Sorries

So I've been kind of an epic fail at posting these days. I know I know, it's been less than a week since my last post, which is way better than most of my blogging friends out there, but it's pretty bad compared to my recent 3+ posts/week that had been going on for the last couple months.

I'm still hella busy, which is why I haven't been posting. I started a post on Friday, but that never got finished. So I'll leave you with these bits of blogging ridiculousness:

1. I FUCKING HATE HANGUL WRITING PROGRAM. This is not the written language that I hate, but rather a Korean word processor that I am required to use to prepare my worksheets/lessons for my summer camp. It's used for all government documents here, which I think is just fucking stupid. Here's the thought process: hey, we need a Korean language word processor, and right now (btw it's 1989 or something like that), nothing exists for that. Let's make one. *Fast Forward to 2000* Hey MSWord has Korean compatability now, and that's what the rest of the world is using, should we use that? Nah, fuck it, why would our government want to use that? It's not like we have to interact with other countries, right? So, now I'm stuck using this stupid program that has the weirdest formatting (when adding pictures it makes portions of your type disappear in the editing section, but when you print preview it, everything is there-- frustrating much?), and which doesn't work on my office computer so I have to use my significantly hotter and more uncomfortable classroom computer to even create these effing documents, which I cannot access on my mac laptop at home, nor will I be able to access stateside if I ever decide, hey, those were some good activities, I'd like to use them again.

2. I love M&Ms. My co-teacher bought me a couple bags. They are supposed to be for my summer camp class, but I have an extra bag of peanut m&ms which I just looooooooove. So, yeah, those are mine.

3. God tutoring the business man I tutor is ridiculous. So strange. He just shares with me these uncomfortable theories and stories and other things. These are the things he told me last night alone:
a) "Drinking one bottle vodka, okay, two bottles, I crazy" (I asked for clarification, how many people are drinking said bottle of vodka? He said, "me only one bottle, friend and me drinking together, two bottles vodka" Just thinking about drinking a whole bottle of vodka made me feel like I had severe alcohol poisoning)

"One bottle vodka okay, two bottles I crazy." 

b) *while discussing whether U.S. cities are dangerous, after baltimore was brought up* "Baltimore have many black people?" to which I replied, "yes, a fair number" to which he responded, "I see. In Seattle, very safe. My friend say Seattle is very safe, not many black people. I think in United States no job is very big problem. Many black people, not just black people but black people, hispanic people, have no job, and I think it is a very big problem to the government. People with no job take some money from government and other people work very hard and lose their money. But the people with no job, the black and hispanic people with no job, don't work, only take money." I attempted to clarify that often, the jobless people aren't jobless because they choose to be, but because they can't find work, due to the economy, lack of education, lack or resources, lack of a great number of things. It's really difficult to explain the idea that certain communities of people (black, white, hispanic, asian, middle eastern african, whatever) are basically raised into lives with few opportunities as opposed to other communities (of more wealth) where things like education, food, homes, and safety and handed to the inhabitants on a silver platter.
c) *showing me a text message he had received from a girl which contained her measurements* "shoulders is that just here to here" *points from right should to left* Yes, of course. *writes down all measurements* "Her waist, is ____cm (I don't remember). How many inches is that? Is that big or small?" After a quick calculation, I reply, "It's tiny." And her shoulders and like half of mine. "ah, I see. This is for Chinese girl. Very nice. She is the secretary for my business partner. She drives us to factories and helps negotiate sometimes. She is very pretty so good at negotiations. I am very thankful so I say I give her present. She says she wants Korean dress." Oh, she wants a hanbok (traditional Korean dress)? That's surprising. "No, she wants red dress, short skirt like this (indicates a very short skirt) so I must get this dress." Are these dresses not available in China? This is all too strange.

 I am certain that red mini dresses are available in China.

d) The kicker. "In Australia, I smoke Marijuana." (Mind you, this is all completely unprovoked. Like, he out of no where is like hey, I smoked pot back in the day). "In Australia, everyone smokes marijuana, you never try?" In response, I truthfully say, "nope, I've never tried marijuana. It's not my thing. A lot of my friend smoke, but not me." "Really?" he says in surprise, "Everyone in U.S.A. smokes the marijuana." Well, not everyone, but okay, I see his point. He goes on, "my friend and I one night Australia drinking, talking, drinking, and we go outside and he goes to a narrow street, you know, for the pissing (DIRECT QUOTE I SWEAR TO GOD), and I look over and he sit down and is rolling, you know, the marijuana, and then the police come, and they see him. I very nervous about the marijuana, and the police bring more police and they see the marijuana, but it is less than 12 grams so it is not for the selling so they say, it is okay and we go." Should the guy I tutor be talking about his run-ins with the Sydney law enforcement agency over marijuana.

I swear to god I did a google image search for "Australia Marijuana" and this was the fifth picture.

So, yeah, that's what I've been up to.

xoxo,
A

Melina's Visit Pt. 1

Melina came and while she was only actually in Incheon/Seoul for a mere 4.5 days, it enabled me to get to see some of the touristy sites in the beauty of spring, which certainly was nice. The weather has been positively glorious and sunny and warm and breezy. Perfect, imho.

Anyways, I'll start with some funny pictures from our trip into Bupyeong for kalbi dinner with Stephen. Stephen, being the douche-y friend he is tried to (awkwardly) talk to the waiter on my behalf (he was cute, but only 19 years old). It was horrifying. After dinner, we went to the weirdest makgeoli place (막걸리집) ever. Typically these places are rather traditional looking-- dimly lit with lots of wood and quiet traditional music and seating on the floor and stuff. This place, on the other hand, had disco balls, a dj and blaring Korean music. Plus, you could write on the walls. Which, of course we did.

Melina had this problem where she got drunk and dropped like 15 chopsticks. Also, we bought 떡 at Sinpo Marker (신포시장) and it was filled with black bean paste. Too much black bean paste.

 

Melina, Allison + Stephen 4E. Also I really do <3 Young-Bae a lot. And a funny pic of Melina and Stephen.

I actually effing hate Stephen. I can't stand him.

Our websites, plus dumbfoundead. I rep hard for DFD these days. Also, tryin' to promote my site, you know, get my readership up.

Anyways. The next day, Saturday, we did a lot of things, but I'll save that for my next post, tomorrow morning. Now, I'm effing exhausted. Funny how Mon-Thursday of 12+ hour work days (if you count korean class as work) plus a 9 hour day Friday will wear you out thoroughly.

Word.

Good Morning

It is presently 5:40 a.m. and I am awake. This is a pretty big miracle given the fact that I went to sleep at 1 a.m. drunk. Also, something I ate last night didn't sit right in my stomach, so i've  been cramping/nauseous all night/morning. I have to leave to get to the bus station in about 10 minutes. I will stop at McDonalds for breakfast and then I'll be on my way TO THAILAND!

Koh Yao and Bangkok, here I come!!!

Cake. Alcohol. Korea.

In a less than shocking turn of events, I got drunk last night. What is shocking, though, is that it was on soju, my most loathed alcohol, AND I didn't even get too hungover.

Have I ever told you how much I love this country? Sometimes, I feel like I'm at home here. Right about now is one of those times. My students are absolute dolls. Everyone here is LOVELY.

Tonight, I'm meeting a couple people for dinner and then we are going to go make a cake!! Or attempt to make a cake. Given the imminent language barrier, we will see how it goes. If successful, I will post pictures soooooon!

I'm pretty sure I'm not leaving this country for a while. *^_____________^*

My Korean classes start up again next week. On my list of things to learn how to say: without, I have _________, You are handsome, what time is it, how old are you, I am ___- years old.

xoxo
A

Dream Concert 2009

This post had to be labeled 2009, because I will inevitably return for another Dream Concert (it's held annually). Ok. So this shall be the epic post about my weekend. And by epic, I mean it's epic only if you love me a lot and care about the things I do or if you are really into kpop. If both statements fit you, this will be a good blogpost.

So Dream Concert was this Saturday, October 10 (HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH COMSTOCK! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH). It was probably the most amazing thing that has happened to me in Korea. This is because I love kpop more than I love life itself. I don't know when this happened, but I seriously could listen to kpop only for the rest of my life. Okay, so that's probably not true, but I do love love love kpop. It's like I'm back to being 13 again, and it's fine by me.

SO, without any further ado, my weekend:

Saturday afternoon= Frisbee practice, as per usual, but a bit earlier, 11-1:30 or so. I leave at 1:30, and hope on the subway to World Cup Stadium to meet with Robyn, for whom I had bought an extra ticket so we could sit together. Because I had just finished playing ultimate for 2+ hours, I was sweaty and stinky and needed to shower. However, I HAD to go to the stadium to give Robyn my e-tickets for her to exchange for real tickets (see earlier post). Evidentally, I went up the wrong escalator (the hoards of hundreds of screaming fangirls made it difficult to choose what escalator I wanted to use) and I couldn't find Robyn. Soooo, I'm looking around trying to figure out where to go, when I hear shouting, "Allison Teacher, Allison teacher!!" I turn around and to my utter surprise and elation are 8 of my students, on a simultaneous sugar high and adrenaline rush due to the concert which would begin in a mere 4 hours. I asked them to guide me to where I could get my e-tickets exchanged and they guided me almost directly to Robyn. I love my students. They were so excited to see me. This is the stadium the concert was at, with the concert banners flying. Dream Concert=15 korean artists/singers/groups performing on one stage over the course of 4 hours.

I then returned to Bekah's in Noksapyeong to shower and get ready for the show. I was in quite a rush because I was nervous we would have problems exchanging the tickets or the lines would be really long and I wouldn't be able to get in. Luckily, this fear was unwarranted as neither situation came true. Hopped back on the subway to World Cup Stadium AGAIN, where I met with Robyn AGAIN and went in. I hadn't eaten much of anything all day, given that I'd been rushing around. I had had one ice cream cone, a bag of potato chips and a bowl of cereal all day, and don't forget, I had practice earlier. I figured the stadium would sell the Korean version of stadium food (idk, ddeokboggi, kimbab ppeppero and whatnot in lieu of popcorn, nachoes and crackerjacks). Unfortunately i was mistaken as all the real food had sold out (WTF, did you not realize thousands of people would be here for this event?) and all that was left was potato chips, soda and coffee. So, I dined on those items throughout the concert. Going in, we saw a cameraperson filming us walking up the stairs so we did a quick pose, waving and peace-signing to the camera. Interestingly, the lady stopped us and we did a quick interview. idk if we made it on air, but I was totally a screaming fangirl the whole time. haha. Basically my interview went: OH MY GOD! BIG BANG IS MY FAVORITE! I'M FROM FLORIDA! I LOVE KPOP! I LOVE TAEYANG! I LOVE BIG BANG! end scene. We sat down in the corner of the stadium in the setting sun, anticipating the start of the concert. The picture to the left is a good indication of where exactly our seats were in relation to the stage.

Waited around in the setting sun. Discovered that we were sitting in the midst of a couple thousand SuperJunior fanclub members. For future reference, the SuperJunior fan club is called E.L.F., which stands for (no I'm not kidding here) EverLasting Friends. Seriously. We sat with the Everlasting Friends. Oh Konglish and your ridiculous English creations. So, we sat with ELF and were given blue SuperJunior ELF balloons (so wonderful, see left) which were used to wave around in excitement the entirety of the concert. I also bought a blue superjunior glowstick (I would have liked a BigBang one, but I think some SuJu fan girls would have slit my throat at the blasphemy). I got yelled at by the girls that sat behind me because I accidentally turned my light-up glow stick on too early. I turned it on, you know, just to check it out, and the girls behind us (in their first words to us of the day) screamed Noooooooooooooooooooo! OFF OFF OFF OFF! No Now, no now! I was very embarassed and apologetic, but they were forgiving (thank goodness).

Luckily, we made friends with these girls and they instructed me precisely when to turn on and turn off my glowstick (there are very strict rules regarding this situation here). I wanted to take a picture with them, but I don't think they would have gone for it. Plus, I forgot. Also, immediately (we are talking seconds) after my glowstick faux pas, Robyn was playing with her balloon and it popped. Naturally, the manner in which it popped was most unfortunate. The balloon burst into several pieces, the largest of which nailed a fangirl in the row in front of us right in the eye. I burst out in laughter, on the verge of tears, while the girl peeled the ripped rubber balloon piece off her face. omg, freakin' waegooks (that's foreigner in korean)

Anyways, so onto to the actual show. IT WAS AMAZING. I was actually this excited to be seeing BigBang. This picture was taken the moment G-D came on. Note the glowstick. I got yelled at again to turn it off during bigbang (I had to keep it fairly quiet that I like big bang better than SuperJunior. I didn't want to lose a limb that night)

My favorite acts? 4minute (They sing Hot issue, one of the catchiest songs I know), 2ne1 (only performed 2 songs, but it was amazing), BIG BANG (omg, G-D did Heartbreaker and I cried a bit, with excitement, it was that good; then Taeyang did My Girl, and I basically had a heartattack, then they all did Lies and it was the most wonderful 3 minutes of my life). Taeyang got a lot of big screen time, and as such, I got LOTS of pictures of my boyfriend-to-be. Also, SuperJunior was amazing, and so was MCMong. He performed this catchy song that I didn't know called Circus. I'm planning on downloading that bad boy asap. Did I mention the pyrotechnics?? Best fireworks I've ever seen at a concert. Ever. It was great.

Pictures:

1. Taeyang, my boyfriend, singing LIES
2. Fireworks during Girls' Generation
3. 4minute singing Hot Issue
4. 2ne1 signing I Don't Care

After the show, I met up with frisbee people near Hongdae, at Sinchon. Everyone was hanging outside this little bar (because there were babies and the music was too loud inside the bar. This was convenient because it made it easy to find them, and it made it possible to go to the 7-11 and get some Ramyeon since I hadn't eaten anything all day. Went to the bar, had some beers, played a few rounds of flip cup, drank some more beers, danced, did a shot of tequila with anthony, danced some more. I was trying to get people to go home and get something more to eat (ramyeon didn't fully satiate my hunger) when I got tricked into doing a shot with yong. By that I mean, I go to the bar, and he's like, listen, do this shot of rum, it's not bad, and you get this orange to suck on after and it tastes pretty good. So I was like, fine fine. And then the bartender comes over with a bottle of 151, no joke, and I'm like, wait, you didn't say it was 151, and Yong was like, uh, it wasn't last time. But it was too late, the shots were poured, so I had my first ever shot of 151, and it was DISGUSTING. But, it did make me wonderfully warm and spectacularly drunk very quickly. Left the bar as a group, but everyone splintered, and I ended up at KFC with Tweezy. Perhaps this only because I was drunk, but I firmly believe that KFC in Korea is significantly better than it is in the States. had a sandwich and a soda, and then we took a cab back to Noksapyeong station and stumbled up the hill (because we didn't know bekah's actual address). Spent the night on the hardwood floor at bekahs. That was unfortunate, because I later found out there was an open bed spot.... gaaah.

Waffle Factory (again) Sunday morning for breakfast with bekah adam and tweezy (nothing like pancakes, bacon, ham and eggs to get you ready for an ultimate game). Rocked league. Had fried chicken and dominoes for dinner at the fields. Headed home.

AWESOME WEEKEND.

Weekend in Review

This weekend was awesome! I loved playing for Sweet Chili, the team from Gainesville I played with. It was composed of a lot of FUEL/UF players (me, meg, pav, j. feil, rob love, justin, greg, etc), and that is always lots of fun. It was exceptionally hot all weekend, and I'm quite sure I've never sweated so much as I did that weekend. After playing all day Saturday, greg took me, meg and pav to target to buy swimsuits because we were going to go swimming at the hotel. I got a new all brown bathing suit that's pretty cute. We went swimming and got yelled at for throwing the frisbee in the water while there were kids there (we never even came particularly close to hitting anyone even). Showers. I lost my big toenail for the fifth or sixth time (I've lost count; that's a bad sign). Olive Garden for din-din. Smokey Bones for darts against laura (first time, I got wrecked). Sleep. Repeat on Sunday, minus the toenail loss and olive garden and add in chili's.

I don't believe I've posted this on here, but I figured I might as well. I'm on a temporary no drinking cycle right now. I haven't had any alcohol for over two weeks, and I'm trying to avoid it as much as possible. It's too expensive to buy, and it's full of calories (especially beer, which is the drink of choice at frisbee things). I'm trying to lose a couple pounds, and I figure cutting out beer/liquor would be a good way to start.

Today was crazy, with lots of tutoring and whatnot. Tonight I have to plan plan plan for this week and hope everything goes well.

xoxo,
A