Pschadelic architecture.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Happy lazy Sunday everybody. The weather's been nice here for awhile so I was surprised when I looked at the thermometer and it said a mighty 23 Fahrenheit. I haven't ventured outside yet and I'm not sure that I will. Updating the blog might be my only accomplishment today.
Yesterday I went to Insadong Market in Seoul in search of a guitar. I heard that there was a massive mall that just sold musical instruments so I decided to go in search of it. I should have just handed the store keepers my credit card on entering the place. There's no way a person can get out of there without dropping some cash. My damages amounted to two hundred dollars which I traded for a decent guitar. Now I can torture my neighbors with my unique brand of American music.
Sad to say, my Korean doesn't seem to be improving much, however, I am getting better at communicating through gesturing and improvised charades. I practice my Korean everyday but the pronunciation is what gets me. This is a typical conversation with one of the Korean teachers at my school:
Me: Excuse me but how do you say this word?
K Teacher: Oh that, that's pee-gon-ha-da.
Me: Pee-gon-ha-da?
K Teacher: No, Pee-gon-ha-da.
Me: That's what I just said. Pee-gon-ha-da.
K Teacher: No! Pee-gon-ha-da; da, da, da!
Me: Da-da-da?
K Teacher: No, da!
I guess I can't say "da" right, but I'm trying. It's a good experience for me though. It helps to remind me what the kids are going through when they try to learn English.
I kind of like not being able to understand what people are saying. In the states I heard so much bitching and whining from people. This is because I was a server and teacher. I would hear the kids complain at the school and then I would hear their parents complain at the restaurant. It really brought me down. Now I don't understand what anybody is saying so I'm free to imagine any scenario I feel like. The two ladies yelling at each other from across the street, they're not arguing about anything important. They're discussing who is "it" from their last game of tag.
"I touched you last."
"Oh, no you didn't. Remember there's no double taps."
The two drunk Korean business men on the street. They're not fighting about who slept with who's wife; they're fighting because one guy stole the other guy's balloon. I'm free to create and interpret any scenario in any way I want. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Coming to a place like this is tantamount to rebooting my life. Here I'm free to recreate myself in any way I want. It's like wiping the slate clean and starting all over again. I guess that's why I like extended travel so much. It gives me the chance to live many different lives rather than the same life all the time. Some people might think I'm running away, I choose to believe that I'm just adventurous.
I posted some Korean pics, but I was reviewing some camping pics from last year and so decided to post those for little bit reminiscence. Enjoy.
Yesterday I went to Insadong Market in Seoul in search of a guitar. I heard that there was a massive mall that just sold musical instruments so I decided to go in search of it. I should have just handed the store keepers my credit card on entering the place. There's no way a person can get out of there without dropping some cash. My damages amounted to two hundred dollars which I traded for a decent guitar. Now I can torture my neighbors with my unique brand of American music.
Sad to say, my Korean doesn't seem to be improving much, however, I am getting better at communicating through gesturing and improvised charades. I practice my Korean everyday but the pronunciation is what gets me. This is a typical conversation with one of the Korean teachers at my school:
Me: Excuse me but how do you say this word?
K Teacher: Oh that, that's pee-gon-ha-da.
Me: Pee-gon-ha-da?
K Teacher: No, Pee-gon-ha-da.
Me: That's what I just said. Pee-gon-ha-da.
K Teacher: No! Pee-gon-ha-da; da, da, da!
Me: Da-da-da?
K Teacher: No, da!
I guess I can't say "da" right, but I'm trying. It's a good experience for me though. It helps to remind me what the kids are going through when they try to learn English.
I kind of like not being able to understand what people are saying. In the states I heard so much bitching and whining from people. This is because I was a server and teacher. I would hear the kids complain at the school and then I would hear their parents complain at the restaurant. It really brought me down. Now I don't understand what anybody is saying so I'm free to imagine any scenario I feel like. The two ladies yelling at each other from across the street, they're not arguing about anything important. They're discussing who is "it" from their last game of tag.
"I touched you last."
"Oh, no you didn't. Remember there's no double taps."
The two drunk Korean business men on the street. They're not fighting about who slept with who's wife; they're fighting because one guy stole the other guy's balloon. I'm free to create and interpret any scenario in any way I want. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Coming to a place like this is tantamount to rebooting my life. Here I'm free to recreate myself in any way I want. It's like wiping the slate clean and starting all over again. I guess that's why I like extended travel so much. It gives me the chance to live many different lives rather than the same life all the time. Some people might think I'm running away, I choose to believe that I'm just adventurous.
I posted some Korean pics, but I was reviewing some camping pics from last year and so decided to post those for little bit reminiscence. Enjoy.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
The first wave of homesickness hit on Saturday. I made the mistake of downloading an episode of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me." For those of you who don't listen to NPR, also known as National Public Radio, this is a news quiz show of absurd proportions. I listened to this show religiously in the states and would like to pick the addiction back up, but it amazed me when I heard that they were broadcasting from Kingsbury Hall in Salt Lake. I cheered but I was anguished at the same time. I made the roommates suffer through countless episodes of this radio show in the SLC and now the actual show was in Utah? And I had just left Utah? No, this couldn't be. You may think I'm getting a little too worked up about this, but the hard core NPRers know what I'm talking about.
On a completely different note, I just now noticed how many English schools there are around my area. I had written to my friend Dave that there are four things that are abundant in Korea: convenience stores (they have convenience stores next to convenience stores here), restaurants, bars and Koreans. I'm going to expand that list to five things including English schools. There's a building close to my house that has five different academies in it. I noticed a sign today that said: English Language Hospital, and I thought, "That's odd, it doesn't look like a hospital." It took a little deciphering but I eventually realized that was a name for one of the schools. The name made me wonder as to the nature of this school. Did they actually help Koreans with chronic cases of labial consonant mispronunciation or acute past-reflective tense disorder? I can see two English teachers diagnosing a patient that was just wheeled in:
"What do you think he has?"
"Looking at his chart I'd say he has little to no "r, d, l" sound recognition and that his writing skills have taken a dramatic decline.'
"What do you recommend?"
"A strict regimen of nasal-labial vocalization accompanied by three sets of worksheets every two days."
At this point the patient starts to spout out rapid streams of Konglish.
"My God! He's hemorrhaging!"
Maybe I can make this into the new ER.
On a completely different note, I just now noticed how many English schools there are around my area. I had written to my friend Dave that there are four things that are abundant in Korea: convenience stores (they have convenience stores next to convenience stores here), restaurants, bars and Koreans. I'm going to expand that list to five things including English schools. There's a building close to my house that has five different academies in it. I noticed a sign today that said: English Language Hospital, and I thought, "That's odd, it doesn't look like a hospital." It took a little deciphering but I eventually realized that was a name for one of the schools. The name made me wonder as to the nature of this school. Did they actually help Koreans with chronic cases of labial consonant mispronunciation or acute past-reflective tense disorder? I can see two English teachers diagnosing a patient that was just wheeled in:
"What do you think he has?"
"Looking at his chart I'd say he has little to no "r, d, l" sound recognition and that his writing skills have taken a dramatic decline.'
"What do you recommend?"
"A strict regimen of nasal-labial vocalization accompanied by three sets of worksheets every two days."
At this point the patient starts to spout out rapid streams of Konglish.
"My God! He's hemorrhaging!"
Maybe I can make this into the new ER.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
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