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The past month's travels

Across the river listening to Gaga rehearse. (Like in the actual stadium at Jamsil) Happy little accident in an otherwise very sad day.

#seoul #lady gaga

I often hear misnomers being said of Korean men in Korea. That implies they are as a whole more gentle, compassionate, non-violent, etc towards women than say western men. Men are individuals and all different, but what I have noticed moreso is the societal systems that are rather indifferent and perpetuate violence against women. This piece on the current state of rape laws which is from a clearly patriarchal system is an example and not off base from my own research. From what I've read of Korean and Korean-American communities handling of the abusive of women~ by authors from both; these misogynistic systems are still highly prevalent. The reluctance of authorities and outsiders to get involved in situations such as domestic disputes has been something that I have been frustrated by in Korea. I'm glad to see things may be changing. Don't get me wrong, America's no utopia. It has it's own chauvinistic idiots like Glenn Grothman to deal with.

#korea #sexism

Organic & health food hard to find in Korea

Found the almost best grocery website ever! Organic food being shipped to Korea for free in less than a week. Drawback- it had to fly on a plane to get here. I must look into local options, but I doubt I will find Annie's Cheddar bunnies here or organic chickpea/ any other bean or grain and organic mint flavor. Next year I will have my shamrock shake!

#organic #korea

This weekend my friends, co-workers and I put on a production of The Vagina Monologues. I've seen it a few times, including in Seoul last year, but it's completely different when you are performing with people you know. You know some of each others' history, you know some of their struggles and you can see how they grew just by performing their piece.

The productions success was largely due to one co-worker who had been considering putting it on since last year. Minus all the expenses we raised over 2,000,000W for The House of Sharing, Durebang (My Sister's Place) and The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan.

I was also impressed with the turnout. We were mainly doing it for just our friends and co-workers, but we had a full house. Many of the guys on staff who just came to be supportive were surprised how much they enjoyed it. Good times.

#vagina monologues #korea #seoul

Finally being productive

Dog's summer flight reservation made, IB conference and flight booked... to be paid for by my school, end of the year party planning started and Vagina Monologues rehearsal underway.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day on the Han

Half way into my 24hrs at work. Elementary girls retreat. So far so good, but looking forward my Saturday night out!

I pity our business office. They have to deal with the booking of summer flights for some 150+ people. And all our complaints of dates, direct flights and preferred airlines. So friends and fam I will be back for longer then planned. I will also be bringing my dog with me because apparently I'm a glutton for punishment. However afterwards I should have enough for a free flight to India :) and actually seeing people at home is possible.

So tumblr has been difficult to use for the past few months on my phone and I'm too lazy to start up my mac. Anyways here's one of the few pics of Thailand from my phone during our land days. I ended up with a perforated eardrum from diving and sat out the last day. Which resulted in my first time to the doctor in my 2.5 years in Korea. It's finally starting to feel like spring in Seoul. Summer flights are being booked and end of the year going away parties and festivities are being planned. Time is going so fast and it's getting to the point of doing "last" trips and going to the usual places with friends leaving. It's starting to get sad, but at least there will be great places to visit. Looking forward to: Singapore, KL, India, Budapest, Germany, Shanghai and Indonesia trips in the next year or so to visit some awesome people :)

Live aboard Thailand~ pretty awesome. Diving everyday and hanging in the sun. I forgot how good real Thai food is.

#thailand

Spring break, headed to the warm beaches for a hard earned spring break. I can't to dive again!!

change of plans?

Today was a great day! I love my job, my students and co-workers, but sometimes it's time to consider moving on for a professional challenge.

I found an amazing job recently posted for a european international school. Now there's a pretty good chance that I don't have a shot in hell at it, but I thought I'd give it a try. Having no intention of leaving Korea this year I hadn't asked for letters of recommendation yet. So yesterday I started asking my principal, former principal and another administrator. As a true testament to how supportive they all are, I have been given or promised letters of rec within 24 hrs. This is for a job that would require me to break contract for, yet they still encouraged me to apply and told me the school would be lucky to have me :) Here's hoping to this working out.

Oh and at our conference today we had Kagan as our speaker. I definitely need to incorporate more of his ideas into my teachings.

If I had met Japan before you, I wouldn't have loved you so much

Pretty much my impression of Korea after Japan. It seems it's quite a good thing that I did come to Korea before Japan. My trip to Japan started off with frustration over certain systems that exist in Korea that should really be archaic in all parts of the world, but still exist in many. (Intentionally vague for mostly professional reasons)

Then I go to Japan and it's like Korea came on a vacation with me. You could almost feel it in the air. People biking to work, flower pots on the street. There's no crowded subway pushing or obsessed eyes always on cellphones. (Apparently my media education of technology savvy Japan does not mean people are addicted to it) It was more of relaxed atmosphere where people in cafes put away their phones and actually talked to each other. Even Ginza, Omotesando and Roppongi weren't half as pretentious as Sinsa or Apgu. I love good style but rather than good style Seoulites have perfected the art of imitation instead imagination. Even the people looked naturally more unique, which led me to wonder the difference between countries in the cases of plastic surgery.

Overall it was a breath of fresh air. Don't get me wrong I love Korea, but it has many flaws. I'm starting to get to the point of being ready to move on to a society that makes individuality and creativity more of a priority. It's great here, but life is short and after next year it looks to be time to move on. Oh the places to go...

It's a good thing I'm headed to Japan next week, because I've had it with the Korean racist, sexist, discriminatory shit floating around my little world. . Completely shocked and pissed off. Hmmph

Life has been busy and pretty non-stop, but that's life in Korea. In other news my friend's screenplay is being made into a feature film! I haven't heard about it since he was writing it when we were dating. So far his a few of his shorts have gotten awards. So happy for him!! ^^

Beaver Tails

I had a student drawing a beaver today and I made him look up what a beaver tail looks like. "Do people eat beaver tails?" he asks as he shows me seemingly deep fried beaver tails. Apparently Canandians call fried dough beaver tails. I suppose it's similar to elephant ears at the fair. But everyone knows the carnie folk arent killing elephants; I'm not so sure about Canadians and beavers.

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