I'll Be Home for Christmas

The past week has been dominated by holiday plans. 

I have been in Korea for about 9 months.  Most of this time was spent in Gangnam at a school called Jung Chul Jr.  Don’t bother looking it up; we burned that mother to the ground (in a business sense).  While my job now has taken quite a bit of time to get used to, I am thankful to have fallen in with a decent school and a bunch of funny, sarcastic coworkers. 

The downside to this situation was that unless my folks came here, I would likely not see them for another year.  My original plan was to take a month or so off after my original contract ended to get my Shrewsbury fill but this “school closing” thing really but a bad spin on that.

As a result of that realization and certain other stresses, I have lately felt a considerable amount of homesickness.  I found myself laying up at night thinking about Manville, my parents, my sister, my dog.  I thought about my friends at home and for the first time in this whole like abroad thing, really missed EVERYTHING.

A few weeks ago I found out that my Christmas vacation is fairly sizeable.  The idea of going home for that little spell popped into my mind and never left.  Soon enough I was listening to Christmas music and I knew it was inevitable.  So, $1400 later I will be home for Christmas. 

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Dragons, Guitars, and Christmas

Well, it’s belated but Merry Christmas! I meant to write a nice, if overly sentimental, entry on Christmas night about the difficulties of being away from home for the first time on Christmas. I had it planned all week but I couldn’t write it because I passed the hell out on my floor after being unable to keep my head up for prolonged amounts of time whilst skyping my family on their Christmas morning. Sometimes I even make myself proud.






A family photo- complete with that kid.



A week before Christmas:

We had the Christmas Pageant that my school had been rehearsing for since before Halloween. Every other day the youngest of the kids would have “Do Ray Me” blasted in the class followed by “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” As time wore on and I became more accepting of the fact that I would be spending Christmas sans family I came to appreciate the almost daily Christmas music. As it was in the beginning though, it really just bummed me out. On the rare day that I am feeling particularly glum, there is nothing that sinks that sword in than hearing my favorite Christmas Songs in the classrooms while I freeze my ass off in the teachers’ room.

Still, Halloween soon passed and then November and Thanksgiving and I came to look forward to popping my head into the classrooms. There were choreographed dances to every song. They were nothing overly complicated but that my coworkers built the sequences from the ground up AND taught the lyrics to the kids impressed me.

This video is pretty long.  The kids did awesome but it drags some. 

By far my favorite was Mariah Carey’s “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.” This song and dance number involved almost a dozen late elementary / early middle school girlss and a poor goofy middle school boy who happened to be in the wrong class at the wrong time. I would glance through the window from time to time and see the girls dancing and smiling and he would generally be looking suicidal while trying to jam himself in the corner.

There were a few plays. Hansel and Gretel with no girls. A story about a tiger who is freed from a net by a smaller animal. The tiger, of course, is guilty of take-backsies and says that he will eat his savior. The tiger agrees to go to various other animals that live in the jungle and asks whether or not it would be fair to eat the little animal. Jungle cow is pretty bitter about being made into car seats so he is all for some carnage. Jungle owl says the tiger is a moron and throws a net over him; or something like that.



Han putting tape on their noses.  This was
not as quiet as you might think.



Once December finally rolled around kids would come in and ask me to help them with their reading or pronunciation. A few groups of students were presenting readings or poems to the audience (all of their parents). Two of my nicer girls were doing a joint reading of Cinderella. I spent a few hours with them over the last few days before the pageant helping them read. My little friend, Clara, chose to read a horribly depressing story about an orphan, an abused dog, and a dying grandfather that seemed to take a good 20 minutes if she read quickly.

All in all though, that was pretty much the extent of my contribution to this whole Christmas Pageant. Not only that, but on Fridays a huge portion of my classes were given over to rehearsing which resulted me in having almost nothing to do with anything. I felt bad for a while. Then something happened and I didn’t feel bad anymore: I opened my big fat, stupid mouth.

I had bought a guitar a while back. At the time it seemed a sexy little acoustic number. It grew into a pretty standard, bordering on crap, mass produced guitar. Still, I had some fun with it. I had mentioned this to Han months ago. I might have even mentioned that I no longer fell into the “suck category,” or the “only knows 3 chords category.” I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was a remotely competent or consistent player. That would be a lie. So, I shouldn’t have been shocked when Han told me I would be playing “Puff the Magic Dragon” with one of her classes.

So, I learned “Puff.” Not a difficult song at all, but the difficulty for me lies in playing in front of others. I lose all confidence even in front of drunk friends. There is always some virtuoso making a mental note of my sloppy progressions and erratic tempo. I was pretty determined to do a good job, though, as this would be my only significant contribution to the pageant.

Our rehearsals went well. Most of the song has the same few chords and tempo. There are a couple of parts where it changes and another chord get’s tossed in but the class was ignoring it and I decided not to correct them. I began to have trouble keeping time. I am incapable of hanging onto a pick for more than 10 seconds so if I started with one there would inevitably be a big ol’ twang as it went flying off and everyone would look at me. Still, they are young kids (including the boy who brought in a super-realistic toy pistol) and they seemed to look at me like a rock-star with the tattoo and beard. Talk about a self-esteem boost.

Oh, pause. Forgot to mention I bought a second and genuinely amazing acoustic in Seoul for a fraction of the cost of my original. So, now I am the jerk with multiple guitars who can barely even play them. Again.

Anyway, time went on and it came to the days before the pageant. People began coming in on Saturdays to write cue-cards or rehearse. The boss’ wife and the Receptionist seem to have handmade all of the costumes (simple masks and several fabric Santa cape-things) and they had printed out photos I had taken of every kid in school.



"Santa Clause is Coming to Town" crew.



Somewhere along the line Han picked out the single worst Christmas tree I have ever seen. It had once been a pine tree, but somebody had not only taken off the firs, cut it into 3 sections and sold them individually, but it had also been spray painted black. For a month or so this thing sat in our main room so everyone could see it. Poor Han got ripped on a lot.

I came in on the Friday before the Saturday pageant (I now teach at a second school full of older kids who refuse to talk) to find the entire staff and their friends / brothers / boyfriends putting up Christmas decorations. They told me that I didn’t need to stay but I had none of it. Somewhere, despite committing to ignoring Christmas I was had by the spirit of it all. I might not be seeing any family this year, I thought, but dammit I am going to decorate the hell out of this school. So we did.

They had done most of the work before I had returned, but I clipped photos onto strings of light. In the end the school looked gorgeous. It was really a surprise! Even that damned little dumpster tree looked nice with ornaments and lights and pictures hanging from its shiny black dead branches. I went home feeling accomplished that Christmas had not entirely passed me by.

Back to a Week Before Christmas: Pageant Day and the Departure of Boram

I arrived to find the staff of my school making final additions and alterations to their plays. I sat my guitar in the office and tried to lend a hand but there wasn’t really much going on. I asked Haejin, the newer teacher, if she was excited and she replied with a “no, not really” which is understandable given that she had put in actual work while I sat there playing guitar. I asked the same thing to Boram and she said that she was trying not to cry and I remembered what I had been told a few days before.

Boram, the girl who sat in front of me when I had been picked up from the bus station; Boram, the girl who showed me around town and made me feel better about being away from home; Boram, my friend, was leaving today. Her family owns a restaurant in town. She had always known she was going to take it over. She was going there now to work permanently. I was sad. Boram took me to the hospital once saying to the others that she needed an injection for a cold but bought an anti-hangover drink. She scared the shit out of the kids and was our strongest defense against the worst kids. Despite that I constantly called her Boromir didn’t seem to bother her.

But, the show must go on.

Kids came, dressed in their finest. They separated to 3 waiting rooms running different movies on our projectors. Their parents streamed in, went through the 50433839 balloons, ignored me completely, and sat in the “auditorium.” Soon, Albert was speaking and chaos began.

There wasn’t more than 5 seconds between the different acts and that made things rushed. Kids had costumes to change, candles to light, etc. Further, most kids were in several different acts and they couldn’t always be found where they were supposed to. The parents saw poetry readings, the most adorable little kids doing various adorable things, Albert laughing and smiling. What they likely could hear were their kids getting shrieked at to stop picking their noses or to get in the line, all seasoned amply with obscenity.



Puff the Magic Dragon group.  As you can tell, they are bad-ass.
What you can't see is the booze or blow they are hiding.



I was trying to help. There wasn’t much I could do but maybe hit the back of Doctor Jones head or to wrestle them a little when they were in the movie rooms and I was bored. After a while though, as the “Puff” set was coming up, I started getting nervous. Nerves gave away to sheer panic and sweat and shakes. We went on ninth. I was standing in the corner with sweaty palms trying not to drop my guitar after tuning it for the fifth time. By the time we were on deck, I was standing behind a dozen smiling, laughing, impeccably dressed kids looking like I was about to add a new spin to the Christmas season by shot gun barfing on everyone’s kids. All this, and I was playing one easy song!



Finally, we walked in. Boy, there are a lot of people here. I remember thinking that, then sitting down and trying to set up my camera to record. I was really, really proud of all that we had done. We sounded pretty good when we practiced and a kid didn’t burp or something. There was nothing to worry about.

“Ok, go Tom!” said Han.

 (In regards to the video: sorry.  I was horrified.  If you don't notice, the camera is upside down.)

I remember nothing. I remember hitting the strings once. I remember shaking and feeling like I was going to barf on the kid standing next to me. At some point the kids stopped singing, people clapped; I got up and walked off. I eventually found my 9 year old band mates and they proceeded to tell me that it was horrible. Eventually, I found a quiet place to watch the most poorly shot video ever. Not bad, really. I remain proud.

The last few performances went on, including an AWESOME “Santa Clause is Coming to Town.” Really, it was awesome. I have all of the video second hand, but it was all shot in one take and I lack any software to cut it up. I’m working on it.

Once we had cleaned up a bit, we set out to BBQ. Here, many tears were shed amongst the girls for Boram’s last day. It was sad. The school is a different and more chaotic place without her. We were drunk by 8pm and proceeded on to a fairly raucous noraebang session.



Christmas

I spent Christmas with my Cheongju friends. I woke up hung-over from going out Christmas Eve. I made my own candy (Chunky Godfrey’s) and proceeded upstairs to my friend Amanda’s apartment which would be the setting for our Waygook Christmas.

What can I say?

It was a blast. Christmas has stood out as an important day in Korea since I arrived. I anticipated that I would spend it depressed and black-out drunk. While one of those things happened, I was not depressed.

There was food. A lot of food. Good food. Good drinks. Hot toddies, mulled wine (I think). “A Christmas Story” played on repeat for a long time and then “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” There were inappropriate stories, laughs, drinking. We were warm and comfortable while outside it began to snow.

Photo courtesy of Amanda C.  She is one of a few not pictured.

A white Christmas! In Korea! Who would have thought?

At a certain point my memory gets fuzzy. A short time after this, the memory is just gone. The group of us, Americans, an Irish guy, a New Zealander eventually found our way to noraebang where we sang stuff I no longer recall. I won a wallet at some point, or I stole it. Who knows?

At midnight the party ended and I floated in the holiday and whiskey warmth where I proceeded to, in this order: call my mom, realize I was incapable of keeping my head up or speaking with any coherency, barfing, brushing my teeth, passing out on my floor.

It was a great Christmas that I will never forget despite not remembering much of it.



New Years Eve

Copy Christmas / Paste / add Ricky and Lauren from Daejeon



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Updates

So, what’s the story morning-glory? What’s new?


I am behind on all things Korea as far as this here blog is concerned. Generally speaking, most of my friends are also Facebook friends (I wouldn’t dare call somebody a rare friend if Facebook didn’t confirm this fact) and know what’s up with the state of things. There are a number of people with whom (or who, I don’t know) I speak pretty much daily. These people also know more of my activities than is necessary. So, this pretty much for people who aren’t subjected to my Facebook status messages.

What’s gone on since I have been back in Korea and since Kelly has been back at old Plymouth Rock? A bunch.

I returned to find the basic daily happenings of my school had all changed. We no longer give out stickers. This is a good thing in that I don’t have to finish a class with a minute to spare and then have a bunch of kids sacking me at the door and demanding 3 stickers a pop that I had yet to put my official signature on. This also sucked for a while because I had to use this Chinese tally character and mark how many points each kid earned in the class. This was a problem because it required me to know all of my kids’ names. This is something I struggle with still to this day. I am horrible with names anyway, forget throwing in names with sounds I can barely pronounce. So, I know a lot more names than I did a month ago. If I come to a class whose names I am still screwing up I tend to give everyone 4 points and call it even.

I had slow days Mondays and Wednesdays until Han went and annoyed Minnie and Daniels mother by telling her that she thought Daniel maybe copied his homework out of a book instead of doing it on his own. Not a big deal, really. Obviously their Mom flipped her lid and pulled them both out of the school. I was actually pretty sad to hear that Minnie was gone. She was difficult sometimes (often) and she was remarkably clever about sidetracking me and I was stunningly passive about getting back on track, but I thought of her as my student more than anyone else. I taught her every day and put a lot of care into not driving her insane and running her into the ground.

So, I had slow Mondays and Wednesdays before; now I basically do nothing. My class load is evened out by getting slammed on Tuesday’s and Thursdays (plus an extra hour of tutoring) and teaching at a second school on Friday nights.

I dread Tuesdays and Thursdays way more than I should. I have a couple of “bad” classes (in that the kids sort of drive me mad and often make it their goal to make me yell) but after that I deal with the older, generally more subdued, kids. It just tends to drag on. The tutoring is no big deal, really. I tutor the Receptionist and the Driver (formerly known as the Younger Receptionist: apparently she was our bus driver). It is difficult though in that I have zero confidence in my true teaching abilities. Usually I can win kids over by making funny noises with my eye or subdue them with my spray bottle. I can’t very well spray the receptionist and expect to live. And anyway, there are times when I am teaching kids that I just go blank for a moment or forget what I was talking about. The kids never notice because it is unlikely they were paying much attention anyway or it adds a little “natural” conversation into those classes. When I blank out with the adults it is pretty frigging obvious I just had a mental fart.



Dr. Jones and his hat.



There was a little spat with North Korea. I feel like a moron for always being behind in this thing when something other than Dr. Jones wearing a “mother fucker” hat but that’s what happens when you are lazy. I went to the bar with some friends to celebrate my buddy Tim’s birthday and the place was dead and the only TV had the barkeeps hovering around it wondering what the president was going to say about it. It could have also been dead because it was a Tuesday or something. Anyway, after it all happened the course of action depended on who you talked to. A lot of people (a lot of Koreans) said “oh, big deal, they do this all the time.” Then there were a few people who were actually pretty concerned about war. As time has passed it seems to be a little bit of both that has become the reality. North Korea basically got a giant “WTF” from the South. During and after the funerals though the Korean Marines were calling for blood and the general populous seemed to be pretty much through with putting up with violence and “provocations” by the North as a means of extorting aid and calls for diplomatic discussions. So, there have been a bunch of military drills and preventative measures incase of any future attacks. Maybe it is that civilians were in the line of an open attack but it seems that the next time the North does anything of the like again it could get real serious real fast. The new Defense Minister is promising an air strike to counter any further incidents and who knows how the North would react to that. They had evacuation drills in Seoul yesterday complete with fighter jets to add to the “oh shit” feeling.

The holidays are here. Ordinarily I am like a little child at this time of the year but I am not so this year. This will be my first Christmas not with my family and it is a little rough. It is a little rough for all of us here, I imagine, which is nice because I like not suffering alone; but communal misery isn’t a replacement for family during the holidays.

In other holiday news my school is putting on a Christmas show this coming Saturday for all of the parents. The kids are performing such holiday plays as “Hansel and Gretel,” “Cinderella”, and a reading from some story about an abused dog and a dying grandfather. There are also such Christmas songs as “All I Want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey and “Puff the Magic Dragon.” I am actually responsible for that last one, having suggested it as an easy song to learn. I was then promptly punished for mentioning I had a guitar and not mentioning that I play the same O.A.R. songs over and over and will now be playing Puff the Magic Dragon in front of all of the parents.

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