take volleyball to new levels of seriousness in the gymnasium on Wednesday afternoons, I'm lounging with the English towners. Of late the English town teachers (Noelle, Yun Seon-gyung, Kim Jung-hwa, and the newly hired Mrs. Emelinda Chow, about whom I've written a dumb song but she hasn't heard it yet) are docile to the point of stasis in the afternoons. The semester already feels like it's winding down; it's only a little over a month until I get to visit the States, see my friends, and get hitched.
Noelle and I are switching jobs. She'll get the sweet four-school low-supervision neat-students mountain-commute gig, and I'll take over her job, where I have to be in the same building each day, walking a different group of students through the same dialogs. I'm not thrilled about it, to tell you the truth, but Noelle deserves to have some real students, and some mountain commutes too, I guess.
This last weekend we took a bus together to Wando, eschewing the motorcycle because we thought it would rain, which it didn't. It was hard not to vomit on the bus, actually, but our ferry ride from Wando to Cheongsando was rather nice. In fact, we were invited by the captain to spend the ride with him on the bridge, after a short conversation about underwater construction prompted by a large platform afloat in the bay.
Me: (in Korean) Do you work on this big boat?
Him: Actually I'm the (incomprehensible, but turned out to mean 'captain').
Me: That big thing. Is it a gas station? It has four big things up on it.
Him: (Incomprehensible) before construction (incomprehensible) you have to do it.
Me: Ah. Will they make a bridge here?
Him: Yes, but (incomprehensible).
Me: I see. (not knowing what to do) Noelle, should we go and get some coffee?
Him: Coffee? Please come this way.
(on the bridge, now)
Me: Is it hard to drive this boat?
Him: No, it's easy.
Me: Where's that construction thing on this GPS?
Him: Ha ha. It moves, we just go around it.
Immediately upon our arrival we were hailed by some construction workers. It was the kind of grating 'hi' that I've grown to really dislike, but the guys were nice; they took us out to lunch and drove us on a short tour of the island, which culminated in a doubles ping-pong game won by Nols and the boss. They won the rematch too. I should know better than to team up with a subordinate in Asia (or to go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line). When we got back to town everybody was asking us if we'd had a good time, which made the island feel very small. We ran into the builders the next morning too, but by that time Noelle's right eye had swelled up pretty impressively and they didn't want to hang out with us anymore. It was a nice weekend, overall, however each time I visit an island a ways from the mainland I come away a little depressed. I think it would be tough to live on one.
I bought some French books at the Seoul International Book fair a couple weeks ago, when Nols took me to see Pat Metheny trio, and these days I'm reading Le Petit Prince, Milan Kundera's Le Rideau, and The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic. I thought Pavic invented the Khazar story from the ground up, which made me look like a prize idiot when talking to this Israeli guy who knew a lot more than me about history. I'm ashamed to say that after traveling in India I tend to prejudge Israelis a bit (I expect them to be a bit loud and confrontational, I guess, and my conversation partner indeed was), which rubbed a bit of salt into the wound.
Noelle and I are switching jobs. She'll get the sweet four-school low-supervision neat-students mountain-commute gig, and I'll take over her job, where I have to be in the same building each day, walking a different group of students through the same dialogs. I'm not thrilled about it, to tell you the truth, but Noelle deserves to have some real students, and some mountain commutes too, I guess.
This last weekend we took a bus together to Wando, eschewing the motorcycle because we thought it would rain, which it didn't. It was hard not to vomit on the bus, actually, but our ferry ride from Wando to Cheongsando was rather nice. In fact, we were invited by the captain to spend the ride with him on the bridge, after a short conversation about underwater construction prompted by a large platform afloat in the bay.
Me: (in Korean) Do you work on this big boat?
Him: Actually I'm the (incomprehensible, but turned out to mean 'captain').
Me: That big thing. Is it a gas station? It has four big things up on it.
Him: (Incomprehensible) before construction (incomprehensible) you have to do it.
Me: Ah. Will they make a bridge here?
Him: Yes, but (incomprehensible).
Me: I see. (not knowing what to do) Noelle, should we go and get some coffee?
Him: Coffee? Please come this way.
(on the bridge, now)
Me: Is it hard to drive this boat?
Him: No, it's easy.
Me: Where's that construction thing on this GPS?
Him: Ha ha. It moves, we just go around it.
Immediately upon our arrival we were hailed by some construction workers. It was the kind of grating 'hi' that I've grown to really dislike, but the guys were nice; they took us out to lunch and drove us on a short tour of the island, which culminated in a doubles ping-pong game won by Nols and the boss. They won the rematch too. I should know better than to team up with a subordinate in Asia (or to go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line). When we got back to town everybody was asking us if we'd had a good time, which made the island feel very small. We ran into the builders the next morning too, but by that time Noelle's right eye had swelled up pretty impressively and they didn't want to hang out with us anymore. It was a nice weekend, overall, however each time I visit an island a ways from the mainland I come away a little depressed. I think it would be tough to live on one.
I bought some French books at the Seoul International Book fair a couple weeks ago, when Nols took me to see Pat Metheny trio, and these days I'm reading Le Petit Prince, Milan Kundera's Le Rideau, and The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic. I thought Pavic invented the Khazar story from the ground up, which made me look like a prize idiot when talking to this Israeli guy who knew a lot more than me about history. I'm ashamed to say that after traveling in India I tend to prejudge Israelis a bit (I expect them to be a bit loud and confrontational, I guess, and my conversation partner indeed was), which rubbed a bit of salt into the wound.
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