I've been meaning to rant about something for a while, and today's lunch sparked it again for me. Here's my beef:

Korean/American trade barriers have recently been knocked down all thanks to the "buy local" exterminator--The FTA. Though I disagree with the FTA out of respect to small time farmers, I like to see globalization within developed countries. What?!? I'm a consumerist, Nihilist, and a sadistic imperialist that wants to have his damn coffee and drink it too (one of those labels is true, can you guess?). Anyway, my point is that for a while in Korea, there was all this tension about US imported beef because they had found a piece of bone during a customs X-ray inspection. And all this hub-bub at the time sort of pissed me off. *Please disregard the fact that bone fragments in US Beef are feared to spread Mad Cow Disease to uninfected countries so we may maintain the unequivocal humor of blind blog aggression.


You see, anyone that has lived in Korea understands why this would be aggravating. Today I had what I hope will be my last meal of something I lovingly like to call, Bone Fragment Stew. Yes, it's a stew that features pieces of bone, some pork, vegetables and an oily broth that hides the throat-tearing particles by allowing them to easily cling to the ridges of the cabbage leaves.

So what Korea? It's ok for you to deny the importation of thousands of pounds of American Beef due to one bone fragment, but you are allowed to put a pig in a blender, stir in some veggies and call it a delicious stew? That's hypocrisy and I hope you know how easy it is to choke on hypocrisy, especially when it's chopped up really small and hidden among an oily sauce.

Time's really widdling down here, like down to a toothpick size piece of time. However, I'm in this state of anticipation instead of sorrow. People here ask me, "Is there anything you want to do before you leave?" And my answer is usually, "Pack."

It's not that I've had a terrible time here, it's that I can't wait for some old favorites. You know, the simple things: Avocados, English, Burritos, HBO, Coffee, Basketball, Micro-Brews, Driving, and Unemployment... just to name a few. Of course, I'm dying to get back to see my new nephew, and older niece, the rest of The Fam, and maybe a homie or two. But I'll miss Korea--when I'm back home.

Oh, and I bought a plane ticket to New Zealand with a stop off in Fiji for the Fall. I guess this will turn into It's Just a Kiwi.

A couple days ago I watched a cop run away from a drunk man. That's pretty much the story, but it gets better with the facts.

I step outside my gym around 6pm ready to stuff my face full of food like a masochistic bulimic at an all you can eat buffet (yeah? does that simile make you cringe or smile?). To my expectation, I see a belligerently drunk man in the street yelling at god knows what. Then I notice the police, who (as usual) are doing nothing about anything. But one of the authorities calls over to the man and I notice something in his hand. He reaches out to the man as they approach one another and hands him a half-full soju bottle. Now I'm thinking, why would you hand this drunkard more alcohol? I assume, they confiscated it, then realised they didn't want it and decided to be kind and give it back to him so he'd shut up. But the man grabs what belongs to him from the officer and proceeds to bull charge the other officer. What does the policeman do? Well what any upstanding, respectful, and fearless order enforcing official would do... run away. The drunk man continues to make a public spectacle of the situation and humiliate these policemen in front of a crowd. The man starts calling them 'fuckers' in Korean and what I can only assume were a onslaught of vulgarities from his half-slurred speech. The police take cover in their car, and when they decide the situation is too hairy, they leave. All the while they're driving off, the man is yelling and telling the witnesses how big of pushovers the cops are in Korea. He came up to me and started speaking to me, but all I could understand was that he thought the cops were 'fuckers'. I got this idea in my head though, obviously this drunk man has asserted his reign over the city by sending the cops cowering like dogs between their tails. If I just land a right cross on this man's jaw, sending him to the pavement, then I shall become the mayor of Seogwipo and have the townspeople at my beckon. Yes, I must assassinate the drunkard and all authority shall be mine.

My co-teacher has this tradition every friday now. I ask her how she is and she responds, "TGIF". Now, I think it's great and all that she knows how to use this acronym (it would not surprise me if a Korean used it on a Tuesday), but I hate people say that, especially with regularity. People that say "TGIF" are probably the same people that have season passes to amusement parks and call 'soda' by the sadly cute attempt of 'sody pop'.

My host mom invited me out to see her play in a volleyball game. Lauryn decided to come along and see the spectacle of ajuma sports. Turns out, the game was actually a high school reunion and was more of a spectacle than one could possibly imagine. Don't worry, it included karaoke. We got hounded to eat dinner with them, despite our explaining that we had a birthday dinner to go to, and eventually we caved. At dinner I made an awkward admittance at Lauryn being my girlfriend and immediately the women were inviting themselves to the wedding which was complete news to us. In Korea, the rule is to roll with it, it's too bad they think her name is Helen.

I got some Hambeok being tailored for me as a present from my school. I tried to steer clear of the heinous color scheme of hot pink and blue, but I had to settle with lavender. At least I got to choose the color. My host dad took me shopping for a teapot, told me which one to buy (against my will), and then bought it for me. When he pulled out the bills I decided he had chosen the best one. I'm starting to get the feeling my host family sleeps on a pile of money and not a yo.

I finished my diving course, and though I again have some ear trouble, it's less than the first time. I think I've seen the doctor more times than I've seen my dive instructor. Anyway, diving's pretty rad when you're not bleeding from the ear.

Online scrabble has sort of taken over my life. If you're looking for a game, just email me. I'm always down, just as long as you don't put down the word 'upo', I don't care if scrabble thinks it's a word. Upo means nothing. It is merely and acronym which is illegal in Scrabble and therefore not a valid word. I want my fucking turn back scrabulous.com .

Forgive me for being behind the times here, but I've been in Korea and have not had first hand experience until now. But here's my beef:

What the hell is the point of restricting liquids on airplanes? I mean, why is my unopened bottle of water, or my orange juice I JUST bought such a big deal? And the absurdity of forcing someone to drink the whole thing in front of security is just going to perpetuate bad drinking habits for youth. Now I tell you, that water is a threat, I mean, for all they know, I could have bottle my own tap water. Holy Shit! Tackle that man! He's got tap-water! And it's not just liquids that make me think this neo-fascist Orwellian tracked world is far too ludicrous with it's rules. Forceful bagging of creams, pastes, and other liquids seemingly gives the average being assurance that security measures have been taken... that is until they realize the ease of opening Ziploc baggies! I mean, I'm not going to give any weirdos out there ideas about how to destroy an aircraft, but common sense tells us nowadays that right through the front door is pretty easy... uh, just remember to bag it. And you know, I wish I had been the first to think of it, but if we start banning liquids on planes, does that mean humans are next? After all, we are 70-80% water and I don't think they make zip locks big enough to hold an average sized human.

I consider this blog my baby, not the same type of baby I consider my guitar, ceramics, or for that matter... actual baby (please no, please no, please no). But lately I've been allowing my baby to go malnourished with garbage you can scroll down to find, and words are like food. And, if the metaphor works as well the both ways like a hammer does as glue, then I should have no problem regurgitating my excessive feast of meat onto the screen to form what I like to call: Jibber-Jabber*

*copyright pending A-team settlement

So I got all spiffed out today for an open class. I was told that the board of education would be observing my class to certify that I spoke English, or something similar probably. I was a little annoyed because I was told only a few days before and I appreciate the maturity of anxiousness. Anyway, I was all set to do a boring lesson from the textbook and go balls-out and have the gumption to give them a word search and call it learning (let's be honest, my kids would rather have "self-study time" than do my activities, though I hear my lessons are a hit at other schools they've been implemented), but they love word searches and I'm a crowd-pleaser.

Well, I'm 45 minutes into my class and here I am, wearing a tie for no reason, when finally one guy walks in and watches me work for literally 2 minutes, takes a note in his book, and bounces out into the hall again. My next class is one step less and nobody walks in on me, and as I walk to lunch with my co-teacher she proceeds to tell me that they were only observing social studies and math today. So basically, I panicked all weekend for nothing.

But the real fun was at home. I sat my butt down and decided to chill out and watch whatever the hell is English on TV. I must have been a saint in another lifetime because God came down, forgave my sins and my ancestors before me, and graced me with the greatest movie of all time: Pearl Harbor (sarcasm intended). Now, this takes a lot of pride to say, and ruins my sense of dignity, but I watched the whole fucking movie. Somewhere around the time I started thinking more about Dan Ackroid and how far he's come from SNL, than the movie, I decided to get up and pack for my trip to Taiwan.

But as I started packing, my host dad walks in and tells me in Korean to come with him to eat dinner. I looked at him in a way that if he understood the cultural phenomena of Early Bird Specials, he would have immediately told me, "No, I am NOT 70 years old." Anyway, I told him in Korean that I wasn't hungry. He said something like, "when will you be hungry?" I said, "2 hours" He said, "what?" I said under my breath, "Jesus fucking Christ." I said, "7pm I will eat. You eat now." He said, "where are you going?" I said, "uh, uh, uh, I go to the park." He said, "klsfl ksjfk, sdlkjeivnwo dnmkie. 7pm sldkfkswg home skhfs eat." I said, "OK."

Now I didn't actually want to go to the park, but I figured since I lied I might as well go to the park and at least try and work up an appetite while he watched the credits for Pearl Harbor. At the park, I fell victim to the local neighborhood tyrants. They go by names that sound like normal Korean names, but probably mean things like, Trike Stealer, Baby Kicks-a-lot, and You-may-look-young-but-you-will-always-be-an-old-man-to-me Kim. They cornered me on the 'ajuma side rocker' (I have no idea what it's called or how to describe it), and I took it as an attempt to practice my Korean. One little girl got all sassy with me and started kicking me when I wasn't speaking to her. I then impressed them with my jump-roping skills and proceeded to teach the kid that kept calling me ''old man'' the names of animals on my "Safari Wo[r]ld" shirt. All the while, the best English speaker of them all kept telling the little boy to call me "teacher", and me to pull up my pants.

Eventually, the sassy girl fell and hurt herself on the equipment and I took that as my cue to get out of there, after making sure she was ok of course. But in typical fashion, when I asked her where her mother and father were, her friend said they were at home. Only in Korea will you find 5-7 year olds at the park by themselves at dusk. Or, if you want the opposite end of the childcare spectrum, a father holding his baby girl in his arm while he drives through disorderly streets.

Anyway, I came back home and the pops took me out to galbi. Though I wasn't hungry, I ate as much as possible. But when the grill showed signs of paltriness, my host-dad ordered another round of meat. I felt so sick I wanted to yak, but so goes the feeling in Korea. and though conversation with the men in my home is always sparse, I had some amusement during the meal. Aside from making faces at the children across the room while trying to avoid the parents seeing me do it, there was the unpredictable humor of the waitress who could not control the volume of her voice. I didn't know if she had a hearing problem, or what, but I took no discomfort in laughing at her.

But it was when I got home that I decided to feed my blog, and it was sparked by me trying on my two pairs of sunglasses while packing. Now, I'm partial to just straight black frames, very rectangular, and reminiscent of The Blues Brothers in a jazzed up sort of way. However, some people like to claim that I remind them of circa 1994, sunglasses included. Well, I guess I just thought to myself finally, "you know, 1994 wasn't so bad." Not that I can remember a lot from then or anytime pre-Bush, but think about the times man. The Berlin Wall was still being kicked around as people ransacked the western side for all it's goodies, neon bracelets were being sold like hot-cakes at garage sales, and Full House was warming the hearts of so many soon-to-be-apathetic/all-too-nostalgic youth. Good times. I bet I can still find some plaid to rock this summer.

1) To those of you who graduated this last week--Congratulations.
2) My ears are getting better, as expected, but still can't dive for a couple weeks. I gotta give it another go.
3) Today was a good day. This weekend was a good day. I love the fact that Koreans don't go to the beach until July, because then us foreigners get it all to ourselves.
4) I'm going to Taiwan... more to come.