The ellipsis. A serviceable blogging tool denoting, when I use it, "we shall see." That's what those three dots stand for. Which means one dot is a "see." It could be a we or a shall, but it's not, when I use a single dot, it's a see. That last sentence means one dot is a see, see? The one before means that's what those three dots stand for see? Two dots would make no kind of sense. We shall? Or we see? Or see shall? Sometimes though, it means and so on. But usually for me, we shall see. Okay, now that THAT's clear... <--- See there is your and so on. You know what's next, I don't have to type it. And it's the same key. I don't have to look around on the keyboard if I know where . is, I just bang it three times. Easy peasy Japanesey. I dig the ellipsis.
How we doin' so far? Ahhh crap, it's only 5:55 AM. I still have PLENTY of time to got to immigration, then the bank. Guess I'll tell you why I'm up at 5:55 and why I have to go to my two least favourite places in existence. That'll kill more time.
You may have read about my adventure in Guam. How I almost didn't go, then almost didn't come back. I could have been stranded there. In fact, I actually was! In fact part II, I have a friend who at this very moment is in Thailand where he had planned to be for two days. He might end up being forced to stay there for a month or longer. It shows you how we are all slaves to the airlines. If getting patted down, taking off your shoes, jacket, belt and hat, surrendering your toothpaste, water and toenail clippers so you can sit in an uncomfortable, overpriced seat for several hours, hadn't already made that abundantly clear. Yeah my buddy Hein. Heinrich. He lives in Nam. But he went to Thailand, probably for the same reason I had to go to Guam, visa shit. Can somebody please explain to me why you can't get a visa for the country you're in WHILE you're in that country? I KNOW it can happen because I've done it before. I think it's just something that makes immigration workers happy. And if you know anything about immigration workers, you know that the thing that makes them happiest is inconveniencing people. I have to say this is one way the banks have it over on immigration. At least when I send money home to Canada, I don't have to take it physically on a plane back to Canada. We electronically transfer it. Why the hell can't we electronically transfer ourselves out of the country we're in, get a friggin' visa, then electronically transfer ourselves back? You telling me this is impossible? Anybody ever ASK immigration why this is necessary? I have. You know what they say. "We're sorry to inconvenience you but this is done for your protection." "We're sorry" at immigration has a meaning like three dots for me. Three dots means and so on or we shall see, at immigration, we're sorry means we're happy. We're happy to inconvenience you. We're happy you missed your flight because of our incompetence. We're happy to force you to do the same damn increasingly expensive and superfluous things every single year. …
And the phrase "for your protection" is just as bogus in both banks and immigration. How are you protecting me? I didn't ask for your protection. Police. Firefighters. Malware killers and VPN's. THEY protect me. Immigration and banks don't protect me. In fact it's the LACK of protection from my Canadian bank that has necessitated the visit to my Korean bank. TD Canada TRUST. Don't ever bank there, because you CAN'T. Trust them that is. My account has been hacked three or four times. The first and second times by a girl. She used her name to get a Canadian Tire credit card on my bank account. I, I, I can't even get a credit card on my bank account! It was obvious to me that she was an employee of my bank. It was obviouser when I asked my bank to report this person to the authorities and they told me that they were not at liberty to tell me who she was. There's another fine phrase! At liberty to. It means free to. You really are not free to tell me who's stealing money from me? Who is robbing your bank? Exactly who is limiting that freedom? It seems to me that I hear a lot of "for your protection," but all I'm seeing is for a thief's protection. I have $14.98 in my account and the monthly 15-dollar account fees can't be taken out, I receive an automatic $50.00 penalty. They don't want to take the $14.98 out because that would leave your account at negative 2 cents. They don't want to do this because my account does not come with any loan or overdraft privileges. But they're more than happy to leave it at negative $49.98 to punish me. THAT'S how my bank "protects" me. But when somebody is stealing money out of my account, THEY are protected! That, right there, is all you ever need to know about banks. They are in business for bad guys. You can take THAT advice... (straight to the bank. See how that worked? I didn't need to type that cuz you all know that phrase.) Funny story: When I returned to Canada and removed all of my money from the bank, thinking it was the location, not the bank itself, there was another guy right beside me with the exact same problem! We were both being shushed by the tellers so the whole bank didn't find out how unsafe online banking is, but we both heard each other and exchanged a few "fucking banks!" glances. So why am I going to my Korean bank today? To get online banking.
What is it now, 6:45. I'm two coffees into this day and it's not even 7. Time for breakfast.
The THIRD (or fourth, I can't remember how many times my bank account has been hacked) time it happened was right after I got my new bank card. What an ordeal THAT was! I had to phone the bank long distance, when I should have been sleeping, get the card mailed to my mother and have her send it to me. You know why? This is interesting. Because "We're sorry but for your protection, we can not exchange information about your bank account online. We urge you to call our toll free (in Canada but not Korea) number, wait at least half an hour for one of our workers to assist you, answer about 15 questions you made up 20 years ago so now the information has changed or you've completely forgotten... FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. We can send thousands, even millions of your dollars all over the internet to places you have no reason to trust, simply by giving them your card and/or account information, but we can't ask your mother's maiden name online because it's not safe. Even thought about that? I mean why the fuck do we use banks? Because we're forced. It's part of our "society." If there ever was a champion of bullshit words! "Society." Pbbbbblease!
Last Christmas I was stupid enough to use one of said online shopping sites. I ordered some Christmas presents for friends. It was a good idea. Send a pic of you or your friends to the site and they turn it into Simpsons characters then put if on a coffee mug, bag, hat etc. I didn't know anyone who had used the site before, but I was excited to see my friends' happiness when they received such a fun gift. Of COURSE I need to be punished for having such a stupid sentiment! This company was a scam. They never sent the stuff and although the price was supposed to be around 100 bucks, they took about 200 from my account. Fuckers. It's funny but I can't even remember their bogus company name. I'm pretty sure they were based in China. Several people were fighting with them on Facebook.
I may be mixing up the timeline, but I think it was that site, or one like it that caused my most recent bank account hack. Just days after I received my new bank card and tested it online, I got some Chinese online gaming site taking membership fees out of my account every day. Not large fees but every day. So I tried to contact my bank online knowing what the answer would be: "For your protection, we are sorry, we can't discuss this with you online. Please call... FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE."
I did the expensive call and wait once again. The guy I talked to told me the fees were being withdrawn by a gaming site in China. Probably something I got saddled with by giving my card information to an unsafe site like the above Simpsons gift site. I told him to put a stop order on that site. He told me he was not at liberty to block them. From stealing money from my account. From his bank. Once again, the bank protecting the thieves, not me. He told me that the only thing he could do was put a freeze on my account. I only use my Canadian account for two things: paying my storage fees every month for some furniture and boxes of books and crap I have in a self-storage locker in Victoria, and getting sealed transcripts from my school, one of the latest bullshit time wasting techniques employed by Korean immigration to unnecessarily inconvenience me by re, re, re, INFINITY RE confirming my university degree. I asked if I would still be able to do those two things and he couldn't even tell me that! It turned out that I could, but I froze my account not knowing if I'd be able to. That was scary. So now that card that took so much effort to get is completely useless. The account is ALMOST completely useless. All I use it for is the storage payments. I recently needed transcripts and ordered them with my Korean card. But anyhoo, the money in the account has almost run out. I want to transfer some money from Korea to that acct. in Canada, but don't think I can because it's frozen. I talked to the storage company and they gave me several options that would be very convenient... if I lived in Canada. The only one I'll be able to do is, you guessed it, set up online banking here in Korea and transfer funds every month like that. Of course this will come with a bullshit service charge both ends and the most usurious exchange rates imaginable, but... fucking banks!
Why am I going into immigration? Maybe? Because I need to apply for my Alien Registration Card. This is something I usually do immediately upon receiving my work visa. But times they are not a-usual are they? When I got back from Guam, by the skin on my teeth, I was forced to download an app through which I give myself a daily self-diagnosis for Coronavirus. They did not tell me at the airport that this came with a mandatory quarantine. I was all prepared to go to immigration the Monday after the Saturday I returned to Korea. But I was informed by a friend that I had to stay home. Well it has now been over 14 days. I flew March 21st so April 4 would have been the end of my quarantine. I still get notifications to self-diagnose every day at 10 AM, but I haven't reported in for 3 days. There is still a green "successful" sign when I open up the app, so I don't think it's necessary to report in any more. I can't be sure though. For all I know, when I go to immigration to apply for my card, they might say, "You're supposed to be at home. And why did you stop self-diagnosing?" As if I needed ANOTHER reason to put off my visit to immigration!
What time is it now? 8 o'clock. I'm bushed. Maybe I'll take a nap for a couple hours. No sooner had I typed that than the fucking election ajummas on the corners of the intersection started shouting, dancing, waving their hands and BLASTING their fucking election trot music while wearing their matching jackets and white gloves. Election day is approaching. April 15th I think. It's really something to see in Korea! I tried to upload my vid of them but I guess it's too large.
The 10 o'clock self-diagnosis notification will wake me up if I manage to get to sleep at all. By then I don't know if it'll be worth it to go at all. I have to go all the way to Cheonan and there's no way of knowing how long that will take because I have to take a train and can't reserve tickets online for it because I don't have an alien card. And if that's not messed up enough, I can't even buy a proper mask here because, yup, I don't have my alien card. But I'm only wearing them so as not to upset the locals. I'm pretty sure the increased face touching does me and the population of Korea, more harm than the mask does us good. It's peer pressure that makes me put it on when I venture out.
I'd have to shave and it IS time to trim my hair. That'll take a while. And although I marked all my students' assignments yesterday, I DO have a practice quiz to make for them. The reason I'm even up in the first place is because my blood sugar is spiraling out of control being inside with nothing to do but computer work. I've read that diabetes doesn't cause sugar cravings but I believe that is as much a pile of crap as something a bank or immigration office might tell you. I have NEVER been one for sweets. I'm a salt guy all the way. But since the onset of my blood sugar woes, I have been consuming more sugar than ever. The cravings are specific. Ice cream and orange pop. I can count on one hand the bottles of orange pop I purchased in my whole life before my diabetic cravings. Now it's freakishly frequent how often orange pop or ice cream runs through my mind. And if I can find them, cuz they're rare, I get Seng Teng, Korean orange popsicles. EVEN better than orange pop! It's the one on the left. I also like the third from the left dweiji ba (pig bar).
I went out the other night, late, like 2 AM, and bought a bottle of orange Fanta, or as Koreans call it, Hwanta. I literally giggled when I brought it back to my apartment like I'd managed some mischief. I had some that night and finished about 2/3 of the bottle the next morning. I couldn't help myself. I don't know if it's like this for everybody with the affliction of diabetes, but when I consume too much sugar, I just piss it out. I'm taking a leak pretty much every couple of hours. The only thing I can do to stop that is exercise. When I'm hiking or walking, I don't need to piss so much. But I can't do that right now in quarantine. So... urinorama! THAT's why I was up at 5. Sometimes I can't get back to sleep after getting up for a pee. The cavalier Korean noise pollution doesn't help.
Just in case you think I may be endangering myself here, I DID call immigration. It's SO much nicer to call! I was told I have 90 days to take in my visa and apply for my Alien Registration Card. So there's no hurry. BUUUUT, without the ARC, there are a lot of things I can't do. One is visit a doctor. And get pills to deal with the frequent emergency urination. If I can find a doctor who will prescribe me pills to make me urinate less, not urinate MORE. Even back when I had medical insurance and an Alien Card, I bought 150 bucks worth of medicine that my doctor prescribed. Yes, he knew I was pissing too much. When I first visited. But over the months, I guess he forgot why I went in there and he prescribed pills to make me pee MORE. I probably don't need to tell you that my third least favourite place to go is doctor/dentist office or the hospital. And I'll be going there soon enough.
But all this talk about my least favourite places to go has worn me out. I think I WILL try to take that nap now. And, I changed my mind. I'm not going to immigration today. Might go to the bank later, but I need to go to Seoul for that. I might just stay at home and field student complaints about the marks I gave them on their latest assignment. Or I might try to hunt down some Seng Teng. I could use some. If not I'll probably just pull a fifth of Fanta and drink it from a paper bag on a park bench. If I can find a park bench with no people around. GAAAH! Happy Easter by the way!
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