Flatball Radio

Last night I spoke at the world premiere of Flatball Radio at the Pike Place Market Theater- think ultimate frisbee meets TED talks.  I'll post video when it's baked up and ready, but here's the transcription of my talk.

...

I’m guessing...You love ultimate.  If you’re sitting in this theater tonight, you probably do.  I do.   

I love the culture of punny team names and shenanigans and cheers and costumes, I love being able to move to a city and know that I already have a community there, I love when an airplane is full of your loud stinky teammates, I love going Beast Mode on the field at high-stakes tournaments, I love huddling for a timeout and executing that redzone play, baiting Ds, completing hucks, I love getting better at something, I love peanut butter on bananas.  

Last month I finally went and got my stuff out of storage, and I found all my old ultimate treasures.  The jerseys, the nationals pint glasses, the upa magazines I'm in, my college captain binder with all my doodles trying to invent new drills.   

I remember I wanted to stay on so badly for a 5th college season, and I schemed on all the ways I could make it work, and I remember how ridiculous my parents thought that was.  They didn’t get it.  

And recently my friend Will broke his hand on day 1 of a tournament and then played the rest of the tournament with a cast on it and a plastic bag to rainproof it. And when I heard that, I was like, yup, woulda done the same thing.  

And when I was living in Asia, I would spend like $800 to go to Manila or Singapore for a long weekend tournament and barely see anything but the hotel and the fields, and it was so worth it.  

I’d see married couples on my coed team in Austin, with their ultimate babies playing together on the sidelines, and I was like, they totally have it figured out.  That’s gonna be me.  

I love ultimate.  But I quit.  

One of my friend’s favorite things to say is: “we are all people in the world trying to get our needs met.”  Ultimate has met a number of needs for me.  Among others, the needs for connection and belonging, the need for learning, and the needs for play and exercise.  But I’m learning that these needs can be met by something, or a combination of somethings, other than ultimate.  

Currently I'm- possiblykindofmostly- retired, and I never thought that would feel as ok as it does.

I kind of see now why my parents thought it was silly to stay an extra year for a non-sanctioned sport I was paying to play.  Not that I agree, but I get it now.  And when I think about playing with a broken hand, I’m like … mm.. I dunno about that.  I could hurt it worse, what does my insurance cover..

It boils down to priorities, and mine have shifted.  

For the first time in 9 years of playing ultimate, this past year I made the choice not to play ultimate at the highest level I could.  And I didn’t make that decision at the end of the season last year.  I signed up for tryouts in May of this year with the full intention of playing elite club again.  And I made the choice not to try out for Riot, but instead to play with Underground, like I did last year, as a returner.  And I felt relief at that decision, and I was proud of myself for being in touch with my priorities, that I wanted to dedicate more time and energy to growing my career and so I would choose the team that required just a little less of that time and energy.   

Buuut, as I went along, it turned out I needed more time and energy than that commitment would allow.  My work involves a lot of weekday evening events- panels, networking, that kind of thing, and every time there was one that conflicted with practice, there was a tension.  I had to make that choice over and over- do I go to the Seattle Tech Meetup and and get buy-in for my next project, or do I go to practice with my team?  And I started to resent and be exhausted by having to make that choice multiple times a week, because I was always letting myself down either way.  Always reneging on a commitment and having to stomach that.  

So, even though my body felt pretty recovered from the injuries I really struggled with last year, and the Underground girls were wonderful, and there was a strong coach on board, and I didn’t have family conflicts or hard money problems or some of the usual suspects of why ultimate players take a step back, I had to make a hard choice.  Was I going to prioritize my career, or ultimate?  

I avoided the decision.  I procrastinated and tried to do as much as I could to do All The Things, just running on my little hamster wheel, and I felt this mounting stress as the end of tryouts and the commitment to an official roster spot got closer and closer.  

Why was it so hard to make the choice and follow through on it?  

Because! It’s scary.

You find something like ultimate that meets your needs, and you get used to it meeting your needs that way, and it’s hard to take a step back and look at if your needs have changed, or allow the possibility that those needs can get met in other ways.   

I don’t want to let down the team.   

I don’t want to be a quitter.

I don’t wanna have to try to work out by myself because I know I’m terrible at that.  

What else would I do?

What if I'm not as good at other things?

Do I tell myself and everybody else I’m just taking a year off?  Will I really just take a year off?

Will I be invited to their parties anymore? I don’t want to be left out.

If I don’t play ultimate this season, can I still call myself an ultimate player?  How long from the time you last played can you still call yourself an ultimate player?  

I knew I wanted to prioritize my career, but I wanted to do it all.  Make time for everything, be good at everything.  

The heart of the issue was that ultimate was my identity.  I identified as an athlete, but specifically, an ultimate player.  When my college professor asked the class to go around and say one interesting thing about yourself, I said I play ultimate.  When I had to give a speech in korean class about a topic of my choice, when people ask me about my hobbies, or ask me about soccer when my cleats are tied to my bag in airports, I have always said, “I’m an ultimate frisbee player.”  Outside the community, it’s that thing that you’re known for, it’s that differentiator.  And then inside the community- I mean... all my friends played ultimate.  When thinking about not playing, It wasn’t just about choosing how to spend my time differently- it was about navigating an identity shift.  

Ultimate and the commitment to it is what I knew.  Just cutting it out and chancing what else I’d be left with was scary.  

But here I am not playing competitive ultimate, and I am ok.  It’s ok!  And I think it’s because I didn’t quit without a plan.  I thought about why I love ultimate- what needs it meets for me, and I intentionally sought out activities and social circles that would meet those needs and fill that void.  I am building my career in ways that are important to me, I’m crossfitting and even experimenting with what it feels like to do non-competitive exercise, I’m connecting with new amazing people and for the first time in a decade I hang out with more non-frisbee friends than frisbee friends, which is weird.

And I still go to fun tournaments like Lei Out, and I eat peanut butter bananas any time I want.

So if you’re thinking about what to do next season- if you should try out for the most competitive team, fart around in the park, take a year off, only play MLU, whatever- I invite you to take a look at what your needs are, allow the possibility that they can be met in other ways, and give yourself permission to step back if that’s what you discover you need.  I am, and YOU are, more than just an ultimate player.  

27

I turned 27 yesterday. And I hope I’m just a mite wiser, and just a squidge more interesting, and just a scooch closer to figuring myself out in this circus. And I am filled with gratitude for all the people who help me tame the lions, unjam the cotton candy machine, and jump for those swinging trapezes. Inspired to write this by my bud who did similarly, Imma list out 26 things I learned or did this year.

In no particular order:

1. I gave this talk for Ignite Seattle at Town Hall. I applied to speak because it was scary. And then some friends put a magnifying glass in my hand and told me to look really hard at what I wanted to say, and I ended up telling 800 strangers what I discovered in the process. It was an exercise in vulnerability, and I was nervous as all heck. This was a turning point for me on a number of levels.

 

2. 3 generations took a helicopter ride past the Napali Coast of Kuaui. With my parents in Seoul, my sister and great aunt in Austin and Philly, and me in Seattle, we met in the middle for the holidays.

3. I didn’t play frisbee. For the first time since freshman year of college, I chose not to commit a season to competitive frisbee. This was a terribly difficult decision, where I had to let go of: my white-knuckled expectations for myself that I could do it all, the idea that I was letting people down, and the idea that I’d be lost without it this identity. Plus FOMO.

4. I threw a giant warehouse party for our green nonprofit’s 10-year anniversary. I borrowed truckloads of couches and stuffs from Goodwill, got a silent disco company to sponsor headsets for the dance party, and the mayor came and judged the thrift shop costume contest. Plus there was an 8 ft photobooth, professional jugglers, and a fire show. I wore a flamingo hat.

5. I worked on an app that’s now in the app store. MakeMe.

6. Knowing when to say no, and how to say it (this is still very much a work in progress). Time is the only resource of which you can’t get any more. I’m learning to be more deliberate about how I spend my time and who I choose to spend it with, which involves looking at why I’m saying yes, and learning how to say no.

7. I tried online dating. But I didn’t just explore it- I took it on like homework. I told myself it was Go Time, and I lined up a number of dates in a two-week period. And at each one… I looked for any reason for there never to be a date #2. It was positively Seinfeldian. At the end of the 2 weeks I was exhausted and relented to the fact that no, in fact I was not as open to dating as I hoped I was. Who’s got two thumbs and distancing behaviors?

(this girl!)

8. I helped my friend propose to his girlfriend in the most epic scheme thinkuppable. He crafted a perfect day for his lady, seemingly through unrelated coincidences. She helps a man with his dropped groceries, and he offers her tickets in thanks. She orders a latte at Starbucks and wins a contest that doesn’t actually exist. She orders a Lyft ride, and the driver is dressed as a mystic, and it’s uncanny how much she knows about her. They ride a tugboat, and the engine just happens to cut out exactly as sun sets on the lake. And so forth. It was beautiful. A month after the proposal we all went down to Vegas so they could get married in a Disney-themed Elvis-officiated pink cadillac wedding. The bride was dressed as the Little Mermaid, her dad gave her away as King Triton, and the groom, of course, was Jafar, complete with squiggly goatee.

9. I crossfat. I got really into crossfit, participated in some local competitions, and tangoed with the paleo diet, including organizing an Iron Chef competition. Insider tip: make a potluck a competition, and people up their game; things turn gourmet right quick!

10. I took improv comedy classes. I wanted to learn how to think on my feet and to be more comfortable risking looking foolish; I wanted to punch my self-consciousness in the face and kick it to the curb. I found improv to be extremely uncomfortable and awkward. It was great for me.

11. I audited a butchery class. I now know where bacon sits in the hog.

12. I watched porn with strangers.  I went to the local alternative newspaper’s amateur porn film festival, hosted by Dan Savage, and voted on top candidates for categories such as Best Humor and Best Kink.

13. I joined the board of a Women in Tech group, part of the city of Seattle’s startup-friendly initiative, and I joined a professional women’s forum. I’m leaning in.

14. Data flirted with me. I helped a buddy run a kickstarter campaign for the asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, and I met Brent Spiner. I helped this same buddy run a Space Up unconference earlier in the year, so between these two events I have a small, unlikely, space enthusiast following on the Twitters.

15. I pursued professional mentorship. I learned what to look for in a mentor and how to increase your helpability.

16. I hosted themed picnics every Wednesday in July. My favorite: “As this week is the last of the July Wednesday picnics, I'd like to salute a special love of mine. PUNS. I want to see the likes of: Wu Tang Flan, Penne for your thoughts, and I'm kind of a big dill.”

17. I helped my sister move back to Austin and find a house to buy. When I get around family, it’s frustrating (sometimes) and funny (when I remember it’s funny) to feel pulled into old roles, despite feeling I’ve grown out of them. And I noticed I was being judgmental of my sister in areas in which I’m hard on myself. Psychology 101 sez: this is a case of projection.

It’s like when you work so hard to make a perfectly round pancake, and then you see someone just eating pancakes shaped any ole which way, and you’re like HEY! I find your laxity on this subject threatening to my round pancake way of life! Don’t you know pancakes SHOULD be round? Having sprung from the same womb, we’re like the same person, and I’m just going to backslide into irregular pancake habits if you keep doing this around me!! Gah.

18. I made Seattle Startup Week. It’s one of the bigger projects I’ve ever dreamed up, and even though I got knocked around a little bit by the big dogs and was confronted with one particular situation which I likened to the Perfect Storm of What I’m Not Good At, in the end I proved I could rally stakeholders and execute from Drawing Board to Full-Blown Week with 23 events. Woopah!

19. We are all just trying to get our needs met, in the ways we know how. My friends have introduced me to a new needs-based framework of thinking, which has helped me find empathy for myself and for others in trying situations. If Dale cheats on his wife to get out of the relationship, it’s a ‘tragic expression of an unmet need’ for autonomy, or for peace, for example. We’re not always functional in our strategies, and sometimes people can be epically disproportionate or hurtful, but if we can try to look to the need they were trying to get met, it can help us understand where they’re coming from, and be more generous through that understanding. It’s been immensely helpful for me to think in terms of my own needs when I’m trying to figure out why I just behaved a certain way (why wasn’t I nicer to her? Or, why did I just say yes to that?), or when I’m checking in with myself (why am I so anxious right now?).

This idea is very tied to

20. It’s about them, not me. Everyone experiences the world ethnocentrically. We can’t help it. If I hear that you’re moving away, on some level I’m thinking about how that affects me (but, but- who’s going to spot my handstands?). If this lady blows up at me for a misunderstanding, it’s charged by her worry that it will make her look bad to her boss, and it’s not that I am fundamentally incompetent, even if my first reaction is to internalize it as such. The phrase “They’re not against you; they’re for themselves” has been a helpful meditation.

21. The importance of practicing gratitudes. Sometimes when I wake up grumpy, and I have enough wherewithal to recognize that I’m grumpy, and then enough discipline to try and turn that around, I remember to reach for some gratitudes. I’ve found it’s one of the more reliable methods to get out of a funk. The idea that you can actively shift your focus and change the course of your day by naming 3 gratitudes and swinging your feet out of bed is comforting when you feel like your feelings are just happening TO you.

22. Awareness around self-talk. I am downright mean to myself. I am cruel to myself in ways I would never be to anyone else. I would never tell Wendy she looks fat today, or that she’s an impostor and everyone will figure out she’s not smart enough. I would never remind her of her mistakes over and over with no sense of compassion. It’s been helpful to me to work on picking out that voice in my head as something distinct so I can then turn around and change that narrative. I’m learning to recognize a mean thought as mean. And changeable. We often impose our own greatest limits on ourselves, without realizing it, but I’m learning to hear it when I do and give myself little pep talks. I can doooooo it!

23. A word on resentment and a word on shame. “Resentment is like peeing your pants. It’s uncomfortable, and you’re the only one who feels it.” “Resentment is like taking poison in the hopes the other person gets sick.” I’ve peed my poison pants a few times this year. I’ve rummaged through my new toolbox looking for an approach that gets me somewhere: What were their needs? How is it about something going on with them and not necessarily about me? What’s the story I’m telling myself, and how can I reframe my thinking around the situation?

But sometimes I’m just stymied, and I’m standing there in wet denim. And I feel shame on top of it-- shame that I can’t let go of it, shame that they still make me so angry, shame that it’s hard to wish them well. Brene Brown’s TED talk on shame says that one of the ingredients necessary for shame to persist is silence. So I tell a trusted friend. And when they don’t judge me, it helps me give myself permission not to judge myself. Sometimes you just don’t want to put on your big girl panties! And that's ok for a while.

24. I fetched my things from storage after 3.5 years. When I left San Diego, I thought I’d be gone for a year, but that turned into 2 years in Korea and then a year and a half in Seattle. I had way more stuff than I remembered having. I elbowed my way through a “parts conflict” between the sentimental person who can’t bear to throw away those intricately folded high school notes and who just miiiight pick up the flute again someday, versus the practical person who doesn’t want the burden of Things and knows she’s never going to toot a flute again.

25. Looking at assumptions I didn’t realize were assumptions. When I was sorting through the objects of my history, there were things I wanted to keep because I thought my kids would want to have it someday. And if I were not to have kids, there wouldn’t be a reason to keep it. So you know where this thinking led me? The huge life decision of whether to have kids someday or not got saddled squarely on my decision to keep, or not, this clay sun I made in 2nd grade. Ridiculous!

I kept the sun. But, I’m not sure if I want kids, and I am in the very privileged position of that being a choice I can make. Some of my best friends recently decided not to have children, and thinking on it, I realized that I just assumed I would someday, without really stopping to challenge if that was for me.

26. Otters hold hands when they sleep to keep from floating away from each other!

The pig shat fire so we got a good price for it

Korea is tagged as the Land of the Morning Calm. But it's Land of the Morning Calamity if you've had night-time dreams of teeth being pulled, of hair being cut, or of dogs; in the folk tradition of Korean dream interpretation, these are considered very bad omens.

Losing teeth or hair suggests that you will lose someone precious to you, or, more precisely, someone around you will die. Alternatively, another source says that if you dream of losing an upper tooth, disaster will befall a senior, and a lower tooth portends disaster for a junior. I'm not quite sure what the deal with dogs is, but I've heard that Koreans used to call nightmares "dog dreams." Maybe they're haunted by the ghosts of dog soup 보신탕? (The controversial practice of eating dog is increasingly less common in Korea, but before you go thinking that people are snatching Fidos off the street to boil, note that, just with other livestock, only a certain breed of dog is bred specifically for food).

Those are the bad omens, but what of the good? When is it Dream Land of the Morning Celebration?

First, I learned that it's lucky to dream of pigs. I was told that as the totemic animal of banking, pigs signify money coming your way. And in talking with Koreans, I've concluded that luck is usually synonymous with money, or, in the odd case, a baby. Traditionally, dreaming of pigs can also suggest you'll have a baby boy. The feminine counterpart? Snakes. This would potentially trigger an outcry over unfairness (what- the boys are represented by the likes of Babe and we get snakes?! You can kiss my asp) but then I read that large serpents and dragons (venerated creatures you'd be lucky to dream about) are closely associated in Korean lore. Serpents who are deemed worthy are transformed into dragons and ascend heaven on a rainbow. Weeeeeee!




A vision of your house burning down-- would you guess this is worthy of a high five or crying? If you chose high five, high five. Koreans believe that if you dream of a bad thing, often it means something good. Various signs, like fire, are interpreted in this reverse manner. A dream about your house burning down is one of the most auspicious dreams you can have. A dream about death means you'll have a long life. And, a dream about POO is good luck too! Who knew?

I started to muse with my Korean friends over how I could combine elements to make a super rockstar auspicious dream. What if I dreamt a dragon burned my house down? Awesome, they said. What if I dreamt a giant Poo Monster killed me? Thumbs up, they gave me. And then-- get this-- they told me I could SELL my dream.

I don't know how common it is, but they say people can buy and sell dreams. People usually want to keep good luck dreams for themselves, but sometimes they'll sell (the makings of a plot focus for Inception II, perhaps?). If you read the fine print of the dream-selling manual, you'll see that you can't tell anyone about the contents of your dream without nullifying the good luck (just as you can't tell someone your wish or it won't come true), so your only strategy is to say that your dream is really good and hope they believe you. Sample sales pitch: "Wanna buy my good luck dream? It's really good. And lucky. For realsies. 10 bucks."

You and your buyer agree on a price, just as you would if you were selling a can of Spam or a bowl of dog soup, and then you tell your buyer about your dream, and then they'll own the luck of it. SOLD- one lucky dream!

If this is really the case, I wonder why there aren't more dream con artists out there. You could fabricate dreams and turn them for a 100% profit! Minus the guilt overhead. That's it-- I've found a new career path-- I'm going to start building my inventory of auspicious dreams right now. The following illustrates my deluxe model, the Rolls Royce of dreams (PS dreaming of presidents means you will achieve great things):

Don't Make Me Turn My Goose

My friend's getting married, so I got the couple some geese. US Immigration might take issue with them. "Hi, Jordan, congrats on your wedding! You can visit your presents in quarantine at the airport, k?"

Despite how fun sending live fowl would be, these are actually geese carved out of wood and painted prettily in a traditional Korean style. They are an ancient Korean wedding tradition; they symbolize the love and devotion of wild geese who mate for life. Back in the day, the groom would ride a pony to the home of his soon-to-be in-laws for the wedding ceremony and present his new mother-in-law with a live goose to signify his fidelity to her daughter. This act later evolved into presenting two wooden ducks instead. I would assume that's because wearing your wedding suit while riding a pony and carrying a giant bird who in all probability is not an equine enthusiast is a dangerous recipe. It is an ancient tradition for geese to shit.

Anyhow, on that note, as I've heard it you can give these geese to a couple as a symbol and a blessing. With this image of beauty and poetry in mind, I shopped Seoul's famous neighborhood of Insadong for the lucky pair who would get an all-expense paid trip to the States. It is my hope they will grace Jordan and Daniel's home in a place of honor, or at least be hastily unpacked for display when I come to visit.


I've heard tell of an interesting tradition associated with these beaked love icons. Apparently, when the relationship is going well, they are supposed to face each other, like they're kissing. But... when the relationship has taken a bad turn, you're supposed to turn them away from each other. Many versions of them come with heads on a swivel to accommodate just such a change in mood. We have done much joking about this. Daniel: "Good morning, Jordan! Can you pass the syru-- [sees turned geese] OH NO!" Gina: "Hey guys, wanna hang out? [sees turned geese] Oops, maybe you guys need some time alone..." Or Jordan: "Daniel, you left the seat up AGAIN! [storms over to the geese and deliberately turns them] As the adjusted position of our geese demonstrates, I am PISSED."

Congratulations, Jordan and Daniel! May your wild geese always be kissing.

Helmutt

Life is about sharing the awesomeness. So, as a correlate to this credo, along with practicing the art of good hugs and incorporating Super Marios Bros into my classroom lessons, I purchased a second helmet in order to have passengers on my scooter.

It is ridiculous. Where else can an agitated cartoon bulldog, a phallic reference, a frisbee, some spiders, and safety all come together? And be worn on your noggin as you zip across the Han River at 75km?
The full-face visor is a nice feature, but I learned the hard way that it's best to raise it up before you sneeze.


Owning a scooter in Seoul is not only super fun, it's practical on a number of levels. They're pretty cheap to buy and maintain-- I bought mine used for less than $550, and to fill up the tank costs $9 every other week or so. I stopped in at an autoshop to have my brakes tightened (a request mostly communicated through mime, but my Korean's getting better!) and to buy some $6 oil, and they only charged me for the oil. It might be possible to shrug that off as an anomaly or the sympathy of a mechanic with a soft spot for lovely little horses (my scooter's name is 애마), but..

The same day, I went over a bump in the road, and suddenly the roar of my 99cc engine doubled in decibels. Part of me felt badass (rawrr my machine makes big noises rev rev), but mostly I was nervous about if something was wrong, and I felt very conspicuous about the way my steroidal sound waves were announcing my presence as I interrupted my way down quiet streets. It was like Zeus was farting out orange bulldog helmets.

I went to my second auto shop of the day, and I said, "Excuse me, my good craftsman, might you be able to discern the malfunction of my farty two-wheeled vehicle and execute the necessary repairs?" ...

What actually happened is that I pointed at my scooter and said, in Korean, "really loud." And I pointed to my ear to indicate the subject of my my sentence as 'sound' and said the word "changed." Clearly my greatest tool in communicating here in Seoul is my finger. If someone took away my ability to point I would be lost.

The mechanic ended up taking apart part of the bike in order to remove the muffler and weld the crack in it, plus he freshened up the wiring and plugs of the battery... and did some other mechanic-y things for over half an hour. In the U.S. I've been conditioned to be mistrustful of mechanics and their insistence that YOU NEED TO REPLACE ALL THESE EXPENSIVE THINGS IMMEDIATELY NOW NOW NOW OR ELSE YOUR VEHICLE WILL EXPLODE IN A FIERY STORM OF HORROR AS YOU DRIVE AWAY FROM HERE, but I wasn't in a position to be overly questioning of this Korean man's judgment. I just had to sit back and wait for him to give my lovely horse some antacids and drop the bill on me.

It was 30 bucks. Awesome.

Back to you in the studio, Minsoo.

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, my employer, asked me to come in to their TV studio to record some clips for the Teaching English section of their news show. I was waiting to blog about it until some shows aired so that I could include video, but it's been 1.5 months now with no word, so it's quite likely my chance to be a star is laying on the cutting room floor. It's just as well-- I doubt the likes of "Could you turn down the volume?" and "Is this seat taken?" were going to be the springboard to fame. Look, look! It's the "Could you open a window?" girl!

Korean eHarmony?

The other day, I went for a late dinner at a local place I frequent. The proprietress asked me why I was so late-- had I been on a date? The question was all in Korean except for the word "date," and I was impressed she knew it.

But, just now as I sit here studying my Korean textbook, I find that 'date' is the same word in Korean! 데이트 (deh-ee-tuh). This actually happens a lot, like with the words 'shopping' 쇼핑 (syoh-ping) and 'computer' 컴퓨타 (coem-pyew-tah). So, you can almost say this in Korean without knowing any Korean: "shop for a date on the computer!"

You can lead your lovely horse to yoga, but you can't make it plank

'Namaste' was the only word I understood in my yoga class.

It made sense to me to purchase a gym membership in tandem with my scooter (newly dubbed 애마, "lovely horse") because I'll be walking so much less. So, after school I rode my lovely horse down to the local gym, and I fumbled my way through the signup process. I had a short session with the personal trainer, and he put me on some machine that's supposed to read my BMI and such. I was really afraid the machine had Korean parameters and was going to tell me I was fat. But, R2D2ard Simmons was kind enough to consider my American waistline within the normal range.

Later in yoga class, I just copied what everyone else was doing, which meant I had to peek from time to time when we were supposed to have our eyes closed. I said that namaste was the only word I understood, but that's not entirely true-- at one point I was downward dogging when I was supposed to be planking, and the instructor came by and meowed at me: "plaaaaaank-uh!"

The gym runs jointly with a sauna/jimjilbang, so after you work out upstairs, you can go to the jimjilbang, shuck your club-issued clothes off into the hamper, and nakedly use the steam room/hot or cold tubs/sitting or standing showers. The showers were full of the bendy ajummas I had just yogad with, though, so this time, I bowed out. Namaste ("I bow to you").

garsh golly gee that sure is nice

Have you hugged a Korean today? They do some nice things.

Typically you won't get a Korean insisting you go Dutch. When you go out to eat, it's customary that one person pays the bill; it's assumed the other person will repay the favor if and when the opportunity presents itself. This rule holds true with the exception of when an older and younger person dine together. The older person will treat the younger, and there's no expectation for eventual reciprocation. As it was explained to me, this is because the older person received the same generous treatment from their elders, and they are paying it forward to the next generation, who will pay it forward to the next.

In a similarly unselfish fashion, when fortune smiles upon you, you are supposed to share it with others. On occasions of birthdays, job promotions, marriages, etc. you treat the folks around you. My Korean friend had a birthday a while back, and I asked him how he was going to celebrate. I was expecting that we as his friends would take him out and ply him with drinks and shenanigans, but he had no such rowdy plans. He said he was taking his dad out to lunch and thanking him for making his life possible. Aw.

Cool Not Cool

Not cool: Currently, when I arrive to school after my hike up a steep hill in the intensifying Korean summer heat, I look like I was just jazzercising in a sauna in business casual. I arrive on campus to see all the students clustered around the entrance of the building changing from their outside shoes to indoor shoes, so each morning I awkwardly navigate the barricade of bodies as unobtrusively as possible in hopes they don't notice how sweaty I am. And apparently I believe lack of eye contact makes you invisible. If I don't look at you you can't see me. But it's not like my eyeballs are sweaty, and the ungazed upon adolescent can still spot backsweat, so maybe I should take another look at this belief.

Cool: Puns!

Cool: I am the proud new owner of a scooting vehicle. This is my sauna jazzercise counter move. Starting next week, I will scoot to school, and as I enjoy the wind rushing by my face I will look back superiorly at the girl who used to struggle up that hill, and I will chortle.

Not cool: My anticipated first week of gleeful scooting coincides exactly with the predicted onset of monsoon season. Looks like I'll be jazzercizing my way up that hill in acid rain.

Cool: I got a good deal on the scooter; I bought it used off a good friend of mine.

Not cool: This awesome friend of mine is returning to the States next week :( Most expats in Seoul I know aren't here for the long haul, so naturally there's a lot of turnover, and it's sad to connect with people just to have them leave. Why can't the cool people stay exactly as long as I do? I will start a campaign: Stay with Meeeeee.

Cool: Team Korea won the big Shanghai tournament! We beat Beijing in the semis and Manila in the finals to win one of the largest ultimate tournaments in Asia. I'm told it is the first time Korea has won a big title on the international scene. Manila's Sunken Pleasure was a talented and spirited opponent, and props go to them for developing an entirely home-grown team. Our Korea roster, admittedly, is lacking on the native Koreans and boasting many a US college/club player. The count was: one true blue Korean, one Korean raised in Japan, two Koreans adopted as children by US families, and my Korean half, making for an unconvincing total of 4.5 Koreans on the team.

Cool: The Filipinos posted this recap of our matchup: "Unfortunately, we ran into a brick wall aka the squad from Korea. Fast, skilled and athletic, this latest reincarnation of the Korean team was unlike any other team we've faced before. Pinpoint hucks, perfectly executed set plays and really good handling accuentuated their game. Not to mention the fact that their tallest girl was taller than our tallest guy and that their tallest guy was at least 6 inches taller than Heyman."

Cool: At the tournament I won a stuffed Haibo (the mascot of the World Expo).
Not cool: Someone stole him.
Cool enough: That someone turned out to be a three year old, so I let it go.

Cool: The day after the tournament I went to the World Expo with an awesome couple from Hong Kong who kindly shared their photos with me since my camera died after taking my second photo. The Expo itself had its neat parts but on the whole was underwhelming. There was little evidence of international attendance, with barely a non-Chinese face there, and people were waiting in hours-long lines for entrance to the country pavilions, so we line-fearing unambitious folk were relegated to country pavilions the likes of Bulgaria. We got alot of amusement, though, out of watching the Chinese people obsess over getting stamps from each country in their "Official World Expo Passports." We'd see people bypass the exhibits and rush the poor clerk doling out the stamps. I don't care about your olive production-- just stamp me! *foam at the mouth*

Cool: I like this alot.

Not cool: The demand for whale meat is growing in Korea, encouraging the "accidental" catching of whales in fishing nets for a non-accidental auction price of about $15,000 per whale. I thought I'd include some current events to show off that I'm reading stuff. I read! I'll do it again...

Cool: USA and Korea advance to the next round of the World Cup! And if they both win their next games, they'll face each other next Friday, in which case, for whom shall I root? Torn I'd be. Speaking of torn, my buddy the North Korean scholar says the World Cup has been beneficial for South/North Korean relations because on the world sports scene, it's easy to cheer for each other. Despite rumors that Kim Jong-Il would only allow heavily censored and edited coverage of North Korea winning, my friend says North Korea aired losses as well as South Korea games.

Funny: excellent source of sparkles!

My two cents and two quarters

I ask my students what their hobby is, and inevitably, the first answer I get is "computer games." In Korea, gaming is hugely popular, and some gamers are professionals respected on a level akin to sports stars. Some, however, aren't to be respected. A couple of news stories that serve as cautionary tales of what can happen when hobbyists go to extremes: one Korean man died after playing 50 straight hours of Starcraft, and a Korean couple let their baby die of neglect as they raised a virtual baby in a simulation game.

I haven't been raising any armies or babies, but I've been playing this, uh, tactical role-playing game since arriving in Korea:

PLAYER/S: 1
NAME: Gina Phillips
OCCUPATION: English Teacher, SMOE Public Middle School
SKILLS: Ability to read Korean very very slowly but with no comprehension, throw a frisbee, smile and nod
RESOURCES: Contact information for some of mom's friends, work visa, helpful books gifted from buddies: Frommer's Guide, Ultimate Guide to Karaoke Domination, Making Out in Korean (a coyly titled phrasebook teaching the phrases which, it insists, are truly useful; thanks Sarah!).
WEAPONS: A winning personality and zest for life? Denial? Ice cream.
CITY: Seoul, South Korea
MISSION: Thrive. Be awesome at living a full, worthwhile life. Make the most of your time.

Okay sooo the 'mission' wouldn't market well. It's much more fun to shoot agile zombies and aliens or liberate girls with impossible dimensions or rob Egyptian tombs or whatever. But I've already put my two quarters in. I'm living in Korea by golly!

Level 1
-You're an alien. Card up (get your Alien Registration Card).
-You're a commuter. Card up (get a T-Money card for the subways/buses/some taxis and some convenience stores).
-You're a tenant. Collect spoons and TP and stuff and conquer your appliances. MIDBOSS: Take a shower (see porcelain-cuddling post).
-You're employed. Navigate the streets to school and successfully pose as an English teacher. Don't blow your cover.
-You're hungry. Take on a spicy Korean meal. Go grocery shopping.
-Locate and infiltrate the local frisbee team.
FINAL BOSS: Using only your limited Korean and miming skills, coordinate with your landlady the set up of your internet. Bonus: Because you've performed so well in Level 1 so far, and because of the pity elicited by your embarrassing attempts at demonstrating "wireless", you can redeem your bonus points for the translation services of the landlady's awkward son.

Level 2
-Decipher the code of recycling and waste disposal procedures.
-Master the art of strategic positioning on the subway to minimize bodily smush.
-Ingratiate yourself with the proprietor of a local restaurant so she helps you study Korean and gives you free appetizers.
-Scout different neighborhoods in Seoul and different provinces in Korea.
MIDBOSS: Properly utilize the traditional sauna facilities. And by 'properly utilize,' I mean 'be naked.'
-Designate yourself a fan of the local baseball and soccer teams and don't look clueless when the entire stadium participates in the same elaborate cheers and gesticulations.
-Play a tournament with the frisbee team. Get on a friendly heckling/butt slapping basis with your teammates. Witness a surprise wedding! At the Jeju tournament, a couple got married on the fields after play Saturday while we looked on in our cleats. THAT's why the party theme was love-- it was a wedding reception!
BOSS: Partake of food items you think are gross (see sannakji post), likely to be some form of marine life.


Level 3
-Eavesdrop on people who underestimate your Korean comprehension.
-Take up with your school's teacher volleyball team. Advance to the Seoul championship tournament (top 16 teams in the city)!
-Host a few out of town guests and feel more informed than they are.
MIDBOSS: Hold a conversation through dinner with your non-English-speaking family you've never met before.
POST MIDBOSS BONUS: Learn you have like 12 first cousins-once-removed and all their kids living in Seoul!
-Make peace with the idea of kimchi at every meal.
-Don't just grocery shop. Card up and become a MEMBER. Now all that cereal and orange juice you're buying translate into points, and someday, maybe in Level 32, you'll get a free head of cabbage.

So here I am, middling in Level 3. I've been playing for three months straight and am feeling pretty good-- which means I beat that one Starcrafter Korean dude's record by about 2,110 hours.

Photovoltaic Module Textiles

I have been a sardine for the past fifteen minutes. A sardine shooting through underground tunnels and unwillingly smushed against knock-off designer bags and suits so shiny they would be better used as solar panels than garments. That's it-- Seoul's alternative energy plans should include harvesting the shine off businessmen's backs! We could run the subway system off Samsung employees alone.

All this is to say that the subway can be crowded, especially the green line (my line) at rush hour. Apparently there used to be professionals hired by the city by the title of "pushers." Their job was to challenge the laws of physics and the ideas of personal space to cram as many people as possible into the subway cars. They would literally push and shove people so that the cars could accommodate the max number of commuters. It was like a human girdle effect: you think your stomach can pooch out those extra inches? Nuh-uh; I will smush this teenage boy against you to push that tummy IN.

I guess pushers pissed off one too many shiny suits or something, because they don't exist anymore. As much as the neighbor-girdle promised to be the next big thing in the compression garment industry, pushers fell from favor. But, even in their official absence, I think their spirit lives on in each and every native Seoulite. They've all got a little pusher inside them. When you don't think there's even enough space to slouch, a little pusher shows you that you can indeed stand straighter. When your toes aren't touching the heels of someone else's shoes, a little pusher will find a way to change that. When you think that no one could possibly fit behind the closing doors without losing an appendage or protruding facial feature, a little pusher becomes a contortionist and shows you not to doubt.

Chuck Norris just roundhouse kicked your birthday

Happy birthday to David Street... and Buddha. I move for a joint birthday party: frisbee, meditation, Luby's macncheese, and moderate amounts of beer for all!

This weekend, an American girl bought a birthday cake for our Korean friend and presented to him at a big gathering. Another Korean friend of ours, an accomplished martial artist, then proceeded to KICK the cake into the bday boy's face. The American girl was furious, but everyone else was mightily amused-- and allowed to be. Apparently Cake on the Face is a customary birthday practice. Usually it takes the milder form of a finger scoop of frosting, but I guess there's some flexibility when your friend is a national mushu star.

Speaking of national stars, Buddha's upcoming birthday inspired a Lotus Lantern Festival this past weekend, the highlight of which was a 2.5 hour parade downtown. It was a magnificent spectacle-- huge robotic lantern-lit animals, musicians in hanboks, dancing school children-- and it seemed like the entire foreigner population of Seoul was out to see. It was an odd experience to see masses of non-Koreans, because with the exception of the Itaewon and Hongdae areas, it's noticeable when I see a foreigner out and about. It's like a living game of Where's Waldo (PS Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding. When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he doesn't push himself up; he pushes the world down. They once made a Chuck Norris toilet paper, but it wouldn't take shit from anybody.).

Because Buddha's birthday is a national holiday, we have a three-day weekend coming up, so we're headed down to the coastal city of Busan for some beach time. We'll be celebrating one of my friend's bdays, in honor of which I have re-written the lyrics from Journey's Don't Stop Believin'... Don't stop BEING... Ok ok, it needs some work...

A more successful creative pursuit was the scavenger hunt I put together last weekend. Teams had to take pictures of actions/items specific to Korean life, and the team with the most points won the cash pool. I can't quite take credit for all the clues, but here's a copy:

**The team to return with the best costume gets 70 points!!!**

**Mandatory first photo: group shot of all your team members (^^)V **

10 POINTS:
-A funny (read: poorly written) Konglish sign/menu/shirt.
-Team members making obscene faces/gestures in front of double barber poles.
-A couple: a white guy and a Korean girl.
-A sparkly necktie.
-Find someone passed out drunk and stack miscellaneous objects on them.
-A dog wearing clothes/sporting painted body parts.
-A ridiculously big bow in a girl’s hair.
-Team members drinking beer in a crazy/random location.
-An FC Seoul jersey.
-Something gross.

Have you found a costume yet?

20 POINTS:
-An ajumma squatting (the Asian squat where the bum touches the heels).
-Team member in a hanbok (Korean traditional dress).
-A foreign car.
-A Korean man wearing makeup.
-Team members sitting bobsled style in the aisle of a bus or subway.
-A Korean girl showing cleavage.
-Team members doing a love-shot round of Irish Car Bombs or Red Headed Whores.
-An older Korean couple (40+ years) holding hands.
-An origami frog riding a taxi naked.
-Team members taking over cooking duties for a street vendor.
-Have a stranger pour soju into your mouth. 30 points if they baby bird it (from their mouth to yours).

Giddyup! Where’s your getup?

30 POINTS:
-Team members all posing as Kim Yu Na.
-A couple: a white girl and a Korean guy.
-Team members putting on a puppet show using whole dried squids.
-A Korean girl not wearing heels or Converse.
-Team members serenading Koreans. The world is your noraebang.
-Team members mimicking a K-Pop promotional poster.
-A Korean couple with matching shirts.
-Team members spelling out a word with their bodies (word must be Korea-related). Ex: SEOUL.
-One team member giving a Korean man a piggyback ride (must be a stranger!).
-A lime.
-Walk into a hagwon and insist on signing up for English lessons.
-Acquire a crab. Get the crab to dangle off a (any) portion of your body.
-Sell something on the subway. Crabs maybe?

Coooosssttttuuuuummmmeee.

Burning Potato

Sports is like udon and ping-pong is like taco.

I could come up with an elaborate sports-as-food metaphor here, but these are actually my mnemonics for remembering the Korean words for sports (eundong) and ping-pong (taegu). Sports have been such a positive element of my experience here!

Baseball (yahgu):
A couple weeks back we invited a huge group of people (SMOE folks plus frisbee folks) to a baseball game. My buddy, after highlighting how cheap the beer is and how amusingly terrible the players are, further encouraged attendance by writing: "If you're still not convinced, through some wonderful cultural miscommunication they thought baseball was supposed to have cheerleaders. No one ever corrected them because why mess with a good thing?"
As we happily heckled, drank tall boys, snacked on dried squid, and watched the cheerleaders instead of the players, the Doosan Bears and the LG Twins (both home teams) played out twelve innings... to end in a tie. A tie!

Frisbee (peu-lij-bee?):
The weather and my health has finally improved, which makes for happy frisbee afternoons by the Han river. And the big Jeju Gnarly Nines 2010 tournament is this weekend! I hear the fields were used for World Cup training and are some of the nicest fields in Asia; a treat for the cleats, a treat for the sole! Seoul's top team won the tournament last year, so we have to defend the title as well as win the party, or, at least give a good showing. The party theme, somehow, is 'love', so our team, of course, will be dressing up like old people. We're brainstorming fun team names for the tournament, and I humbly suggested Pighting Mandus, Kimcheetah, or Gettin' Jiggae With It. I'll risk an over-explanation here: Pighting-- read: Fighting-- is something Koreans say to cheer on someone, as in 'Doosan Pighting!'; Mandu is the Korean word for dumpling; Kimchi + Cheetah = Kimcheetah; Jiggae is a common style of soup.

Basketball (noenggu):
Another school's foreign teacher saw me shooting around during pre-game warm-ups at our volleyball tournament, and she invited me to play basketball with her rec team. So, this past Saturday after frisbee practice, I took the subway to Sookmyung Women's University and scrimmaged in their gym. One of the girls on the team is a grad student there, so we have the use of the gym for free, which is significant considering the usual fee is $500/month for two hours of gym time weekly. Because of the seductive powers of frisbee, I haven't seriously played basketball since high school, so it was an odd experience coming back to it. My frisbee instincts took over more than once when I tried to stall the person I was guarding and yelled "Up!" whenever anyone put up a shot. Anyway, it was a ton o fun, and we'll see how consistently I'll make bball a part of my weekend.

Rollerblading (hell if I know):
Later on Saturday, I went over to my second cousin's place. Considering my mother's side of the family is Korean, you'd think my second cousin would be Korean, but no. As the cosmo's sense of humor would have it, this cousin (a handy catch-all phrase for someone vaguely related to you) is the grandson of my Romanian great uncle by marriage on my dad's side. My Great Uncle Otto is Horatziu's grandpa. Ta da! Horatziu's place is amazing-- a far cry from the cubbies commonly issued to English teachers-- and was filled with carefully selected Japanese and Korean contemporary art and friendly Samsung executives with MBAs and expensive shoes. No cheerleaders or dried squid here.
Anyway, so the reason I can get away with heading this section 'Rollerblading' is this: through a series of events, I will soon be teaching one of Horatziu's friends how to rollerblade. Two years ago, she bought the entire rollerblades/helmet/pads set, tried it once, and gave it up for difficult, so the kit's been in boxes ever since. We will out them! And make her into a superstar. Kim Yu Na better get out the way.

Volleyball (paegu):
I'm on my school's volleyball team of teachers. Last week, we played against two other schools in our district, and it was by far the most fun school-related event I have experienced! I mean FUN. Most of our school's other teachers came to cheer us on, prepared with giant empty water bottles they slammed together in rhythm while chanting. They were on their feet, yelling, the entire time, and they brought a school banner with them and hung it high and proud on our sidelines. With more exciting outfits they could give those pro baseball cheerleaders a good run!
It helped that our team is badass and gave them something to cheer for; we won both matches without losing a game, and then we all went out for barbecue and soju (the most common alcoholic drink here, like a rice vodka). Soju brings people together. Under the influence, some teachers who had never talked to me before revealed that they know English! The little sneaks. One in particular cracks me up. He's the ethics teacher, and when he saw my flushed soju face he called me, in English, a burning potato.

Skip Down the Chocolate River

The air here does not agree with me, and it has made me a liar. Yes, the air here (three parts nitrogen, two parts oxygen, and one part cigarette smoke) has made a perjurer of me. I wrote that I was officially not sick, and now that is false. After a week of feeling a tightness in my chest, I went to the doc, and I have some sort of upper respiratory infection. There's a rumor that the pharmaceutical companies pay doctors to overprescribe, but regardless of whether or not that's true, I have a heap of pills to take with every meal. I have my doubts to their efficacy because this stubborn nugget of ow-ness on the left side of my chest has stayed intact, and it's been tough getting through ultimate practices, but yesterday a strange thing happened. We had practice, a break, and then a league game. I hurt through practice, but at league I felt significantly better. Where could the change have come from? I've sourced it back to the ramen I ate during the break. But of course! The medicinal qualities of msg!

Healthcare here is super cheap. Through the co-payment system (there's a max co-payment ceiling of 3mil won over a 6mos period), my x-ray and the doctor's fee was less than $30, and my mountain of pills was less than $5. I pay about $50 a month for my national health insurance (a percentage of my wage that is matched by my employer). Since 1988, Korea has had universal health insurance coverage made possible by contributions from the insured and government subsidy.

(oops... now almost a week after I started this draft...)

My attempts at online self-diagnosis with symptoms like 'chest pain' and 'difficulty breathing deeply' kept leading to serious warnings to seek medical attention and to me freaking out, so, even as someone generally reluctant to go to doctors, I made an appointment at an international clinic. For some reason when I made the appointment they failed to tell me that it was on the English-speaking doctor's weekly day off, so when I showed up, I was shown to a Geriatrics doctor with limited English skills, which was rather beside the point of my visit to the international clinic (as opposed to my neighborhood doc), the mad dash from school, and the $11 cab ride. Nevertheless, a game of charades and an x-ray later, I had my prescription. If I were writing some kind of parallel Neverland/Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory story, I would fashion the doctor as a human pez dispenser in a lab coat. The ailing girl would point to parts of her body and make faces, and then the pez dispenser would tilt his skull back and from his dislocated jaws he would produce a a pastel-blue brick of medicine. The girl would take the brick with both hands and put it in her little backpack, secure in the idea of forthcoming health, and skip down the chocolate river.
I don't know why this occurred to me, but there you are.

Natural By Themselves Will Wear the Sauce

Koreans eat live octopus. I hear it's yummy. And if you go to a seaside restaurant and order sashimi, often the octopus will come for free! as "service". These aren't giant flabby purple things but petite translucent creatures; these baby octopi are cut up and then served immediately so that they're still wriggling their grippy little appendages... protesting with each bend and flex the termination of their lives and their fate as novelty food, as their frantic acrobatics amuse and amaze and sicken tourists tempted to eat them... The name for a bowl of wiggly baby arms is sannakji.
Here is a visual for you. I will not be eating this. Or, at least I won't be eating this without powerful persuasion-- either from alcohol or a native Korean who wants me to appreciate their culture. If you pull the culture card it can be hard for me to say no. Nakedness in the public baths falls into the same category of "I'd Really Rather Not... but Then There's This Respect the Culture Thing, Sooo (Dammit) Hmm..."
My co-teacher-- the one I'm considering nicknaming Button (as in 'as cute as')-- told me that preparing to eat sannakji takes very little effort. You don't need to pick an arm up with the chopsticks; instead, you just hold a chopstick above one, and it'll climb aboard and wrap itself around your stick. And then you don't need to work to dip it in your sauce; just put it close and the octo-arm will move and swish in the sauce by itself. The way Button described it, word for word, was "put it close and they natural by themselves will wear the sauce." Suit up!
I've heard that sannakji can be difficult to wrangle into your mouth- you can miss, and it'll grip the outside of your cheek or something. Haha what if it SLAPPED you: "There's no changing my fate, but at least I'm gonna slap the sonuvabitch on my way out."
Once it's in your mouth, give it a mighty and thorough chew. If you don't kill the sucker (pun!) between your teeth, it might cause some problems for you when you try to swallow. I wonder what would happen if you just ate it whole without chewing, and it was still alive as it slid down your esophagus... is the inside of your stomach ticklish?

Heckle zombie

Wait, do people I don't know read this thing? If random people think my ramblings are interesting I'd be tickled. Just tickled!

I officially pronounce myself not sick. Ta da! Yes, ladies and gents, it's been a long time coming, but now I can say I've kicked the flu. It was an agonizing battle, but I have slain the stubborn foe. My gummiberry juice operation will suffer, but that's a loss I'll gladly take for the privilege of breathing through my nose once more.

Last weekend I underestimated how sick I still was and zombied through a weekend in Gyeongju with SMOE friends. Gyeongju is 230 miles southeast of Seoul-- 4 hours by bus. This weekend, though, I took another 4-hr bus ride to Ulsan for a frisbee tournament. We played at the university, and since there was only one field, there was a lot of down time to sit around and heckle. There are some skillful heckle vets in our ranks. To be sure, it is an art of cleverness, timing, and conviction. It is not at just any moment at any decibel that one may yell "hammer or you're nothing!" to great effect.

My body wasn't exactly on board with my plan to be athletic this weekend (chiropractic appointment today!), but my team managed to lose respectably in the finals, and *garsh shuffle blush*, I was voted the tournament's female MVP... (do pardon my brag!). And again, I met some people that I'm connected to in ridiculously unexpected and manifold ways. The world it is a small one. Or, my network it is a big one? Or, I am pleasantly stalked by friends of friends?

Aha! Saboteur!

"Quick Korean learn do" is the direct translation of what I need to do (Bbali hangookmal paewo heh... this is not the official romanized version of the Korean a la the 2000 debut). My landlady told me this when we were mucking through a conversation about setting up internet, and I felt this through and through when I sat at lunch with a table of only-Korean-speaking teachers at lunch (I usually sit with the English department) with all the desire to have a conversation but nothing to follow through with. Later I asked one of my co-teachers how I could have said, "how are you?" or "how is your day going?", and she said that those are particularly English questions, and if I want to start a conversation I should ask about food. This struck me as funny-- "if you want to talk to someone, don't ask them about their thoughts or feelings; ask them about lunch." She continued by saying that in Korea the three meals of the day are really important, so people mentally organize their day around them. I should ask a lead-in question like "have you eaten lunch yet?" at any point pre-lunch. I haven't come to terms with this quite yet-- the idea of replacing 'how're you' with 'how bout that next meal'... and besides I already know when all the teachers are scheduled to eat lunch, so asking seems silly. I wonder if she's pulling my leg and really there's an easy 'what's up' equivalent and she's just setting me up to be the weird foreigner obsessed with talking about food... Aha! Saboteur! I'm on to her.

Last week was my first attempt at clothes shopping. Aaaand the Chubby Giant struck out. We went to a Migliore, which is a kind of truce between a department store and a flea market: vendors have their own sections crammed against each other in a six-story building organized floor by floor, and you're allowed to haggle. I was overwhelmed and intimidated. There were so many clothes and people flagging you down, and the aisles were so narrow, and the clothes were for the most part just TINY (what is this- a center for ants? -Zoolander). And I had witnessed my friend being turned down to try on anything, which we figured was a form of discrimination against clumsy foreigners, so I was timid. But apparently a lot of places won't let customers try on anything for fear of damaging the merchandise in some way, so it's common to buy without trying, an idea which seems to Un-Korean-proportioned Me to be one with a low probability for success. Thus, I just browsed. I'm sure I'll try again soon; with a proper pep talk and the right phrases handy, I will prevail! The day I buy pants here I will hold the receipt above my head in victory.

Love Actually Korea

One of my co-teachers is really curious about Western relationships and asks me all sorts of questions, which of course, as a Communications: Human Relations major and gossip I am happy to answer. Through our conversations I'm learning about the Korean dating culture, and now my impression is that Koreans are little dating speedracers. Beep beep! A race to coupledom. Here is a rough recap of our dialogue:

Co: If two people are dating, doesn't that mean love? Doesn't that mean they are a couple?
Me: No... two people can date (as in go out on dates) just to figure out if they like each other, and even if they both like each other, they may decide not to commit to being a couple. Love is something people take seriously and develop over time and may not say even when they feel it. Ok, ok-- this does not reflect the attitudes of all Americans, I know.
Co: We say 'I love you' very quickly. It means... 'I like you.' So it's not uncommon to say on the first date.
Me: *mouth open*
Co: And it's not uncommon to be a couple after the first date. He'll ask you to be his girlfriend. And then maybe on the next date you'll go together to buy each other couple rings. See my post on this. And you can buy couple/matching shirts, too. My friend reports that couples also buy matching underwear sets-- barf-o-rama.
Me: Do you say something different later when you feel love like the American concept of love?
Co: No, we say the same thing.
Me: If Koreans become a couple really quickly, does that make for more break-ups? What happens to the rings?
Co: Yes, you are a couple more easily, and breakups come more easily. You sell the rings back to the jewelry shop.
Me: And here I thought for a moment that you'd sell your rings to another couple-- "didn't work for us, but here, you give it a go."
Co: What about sex?
Me: Well, some Americans treat it like something you do to express love after you've built a relationship with someone, and some Americans are casual about it.
Co: I think Americans and Koreans are the opposite in sex and love. With Americans, sex comes easily, and with Koreans, love comes easily.
Me: That can be true; some Americans who would never say 'I love you' on a first date wouldn't think it weird to sleep with someone instead.
Co: *mouth open*

Gummiberry Juice

I am shocked by how much mucus and phlegm my body produces. Oh flu. The factory is operating 24/7-- if only somehow I could get my body to focus on turning out something else, something worthwhile or profitable-- like honey... or Gatorade powder... or Gummiberry Juice. My research on Wikipedia supports the fabulousness of this idea. Gummiberry Juice is "a magic potion that endows Gummi bears with bouncing abilities, but gifts humans (or ogres) with momentary super-strength as well as other numerous uses, including serving as fuel for mechanical machines." Just think what a popular gal I'd be with Gummi bears, ogres, and mechanical machines; you could come to my parties and rub elbows with animated bears from the 80's, monsters, and tractors.

I've been in Korea for over a month. I had a week of orientation, and now I'm in my fourth week of teaching. I'm learning what different personalities different classes have-- they'll respond completely differently to the same activity-- and how so much of teaching kids is the simple struggle to keep their attention. I guess all my teachers growing up did a good job of being professional and hiding how human they were, but being a teacher now I can tell you that there are definitely kids I favor and kids that annoy me, and sometimes in class when it's obvious the kids don't care, I have to will myself to keep trying to move the class forward. Oops. I don't think I'll be taking home any teaching awards here, but I'm confident I'll get better. I'm keeping an open mind, but so far I haven't felt any kind of click that would lead me to believe I've found my calling as a career. I don't mean to be negative-- some of my classes are really fun and/or really gratifying, some of my kiddos are cute and excited about learning, I'm definitely learning a lot about classroom management and lesson planning, I like the freedom/demand for creativity, and it's interesting to see my teaching style take shape. Plus I get to write on the whiteboard a lot.

You'll have to refer to my last post, but my grandpa sent me this in an email, and I wanted to include it:

Hi Gina,
I haven't mastered the 'comment' system on the blog so here it is:

I`m so glad to see that Phillips humor carried to a next generation.
For a while I feared its demise and the loss to civilization of a unique form of comedy.
Way to go, girl!

I do hope you feeling better and will soon acclimate to Seoul`s ambient conditions.
Love
Grandpa