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.