up. What really bugs me about this is that this is a one-time download. It's ONLY on my current computer, meaning that if I ever wanted to see those tv shows again and had my main computer, I'd have to buy them again. This was a problem for me when I came here and had my laptop. I had a bunch of music from iTunes on my old computer, but I had to buy the same music again, because they charge per download, not per account. I use Steam, which is a game resource from the company that makes the very popular game Half Life. I ordered a game from there the other day called Titan Quest. Turns out, it doesn't run so well on my laptop, but when I get my main computer hooked up again, I can download it for free because I bought it on my account, not just for one computer. That's where Apple pisses me off. They're so pretentious about how great they are, but it's all about the money, and customers come second to them.

Health
I'm continuing to feel better. I can pretty much see normal now. I've been having serious problems sleeping, and I've been taking a sleeping pill (over the counter type) to compensate. I ran out the other night (I don't take it every day, but every other day or so), so I went to a Korean Yak (pharmacy), the one where I first bought it, and it was a Sunday. They said they were out of all types of sleep medication. At least I think that's what they said. They pointed and shrugged shoulders a lot, so I can only guess that was what they were saying. Fortunately, yesterday, I found a new Yak close to me, and I bought two packages of the same product. I slept really well last night, although I had a pretty hard time getting on with my day as that stuff generally knocks you completely out.

Work
We're starting up a new group of students here, and I'm not really sure what my teaching schedule is, although it does appear to be kind of sparse. I find myself highly under-utilized here, and I don't really mnd it, but it does seem to be a normal thing here. I believe I'll be teaching one or two classes a day (who knows?), but the content of the classes is somewhat unknown to me, and again, I have a strong feeling I'm going to find out the exact content about an hour before I teach my first class. I'm teaching writing, but that could mean anything here. I think I'm supposed to teach based on the previous teacher's lesson that day, which means I'm not going to find out what she's teaching until she finally actually comes out and reveals it to me, something that rarely happens, even if you ask directly. Instead, they'll tell you it doesn't snow here.

But the job isn't bad, and it's kind of nice to be taking a break from the rest of where my life was going some months ago. I'm glad school is over, even though I have no idea if I graduated because here it is December 24th, and University of the Pacific has yet to post that I've graduated. I keep checking on my unofficial transcripts, and they keep listing me as a continuing student. I have this sneaking suspicion that they're going to screw this up yet another semester, which makes my job prospects crappy again. The administration of the university (not my department) is really dysfunctional and seems to work against the students rather than for them. You'd think that wouldn't be the case, but it certainly is.

Random Notes
I'm really looking forward to getting my desktop computer here. I've really missed it. It's been like living a temporary life where my real life is completely on hold, and that really shouldn't be the case. I'm here and now, which means this is my real life. It just seems like I'm holding space until the rest of my life catches up with me.

I have Christmas off, but only because it's my weekend day off. If it wasn't I'd probably have an additional day off, so I'll end up just getting my weekend day off instead. It would have been nice to have an extra day off, but the schedule didn't work out that way. The same thing is going to happen for New Year's Day, because it falls on the day exactly a week after Christmas. People in Korea really don't celebrate Christmas all that much because they really don't have the incentive to do so. It's become entirely commercial in both Korea and the United States, and the economy is horrid in Korea right now, so people aren't interested in spending money.

Stumble It!

I think I'm getting better

Today is the first day where I've actually been able to read while wearing my glasses. For those who haven't been following my blog or facebook notes, I've been having trouble seeing with my glasses on because of a medical condition. The belief was that over time the condition would start getting better (hopefully) and that my sight would start getting better as well. That was weeks ago, and I was really concerned during this time. Today, however, I've actually been able to read normally unlike previous times in the recent past. There's still a bit of fuzziness, but that just means there's still more to adjust, but for the moment, let's just say it's so much nicer being able to read this way and not get a headache every fifteen minutes from not using my glasses.



Not much else going on. My thesis is still going through its Kafka-esque journey of approval from the Graduate Deparment. My God, I never thought ONE person could make it so difficult for a thesis to be accepted. Turns out she "lost" it last week by placing it on her file cabinet, or her desk, or wherever it was in her office. Kat had to point at it and say "there it is", and the women STILL tried to blame Kat for her own screw up. And this is the school that said I wasn't "qualified" to work there when I applied to be an employee while attendng UOP. Apparently, the word "qualified" has a lot of humorous definitions at University of the Pacific.



So, I am assuming I graduate this month. Who knows? They'll probably do something else really stupid. Everything else up until now has been a nightmare with this process. Why are they doing this? It's not like I was an enemy of UOP or the Graduate School at any time? Everyone else seems to be doing just fine with the process. Is it because I'm not physically there and unable to micromanage the process, so they figure I'm easy pickens for screwing with for no reason whatsoever? I don't really understand this.



As for here, my boss is having me create something a little different than I am here for; he wants me to create a debate teacher's program, so that we can train English instructors, specifically the Korean ones, to teach debate as well as English. After my initial uneasiness with the project, I'm actually developing the plan forward. I briefed two of the teachers on Wednesday, and while I can see them being a bit apprehensive (they have zero debate experience whatsoever), I kept trying to reassure them that this would not be a problem, and that with some work, they can actually do pretty well with this. What I don't think they realize (or maybe they do) is that the completion of this project will make them a lot more employable in South Korea, because there are a few schools that do the English/Debate thing here. It's really hard to find qualified people to do it, because a rational debate teacher isn't going to want to go and ALSO teach English for three days of the week. Yeah, I guess I'm really not always the most rational person.



That's about it. Wanted to share some slightly better news than usual. Been doing a lot of complaining lately, although I had a good reason to be doing so. They don't really share any of the same holidays with the US here, so what we do get off is Christmas and New Year's. Unfortunately, both of those days fall on a Thursday, which is my normal day off, so that means they won't be anything special for me when it comes to work. They don't give compensation days or anything like that. I'll just have the normal days off, and have to console myself with the fact that at least I'm not having to work on those days as well. Being in a different country can be a bit frustrating sometimes.



I weighed myself yesterday, and I'm at 147 pounds, which is somewhat near (or at) my ideal weight. My clothes don't fit anymore, and that's a problem because everything I have to wear is many inches too big. I really don't have the money to go out and buy new sets of clothing. This means tightening my belt, which is also a bit of a problem because I've run out of notches to tighten up with, so I either have to buy a new belt, or I'll have to do what I did when I was poor: create a new hole in the belt. But can I really complain, however? I've lost a lot of weight, and it's not some crash diet where the weight goes right back on once I stop being on the crash diet. This is the normal way I eat every day now, and my weight has melted off as a result. I'm kind of happy, foodwise, so there's really no reason to complain.



I sent my novel, The Ameriad, to Ricia Mainhardt's Literary Agency, and I'm still waiting for a response. She's having one of her readers take a look at it, so we'll see what happens. I've received mostly rejections from everyone to whom I've sent my other stuff. As soon as I finish the final edit on Rumors of War, I intend to start sending out query letters to agents for that one as well. It sucks that it takes so much effort to get published properly, but I'm hoping that once it happens, it will all have been worth it.



So, how am I occupying most of my free time? World of Warcraft. I figured that if I can't escape Korea and go to America, at least I can escape Korea and go to Azeroth (the land of World of Warcraft). I've been playing on the Horde these days with my hunter, and he's now 43rd level. I'm in a pretty decent guild on one of the Oceania servers (playing here because at least that way I'm closer to the same time zone as everyone else). Yeah, I know some people treat the game as some geek thing, and that's all right. But it does occupy a lot of free time these days, and believe me, it's been a lifesaver over the last few weeks, because things haven't really been all that great, and sometimes it's really nice to have something like that to take your mind off of real world things.



That's pretty much it for now. I'm at work right now, about to get ready for Writing and Composition classes with some middle school kids. One positive thing so far about being here is that I've found myself really liking the kids. They may get annoying at time, but that's because they're kids, and that's what they're supposed to do. But they like me, and I feel they respect me as well. I listen to the classrooms of other teachers, and the kids seem almost completely out of control. In my classes, they participate, and we get along without that loud, racuous noise I hear from the other classes. I'm not sure why it doesn't happen in my classes, but I'm not a strict teacher either. I do make them laugh a lot, and I think that has something to do with it. It also took weeks of working with the kids before they started to warm up to me; I have one of those strange senses of humor that takes time to get used to. One day, with one of my classes, it seemed like things were never going to get better (it was feeling like a bad class), so I just started talking about how squirrels are evil, carry machine guns, and one must always be on guard to warn if squirrels might attack. That, alone, did it. The kids have so much fun with this little joke, that sometimes they'll answer questions, using squirrels as the prompt to lead them to answer even more questions. The thing was: I wasn't planning to use this dumb joke as a starting pointi to anything, but it just worked. Another day, I talked about mind-controlling teddy bears, and it just worked great with another group of kids. It's partly because it's absurd, and kids often live in an absurd world where things don't always make sense. It creates a strange bond between the teacher and the students, when both can joke about the same thing, yet still manage to get the work done that is required. Anyway, I'm just pontificating about something I don't really understand anyway.

Stumble It!

The Status of Duane

I wish I had more to say, but I really don't. Nothing is going on in my life right now, other than I get up in the morning, do some random work around the apartment, and then I go to the school where I team little middle school kids a little bit about the English language. On the weekends, Saturday and Sunday, I hold debate classes where students learn about an issue, prepare a case, and then argue with each other, using the international debate format. Sometimes, I find myself impressed with their arguments; other times, it's like listening to two ships in the night, talking about two different issues and wondering why I'm listening to what they have to say.

As for my health, it's kind of on a "wait and see" basis. Things are not great, and they don't seem to be getting all that much better. Right now, the big problem is that I'm having vision problems (I can't read with my glasses on, and I get a headache without my glasses). I had this same problem a few months back when my potassium went nutso on me, but all tests have indicated that the same problem is not back, so it looks like it's a wait and see process to hope that things start to correct themselves.

I do really regret coming here, however. I feel like the protagonist in Kobe Abe's Woman in the Dunes, where a man becomes trapped in a society of people who live in the sand, and there is no way for him to escape, so he has to accept that he will always live in a sand house that is constantly collapsing on him, because that is what was chosen for him. I feel trapped that way, a lot, and as much as I try to compensate by making things more comfortable, I can never escape the fact that I live in a house of sand that no matter how much furniture and westernized conveniences I add, I'm still going to be living in a house of sand.

The frustrations are such simple things, too. Like my computer. I really miss my computer, because with that, I could wile away lots of time playing games, of which I have a massive collection (none of which are with me right now). My laptop computer here is being used as my main computer, and it just doesn't have the processing power to do the things I want to do, so it's like living with a manual typewriter and trying to use it to surf the web. Okay, it's not that bad, but the point still remains. My stuff is still back in the states, and it is taking forever to get any of it over here. To get some of my own stuff here would be such a boon, because at least then it would feel like a little bit of my own life is here, but none of it has come here so far, so I keep finding myself having to compensate by settling for less than what I desire.

And my graduation from University of the Pacific is supposed to be this month, but I have no way of feeling that out whatsoever. Kat has been making the changes to my thesis (the page changes, not content), but the graduate school is so dysfunctional that it would not surprise me if somehow I don't even graduate, but get swept under the rug because they really don't care. The woman who works at the front desk of the Graduate School serves as a barrier to education, and it's amazing that this woman even has a job sometimes. But she continues to do what she does (making it more difficult for people to graduate because...well, no one really understands why she does this because it doesn't serve any positive purpose whatsoever, for the students or for the university, or even for general prosperity).

I've started playing World of Warcraft again, mainly because it's the only thing my computer CAN handle, and it gives me a release from living in Korea. I don't even care to explore Korea these days because I'm just so frustrated with being here. Today, I went to Costco, which is about the most I've traveled in some time. I bought a bunch of stuff with which I hope to make my life more comfortable, like a few DVDS (half of season 1 of LOST and all of season 2). I'd rather have my own DVDs here, but again, I have very little of my stuff from back home, so I have to do what I can to add to my sanity here. I also bought a huge pack of pens because the pens you can buy in office supply stores here suck big time. I also bought another HUGE box of Honey Nut Cheerios because at least those I can eat for breakfast and not feel like I'm sticking a trout in my mouth first thing in the morning.

I have started to find books here at various bookstores, even though some of them can be massively expensive, meaning you have to really search each store and compare prices on books. An example is the new Ken Follett paperback, World Without End. At What The Book, a bookstore here in Itaewon with English titles, this book was being sold for 35,000 won (about $26), whereas Bandi & Luni in the Coex shopping mall was selling it for the list price of 12,820 won (nearly a third of the price). You find that with a lot of things here, so much that you really have to be careful with what you buy and where you buy it or you'll get massively screwed.

Haven't even given any thoughts to relationships here. I know some of my American friends would probably be surprised by this because it's not a secret that I have somewhat of a weakness for Asian women. But it doesn't seem to be happening this time, and I find myself really not interested. I think what has happened is that I have lost all patience with most of the women I deal with, and thus, I really don't want to get involved. My interests are pretty finicky in relationships, and I find that sometimes it's just not worth the effort trying to find someone. I think my chance to find someone ended some years back, and that I had a couple of really good prospects that I screwed up, so I believe that nature has finally just decided that I let the brass ring go by too many times, so I'm really not going to be finding anyone again. I have this really bad tendency to become involved with women who want to be friends with me, and that's about all I ever find anymore. I know most of that is my fault, because as most people point out to me, what I should just say is that I'm not interested in friendships with anyone new, and if they're not interested in anything further than that, then move on and seek out someone else.

My hope is that I will be able to find a job back in states, so I can go home and work there. Korea would have been fine for me about ten years ago, but at this age, it's really not doing that much for me. I get really frustrated with incompetence, and there's a lot of that at work. And when your management screws up and then feels the need to make YOU responsible for how they screwed up, it really gets irritating. One example was this last weekend. I haven't had an actual debate in two weeks (weird schedules were the cause) so I had no idea what my schedule actually was. So I kept asking the supervisor for a schedule. ("Okay, I give schedule tomorrow...." and of course, no schedule comes tomorrow) Then, I was given an interview schedule (they want me to interview students for the new debate program) where my first interview was at 1pm. Then I get a phone call at 10am asking me why I'm not at work already to coach a debate that I knew nothing about. Instead of "sorry, we should have told you", I get "You should know to be here, and get here now!" as a response. Then I get the supervisor claiming she "told" me, even though the only thing she "told" me was about the interview at 1pm. It doesn't help that NONE of them speak any English, nor that none of them understand anybody's Korean, including mine. That's the other problem with this country. The language. It's a garbage language, in case you didn't know that. It was written only recently in history, and so many words mean so many different things that if you ever listen to a phone conversation, you'd go nuts. It literally goes like this:

A: Yobaseyo. (Hi)
B: Yobaseyo. (Hi)
A: Papaseyo? (Are you busy?)
B: Huh? (What?)
A: Papaseyo? (Are you busy?)
B: Ah, Papa John's Pizza? (Ah, Papa John's Pizza?)
A: Aniyo, Papseyo? (No, are you busy?)
B: Ah, Aniyo, Peolo anpapeyo. (Ah, no I am not particularly busy)
A: Papa John's? (Papa John's?)
B: Aniyo, Peolo anpapayo. (No, I am not particular busy)
A: Mmm, Papa John's. (Mmm, let's eat at Papa John's)
B: Ne, Papa John's. Ne. (Yes, Papa John's, Yes)
A: Mmm. (Yummy sounds)
B: Anyoung hee, kashipseyo. (Goodbye to you leaving)
A: Ne, Anyoung hee, keshipseyo. (Goodbye to you staying)

Gotta love the language. No one ever gets anything done, but they all seem to end up at Papa John's Pizza.

Stumble It!

The problems of getting sick in a foreign country

I finally got to see a doctor today, and they ended up admitting me so they could put me on an IV. Unfortunately, they want to keep me for a week in the hospital, and I just don't have the time to do that because there's no way in the world my job would allow me to miss that much time. Yeah, I'm not kidding. It's just not an option. My employer lives in a different world than that of reality, and I can already see how such a request would go over. Basically, it wouldn't go over at all.

So, I'm trying to do the best I can without being admitted into a hospital for a week's stay. My blood tests haven't been all that great, which means something has to be done, and I really am starting to run out of options.

Spending my day off on a hospital bed with an IV coming out of my hand was not exactly what I had intended for today, but I can't really fault them for trying to save my life now, can I? One positive piece of news was that my potassium levels were not actually the problem (something I thought was the case, as this is why I ended up in the ER right before I left for Korea). Same symptoms, different cause.

So, I have to go back for more testing on Thursday, and they'll probably admit me again for another day's worth of IV fun.

******************************************************************************
Current word count for Rumors of War: 22516. Took a few days off because of health reasons. Will try to get back to finishing this. On another note, my old agent got in touch with me today by leaving me a phone message. She's going to take a look at The Ameriad, and there's a slight chance she might be representing me again, although it still feels pretty much like a long shot. That's how the whole publishing industry seems these days. A long shot.

Stumble It!

An update from the depths of Hell...I mean Korea

It's sometimes hard to figure out if I like it here or really just hate it. I find myself wishing I was home a lot, or wishing I was anywhere else but here. If I had the choice to do it all over again, I would never have come here. There are just so many things that are screwed up, and it gets really frustrating.

Example: Today, I was informed that the "government" will not give me my medication that was sent to me from the states without me having a prescription for my medication to present to them. I don't have a prescription because it's my medication from the states, being sent here because I forgot to bring it. There's no grey area. No prescription, no medication. I guess they think I'm trying to smuggle in weed or something, even though it's in pill form and comes in bottles marked as the appropriate medication that it actually is. An easy Internet search (looking up the medication will show you it IS the medication claimed) could be conducted, but they are "too busy" for that. So I guess my medication is going to be thrown out instead of delivered to me. Another reason I hate this place.

I can't even do simple little things that I might enjoy, like play the new Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization. I can't play it because if you don't live in North America, no one will sell it to you. You can't even download it anywhere because they've blocked off South Korea for distribution. I was able to buy a game I really didn't want called Titan Quest, but it doesn't work properly on my laptop, so that was yet another waste of money for something I don't even get any pleasure from.

My writing career sucks being here. I can't send out queries unless the agent takes email queries, but when you email an agent, they don't take you seriously and just delete your emails for the most part. I can't send in short stories because mailing to the states is inappropriately overpriced. So, I can write, but that's about it.

The food. I can't stand most of it. I have a hard time going to a supermarket here because when I get into the meat section, the aroma nearly causes me to vomit. Did I mention that I really hate it here?

The people I work with are okay, but they have a really bad habit of speaking only in Korean and then wondering why I never know what's going on. Today was a good example of that. We lost one of our teachers (he quit a few days ago) so I had to take over his class on English writing. I found this out today, about an hour before class. The head teacher asked me how come I didn't have a lesson plan already made up (an hour before class). I said I just found out about the class. She said that everyone knew, and how come I didn't? Yeah, that's the kind of thing that really causes one to sit up and hate where they're at.

And medically, I'm really having some problems here. I have a condition I can't seem to fix, and if it's as bad as I think it is, I've been living with an imminent heart attack coming at any time for about the last three weeks now. No one seems to understand the significance of needing to get medical coverage taken care of, mainly because it's not happening to them and, in the words of one very sensitive Korean: "You haven't had a heart attack yet, so you're fine."

On the positive side, I bought a really nice 22 inch flat screen LCD monitor for my computer for the equivalent of 22 beads and trinkets (about $140). So I hope someone gets some great use out of it after I collapse on one of these upcoming days.

I also read a really good science fiction book called Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I'm now reading the next Cliff Janeway novel by John Dunning.

Stumble It!