Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in i_am_ryans_lj's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, January 12th, 2012
8:27 pm	2012: The Year of LiveJournal I miss when people used live journal. It was nice reading longer things that people wrote instead of just one or two sentence facebook updates. Anyway, I felt like writing a few things down that I'll probably forget in a few years and enjoy reading about. My New Year's started out strangely. A few of us were walking from one bar to another around 1:00 am on New Year's day. We were crossing the street near the second bar. There was a minivan sitting dead center in the crosswalk. There was absolutely no reason for him to be there, nobody behind him, he was just being an asshole. As I walked by the minivan I slapped the back of it a couple times for good measure. Just open palm slaps, no chance of damaging it or anything. The guy roles down his window and starts yelling at me, calling me a motherfucker and such. I flick him off in accordance with New York pedestrian protocol. He yells at me more. As we are walking down the sidewalk one of Thao's friends says, "he's getting out of his car, let's go over to the bouncer." We were near a bar. I kept walking becuz I aint nvr scurrd. He runs up and starts yelling at me more. Some little wannabe thug in his late teens. I specifically remember him calling me a "fucking nigger" because I thought it was a strange thing to say. My skin makes Snow White look tan so I can't imagine why being called a nigger would offend me. Anyway, I tell him to fuck off and not to block the crosswalk. He then pulls out a spray bottle and tries to spray something on me. He has it on the fine mist setting so it mostly blows back on him. He kind of dances around in the way that thugs do when their pants are a little too low and keeps spraying stuff at me. Eventually I feel a little mist and recognize the smell. He was spraying Windex at me. I was really more surprised and confused than anything. It was kind of surreal. After a few seconds I suppose he realized that Windex isn't Mace and ran back to his minivan. He yelled more expletives at me through his window. I flicked him off again for good measure. It was just so weird. If he was going to park his minivan and run over I would at least expect a knife. A few blocks later we made it to the next bar and continued on with an otherwise mediocre New Year's. On a semi-related note; I've seen enough of New York. I'm leaving in 13 days and feel pretty good about it. Tomorrow is my last day of work at my current job. I'm moving to Arizona to start a much better job. Pretty excited about that. I get why people like this place, but I really think the negatives outweigh the positives. I'm glad I spent a year here and I definitely don't regret it, but I'm happy to leave. Moving for the fifth time in 2 years = awesome. Our apartment building had mice. I killed two. Okay, one. The second one was dead when I found him. I think I sprained my toe today. I was showing my coworkers how I could jump up and touch the ceiling. The landing went badly. Now it's all bruised and painful. Ok bye. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
9:00 pm	EARTHQUAKE!!!!! I really enjoyed the little earthquake we got in New York a few days back. I'd like to feel what a bigger one is like. This one was so small that everybody just thought they were dizzy or something. I thought my coworker was shaking our desk. My supervisor ran out of the building like it was about to collapse. He's such a spaz. I don't think I've ever used that word to describe anyone before, but it fits him really well. Good times. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 1st, 2011
11:36 pm	Dead Laden I feel kind of giddy that Bin Laden is dead. Is that weird? Probably. Current Mood: giddy (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 27th, 2011
5:30 pm	The Lucky Ones It's weird. I feel like when I remember things that happened just a couple years ago I can remember events and facts, but I often can't remember why I felt the way I did or what my opinions at the time were. For example, I know that for the most part I really disliked junior high, but I can't remember why. Maybe it was just a matter of brain chemistry. Who knows. Anyway, I feel like I need to write this out because I won't be able to remember it in a few year. It kills me how much people complain and how much awful shit they do. In the US, even people that are not that well off still objectively have better lives than nearly anybody from 200 years ago or in other countries now. We live a long time. We have food and clean water. We can take hot showers and wear clean clothes. Even homeless people get meals and somewhere to sleep on cold nights. Yet nobody seems to really appreciate it. Maybe it's a matter of entitlement or just never having seen anything else. I feel like we're so lucky to be here and now, but almost nobody even appreciates it. People just bitch and moan about what they don't have and how things aren't going their way. People in other countries work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week making almost no money so that we can buy stuff that gets thrown away after a few uses. Something like 1/4 of clothing that women buy goes directly into the garbage without ever being worn. We throw away more food than most people in the world eat. But are we any happier for it? Surveys say: no. One thing that drove me crazy when I worked at Chuck E. Cheese was the way people wasted napkins. Some people would get to the table and pull out a huge stack of napkins out of the dispenser. They would then use maybe 4 or 5 of the 15 or 20 they pulled out. When they were done they would just throw the clean, unused napkins straight into the garbage. I feel like this kind of thing represents a very prevalent general attitude. Waste, waste, waste. I'd think to think that people simply don't realize the consequences of their actions, but that may be too optimistic. I can remember when I thought that way though. No regard for wasting gas. Wanting to replace old but still working things with newer better things. I remember once for Christmas my grandma sent me Lego Technics, which I didn't like for some reason, and I got upset. But I was just young and uninformed. It's easy not to see what effects your actions have if you aren't looking. I think this whole lifestyle is going to end soon. We've almost spent our whole petrochemical inheritance by now. I think our generation could possibly be the last one to live the way we do, at least for a while. More on that soon. Hopefully written in a less rambling fashion. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
9:47 pm	Making it in New York I've always thought the term "make it in..." was stupid. Is it hard to "make it" in New York? There are like 100 restaurants within a 10 minute walk and pretty much anything one could want within a 20 minute walk. Life isn't exactly hard here. I think it would make sense to say that somebody couldn't make it as an Eskimo. That's probably a hard life. I guess the closest thing I can think it would mean is "afford it." That can definitely be tough. Leaving Minneapolis really makes you appreciate the place. It's clean, reasonably cheap, easy to get around, etc. People are also noticeably nicer. I have no regrets about coming here and definitely want to stay for a while, but it's definitely got its cons. I've talked to a few people who are from here and it surprises me how some say they wouldn't move anywhere else. I guess I just don't understand people's unwillingness to move to different places. New York has got its problems. One of Thao's friend and her boyfriend are coming to visit this weekend. It should be fun. We're going to do some touristy stuff that I've been wanting to do. We're definitely going to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We'll also probably walk around the Financial District and see the World Trade Center site. (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
12:03 pm	Empire State of Mind Thao and I moved to New York at the end of December. I'm so sick of driving from the east coast to Minnesota. Moving went fairly smoothly though. They just had a big snow storm here right before we got here so the streets were bad. Fortunately we were able to park right outside our apartment. Our apartment is small. It's kind of depressing that our two bedroom two bathroom condo right off lake Calhoun was cheaper than this 200 square foot studio in midtown Manhattan. It's not bad though. We put a few hundred dollars into fixing it up a bit and it's pretty nice now. The area we live in is okay. There are tons of restaurants and bars within about 4 blocks, but none really close. I kind of doubt we'll stay in this apartment after our lease is up. I got a job offer about a week ago at Pall Corporation. I'm really excited to start working. It actually only took a little over a month to find a job, which is much shorter than I thought it would take. I'll be working on Long Island, so I have to take a train every day. Fortunately we live pretty close to Penn Station. It's about a 45 minute train ride. I'd much rather have a 45 minute train ride than a 45 minute drive. I hate driving. Living in New York has been good so far. Much better than Baltimore. Restaurants here are actually fairly inexpensive generally. Going drinking is a little more expensive than in Minneapolis, but you can definitely find cheap places. The only things that I've found to be really expensive are groceries and rent. I'm really looking forward to warmer weather. We've been wanting to walk around and see different areas, but it's been cold and windy since we got here. Nothing like winter in Minneapolis, but still cold enough that walking around a lot isn't so fun. Going to see The Daily Show tonight! Hurray! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, February 18th, 2011
3:03 pm	Deadjournal I feel kind of upset at myself for not writing in here more. That sounds stupid, and I realize that nobody else uses it anymore, but I actually really like going through my old posts and reading them. It's weird how little I remember about some of the things I write about. I don't even remember writing a lot of the entries. I'm sure I would have never thought of them again if not for my random stupid posts. I guess I feel no need to write about things that just happened because I obviously remember them so well at that point. But memories sometimes fade in a manner not dissimilar to looking through a fogged mirror. I kind of feel like without these prompts I'll forget completely about some events. Maybe I'll even let my kids read it someday and see what stupid shit I wrote about when I was younger; assuming LJ still exists then. Anyways... here goes some catch up stuff. -Left Korea a while ago. I was actually sadder to leave than I thought I would be. I was really sad to leave some of the kids I taught and some of them were sad to see me go. On the other hand I'm pretty happy to be rid of some of those little bastards. There's a lot of stuff I miss about Korea. I feel like people look more fondly on things in retrospect, which I may well be doing. I miss La Festa and Western Dom. There were some legitimately good restaurants there and stuff was cheap. It was nice being able to walk around in the middle of the night down a dark path without ever feeling unsafe. I miss some of the cheap Korean food including Kimchi. I miss the artificial splendor of Lake Park and the musical fountain. There may be nothing for tourists to do in Korea, but it was a good place to live for a while. -Two of the little girls I taught got in a fight once. It may have been the funniest thing I've ever seen. They both stood still about a foot and a half from each other and alternatively slapped each other lightly on the cheek. God damn was it funny. They were both really upset though and it actually ended up turning into a big deal. Their moms were upset about it in the way that Korea helicopter moms obsess about everything that happens. -I used to go to a bar called Sonny's a lot. It was the coolest bar ever. I really wish there was something like it here. It looked like a basement with random furniture and stuff all over. They had a free pool table and some other weird Korean games. There were also a couple video games nobody ever played. I think there was a Neo Geo cabinet. They also had a hookah that you could use for fairly cheap. It sounds dumb the way I described it, but it was a really cool place. Lots of shitty Korean beer was consumed. -The Oi bar. What a crazy place. Lots of stuff has been happening recently. I'll probably write about that next week. (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 24th, 2010
1:11 pm	This is a flashcard that I am supposed to teach to 5-6 year old Korean kids. I'm gonna skip this one. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 16th, 2009
12:39 am	I hate 2012 There's a really good chance that this will not be at all interesting to read. I think 2012 is actually the worst movie I've ever seen. It was just ridiculously devoid of any substance and had absolutely no redeeming value. New worst movie list: 1. 2012 2. Cabin Fever 3. Dreamcatcher I am still in shock over how a movie could be so bad. The dialogue, the acting and the plot were all terrible. And the movie was WAY too long. Dreamcatcher was at least interesting for the first half until it turned into a retarded alien/monster movie that made no fucking sense. Cabin Fever was awful and felt like it was more of a joke than a serious attempt at making a movie; but at least it wasn't terribly cliche like 2012. I think being cliche was the biggest problem with the movie. It seemed like every single aspect was ripped off from some other slightly better movie. It was all just so predictable and formulaic. Divorced parents with kids getting back together: check. An absurd series of close calls: check. Crazy conspiracy guy who turns out to be right: check. Ridiculous overuse of CGI: check. Makes no fucking sense: check. Seriously, how many more times can Roland Emmerich make the same fucking movie? He and Uwe Boll should get together for a movie. It would probably be the third worst thing that Germans have ever done. Every bit of this movie was bad. The action parts were nothing special and basically consisted of notable landmarks being destroyed. CG was WAY overused and quite often looked pretty bad. The emotional scenes in the movie were abysmal. They were just totally contrived and dragged on far too long. The "scientific" parts of the movie made no sense, but that's to be expected. The same conversations happened over and over and over. Black scientist says "The people have the right to know!" then white politician says "You want to jeopardize this whole operation?" The attempts at humor in the movie were just awful. There were no surprises, everything happens exactly as one would expect. Last but not least... Roland Emmerich is a little bitch. They originally were going to show that stupid islam box getting wrecked, but decided that might offend some fundie muslim fucktards. And of course the way you deal with fuckers like them is to bend to their will and go out of your way as to not offend them. Destroying multiple christian icons is fine. Destroying other cultural landmarks all over the world is fine. Showing people who are explicitly christian or buddhist getting killed is fine. But oh shit, don't do anything the muslims might not like. That is 8000 won and about 6 hours that I'll never get back. Worst movie ever. Current Mood: aggravated (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
6:27 pm	Pepero Day Today was Pepero Day in South Korea. Pepero day is, without a doubt, one of the most ridiculous "holidays" in the world. A Pepero (빼빼로) is a like a skinny chocolate dipped cookie. They don't taste good. They actually don't really taste like anything. But for some reason they have their own day, November 11. Apparently this date was chosen because it looks like four Pepero sticks when written in numerals. (11-11) On Pepero Day you are supposed to buy Pepero for people. I got them from three of my kids. Some of the other teachers got a lot more. I'm not sure what to do with them though, as I don't really care to eat them. On my walk home from school I saw at least 20 empty Pepero boxes on the ground. This isn't an abnormal amount of trash, as Koreans often opt to throw their garbage on the ground rather than find an appropriate receptacle, but it meant that a lot of people must have bought Pepero. Apparently 55% of all Pepero sold are sold in November.  Lotte Mart (the grocery I go to) had a huge area set up for Pepero stuff. They make all kinds of shit too like Pepero bouquets, giant Pepero sticks, etc. I find it ridiculous that there is a day when you are supposed to buy a particular brand of candy. I can understand existing holidays becoming commercialized, but starting a day that is based on consumerism? Weird. I'm a little surprised that it hasn't been tried in the U.S. though. I could see there being an M&M's day or something. It would probably be in March or May. At least it would be a decent food item to base a day on. Blandtastic! (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
12:22 pm	H1N1MEXICANSWINEFLUENZA STRIKES AGAIN! I've been terrible about writing lately. Maybe this will turn that around? Probably not. Our school's manager stopped me and my coworker on the way out of school Thursday. She said that all of the kindergarten classes were canceled for Friday and Monday. I was pretty happy about that until she said that we would be making those days up on our upcoming vacation days. This really sucks. Two of our very scare three day weekends are gone. She also told us not to tell other foreign teachers that a kid at our school has swine flu, because it would hurt the school's reputation. When the fuck did getting the flu come with a social stigma? I'm actually not terribly surprised though. I'm seeing more and more that the drunk Korean-guy-from-Singapore-who-spoke-perfect-English-with-an-Australian-accent was right about Korea being superficial. It's all about appearance and perceived value rather than actual substance. That's pretty much the reason I'm here. I'm really not qualified to teach children, but I am unmistakably white and from America. Our school pays just 5% more for English-speakers who have a teaching degree or license than for those who don't. I think that says a lot about how serious they are about education. Back to the flu thing though... I just don't get what they expected. What are the chances that not one kid out of a few hundred would get the flu this winter? Almost zero. I guarantee it will happen again too. There's a reason people call it flu season. I'm pretty sure terrible smelling hand sanitizer and Hello Kitty face masks aren't going to help. When another kid does get sick I imagine they'll want us to make up those days too. There's no way I'm going to work over New Year's. Despite my criticism of the country in general I've still been having a good time here. I'm really happy that I wasn't born here though. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
4:09 pm	Korea has adopted a lot of things from the U.S. Lots of food, clothing, entertainment, etc. American fast food seems really popular here. They have lots of McDonalds, Burger Kings, and KFCs. They also have lots of Dunkin Donuts for some reason. But the craziest one is Baskin Robbins. There are tons of them here. You can't walk more than a couple blocks in Ilsan without walking by one. According to their website there are 19 in the city I live in. It's ridiculous! Unfortunately, they are also importing one of my least favorite things: Religion! Specifically Christianity. Of course, since it's Korea, all churches have to have neon lights. (Not my picture) Like literally, every church has at least a neon cross, it's weird. It's really disheartening to me. Between 1985 and 2005 the percent of Koreans that claim to be Christians went up from 20.7% to 29.2% source. I just can't understand how an adult could covert to any religion. They are just all so stupid. The bible is clearly just a book of fairy tales. You would have to be insane to claim otherwise. Islam is worse. Mormonism is worse yet. Scientology is just off the wall insane. At least most people agree on that one. But really, they are all the same. Street evangelism is huge here. The plague bearers of this cognitive disease hand out information at bus stops, subway stations, and tourist attractions. They usually have English and Korean stuff so that nobody misses out on the brainwashing. I've been bothered more in the last ~2.5 months than in the last 5 years at home. They all seem really excited to talk to white people. Maybe we're worth more Jesus points than their fellow Koreans. For some reason the Jehovah's Witnesses are big here. I find it really weird that so many Koreans get mixed up with that crowd. I mean seriously, they incorrectly predicted the end of the world 3 times! Obviously they don't know shit. They now say that it's impossible to predict when the world will end, so I guess they were sick of looking stupid. It's really unfortunate that Koreans are buying into this bullshit. It seems that math and science are highly valued here, but religion has a way of changing that.  The Koreans are already pretty conservative. I'm sure it will get much worse if Christianity continues to grow. Hopefully religion in general will start to shrink here like it has in Europe and America. The only difference between a religion and a cult is the number of members. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 30th, 2009
4:04 pm	Hangover's not a strong enough word I think I'm going to try to write here more. I think some day I'll really like going back and reading it. We'll see how that goes. Thao left yesterday, which really sucks. It's hard being apart so long. We don't really know when she's coming back. Lots of complicating factors. Hopefully it will be soon. Last night was fun though. I met up with a few people that live in my building and went to a few bars. The first bar was really cool. It was small and looked like a stoner's basement. They had a hookah, which was cool. They also had a pool table that was free. After we left there we went to La Festa, which is a big bar/restaurant area. It's where everybody goes out in Ilsan. A few of the guys wanted to watch some soccer game, Arsenal vs. Manchester United maybe, so we went to a sports bars. They had free pool, foosball (if that's how you spell it), and some weird little ring toss game that a bunch of Koreans were playing. They also had a darts, which I've really liked lately. We met a guy from Shanghai at the bar who was in Korea for a few days for business. He told us about how China was a third world country full of brainwashed people. I liked him. He spoke English perfectly, but in an Australian accent. We left the sports bar and went to Bar Boom. Bar Boom is a western hiphop bar that a lot of foreigners go to. It's usually about 1/4 foreigners and 3/4 Korean people. Last time I was there all of the TVs were showing a video called "Durty South," which was disgusting. There's a clip of it here. I wouldn't recommend watching it if you're eating, or at all really. No Durty South last night. Bar Boom was fun. Korean people are kind of weird when they dance. Usually guys dance with guys and girls dance with girls. Not always, but more often. Me and one of the guys from my building stay until they were closing up at around 4:30. Bars stay open really late here. As far as I know there is no set time for bar close. Things have been pretty good lately, aside from Thao leaving. Apparently I have tonsillitis, which really sucks. I'm pretty sure the kids at school got me sick. Koreans are crazy paranoid about swine flu, but they don't seem to care at all about another other illness. The kids come to school when they're really sick sometimes. Going to the doctor was an awful experience. I took all of my medicine but I think I'm still sick. I really don't want to go to the doctor again though. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, August 28th, 2009
12:01 am	I don't care There are many popular K-pop songs that I hear constantly. But there is one K-pop song to rule them all. Its power over Korean people is absolute. They can not resist it. If they were zombies it would would be brains. If they were cats it would be catnip. If they were Rosie O'Donnell it would be tubs of butter. It is a part of them. Like Kimchi Spitting on the floor And popped collars The kids sing it at school. It is everyone's ring tone. All of the stores play it. People hum it. There is no escape. The lyrics are inspired. Mixing English with Korean is irresistible to Korean people. It's driving me crazy. I hear it between 5 and 10 times per day. Witness the horror! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
11:01 pm	Glycine in space! I just saw an article on yahoo news about glycine being found in a comet. Glycine is one of the 22 standard amino acids that make up proteins. It is an organic molecule that is critical to all live on Earth. It's a huge step towards understanding the origins of life, unless the research turns out to be wrong of course. I think it goes a long way towards proving that Earth isn't that special. If glycine can spontaneously form on a comet in space there is a good chance it exists all over the universe. Hopefully this will also help counter creationist bullshit like "the chance of life spontaneously forming is like the chance a tornado would assemble a 747 from a junk yard." There is a good chance that creationists will ignore this altogether though. Those people wear stupid like a badge of honor. At any rate.. one more step towards learning where we actually came from. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
10:58 pm	The most awful thing ever I've noticed a terrible trend in Korea. Maybe it happens in the United States, but I never once saw it. It is fairly common here to see couples (usually younger, maybe high school age) wearing the same or matching shirts. Usually it is just a design or maybe just a normal polo shirt. Although I have yet to see anybody wearing them, I've seen in stores shirts that go together to make one design. So like, the guy would walk on the left and the girl on the right and their shirts would match up to say something or make a picture. I'm assuming this is too awful for Korean guys. The worst part is that most of these couples are younger, so they wouldn't live together. This would mean that one would have to call or text the other so that they can plan to wear their matching shirts. I'm sure the girls just love this shit. I just can't imagine any guy in the U.S. having so little self-respect that he could go along with it. Unbelievable. Current Mood: discontent (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009
9:48 am	One month As of today I've been in Korea for one month. It really seems like the time has flown by. I'm sure that is partially because I spend so much of it in the school. It's been pretty fun so far. Some definite drawbacks, but I'm really glad I came here. School is going okay for the most part. There are a couple girls in my kindergarten that are really starting to annoy me. One of them is really whiny. Yesterday her chair fell over because she was sitting in it wrong, so she yells "Teacher, I don't have a chair," even though it was right behind her laying on its back. She does the same thing will pencils and paper. If her pencil falls on the floor she'll say "Teacher, my pencil is gone," like I was supposed to pick it up off the ground. That and she talks constantly when I'm teaching. The other girl is always mad at somebody or somebody is mad at her. They get in these long arguments about who made a mean face at whom yesterday or whether or not somebody apologized after bumping into somebody or if one girl asked permission to touch another girl's pencil case. It drives me fucking nuts. The non-school aspects are going much better. My cousin is here now and Thao gets here tomorrow night. I have a 6 day break coming up, so I'll get to do some touristy stuff. We might go down to Busan, which is another big city that has nice beaches and tourist stuff. I'm still trying to learn Korean, but it's going slowly. Most days I don't feel like doing it after I get home from school. I usually drink cheap crappy Korean beer and watch The Daily Show or Family Guy. That's been working out well for me though. Ilsan is a really cool city. I kind of wish I was actually in Seoul, but this is probably just as good. There is a huge shopping/restaurant/bar area about 4 miles from me. There is also a really cool park area near that. The park has this fountain: </lj-embed> I haven't seen it going yet, but I will this week. Time for work. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
8:33 am	I just don't get it Why do republicans like Sarah Palin? I am totally at a lost. A Gallup poll showed that 71% of republicans say they would vote for her if she ran for president. I can only imagine that 71% of republicans would also vote for a potato if it identified itself as a republican. What basis do people have for supporting Sarah Palin? She apparently got bored of being governor and just decided quit. If she is actually the republican nominee for 2012 it will be the most one-sided election in American history. She is ridiculously unqualified. You could pull any random person off the street and they would probably make just as good of a president as she would. Maybe republicans are just desperate to show how stupid they are. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 5th, 2009
6:21 pm	The Sights of South Korea South Korea is actually a lot less similar to the U.S, than I thought it would be. I kind of figured that they would have adopted a lot more from us than they actually have. It makes for some interesting experiences though. I see weird stuff almost every day. There always seems to be things going on. People here seem to spend a lot less time in their own homes than Americans do. That makes sense though, since most people live in tiny apartments. It's cool, I feel like most Americans spend almost all of their time in their homes except when working or shopping. One of the funniest things I've seen was a business man in a suit sleeping on a stone bench on the sidewalk. Apparently it's not uncommon for business men to get drunk and not be able to make it home. So they sleep on benches. I can't imagine ever seeing that at home. A lot of people here wear shirts that have English words on them. A lot of restaurants and stores also have English slogans or just a few sentences written on the walls or windows. Amazingly enough, the English is almost never correct. I've seen so many shirts that make absolutely no sense. Some t-shirts that I've seen have been really funny, I keep meaning to write a few down but I always forget before I get home. Even western chains, like Paris Baguette, have mistakes in their printed materials. Unless of course there is a pastry called a "snowplake." Cities here are also a lot different. There are tons and tons of areas that have the exact same building over and over in big clusters. The cities are not at all aesthetic. It seems like they just built large amounts of housing as fast as they possibly could. They also have tons and tons of lights at night. A lot of buildings here have stores on their first through fourth floors. Every single one has a lit up sign. There is so much light pollution at night that you can't see a single star in the night sky. I'm sure that's also partially due to air pollution though. During the day there is constantly a slight haze in the air. You can't see nearly as far as you can at home. I took the subway across Seoul yesterday, It's ridiculous how big that city is. It makes sense though considering the population is over 10 million. When I was on the subway some guy glared at me for a good 20 seconds. It was really weird. Even after I looked straight at him he kept it up. He seemed like he was waiting in line to get on the subway, but he just stood on the platform after it came and everybody got on. He kept glaring at me as it pulled away. I'm really curious what his motivation was. While I was on the subway some guy was going car to car selling CDs. He played really loud Christian music in English from a boombox. I was really surprised that a couple people bought a CD from him. There are constantly people selling random shit here. It doesn't really seem like there are any rules about where and when you can sell things. There are tons of really really old women selling vegetables on the sidewalks. People just kind of set up shop anywhere that there are a few square feet open. (Comment on this)
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
12:42 pm	Lazy Sunday Yesterday I met one of the other foreign teachers at my school and the one whom I am replacing. We went to a couple bars in the big nightlife area of Ilsan called Western dom. The whole area is super busy all night. It's weird to see so many people around all the time. The first place we went was a German bar, which was ridiculous. I don't think the Koreans really understand what a German bar is. Almost the whole night there was a Filipino band on stage singing American pop songs. They were actually pretty good, but it was funny to see. I also really liked how they introduced Billy Jean: "Because Michael Jackson is dead we play for you some Michael Jackson." In the second bar we went to there were a bunch of foreign teachers who all seemed to kind of know eachother. It was supposed to be an Irish bar, but all that meant was that there were a few paper shamrocks on the walls and a Guinness tap. It was fun though. It's been really fun being here so far. There are a few things that have sucked, but they were pretty minor. One is that the subways and buses stop at like 12:30. I got stranded twice on the way back to Ilsan from Seoul. Fortunently taxis are really cheap here. I would guess the taxi ride was about 20 miles, but it only cost 18000 won, which is like 14 dollars. Some of the people are also rude as shit, especially old people. I know it's kind of their culture, but it sucks. A couple of the girls in our orientation class were waiting in line to use the ticket machine in the subway and this little bastard like pushed them out of the way and started using the machine. It was surreal to see. It was also funny because he looked exactly like a Korean version of Danny Devito. I also had an old lady cough directly into my face on the subway, which I did not appreciate. I really need to learn more Korean fast. I feel like an idiot when people talk to me. I know a few phrases here and there, but I really need to at least learn basic things. Hopefully Rosetta Stone is as good as the company claims it to be. We'll see. (Comment on this)