A Roll of the Dice?

Well, I suppose I should post something new. After all, it has been about half a month since our last update. The problem is that we settled into normalcy and complacency. Usually we do travel about some on the weekend. However, a lot of places we go look generally the same. Unless we find a really clever sign, there's little to report. One significant other problem is that our camera has went kaput. Hopefully we'll do a little research and get a new one soon.

So, let's see what kind of recent developments have there been? Well a couple of weeks ago I went out to dinner with the teachers. We went to a place specializing in mushrooms. I don't care how many varieties you throw in front of me, I still don't like mushrooms. So, that was not the best of dinners for me.

Afterward we went to a bar in Osan. While we were there a couple of my fellow foreign teachers happened in. It was then that I noticed a glorious thing. This bar has a patio. Outside there a ton of tables and chairs. All the details on the rest of the night? No matter. The important point is the discovery of the patio bar. Now, provided there's not rain, the patio bar is foreign teacher central on Friday nights.

So that's pretty nice and all. New bars are always great. They have really huge amounts of beer. You can order the standard 2000ml or 3000ml varieties, or you can be awesome and get the 5000ml oaken barrel looking super pitcher with a spout on the side! 5 liters of beer! They also have soju cocktails that are pretty amazing. Like they take a few fresh kiwis, a bottle of soju, and throw that shit in the blender. Instant yummy. Well, not instant. It takes them forever to make the damn things. The wait is worth it though.

Mel is now happily addicted to World of Warcraft. She's a busy little Shaman. The biggest problem there is when our net drops. Then we have a really angry shaman :D

Last weekend we had a bit of travel. We recently decided to start playing some Dungeons and Dragons with some other teachers. Melissa and I have dice that we brought from home. The other gents do not. We looked around a bit online and found a store we could check out. So, we went there on Saturday. It was a bit over an hour by train. Maybe 1.5? We found the place without much problem. The walls are lined with games and there's a few people sitting around a table playing a board game. There is a display of various tarot cards. There is a shelf with what appears to be collectible card games behind the counter. Yet, there are no dice. Not anywhere. We motion to the clerk to suggest what we're looking for. After a minute she understand and heads off to the back room. She rummaged about for a bit and came back with a three 30-sided dice and a handful of 6-sided dice.

I know of no game that uses 30-sided dice. We were looking for standard D&D sets (a 4, 6, 8, 12, 20, and two 10s). We were a bit disappointed. I did buy one of the 30's however because I thought it was a curious novelty. She charged me 6000w for it. I found out later that they're commonly available on the net for like $3. Still don't know what it's used for. I'll probably add it into some kind of drinking game.

Following that we went to Yongsan. Our friend Len was accompanying us. He was after dice as well and also some camera gear. Having been here for several months longer than us, he knows his way around a bit better. That was nice.

Anyways, Yongsan is geeky nerd paradise. This is an entire city devoted to electronics, tech, and gadgets! If you dream of fields of motherboards and cpus, this is the place for you. If you are in the market for a new mp3 player, but want to be able to chose from a field of thousands, this is the place. Love video games? Want to pick up a new 360 game and buy a Super Famicom at the same time? Well then, come on over.

Yongsan was pretty damned cool. Gadgets galore! I had some video game needs which were easily fulfilled. Now I'll be able to keep busy during Mel's Warcraft raiding sessions. :) Len was easily able to find the new bits he wanted for his camera. It was a fun trip. There was a downside however...

Mel and I are now considering getting a second computer. It would be nice for me to have the ability to use the computer at times when Mel is way too busy with it. I think she might also enjoy having a more easily portable laptop that she could take to school. Also, I figure that it is only a matter of time until Mel convinces me that I need join her in scouring world of Azeroth. So, there's that.

Saturday evening we joined some friends in Songtan. We had some sushi (which wasn't bad despite my previous aversion) and then hung out in a random bar. We learned a new drinking game from a nice military guy. The bar owner and wait staff even played along.

The game is Titanic for those who are interested. You float a shot glass in a cup of beer. Then everyone takes turn dribbling a small (or large if you wish) amount of alcohol (beer or liquor, pick before play) directly into the shot glass. You sink it, you drink it. Easy enough! It appears to be okay to take down half a glass or even a whole glass in someones sted if they are having particually bad luck. Play proceeds by having the sinker do the first pour. It was a blast!

So, I guess that's pretty much what's been going on. This afternoon it looks like I'll be joining the other teacher in some volleyball. We have a game coming up versus another school, so today is practice. I'm sure I'll have some more words to add on that sometime in the near(ish) future.

Bye!

Aaron

Brand New Star Trek

So, I mentioned before that I'd try to get video of the kids singing the hello song. Here's a bit of that:



Today was a rough day. Lots of kids acting up, all day long. Even my good classes were being right shits today. The usual punishment of "stand on the wall, arms up, on one foot, with your eyes closed and looking like a right fool" wasn't working at all. I decided it was time for more drastic measures.

I pulled out the worst offender and stuck him on said wall. This time I had him follow me in a round of 'I'm a little teapot'. As they continued to act up, I continued to push the song. Eventually we arrived at the following:



Please note, I'll be sharing that with all the rest of their classmates in all grades, hopefully to their great embarrassment. Yep, I am an ass ;)

Anyway, not much else to report. We saw the new Star Trek. We both really enjoyed it. I'm not going to spoil anything, so no worries. I will take a couple moments to talk about continuity in a non-spoilery way. (Abe you might want to skip out just because I know you're sensitive to even the vaguest talk on things you haven't seen ;) ).

So, a while back there was a crazy Spider-man story. Peter had revealed his identity to the world. Eventually people came after him and Aunt May died (having been shot by a bullet meant for Peter). To rectify this, Peter and Mary Jane make a deal with the devil (aka Mephisto). He gets to erase their marriage from history and Aunt May is alive and no one knows Peter's identity. In one fell swoop, the writers undid over 20 years of Spider-man stories. They just didn't count any more. Fans were pissed, and rightly so.

The new Star Trek movie undoes 40+ years of continuity. It undoes everything except for the really bad Enterprise series. And you know what? It's completely fine. It's fine because the story didn't suck. It wasn't so contrived, stupid, and just plain out-of-character as the crap fed to the Spidey fans. Sure, they did away with the continuity, but at the same time they gave a dying beast of a franchise a shot of adrenaline right to the damned heart. I look forward to seeing the Star Trek beast get up and run around rather than continue to lie there slowly dying.

And that's it.

-Aaron

2 months down, 10 to go!

Rather than the usual "here's what we did last night/this weekend/at school" post, I thought I would write up something about our motivation to come to Korea in the first place. Although most people think it's pretty cool, there are always a few that inevitably say "why Korea? why anywhere but America?" and I would like to address those concerns. Not that they are particularly important, considering we are already here and settled in, but I also thought it might be nice for others to see exactly why we chose this lifestyle.

Aaron's list might look slightly different from mine, but my biggest reason is my student loans. I have over 60k in student loans and need to pay them back desperately. This seems to be the main reason for most of the English teachers here in Korea, though I have talked to some that came here to avoid paying student loans. That's right, they fled their home country and all responsibilities, including their debt. As mildly tempting as that sounds (debt free! just have to live in another country forever!) I am definitely not interested in that. I fully intend on paying off my loans on my own. I'm not even letting Aaron help me.

Conceivably, after graduating college, I would have found a good job (or A job) in my field, made a decent salary, and started paying those loans back. Of course living in Michigan (and now the whole U.S.) it was nigh impossible to find any sort of job in what I wanted to do, which was editing. Even in my last job, at the bank (which I loved and was easily one of my favorite jobs) I wasn't even cracking 20k a year, salary-wise. Combined with living expenses, car expenses, and general other stuff, paying off my debts looked like it was going to take me the full 20 years. With tens of thousands in interest. Really, that's just awful. At some point, Aaron and I are going to want to have kids; start a family and buy a little house out in the country somewhere (well, I want to be in the country, and that's all that really matters!) and I told him that in no uncertain terms are we going to have kids while I still have all those loans hanging over my head. And on my bank salary, we'd never ever be able to afford kids. Or anything, for that matter. He was working at U of M and not making much more than me, even after being there for 7 years.

So we were pretty much stuck, and we knew it. When we found out about the teaching opportunities in Korea, we thought it sounded awesome. Live in a foreign country for a few years, make a lot of money (our salaries should be about 25 million won a year, which, when we started doing research, was about 25k) and pay off our debts before coming back to America and getting settled somewhere NOT in Michigan. Now, granted, I know 25k a year is still not that much. However, living here in Korea, we don't have to pay rent and have minimal living expenses. So that 25k is almost all take-home pay. Meaning I can throw it all at my loans and watch them wither away while I rub my hands together and laugh in an evil fashion. Or something. And 25k a year is unfortunately more than we've ever made before. (sad!!) So we were really excited about it. I had whole charts and lists made out about how exactly I was going to pay things off and save money on top of that, and figured that after 4 years, I could have everything paid off and have maybe 10-15k in savings for when we get home.

Now, the exchange rate of the US dollar to the Korean won is awful. Not as bad as it was a month or two ago, but still not as good as when we first looked at Korea. It started getting bad after we were already commited here, or else we would have gone elsewhere, trust me! So my plans may not work out perfectly after all. But I can still save my money in Won for now, and convert it to dollars when the rate gets better. I'm still paying off the loans, and actually just paid off my stupid credit card last month, so now I can really go after those loans. I am actually really excited about it. (pathetic, right??)

Anyway, my secondary motivation is to learn Korean. Where better to do that? Granted, I was a little disappointed that we are not living in Japan (after all, I already speak some Japanese, and I liked it there a lot) but the cost of living in Japan is much higher, and we don't get free rent and all this other great stuff. So I will just content myself with visiting this summer. Anyway, learning Korean. I enjoy foreign languages, and hopefully, if I can become decent (or even fluent) in Korean after 4 years here, I could get a job in D.C....or something. I don't know yet. We're trying to plan for the future, but still have no idea what we want to do after Korea. We might not even want to move back to the US, we're not sure. Looking into Australia or New Zealand at this point. But who knows?

So those are my main motivations. I'll let Aaron post about his later (if he wants to), but hopefully this gives you a better understanding of why we packed everything up and moved across the world to a tiny country where we don't speak the language and teach, of all things.