::A Geek in Korea::

We get free English newspapers at the school. I only started being interested in them because the crosswords. One of my intensive single student classes has an essay heavy text book. All that is required me is to help her learn how to prepare her notes, then give a series of practice tests in which she writes for the majority of the class period. Rather than twiddle my thumbs for an hour, I picked up the crossword. I actually completed a crossword on my own the first time since I had given up on crosswords in general for about a year. It felt good to be in the groove and solving some English related puzzles, so during my lunch break I brought home a newspaper to read in the taxi, and to try to solve at home.

Whenever any of the students in the school see me pick up an English newspaper and read it, they give me looks of complete awe, as if I’m levitating while swallowing flaming swords or something. Really, it’s not that I go out of my way to read a newspaper in front of people or something, but people look at my like I have magical powers when I do. Some of my students think I’m just faking it, and that I can’t really understand anything on the paper. I guess holding up a paper and pretending to read it is something they are used to and suppose everyone else does it as well.

When I got into my taxi, I told my driver the destination, then went to unfold my paper. My arms stretched so the paper went over the front seat briefly. The taxi driver gave me this extremely paranoid look, as if I was going to decapitate him with it. Whatever. I went to reading the news, and as we stopped at a light, I heard a scream to my right. "HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEYYYYY! HELLLLLLLLLLOO"

What the hell?

The man in the car parallel to me was screaming to get my attention. I looked over, and he gave me this smile, like, "I’ve got something important to share with you.". He did a sort of tap on his glass, as if he wanted me to roll down my window. I returned to reading the newspaper. I could feel his eyes on me as I finished the article. Somehow this guy thought that riding in the back of the taxi with a newspaper meant that I was in the business of giving thirty second English lessons while the lights changed. I was baffled by what he was possibly going to try to explain to me. He was really creepy.

Rattled, I went back to my apartment. The elevator had a lengthy descent, so I resumed reading the newspaper. No children ever talk to me in the apartment complex. I live on an upper floor, and they tend to live at the bottom and play outside. As I was waiting, a boy came out of an apartment and started screaming for one of his friends to meet him. He stopped when he saw me.

He then did the whole, "Hello? HELLO? HELLLLLLOOO?" thing that children do to try to get your attention. I find it incredibly rude, because if I respond, I get either laughed at, or they simply act like I’m putting on a show for them. I choose not to participate instead. I’ve got plenty of students that aren’t rude when trying to get my attention that speak to me everday. Being rude isn’t going to win me over with them either. I was fairly annoyed from the whole taxi episode, but when the boy continued to yell at me, I gave him a terribly frightful look.

"No. Don’t do that. I don’t bother you. Please, don’t bother me." I said it in a very sour tone, which I regret now, but at the time I was in the middle of a very terrible day at work and have been completely stressed by the (incredible) amount of work given to me this week. To be fair, the child might have even understood what I said, because he gave me a downtrodden look and went on his way.

Had I not been carrying the newspaper, would he have bothered me? I don’t know. No one bothers me when I listen to music, but I haven’t been carrying my mp3 player to work recently. I don’t know why people feel compelled to annoy me when I read a newspaper. There really isn’t anything magical about a guy reading an English paper at all.