The Coldest Winter

Fog stumbled in over the hills today...

Haha just kidding. Although it did, and it made me wonder about this Berkeley that has such breezy springs, mild autumns and dry winters. So why the sad summers?

So, uh...Why South Korea?

1. The threat of nuclear attack excites me.
2. I'm actually half-Korean.
3. I love pickled cabbage like nobody's business.

Actually, number 3 is pretty true.

I've been asked the "Why South Korea" question a lot lately so I thought I'd address it here. For those of you who don't know, I'm going to teach English in Seoul, South Korea for a year. I like to travel and have never been to Asia so I started looking into teaching gigs in the East. What I found was interesting: there are tons of jobs for inexperienced college grads in Korea.

While many people flock to Japan to teach in their JET program, Korea has steadily built up its EPIK (and GEPIK) programs for teaching in public schools, and recruitment agencies have sprung up everywhere hiring for private schools (called hagwons). Because there is such high demand for English-speaking teachers and because of the relative popularity of the JET program, Korean teaching jobs (1) pay more, (2) cover round-trip airfare and sometimes housing, and (3) accept a very high percentage of applicants.

So I applied to a couple of recruitment agencies and was accepted. The next thing I know, I'm being offered a job teaching at a hagwon. I might blog more about the differences between public schools and hagwons later (or at least what I've heard about them) but for now I'll just say that my hours are pretty sweet (4-10:30 pm) and my vacation time is pretty awful (7 days, unpaid).

I know what you're thinking: "Whaaaa? 7 days unpaid vacation in a year? I'd kill myself!" But wait, it gets worse...Not only is it 7 days, but they must all be taken consecutively which means that it's really 5 weekdays and 2 weekend days I'd already be getting off. Sounds pretty awful, no? AAAnd I can't take any vacation until after the first 6 months. Sucks. So to battle moderate clinical depression I came up with an ingenious (read: sketchy) plan to make it better. And it is this plan that makes me giddy with excitement about my 12-month adventure to Korea.

(Today college ended. FML)

Oenology and Oh-no-logy

I went wine tasting today with a couple of friends and was amused, as always, by the descriptions of the wines provided by the vineyard:

Luna Vineyard 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon
"The deep blackberry color carries through on the nose, mingled with cedar and tea leaves. On the palate, there are more black fruits and graphite combined with excellent intensity..."

Mmm graphite.... Then I figured, I can write that! Here goes...

2006 Pinot Grigio
Deep euchre with a few streaks of chartreuse, this wine looks like a Middle Eastern sunrise in the springtime. With the scent of a newborn golden retriever puppy, it approaches the tongue tentatively, tantalizing the tip with three or possibly four types of cherry, before dominating the palate with creme de cacao and cinnamon. It has a strong, dusty finish that leaves the mouth feeling both dehydrated and extremely satisfied. This wine peaked like two years ago and should no longer be consumed.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon
With the somber carmine color of gingivitis-ravaged gums, this wine approaches the nose with verve and anticipation. It leaps into your nostrils with the scent of powdery old people and then softens into the chalky nostalgia of childhood. Upon the tongue it is a creamy rendition of eggnog gently mixed with crunchy under-ripe papaya. It ends on sour gummy bears and tears. Thirty seconds later, it restarts with a chewy coda of caramel and cotton candy, before once again descending into the bitter taste of despair. This wine continues to age despite its overstay and should peak around 2050 when you've forgotten you even have it.

2004 Merlot
Although deceptively quiet, when given a brisk swirl this wine has the legs of a Las Vegas showgirl. Its rich infrared color and thick syrupy texture make for a curious contradiction only matched by the juxtaposition of the scent of blueberry nectar and the stings of honeybees. The tongue appreciates this wine best with pie, especially rhubarb pie.

my favorite local band

When I was in high school I went to shows instead of going to see movies. My (only) three friends and I fell in love with this one-man band called Dave Smallen (later a real band called Street to Nowhere that got signed by Capitol Records and then broke up to become, once again, Dave Smallen.) We pretty much followed him around the bay watching him perform. So, in high school I wrote what I now know is called "flash fiction" (a short story usually fewer than 700 words.) Here goes:

You’d walk into the club and it’s stuffy and crowded and loud and Who’s playing right now? and What? and Let’s go to the back and They’re really good, you wanna check out their merch? Everyone would be bumping into each other and pushing and looking at the people pushing and bumping and Hey he’s cute and What? and Nevermind. Then the band you came to see would go on stage and the atmosphere would change. Expectation. Did he cut his hair? and Is the bass player new? and then More on the monitors, less on the violin and Check, check, cheeeeeeeck just to see what it sounds like while he’s singing. And then the he’d talk and say Hello and Thank you for coming out and the music would start and everyone would kinda mumble the words and then they’d say them louder and then, at the climax, One, two, three, one, two, three, Yeah! And for the first time, just for a moment, while everyone is jumping and singing at the top of their lungs and its hot and everyone’s bumping into each other and pushing and What? he’d open his eyes, just the once, just to take it all in and you’d see him open his eyes, only you’d notice and for that one moment you felt like you knew him.

Galway

I'm taking two poetry classes and, after over two months, I think I've finally cracked under the pressure. I'm officially in touch with my feelings and I want to write gushy romantic poems under trees while drinking black coffee and supporting socialism. Here's the first:

(Revised 11/13)

Galway

Fog stumbled in over the hills today,
I welcomed its chilly presence,
And it reminded me, for some reason, of Galway,
Whose weather, I’d felt, was always immense.

For Galway couldn’t but be beautiful,
The sky is always grey,
The clouds are always full,
The sun beats but a ray,
And yet, the rain reminded me to be careful
of the area nearest a quay.

For it was there that I came upon a goose
and it was there that I heard the sweet songs
of a person on the street whose words were so damn loose
and beautiful and real and strong
that I couldn’t help but keep listening
and imagining myself in those songs
until the rain, the rain came glistening
and it had been too long,
and it was time, time to keep moving,
time to forget about those songs.

But Galway couldn’t but be beautiful
Its sky is always grey,
The clouds are always full,
The sun beats but a ray,
And yet, the rain reminded me to be careful
of that city by a bay.

For it was there that I walked beside the sands.
It was there I saw a woman with her dog.
And I saw a soccer game with no fans,
for it was being played, by locals, near the bay, in the fog.
And I kept walking, walking, and just by chance

I saw a convent, there, beyond a wall.
I wanted to reach it, to see it, to snap it, like such,
but I was afraid, afraid that I would fall,
and the height of the wall is too, too much.
So instead, I took a picture from where I stood tall
and as you can see, it’s just out of touch.

Yet Galway couldn’t but be beautiful
Its sky is always grey,
The clouds are always full,
The sun beats but a ray,
And yet, the rain reminded me to be careful
of the darkness that comes at the end of the day.

We went into a pub when the evening was done,
where warmth overcame us. We sat at the bar,
and the bodies around us moved as if one
for a rugby game united the air.
The locals sang and they shouted, and enjoyed their beer.
We drank and we watched but we didn’t dare
join in, lest we muffle their great Irish cheer.

So back to the hostel, my friends and I
returned that evening, full heavy and tired.
But just outside, up in the strong Galway sky
the pregnant clouds released their great prize
and below, the one being that yet remained dry
was enveloped by this sorrowful cry.
The crowds leaked out and laughed in reply,
for they were no strangers to this moody goodbye
but when I looked up, a drop in my eye
led me to think, and then think, and then only to sigh:

That Galway couldn’t but be beautiful
Its sky is always grey,
The clouds are always full,
The sun beats but a ray,
And yet, the rain reminded me to be careful
of finding a city but losing my way.

Don't make fun of me. It's a work in progress.

Oh the people you'll meet

Now that my semester abroad is coming to an end, I've been reflecting back on the last 5 months. Since I have little else to do, the weather is crap, and I have half an hour before the old man re-opens his boulangerie, the revelations have been flooding in, one epiphanous moment at a time.

Epiphany #1: Living abroad is hard. Living abroad in France is harder.

Abroad: the euro
France: the euro plus 20% tax on everything that goes toward subsidies for farmers, national healthcare, cheap education, and other stuff that foreign students don't benefit from

Abroad: no peanut butter
France: no peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies, Mexican food, Chinese food, Thai food...but McDonald's is everywhere

Abroad: snooty people
France: really snooty people

Abroad: things are closed on Sunday
France: things are closed Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the occasional Tuesday and half a day on Friday

Abroad: everyday things are expensive, and there are no dryers
France: it costs 10 euros to do laundry.

There are, of course, some positive exceptions:

1. Berkeley means something, and it's impressive
2. Wine, bread, cheese
3. Really attractive people
4. Cheap, efficient, relatively reliable public transportation
5. The president is an idiot, but he's not Bush

Epiphany #2: You should say 'yes' to everything. OK, I stole this mantra from my boss at my last job, but it turned out to be true. Always say 'yes', to another shot, another scoop of gelato, or to Gaultier, the guy we met outside a bar who tried to get my friends and I to go over to his apartment.


Epiphany #3: People can be pretty cool. I know, I've fought against it for so long, resisting the urge to relate with others of my species, yet somehow in this state of selfish revelatory moments, I was struck by the realization that some people are pretty cool. And the type of person who studies abroad is really damn cool. That's not to say that I didn't meet people I didn't particularly like, but the most interesting, adventurous, and crazy people I've ever met were abroad. And I think I like those three qualities in a person. Moodiness aside, I had the most consistently social semester ever, and I don't think it's only due to the fact that I could legally buy alcohol.

I don't want to get too sentimental, or specific, but some of the cool people I met had the following peculiarities:

1. They cooked well, and sometimes fed me.
2. They didn't usually comment on the quantity or type of food I ate. (In fact, some of them disgustingly encouraged me.)
3. They were really funny, sometimes on purpose and sometimes not.
4. They drank. Frequently.
5. They went out with me, and stayed in with me.
6. They were wordly (a.k.a, read the New York Times and/or BBC, traveled with me even though they knew that I'm really grumpy in the morning, and spoke several languages.)
7. They were really smart.
8. They had a lot to say (usually about interesting stuff that I didn't even know existed.)
9. They said really inane things that actually turned about to be accurate or brilliant.
10. They put up with me (although this quality is debatable since they had nowhere to go, few others to speak English with, and some of them even had to live with me.)

I think I've really grown, inwardly and girth-wise. Well, it's 6:30, which means I can stop having revelations and eat dinner.