Designer clothes let people know if you are good or bad

So sayeth one of my students. We were practicing brainstorming and the topic was "clothes". Most of the other students came up with: you can express your personality, you are protected from the weather, etc.

This was par for the course from this particular student. He can endlessly discuss the cost of latest acquisitions. ("My phone cost $900!") Pretty much every class, I want to look at him and say, "We've got it-- your parents are willing to waste insane amounts of money.")

Of course, as a teacher, I love all my students equally. ;-)

A Brand-Spanking New Nephew

How beautiful is he? He is my oldest brother's second child and my fifth nephew/ niece.

Namdaemun Down in Flames

Last night, "a guy in his 50s" torched Namdaemun-- Korea's national treasure number 1. Karl thinks National Treasure number 2 played a role. Joking aside, I really can't express how I feel about this.

I am more than a little angry that the nation has literal hordes of riot police to "protect" every square inch of Seoul were one might run into an American, but they can't spare one or two to guard it's number one national treasure?

Apparently, some of the blame lies with the firefighters who "thought" the fire had been extinguished. You know, in some countries, firefighters check every inch of a fire to check for smoldering... The president-elect has said it will cost $21 million and take three years to rebuild.

Update: A classic example of why Korea will always be foreign to me. The arsonist has been caught. He was trying to get attention to his cause (a property compensation dispute) and was caught last year trying to burn down one of the palaces. Are you kidding me? Seriously, is there any other culture where that would make sense? This is like someone in the US destroying the Liberty Bell to protest losing part of their yard to a road widening project.

There's a new Yacht Rock!

Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX1Nh6c80wo

If you haven't seen it before and are "of a certain age" (40ish), you have to watch Yacht Rock. It's a mockumentary behind the scenes of 80s "smooth music" and is hilarious. The production values are proudly backyard, but that is actually part of the appeal, IMHO, and the stories will make you laugh out loud.

Sigh... Vacation is Over

Short but sweet. I did not leave my abode for three consecutive days. maybe not something to brag about, but fun nonetheless.

I read three books. Two were for school, though, so they had to be read anyway.

Before I go to bed tonight I will have finished a pair of socks. No photos yet. Here is the scarf I've been knitting for my sister to go with the LSU Tychus I knit her for Christmas (but still haven't mailed):

Perhaps you can see the problem. I've started and frogged seven or eight different patterns that I ended up not liking. Maybe she wouldn't mind just wrapping the yarn around her neck... Students like to make fashion statements, right?

While I'm showing exciting photos of unknit yarn, here are my wound skeins for the first round of Sock Madness 2. Yes, that's lace weight. Lace. Socks. It's going to be doubled, but it will still require very small needles in order to create sock fabric. I'm hoping 2mm will do, since that's the smallest I can get here.

My cat has been busy this week playing hide-and-seek. I don't think he quite knows what to do with so much company; he hasn't had this much constant companionship since I successfully jetisonned Mr. Please-Be-My-Ex. You might notice his hiding skills are, um, rusty. I was changing the sheets when he "hid" here. That's just poor strategy.

새해복많이받으세요

Or, in English, "Happy New Year!" (basically)

The traditional soup to eat on New Year's Day is Rice Cake Soup, which helps you become a year older (since everyone gets older on New Year's Day, don't you know). However, Rice Cake Soup is somewhat lacking in delicious-ness, if you know what I mean. If you've ever eaten homemade play-doh, you DO know what I mean-- just imagine it in boiling water. Yum! So, this year, try this Chinese version of a Korean favorite instead:

Mmmm... that's right. In just three minutes you can have a nice steaming bowl of dog ramyeon. Don't you just wish there were a Chinese grocer near you?

The End of an Era

Well, after nearly a year, the podcast I've been doing has come to an end so Karl can move back to Toronto. We recorded the final podcast at my apartment and it ended up being a three hour extravaganza of the usual rambling and nonsense (this week with 50% more rambling!). Don't despair, Joe and I have a new podcast in the works, tentatively planned to begin at the end of March.

If you are asking yourself, "What podcast?" you can listen to the last episode here:
Part 1-- Disclaimer: I am not Cajun, people from outside of Louisiana just lump us all together.:-)
Part 2
Part 3

If three hours just aren't enough, you can listen to the previous 58 episodes (I'm only on the ones since February or March of last year, though). OR:
You can check out Joe's blog here.
You can check out Karl's writing here and here and Franglais lessons here.
You can check out Karl's other podcast here.

What with Karl being quoted by the BBC and Joe being in the New York Times (not to mention his biweekly column (click Expat Living) in the local tissue, uh, I mean newspaper), I'm basically the unknown loser of the podcast.

From the Mouths of Babes (or Hands)

We've been giving our students timed essays over the winter camp and this is what two of my second-graders wrote to answer the prompt, "If you could by any age, what would it be and why?"

So, one wants to be 33 to experience the joys of cooking and cleaning (aim high!) and the other wants to be 34 to by-pass the "ouchy"-ness of childbirth because having a baby is like having a monster cut out of you. Days like this make me truly love being a teacher. :-)

Free Beer and Animal Hats

My local grocery store has been running a Heineken campaign lately, which means, what else-- free beer samples. Today, I finally decided to play the crazy foreigner card and take a photo of the Heine Girl.


***
I've also been taking photos of one of my students this week. He went to Everland ("the Disney World of Korea" hahaha) last weekend and got himself a stylish hat collection. He happily posed for pics, but wouldn't arrange the lemur hat to show the nose. Brat. ;-)










Winter camp is now 60% complete, which means... two weeks until vacation!!! I'm starting to wish I had bought tickets for somewhere. Oh, well, I'll stay here and torture my kitty with static electricity nose kisses.

Mmmm...Puppylicious!

On the way home from the dentist (again!) today, my coworker and I stopped at Moran Market to see the dog stalls (for dog meat, not pets).

I saw dogs which were crammed in far worse than in this photo, but the vendors know that there's only one reason foreigners go there and they aren't happy to see us. So, this was the best photo I could take on the sly.


I also saw goats, birds (some of which were packaged in mesh bags-- like for onions-- still alive), and cats. Next to the cages were prepared cuts of meat. One cage had a partially processed dog lying on the top of it, waiting to be butchered.

I wanted to get a photo of the dog restaurant with a smiling dog on the sign, but we were stopped and questioned by some unfriendly types and thought it best to head back to the main road.

***
At the dentist, I finally got the tooth fixed that I chipped in October. After the Summer of Dental Repairs, I was pretty used to some nice discounts, so I have to admit I wasn't too pleased to pay $100 for the repair, since it literally took 5 minutes. Yes, I am completely ungrateful, I know, especially since that tooth now looks better than the ones around it.

Would it be wrong to steal from a student?

This awesome product made its debut in my classroom today. I whipped out my camera and had my student pose. This was too good for a surreptitious photo.

Check out the link if you want to learn the secret to the ultra-delicious-ness of Korean pizza. This is the guy I do the podcast with. Lest you think it's just a joke, let me assure you, products much like this are available at any bakery (and some "pizzarias"). Yum!

Now, take these scissors from Mommy and run as fast as you can...

For nearly ten years now, I've been watching Korean parenting with one hand covering my eyes. While mothers in the US may at times seem to think children can die of a stubbed toe, Korean moms tend to behave as though their children are bullet proof.

I've grown accustomed to kids jumping on and off curbs while their mothers look for the bus and toddlers wandering unattended in shops. Usually, the mothers are just oblivious to their children's near brushes with death/ dismemberment/ doom. Yesterday, I actually saw one applauding her child for his death-defying derring-do.

So, I was walking through Kangnam Station in Seoul, which as usual was so packed a person could probably die and just be swept along by the crowd. A little boy and his mother were completely lost in their own world, though. He was pirouetting on one foot while practicing his roundhouse kicks with the other all while eating street food (served on a sharpened stake, of course) all at the same time. His mother was competing for parent of the year by... cheering him along.

I really wanted to hang around and watch for the inevitable, but crowds like that make me want to hurt people.

NOOOOOOO! The Sound of a Thousand Stitches Felting

This is why I prefer superwash, despite the million and one horrible chemicals needed to process the wool:

My Zoknis are now toddler-sized after an unfortunate meeting with hot water.

I'll just have to make more time to knit and replace them. They were a pretty fun knit, so I may actually reknit the same pattern. Or not. So many patterns... and thanks to school, so little time to knit.

I was leaving school Thursday when my academic director asked me to "help her out" preparing for Winter Camp (beginning 31 December). Well, since I'll be doing Jazz hands for a month if there is nothing planned, um, I guess I might as well help.

Help. To me that means, assisting. You know, supplementing someone else's efforts. I have clearly been operating under false assumptions.

The only thing "prepared" are the classes that use textbooks (IE no non-teacher prep required). So, by tomorrow (Monday), I am to have packets prepared for film discussion, writing, social studies, and a project class for each academic level. Hahahahaha. One might think that Winter Camp didn't happen at the same time each year.

I have decided that teachers can decide what their students don't need/ are not capable of doing (and can then remove from their packets). In other words, I'm basically going to prepare one packet for each subject. That's what you get with 72 hours notice. Sorry. I've got 16 hours of not-at-all-voluntary overtime (including Saturday, which is NOT a workday, nor is it being compensated at a higher rate than the rest) this week, which hasn't put me in a mood to kill myself working at home.

Merry Christmas to me.

Answer: Pfffffff-fff-ffff-fffffff-fft

Question: What sound do you not want to hear in an elevator?

You know, whenever my students tell me they go to etiquette hagwon, I always have a sarcastic chuckle to myself:

• Lesson 1- Sidewalk spitting
• Lesson 2- Properly blocking both subway doors when not actually exiting
• Lesson 3- Advanced elbowing
• Lesson 4- Supermarket bumper carts

I always assume that there is a limit to what Westerners consider rude, but Koreans consider normal. That line gets pushed farther back the longer I am here, but I always assume it's there, lurking in the shadows somewhere.

However, I got on the elevator the other day and what did I here? Not Jingle Bells! As soon as the doors closed, this guy, who had quietly (fart-lessly) been waiting at the elevator, let one rip that lasted several floors. It was all I could to not to turn around to see if he was leaning into it for added leverage.

Did he think I wouldn't know what was happening because he was behind me?

Santa Claus Came to Town

Okay, it was really my dad, but I think we already knew his true identity.

I got a great package from my dad and stepmother: a knitting book from Nicky Epstein, a retro Barbie to go with the book (unfortunately they gift wrapped it, so customs sliced the box with a box cutter to check under the wrapping), some KnitPicks yarn, size 9 needles, and cash! I have to say, getting cash makes me feel like a kid again. ;-)

It came at the perfect time-- I've been sick for about 10 days. Last week, I had a headache that would not go away no matter how many painkillers I took. This week, the headache has been replaced with a head cold and no voice.

Now, for some long overdue FO shots:

This is a Noro hat that I knit top down using a Feather and Fan stitch pattern over 72 stitches. I used an entire skein of Noro Kureyon (uhhh...153?159?), when it got close to to the end, I knit 10 rows of k2p2 rib. It only took a couple of hours.

My sister goes to LSU, so I knit her an LSU Tychus. This is from the yarn I got from the yarn and fiber company (free international shipping!) a couple of months ago. I could link back to that post, but that would take too much effort. Another quick, fun knit.

I finally knit up the MCY Eternity I got this summer and have been swatching with extreme regularity ever since. There was a mini-skein, thanks to a knot, that looks quite raveled and worn, but it all turned out all right. I used a scroll pattern, like the one used in various sock patterns, but I only wanted to have patterned legs. These were knit toe-up, of course. They are pretty tall, but I've got a lot of yarn left over. They are very pretty. The colors don't show up well in the photo, but there are all shades of blues from teal to periwinkle.

Since I finished the Eternity socks and was drooling over their perfect lack of flashing and pooling, I quickly balled up the other yarn I had ordered at the same time. NOT HAPPY.

You may notice that there are three balls in the photo. That is because the yarn came in three pieces. No knots, pieces. Still, the eternity socks are beautiful, so I cast on, undeterred. I got about two inches in and realized that I will have to alternate skeins (handily, I have pre-divided yarn), because the color repeats are too short and one side has no yellow. So, know I'm contemplating frogging and starting over, or living with a toe that will not match its mate.

If you know me, and most of you do, you know that I can live with a lot if it means the difference between starting over and carrying on. Toes stay in shoes, anyway...

I want her free time

Shib - Flickr 에서 사진 공유하기!
Yes, I'm still tech-deficient and can't figure out how to upload someone else's photos. Also, some might call that stealing. I live in Korea, so... no one here, but somewhere.

She entered (but didn't win) Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Sweater Contest. Try saying that three times fast.

Category: Small World

A friend of my mom's was at the Louisiana Book Fest and saw a knitter and told her that she knows a knitter in Korea. As it turns out (here's the small world part) the girl reads my blog and is moving to Korea! So, if you're "the girl" let me know so we can meet up some time!

The Monster Mash

is my current choice for what the bereaved will have to lip-sync at my funeral. If I can't have a groom lip-syncing to me a song extolling the joys of female masturbation (see previous post), it's the next best thing. As you can see, I've been giving this a lot of thought. But I feel robbed. First, neither my ex nor I thought of getting engaged OR married on TV. I know, how old are we? Then, we got married without a chariot OR dancing girls OR canned snow OR a slutty "singer" to congratulate us while dancing inappropriately (not to mention singing inappropriately).

Since I don't really see myself getting married again, my funeral is my only chance. Do you think Chippendales do funerals? What kind of donation would it take to get the priest to join in? Instead of dropping a flower into the casket, my family could spray snow over me, or Silly String. I've never seen the confetti bombs that you get in Korea with cakes in the US, but maybe they are sold at Asian markets...

Obviously I've got a lot more planning to do.

Dancing Girls and Wedding Halls-- Two Korean greats that go great together

Since I have come to Korea, two things have fascinated me- tacky wedding halls that look like castles and perform ceremonies with the warmth and efficiency of a factory and slutty dancing girls that signal the opening of just about any new business.

Now, some enterprising wedding hall has joined these two cultural traditions in an unholy marriage (pardon the pun). I wonder if these are the most over-dressed dancing girls ever out of a sign of respect for the solemnity of the occasion. Notice the bride's reaction. I wonder if she even knew it was part of the ceremony.

http://video.naver.com/2007110514163599100

You may think a few seconds is long enough, but keep watching until the groom joins in and lip-syncs to his blushing bride and the finale with the girls spraying canned snow. I only wish there was a close up of the officiant's face. You can see one of the fathers-in-law seems unimpressed. Unfortunately, most of the video is shot facing the other father-in-law, who just watches stoically.

Here's another video from that wedding, in case one wasn't enough. In this one, the bride and groom are congratulated in song and booty dance at the end of the ceremony. The singer can't really sing (or booty dance, for that matter), so the guests aren't really even pretending to be enthusiastic. Korean weddings usually last about 15 minutes, so they are probably pretty antsy by this point.

http://video.naver.com/2007110513441605518

I tried to embed the video like normal people, but we all know that I'm not "normal people" when it comes to technology. Maybe when I can drag and drop...

I didn't die, but my computer did

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted. My excuses (and there are many) are:

• my computer had to get a new hard drive after being pounced on by a certain cat too many times
• less than one week after my hard drive was repaired, my ISP external device (like a modem, but I have an internal modem, I really have no idea what it is, but unless you use wireless in Korea, you have to have one from your service provider) died-- possibly also a result of too many pouncing-upons (no immobile target too immobile for my kitty)
• I was a volunteer manager at this year's KOTESOL international conference week before last. It was the usual extravaganza of stress and no sleep
• I'm still training my no-longer-quite-so-new teachers

So not only have I not been posting, I also haven't been working on the pattern I was supposed to submit for Sock Madness 2. Apparently, I'm not the only one.

I have a ton of photos to submit, but I need to be getting ready for work, so I'll just leave you with today's PSA: back up your files, especially photos and other files you can't replace. It cost me $200 to get my files retrieved off of my old hard drive and I pretty much had to beg them, then yell at them, to get them to do it. You know, of course, that by "yell at them" I mean "had a Korean yell at them so it made sense and they could understand", right?