::A Geek in Korea::

Yesterday, while walking Yoshi outside on our usual route around the apartment, he stopped following me. He sat down and started gnawing on one of his paws. When I tried to urge him onward, he wouldn’t budge. This wasn’t one of his "lazy" or "too hot" sorts of "protests" he tries from time to time. He hadn’t fallen, gotten hit, or stepped on anything unusual. Nothing would have caused him to stop or any particular reason. He seemed to be uncomfortable for some reason. I had to carry him the rest of the way back to the apartment.

When I got him back to the apartment, he was treating one of his hind legs gingerly. That wasn’t an encouraging sign. We needed to leave for work in an hour, and we had a possibly injured dog. No time to go to the vet and still get to work on time. We decided that since one of my wife’s coworkers brings a pet to work, bringing Yoshi and leaving him supervised in the office would be the best thing we could do. We called ahead for permission, and packed his travel bag. My wife took the subway, even though it’s not technically pet friendly. She kept Yoshi in the bag, and the people around her mistook him for a cute doll. He’s very well behaved in his travel bag, so we are lucky.

At work, she said Yoshi was scared to be in a new place, but was as friendly as ever. He spent time in the office while my wife worked. The other teachers are all pet friendly, so no one cared. After work, and another trip on the subway, she dropped the dog off at the vet for overnight observation. He was till walking gingerly on his hind leg, and we were worried about broken bones.

The vet examined him and concluded nothing was broken. The hip, the knee, or ankle might be injured. According to our vet, if this injury becomes serious enough to need surgery, it might cost somewhere in the range of one million won to fix (Approximately 1,000 USD) Ouch.

Yoshi stayed at the vet for the night, which was the first time, barring vacation to the United States, where we were away from the dog overnight. Our house seemed quiet and empty. A lot of our time is spent petting, playing, and talking about our dog. A constant source of entertainment was gone, and possibly seriously injured. The mood was rather sour last night in the house as we looked at our new cage and thought about our missing dog as we went to bed.

This morning we got the call from the vet. Yoshi had nothing broken, and appeared to be walking well again. The vet told us it was likely that his hip or leg could act up again, but for the moment Yoshi seems to be doing fine. To prove how much he’s recovered from yesterday’s nightmare, we actually walked from the vet back home with the dog. It took almost an hour, after stopping for some water breaks, but Yoshi was struggling to go on faster and farther the entire time.

After looking up hip and leg injuries that sound similar, we’ll try to limit Yoshi’s jumping and will help him off furniture or chairs when he’s on our laps. This usually affects older dogs with arthritis, but who knows what caused such a problem with a pup a few months old. We’ll watch him for a few months to make sure he’s recovered fully.  It’s good to have him back in the house. We haven’t let him out of our sights for the entire time, and he’s been in our laps or getting attention all the time.

Here I am, all sappy and worried about my dog’s health. I’ve grown rather attached to the little guy.

I walked into my worst class and witnessed "Tourette’s Boy"  calling a fat boy in the class "A disgusting pig" and cursing at him. When I asked him to stop calling the outcast of the class names, the boy sitting next to him said something, and they promptly starting hitting each other. Wonderful way to start the class. I grabbed Mr. "Random Phrase" and escorted him out into the hallway. I told him that I was in class for no more than two seconds before he had done something worth getting in trouble over. I told him to go home and not to bother being in my class anymore. He started crying, probably more in shame than anything else.

I walked into the teacher’s room after the confrontation for a fresh marker. I commented to my director about what had happened. Her husband, who also works as the accountant at the school, was calming down the crying boy. My director had already heard complaints about the class from the previous teacher. 90% of the students in the class hadn’t done homework.

I returned to class only to have a knock at the door. The crying student had been brought back inside, and my director asked for a few minutes of class time. At first I thought this was going to be some sort of new announcement, perhaps about the vacation next week. The look on her eyes was like of a charging rhino. I quickly got out of her way and let her do her thing. I walked out of class and was waiting as she scolded all the students in class. Screaming. Threats. More Screaming. More threats. Possibly beatings occurred while I was outside. I’m not sure.

It’s best I don’t know. By the time I walked into class, the aura of the room had changed completely. An apt metaphor would be last bolt of lightning striking a house a knocking out power, causing complete silence after a once booming storm. A charge dissipated from the room as my director walked out. Seizing hold of the change, I jumped into my lesson immediately, using their fear as a motivator. There was a lot less backstabbing Korean commentary, and actual instances of conversation and dialog between teacher and student today, instead of me shouting over the voices of ten clueless speakers. It occurs to me that several of my students should be studying with children almost half their age, but at least they weren’t actively destructive and bad today.

All it took was a mental lashing and threats of possible bodily harm. The "scared straight" method of teaching.

I don’t see this class next week because of holidays. I will not miss them, but if they come back forgetting how to behave, I’ll probably need to do this all over again.

With fall soon to arrive, and a pet subjected to cooler temperatures on the veranda by the day, we were forced to think up solutions to a problem before we had a frozen pup come winter. A trip to local pet stores provided no help. We wanted a large cage of some kind with no top, with a way to clean the bottom easily. Since we have a larger apartment than before, we could try to get a slightly larger cage than any of the pet stores had. We also needed something that could be folded up later, and that was portable and light enough to be moved around if needed. Again, we had comfort in mind, as Yoshi would need to stay inside whatever we bought while we were away from work, and any nights that were too cold for him to be outside.
My wife searched the Internet for a cage that meet our needs. Eventually we found one with what we wanted cheaper than any stores in the area even with delivery. Bless the Internet-tubes! The cage arrived while we were at work yesterday, so the security guards took it for us. The large block print lettering that say "DOG CAGE" in might have been a clue that we were planning on keeping our dog for a while, but the guard was too busy about to make his "rounds" to say anything to me when I picked it up.

I set the cage up myself, and the final test was putting the dog inside. Yoshi has a fear of grates and mesh of any kind. He absolutely will not walk on it and avoids anything of the kind when we go outside for walks. The bottom of the cage is similar to what was in the pet store he was born in. If dogs have neurosis, this would be Yoshi’s little quirk. He will not walk on the grate if possible.

I tried a series of experiments. I opened the cage door, placed his food inside, then waited for him to jump inside the cage. He’ll do nearly anything to eat, but he simply stared at the cage. He walked around, stretching out his neck from the door trying to get some of his food from the bowl without having to enter the cage. No luck. He circled the cage looking for a way to get closer without going into it. No luck. Eventually I wanted to see if he would use the door to leave the cage, then we could work on going inside later.  I placed Yoshi in the cage with his pillow and put the food right outside. All he had to do was leap out. Nothing. He was so timid he wouldn’t move off the pillow. Even me tempting him with snacks and affirmative commands did nothing.

The only way for him to get out the door was to take his front paws and get him over the threshold. Then he would hop out with his back legs. If you left the door open the entire time he was in the cage, he would be unlikely to do this himself. He spent the night in the cage last night just as a "test", He started whining, so we pulled the cage over by our bed room door and left it open for him to see us. He was quiet and slept the night silently.

He was a little better today. He got in and out of his cage on a few occasions, but he’s very leery of it. Post-traumatic pet store memories of some kind.

Seems like I’ve been complaining about the same students, week after week. These days I go into class expecting something to be amiss, and I try to catch the same three or four students doing something wrong again and again. It’s beyond predictable at this point and is now just part of the routine of my day. How are they going to be bad today?

Today was dedicated reading day for one of my classes. The students have already done the work in the book, and it’s my job to get them to review. I’ve adjusted to my job as a human radio, reading books and having the class repeat after me. It’s tedious and boring, but these kids outnumber me and I can’t do individual reading without someone getting bored as their turn comes around. I usually read with my eyes down on my paper, but today the dialog was simple enough for a quick glance down to keep them reading as I scanned the mischief makers for problems.

I caught someone simply mouthing the words instead of actually reading. I stopped the lesson and made them read the same sentence again in front of everyone alone. The student couldn’t read unaided. He wasn’t paying attention in class and I caught him. Not only did he not know where we were, he couldn’t read without my help. I told him to follow along in the book by putting a finger on the words as we read them. I caught two more students doing the exact same thing. They were staring off into space as we read, and only one of them could read without any help finding the place or knowing what the book said. They did this multiple times after I started to catch students and started punishing them too.

One of the students said, "They are lip syncing!" I was surprised they knew the word, but that’s exactly what they were doing.

After class, the two students that couldn’t read anything tried to run past me out of class. I caught them both and made them stay after class. The scary head teacher listened to what was going on in class after I explained, and I caught bits and pieces of her rant as she started scolding the students. The part where she said, "You are lip syncing what your teacher reads and you think he wouldn’t notice? Do you think he’s a moron? He’s trying to help you read!" made me smile. I walked out to go to the bathroom, make some copies, and to get a drink of water. By the time I came back, one of the students was in tears, and one of them had their heads on their chest in deep contemplation. They missed their buses and needed to get rides later, which made their punishment extra lengthy too.

I’m so fed up with the same students ruining an otherwise borderline class. Their parents are just throwing money away, since these particular students have never passed a class test on the first try, done homework, or shown any interest in English ever. At least this time they were only hurting themselves and not stopping someone else from studying.

Our goal as a couple at this point is to save as much money as possible. We are trying to save somewhere over 50% of our salary each month. This is on top of the new expenses we have encountered since renting our own apartment for the first time. Adding private insurance, rent, food and transportation costs to the bills, and we’ve been working hard to keep our bank accounts steadily on the increase at the desirable rate. Every little bit can help.

One of the easy ways to cut down on the cost of transportation is something we just learned this week. My wife works across town. If the subway was finished to our neighborhood she would have a nice, cheap way to get to work. As of now, she can either take a bus all the way to work and waste what can be upwards of an hour as the bus negotiates traffic, or take the nearest subway stop to work and arrive in less than 10 mintues. The nearest subway stop is on a bus line, but only five minutes away. Even if she waits for a bus, transfers to the subway system, and waits for the subway, she will still be getting to work faster. She was reluctant to take the faster form of transportation thinking it would double her spending per month just trying to get to work.

We found out that there is a solution built into the transit system for people exactly like us. The Daejeon city metro buses and subway use the same debt card style payment systems. The smart cards not only track how much money you have in your account, but also the kind of transportation you are using, and deducts points from your account automatically. They also give a modest discount on every fare.

The cool thing is this: If you transfer from a bus to subway in under 30 minutes, the system won’t charge you full price. Instead you will be charged a "Transfer" fee fare. The cost of a transfer free for the bus and subway cost only as much as a "luxury" bus instead double the fare. This amounts to a 40% savings for people that take a bus to get to the subway. 40% savings for faster, nicer, safer transportation? That’s a pretty good deal. It’s much better than taking any bus downtown, or riding in a "luxury" bus the entire way.

My transportation fee has been cut in half as well with a better schedule. I used to need to go across town twice a day. Once for morning classes and again for classes spread across the afternoon. I’ve blocked all my schedule up now so that I can go to work, remain at work, and get everything done without leaving once I get there. The amount of fighting and complaining it took to get my first decent schedule in five years was worth it, as I’m pocketing considerable money after all my taxi fees and bus fares are added up. Not only that, I can ride a bus home from work instead of getting caught in rush hour traffic. Once the subway gets it’s line finish, I’ll even be able to cut down on the taxi trips I take and commute underground exclusively.

Lowered costs and increased convenience? Awesome.

My wife and I were walking near a bus stop after both getting our hair cut earlier in the day. On the bus stop there was a typical advertisement for soju, Korean rice alcohol. These days, all the soju companies use young "heavy drinking" ladies in their advertisements. They’ve already got the male portion of the market cornered, so the only way to bring more alcohol drinkers to their particular products is to appeal to people that traditionally didn’t drink lots of soju, women.

My wife commented on the fact that all the women don’t really look like people that really drink alcohol anyway. Too cute. Too much makeup. Too much in love with posing with the bottle, not drinking from it. Much like these pictures below, which I have found to illustrate my point:

This comment struck me as funny, since she doesn’t drink, and has never really ever drank alcohol. I can’t recall seeing her drink more than one drink a night ever, even when we go out. In comparison, my single Corona beer a night when stressed out for work makes me the heavy weight drinker in the house.

She called me an sul korae, or "alcohol whale". I disagreed and said I was more like a sul myuelchi, or "alcohol anchovy", this being the smallest fish I could name in Korean. She thought it was very cute, even if it wasn’t an actual expression in Korean, and when we met her mom she was giggling about it and shared what I said. Good for a laugh at least.

Our security guards, who went as far as suggesting that they would somehow "raid" our apartment to take our dog if we didn’t comply with their pet rules, seem to have had a change of heart recently. We had been walking Yoshi by putting him in a bag, then carrying him down the elevator. Once we got around a corner from the building, we would let him out. Yoshi loved his bag, so it wasn’t that big of a problem. Since the guards didn’t say anything when we carried him out this way, we figured they had calmed on the whole "No Pets" thing, even if it was still posted on the notice board.

For a month they had a warning up in the elevator about how dogs weren’t allowed in the building. One particular guard was always shouting and giving me a hard time about walking Yoshi. We even had conversations with some of the apartment "leaders" that had decreed that there would be no pets!

Now they no longer care at all. We’ve been walking Yoshi now without the bag in the evening and we haven’t been asked about anything. Considering all the hassle we had been going through, this is a nice change for us. We still keep Yoshi under control in the elevator as always, but now we don’t need the bag in addition to the leash.

This is exactly what my wife predicted would happen. She said that the security guards were simply acting tough on behest of some disgruntled tenant somewhere in the building, and that went enough time passed, they’d go back to their usual indifference. The normal security guard spends about 90% of his time doing nothing. Other than picking up packages and chatting with security guards when there is nothing else on television, they sit in their little room. Anything that compels them to actually "guard" or "police" is just an annoyance.

We just had some particularly annoying person in the building that kept the guards on task for an entire month, that’s all.

One of my students has the notorious habit of yelling out completely random things in class all the time. Not things where he was trying to answer a question, trying to speak English, or simply having a conversation. These are just random Korean words that come spilling out of his mouth constantly for no reason what so ever. Since the words he says are meaningless, I ignore them, as annoying as they are, because if I started to ask him about what he was saying, me might actually do it more than he does now.

When I came into class today, two of my female students proposed a solution. I didn’t know what they were trying to say to me, as they have terrible English skills, but eventually what they were working on was easy enough to figure out. They set up a paper at their desk, and whenever the male student shouted out something completely random that made no sense, they wrote it down. They only wrote down things that were unsolicited Korean phrases that had nothing to do with our class. They did this on their own, and I didn’t need to help. I didn’t see the harm in letting them discipline a boy they thought was annoying, and they weren’t doing anything bad when he said something, just writing it down.

I went down the list of things he said, and when I read some of them out, the boy actually denied having said some of the phrased.  I know he had said them. I had heard him, and the girls had written them down. He honestly couldn’t recall. After a fifty minute class they had filled an entire page with ramblings. One page of Korean phrases that went nowhere.

I brought this up with the teacher that follows up after me. It seems it was her idea to have a compiled list of his babbling. I’m not sure if it’s something to document what he’s done, or show to his mother, or as a basis for punishment. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was all three. I’ve had students do the exact same thing in English. It’s just as annoying, but since it’s English it’s harder to punish someone for it.

I live at some sort of weird intersection of space and time. Admittedly, I don’t have much evidence to back up this claim, but something odd is definitely occurring in the apartment as of late. If I get sucked up in a vortex of some kind and disappear, this will be all the proof I need to show I am right.

When we had moved into our current residence, we chose it because it had been recently remodeled. In typical Korean style, it was done as quickly as possible, and on the surface seemed well done. Only after you’ve been living here for a few months do you notice the paint on the door knobs, the sloppy grouting work in the bathroom, or the doors that don’t fully close due to one too many layers of paint.

Then there are the lights. We have overhead neon lights. The reliable kind that flick on and stay bright for ages. Except, all of a sudden, within a few weeks of each other, each of the lights in the house started dying. Even an old style bulb light burned out. This is a trivial annoyance, as it requires a fuse to be replaced, and possibly the purchase of a new set of neon tubes. We took the tubes with us to go shopping, and tested them out in the displays in the store. All of them worked in the store, yet were completely dead at home!  We found the right size replacements, bought fuses, and came home. Our new lights worked even thought the old ones no longer did.

Then, each of the batteries in the different clocks around the house started dying. These are relatively new clocks, dating from either my single life, to some of our wedding gifts. Each one had their batteries die within a week or two of each other after having worked for years, or in some cases months without needing to be changed. The remote for my DVD player has died as well, which might be attributed to one to many trips to the ground, or perhaps something sinister is afoot.

Our method of fixing the problem is to buy slightly higher quality batteries, lights, and fuses. Everything seems to be working at the moment, but if we have another system wide failure, I don’t know what to think.