Bread

Koreans are good at making many things. They excel at making cheap electronics that break easily, rude ignorant people, soju ( a disgusting beverage made from old sweet potatoes, rice and hatred), kimchi, and... well, really that's about it. One thing they definitely cannot make is bread.

I have tried several types of bread made in Korea, the first disappointment was garlic bread. Add garlic and oil to bread. Simple and delicious. Korean logic dictates that if something tastes good, it will always taste better with copious amounts of sugar added to it. The sugary garlic frosting taste from that foul loaf still haunts my dreams.

We also purchased a loaf of "Whole grain" bread we found its sweet taste and almost non-existent texture to be similar to wonder bread. When used to make a sandwich it melted into a soggy mess that stuck to my teeth and gums. I might as well have made a sandwich out of cake batter.

The problem is, they add milk to all their breads (we learned this later). Milk is not a bread ingredient. Forget that I am vegan, and that I don't consume dairy anyway. The only ingredients you need are flour, yeast, water, and salt if you want to be fancy.

As a carb addict, and since I cannot buy a decent loaf of whole wheat bread in this heathen country, I am forced to make my own bread. All I do is add one tablespoon of yeast to 3 cups of water, mix in roughly 6 cups of flour and let it sit overnight, that will make about 2 loaves of bread. The next day, or day after I kneed half the dough for about five minutes, and then bake it for about 30-40 minutes at as high as your oven will go.

This is what a real loaf of bread looks like.

There you go, whole wheat crusty goodness that fills your belly, and does not melt into mush when you make a sandwich.

Super sized me

Apparently I am grossly obese. I have always thought that I needed to drop 10 lbs or so, but I think that all and all I look pretty normal. However, one day one of my wife's coworkers saw me waiting for the bus. She told my wife about it the next day.

"I saw husband. He vely fat!"

Maybe by Korean standards, I am vely fat. Although there actually quite a few chubby bastards running around here, since I am tall (er than them), and wider than them, and American, I am automatically fat. I also have either been working out, or working a physically demanding job for most of my life, and dont have noodle arms and legs like the dudes here, running around in their skin tight girl pants. I would say I probably outweigh 90%of the natives by a good 50lbs or so, of course I am also at least 4-6 inches taller than most of them too.

I don't really think I am that fat. My wife says I think I am skinnier than I actually am, that I am vely fat, and its like I have reverse anorexia or something.

This is most likely not a good idea, knowing the people of the interwebs, but her I am in all my glory.

Too much white....

I am fat? Only by korean standards, by american standards? What do you think?

My wife has wanted me to set goals for losing weight (bikini season is right around the corner!), but I am not all that passionate about it. So she is now trying to bribe me. If I lose an inch off my waist, I get to purchase an expansion on one of my games from xbox live. Or if I lose 1 1/2" I get to buy a new game. So if I wanted an expansion and game, I would need to lose 2 inches total.

For all the VG nerds out there, I am eying the expansions for fallout 3 and fable 2 and maybe mass effect (1 is available for download on Xbox live)

I decided to measure my waist to see where I am at right now. We searched our whole rice patty of a town, and could not find one fucking measuring tape. I had to use a belt, marker, and 12 inch ruler to figure it out. Right now my waist, at the belly button is 37inches, which is actually a lot bigger than I thought it was.

Maybe I do have reverse anorexia...?

Lesson Planning

Since this is my first year teaching in Korea, I really have no idea how things work here. No one has said anything about lesson plans, classes, or what the fuck I am suppose to be doing every day. So I have spent the past month on facebook, talking shit about my co-teachers on this blog, and masturbating.

Recently I heard a nasty rumor that classes are actually suppose to start next Tuesday, Monday being a national holiday. I asked the head of the Englishee dept about it. She confirmed the Rumor.

"Well do you want lesson plans from me then?" Last year she wanted lesson plans from me, lesson plans which would be filed and ignored. They did not notice that for the last 2 months of the term I was either not turning in lesson plans, or turning the same ones in, over and over again.

"Yes"

"OK, What sections do you want me to teach?" We have a book and a CD ROM for our classes that are pretty much our classroom bible. We teach from the book and the CD and absolutely nothing else. I really don't know what we need the lesson plan for, since we just go through the book word, for word in the proper order.

"I dont know, I have to tark to odder teacher." We have three non-native, new Englishee teachers this year.

"OK, where are they?"

"They not come in today."

"But classes start on Tuesday."

"Yes"

"And you want lesson plans today?"

"Yes"

"Do you see the problem here?"

Being the head Englishee teacher she made an executive decision and told me the sections she wanted me to plan for.

Another slight problem is that I do not know how many classes there are, when they are, and how often they are. all I know is there are 3 grades, so I decide just to make one plan for each grade. I worked on them for an hour or so, then turned them in.

"Oh, these no good."

"Why?" She never had a problem with my plans before, and I pretty much copied in pasted them to make the new ones.

"We not use these books this year. Distlict have us use arr new book." That seemed like it might have been a good little piece of information to share with me.

"OK..." I was a little annoyed that I had used up almost an hour of facebook time for nothing. This job is so fucking hard! "Can I have the new book then?"

"We don't have yet."

"But classes start on Tuesday."

"Yes."

"And you want lesson plans today."

"Yes."

"But we don't have the books to plan the lessons."

"Yes."

"Do you see the problem here?"

Luckily there was one copy of the new books in the office, which I now claim as my own. So I spent another 15 minutes or so, adjusting the lesson plans for the new books. I am not going to bother showing them to her this time, I have facebooking to do.

Staying home

I don't have to go to work today. The head English teacher told me to stay home and not go to work because she is have 3 dressers sent over to my house. She is moving to a new apartment and does not need them, so she is giving them to me. I have to pay shipping costs (60,000 won) which is far less than buying new ones.

They should be arriving this morning between 10-11 am. If I was still in America and had to go to an appointment, I would be expected to go to work after it is done. After the dressers get here, I will still have a good 4+ hours left in the day. That is one of best and most ridiculous things about Korea. Just skipping out on a whole day's work, just because you are having furniture delivered.

Its not like I am really doing anything at work anyway. I don't think my classes start until March, but who knows, they don't tell me shit. My classes could start tomorrow for all I know.

Bringing home the benjamins

So as you all know, my wife is making an extra 100,000 won a month more than me now. She is getting the money because her school (about a 10 minute walk from mine) is zoned industrial by the administration, and according to her school, she is entitled to more cash and vacation time for it.

I asked the English head teacher to look into it and she called the administration office, and the administration office, and they told her "No fucking way you are paying that fucking foreigner a penny more!" more or less. So now my wife is the bigger breadwinner for the family, and of course this is only feeding the fire of her already enormous fucking ego.

A while back, the head of the English dept. told me that there would be a possibility of a couple extra class hours for the new school year, and wanted to know if I would be interested. I said sure, thinking the extra pay for one or two classes a week would be nice. With that extra money, I might be able to at least tie with my wife for the title of breadwinner, if not barely surpass her.

Today she told me that there would be 8 extra classes a week. She also said that she would negotiate for me to get paid an extra 5,000 won an hour, so it would match what other teachers get. Right now I finish work at 4:30, but since my normal classes are over at 3pm, with the extra 2 hours I will be finishing at 5pm. So now I am looking at earning up to an extra 200,000 won a week and leaving work just 45 minutes later than I normally do.

I told my wife the great news, and how do you think she reacted?

She was of course, mad. I could tell her I won the lottery and she would probably be angry about it. She is upset because she thinks her dinner will be postponed 4 nights a week (she cant cook, seriously the woman could burn a bowl of cold cereal). She does not care that with extra money, we will not need to stay in Korea (which she now hates with a passion) as long. She does not care that I will only get home 20-30 minutes after she does.

Why?

Its because I will be making more money than her, again. She does not like that one little bit. She would rather work here another whole year, enduring all the annoyances and cold weather than leave after one contract. Not if that means me making more money than her, and more importantly if her dinner is a little later than she is use to.

Mirror mirror

Today while washing my hands in the bathroom (vely un-Korean) I happened to glance into the mirror. I don't look at myself in the mirror very often, not that I am ugly or anything, in fact quite the opposite really. It has often been said that I look like Brad Pitt's fatter, balder, uglier no-biological brother.

While admiring myself I noticed that I had not shaved in several days. When I shave, I do my whole head, not because going bald, but because I prefer the Mr. Clean look. When I grow my beard... well actually I cant.

My dream....

For some reason, the one Native American gene passed down from my great grandparents was the one to not grow much facial hair. I briefly considered trying to grow one, since I have not tried in a few years, maybe it will fill out better this time. But who am I kidding? The few times I have tried to grow a Grizzly Adams, my wife teased me because she can literally grow a thicker mustache than me. Most 13 year old boys have thicker facial hair than me, hell even Koreans can grow a better beard.

You might be asking why I would even want to grow a beard, well I am originally from the North. I know that I have written before, that I hated it there, and its nothing but rednecks. Well the truth is I did not leave the North by choice. I actually loved it there, I never wanted to leave, I was banished... for not having a beard.

Its true, they ran me out of that little town, pitchforks and flaming torches in hand. They wanted to cleanse the land of the monstrous un-bearded freak. I cannot return to reclaim my throne until a beard can be grown. Or so says the prophesy. So I ran to the lower 48 to train and improve my beard growing skills. Well, that did not work out too well.

What little I grow is a mix of thick black hairs and translucent blond hairs that make my beard look impossibly thin. I grow just enough facial scruff to make it my neck itchy, and give my wife rug burns between her legs. Often. Except when she is on the rag. I don't do hotwings.

You dont want to see me get angly!

Since the end of my vacation I have overlooked one exam and helped move some furniture. Today the head of the Englishee dept. asked me to move some poster boards and boxes of art supplies to the other three Englishee only classrooms. She wanted me to arrange the garish yellow plastic boxes "Beautifurry" in the new classroom cabinets.

Then she sent 3 students to help me move all the shit to the classrooms, so I could arrange them "Beautifurry".I had every intent to arrange them "Beautifurry". All I had to do was separate the boxes and poster-boards so the students could carry them up to the individual floors. So I did not have to even lift anything. Once the boxes were in the classrooms, I would shove them "Beautifurry" into the cabinets.

Unfortunately all the classrooms were locked, so I had to return to the office to retrieve the key.

"All the classrooms are locked, I cant arrange the boxes."

"Did you arrange the boxes beutifurry?" Asked miss lee, completely misunderstanding what I just said.

"No, all the classrooms are locked." I said slower.

"Can you enter the crasslooms?" maybe she thought that I could somehow enter the locked classrooms by alternate means, perhaps through an open window on the fifth floor?

"No, they are all locked." I said again, confused by how this could still be misunderstood.

"Oh, do you need the key?" Sound reasoning by Mrs. Lee.

"Yes, all the classrooms are locked." I tried to really drive the point home that time, by speaking even slower and exaggerating the enunciation.

"Do you have the key for your crassloom?"

"Yes." I felt stupid, I did not even try to use my classroom key on the lock. Boy oh boy how dumb could I get, but I thought it might be a good idea to pose the following question. Just in case. "Does my key work on the locks?"

"No, you need diffelent key."

"?????"

Mrs. Lee then retrieved the key from the VP and gave it to me. As I turned to head up to the classrooms to "Allainge beutifurry" I felt her tiny hand grasp the sleeve of my jacket.

"I wollied" she said.

Worried that I would not arranging beautifully I assumed.

"I wollied that you angly."

"About what?" I asked utterly confused.

"Englishee teachers, sometime do odd jobs. We move fulnitule and odd job. I wolly that you dont rike." She said, concerned that all this strenuous labor was getting to me.

"I dont care" I replied. All I had to do was put some boxes in cabinets, it would take at the most maybe 15 minutes, then I would be sitting in front of my computer again, messing around on the internets.

"You dont care?" she asked confused. She must have thought that if I was pushed too hard that I might just up and quit. You just pushed me too hard Mrs. Lee! I could not take all the hard work!

"Really its fine. I dont mind."

Seemingly satisfied, she let me go on my merry way. I returned about 15 minutes later and returned the key to her. About an hour or so later Mrs. Lee came over and sheepishly asked me to help her out once again. She asked me to perform the daunting task of adding test results from two forms together onto another form. There were ten whole columns to add together, she wanted to know if I could perform such a herculean task!

I steadied my nerves and firmed my resolve. Then set my mind to completing the task. Less than 5 minutes later I placed the completed form on Mrs. Lee's desk, and asked her if she needed anything else, to which she replied "no".

Boy I don't if I can last much longer at such a difficult job!

Happy birthday Korea!

I got back into work today after a long weekend. Sunday was the lunar new year, which is a big important holiday in Korea. Everyone goes home, gives food to their ancestors, eats soup with rice cake and get a year older. Happy birthday Korea!

We spent the weekend inside, watching the Olympics and movies. We watched "2012" which is a movie about the end of the world. Personally I like disaster and apocalypse movies, which this film seemed to combine, only they did it in a way that totally sucked ass.

It was truly an awful film, and I was glad when the 2 and 1/2 hour piece of shit was over. I did appreciate that the majority of the human race was destroyed in the movie, but it was just so ridiculous that I could not enjoy the film. Its not like I really want people to die, but I would like to see a decline in the human population. Unfortunately we have a bunch of Catholics, Muslims, and Mormons all trying to out breed each other in a desperate bid for control of the worlds faith.

I once read about a program that India started, where they were giving young men stereos or other prizes in exchange for getting a free vasectomy. I thought that it was a brilliant idea. They had to stop it though, because the parents started complaining, they did not want to be denied grandchildren, illegitimate or otherwise. Having a giant family that you cannot feed or support is very important to the people of India.

I think all countries should do that though. Give an ipod or iphone to every male who gets a free vasectomy. Vasectomies are reversible, and less invasive than tubal ligation. Then when a young man is ready to start a family, and financially secure enough to have the process reversed, then he can get with the baby making. There would be a lot less single teen mothers, neglected children and a lower burden on the welfare system in countries if they did that.

It would not be without controversy of course. Religious groups would have a problem with it, even though it would drastically cut the number of abortions. Minorities would complain that they would be targeted in the US, because we are trying to stop them from breeding. Of course teenager, being young and stupid would have massive amounts of unprotected sex because of the lack of sexual education in the US and STDs rates would probably increase. There is also an increased risk of prostate cancer associated with vasectomies (as I found out after I had one). Would the dangers of a massive sterilization program outweigh the consequences of unwanted wanted pregnancy and irresponsible reproduction? I think so.

Even though I am guilty of increasing the world's population by two, and love my kids more than anything in the world, I would have preferred to have started my family after I graduated college. Because of my irresponsible sexual behavior I have been on and off of food stamps, and a drain on the public heath plan for 12 years. During my periods of unemployment or even underemployment, the cost of a vasectomy was less than my monthly allowance of food stamps. The state could have saved probably at least $5,000 a year if I had a vasectomy at the age of 19.

Schaweeet!

Mrs. Awesomecool blogged yesterday about getting a fat pay raise and some extra vacation days. Turns out her school is in an Industrial/Factory area, and even though the contract says only rural areas (not positive, I will have to look it up) get extra cash money and +5 vacation days, she is getting it. My school is two or three city blocks away, it takes less than 10 minutes for me to walk to it. Yet I am not getting extra cash or vacation! What gives?

Is my school mysteriously not in a factory area? Do we have cleaner air, fresher water, and better living conditions over hear? WTF?

In a jealous rage I asked the head Englishee teacher if I could have some more money and vacation days too. She called the administration office. Their answer was a big, fat maybe. We too are considered to be in a factory area, but they have to call the administration office to see if I can get the extra cash. They did not say anything about the vacation days, but if my pay bump is approved, I get back pay all the way from October when I started. That means and extra ₩500,000 won on my next check, pending approval. Between the wife and I (also entitled to back pay) an extra grand for February seems pretty fucking nice.

Fingers crossed on it, extra vacation days or not it would be nice to have some extra dough.

Back to work

My two week vacation has unfortunately ended. The days went by far too fast, I miss doing nothing at home, now that I am once again doing nothing at work.

The new school year does not start until march, but we still have a couple weeks of class left. I have no Idea what I am suppose to be doing, since we have finished our workbooks and the 3rd year students are graduating. They have once again shut the heat off in my classroom so I can no longer watch movies and TV shows, being under the watchful eye of the Vice Principal once more.

Before my vacation they asked me to write some proposals on improving English, which i did not do. I do not really believe they are serious about improving English, or willing to do anything I suggest. The head of the English dept. asked me about it today, and I told her that I should stop doing lessons from the book, and just do conversations and activities with the students. Of course I already knew that would be unacceptable. I just said that, so she would not ask for any proposals in writing to give to the Principal and Vice Principal, on the off chance that they listened to me, it would mean more work for her and the other co-teachers.

Unfortunately she just asked me for my "prepared materials" it turns out that she has to present them to the Principal and Vice Principal, in say...five minutes. She had all fucking morning to tell me this, but at 5 to 11:00am she told me to give her my proposals. I am not surprised, I kind of expected this. Well I typed some shit out real fast, I proposed no more textbook teaching for me during classes, and bullshit after school classes where I would not have to do anything. Less work + more money = improved Englishee.

Over the break they installed motion sensitive "dialogue boxes" in the hallways of the school. Whenever you walk by one of these machines they start shouting phrases in English at you. How having random englishee phrases shouted at the students will improve English is beyond my comprehension, I am sure they will be vandalized, disabled or ignored by students after a couple of weeks.

Well that's all I have for now, time to watch movies while they have their big stupid meeting in some other classroom.

I guess I owe somebody a blowjob

I just checked my blog, 11 followers! Suck it wife! Or actually, according the new rules, i guess I have to suck your dick. Oh well, swallowing your load is worth watching you swallow your pride! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

VICTORY!!!!!!



Thanks to Jesus I now have to perform Fellatio on my wife. Yeah I said fellatio, cause thems the rules.

Fellatio.

Victory dance

Now that my wife has more followers than me, she is doing her ridiculous victory dance. I have yet to receive my "getting less followers blow job" as of yet. However this morning I was treated to several vicious punches to the groin and a brutal dry humping in celebration of my wife's "Epic win".

Last night she also claimed she was entitled to "take a dump" on my chest. I know she has wanted to do this since we have gotten married, but I just don't want to go down that road. There are some doors in life, when once opened can never be closed again.

I have to go back to work next Monday, and I am looking forward to it as much as getting a dump on my chest. Even though this job is pointlessly easy, not working is soo much better.

My classes dont start until feb 9th, and then a week or two later we have spring break, then school starts again for real. I guess I will probably be desk warming for the next week, but they might also want my proposal for improving english at the school, of which I have written all of three words. If they do ask for it when I get back, I will just google "Improving English", and copy and paste the first thing i find.

Losing

My wife came home today, did a short victory dance, called me a loser, then head butted me. Actually it was more of an awkward head rub as she miscalculated the distance between us and kind of massaged my massive biceps ( I decided to exaggerate to compensate for the circumstances) with her enormous head. Her head is enormous because of the massive ego contained inside.

Her ego has only been exaggerated, because today she has one more follower than me. Not like that is any measure of success or anything. Between the two of us there are less than 20 of you regularly reading our blogs.

So now she struts, she gloats, she is recording herself doing victory dances. She is the happiest she has been in a long time. And now all I want to do is destroy that happiness. That is what being married is all about.

That and giving each other head, especially if you are the one who gains the upper hand. The winner should always felicitate the loser.

Seriously.

My wife is pissed!

My wife is soooo fucking angry right now. Why you may ask? Well there are a number of reasons really. First of all, her sister just returned from the USA. Its not that she is mad at her sister, or does not like her. She likes her sister as much as her tiny black heart will let her like anyone. Hey I am probably her most favorite person in the world, and she barely tolerates me.

She is mad because her sister returned with a suitcase full of food from the USA. My wife only eats organic food. We gave my sister in law a list of items to buy, and told her where to buy them for the best price. My wife's aunt decided she would do all the shopping herself. She would not let my sister in law come with her, because she had a "weird energy" about it. That was because my sister in law, knows my wife. She knew my wife would flip out if any of it was not organic.

My sister in law came back with a tub of peanut butter. My wife has been dreaming about this peanut butter for months. A tiny container of organic peanut butter cost about $12-$14 here. Back in the US we can get it for under $3 a container. I told them where to get it. It is a place they shop at often.

The tub of peanut butter is not organic. My wife is threatening to throw it out. My sister in law returned with coconut milk. That is also not organic. She returned with nothing organic. She dragged about 100lbs of food across the world, because we asked for it, and now we have to throw it away,because my wife will not eat non-organic food.

Wife is mad for another reason. I bought her a brand new camera. She could not be more livid. It is a $700 camera that I bought for $400 brand new, this years model. Still, she is completely irate about it. How could I have been so insensitive.

Bah

I can't think of anything to write about today. I have just been staying home, which has been great, but only have the rest of this week until I have to go back to work. Tomorrow I have to go to the doctor (to see my x-ray results) and to the dentist (my kid's new filling fell out almost immediately) then to Incheon to pick up my sister in Law who is returning from the states.

That is going to eat up the whole fucking day, not much of a vacation is it?

Maybe I will have more to say tomorrow, but I doubt it. Not going to work may be relaxing, but it does shit for blogging.

Self destructive

On friday I ran up an escalator and hurt myself. While still recovering from that fiasco, I decided to work out today. While warming up, so I don't hurt myself, I hurt myself.

Something in my back snapped like a rubber band pulled too tight. My back muscles have been spasming ever since. I have spent the day in pain, and I am sure that by tomorrow morning I will be too stiff to get out of bed.

I have had problems with my back, on and off since 1997 when my first injury occurred, and I was too young and dumb to claim worker's comp. I was working in a grocery store back home, when I was stacking cases of soda, I felt something slip in my back, and haven't been the same since. Of course it was years later, after the business I was working for had folded that I realized the extent of the damage I had done to my spine.

Since then I have gone years without problems, only to over-excerpt myself or just sneeze and throw my back out.

The simple fact is, I am just getting too old for this shit...