Between multiple farewell dinners out and then two consecutive in-class pizza-and-chicken parties with adult students, it's safe to say I've been in a more sentimental mood than usual.
That said, saying goodbye to my two local convenience store owners (one 7-11, one E-mart) -- my morning coffee and my evening water-and-beer guys -- honesty got me a little choked up.
To balance things out, my office building cleaning lady couldn't have given less of a fuck.
I never did take to K-pop. Korean hip-hop, however, is the balls. The good stuff, at least.
I'm in my office at lovely Daegu Health College for the last time today, taking care of some stuff. It's actually freezing outside, but it's supposed to warm up a bit this weekend. I'm going home to do some more cleaning and packing (haven't started the latter, to be honest), and tomorrow morning I'll get a COVID test (i.e., the "brain Q-tip"). I'll head up to Incheon Airport on Monday.
This is easily the best job I've ever had, and I realize I was very lucky in finding a boss in Korea who was for the most part both supportive and flexible, and willing to let me do my thing as long as the students (both college and adult) were happy. For the most part, they were.
I'll get to Bellingham Monday and enter a new world of caring full-time for my dad. I wouldn't say I'm either optimistic or pessimistic about it -- just ready to make sure his needs (at almost 92) are being met. He's stubborn and fiercely independent though, so what will be tough is walking the line between taking care of him as needed, but not babying him or taking away his sense of power or volition. His house, his rules, as they say.
I'm looking forward to the mild weather, the beautiful mountain and forest views, and air that is as fresh as fresh gets. As I close out my to-do list here, I've got a new one for Bellingham as well, but it's not nearly as extensive. The goal is to adjust and continue from there. I'll be taking a long walk every morning after coffee with my dad, and probably one in the afternoon as well when he takes a nap.
My dad is scheduled for a vaccine, but not until late March (this is where I mention he's a die-hard Trump supporter). I'm guessing at best I'll get mine in summer at earliest. Hell, that could be optimistic.
And from there? Nobody knows what happens next, other than I'll be living in a nice house in the quietest of neighborhoods five minutes from the border of Canada.
I'm pretty sure I'll read a lot of books.
As for Daegu, I hope this wretched virus gets handled as soon as it's possible. I want people wandering around eating and drinking and laughing downtown again. I want the undergraduates back, in person of course, studying hard and goofing off all at the same time. I want my local movie theater to stay in business if it can. I want the local restaurants and coffee shops of Chilgok / Northern Daegu to make as much money as possible. I want to see Samsung Lions Park filled with people cheering and drinking beer and eating fried chicken at yet another spring or summer ballgame.
Samsung usually loses. I don't care. True fans know winning is only ever a part of it all.
Happy New Year from lurvely Daegu. It's Monday afternoon, and I just turned in my final hard-copy grades and attendance sheets for my last semester here in South Korea.
While the Lunar New Year isn't until February 12th, it's safe to say we're moving from the Year of the Rat to the Year of the Ox.
As we've gone back to restaurant lock-down of no more than four people per table, I did pretty much nothing for New Year's (just like Christmas!). I called my Dad and I think it's finally sinking in with him that we're going to be room-mates soon.
So back to bank and pension office visits. The former is actually pretty much done, the latter will take a bit more extra paperwork. (Have I mentioned Korea pretty much runs on paperwork? Yes, millions of times.)
I just taught my last adult class of the semester and handed in my final (hardcopy) grades for my college classes.
I have no right to complain. I went from teaching five college classes to one, basically, via video recording. In my defense, I did have to learn two new programs from scratch (one for distance learning, one for distance evaluation) with little to no help from my boss. I think I also mentioned some drama over the "we won't have a grading curve this semester but then again we will" situation.
But it's over. And it's strange to think I'll be in Korea for a full August for the first time in over a decade.
I just got some new books though, so I guess vacation is off to a decent enough start.
I'm in my office for the next few days basically waiting for students to call me if they have a complaint about their final grade. (Those were entered into the school computer system last week.)
It's a strange custom, no doubt, and it doesn't help that with distance learning we basically went up to August with our semester schedule.
It's hot and humid, grossly so.
I'm reading articles about how America probably won't go "back to normal" until 2022 due to Cheeto Hitler's utter incompetence.
In a best-case scenario where Joe Biden wins with enough down-ticket momentum in the House and Senate to make it impossible for Trump to start a literal coup headed by Barr, he still inherits a pandemic and a historically shitty economy.
While my college classes have been put off for the entirely of the spring semester (first semester in South Korea) tonight I'm teaching a handful of adult students. I haven't done any in-classroom teaching since last January. Anyhow, we're doing coronavirus vocabulary. Fascinating! Here's my list:
Coronavirus Vocabulary
Virus
Coronavirus (crown virus)
Quarantine
Symptom (n)
Symptomatic / Asymptomatic (adj)
Lockdown
Social Distancing
Epidemic
"Flattening the curve"
Fever / Take temperature
Immunity / Herd Immunity
Patient Zero
"Work from Home"
Super-spreader
Other than "Eating whole pints of Ben and Jerry's in my boxer shorts at 3 a.m." what did I miss?
No surprise here, but my college is joining almost every other college and university in South Korea by delaying our opening by two weeks due to coronavirus.
There will be some definite scheduling headaches but it sounds like we can mostly get by just going an extra week into June.
FYI, the Korean spring semester is when the school year starts in Korea, as opposed to September.
It's the last week of adult / continuing education classes at my college, and in Korean style I'm being treated to multiple free lunches and dinners by my students.
I mean, free is good but at times I definitely feel like I'm a calf being fattened for the slaughter.
My college waited until the first week of January, which also happens to be the first very cold and wet week of winter, to replace all the heating / AC units in my office building.
They had all of fall to take care of it but no, this is the week you get to suffer.
Grading is finished. In typical Because Korea style, I was not informed of a pretty significant change to our grading curve policy. This means next week I'll be getting some angry calls from students who deserved "A"s but will end up with "B+"s.
I'm still planning on going downtown tomorrow night for Christmas Eve beers, with a tentative plan to meet up with my boss and his family for coffee. I'll call my sister, and then my dad even though it's stressful to think he might ask me about impeachment.
Every year I usually buy myself something nice as a present and this time around, I was honestly stumped. I'd like to think my recent interest in minimalist survival videos had something to do with it (not kidding!), and I can always use a new pair of jeans or a dress shirt. But in terms of, say, a 250-400 dollar indulgent purchase for myself, I just wasn't feeling it. (Last year it was a Freitag messenger bag which honestly I haven't used that much.)
I mean, the world is literally on fire. Peace on earth and goodwill towards all but Jesus, are we really going to make it to 2030 without major civil wars, resource-based wars, and massive depopulation events, animal, human, and otherwise? I honestly doubt it.
So Merry Christmas from South Korea, for what it's worth. We all deserve better than the last few years, that's for damn sure. Stay healthy, and keep fighting despite the fact that the worst is yet to come.
I just taught my last class of the semester. Next week I have to enter grades into the college computer system, then work up hard-copies of those same grades Because Korea. I'll continue teaching adult student classes through January.
I have zero plans for Christmas next week, but I'll probably make it downtown to Slightly Above Average Korean Foreigner Bar (it's actually quite good) and drink some beers. My boss said he'd be downtown with his family (two grown sons, one of whom just completed military service) so it might be nice to bump into them.
Trump has been impeached. I mean, it was the right and necessary thing to do but let's face it -- Republicans exist in a separate reality now, and there's no going back to pre-Trump. (And let's be honest -- they were just as nutty and racist and anti-majoritarian back then, they just were afraid to say the quiet parts out loud.)
The new Star Wars apparently won't come to South Korea until January, which is some bullshit.
When I came to Korea 10 years ago Halloween parties were only to be found in 1) foreigner bars and 2) kindie hagwon, or private academies catering to kindergarten and elementary students.
Things have changed, I guess. Even in this little suburb of northern Daegu I've noticed a few Korean bars, specifically the bars catering to my college students, setting up for Halloween parties. (I know for a fact foreigners don't go to the places in my neighborhood, because other than my foreigner co-worker there aren't any.)
There's even one place, a fried chicken joint, that closed down recently. It was strange to see it hadn't transmogrified into a noodle restaurant or coffee shop or even (this being Korea) a new fried chicken joint. In fact, it's been gutted and is being turned into some kind of Halloween haunted house with stupidly expensive tickets (like 40 bucks or so). Not that I'm going, but I'll be disappointed if it's not all-you-can-drink at least.
So I think it's fair to say Halloween has "made it" as an adopted Korean holiday. (If you're wondering, Christmas is actually an official Korean holiday, with a real day off and all that.)
Apparently What The Book? (I know, I know) has shut down -- the best resource for English-language books in South Korea. So, I just gave Book Depository a shot for the first time. They offer free delivery to Korea, so we'll see how it goes. I'm ordering paperbacks, and nothing too obscure (N. K. Jemisin, Kim Stanley Robinson), so it should go swimmingly.
This Billie Eilish cover goes from "clever" to "fucking rad" when the trombone comes in for the first time. And yes, I'm a grown-ass man who still listens to ska music.
The little man inside of Google who tells me the lovely Daegu weathers says that near-90 degree days have vanished for good, and fall will be here soon. I'm grateful to say the least.
It's the second week of the semester and things are going along swimmingly, but a quirky thing about working in South Korea is that the end of this week is Chuseok, or the rough Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. So we've got Thursday off, and already I've got to start juggling make-up classes. (It could be worse -- it's possible to actually miss Tuesday through Thursday, or Monday through Wednesday.)
The weather is still pushing 90 degrees as well. Not good.
Usually I'd head down to Busan for a long weekend but I think I'll just stay in Daegu this year. The Samsung Lions are home this Thursday and Friday, and Daegu FC is playing at home this Sunday.
My semi-annual poll of Korean college students (first week of class introductions, asked them for favorite singer or band) finds that BTS and BlackPink, the two K-Pop acts currently attempting to cross over to America and Europe, really aren't popular among home-grown K-Pop fans. I've noticed this before -- the acts that you hear about in Pitchfork or appearing on Letterman, while certainly selling units, aren't necessarily the ones 20 year old Koreans tend to care about back here.
Highly unscientific of me, I realize. Hell, completely unscientific. But I'd bet you 5,000 won there's something to it.
Meanwhile, out of about 150 students so far two have mentioned Billie Eilish as their favorite, and that's cool.
Who says Daegu is a backwater? (I do! Frequently!)
I have some genuinely great memories of July 4th growing up in the DC area. The downtown DC fireworks were hardly the only choice -- I remember the University of Maryland had some pretty great displays as well. But I can remember two times -- maybe three -- when we made the trip to the "official" display. And they were great. Pretty sure Bush the Elder was president during one of the events, and not a whiff of partisanship was there -- just people out enjoying their three-day weekend.
And now of course, like everything he comes into contact with, Trump has ruined yet another perfectly fine American tradition -- poisoned it on the altar of his bottomless ego.
Anyhow there aren't that many great American Fourth of July rock tunes but this is definitely one of them. I'm finalizing my plans for America between the end of July and mid-August, and I'll probably catch the new Spiderman this weekend.
I only had one student call and complain about his grade. That's a minor win as well.
