Hello friends, family and everyone else.
It has been exactly one year to the day since I have posted on my blog. I assure you it was not planned this way. Today I was reading someone elses blog and figured I should start mine up again. I didn't realize it had been a full year already, but I guess it makes sense.
The past year has been... strange. I guess I should take you through all aspects of my life to see how they have changed. We will do it in typical Korean form.
"How old are you?" I am now 30 years old. It really doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me because I was 30 years old Korean age when I first got over here, so I have kind of been thirty for the last two years.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" Now? I don't know. I will say yes and leave it at that. Phillipa may be on the other side of the world, but she would still be just as angry if I wrote about her in my blog.
"How tall are you?" Still the same height.
"You... suyom... good." Thank you, I like my beard also.
"What is your favorite singer?" Well, I really like 2ne1 just like I did this time last year, but I have really started to like this Korean American K-pop star called Ailee, and a girl who is brand new called Lee Hi. If you want I can post their videos at the bottom, since they are both incredible singers.
"Can you speak Korean?" Well that's a good question. I still am not fluent by a long shot, but I can definitely speak a lot better than I could one year ago. In fact, just today I learned how to say: "Everyday I practice Korean, but I still can't speak it." I think my big breaks in learning Korean were the fact that around summer time I made myself a bunch of flashcards, so now I know about 90 Korean verbs, and that after Christmas break I got myself a Korean tutor. My Korean tutor is my favorite co-teacher Jo Eun A, who I have spoken so highly of in the past. She sits patiently with me while we listen to "Talk To Me In Korean" and I write every Korean sample sentence that they say, then she corrects my spelling and laughs at me. :) My spelling is what needs the most work, as my vocabulary and grammar are actually not that bad. The real test is when I come back from my lesson and Phillipa says "Oh that thing you just learned how to spell, write it to me!" I always fail that test.
"Where are you from?" Texas... still Texas, but if you want to ask where
I am from in Korea I will tell you that I am still from the same town
Gamgok. It is a completely different town from when I first moved here
and met the other Texan, and the Scotsman, and the South African girl.
Of that group of the original four, I am the only one still here. In
fact, of the people that I mentioned anywhere in any of my blogs
previous, I am the only one still in my county. At a year and a half of
experience I am by a full year the most experience person living in
Eumseong-gun and have now been given the position of Regional Moderator, which is really just a fancy way of saying that I run a training meeting a month. If I had written an entry one month ago there would have
been four people who had been here for two years and Phillipa would have
been finishing up her third. To think it was about this time in her
experience that she met me. A strange thought indeed. Since that time
they have added a new position for a TaLK scholar and have gotten a new
Hagwon teacher in the town of Janghowon. So I will take you through a quick rundown of the people in my town.
Nate, the Texan, stayed here about a year then moved to Cheongju where he is now a Hagwon teacher. We still keep in touch and he has come back a couple of times. He was replaced by Michael, a very young Korean American from Hawaii. Michael is a good time. He likes to go out and get a bite to eat or go grab a beer. He is really into Reddit and video games and movies and K-pop so me and him get along perfectly. It is nice to see him growing up before my eyes by learning to love beer, getting a tattoo and having a serious girlfriend who got too clingy so he had to dump. He actually hangs out with Nate a lot in Cheongju. He has a good since of humor and is the kind of guy who tries to not offend anyone. Sometimes that actually makes people offended, but as he grows up more he will learn that sometimes those things just happen. Sorry if I sound a little preachy here, I just like the kid and think he has a lot of promise.
Shaneel, the South African who was dating Nate, moved to Cheongju after half a year and they kind of stopped talking. I talked to her a bit and hung out with her a couple of times since then, but once you move to the city, it's kind of hard to bring yourself around to coming back to Gamgok. She dated an Englishman for awhile and I still see him around. Nice fella. She now lives in South Africa. When she left Cris Boronat moved in, and she was dating this guy named Tim who I saw a lot of who lived in Muguk. They were total hippie animal lovers who had hearts of gold. They finished a year and moved to a city outside Daejeon. Last time I heard they had one dog, but I think at one time it was up to three?
Graham finished up his second year here and decided he couldn't do another in the small town, so he made his way to Cheongju like Nate. Whenever I go and visit Graham I always see Nate also. Graham is now living in the town as two of my other English friends and it seems like they have a pretty good network of people living there. It's tempting to think that if I moved there I would already have a social circle set up. When Graham and Cris left they were replaced by a couple from rural Pennsylvania called Jess and Jeff. It is strange being in a town with five foreigners and one of them shares your name. It is also strange having a large beer drinking chain smoking Scotsman who swears like a sailor be replaced with these two soft spoken youngins who don't drink at all, but they are good people so far and I am looking forward to getting to know them.
The new TaLK scholar position was first filled by a Korean Canadian named Daniel Kim. He didn't live in our building but instead lived out at the school where he worked. He was ok with it. The school and the teachers liked him. He liked to come into town and drink and eat with us. Much fun was had. After him was Julie Jang. She was awesome. Another Korean Canadian. She was fluent in Korean and lived at the school also. Living out there kind of drove her crazy, but she would come into town and hang out with me and Phillipa a lot. I liked her so much. She was very quiet, but once she opened up was really funny. Also, there is something awesome about a chick who can sing K-pop songs because she has a good voice and she is fluent in Korean. She was so much fun to noraebang with. Now at her school is a man named Danny Kwak. He is Korean American and 31 years old. He was a lawyer back in LA and is over here to see if he likes teaching and to try and learn a lot of Korean. He is a really musical guy and I am looking forward to hanging out with him a lot more. He is totally laid back and rather chill to talk to. Him, Michael and myself often go out to get a bite to eat or a beer or something on Wednesdays or another day of the week.
Matt is the Hagwon teacher in Janghowon. He is a Canadian and has been here about six months now. He likes to go out and drink and eat and noraebang and all that good stuff. He has a giant black dog named Alfie who is very well behaved and rather cute. He is seriously committed to learning Korean and I think our skills are at about the same level, but he may be better than me already. Matt is dating a girl named EB who is just as sweet as she is Korean, and by that I mean 100% on both. She works a lot and is in another city entirely so we don't get to see her much, but she is a very very sweet girl.
K-pop surrounds me in this country. Music has always been a hobby of mine, and trivia has been a hobby especially, so when I came to a country where I knew none of the music I quickly tried to immerse myself. Over the past year since I wrote this, K-pop exploded around the world with Psy's smash "Gangnam Style" which got so overplayed here I wanted to gouge my own eardrum out, but luckily the days of Psy are over. So, as promised, here is the video for Lee Hi called "1,2,3,4" and you can tell she has a very soulful voice which is awesome. Also here is the video for Ailee called "I'll show you". My favorite part about that video is pretty much... well... everything. These are two of my favorite new artists, though Ailee is not so new. Anyway, enjoy and I will regale you with more tales of the past year when I return later this week or next.
