A Japanese and Chinese Major

Archive for November, 2008

Well my schedule for today is looking awesome.  Not only that, but the new place is really cool and I have my very own computer in my office!  Some of my students have changed their schedule for later so I’m free for the next two hours.  Wondering if I should watch a movie or not.  Yeah, this seems like it can be pretty nice.  I just really hope that I’m able to successfully defend my job and be able to stay here for the rest of the year.  I have to ask my manager for boss info today and I’m nervous about it.  Other than that, yeah.

I came too early this morning.  I left at 5:30 in the morning and got here at 6:00, realizing that my shift started at 6:50 and I had to wait for the building to open.  So I walked up and down the streets around here.  I noticed that the city didn’t seem as exciting without the people.  I think for me, what makes this place exciting is looking at the people rather than the scenery and buildings, but the combination of both of them is best.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tomorrow is the first day at the Seoul branch tomorrow, I’m a bit nervous about it.  My schedule for this month doesn’t look that bad, and I really hope that my conflict with the manager will be resolved with me winning and staying at EC.  I really don’t want the trouble of moving out of my apartment, having to go out of the country to get a new visa, and having to find a job when it’s not my fault.

The manager fired me because of “financial reasons”, and when an opening came up for my position she didn’t offer me my job back but hired someone else.  When I reminded her I still wanted to work there, she had a paper signed and filled out and everything and said I could still work there but I should decrease my bonus.  When I told her no I won’t, she was totally surprised and speechless.  Later that day she called me into her office and told me that they couldn’t keep me, and I said then I’m going to file unfair dismissal and she said go ahead and I said “I am”.  I have to talk to her again tomorrow to get the boss’s name and contact info to warn him that I’m going to file.

Let’s make a list of the weird things she did which proves she’s firing me unfairly:

She said I was picked to be fired because I didn’t smile enough and because I didn’t talk to the secretaries very often.

She said it was for financial reasons but when Josh quit and his job was open she didn’t offer me it but hired someone else.

After I reminded her I still wanted to work there, she said I might still be able to stay with them since Josh left and asked me to decrease my bonus pay.  When I refused, she told me hours later that I would not be re-hired, and used the excuse that she already employed a new worker who signed a contract.

While she was trying to get me to reduce my bonus pay, she said she wanted to give all the other employees a raise but because I was getting so much it was hard for her to do so.  If the company is in a time of financial crises, why in the world was she thinking about giving the other teachers raises?  And how much difference would a $100 decrease in my bonus pay make divided by at least 20 workers?

When the worker who’s quitting, Josh, stated to EC the reason why he was quitting was because he doesn’t trust the company is financially sound, Michael told him don’t worry, we’re doing fine, there’s nothing to be worried about.

Anyways, what a rude bitch.  More than once she laughed when I told her I still wanted to work there, and laughed during the meeting with her and Michael.

It seemed like her only excuse for all of this was talking about how she already had the new girl sign a contract.  She kept talking and talking about it and I was barely paying any attention, and getting confused and tired of sitting there listening to nothing that matters until I finally said to her “Why are you telling me this? It doesn’t matter to me or make any difference in my case.  These are just managerial decisions.  You’re the manager, you’re involved in that not me.  I’m just the worker.”  You could tell that by the end of the conversation she was noticeably frustrated/pissed, and she continued to try to bluff me to call the Labor Department because she claimed that she was right and nothing bad would happen to her.

Anyways, aside from that let’s talk about living in Korea.  I think I’m getting used to it and starting to act normal when I’m out in public, realizing that not everyone is staring at me the whole time or caring about what I’m doing.  It’s such a challenge for me to put on a normal face in public, trying not to look stupid or mad or dumb or anything like that.  I constantly think while I’m on the subway about what my face looks like to other people, and I try to make it as blank as possible.  I also struggle to find points where I can stare and not seem like I’m looking at other people, I just want to look normal and not all buggy-eyed and looking all paranoid around me.

I was standed by my friends at Hongdae this last weekend.  I wanted to stay and eat street food and they left.  I ended up trying to get a taxi but to no use, and so I walked around for about an hour and a half I think on the streets with nothing but my hoodie on while it rained.  I talked to two groups of Korean people that had surprisingly good English skills, but neither could help me directly.  The second group of guys just told me where to go for the subway.  I made it there and when I got on the train I must have slept for 3 hours.

I need to take pictures.  I need to get a thin and ultra awesome digital camera.  Now that I’ve been working a semi-real job for awhile I’ve started realizing how easy it is to afford some of the things I want now.  When I lived with my mom $200 dollars was a lot, but now it’s a small drop in the bucket.  Let’s hope I can keep my job so that lasts.

Last night, Saturday, Julie and I went to Seoul EC to pickup my coat and bookbag, and after that we decided to walk around and have dinner at Myeongdong.  We decided we wanted sushi and walked all over to find the best place.  I heard recently from the ESL cafe forums that there is a Todai restaurant in Korea like the one in DC.  We picked one of the first ones we saw and came back to it after looking at a few others.  We got a combo meal and it was surprisingly delicious, everything tasted great.  We talked about how usually when we go out for dinner we order something that we don’t really want or are not in the mood for, but in this case the food was awesome, they even gave us a Fanta with it without us even asking.  The combo came with a salad with salmon and Chili seafood and a “precious” roll.  Pretty damn good.  We walked a little more and I got the idea of buying a huge purple dried tentacle from one of the street vendors there and walk around Myeongdong with a huge tentacle in my hand and biting into it.  It would be funny if I were caught on camera with it by being filmed for getting a free hug, since there were some young free hug people there filming.  Anyways Julie wanted one of those elephant ear things and we were walking down a street and happened to find one, except they didn’t fry them.  It was right here, in the street on the right of the top video:

http://expatjane.blogspot.com/2008/11/myeongdong-holiday-lights-at-shinsegae.html

We were standing right at that same spot last night, admiring the snowing building, talking about how the Tom and Tom coffee on the left looked like a mix between Starbucks and The Coffee Beanery, and waiting in line in front of the truck that made non-greased “traditional” Korean elephant ears called hodduck.  While watching them make them I was amazed at how easy it would be to start that kind of business.  Get a cooker, a truck, dough, sugar, some bags and holders and you’re all set.  Julie and I were worried that an older lady tried to cut in front of us while we stood in line there, and some guy walked buy with a huge inflated cross on his back and a megaphone declaring that man has disobeyed and strayed away from God in English.  We then went and walked around one of the big department stores, and Julie and I looked at the electronics section.  I let her play Kirby for awhile on the Gameboy.  Although she wasn’t good at it and didn’t know what she was doing, she had a fun time playing it and looked cute.  I really enjoyed just standing there next to her in that white and brightly lit department store with all the Christmas decorations around and watching her play.  Later before we got on the bus we decided to have coffee.  She asked for them to blend the ice but they didn’t do a very good job, and little girl was staring at us and when we both looked at her she ran away.  We watched the movie Strange Days at her house and it was pretty stupid, I wanted to stay up and watch The Mist but I kept falling asleep.  I went to bed while she continued to draw a cup sitting on a table and other big flashcards for her upcoming English classes.  That’s about it for that day.  Came home today early because she wanted to hang out with her girlfriends and have girl time while shopping, so I just chilled her today on the computer and watched some stupid tv shows like the one with a young Elijiah Wood and some Koreans that tried to act Mexican.  Is that enough detail for ya? ok peace.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

It’s 1:09am here, by the time I wake up tomorrow morning I’ll see if Obama is in the lead to become the next President of the United States.  I have four classes tomorrow, and they end at 9am Korea time, which should be just at the same time the polls in Ohio will be closing.  I have a class with that Noh guy, that reads Express Yourself and who always smiles and puts S’s on the end of every word.  I plan to end the class immediately and rush out to the lobby and sit in front of the widescreen tv to watch the rest of the results.  I miss watching what happened with the 2004 election.  I sat in the basement and constantly flipped through all the news channels to see all the excitement.  I saw how sad and depressed the Fox news people were when Florida went to Kerry and how happy they got when it flipped to Bush.  I don’t think I really understood why the Fox newscasters were looking gloomy and sad when it looked like Kerry was going to win because I didn’t really realize how biased and unfair Fox newschannel was at that time.

Right now it looks like Obama has this one in the bag, and if I wake up this next morning and find McCain winning, I believe it will no doubt be because of unfair play.  In other news, I read an article today about how there will be two more Army units deployed into the US in addition to the first one, so that’s not a good sign at all.

There was more talk today about how EC was going to move to the City Hall branch, and that instead of Sam Josh was going to go first.  Apparently all of the ECs are combining into one small building and bringing all of their students and gaining some, with a total of 400, which works out to each of us getting 40 or more students.  I tell you what, I’m not keeping this job if I get no breaks, it’s already bad enough that I don’t have a life because I have to work a split shift and can’t do anything all fucking week including Saturdays.  If they make us sign new contracts, which I think they have to do since they’re going to be a new company, I’m not renewing.  Not only do I not want to work at EC anymore, but also I expect that they will try to cut my pay and benefits, which I will completely not accept.

After work tonight I convinced Josh to go eat some street food at that one vendor between my place and the subway.  The food was ok, not as good as before though, but good.  I think the lady got a little annoyed with us since we didn’t know how to speak Korean well or understand the few words that she said.  When she filled up the cup with red sauce and duckong or whatever those pasta-like things are I made the motion of reaching for my wallet while raising my eyebrows, and with that she gave me an arm throw and a disgusted face like “get the fuck outta here”.  We said thank you and left, no big deal though.

Saw some pictures of me posted on facebook from the night we all went to an upstairs bar and Sam wore the mask of a horse.  I look really bad in the pictures, not what I imagine myself looking like or what I see in the mirror at all, and I hope that I just look like that on camera, but the old saying goes the camera doesn’t lie.  I also saw and was surprised to see that I still have some fat around the side of my chin, I hate that.  Now that I’m gaining weight again because I’ve become comfortable eating and making food here, it looks like I need to exercise again   With all the weight I was losing my first month here, I thought that that at least was something I no longer had to worry about

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I had to work Saturday so I had to miss Halloween.  I didn’t really mind missing it at first since it’s not really celebrated that much here and because I don’t have a costume, but when I found out it was $20 club pass night I really wanted to go.  Earlier in the night Ed said he would cover for me if I was feeling sick, but I said no.  I then ask him later, and when he asked me if I was really sick, I told him the truth that I wasn’t really and despite thinking that he would say yes anyway he said no.

Saturday Julie, me, and Sam went to a Jazz club in Itaewon.  I didn’t really listen all that much to the music playing because we were all talking, and we were probably mostly the ones talking the whole time while we were there.  Afterwards Julie had to go back home, and I went with Sam’s friends to a “house party”.  When we got there there was a small apartment room full of people speaking Spanish.  I tell you what I have no interest in Spanish, its culture and anything related to it.  There was an asian guy in a Egypt costume and people with wacky hair whigs.  Somehow I convinced them all to go out to Hongdae.  We went to the bar that was cool and looked like the cantina from the Star Wars movies.  It was pretty lame there though, I wanted to go club-hopping.  I think we stayed there for a long time, a couple of hours or more, and the one Korean-Spanish-English speaking girl and the other Spanish girl agreed with me to go out to a club.  The dude that wore the crazy hair and the German guy came too.  I wanted to go to Tinpan but they didn’t want to spend the cover to go in.  They wanted to eat so we waited while they ate some food on the street.  Oh before leaving for the Jazz thing Julie and I ate streetfood at the one vendor between my apartment and the Subway, which was fun and tasted really good.  We ended up going to some bar in the basement that I’ve never been to before, that had some cool Halloween decorations up.  There was a guy passed out on the dance floor in the back and I tried to fake dance while drinking.  I could tell the Spanish Korean girl was fake dancing too but she did it alot better than me.  I don’t know I just can’t dance when I don’t like the music, and even when good music did play I wasn’t that good of a dancer.  The hair-whigged guy danced pretty good using his arm and waving it up in the air, and he and the Spanish chick were moving pretty good.  The Korean Spanish girl said that she didn’t like that place and it seemed like all the people there were young because it said high schoolers get in free or something like that.

After that we went to a Noribong.  It was one of the fancy ones that you could look out the window and everyone could see you.  I sung the usuals like fly me to the moon and sung physical by myself for the first time, and photograph by def leppard.  I didn’t sing very well, my voice is too high like usual.  I drank a red-cass while there and I started to fall asleep at the end and I think the other people were noticing this.  When we got out of there it was early, like 7 or 8 in the morning or maybe later.  I was like “come on guys, let’s drink!” and the Spanish Korean chick was like “Ohhh so you’re an alcoholic” like she should have known all along.  We talked about wanting to get breakfest but there were no restaurants that were open.  I decided on Burger King but when we got there I changed my mind.  I think I could notice them becoming frustrated/tired/thinking I was a drunk/stupid with me.  We walked to the train station and she told me to get on the train and get off at Shincheon.  I waved by to them with their fake smiles as I got on the train and almost fell over while walking in.  I then sat in the train, got out at Shincheon, looked around not knowing where I was and called Julie for help.  The remaining hours I spent were getting on the train and falling asleep.  I fell asleep and I could feel someone pushing me away.  I thought it was Julie and so I became angry, kind of bit my lip and slapped my hand together with my fist.  When I looked it was some girl in white my age that had a disgusted look on her face and I immediately sat up when I realized it wasn’t Julie.  I didn’t say sorry but I think she could tell that it was a genuine mistake and that I really was sleeping and surprised.  I didn’t say sorry but I kind of nodded my head a bit.  It was kinda cool because she was cute.

Then I got off the train because I missed my stop, then got on again and missed my stop, then got on again all because I kept falling asleep.  At one point at one of the outside and high stations I checked my watch while sitting on the bench and saw that it was around 10am.  When I got near my apartment I bought some street food near the one outside of Josh’s, and the lady gave me two peppers even though I only wanted one.  It wasn’t as good a street food as the night before though.  Sunday I woke up around 6pm and was still drunk/groggy but feeling good.  I spent the rest of that day just surfing the Internet and downloading Blade Runner and making food.  I made a bunch of fried dumplings and even that stuff with the hot red sauce sold on the street and watched Family Guy.  When Blade Runner finally downloaded, I started watching it and it was boring so I fell asleep.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!