In Honour Of My Good Friend's Birthday I'll Title This Korean Comfort

Time for an update.

Since I'm sitting here doing nothing and my computer is back from the dead, let's start with those two things, shall we?

It's the holiday LOOONG weekend and I'm enjoying the frig out of it doing nothing! Happy year of the monkey, everyone! Okay, now to be more like me: I have a wicked cold. I mean hide under the covers, tingle when you move, two TP roll a day, ab work-out coughing, wicked cold! But at least I haven't had to work through it! I find myself getting better at finding positives where they aren't so obvious. I look over at the trash can literally heaping with snot sogged clumps of toilet paper and feel the entire 360 degrees of my core BEGGING me to not cough or sneeze or blow my nose for just a few minutes, but no can do. I HAD plans for the holiday weekend but it seems the powers that be had others.

I probably didn't help matters much when on Saturday I went out and bought my wifi router. See, I needed a router to have good enough wifi to use a printer here. I've been buying printing at an exorbitant rate for all my teaching needs. The hagwon where I work HAS a copier and STILL I'm paying a lot of money to copy out lessons and laminate stuff. It happens when you are teaching 30 hours a week. So I needed to SPEND money to SAVE money. Get a router and a printer and STILL within a couple of months I'd save. Seriously I think I spent about 100 bucks in the month of January printing stuff out. Well, there was laminating and buying other stationary too I guess. But it's still a big expense.

So I was out in the driving sleet, with a cold, walking INTO the wind, UPHILL, to E-Mart on Saturday to get a router. Not exactly true, I went to Hi Mart and another place too but E-Mart had the best deal. I was walking around in the cold, wet snow. With a cold. For hours. Then I bought groceries and walked home, UPHILL, in the cold and driving... no wait a minute I took a taxi. But still waiting for it and getting in and out...

I guess it was a lucky thing I did because the next day I was in no shape to do anything. I stayed in the house. The day after THAT was Monday, Sunday in the States, and at 8:30 AM the Superbowl was on. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Sunday during my do nothing day, I did SOMEthing. I cleaned up the house. Swept, and used the crappy mop I bought at E-Mart. Some things in Korea are not created equally. Mops, buckets, garbage cans, bread bags, the list goes on. Try to find a trash can when you need one to avoid littering. I dare ya! But go into ANY squat, sit or freestyle toilet and low and behold, there ya go! Full of used toilet paper. The only trashcan in the country you DON'T want to see, and, BOOM, there it is! And bread bags... Now that they actually HAVE a few of the things we recognize as bread here in Korea and not the sweet, white poundcake shaped like bread that we've all mistakenly bought, NOW they have to mess with the packaging! Can somebody PLEASE tell me who the genius is who decided to SEAL the bread bag and then twist it and tie it off with a twist tie or the usual plastic bread clamp? You know the ones we made finger flingers from. EVERYthing is the same except that stupid seal! There is no possible way to get into your bag of bread without rendering the bag twist and twist tie or bread clamp utterly useless. Somebody DO something, PLEASE!

But anyway, mops. I had to pay about 20 bucks for a mop that looked like a dry mop. Well it IS a dry mop. But the only thing I could find otherwise was one of those sponge mops. Don't like those cuz how long does sponge last? So I buy a dry mop so that I can wet mop with it. This is the very definition of compromise and you find yourself doing this a lot in Korea. So I had to sweep the floor 3 times. While we're on the subject, brooms, no not just brooms, practically ANYthing used for cooking or cleaning, where height is an issue, is designed for someone 5 foot nothing. The longest brooms you can find have you bowing down like a humble servant you probably ARE if you are sweeping up someone else's hair and toenails. Single men are, you will find in Korea, an all but non-existent target market. But I found one! I found a broom with a NORMAL length handle! Or stick, or shaft or whatever the working end of a broom is called. But with that long shaft came sacrifices. The bristles. Seriously! How much science goes into the bristles of a broom. For 100 years people used HAY! They STILL do! I SAW them while I was still in the country in Icheon! Hay brooms all over the place! They had shafts no more than a foot or two long but... This is what I'm saying. If you want bristles that don't suck up, or leave behind the dust and dirt, you settle for a short shaft. If you want a long shaft, you get shitty bristles. Well I'm a long shaft man. Shut up, you filthy pigs, I know what you're thinking.

With all the time I spend bending over the sink, which isn't even up to my nads, cooking at my stove, which is LOWER, and bending over to do other cleaning chores, I wanted the luxury of a long shaft, standing erect as I used it oooOOOOOH MY GOD! Stop it you gutter denizens! Suffice to say I have a shitty broom AND mop because they both have long sticks, or handles or shafts.

So I swept 3 times, mopped with a wet dry mop, then went around picking up clumps of dust and dirt WITH MY FINGERS that neither managed to pick up. Least I didn't have to bend over too far. Also I sprayed and scrubbed some more of the windows and tiles around the house that the previous tennant had neglected during the summer and had grown thick with black mold. Not my first battle with THAT I assure you. In fact I think if it hasn't contributed to my present state of health, it certainly hasn't been good for it. That black mold is just no good! And it thrives in Korean summers, lemme tell you! No avoiding it without vigilant cleaning. And the dude who was here before me was a Korean bachelor. About 5' 10 I'd guess. Too tall for cleaning I reckon.

Then after the house had a nice, bleachy smell to it, I watched some live NHL hockey. The Canucks lost, of course, but their newest player scored. A cheesy goal. Ar ar. Little joke there for the Canuck fans.

I downloaded a few movies and watched one or two. I was LOVING the fast internet and the fast wifi! And since I was pretty sure I'd be in the house for the entire long weekend, since I was feeling worse and worse health-wise, I thought that was a good thing. Then, without any kind of deterioration, warning, reason, clue as to why, the old laptop just died. Dead. I mean I couldn't even get it to boot up. I got a black screen for hours. Not blue, black. It was turning itself off as fast as I could turn it on. I let it sit for a while and managed to start it in safe mode and try every trick I knew but nothing was making any difference and even in safe mode everything took FOREVER! I was up at 5 AM, (which I was every morning I had had the cold), trying enything I could on my computer and finally at halftime, 10:30ish?, I was able to watch the second half of the game. I STILL don't know what happened to my computer but it remains a mystery. This booting I'm on right now took half an hour. Just to get to a point where I could do anything.

I suppose it has something to do with the history of this computer. I bought it in Indonesia. First mistake. They sold me a computer with several months off its warranty and a shitty battery so that a few month into its life the battery died. I couldn't use it without having it plugged in. When I got to Korea I took it to an Asus dealer. I had only had it half a year but they said my one year warranty had run out and the price they asked to fix it was more than I had. This is not the kind of computer you just buy a battery for either. It's sort of sealed. So the average layman can't work on it. So I have just been plugging it in and using direct power for about a year now. I think now that I'm in Korea and I have sizzling fast internet and wifi, I may have overloaded my crippled computer and just burnt it out for a day. It's STILL not working right. But I get my good computer in a month or so. Probably longer. We'll see. Let's make that our third topic.

I packaged up some stuff before leaving Canada and my brother Mark agreed to store it for a month or so till I got settled in Indonesia. Well that turned into a year and a half of trying desperately to find a job and a legal contract so that I could get that shipment sent. Mark needed the storage space so he transferred the stuff to my Mom's house. I have already paid over 500 bucks for the shipment, (then cancelled the shipment but told them to re-route it, when I found out I couldn't get a KITAS, (proper work visa in Indo)), and now found out that it's going to cost almost as much again to send it to Korea. But I'm going to get that done Thursday, day after tomorrow, when banks open up again here. After that I'll just have to wait and hope the company is for real and not scamming me. THEN when it gets here I'll have to pay to take it from Seoul to Gangneung. A pretty penny I'm sure.

But It'll be worth it! The TOTAL helplessness I felt when this computer was down! I don't EVER want to feel that way again! I could write a song about it! I'm telling you! Just to type on a keyboard instead of having my sausage fingers dragging A's into S's and such on my phone and/or tablet, is a stress reliever! I mean take the lyrics from almost any heart-throbbing, overzealous love song and apply it to this situation. "I don't wanna live without you..." "How am I supposed to live without you? Now that I've been computing on you so long..." "Gone gone gone you been gone so long... You didn't have to leave me, didn't have to run, didn't have to go without a word to anyone." "Baby come back. Any kind of fool could see. I was wrong. And I just can't live without you."

And so on. Feel free to comment with songs I have neglected. I am living on a fine, fine line between technology and quasi-tech. I could still get on the internet and do stuff with the phone and the Kindle, but I can't type, make lessons, watch live streaming sports, download good stuff or see anything on my BIG MASSIVE 8 inch screen without it! Talk about a dire state of affairs! Hahaha!

Really puts things into perspective eh? I bet it wasn't more than 10, definitely 15 years ago when this would have made no sense to me at all. Back then I was PROUD to be the only dude in Korea who wasn't enslaved by a beeper or even worse a "handphone." Things change. They do.

And I guess that's one of the reasons I am, lo and behold, back here again. In Korea. I guess it's like the two things we've talked about already. It absolutely sucks that I couldn't go see my beloved friends in Seoul and watch the Superbowl with them and play with the kids and drink and B.S. with the adults, who are my age and my kind of people! And I have a cold, and my computer is slowly fading away and daily challenging my skills with it until I feel like a computer EMT. And I feel like Mike Tyson has done a body blow workout on me. DAMN that sucks! But I got to stay home with a cold and that gave me a good excuse to be lazy and do nothing while at the same time avoiding terrible travelling woes during holiday season in Korea. So, despite sucking, this weekend has turned out to be okay.

This is the very kind of silver lining thinking that allows people like me to stay in Korea. It's not that it's all bad. God no! There are all kinds of great things about Korea that I miss when I'm not here! I absolutely love the food! I TRAVEL to food festivals to eat a particular type of food. Like this summer when I went with the entire Peet/Spiwak clan to the ChunCheon Dalk Kalbi Festival. We had Dalk Kalbi for lunch and Dalk Kalbi for dinner. The time we were there was nothing compared to the time spent on an overcrowded train. But we ALL thought it was worth it! Cuz dalk kalbi is just that awesome!

Like going to Suwon to see the Kimchi museum. NONE, exactly NONE of my students are aware of this museum. I have been there and tasted the wares! I've had plenty of Koreans tell me I've seen more of this country than they have. And for that privelege I am grateful. As am I grateful for the freedom to bitch about it the way I do. There are contries where this post would be blocked and I would be thrown in jail. Not here in Korea. And I say, "Korea," because other than name, the NORTH of Korea is not the same. It doesn't qualify for much of the good things I have to say about Korea. (South). So much so that I don't feel the need to ever say "South." Or type it.

I saw a post online tonight on Facebook written by a Korean dude about how bad Korea is. And while I found myself agreeing with every single point, I found myself DISagreeing with the whole point of the article. Or what I thought it was. It was yet another thing here like every contract I've had. You'll find bad things about it. You'll get ripped off. But when the dust clears, anh, it's not so bad. Is it? I think the guy who wrote this article was, and is, like I was at one point, and still am from time to time, an idealist, and would accept nothing less for Korea than perfection. I can only think of one other place I am like that for: Canada. My own country. I want only what's best for Canada and REAL Canadians and will accept nothing less. I feel that the writer of this article may have been like that. But I put up a comment that defended Korea. I noticed many of the people agreeing with this guy had been in Korea for over 10 years. Like myself. One guy said he'd been here for 22! So I said that the guys who are echoing his bad comments about the country seem to be staying in it. Probably due to this theory of mine that even after the bad, it's good. That should be a tourism slogan! "Korea: After the bad, it's good!"

At any rate, even in this nice 5-day weekend there has been some bad, but over all it's been good. Same with my first month and a half at Mac Hagwon. There has been some bad but overall it's been good. I'm pretty sure the worst is behind us now. If we go on for the rest of the year like we're going now everything will be clickety click. I put together my schedule and my attendance forms for my classes tonight. 3 hours it took me. For the month of February. I'll do that again next month. But as long as they let me do my thang and don't rip me off, we'll be just fine. I think we'll be just fine.

So what have I said? In the grand scheme of things. Is there no pure good? Is there no pure evil? Does the belief in one or the other absolutely say something about the believer? All I know is that here in Korea there is an overwhelming negativity among the locals and foreigners alike. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a Korean. I've heard close friends describe the sacrifices and obligations and roles they have to play to make it here. I had to do that too but, as I've said a gozillion times, here in Korea, it's to a completely different extent. I think. But we all find some positives if we can and we derive our inspirations from them. A skill all foreigners, VETERAN waygooks, (foreigners in Korean), seem to take advantage of here. I'm not saying people don't do that in their own countries, just, as I've said a gozillion times before, it's more extreme in Korea.

So while these people were slagging Korea, Korean people amongst them!, I'm changing from my resting "Korea sucks" and compassionately delving into the realities of my more prudent "Korea is pretty darn good," mode. And I comment as such. Something I told them, they won't see often. But that goes for this post as well. Won't see it often. Although I suppose I have begrudgingly praised Korea more than usual in my latest posts. This one even moreso. Despite the minor complaints about mops and trash and bread bags, I am where I want to be. Korea has provided me with comfort. And though it comes with its challenges, which I will continue to whinge on and on about, I love this place. Oh shit, did I say "love?" Yikes! Well, I want the reader to know that I have had the precise amount of alcohol required to stretch the word, "like" into "love." But how much worse is it if I had said I like Korea? Really? I do. And I am sure these pages will contain many reasons for that like. Or "love," as I have so drunkenly labelled it.

I have to drunk dial and drunk facebook a whole bunch of people. So I'll see you later.