Day 461: Back For More

Oh yes, Thursday night...Katie, Addie, and my night to go out for a great dinner and then have a little fun together. Well tonight we decided to make it extra special, and for the first time ever we took our weekly Thursday Night Hoopla into the city. After work we got on the bus and headed on in to Sinchon so that we could have dinner at...yes, you guessed it...Ruby Tuesday!

Michael met up with us and the four of us went and had another fantastic dinner at our new favourite restaurant. I had the New Orleans Seafood Platter, and enjoyed some grilled fish with scallops and cream sauce. Mmmmm! It was another great dinner and everyone else seemed to really enjoy theirs as well.

After dinner Michael headed off home to study, while the girls and I cruised around Sinchon. I took them up to the area around Ewha Women's University which has some great shopping, and then we wandered back to catch the bus. The bus ride home (and actually the one into Sinchon as well) made me sick with the driver's crazy driving. Bus drivers are pretty insane here. They floor it and then hit the brake it, floor it and then hit the brake, and their average driving speed must be at least 120 km/hr it seems. It's kinda like riding the Night Bus, if you've ever read Harry Potter. Or, if you've ever been to DisneyLand, it's kinda like being on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. Fun at the amusement park, nauseating terror in the city. But, still worth it for our great dinner. :-)

Day 460: Barbie & Ken

My Korean co-teacher Sonya announced her resignation a few weeks ago, and since then they've been looking for her replacement. Sonya's leaving POLY because she's been really stressed with the job (she's also the Preschool Supervisor besides being the Parrots other teacher) and I'm really gonna miss her. She's a great co-teacher who's wonderful with the kids and really helpful and friendly to me.

Today they told me that they've found the girls who's gonna take her place. And her name is Barbie Teacher. Yes, you read right, Barbie. As in the most famous doll in the world? Yeah, that's the one. Hmmm... If I wasn't curious to meet her before, I *definitely* am now! It's kinda funny the English names that the Korean teachers choose for themselves sometimes. I wonder if she'll live up to the name?

Not that I look like a Ken doll (man, I'd kill for his broad shoulders, washboard stomach, and low-maintenance hairdo), but wouldn't it be really funny if I also changed *my* English name and started to go by the name of Ken? Then we could be Barbie and Ken Teachers! That would be too funny! Haha...

Day 459: Taxes

There are two guarantees in life, two things that you can count on no matter where you live or what you do. Death's one of 'em, and the other is taxes. Oh, those lovely taxes...

I've been so confused about my own tax situation. With the exception of about a month at Delany's, all my 2004 income was from my job here in Korea. I decided not to declare my Korean earnings this year when filing my Canadian Income Taxes, cause literally not one person I've talked to who's worked in Korea has, so I figured why should I be the first? I'm not one for dodging responsibility, but I'm not about to offer the Canadian government any of my earnings unless they make me. I figured that I don't live in Canada these days, have no intention to live there any time soon (plans call for at least two more years overseas..), and don't use any of the Canadian 'services', so why should I pay for them?

This may come back to bite me in the ass one day in the future, but I'm gonna take the gamble. And hey I'm getting some money back from the Canadian government so that's even more cooler. Being an expat can be really complicated sometimes. There's never any black and white answers for these sort of questions it seems. Everything's always blurred in shades of grey. Ahh well... I guess I'll see what happens. Tax evasion or just keeping what's really mine? Who knows!

Day 458: Betty & Veronica

So Addie's got two new furry friends to keep her company, and you can guess at their names. This weekend she bought two guinea pigs to keep as pets, and named them after two of the coolest chicks in comic history. And man, are they ever adorable!

I got to meet them today and I must admit that I was as excited about them as Addie was! I don't have any pets of my own, and since Dmitri passed on to the great big pond in the sky, I've been lacking in the Animal Affection Department. (Not that Dmitir was ever that affectionate, he was always complaining about having a headache and stuff so I rarely ever got any lovin' out of him.)

It was great to lay out on Addie's bed tonight, watching some TV, with Betty and Veronica all over us. Betty's the friendly social brave one, while Ronnie just sits, absolutely still, petrified in fear on your stomach. They're so cute! They remind me of my hamster days long ago, and I'm glad to have some new animal buddies to cuddle with.

Day 457: A Great Discovery

So Addie made the best discovery this weekend! She found a new Western restaurant for us to eat at, and it's in everyone's favourite neighbourhood in Seoul - Sinchon. She saw that they just opened up a Ruby Tuesday! Now I've never even seen a Ruby Tuesday before, much less eaten at one, but hey - an alternative to our usual and getting-boring TGI Fridays/Outback/Bennigan's circuit? I'm so there!

We went there for dinner tonight, and it was nothing short of amazing! The first thing that blew us away was the fact that we were served by...two white chicks! Whoa! Stop the bus! Where the hell are we? The last time I was served by Caucasians was back in Canada in February of 2004, and it shocked the hell out of me. The servers could see our surprised reactions, and so they told us that they're in town cause they're trainers hired from America to fly in and help train the staff and open the new restaurant. Cool.

The menu itself was a sight for sore eyes. It may have been all in Korean, but there were so many incredibly delicious choices it was really hard for me to pick what I wanted. Normally when I go to a restaurant here in Korea there's myabe like three or four items top that I could maybe feel like ordering. Here, there were at least a dozen or so delectable meals jumping off the page begging to be ordered. And that's just plain awesome!

And then when the meal came....oh baby! You should've heard the moans that were coming out of my mouth! I ended up ordering the Church Street Stacker and it was unbelievably good. It was a bed of mashed potatoes (MASHED POTATOES!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW NON-EXISTENT THOSE ARE HERE!!!) with sauteed mushrooms, a big juicy chicken breast smothered in swiss cheese, and then topped with two crispy onion rings. All this surrounded by fresh steamed broccoli and a slice of garlic toast. Oh man! Heaven!!

On the way out Addie and couldn't stop raving about the place and promised ourselves to be back there soon, and often. I was so excited about our new discovery that I even likened it to being *at least* on par with the discovery of the Americas! Thank you, Ruby Tuesday! You've got two new best friends now! ;-)

Day 456: Sold!

And another thing checked off my list of stuff needed for my trip today!

Michael and I had lunch at EuroCafe downtown and then went and did a little shopping. I was on a mission to find a backpack for my trip, and it was one that didn't take too long to accomplish. I had my gift certificate for Lotte so we decided to do a little browsing there first. They have a big sporting goods section and we found quite the selection of backpacks. We began with the big names first, North Face and Columbia, but neither had all that impressive of a selection. We then browsed through a couple crappy Korean brands before finding The Bay That Was To Be Mine. And it's from France! Ooh la la!

I found this awesome backpack made by a French brand called LaFuma. This bag was the coolest! It had tons of pockets, comfy back support, access zippers from the front, top, and sides, lots of little hidden straps, and a built-in rain coat for the bag that could be pulled up and over in a jiffy. And it was even on sale. The bag cost 144,000 won and I had a certificate for 150,000. Right on! SOLD!

Later that night Mikey and I went to Meghann and Robin's birthday party, and it was a great night! We had dinner at TGI Fridays, and then to Tinpan for drinks. After spending a couple of hours there we hit up The Bar. Despite the long night, boisterous crowd, and easy availability of alcohol in large quantities, we all pretty much behaved ourselves that night. No crazy drunken binges, no embarrassing moments on the dancefloor or on bar tables, no feeling sick or hung over the next day. It was a relatively tame night, but a really fun one nonetheless. Happy birthday Meghann and Robin! :-)

Day 455: I'll Take Manhattan

Ah, another holiday approaching! Sunday is Teachers Day, and we don't get a day off for it, but we do get a shitload of presents for it! Today is the Friday before and so the gifts came a-rollin' in starting first thing this morning. Each of my Preschoolers had a present to give me, and I got quite a few in the afternoon as well. Awesome!

The list and range of presents was quite impressive indeed. Chocolates, socks, cookies, flowers, picture frames, cakes, shirts, wallets, a CD of relaxing Korean music, a business card-holder, bath wash, candies galore...the list goes on and on. The most popular gift choice, though, was cologne. I must've gotten at least three or four really expensive bottles of cologne from my kids. These combined with my collection that I received from Chuseok and Christmas last year means that my medicine cabinet looks more like the cologne display counter at Lotte Department Store! I've got all the major brands covered - Tommy, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Bulgari, Burberry, Chanel, and my own personal Clinique.

Wow, thanks to Teachers Day I've got the Manhattan skyline of cologne collections! With all this cologne being given to me, I have to wonder...do my kids think I smell bad or something? ;-)

Day 454: Safety First

I gave my Grade 3's the assignment of creating Safety Posters that could be displayed around the school. We had just finished reading a story about a police officer who goes to schools to give safety tips to all the kids (many of the tips being quite silly) and I thought this would be a fun project for the kids. I got my posters back today, and they were hilarious! Check out some of these rather...unique..words of advice from my kids:

"Don't sleep on a tiger."

"Do not step on a banana pile."

"Never pee at night."

"Never broke water melon with a head."

"Never fallow the strangers."

"Never shout to somebody's ears."

"Never kick a dog."

"Don't touch a rose."

"Never get a poisen kobra."

"Don't go to the fierce animal's."

"Never kick a bee hive."

"Never go in to a dangerus animal's cage."

"Never play with a knife."

"Never touch a dry ice."

"Do not play with a fire."

"Never sit on the tv too close."

"Don't eat so much."

"Do not step on a chair with a weels."

"Open your eyes every day."

"Never play with spray cans."

"Don't sit in the water."

"Do not go swimming during electrical storms."

"Don't spill water or jelley (all that we could slild on it.)"


Hahaha!! I love it! Gotta love words of wisdom in broken English, eh? ;-)

Day 453: Stop Violence In The Workplace!

Yes, if you can believe it, Judy is STILL doing her on-again, off-again crying! And yes, it's been a month now! Well, they always say 'save the best for last', and today Judy did just that. This morning was the New Year's Eve Millennium 2000 of fireworks displays. Or, as I am now referring it as, "The Day I Fought The Judy, And The Judy Won!"

We were about two minutes into Phonics this morning when Judy started her usual crying routine. Well I just kept proceeding forward as usual, trying to ignore her. Well she started to get louder, and then started to make her way for the door. Knowing where this will lead (to poor Sonya having to take care of her all morning as she sobs in the hallway or library) I decided to put my foot down and say "Fuck you, little bitch, and enough of all your bullshit!" Now, as a respectable educator, I naturally would never ever say something like that, as tempting as it would be... I decided to block her from leaving and MAKE her sit down, no matter what I had to do.

Well she just tried to go around me and then out the door, so I stood right against the door, blocked her from opening it, and very, very firmly told her to sit down. This is when the gates of hell opened up and Judy unleashed a fury comparable only to Armageddon. She started screaming at the top of her lungs, but I just kept repeating "No!" as she tried to get around me. Realizing that my physical presence was the only thing stopping her from her getaway, she began to yell even louder, push, and then kick and hit me! I've never ever been hit by a child before, and not that it hurt but it shocked the hell out of me. I was firm in my assertion, and she was firm in her vocal weaponry. It was a stalemate. All the while the other 11 Parrots were sitting shocked and stunned in their seats, fascinated yet frightened by the showdown before them.

This went on for a good ten minutes or so until Sonya showed up. I didn't want to back down to Judy to prove to her that I'm the teacher and that as a student she needs to listen. I was partly disappointed that when Sonya came she took Judy away (and therefore she "won") but also relieved that she was out of my sight. After the morning ended I went and had a meeting with my boss telling him that enough was enough. My patience was through. It's been a month now, and really, what are we waiting for? We had pondered the idea of giving her the boot, let's just do it. 'Bye bye, Judy!' is what I say! My nerves, patience, and sanity are all pretty much gone. We've exhausted all our ideas for helping her, she doesn't listen to anyone, too much time has passed with this bullshit. I've had enough!

Day 452: 3 Become 2

No, this isn't an alternate version to the Spice Girls hit. This is a very basic summary of what's about to happen to POLY here in Ilsan...

At the moment there are three POLY campuses here in Ilsan - ours, Juyeop, and Tahnyeon. Well we were told today that as of June Tahnyeon is no longer going to exist, but instead is going to be *merged* with our campus and Juyeop. This wasn't all that huge of a shock to us, as we all knew that Tahnyeon had really low enrollment ever since it opened a year or two ago. Frankly, it's a school that never should've existed in the first place. It's in kind of a more poor neighbourhood, and is too close to our campus anyway. Ilsan is a master-planned city with two symmetrical halves split by a large park. All three campuses are on the same side of the park, and that just seems kinda dumb if you ask me. Why not spread them around a bit more?

Well this announcement is going to mean some big changes for us. For one we're absorbing most of their classes (and therefore teachers and staff), and a few of our classes are going to be shuffled off to Juyeop. We'll be inheriting another Preschool and Kindergarten class, both of which we don't even really have the physical space for! Where they're gonna put those two classes is beyond me. Classrooms are going to be modified, rooms changed around an moved, major construction going on... As for the staff, well Eric will be coming over to our school, and fortunately not the other foreign teacher there who's apparently a reincarnation of the wicked witch of the west.

And all of this in just two weeks! How they're all gonna get it done in time (the construction) and keep things smooth is going to be quite the ambitious project. Looks like things are going to be pretty chaotic between now and my departure. So much for a quiet departure for me from POLY!

Day 451: Dirty Dakota

So there's a funny commercial on OCN here in Korea. Well, I don't think it's *meant* to be funny, but with a little extra understanding it kinda is. OCN is a Korean station that plays a lot of English movies and TV shows. I watch it on a regular basis to catch CSI reruns. Well, one of their commercials is a bunch of famous Korean movie and TV actors all saying how much they love OCN. Their slogan is "OCN: Number 1 Channel!" in a very thick Korean accent. A couple of the Korean actors even muster up enough English to spit out the slogan as they smile and give peace signs and thumbs-up to the camera.

Well at the end of the commericial is a little suprise - Dakota Fanning. Yes, that little blond girl who seems to be in every third movie coming out these days (The Cat In The Hat, Uptown Girls, Man Under Fire, War of the Worlds...) Anyway, she spits out this sentence in Korean with this big innocent smile while sitting in her little chair in her cute little dress. I didn't know what it meant until one of my coworkers told me what she's saying. She's saying "I love OCN", but it's not just *any* kind of love... The words that she's using describes a more adult, sexual-like kind of love, sorta like "I love OCN and wanna sleep with it!"

Oh my! Dakota, you dirty little girl!

I'm sure she has no idea of the context of the sentence she was given to say, but now that I know what it means it cracks me up every time I see it. Too funny!

Day 450: Got Lanterns?

So today was the day of one of my favourite festivals in Korea - the Lotus Lantern Festival in celebration of Buddha's Birthday. Big ol' Buddha is turning 2559 this year (that old geezer!) and so the Jogyesa Temple down in Seoul was all decked out in full lantern splendor. I made my way down there with Addie, Katie, and Luke and we promptly signed up for the highlight of the festival - the chance to make your own lantern. We had to wait a while before beginning so we decided to meander through the festival.

We made our way onto the grounds of the temple and walked around staring up - in awe- at the canopy of beautiful multi-coloured lanterns strung in long lines above our heads. So cool! There was a long line of people waiting to get into the temple to pray and give offerings to Buddha, and a massive pyramid of burning candles and incense. We were all each given a pair of lanterns with candles strung out on a long pole that we could use later to march in the parade with if we wanted to. Cool - free stuff is always nice!

We cruised around the festival for a while checking out all the sights. Lots of music and dancing, we each got a henna tattoo and bindi (sp?) on our foreheads, and enjoyed all the throngs of people meandering along the closed-down downtown street. Such a happy, relaxed atmosphere! Eventually the time came to make our lanterns. We sat down under the tent and began our peeling and gluing of the tissue paper onto our naked lantern shells. All the girls whipped through theirs and came out with these truly fabulous lanterns. After a good two hours mine was still incomplete and looking like shit. I'm just so not arts-and-crafty. Ugh. I was determined initially to finish my lantern no matter how sad and pathetic it looked, but eventually just threw in the towel. It was the lantern that just wasn't meant to be, and so I just abandoned the poor thing there under the tent. Maybe someone will come along, finish it off, and give it the love and tenderness that I just never could?

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the festival before getting just a little too tired of the crowds. I also then had to say goodbye to my buddy Luke who had to head back to Chungju. I gave him a hug and handshake goodbye and then he disappeared into the crowds. I'll miss ya buddy! Addie and I then went and had some dinner and had full intentions to check out the parade that night. However, we just weren't feelin' the Buddha vibe anymore, and with still two hours to kill before the parade began, we decided to just pack it in for the night and head back to Ilsan. A busy and full day, but a good one with a lot of good Buddhist juju flowin' all around! :-)

Day 449: The Car & The Woman

My ol' buddy Luke is heading back home to Canada soon, and so he came up for the weekend from Chungju to hang out one last time. He trekked all the way out to Jungsan where he promptly sold his magical region-free DVD player to an eager Addie. After that I gave Luke a quick tour of LaFesta, and then we headed off to our day's main attraction - The 2005 Seoul Motor Show! It just so happens that Ilsan is hosting the car show this year, and one of my Preschool parents gave me two free tickets to go see it.

Luke and I walked down to KINTEX, which was the facility hosting the show. KINTEX was quite the spectacle in itself. It's a brand spanking new exhibition centre that is absolutely ginormous! It's as long and wide as a major international airport terminal or something! It's freakin' huge!! We were running a bit late and got in with just an hour left before things wrapped up. The show turned out to be quite the spectacle indeed...

Inside it was full of glimmering, shimmering beautiful new model cars by makes of all kinds. Kia and Hyundai, Ford and Jaguar, BMW and Volvo, Rolls Royce and Audi...quite the showcase indeed. And lemme tell you, this show was designed to shoot like an arrow straight into the heart of all males. Constructed scientifically to evoke two of man's greatest raw and primal urges, this show masterminded each key component perfectly to cut to the chase and go for the throat and leave you begging for more. What two ingredients were intertwined in such a symbiotic concoction that any and all resistance was proven to be absolutely completely mercilessly futile?

The Car and The Woman.

Each new car was perched up on its own revolving pedestal, laid out basking under the glow of a million headlamps, twisting and turning from the male audience as if to taunt and tease and just beg you to touch its smooth, lean, curvacious surfaces. And on top of each and every new model was a woman. But, not just any woman... On top of each and every new model was the most stunning, exotic, breathtaking heart-stopping pulse-poundingly beautiful woman that you have ever seen in your entire life. It was an army of supermodels. Clad in sleek and slender gorgeous gowns, crowned in glittering jewels, christened with hair and make-up as if they just stepped off the runway in Milan, these heavenly angels posed alongside and on top of each car with such a seductive pose and expression, staring each and every male straight into the eye, seeing their soul and deepest darkest desires with just a single glance, provoking such a primal yearning from within that with just a moment's pause you were immediately and unabashedly their captive prisoner, surrendering your dreams and fantasies with just a millisecond of eye contact, willing to hand over your heart and soul and body and wallet and anything else they could ever want, just to hold their attention. You didn't know why and didn't even care nor did you even fathom questioning it. All you knew was at that exact moment you were S-O-L-D and would do anything to get your hands on that model. It was intoxicating and hypnotic, and I too nearly fell under their spell.

Multiply this sensation by 467 for each of the new cars on display and that just about sums up the experience of that car show. All I can say is WOW! Hook line sinker nearly every male fell over like lemmings, staring and drooling, at the beautiful cars and the even more beautiful women. Wow.

Atter the car show we walked back to meet Addie at the Starbucks at LaFesta, and then the three of us went and met Katie for dinner at Aroi Aroi. We had a great Thai dinner and then went back to Addie's to play Trivial Pursuit into the wee hours of the morning. 2am and after serveral hours of the game and no winner we decided to throw in the towel and call it a night. It went to sleep with images of spectacular curves of both steel and flesh in my head.

Day 448: No Fires, Please

Lately we've been running through some fire safety drills at school. Building safety in Korea certainly leaves something to be desired, just in the fact that most buildings don't even have smoke alarms or sprinklers. Exits are often few and far between, and escape stairwells are notoriously known as being more often used for storage. Not very safe at all if there ever was a fire!

Now POLY's up on the 5th floor of an office building, and I've often wondered what the hell we'd do in the event of a fire. 130 kids in the morning, plus staff, and only two stairwells out. Sounds kinda scary... Well at least we're doing the drills... We had a meeting and went over scenarios, and mapped out which classes would exit from which exits. All the kindergartens go out the front, but they have another challenge to deal with besides, you know, burning walls, clouds of toxic smoke, and collapsing ceilings and all. Apparently, in between the front entrance and the elevators, hidden up in the ceiling, is a massive steel door that in the event of a fire automatically lowers down to the floor, effectively sealing off the school (ie: supposedly preventing the spread of fire.) Now the prospect of fire and trying to escape safely with your class is frightening enough, but imagine trying to do it before this giant wall comes down. Very Indiana Jones like! Supposedly there's a small door in this wall that you can use so people trapped behind can still escape, but it all sounds rather shady to me.

I just hope to god that we never have a fire and have to find out!

Day 447: Taxi Backlash

Oh boy, I think the Taxi Driver Gods are getting back at me for writing that nasty entry about how much I hate the taxi drivers in this country the other week!

Meghann came out to Ilsan to feed her iPod and hang out, and then after she went home Addie and I went to LaFesta to hang out for a while. While there it began raining...actually more like pouring!...and we were caught off-guard. It was about 9pm at night and there we were on the street corner, huddling under Addie's little umbrella, trying desperately to hail a cab to go home. Naturally, because of the rain, everybody and their dog were trying to do the same thing!

Addie and I stood out there in the torrential downpour, progressively getting wetter and wetter, but alas virtually no cabs came at all. And when they did they drove right past us and picked up some other Koreans. Argh! This must be the backlash for my entry! They all read it and are now livid at me and so as punishment they left Addie and I to be drowned rats outside of LaFesta.

Finally, after nearly *an hour* of struggling against the angry elements, we caught a cab back to the Village. I certainly got burned tonight. Maybe I need to write some sort of giant formal apology on my blog so that my Taxi Karma is brought to a kinder, gentler, more humane level? Hmmm...that would require swallowing my pride, something I'm not good at. And I still stick to my words that I believe are true - I guess that means I'm destined to finish out my days in Korea with my Taxi Karma Level being forever in the toilet?

Day 446: Easy Breezy

Today was such an easy breezy morning, and after Judy's spectacle yesterday I was thankful for that. Tomorrow is Children's Day, which is a national holiday, so there's no work for us. And because of that, most of this morning consisted of fun and games for the kids as part of the celebrations. Children's Day is actually a bigger day than Christmas for the kids, and most of them get *a lot* of presents from their parents, teachers, relatives, etc.

I only had to teach Phonics and Activity today, and then it was games in the library. We had a relay race where the kids had to line up (class vs. class!), run and jump on top of a balloon to break it, and then run up and eat an onion potato chip ring off of a string without using their hands, and then run back to their line. The kids loved it and it was hilarious for us teachers to watch the kids race like mad through the course. After the kids were finished they had a Foreign Teachers vs. Korean Teachers version of the same race. I was part of the Foreign Teachers Team, but we got our asses kicked. Still, was good silly fun for all. After lunch the kids watched a movie in the library all together and then it was time to go home. What a great morning (a lazy one!) for us teachers! :-)

Day 445: The Spectacle

So in case you're wondering, yes, Judy is *still* crying! After two days of bliss last week, she went back to her usual crying screaming tamper-tantrum self. And oh man did she ever put on a show today...

She was crying when I first came into the class (as my day always starts, how lovely eh?) but I decided just to ignore her and begin class as usual. She doesn't listen to a damn thing I say and giving her attention just seems to make things worse, so I've been encouraged to just 'let her do her thing' and try and proceed as usual. Today was also one of the many days where her mom waits outside in the hall on guard for when she gets too loud and too out of hand. Personally I think her mom's presence makes things worse, but I'm not allowed to say stuff like that.

So we were about ten minutes into Phonics and all the other eleven sat there as perfect angels working in their textbooks (today was the letter 'P') while Judy just sat there and cried. Her crying is certainly distracting, but we have to do four pages a day in our books, which is a lot for 5-year olds, and we've no time to stop and fuss over Judy's bullshit. Well she started to get louder and louder and then at that point her mom came into the room to pull her out into the hall so as not to disrupt the other kids anymore. Well Judy decided that she was in no mood to leave the classroom (she'd rather just sit in her chair and cry and scream) and that she was having absolutely none of this leaving-the-room-deal!

She began to scream *even louder* and then threw the Mother Of All Tamper Tantrums! She began to kick and hit her mother and at that point her mom had to actually DRAG HER OUT OF THE CLASSROOM BY HER HANDS AND FEET as Judy screamed bloody murder and took every chance to swipe at her mom. All the while I'm trying to remain composed and keep the kids focused on the Phonics. "Penguin is a P sound. Let's colour the penguin!" as Judy's thrashing body is dragged by me and out the class. Oh fuck...it's days like this where I wish that she just wouldn't come back to school...

Day 444: Neighbours

Something cool to share...

I love the fact that I live in a part of the world where when watching the daily weather report on TV, daily forecasts are also given for...Vladivostok! In the regional map they always show, there's Seoul and Busan in Korea, Beijing, Tokyo, and good ol' Vladivostok. That little city (well not so small I guess) in Russia at the end of the TransSiberian Railroad that just looks so lonely and desolate and isolated from its own country. It's Russia's eastern port on the Pacific and is actually very close to the North Korean border. I always had a strange curiosity towards this city as a teenager in Geography classes. Not exactly sure why that was, but maybe it was just cause I thought it had a funny-sounding name that was fun to say? Never ever back then would I have thought that one day I'd live in a corner of the globe where I got to hear its forecast everyday!

How funny to think - Vladivostok is one of my neighbours! ;-)

Day 443: Solitude

It was another hot one today, but fortunately not nearly as hot as yesterday was. Wanting to spend another day outdoors, but not doing something quite as physically active as last week's bike ride, Michael, Pauline, and I opted for a day hanging out relaxing at Bukhansan. Bukhansan is the National Park inbetween Ilsan and Seoul and its five soaring peaks rise high above the city's skyline. I used to go there all the time last year with Brad, Andrea, and Steve, and honestly haven't been there in almost a year.

We got some sandwiches from Subway and made the trek out to the park. Bukhansan is really crowded on the weekends, and the trails often look more like endless queues rather than open paths through the woods. We had all brought books to read so we walked partway up the trail and then ventured down into the little valley the river runs through. We found a quiet, secluded spot on the rooks next to the stream and sat down to enjoy our lunch and read our books. It was a wonderfully peaceful afternoon, three friends alone together in the quiet solitude with no one else around. It was great! It was a beautiful day and I can hardly imagine a better way to spend it.

After our afternoon in the park we went and had dinner at Bennigan's in the city, and then went our separate ways home. Back to work tomorrow.

Day 442: The Heat Is On

"The heat is on...it's on the street...."

That ain't just a Glenn Fry song baby, I be speaking the truth! Today was a bloody hot day! And I mean H-O-T! It's sizzlin' in Seoul on this smokin' Saturday! The mercury climbed up all the way to 29 C today, and with the humidity factored in I'm sure it was well into the 30's! Ouch!!! And it's only April 29! Does this mean that the summer heat has arrived already? Goodbye Spring, Hello Summer!!?? Wow...spring lasted about...87 seconds this year...

Chances are today's heat stroke-o-rama is just a temporary rise in the thermometer. I mean I love the warm weather and all, but it's just that none of us were prepared for it at all. I met up with Michael for lunch in Itaewon (after picking up my passport avec Chinese visa - sweet!!) and we decided to enjoy a meal on the rooftop terrace of Nashville (where I had my birthday party!) We had a nice lunch outdoors and just couldn't get over the heat. It was unbelievable!

After lunch we went and did some shopping in Sinchon (I actually bought something, two shirts from StarMarket) and then attempted to cool down in a nearby Starbucks. After our coffee break we went back to his place to drop off our bags and clean up for the evening. We took the train back into the city and had an awesome dinner at that uber-yummy Indian restaurant in Dondaemun that I ate at a few weeks ago. Man does that place ever serve up some great food!

My ol' buddy Mark from Shihung is going back to America for a bit next week so tonight there was a big going away shin-dig for him in Sinchon. So it was back to Sinchon again to meet up with the Shihung gang for drinks. We first weht to this Black Sabbath bar that played nothing but 70's and 80's metal rock. Sounds like it could be fun but it was actually quite annoying. Let's change venues! And so it was off to The Bar. After my last strange visit I was a little worried about what the scene might be like there tonight, but luckily it was back to being the good ol' Bar that it always is. Yah! This place is my rock! I've never had quite a relationship with a place that serves up alcohol as I do with this one. It's a part of me, I'm a part of it... Oh boy, maybe I spend too much time here?

I hit The Wall just after 3am and then it was time for bed. What a busy day today was! And so very, very hot! I wonder if tomorrow will be the same...

Day 441: Remember This?

I checked my email this morning and was greeted with a really wonderful message from my dear friend Meghann. Maybe a few of you will recognize it?


Thank you for being a friend
Travel down that road and back again
Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidante

And if you threw a party
Invited everyone you knew
You would see the biggest gift would be from me
And the card attached would say:
Thank you for being a friend!


Awww...how sweet! I love you too, Megs!!! :-)

Day 440: The Quest For Shoes

After weeks of searching for shoes here in Korea, I've finally given up. I'm just not going to find the shoe style that I'm looking for (a street shoe/hiker hybrid), and even when I do they're not going to have my size. I've decided to just bite the bullet and take a chance by ordering some shoes online. I've seen lots of great models online, so I'll just choose from there and have the sent to my parents so they can mail it to me. And then just hope and pray that they fit my feet!

So this afternoon I went up online and found some amazing shoes from The North Face. My knowledgeable buddy Luke had reccommended some shoes from them and indeed they were exactly what I was looking for. I picked out a great hiker/street shoe as well as an awesome pair of land and water sandals. They came in a variety of colours and were made up to size 16 (and I only take 12). Sweet!

I went to go and order them, but you have to choose a supplier first that North Face deals with. The first one I picked only had up to size 11.5. Isch! So I choose the next one, and suffered the same road block. I went on to the third and even the fourth supplier and NONE of them had either pair of shoes in size 12!! What the fuck!!?? North Face says they exist, so why doesn't anyone have any available?? Seriously, it's like the universe doesn't want me to have new shoes! I can understand not finding any here in Korea, but not being able to get any online!??! That's just fucked up! It's so frustrating it's almost laughable!

Not being one to give up easily, I looked online and saw that there's two stores in Thunder Bay that sell North Face products. Surely they'll have the shoes, and if they don't they can order them in for me. Whatever it takes!!! I'll have to get my parents in on this mission and go down to the store for me. Fingers crossed that this plan (it's like what, Plan J or K by now?) works out! Getting Scotty some half-decent shoes that fit is proving to be harder than the Quest to destroy the ring! Frodo had nothing on me! ;-)

Day 439: A Miracle!

OH MY GOD!

The miracle of all miracles occurred today! JUDY STOPPED CRYING! For the first time since this charade began - just over two weeks ago now - she actually didn't cry at all today and was....brace yourself for this...HAPPY! I had honestly thought that she had lost the physical capacity to smile and be a happy child again. She's been crying all day everyday for the last two weeks but not today. She sat down and did all her work with a smile on her face. What an amazing jump in progress! Hallelujah!

Both Sonya and I were completely shocked, and thrilled. I was so excited I wanted to run and dance through the school, skipping and doing backflips and then break out into a dance routine with all of my coworkers, while all the kids of the school chanted and sang together - on key of course - and then we'd all flood out into the streets where a sudden parade would break out and all of Ilsan would dance together on the streets in this orgy of elation, music, live bands, fireworks and streamers, choreography and costumes, all with me leading the celebrations.

Yes, I felt *that* good about it! ;-)

Day 438: The Pit Of Despair

I teach a class at POLY that has quite the horrific reputation. This class is 1S-5, and it's the bottom level of the Grade 1 Specials (the ones that have 'graduated' up from beginning at POLY in Preschool.) They have four teachers, and I'm the one that teaches them Science.

Now teaching these kids Science feels mostly like me just talking to the wall (or myself, whoever happens to be more entertaining at that moment.) The kids have the attention span of a gnat, and the 12 of them together are pretty much crazy. They're extremely hyper and disruptive, can't focus on anything for longer than three seconds, and most of them can barely read. I honestly have Preschoolers that can read better than some of them! Back home they'd be labelled as "Special Needs" or "Learning Disabilities" but here they're all just lumped together in the bottom level and yet are given the same curriculam to learn as the Level 1 kids. Oh boy!

Teaching them everyday is very frustrating, and some days you gotta psyche yourself up before going in there. Honestly some days you really do get nothing done at all in that class as you spend most of your time trying to keep them seated, or even just trying to get them to be quiet cause they spent 15 minutes on the floor laughing because there was a picture of a frog in the Science text that they thought was hilarious. There's always fights and crying everyday, and just general chaos as the kids would all rather just goof off than learn. There's a few gems in that class who are actually really sweet and well-behaved, but most times I feel like I'm Michelle Pfeiffer in some sort of junior Korean version of 'Dangerous Minds.' Us staff have actually nicknamed the class The Pit Of Despair. Not a very nice name, but it makes us laugh when we say it, and really you gotta approach this stuff with some positivity and a sense of humour!

We've implemented a seating chart which has helped things a bit, but it still needs some fine-tuning. Finding quiet kids to act as 'buffers' inbetween the loud ones can be difficult when you're limited by a shortage of well-behaved kids! I've learned to lower my expectations with this class and just try and make it fun and stress-free. The kids aren't going to learn any more with me being angry for 40 minutes everyday, so as long as *some* progress is made each lesson with the material then I feel like a small victory has been made. Gotta love teaching!

Day 437: Drive

Unearthed from my dust-covered journals of yesteryear, here's a poem that I wrote for a special somebody a few years back. Not sure why I feel like sharing it now... maybe just to prove that Scotty does, in fact, have a romantic side to him?

"Drive"
March 31, 2003

A cloudless sky on a cold March night
A silent landscape devoid of all man's light

Constellations from afar piercing the smooth and liquid black
Racing forward on a winding highway, no need to look back

Silence between us, but our thoughts are together as one
Leaving city restraints behind, feeling stresses come undone

Neither heading towards, nor running from
Only feeling the now, embracing whatever is to come

No destination in mind, no pre-selected path
No cares about the time, no wondering how long this will last

Just mountain peaks and forests green
No need to explain our reasons for seeking the unseen

Let's just keep on driving, take me somewhere far
I only need to be next to you, I don't care where we are

Let me hold you close, and whisper in your ear
Let me tell you all the things I know you lone to hear

Let me breath your thoughts and make your dreams come true
Let me tell you all my secrets that you never knew

Let's contemplate the universe, let's unravel the mysteries of time
Let's discover all the truths the gods never thought we'd find

There's nowhere else I'd rather be than right here at your side
There's no other hand I'd rather hold than yours to be my guide

A perfect drive on a sleepless night in a moment too good to be real
A peaceful bliss in a lasting memory only we can feel

Day 436: Biker Babes

Today was a great spring day!

Michael made an awesome brunch for Addie and I (Scotty's Rules Of Life #217: "Always Have Friends Who Enjoy Cooking") and then I went into the city to meet up with Pauline and Tim for an afternoon in the sun. It was a beautiful, warm, gorgeous sunny day so we thought it was the perfect day to rent bikes and go for a ride along the Han.

I've been wanting to rent bikes here in Seoul ever since I arrived last year, but just never got around to it. Comfortable weather in Korea is a rare treat here in Korea. There really are only about four months a year - tops - where it's actually pleasant to be active outdoors. Those months would be April and May, and October and November. Anything before or after that, and it's just too cold or WAY TOO HOT to be running around outside. That sure leaves a narrow window open for being outdoorsy here! This year I'm aiming to maximize that skinny time frame and get in as much as I can before it gets so hot that all you can do is hide indoors where there's airconditioning, or lie on a beach on an island or on the south coast.

Bike rental was cheap (just 3000 won an hour, or about $3.50 Cdn) and soon we were cruising along on the bike paths that follow the shores of the Han River. Seoul's got a massive network of bike trails running continuously along its river, a pretty amazing feat for an Asian megacity. We ended up having a truly splendid afternoon, soaring along the smooth flat path, over creeks and under freeways, next to soccer games and croppings of wildflowers, sun on our skin, wind in our hair... A truly great way to spend an afternoon with friends! Before we knew it we had biked nearly 20 km. away from where we started on Yeouido Island, and it was time to head back. Unfortunately by then the wind had picked up a bit, and we had to bike back in the wind the whole way there. Quite the workout indeed!

We were exhausted by the time we rolled back into the bike rental place, and after a 40 km. ride hey we we should be tired! All three of us were *starving* so I suggested we go and have dinner at the Mexican restaurant I know of on Yeouido. It's called La Salsa Loca and Michael and I ate there a few months ago. We had a scrumptious dinner (which we all wolfed down being the ravenous beasts that we are) and then I left to head back to Ilsan. I met up with Addie at LaFesta and we took in a flick, - 'The Interpreter'. Not a bad movie, kinda slow in places but it made you think a lot about politics and I enjoyed that.

Talk about a great weekend! Here's to spring, baby!

Day 435: Good Boys & Girls

Saturday! Yah! :-)

Michael and I went for lunch at that awesome European cafe again (man, it's delicious!) and then went to Itaewon so I could take care of a little business. We went to Xanadu Travel so I could drop off a big wad of cash to pay for (and pick up) my plane ticket to Beijing, as well as drop off my passport so it would be taken to the Chinese Embassy to get a visa. I decided to just suck it up and get a single-entry visa for now, since it's the only option here in Korea and way easier to have my travel agent take care of all the paperwork for it. I can easily get another one once I get to Hong Kong so that I can get back into mainland China later on.

After a coffee break we headed back to Michael's area of town to pick up Miss Meghann and go to Carrefour to do a major grocery run. Mikey and Meghann are cooking up a dinner party for some friends tonight at Michael's place and they needed to get the food for it. Grocery shopping in Korea is an excrutiating experience, at its best. At least it is on the weekends, when the major grocery stores become ridiculously crowded with Korean families fighting each other in the aisles to get their weekly food supply. It's madness, I tell ya!

The dinner party ended up being a great time. There was the three of us, plus Addie, Katie, and Ailish. We had a delicious roast chicken dinner with potatoes and carrots, and well as some pretty darn amazing pasta salad and bread courtesy of our new favourite cafe. Major yum!! Unlike some of our most recent dinner in-home engagements, this evening was quite tame. We just sat around and chatted, and then watched Mean Girls and EuroTrip. Good times all around!

Day 434: Rampage!

So here's a funny little story from Seoul, one that I didn't end up hearing about until a couple days after it happened. A couple of elephants escaped from Seoul Children's Park and went on a rampage through the city! And I didn't even know about it! Giant pachyderms are running wild through the South Korean capital and I'm ignorant to it all!

The elephants, I heard, were in some kind of parade and weren't being watched very carefully. A group of them took off running out of the park and through the streets of the city causing panic in the eastern parts of the city. A few of them crashed through a restaurant front window terrorizing indoor patrons (apparently this bit is caught on video somewhere!) and another ran through an alley near an elementary school knocking down a 52 year-old woman with its trunk. Crazy!

Here's a news clip on the story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20050420/ca_pr_on_od/elephant_escape

Just another day in this crazy city!

Day 433: JLH

A bus drove by me the other day with a huge billboard on its side, and on this billboard was a ginormous pair of eyes belonging to Jennifer Love Hewitt. And oh man, is she looking scary these days! She's definitely aged since her days of Party of Five, and even since the 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' era. I remember her being kinda attractive, or at least having really spectacular tits anyways. She's not looking so spectacular these days... She's hacked all her hair off and her skin is looking wrinkly and tight and...almost sickly... I thought she had fallen off the face of the planet, but nope she's still around these days doing B-rated sappy love movies. Apparently, she's huge here in Asia! Who woulda thought?

The movie she's in that's about to be released here is called 'About Love', and it must be a truly awful movie, as it's only being released here in Korea and also in Thailand. It's not going to be released in America at all, and even though it's a British-made film it won't be released in the UK until February of next year. I'm not surprised about this movie, as she was just in another sappy love movie last fall that somehow stayed in the theatres here for over two months (an eternity for an English flick, as most of them only last two weeks in Korea before they're gone!) It just goes to show you how much the Koreans *love* Jennifer Love Hewitt! They just can't get enough of her! Oh, how the mighty have fallen, eh? ;-)

Day 432: Guilty Pleasures

So I have a MAJOR guilty pleasure here in Korea, and I'm quite embarrassed to admit it. But being the silly boy that I am I'm just gonna tell you about it anyway. There's this really bad - quite awful actually - TV show here that I've come to love watching. It's on the OnStyle network and is a show called 'Ambush Makeover.'

*blush!*

I don't know if you're familiar with it, or even if it's aired back home in North America at all, but it's on all the time here. It's this show where these self-declared 'style gurus' grab random people on the streets of various American cities and offer them free makeovers on the spot. If they accept, they whisk them away for an afternoon of haircuts and colouring, mad shopping in some fashionable store, and then debut them to their friends usually at some special even that evening. It's completely cheesy and lame and shallow and superficial but I've come to enjoy it way too much.

I feel quite conflicted when I do watch it though. Half of me feels all warm and fuzzy inside when they take some frumpy trailer park mom and transform her into a beaming, gleaming shimmering star looking all stylish and funky in only a matter of hours, and the other half screams out silently in protest, angry that I would succumb to such a show's material plasticness, supporting the belief that only some hair colour and makeup will make everything better, and therefore reinforcing mainstream society's unhealthy view of what is considered beautiful in today's already fucked-up insecure culture, where we're told we have to be skinny and buff and covered in makeup and consumption goods in order to be viewed as attractive and desirable by others. Isch! The dilemmas! The internal battles! The push and pull of the ying and the yang! I'm such a torn man! (that, and just the fact that there really isn't a whole lot of English programming on here in Korea, so your television standards drop considerably while living here!) :-)

Day 431: How About Some Information Please?

So I've been trying to arrange my Chinese visa ahead of time before my trip and it's proven to be a bit of a challenge. All foreigners need to get a visa to be allowed to enter the People's Republic of China, and it must be all sorted out before you get to China. I wanted to get a multiple-entry visa, since my travels will take me from mainland China to Hong Kong and then back again, thus requiring two stamps. They do exist, but according to my travel agent here, it's only possible to get a single-entry visa. Hmmm....

My travel agent gave me the phone number of the Chinese Embassy here in Seoul, but I wasn't able to get any information in English. It was one of those "Push 1 for this service" deals and was only in Korean or Chinese. I tried to get one of my Korean co-teachers to translate but she didn't know any of those words in English. I then went to their website to try and get information, but again everything was in either Korean or Chinese. How's a guy supposed to get some information around here!

I eventually just gave up. My travel agent couldn't verify it for me. My Korean-speaking co-teachers couldn't handle the difficulty of the tele-prompt, and even online I couldn't find anything out. Oh well. I decided instead that I'll just get a single-entry visa, and then when I get to Hong Kong I'll just have to get a new one. Kind of a pain in the ass, but I guess it's the easiest option since they speak English in Hong Kong and I'll have the time there anyways. Gotta love bureaucracy, eh! ;-)

Day 430: Taxi Bastards

The one thing I probably hate the most in Korea is the taxi drivers!

Yes, it's true, that some of the friendliest people I've met in Korea have indeed been taxi drivers, but the vast majority of them are assholes to the core, and I really do hate them. Some of the rudest, most vile, dispacable, wretched human beings I've ever come across in my life have been Korean taxi drivers. Generally they're just extremely rude to foreigners on a regular basis, and unlike most of Korean society, don't ever seem to hide their racist ignorance. The list of horror stories go on and on. I don't even know where to begin.

I've been yelled and screamed at more times than I can count. I've been turned away from hundreds of cabs while waiting in line at taxi stands only to see the same cab driver up five metres and pick up a Korean (who's not in line) instead. I've been taken on very long and out-of-the-way routes to destinations where I know they're only doing it to try and get a higher fare and think I don't know any better. I've had drivers just make up ridiculously high fares on the spot to try and get money from me. I've been heckled dozens of times for attempting to speak a little Korean. I've had the music in cabs cranked so high you can't speak because the taxi driver doesn't like the sound of English, or been yelled at cause he thought my friends and I were laughing at a joke or silly conversation too much. I've heard of friends getting money thrown back at them and getting kicked out of cabs prematurely. I've heard of people getting spit on just for being a foreigner. I've ever seen Addie get her hand *slapped* by a taxi driver because he didn't like the way she gestured when she pointed out our destination.

All in all, I've seen a lot of really disgusting behaviour by taxi drivers here. If they weren't so damn cheap, I'd boycott them entirely. I know that not all of them act this way, but the ratio of nasty to nice is about 9:1. There truly are a lot of bastard taxi drivers out there!

Day 429: Blossoms & Booters

Today was a great extension of yesterday's Spring Bliss.

I had brunch at Rocky Mountain Tavern with Angele, Katie, Addie, and Katie's friend David. It was a great breakfast, followed by the requisite coffee at Starbucks. After that we all kinda split up and went in our own directions. Addie and I went down to Yeouido Island - the riverfront park-lined "Manhattan Island" of Seoul in the Han River to go and check out the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.

We got off the subway and were - not suprisingly - greeted with hordes and hordes of crowds. Extended families, love-struck couples, gangs of gleeful teenagers, and the occasional duo or trio of curious foreigners were absolutely everywhere. Yes, it's true, everybody and their dog was indeed on Yeouido that day. We slowly trudged through the sea of people to the western tip of the island where the concentration of cherry trees is greatest. It was a hazy but warm day, and the blossom were out in full bloom and looking quite spectacular. Rows and rows of pink-white petals stretching like canopies over the streets, all the while in the shadows of the enormous looming Korean National Assembly building and in full view of the Han River. Quite a lovely sight, indeed.

We just walked around and relaxed for a while, before deciding that we had had enough of the crowds and would head back to Ilsan. We decided to walk along the river to a different subway station in the hopes that we'd have to deal with fewer people. Well there was this bend in the river where another small stream flows into the Han, and there was this earten dyke across the entrance to this creek. It looked like a short cut to the other side of the bend, and there was a steady stream of people walking along it, so we decided to give it a go. Well we were almost all the way across it when we noticed 'The Gap'. There was a space about 20 metres wide where the dyke stopped and there was just a bunch of largish rocks connecting to the other side, with water rushing inbetween. A line of careful Koreans were hopping and balancing their way across The Gap on the rocks, and much to Addie's disapproval, we ventured forth. Addie has a fear of being suspended above water (or having to balance across it) and so she was kinda freaking out, while I was all confident and chipper bouncing from rock to rock.

I was almost across when suddenly I slipped and *SPLASH!* stepped right into the river! A full-fledged booter! I was all disappointed in myself, but considering how polluted the Han is I was just thankful that I didn't have a sixth or seventh toe when I pulled my foot out! I walked the rest of the way with a soaked foot and we then caught the train to head on home. I was dampened in terms of footwear, but definitely not in spirit! ;-)

Day 428: Spring Perfection

Today was one of the best days I've had in a long time!

(and lemme tell you, a Good Day really was desperately needed!)

I met up with Michael in the city and our agenda for the afternoon involved nothing but lunch, some window-shopping, and just trying to soak up as much of the sunshine as possible! It was a beautiful spring day - clear blue skies, a light warm breeze, and spring flowers in full bloom all across Seoul. Magnificent!

We ended up having lunch at this incredible European cafe right in downtown Seoul. Subway was our original destination, but then Michael remembered eating at this place ages and ages ago, and thought we should check it out. It ended up being one of the best damn lunches I've had here in Korea! There was a variety of gourmet sandwiches and paninis, plus a plethora of delicious salads to choose from. On top of that, this little cafe also operates a small bakery, and so there was an amazing variety of break - REAL BREAD - to buy later if we felt like bringing home a little treat. Wow! Most sandwich cafes in Seoul pretty much suck (too small, weird ingredients like ketchup with cabbage and sugar and ham, and are way too overpriced for what you get.) Not this place! Yeah it was a little pricey, but it was so worth every won.

I had a chicken panini, and then Michael and I shared a grilled chicken caesar salad and a pasta salad, all of which was incredibly delicious! Seriously, it was the closest thing to culinary orgasm that one can get! Real bread, fresh ingredients, seasonings and textures and flabours that my mouth hasn't experienced since leaving the home continent...it was almost too much pleasure!

After lunch we meandered to Myongdong to check out a few stores (didn't buy anything today) and then wandered back to the downtown area. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon at this great little outdoor cafe tucked in behind Gyongbok Palace, enjoying coffee and reading our books. What a great way to spend the afternoon! After last weekend's LazeFest where I wasted a perfectly sunny day, it was so great to be out in the sunshine all day today. Spring rocks!

Afterwards Michael went to go and meet some friends from school, and I went and hung out at Starbucks with my Lonely Planet: Cambodia for a few hours (you know me, can't get enough overpriced coffee!) I met up with Angele for dinner in Sinchon and we went to this great chicken place. After dinner we headed to Hongdae for drinks at Tinpan, and Mikey joined us later there. After a a couple drinks there we somehow *mysteriously* ended up at The Bar, although this time our hang out was...not the same it usually is...

There was a really strange vibe there that night. Normally The Bar is dark and kinda dirty and full of amplified rock anthems and drunken friendlies. Tonight it was bright, and playing way too much pop, and full of these teeny-bopper white chicks! What the fuck? It was like the bus on the way to the Dawson's Creek Convention broke down in front of The Bar and everyone on the bus came inside. It was so not our usual Bar. What the hell is going on? Does tonight's weirdness forecast a tragic and inevitable change of tides? Bars come and go here, as does clientele and atmospheres at these types of little hole-in-the-walls. Could this spell the end of an era? Despite this unexpected strangeness at Our Insititution, I wasn't gonna let it dampen my great spirits. Today was an awesome day!