Dark Fairytales

Sonic BOOM...

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:15:04 GMT

Okay. More than likely, nothing's going to happen, right? But then again, this morning was kind of a wakeup call, I think.
Everyone in the city was woken up by some kind of loud, reverberating
BOOM.
I sat straight up in bed and just didn't breath for the next 60 seconds as thoughts raced through my head. I thought, 'Worst case scenario, my body should be disintegrating within the next minute, right? Let's wait and see.' When nothing happened, I chugged a mouthful of milk from the fridge and convinced myself that it was just construction nearby. Checked the news bulletins, went back to sleep.
It wasn't construction, and nobody knows WHAT it was, but everyone felt/heard it and none of the news stations are reporting about it. There was also a LOT of very loud plane action overhead this morning. Whatever the military was doing today, it was serious, and it was scary!
Anyway, everyone seems to be wavering back and forth between 'meh' and 'eek' regarding the "rocket" launch this week. I reeeeeaaally hope nothing crazy develops....

Sarah Palin...

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:42:23 GMT

Sarah Palin hilarity, even post-election...
She is standing there wearing her Burberry scarf and drinking Starbucks and turkeys are being slaughtered behind her... it's almost reminiscent of an SNL skit. What an IDIOT!

Hmm...

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:33:58 GMT

Greetings from Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. Well, I go back to Korea next weekend FINALLY, after another unbelievably long stint of travelling (which has been also immensely thought-provoking and gratifying).
I saw the apocalypse last Thursday. Okay, not really, but I saw the sunrise from Mount Penanjakan in Indonesia and all you can see is VOLCANOES VOLCANOES
VOLCANOES.
Erupting, even.
Java was great but low on sleeping time and stressful in the logistics of everything. Bali, on the other hand, is straight-up CHILLIN. 8 hours of massage in 6 days and swimming, swimming, sleeping outside, swimming, swimming.

Today I was thinking about how lucky I am right now, in my life. i used to go on vaykay when I lived in Pittsburgh and the last few days I would be DREADING going back to the hum-drum, tired mess of normal American life. Nowadays I find myself at the end of a vacation, thinking "Wow, I miss Korean life." Vacation is of course bliss, but life is pretty damn amazing as well! I work hard but I don't drown in my work or dwell on it outside of worktime, and I have enough time and resource to see things and meet people that WOW me all the time.

I also realized how much I have changed from, say, three years ago, because when I read the blogs and Facebook of people I used to know back home, I think
"YOUR LIFE SCARES ME!"
It all feels so... small... to me. I guess there are happy but I would be so stifled in the little picket-fence house in the towns and cities with next-to-no diversity.

I wonder, I wonder, will I be able to go back? I think I cannot, cannot, cannot go back, unless it is with someone who understands why I cannot go back. But I can stay, for now. Maybe not forever, unless it is with someone who understands why I cannot stay forever. Do you know? Unless you have lived such a life, I am sure you truly do not.

Back to swimming :) :) :)

Where in the world is...

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:06:52 GMT

What up.
Currently, I am in Pulau Penang,
Malaysia.

w00t Malaysia! I love it here because I have these constant flashes of "Where AM I?"... The country in general is an authentic mix of China, India, and the Middle East, with some Thai, Burmese, and Javanese influences as well. Pulau Penang is generally quite Chinese.
It will be nice to get to a beach in a few days because, to be honest, I could kind of use a vacation FROM my vacation. This trip has been maybe a little too Indiana Jones for me thus far, although looking back I'm quite happy to have done all these things that I would never, never do again. (Like the death-defying trek in the honest-to-god rainforest, for example.)

Anyway, it's been a couple weeks now and after seeing three weekly episodes of So You Think You Can Dance (Malaysian edition), I am thoroughly hooked! Luckily, the season finale is next weekend, just two days before I fly to Indonesia! Lucky timing to feed my obsession.
Well, gotta go... off to eat some mysterious noodle concoction.

P.S. When I say "Indiana Jones", I mean Raiders of the Lost Ark, and potentially a little Temple of Doom, but absolutely not Crystal Skull. That movie was L-A-M-E.

Really...

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 06:44:17 GMT

Yesterday, while walking home from sushi with the girls, a man in a pirate hat let me drive his
Segway.
Amazing!

In other news, it is so hot and humid that I barely ever want to get out of my bed in my frigidly air-conditioned apartment.

Ohhh Korea...

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:42:59 GMT

Okay, ONLY Korea...
(from a foreigner news website called The Hub, in my city - Jeonju)

"More than six buses of riot-gear clad police surrounded a demonstration which took place last night in Jeonju. There was a small fire and a lot of shouting, but thankfully no violence of the same intensity as is happening in Seoul.
US beef was not mentioned. Rain dampened the zeal of the activists at about 10:30pm.
As the police were packing up,
a baton fell out of a riot bus.
Hub staff witnessed a protester
politely handing the baton back to the police
before returning to his fisting gestures and shouting for the destruction of President Lee."

Ha...

hinesward

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:54:37 GMT

hinesward, originally uploaded by anjeelou.

Always meant to blog this... in the Seoul subway, a familiar face...

(Look how tiny the Korean guy is standing next to him...)

Murder Mystery at the Deadwood Saloon

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:36:43 GMT

DSCF1422, originally uploaded by anjeelou.

(See me in the front row with curly hair and pink fan and awesome shoes.)

Last weekend we did a Wild West murder mystery at the pub... it was a GREAT time. Most people were really in character, even though the cowboy clothes were hard to come by.

My character was Minnie Money, a rich east coast debutante who came to the Wild West for the first time and behaved like a saloon girl to attract the rugged cowboy types. A lot of people wrote down that I was the killer, which is awesome, even though it was untrue.

We also had a competition in the evening for who could make the most (fake) money, which I won! However, I cannot reveal my secrets on how I did it ;)

Life...

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:56:25 GMT

...what's funny about Korea is that although we work VERY little, life is EXTREMELY busy. I will never understand how that happens.

Anyway, finally started planning for Southeast Asia,
which is a good thing considering that I leave in TWO WEEKS.

It took me a while to get excited, honestly, because although I had a hella lot of fun in Europe/Africa, that was a LONG-ASS trip. After a while of backpacking you just want to be clean and climate-controlled and eating food that costs more than a dollar.
This upcoming trip is 6 weeks, which is longish but not so so long when I think about it. Luckily it's in super super cheap countries, so I don't have to eat just bread and olives like I did a few times in Spain and Italy. I could probably get a FEAST in Indonesia for less than two dollars. Anyway, I started with a HUGE itinerary a few weeks ago, and eventually narrowed it down yesterday to 25 cities in 3 countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia). This is very realistic, and a few of them are optional so I should be okay. Even overnight trains only cost $5-$10... compare to the Trenhotel from Barca to Madrid, which I think I remember being like $150 at the time? Or, Euro rather, which is much worse. Yeah, so much for travelling overnight to "cut down on costs"...

Anyway, happy summera...

Sex and the City, in bullet points...

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:13:06 GMT

Love letters should be written by hand. NOT EMAIL. Fucking lame.
I love love loved the Stanford/Anthony thing! Possibly the only surprising point of the movie.
The synopsis of the show at the beginning of the movie was perfect, I will give them that. It was very Spiderman-esque in a way.
There was too much of people looking un-fabulous in this movie. I know, there was lots of fabulousness as well, but it was also quite unglamorous at many points. Oh, especially Candace Bergen. Wow.
The Samantha/Smith storyline should have been wrapped up better..
Jennifer Hudson... necessary?
Miranda's kind of a tool.
OMG Lily?? Soooo cute. "Sex!" That was the best.
Did they show the guy's penis in the American version? Or is that only allowed over here? I was surprised to see that in a movie theater...
Overall I loved it, although I do feel it would have been much better off left alone after the series finale.

Went with the girls to see it, all dressed up, and then for martinis afterward. So fantastic.
Also, Korea can be very back-and-forth conservative. Two girls got up and left during one of the sex scenes. Yet, no one so much as gasped when they showed the guy's penis later on. Hmmm.

LOL, literally...

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:01:32 GMT

I love lolcat, it is so ridiculous but it is one of those websites that literally makes me laugh-out-loud. This one had us cracking up...

more cat pictures

It's not even really that funny, but it just got me... heh...

This is Korea...

Sun, 25 May 2008 05:36:22 GMT

This is Korea, in a nutshell.
It's 1:30 in the morning and you are migrating via mass expat exodus from the bar to the club. On the way you run into a birthday party on the street, which in this culture means that they've duct-taped two college boys to a lightpole and are now beating the shit out of them. Happy birthday! A little further on you see a guy hurrying down the street carrying a cat and a roll of duct tape. Apparently this was the next logical step.
Inside the dance club a drunken European is wearing five hats and two pairs of sunglasses, all stolen from various dancers in the club who are varying degrees of angry. A man in a gorilla mask is sitting at the bar. He listens to an iPod through big-eared headphones and wears white striped Kanye West sunglasses. The bartender hands him a rum and coke without so much as a second glance.
And after years or months or even just weeks, you find yourself unsurprised by anything, because, after all, this is Korea.

amazingface2

Thu, 01 May 2008 04:16:21 GMT

Yesterday I was chillin at my favorite Buddhist temple, and whilst relaxing I took a lot of detail shots of my surrounding, such as this:

amazingface2, originally uploaded by anjeelou.

Life is busy.

Tonight I got invited to the opening ceremony of the
Jeonju International Film Festival
through my job. w00t!
They are screening first a Japanese film, and I believe the actors as well as Korean actors will be there. Fancy Shmancy. ;)

The thing is...

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:16:47 GMT

Unh. I'm a bit frustrated this week because it's around midterm time, and I'm starting to think about what will happen when I have to grade all these kids for the semester. This year is WAY different than last, because I'm actually giving grades in a real capacity that could influence people's futures.

So, most of my students are DELIGHTFUL. Some of them are hilarious, but not exactly delightful as students. As in - good senses of humor that liven up the classes, but also lots of rudeness and disobedience at other times.

There are a few students in particular whom I'm really conflicted about. I have a little bit of a soft-spot for them even though they're quite unruly in most classes. They're smart... but... argh.
Basically, I just don't know how to function as
"mean teacher"
when I need to. Like, I'm grading a project tonight, and I know that I should give a certain few students a zero for this one due to the way they acted all week despite repeated warnings. I just can't bring myself to write that on their papers. I *especially* don't want students coming all weepy into my office at the end of the semester because I cannot handle that.

Argh...

whitepinkblue4

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:56:46 GMT

whitepinkblue4, originally uploaded by anjeelou.

Here is a taste of what I meant about the "cherry blossom" heaven. Everything is so VIVID right now around here - colors, smells... wonderful!

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:22:20 GMT

Life in bullet points, as it tends to be:

* Work is getting better and better. Looove my students. Love the new grading scheme! Love that we might be getting 3 weeks extra vacation in the summer (in addition to the other 5).

* It's springtime, which means beautiful
cherry blossom heaven
in Korea (yeah it's not just D.C., they grow here too!). That, paired with the decorations that are popping up everywhere for Buddha's Birthday, makes a lovely backdrop for life in general right now. It's hard not to be a in a constant good mood!

* Okay, so my social interaction on the internet is limited almost ENTIRELY to Facebook at this point. Because it's so streamlined, and almost everyone I've ever met is on there (although it's been striking me lately that I'm lacking contact to a few key people from the past, though only because they are ABSOLUTE TOOLS who are apparently above keeping their social connections). Anyway, point being, don't be offended if I dodge emails or IMs. The IM starts by itself and I never look at it. I sometimes change my away message and that's it.

* Korean cable is torturing me once again with tourism commercials. Last year it was Malaysia, and this year it's Russia and Eastern Europe. Must... go... somewhere.... aahhhh two more months....

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:49:21 GMT

I saw a boy today... I mean, not just ANY boy, but I boy who I once thought must've hung the stars. It's so startling, sometimes, to run into these ghosts. You know they are lurking the world but somehow never expect to actually encounter them again.
At any rate, the meeting was lackluster, as I only could have hoped. I didn't want to think about him, again.

I started thinking about how all the boys I've really hyped in my mind have been a huge letdown. One who hung the stars, but had a terribly closed mind and could not break out of it. One who I always thought was "the one", but whom wanted not to be alone far more than he wanted to be with me. Hell - who even moreso wanted to be with the male bartender (as all of my friends noticed before I so blindly did).
The spur of the moment, truly romantic startups have been better. Shorter, perhaps, but better. Isn't it funny how these things work sometimes?

Anyway, life is great, other than these little moments that make me doubt that. Asia is my lover (one of mine?) right now, and what could be more satisfying than this? :)

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 05:57:34 GMT

1. Russia --> Estonia --> Latvia --> Lithuania --> Belarus --> Ukraine --> Poland --> Germany

2. Indonesia --> (Papua New Guinea) --> Malaysia --> Brunei --> Singapore

3. Japan?

Who knows. My plans tend to change a lot, and this is all still a few months away so that's a lot of thinking time.

Yesterday I got the following email from my friend Dori, from New York, whom I met up with in Lisbon not too long ago:

Well made it to Nepal. Walked across the border from India. It was a very liberating experience.
Katmandu is a very touristy/hippie town lots of shopping, yet it is rich in religion. There are many temples and the valley is filled with great hiking and mountain biking. Went for a plane ride this morning to see Mt. Everest. WOW!!
Today also, is a Hindi Holiday called Holi. Celebrating Shiva, good vs. evil = good luck . They celebrate by throwing colored h2o and painting the body. The streets are crazy. It is like Halloween but, even the adults are involved. As I am writing this, my face is dyed red and yellow. Planned a hiking trip thru the Annapurna sanctuary that I will be starting in a few days. It will take around 17 days and includes,rafting, and Royal Chitwan reserve. I am looking forward to that.
Hope this finds all of you well. Be Happy, Holy, and Healthy.

AWESOME. Friday night over drinks, four of us were discussing Mt. Everest and the logistics of just going to stay at Base Camp One. Don't get me wrong, I'm never never NEVER climbing on that thing, or even fantasizing such in my wild dreams. Even going to Base Camp One is pretty harsh, I hear. I mean, it's at like 5,000 m I think! I remember how bad my lungs felt just at the top of the Carpathians, and they are maybe just over half of that (granted, I had just had pneumonia in the weeks before that, so perhaps my experience was exaggerated).
At the very least, going over to Lhasa in China and chillin with the monks across from the stunning VIEW of Everest is doable, and WILL be done. All in due time.

gettinghammered

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 12:59:33 GMT

gettinghammered, originally uploaded by anjeelou.

In honor of St. Patrick's Day,
I got hammered.

Heh.
I especially like how the Guinness mascot is all wide-eyed in the background, like "WHAAA?"
Classic. I love Seoul. And Saint Pat's Day.

That nagging feeling...

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:38:22 GMT

I don't know why, but the past few days Bangkok keeps popping into my mind. It's pulling me toward it again somehow.
I had a dream about the floating town north (I think) of Thornburi last night. I was staying there, in a tent, and I never actually got on the boats. I just walked along the gutters for entire days, snapping pictures and mingling with the locals. I learned how to gut a fish. Charming. I gorged on that effing AMAZING noodle concoction that they thrust at you for 10 baht as they float by. Yummmmm....
Actually, perhaps it was best not to get on the boats. Let's not forget the incident last year - bought my boat captain a bit too much beer from a floating market... as a result he stayed out for an extra two hours free of charge... but didn't dock the boat correctly at the Chinatown pier due to his drunken state... and so I skinned my knee and fell partway into the Chao Praya river... lovely.

Goals reached...

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:16:25 GMT

I had a lot of minor goals for this year (alongside a few major ones). One of them I accomplished on Wednesday, without even realizing until the next day...

I spoke only Korean.

Even after studying the language, this is logistically much harder to do than one might imagine. It just so happened that there was a combination of events on Wednesday that led to me not needing English...
- I was hiding away in obscure coffeeshops with WiFi getting my work done, so I didn't encounter any Western people.
- I have Wednesdays off, so there was no class.
- I didn't get a cell phone yet, so no one could call me.

Also, this day included a somewhat lengthy conversation with the hotel front desk about how the cable wasn't working, (I was impressed that came off at all), as well as discussion with some guy about the US presidential candidates (that was difficult and choppy, but it didn't go into great detail and I think he understood most of what I was saying).

Anyway, I am quite encouraged right now. Taxi drivers have become my main method of practice. They like to speak to foreigners, so sitting up front for a twenty-minute ride downtown can be quite enlightening, language-wise. Also I've been practicing my "looking for words in common" method that came in oh-so-handy in Europe and Africa, and I find that the words I uncover this way stick in my brain much better than the ones I try to learn with my pocket flashcards. Even just this morning I learned one, coming to the conclusion that "go-goo-ma" means "sweet potato". Whee!

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 03:11:01 GMT

I need to track down the lady who has my Windows CD. I can't get hooked up to that blazing Korean DSL because I don't know how to work the "New Connection" crap in Turkish Windows. Yes, I still have Turkish windows. My mom only had a Dell-specific Windows/applications CD and I was pretty sure my Toshiba would not go for that. Oi.
Actually, it's funny how much random Turkish I've learned in the past four months! Maybe I should install Korean windows, it might help me... OH I only had the chance to have two conversations in Korean so far since getting here, but all that studying back home definitely paid off! It seems a lot easier now. I just need to practice my listening!
Well, things are pretty disorganized here so far, which is to be expected in Korea (generally). I have almost nothing to go on for my first week of work. BUT my boss pretty much said I can hand out the syllabus and introduce myself and cut 'em loose all this week. Sweeeeet. I was always SO bitter toward professors who DIDN'T do that the first day of class.
Also, the profs from this new program are all staying in the campus guesthouse until the apartments are ready (they say now, 20 days. eek.), but it's pretty okay. There is a little restaurant in the building and a media center, and the rooms of course have DSL (for those who can get it to work, heh) and cable. Two channels in English which primarily show crime shows and movies, and I can live with that. Hopefully the real apartments have better cable though... there is another channel in Korea called OnStyle which shows all the stuff an American gal in her 20s would want to watch, like Sex and the City, Friends, Next Top Model, etc. I want this!!
Anyway, everything is pretty good so far. I am at my favorite coffeeshop in the WORLD right now (there is one in Venice that is a close second, or maybe a tie). They do the foam designs and everything is delicious and pro because the owner teaches a few barista-ing electives at one of the college in town.
Now I have to go to E-mart to buy an alarm clock. Dread. To imagine what E-Mart is like:
1. Think of Target.
2. Take the overpowering RED color theme of Target and replace all of it with deep yellow.
3. Add in a million or so older Asian ladies with curly hair and pointy elbows pushing you around, and about another million little kids who have never, never ever seen a white person before and will point and yell as you walk around every corner.
Heh. Oh well. Korea = fun.

Here I go again...

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:45:16 GMT

Okay. I guess I secretly believe in jinxing things by talking about them too soon, but now that it's the last minute, here's the sitch:

In less than 48 hours I am leaving for another year in
Korea,
but this time it's a little bit different. With my master's degree and teaching experience and some key volunteering last year, I qualified and interviewed for a job as a
PROFESSOR
at one of Korea's national universities. AND I GOT IT! (The technical title on the contract is "Guest Lecturer", which sounds way fancier than "professor" anyway, but I just like the idea of maybe getting students to call me "Professor Anjee". Wouldn't that be a little awesome?)
This is the best of both worlds for me. I have a job overseas with THREE MONTHS paid vacation per year and lots of means to travel and be adventurous, and less than 20 hours of work per week (for full time pay!). And yet, I have a really real job that will look GREAT when I come back to the US (or wherever) to work. Sure last year I was teaching some government classes and businessmen from important companies now and then, but in actuality, that was a job that most anyone could have gotten with little qualification (like probably 90 percent of ESL jobs in the world, meh). But this is different.

And of course, I love Korea. I met one of my coworkers randomly at the embassy in DC yesterday and she seemed really fun. I think it's going to be a great year!! And ahhhh I can't wait to go clubbing in Seoul again!

*sigh*
And now I pack.

Life, actually

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:59:15 GMT

Facebook
is taking over my life. Although really, I do enjoy how it is slowly condensing everything I want to do on the internet into one little package.

The main reason Facebook is taking over my life is that I have around 8 hours per day to goof on the internet at "work". If I never mentioned, I am working a temp job at a pharmaceutical consortium until I go back to Korea next week. There's a room full of *looks around* 8 people here who are temps doing nothing. Sometimes we have an hour or so of work per day, but more often than not, NOTHING.
And so I surf.
I buy.
I do ridiculous quizzes.
I up my Korean language proficiency by two levels (seriously) by studying for hours on end.
I read biographies of dead artists and live politicians.
I research future travel destinations.
They don't seem to mind that this happens, as long as there are enough people around for the short times when there IS work to get the work done quite fast.
Still, it's mindnumbingly boring at times.

So, how is everyone?

Another reason I love Flickr...

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:09:28 GMT

Another reason I love Flickr...

You know how on the Flickr site, it greets you in a different language each time? And then it says something like, "Now you know how to greet people in Filipino", or something like that.
Well, I just logged in and it said,

"OH HAI,
Anjeelou!
Now you know how to greet people in Lolcat."