Monday 29 September 2009

On my way to the GEPIK orientation for middle school teachers. I don't know how it's going to be, surrounded by expats. I don't feel irritated right now, not too judgemental. We'll skip all that. Saturday I slept until 9am and then met with a woman named Jen. Jen had approached jessica on the street asking her to work for her, basically. We kind of made a joke of it for a while, since it seemed kind of iffy. But it's just tutoring and Jen normally does all of it but she's becoming overbooked. I asked Jessica if I could come along next time she met with her and at the time the only job she could offer me was far away in Gangdong. But then she told me the boy like to write and it seemed like I would be able to just go over his story with him. I said if that was the case I wouldn't mind the trip. I like kids but I don't like coming up with little games for them to play. Although I think tutoring will be different. We'll see when I start tutoring the two kids in Songnae, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The boy I'm tutoring is named Junny (june-ie) and the train ride there is an hour and a half. Jen went with me and introduced me and then went to a different kid. I loved the neighborhood and their apartment. I guess it was kind of like San Marco/Winter Park. That type. (Right now the bus is full and there are nine people that might have to stand up for the ride). It was really chill and Junny is really smart. He wrote a little, kind of a warm up, describing some pictures, and then we worked on his story for about 2 hours. It's based on history, some events and some people (obviously) and I taught him some new words and told him where it was confusing and needed to be revised, etc. He kept adjusting his crotch, kind of pushing on it like he had to go pee. I didn't want to call attention to it and be like 'are you okay.' After a while I asked if he needed to take a break, but he said no. Then Jen came and sat for a moment and we talked about how it went. Junny peed after that and I was thinking 'man, kid, why didn't you just go?' Anywho, we didn't stay long, which was a relief. It was so cool there, but it was also Saturday and I wanted to do stuff. The parents gave me a big bag of fruit and a nice hand fan. Then we went to Sinchon and met Jen's boyfriend at the hospital so she could get a check up since she's just recently pregnant.

Around that time Jessica got to Sinchon and met us at the hospital. As we were walking into the waiting room, Jen's boyfriend, Joey, was waking out and said hello to Jessica. They had never met. I realized I should tell her who that was since she probably just thought it was a random Korean guy. So, Jen got examined and then we went and ate. Her parents are upset with he over getting pregnant without being married first. Plus she said they didn't like him because he's a farmer's boy and he didn't make enough money. I hope they do well. They seem to be hard workers. Both of them give most of their paychecks to their family, from what she tells me. Its hard to tell what's going on with her, though, because one minute she'll be seemingly honest and the next she tries to blow it off with 'no worries' and you can't talk about it seriously with her. Or there's a language barrier. She was talking about Joey living in a poor apartment in the poor part of town and being 'shy' and he called her while we were there (before the hospital) and when she told him we were at his apartment he said why and then she told me he was shy and I asked if he was embarrassed and she did the no worries attitude thing and I said he doesn't need to be shy and I grew up poor blah blah blah. We sat on the floor and ate some grapes that the tutor parents had given me and then I left my back pack there and we met Joey at the hospital.

The food was delish. They had met in Canada and he was telling me about the culture shock of seeing two guys kiss. We told them it was no big deal where we're from. I guess he's still friends with a gay guy from there, so that's good to know. So, because my tennies were filthy I wore wedges with a skirt and tights. Cut, but so freakin painful. Later. We walked around Sinchon and they didn't seem so bad. It was night time by that point and we walked along this river. Jessica and I split the cost of a Nikon DH1 DSLR for only 350 000w. Its really big and we need to figure some shit out with it, but it seems good. The guy that met us (from craigslist) was nervous as hell for some reason. He's hands were shaking. I felt so bad for him I just tried to get it over with. There was no flash with the camera, so Jessica and I went to take pictures of us in a dark corner to see how it would do without. Then he explained some stuff, then I told Jessica to come into my office so we could discuss.

Anyway, after walking all around, we still went to Hongdae. I was looking for some cheap flip flops by that point. Didn't find any in the subway. Started looking around Hongdae. I was getting really miserable (and annoying) by that point. I felt bad spending 10 000w on shoes that I didn't like and would only wear once. And most looked like they wouldn't fit me. So, I was looking at some shoes on display outside this shop and I guess I stepped into a dip in the sidewalk. My ankle twisted sideways a little and I was unbalanced, but then Jess and I both thought I caught myself, but instead I kind of just kept going and neither of us knew what to do. It was all like slow motion. I was looking around for something to grab onto and all there was was shoes and I was grabbing for them, trying not to ruin anything, but instead I was just taking shoes down with me. It was all very ridiculous. And the guy was a complete jerk about it even though I apologized a million times and was trying to put the shoes back but he just kept taking them from me and looking really put out like he just wanted me to go away so of course I did. I was a bit bummed from the whole thing, mostly because after all that I still had aching feet. Jess said I just needed a drink, so we sat outside of Starbucks and split soju. She was right. I walked around the rest of the night and didn't give a shit.