il destino

$3
alley store
tiny store
tiny rack
only one
good lord

sometimes it just feels that way

womanly insecurities aside,
i swear to god,
i have the largest backside of any other person in the country.

buddah buddah

today i climbed palgong mountain (palgongsan) just outside of daegu with niki, sunny, and sunny's friend who spoke no english and said that my korean pronunciation is very good. :) it was so amazing. we hiked, seriously, 2 km up a mountain with grandmas and little kids alike to a buddist temple, got down on our knees and prayed a bit, then had a free lunch at the eatery thing. it was awesome! there were schwastikas everywhere, and burning inscence and candles, and eight bajillion koreans, and two white girls named niki and erin. it was fascinating, stupendous, superiffic.

i'm betting that if christian devotion required hiking up a mountain once a week and sharing a conservative vegetarian meal for lunch that americans wouldn't have such health issues. that being said, my legs hurt. :)

little koreans!

once a month the school throws a birthday party for all the students whose birthday fell in the last month. luckily i made it in time for the birthday party this month! here are photos from the big day on friday.















alice, june, and tiffany















the birthday kids! everyone screams surprise at them, like they don't know.
















tasha and rina, two rockin' korean teachers
















sally and clara, birthday girls from the younger classes.
dressed like princesses.
you can't see it, but clara is wearing a tiara. weird. :)
















this is quite possibly the cutest picture ever.
clara (with tiara) and sally birthday girls on the ends.

%&#$@@!!!!

so. right after i did my last post, i was on my way out to the clubs to celebrate my first week in daegu. now, not so much. now i am in niki's apartment, wiping runny mascara off my face, and back on the internet.

dang it if i didn't get locked out of my apartment. it's not what you may i think either. i have my keys, yes indeedily doo. but my dead bolt has been acting funny all week, and now it be broke. it won't turn, it won't open. normally, this would be an, "oh shoot, darn, i'll just have to sleep over with niki after we get all drunks" sort of thing. but no, i was planning on being up by 8 tomorrow and working all day on my masters paper, which still isn't done, but which needs to be done pretty bloody soon. and i happen to be in korea, where the locksmith will come, well, maybe on monday. maybe. which means no working on my stuff this weekend, no having any of my things all weekend. no going out tonight because i'd rather sit with one hand on a box of kleenex, and the other on the remote control in niki's apartment.

also, something that makes this situation really great, is that korea is a very sexest country. that's just how it is, i knew that coming here. however, when i call my boss and say my lock won't work, and he says, well, did you let peter try it? peter's probably strong enough. let me talk to peter on the phone. and i say, well, how about if you tell me what to do, and he says, no, go get peter. and i say how about if you tell me and then i tell peter, and he says no, i'm only going to tell peter, that makes me angry. way super angry.

oh i'm sorry, i'm a woman, and therefore, an idiot. oh the big bad metal thingy has made me all flushed and i'm just too weak to turn the key right. ouff! this boss man isn't very cool in that way. especially when i think how i told him right away that my lock was wonky and that someone should come have a look and he said that i just didn't understand it and i was like, um, yeah, because we don't have locks in america. at least i knew what a universal outlet converter was. maybe i will have to move back west one of these days after all.

but on the bright side, i took the trip of my life alone across the great city of daegu using public transit tonight. it was awesome. that's got to look good, even to a sexest korean man. but that's another post for another time. my kim bap is getting cold.

THINGS I AM GRATEFUL FOR AT THIS MOMENT:
1. kim bap across the street
2. niki
3. niki's internet/computer
4. hite beer
5. hmm . . . i think i hear a drill, could that be the locksmith?
6. my other boss, rosie, and coworker sunny
7. my cute shoes
8. my lewis and clark expedition to the siji walmart, alone
9. universal outlet converters
10. niki's apartment comes with an extra folding mattress, but mine didn't. lucky.
11. oh, there's niki's mp3 player . . .
12. all of you people, because rosie and sunny can't understand me when i sniffle-talk.
13. i didn't leave anything on in the apartment.
13. i am grateful to be in korea, i am grateful for my awesome job, and i am grateful that i know that there are worse things in life than being locked out of your sweet apartment that you don't have to pay rent for. but it still sucks.

apartmentu!

hella yeah! washing machine! storage room!

sitting area, sort of. note the movie credits. five movie channels.

bed "room" with kitchen behind

kitchen. corn flakes.

my everything room

sink shower

view from window. mountains to conquer.

*** i am totally posting from my apartment, too.
three cheers for internet in my apartment!

positive affirmation to a negative question

***warning***this post is not fit for the linguistically disinterested***

interesting difference between korean and english language.

think to yourself:
1. you are looking for your chingu (friend) niki, and you suspect she is upstairs.
2. you ask someone on the stairs, "niki isn't upstairs, is she?"
3. the answer is, "yes."

what do you think?
a. niki is upstairs.
b. niki is not upstairs.

think to yourself:
1. you are talking to a bunch of little koreans and you suspect that everything you just said went over their heads.
2. you ask them, "you didn't understand me?"
3. the answer is, "yes."

what do you think?
a. they understand you.
b. they don't understand you.

i would assume both (a) answers, that niki is upstairs and that the kids understand. but what they mean is "yes, niki is not upstairs" and "yes, i don't understand you." this has lead to a lot of confusion for me, more than i would expect. i use negative questions like this a lot, especially in class, and every single korean person i talk to responds like this, young and old, despite second language level. it's really cool.

walmart doesn't suck after all!

background:

since i have been in korea, i have been trying to find a universal converter to make my computer and things plug into the plugs here, which are europeanish. for some reason, no one, not my boss and not the electrician stores, know what i am talking about. even when i show them a universal converter that niki has here. seriously people. does no one in korea ever travel? so i emailed trusty crusty walmart in daegu to see if they had what i needed. the first response i got back from them said that they were out of stock, sorry. but then i recieved this email --


Erin,

We were able to make special arrangement and secured one universal power adapter just for you!

If you still want it, please visit our Siji store after 6:00pm, tomorrow(sorry, we can not make it earlier) and pick it up at our customer service
desk.

The retail price is 19,900 won, or US$19, but we would like to present it you as a souvenir for your trip to Korea, with our compliments.

We hope you will enjoy your time in daegu city.


Thanks & have nice day!





Wal-Mart Korea Customer Hotline

wow walmart! yay! sorry mom and dad, but i may never come back. :)

bodily functions and korean society

acceptable: picking your nose in public
not acceptable: picking your teeth in public
acceptable: hocking loogies in the street, loudly
not acceptable: blowing your nose in public
acceptable: placing bum used toilet paper in the bathroom trash can
not acceptable: touching your feet in public
acceptable: talking with your mouth full, and i mean full
not acceptable: drinking while you eat

that's two years of my life i can never get back

interesting fact:

in korea, they start counting your age from 1 instead of from zero. also, in a school context, your age is given equal to all those in your school class. for example, all students in the earliest class of the kindergarten where i work give their age as 5 years old, since they were born in 2001, even those who are not yet 5 (or 4, as the case may be). therefore, by korean standards, i am 25 years old. shoot. and i wasn't prepared at all for my quarter-life crisis.

yay korea!

1. korean airlines serve good korean food
2. korean airlines serve super crappy chicken rubber mush
3. miss congeniality 2 is a painful movie to watch
4. after miss congeniality 2, fever pitch is amazing
5. ***MUSIC TIP*** Delphine Cai, taiwanese lounge pop singer
6. my apartment rocks! pictures to come!
7. niki from kentucky rocks!
8. should have brought more shoes :(
9. kimbap on the street for $2. mmm . . .
10. i live right smack in the center of a fresh food market. wow. wow.
11. my bathroom has no shower stall, just a shower head
12. please send peanut butter
13. please email me your addresses and phone numbers

here goes nuthin

wow. less than 12 hours in north america now. wow.
i'm all packed and ready to go. packing. hmm. now that was interesting.
i packed at least six times. it went something like this . . .

step 1: make piles of what i want to take
step 2: try to pack it all
--result = miserable failure
step 3: weed out the non-essential, and a few pairs of shoes

repeat from step 1

eventually i had to stack things in piles of what they were and limit the numbers of certain items of things. for example, i couldn't just start packing clothes randomly and then stop when my suitcase was full. i may have ended up with all tshirts and no sweaters. too bad korea isn't tropical. would have definitely made for some easier packing. and i heart my sweaters, but had to leave most behind. hopefully they have erin-sized sweaters in korea.

so now i have:

(1) camping backpack = 45 lbs
(2) "bertha" the big suitcase = 68 lbs
(3) backpack = holy lot lbs
(4) laptop briefcase = lot lbs

one time on my way home from france, i had a few wine bottles in my carry on backpack. i got all checked in okay and everything, and the guy okay-ed me and i was ready to go to the plane, then i picked up my carry-on and went "oouf," at which point he stopped me and made me weigh my carry-on. it was too heavy and i had to rearrange. that was lame. so no ooufing tomorrow, must remember, no ooufing.

i should really go to bed now. i am so sleepy. my mom and i went to see the penguin movie tonight for her birthday. it was good, but morgan freeman has such a sooooooothing vooooiicceezzzzzzz . . . . .

it doesn't feel like i'm really leaving north america. i feel like i'm going back to montreal tomorrow. i feel like any moment i could just trot down the street to jake's apartment. or pop along laurier. weird. i used to feel like leaving meant ending, but i guess i don't really feel that way now. leaving just means change, or something. [insert witty and deep and relevant and meaningful comment here].

so here goes nuthin. i don't expect to feel it until i get off the plane and have a good sleep, then wake up in the english-less land of kimchi and hopefully erin-sized sweaters. until then, i will travel free from the time-space continuum, since i expect to pass out on my flight tomorrow, lose all direction, location, and time, and end up in another world.
i hope it's cool.
actually, i just hope it's not wretchingly awful. that would be enough.

eep! next post will be from korea! eep!

adieu montreal

What is that feeling
when you're driving away from people
and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing?

-- it's the too-huge world vaulting us,
and it's good-bye.
But we lean forward
to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

--jack kerouac, on the road

down to the wire

got visa: check
sold everything: not check
freaking out: check
done packing: not check
masters paper: not check
testing blog for comment option: check

about to submit my (final?) draft

now look here . . . advisors . . .

the million dollar question

let's put it to a vote.
all who think that i can fit
all i want to take with me
from canada
in my wee car,
say "ne."

(that's hang-gungmarool for 'yes')

(that's korean for 'korean')

barter barter barter

i am so tired of bartering. but that goes with the territory of selling all your (large) worldy possessions on the mcgill university online classifieds. come on people. i want to get rid of my stuff quickly! that is why i offer a super nice desk for $50 and a sweet printer for $25. i was trying to keep prices low in the first place so that the stuff would sell, i wasn't planning on knocking ten bucks off everything right off the bat. sheesh. oh well, at least it's gone. all except for my bed and my big ol' couch. i figure that they are probably just going under, which is fine really. i've made plenty money in my overhaul. and the people moving in here are super fantastic and said that whatever i don't sell i can just leave here and they will dump it accordingly, or sell it and send me the money. good kids they are. they could even keep them if they wanted, i don't really care. they gave me a load of money for lots of other items and i don't mind kicking in my dumpy couch and bed just for the nicey-nices they have been to me.
so i just got rid of my desk, for $40 of course, not $50. this guy came to get it, looked at it for two seconds and then said he would take it for $40. so okay, fine, at this point i just want to get rid of the desk! and i've found a buyer! yay! the funny thing is that then he utterly refused to let me help him take it apart, even so far as turning the screwdriver, or carry it downstairs. probably because i was wearing a skirt. in the end, i really didn't mind because he had the kind of b.o. that lingers in the stairwell for fifteen minutes after he's gone. now here i sit, in a skirt, deskless at my kitchen table (actually, at the kitchen table which is at this point the property of the kids moving in after me), working/procrastinating on my masters paper, with the windows wide open to clear the air of the funk of desk man.
but the sunlight from the sunset is awful pretty.
only four more sunsets to go!
(sniffle)

big fat pile of crap

it costs $70 to get a visa to work in korea.

pschaw!!

mysterious island: ulleungdo

this week is a week of crazy for me as i get ready to leave my beloved montreal and venture east. eek!

i have a three track mind these days:

1. masters paper!
2. sell stuff!
3. korea!

when i am on my korea track, i am trying to learn the language, loosely plan my adventure, and supply myself accordingly for said adventure. for example, on my list of things to do and see is the mysterious island, ulleungdo
oooh . . . sounds spooky!
what's really spooky is that:

1. they no speakie engrish on said island
2. it is a volcanicish island with lots of pointy rocks to hike on

that being said, i need to acquire some good hiking boots before i go. good hiking boots cost money, dagnabbit. and they require shopping and research and the trying on of a variety of hiking boots. what's more, even though i could probably get boots in korea, which would be nice because i wouldn't have to ship them with me, i've been warned that koreans are smaller than me and therefore have littler smaller daintier feet than me as well, and it could be hard to purchase any shoes while there. plus, i don't want to just assume that they make and market high quality hiking shoes, whether or not at a lower cost than here. besides, i'd rather buy in english at the moment, thanks.

so, back i go now to the insanity of trying to get out a decent version of my paper while simultaneously being a boy scout about arriving prepared in korea. i will be happy once i am there and all this preparation is behind me.