::A Geek in Korea::

I’m not an impolite or rude person in public most of the time. I try to wait for people, and to be considerate of most things they do that might slightly inconvenience me. At least, I like to think I am like that. Today I lost my cool in public, and I was a little embarrassed about it later.

I was walking my dog Yoshi around the book around lunch time. This means that the students that go home to eat were walking around. 90% of the students that saw my dog LEAPED into ongoing traffic to escape the fearsome jaws of a 5kg dog that doesn’t want to hurt a soul.

Honestly. Is that picture something that fills you with fear if you saw a dog that size walking down the street? Anyway, I was fine with students endangering themselves needlessly because of my dog.

Unfortunately, three middle school students saw my dog and hurried in front of me. They kept looking back over their shoulders and saying stuff about me and my dog. They locked arms, and walked abreast. The sidewalk had a wall on one side, and a guard rail on the other. There was no way to get past the students if they wouldn’t step to one side or the other. I walked at a pace that said, “Hey, let me by any time, I’ll pass on this side.”

They kept looking back and freaking out that Yoshi was a meter behind them. They continued to lock arms and block the ENTIRE sidewalk, but didn’t want my dog to walk by them. They kept talking and chatting, and looking back. I had no reason to wait for these students to walk down the rest of the street if they let me by.

After about 100 meters of them obstructing my sidewalk, I shouted, “WOULD YOU GET OUT OF THE WAY? I WON’T NEED TO FOLLOW YOU IF YOU’D JUST MOVE! Please!”

The students were more terrified of me speaking English than the dog. They LEAPT out of the way immediately and I passed them. I got some mocking sarcasm from them as I passed. Stupid middle school students.

I was teaching my largest class. It is filled with 14 early reading second grade students. I rule the class with constant testing, lots of repetition, and a large bombastic voice. I also issue detentions to anyone that rests their heads on the desk. Children fear me and call me a “tough teacher” and pine for the days they learned with my coworker, because he was much easier. I’m riding high on a power trip and all that. For all my power in the class, my lesson came to a standstill when a student decided he wanted to play with his glue stick.

The boy is one of the louder, more outgoing children. This is tough in a class that usually ranges in “Pre-flight airport” decible levels of noise when we start reading. While I was at the board writing something, he started using his glue stick on the pages we were studying. He completely caked his pages in glue.

When the class had finished reading, everyone else moved on to the next page in the book and took out their pencils. His neighbor said, “Teacher, Teacher, he can’t turn his page. It’ll stick together!”

This is when I was informed of the situation. The boy was just smacking his hand down on the glued page, and turning it with his sticking palm. Before the two pages were stuck together, he’d opening it back up. If he tried to do his work on the next page, he’d never be able to look at the previous pages, because they’d be glued tightly together.

I guess he thought he was getting out of homework, because if his pages are all stuck together, he wouldn’t be able to do his writing assignment. I like this student, and he’s generally a little noisy, but not very bad. However, with 14 tiny people to teach in a small classroom, there is no margin of error. All dumbass-ery must be crushed quickly and ruthlessly, because I can’t start two days a week screaming at little kids.

It just so happens that my director was walking by the classroom when I caught the boy with his hands stuck to the book and the paste everywhere. I grabbed the glue stick and told her what the boy had done. She came into the classroom and completely demolished the boy with a really entertaining bit of logic. This is the transcript of the Korean conversation they had:

“So, what did you do here? You glued your book together? Any reason for this?”

“No, it’s just fun.”

“Really? Fun? Are you playing? Is this a play room? Are you here for fun?”

“Yes, I’m just playing with my glue. It’s fun.”

My director got a glare in her eye, and she looked up to the boy’s classmates. If the students complain about me being tough, they absolutely tremble in fear at the thought of angering the director in any way. Her word is law in the school. Hell, I’m a little afraid of my director when she starts tearing into a student, and I’m not even in trouble. “Do you go a play room, or a study room, class?”

The rest of the class, anxious to witness what was about to come quickly answered in unison, “Study room.”

“So, They say you go to a study room. You say you go to a play room. I’ll explain the difference between a study room and a play room for the children that don’t understand. You think you come here to play? Do you know the difference between a study room and a play room?” she asked the boy.

“No.”

“In a play room, you can run around and do whatever you want. When you go to the bathroom, the person at the play room will even clean your butt for you. This is a study room. We’re here to study. Everyone in this class is here to study. We’re not here to play with glue, and when you go to the bathroom in my school, no one is going to clean YOUR butt for you. So now, do you understand what kind of room this is? Don’t play with glue. Study hard. Alright?!”

“Yes.”

At this point, I was laughing so hard I had to walk in the hallway for a little bit. It’s worth learning Korean to pick up on exchanges between students and faculty like this. This is probably one of my all time favorites

I’ve added the ability to add RSS feeds per page, and for comments! Now if you’re interested in one particular topic and want to follow the thread of conversation, bookmark the comment thread and you’ll be able to see when I or anyone else responds! Basically every page on this blog has an RSS feed available for it now, so bookmark away! EXCLAMATION MARK!

“Hooooo-Heeeeee…Just taking the subway…Hooooo-Heeeeee…To buy some cabbage…”

Part of the deal of living an a bonefide apartment complex when there is ownership and longer term property values to consider is that you need to worry about decisions that seem minor, but might impact you long term. Even once you settle on something long term, there are short term drawbacks.

A few weeks ago we got a mockup of the new paint designs for the exterior of our apartment complex. The apartment group had entered into a lawsuit against the builder who had backed out of their painting obligations. The lawsuit had just been resolved when we moved into the apartment, so the apartment group had sent around flyers with the different paint designs. We had to pick for a few rather bland designs. Out of the three we picked the least hideous one.

A few days ago, they started on the process of readying the buildings for the massive paint job. This means that people were crawling around, suspended on ropes, with large scrapers freeing any loose paint. They would go down scraping, then the next day would go down the buildings suspended by safety lines to patch up any cracks in the concrete. This has left the buildings in the neighborhood streaked with tiger stripes on the walls where the various cracks had been patched.

Today I was sitting at the computer watching Internet Videos and following the political threads I keep a handle on. I had just finished my breakfast and was getting up to return my bowl when I saw a guy suspended out my window peering inside as he scraped and patched outside my second story apartment.

GAH! It was like 1960’s Batman walking up a wall to catch a criminal, and he was right outside my apartment. I had seen them doing this entire building through the week so I should have been prepared. However, when they were outside my window, I felt strangely violated by their peering inside. No one doing anything wrong, but no one expect someone outside their window when they don’t expect this. All this time in the apartment I hadn’t felt the need to pull my curtains, but I did after that.

I’ve got a theme going with my collectible phone accessories. I’ve been attempting to purchase on Super Mario themed phone accessories to dangle from the lanyard strap that I have on my phone. I don’t do anything to show these large plush toys off or anything. I just throw my phone in my pocket, but whenever I answer a message or handle my phone outside of class, I have swarms of little students around me asking me about them.

My first of these was the small 1up mushroom. This was lucky, because it matched my stylish green case. Plus, it’s awesome. The students who have Nintendo DS would say, “1-up! New Super Mario-itta!” (It’s New Super Mario!). The PC only students would say, “Mushmam Bossot! Mushmam Bossot! Maple Story-itta!” (It’s a Mushroom monster from Maple Story!”) These students earned a glare.

It didn’t improve after the 1up split down the middle and I needed a new accessory. The ?-box came next. Again, students “In the know”, knew where this iconic symbol was from. People with PC games only thought it was an “I-tem boxsu! Kartu-Rider!” (Kart Rider Item Box.) Nevermind the whole Mario Kart spawned the icon racer thing, and Kart Rider is just an admittedly popular online imitation.

The funny thing about the situation is that the students are so young, and Nintendo’s character penetration is so new here, that the students that actually recognize these iconic symbols of my youth only recently got exposed to them. They only know them from the Nintendo DS game, or the Wii if they are super rich. Most of them grew up on online games, and the oldest game they know and still play is Starcraft. I’m now at the point that I have students playing Starcraft that are younger than that game.

My third purchase is the accessory on the left. I just bought the Pirahna plant. It’s hard plastic, and it lights up if you flick a switch. I won’t be putting it on my phone for fear it might scratch up my screen when I put it in my pocket. I’m now buying phone accessories purely to look at or collect them. What has happened to me?

My wife actually was with me when I bought this one. She called me juvenille. Whatever. She has a clear plastic head of Snoopy from Peanuts filled with tiny pink hearts on HER phone, so I don’t think she gets to talk about a light up plant that devours people as being “immature”.

Judging by my Internet Moniker, I’ve had a long standing connection with the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. Anyone that knows me and has watched a bad movie with me knows I love to crack jokes whenever possible. I’ve mellowed out on this more recently, more or less dropping it entirely unless it is a special occasion. I admit it’s something of a bad hobby for those people wishing to view a movie without an annoying neighbor. You shouldn’t do it unless you have some practice, or are a paid professional. Then it is more than okay. It’s encouraged. Expected even.

Anyway, I remember a time back when I was six years old or so. I had just discovered humor, and my idea of a good joke was repeating the setup for “Why did the chicken cross the road?” and then substituting a different reason, or changing the animal. I’d also change the answer to the joke if someone guessed it correctly. I usually would repeat the joke several times, as if I was talking to a person that spoke a different language and assumed saying it more than once would make the message funnier.

I guess I was under the impression jokes were like some sort of lame game show. I didn’t get why that particular joke was funny, and I still don’t. The “Chicken crossing the road” joke was what I thought comedy was at it’s core. Nonsense said in a particular way that made people laugh.

The first time I remember making a joke on my own that made other people laugh was during a movie. I remember I was sitting on our couch in my parent’s living room watching the movie D.A.R.Y.L.. It was this terrible movie about a robotic boy. Pinochicco meets the Turing Test. It was idiotic.

At one point or another, the robotic main character, Daryl, dies, or appears to die, to which I commented, “He forgot his batteries.”

It was well timed. This got a laugh from both my parents. I think my mom even repeated the line to my dad, which was more than she would normally do for my “Why did the…. cross the road” jokes. This was the first time I could remember making an off the cuff remark that got people laughing.

I didn’t do that sort of thing from that point on. My parents would speak while watching television, but it usually wasn’t an ongoing conversation about the show. I think somewhere in the back of my mind that experience of getting a laugh stuck with me, because as soon as I saw people on television doing the same thing, I was hooked. I was a fan after that.

My last class of the week is by far my worst. I dumped off this class onto my coworker, and was almost free of it, but he needed a break since he works the entire Friday schedule. His schedule got changed so he was able to get dinner, but that stuck me with a class of students that everyone knows I despise.

The feeling is mutual. One of the students today tried to hide in the bathroom stall as I walked through the halls into the classroom. His clever plan to hide behind a support pillar and wait for me pass by, then hide in a smelly toilet stall was thwarted by my higher than 10 IQ. I think he learned that tactic by watching Loony Toons or something. He was going to cause problems by making me go look for him, but seeing as I knew exactly where he was, I told him not even to bother and he returned to class defeated.

Today I had to teach a science lesson about wave frequencies of light being used to determine the temperature of the sun. This was not the most basic of vocabulary or lessons for me to teach a class that has a larger vocabulary of swears than it does actual English words. Two of the students had done their lessons, and rest tried to lie their way out of detention. These two students were able to follow my lesson somewhat, and by the end they could actually get the answers about wave frequencies and energy correctly. The rest of the students got very interested in their desks, and wouldn’t look up or answer anything.

Their homework was a space related crossword and word search. The only reason I gave them the word search was that it contained all the answers for the related crossword, and these students would never, ever be able to get the crossword without tons of help. I let them work on either paper before the bell rang. Usually we finish the work in class in about twenty minutes, and then spend the rest of the time staring in mutual disdain.

Their brilliant strategy for fooling me was to work in groups and pretend to lose the cross word puzzle. I’m not responsible for checking the homework I assign. This class is unique in that I assign homework and the other teacher grades it. I still give detentions based on the last homework assignment they were supposed to do, so the three boys got served. The next teacher has an answer sheet for the crossword puzzle so any denials about receiving the paper will be a lie.

It’s not like the students are good liars anyway. They act like the teachers have no idea what is going on in class, while other students are racing around them at much younger ages. Their book, while occasionally containing WTF hard topics isn’t actually as hard as material we usually teach at that level. They just don’t know that, and have a smug attitude.

Anyway, this is my one really loathsome class that sours me on Fridays. It sucks to walk home from work grumbling about bad kids when all your usual classes day to day are so much better.

I had reason to go dig out the school’s lamination machine. I had gone to the printer to make D&D Power Cards.These are purely a stat tracking, paperwork avoiding trick players can use to speed up the game. Small cards list out the powers each character have available for each encounter, and as the game moves along you manipulate the cards to keep track of what you’ve done. It was clear from our previous games that anything to speed up our games is something we should look into, and these will help tremendously.

The only problem is that the cards are color coded, and needed to be the same size for easy use. I had the idea of going to the print shop, getting them printed, and then laminating them. Some of the players had theirs done this way, but worked together to complete the task. I needed to work on my own, but they helped me find business card sized lamination sleeves that sped up the process considerably.

All I had to do was get the things printed off, cut, and then laminated. How long could that take? For whatever reason, the printing took a ridiculous 30 minutes for 15 pages! I was very annoyed by that. They printed off 300 pages of black and white papers faster than the color prints I needed. Completely ridiculous. After I got it printed, I was in for another shock. The 15 pages ran nearly 10000 won! I had no idea that it was so expensive, but from now on I’ll be working entirely in black and white for my printing needs.

I tracked down the lamination sheets, and found the perfect size (90×65mm). I went to work and was looking around in an old storage closet when I found a lamination machine. I didn’t know the school even owned one. It hadn’t seen use in all the time I had been working there. The thing was completely covered in dust. Since lamination machines require heat to work, I was nervous that I was going to end up burning down the school when I plugged it in the first time. I asked the director if there was anything I needed to do to prepare the machine. She suggested grabbing some wet tissues and tying to get as much dust as possible off the rollers. I did just that, accidentally sending one of the tissues through the hot rollers. It didn’t do any damage and I was able to get the tissues back out. Luckily they were thick and tough.

It took forever to find the right heat setting for the cards. It turns out the sweet spot was slow rollers, middle/hot temperatures. Anything too hot might cause the cards to curl, and anything too cold didn’t force them together and melt.

I started cutting the cards I needed on my lunch break. I got about six pages of 8 cards each done in an hour. I had all my cut cards laminated by the time the bell rang for my next class. 9 more pages left! I couldn’t get anything else done at work, so put the cards away and waited to go home. When I left work I returned to the print shop, bought a nice, proper pair of scissors, and went home.

At home I spent another hour or so cutting out cards. I’m ready to laminate them all tomorrow if I got to work early enough. I’ll still be the DM for the next set of adventures, but when I actually get a chance to play my character I’ll be set. The other players will be ready, and hopefully eager to try out the new cards next weekend.

My D&D group has found a neutral place for gaming that won’t force any of our wives, or significant others to evacuate their houses if we want to play. While we have no problem with our inherent nerdiness, our spouses and significant others flee at the sight of a 20 sided dice being rolled on a table. No female has ever witnessed me playing D&D…until now.

It’s in a restaurant with private booths, and waitresses dressed up like Little Red Riding Hood. I have no idea what the theme of this place is supposed to be besides innocent, rustic charm. Here we are ruining it by creating epic battles in one of their back rooms with dice. The booths in the restaurant have white boards. These are meant for students studying, businessmen in a meeting, or bored children. It works out really well for us to play. We take them off the wall and draw the maps directly on the board.

We can rent the rooms for several hours, and all we need to do is buy a cup that allows for unlimited refills of drinks. We also get a cup of free ramyeon, or cookies if we want included in the price of the room. It’s more convenient that any place that should be legally allowed to be. Not only do we get a place to play, but cheap food and all the drinks we want? Awesome. If we go over three hours on our reserved room, we pay a pitance per 30 minutes to keep the room. The manager always approaches our table carefully, as if we’d fly off in a rage when we learn we need to pay 1000 won an hour. Please.We need four people to hold a room, which is perfect too, because we can squeeze everyone inside and just play.

We’ve played in this restaurant’s booths for the past two games and they’ve gone swimmingly well. Everyone ignores the people around us and we cheer for high rolls, groan after low rolls, and sound out gruesome deaths and murders. I get into character whenever anyone does anything particularly amusing.  Some of the players were talking about moving into the actual room surrounded by people instead of getting a booth if it meant better air conditioning. I’m as used to being stared at as the next foreigner, but I’d still prefer a booth to be truthful if I have to pretend to be a dying orge.

I’ve been the Dungeon Master for both games, as we’ve switched to the most recent D&D 4.0 edition. Everyone else was trying to make their new characters before learning the DM rules. I’ve approached the situation backwards, learning the DM rules via Podcast and also via the free materials at the offical site.If no one is going to learn to DM, all the players in the world won’t matter. While I took on the DM last time as a chore and something of a challenge, I’m willfully volunteering my service for DM using the 4.0 rules.

I have as much fun running the encounter as I do playing the game from the other side of the table now. It’s so much easier now that their is prepared material I don’t have to write. There were adventures for the past rule sets too, but the new material is really nice and easy to use. We could potentially use our crop of free materials for the next few levels and never have to do the hard stuff ourselves. If I wanted to go back to writing custom adventures, I could still do that more easily than before, but right now the situation doesn’t demand it, as there is a plethora of materials to draw from, and more arriving all the time.

We scrapped a plan that was going to have us end the story line of our last set of characters dramatically and thematically and made a clean break for the new rules. I get to keep my epic storyline for a later date, and I can use the much easier 4.0 rules to host adventures that have been pre-written for me. I’ll be much more experienced as a DM by the time we’re ready to tackle that story line again.

I’ve been relishing my role as the arbiter of rules and the killer of characters. I’ve murdered one ranger, which happens to be the first time any DM had brought down a character from the party. In the last encounter we had, I had two characters on the ropes, and it was only because of some lucky dice roles in the clutch that they were able to save the day. I had wicked rolls the entire day, while my players rolled for nearly nothing.

Karma will probably balance that our shortly enough. I ordered an entire pound of dice from the Internet so that I can DM without borrowing dice from others, as well as provide other people with dice if we can find another player. We’re also trying to get officially recognized as a play group by the organizers of Living Forgotten Realms, which would set us up with free play material forever. We’d even impact the world we adventured in, like a twisted sort of massively multiplayer role playing game played in small groups around the real world. Considering the last officially recognized team of any kind I ever participated in was a bowling team in 5th grade, that’s pretty awesome.