A Bad Day Spiral.

Some days really suck. You are in the middle of your pay schedule so you do not have a lot of funds and you have far, far too long to the next pay cheque. You know you should not be living pay cheque to pay cheque and you castigate yourself over that because you are not the offspring of your responsible parents.  You are halfway through the teaching schedule for Winter Camp and the combination of sleep deprivation, mismanaged course schedules and kids high on life has you going slightly crazy.  And you have other shit going on. Deep, mysterious shit no one else could possibly understand nor process more successfully than you.

Life is super tough.

You go through the day picking at all the things going wrong for you. The bus did not wait for you. You were too heavy for the building lift and were unceremoniously kicked out by a grumpy ajumma. Your co worker is all sweetness and light then tells you she wants you to make a test for the class in the enxt ten minutes. Your phone falls into a cup of coffee. A kid kicks you in the shins. The subway charges your passcard twice for the same journey. Your friends and family seem to have got their entire act together and you don't even know your lines half the time. People getting engaged, married, having kids, buying houses, being *successful*. And you are not.

Well now hang on a minute.

You have a job. You have a house. You are eminently employable. You have friends. You have family. You have food in the fridge. You have clothes. You have heating and light. You're not doing too bad.

This day is like any other. Yes, some bad stuff happened. You missed that bus but another one will come along soon. Your co worker may have trouble explaining when you have to do things. Your levels of preparedness are increasing even as we speak and you certainly should not get stressed over their mistake. Yes, Winter Camp is hard for some people. Yes, Mid month is  shitty time, especially after Xmas and New Year's.  But you are going to make it. You always do.

I have a busted knee and thought I was going to have no way of paying for it. My school has since set me up with insurance and I have a charitable benfactor to help me out. My school has been super lovely to me and it is going to all work out. Something happens. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes, that thing has to be from you, and that is the hardest thing. Digging deep, finding the energy to fix your situation. Finding the ability to ask for help when you normally would not. FInding the skill to act indepeneedntly when you normally wouldn't.

However, your problem is solved, you know it will not be the end of your world. It will, in time, be a footnote. So do not let it get you down. This, like eveyrthing else, will pass.

But seriously, some days really do suck.

Five DIY Tips Living In Korea; Dos And Don'ts.

Well, look. Most of you have your own place sorted out by your employer. I mean, hell, that is part of the pleasure of working here. However, you could decide to move on to a better place. And I don't mean Heaven. When you find a place, there could be a few small problems with it. When you get those problems, there are right ways and there are wrong ways to fix them. I hope these will clarify which is which. 

This set of signs have no arrows. There is no way shown. They are doing signs the wrong way. Therefore, the wrong way sign is doing it right and the right way sign...Look, it's a bad picture.

Gaps in Windows 

DO

I know you are all ready with the weather stripping. Self adhesive, easy to use, readily available. However, if you find yourself not able to get it this might be good too. Get some double sided sticky tape. If you're British giggle at the fact you have become a Blur Peter presenter. If not English, shake head at the things English insist are funny. Get shrink film. I don't care where from. I don't know, fucking Daiso.

Somewhere in here, Hoffa is buried. Probably in one of the Heart shaped letter keepers.

Wash window and frame. Stick sticky tape to frame. Put shrink tautly over tape. Make joke about stretching it out. Use hair dryer to heat the shrink film. Shrink film shrinks, thus making people who name things happy. Now you have no draft. I'd make an NFL reference but honestly I don't know anything about that. Is the Refrigerator still a super star athlete?

What a Super Star Athlete should look like. David Beckham, take note.

DON'T
Take a tube of superglue and hammer it into a plank. Put plank over hole. If this doesn't work pour oil on it and set fire to it. Enjoy the virtual feast. Then try to do again but better. When window falls out get oil drum and place in centre of room. Fill with detritus and waste. Set fire to it. Hope this will compensate for -20 degree Siberian winds. Watch hope extinguish as flame dies. Or, watch hope set fire to entire apartment block.

Still, to be fair, I bet you can't feel that Russian wind anymore. I bet you can't feel anything.

Ripped mesh.

DO

Buy a new mesh guard. It's cheap. No? You are now officially cheaper than a Jew. Apparently you break all the boundaries, allowing insects in your room and Jews in your heart. (Obviously not in your golf course though. That's cray cray). Okay then try this. Get an old mesh guard. cut a piece out that is an inch wider than the hole (pause to say any dick joke. They're all good here). Sew it to the mesh. Make that stitch tighter than (don't attempt dick joke here. You're sowing. Read the room). When finished, have honey based sex knowing insects will go insane at how you are using their nectar.

"C'mon! that guy doesn't even have his stinger in the right place. Chicks dig the worst guys!"

DON'T

Realize it is time you face all the insects as a man but on your terms, with the clear home advantage. Cake yourself in clay. Arm yourself with knife, Doom spray, bow and flammable arrows. Rip the rest Of the mesh off the window. Turn on all the lights. Hide up in the coat rack. Prepare for war.

How Arnold kills everything is why there no animals in a 5 KM radius of his house.

Cut Linoleum

 DO

Get a pro. Look, you might think cutting a piece from somewhere else, beading some caulk and mastic will take care of it. It will not. It'll cost between 200-600 to do a whole floor. That's still less than your key money. Don't. No. Don't. Put the mastic down.

Although, this looks awesome.

DON'T.


Decide the cut looks artistic. Decide that is the next big thing. Decide that cut looks like the tooth of a JackOLantern. Cut the rest of the room to fit the tooth. Take a picture. Send to landlord. Wait for royalties. Keep cutting. Find the Ondol pipes.Climb down among them. It will be years before you return to the world of man. When you do you will be King of the Little People.

How I picture life under the ondol pipes.

Frozen Pipes

DO

This one Is easier the lower down the apartment block you are. Finally those cheap ass ground level apartments come through for the ex pat. Take off the floor filter so you have the open hole. Make a joke about your last girlfriend. Take off the the shower head an dangle the whole shower as far as it will go. Make further joke about your schlong. Turn on super hot water. Frozen pipes unfrozen. Pull shower nozzle back out. Clean shower. Have shower sex with girlfriend. Remember to put up Rocky pose when staring at yourself in the mirror.

Only, you know, romantically.

DON'T

Continue to shower ignoring the blockage. Let the dirt and soap congeal around your feet. Scrap off the resultant foot fungus and cook it for your landlord. This is your thank you meal  for your new ice rink. Brushing your teeth has never been so deadly!!! Don't tell girlfriend about ice rink. Learn how to live without physical gratification as you spoon feed her unforgiving paraplegic body. Live in regret.

This guy knows what I'm talking about.

Mold

DO

I swear almost everyone has a different way to deal with mold. Some like Cillit Bang. Some like diluted Bleach. Don't scrub. Just spray and pray like Cheney in a forest. Look at that guy. He's cleaning Mold from 200 yards away. And he's doing under budget.







Some like onions in tin foil. The onion absorbs all the mold spores, like that kid from super troopers. Then carefully wrap the foil around it and move it out. Or throw it at someone. Just keep it aired and keep an eye on it.Because that thing will pop and you will be fucked.






DON'T
Invest in black lights, a baseball bat and a flamethrower. Beat the mold patch furiously. Yell at it taunting it. Turn off normal lights and turn on black lights. At this point learn whether mold glows on a black light. Do not use Internet, it's more exciting this way. If it does glow, turn on flame thrower and incinerate beautiful floating glowing orbs. If it doesn't burn everything.

House Cleaning. Fuck it, it feels right.

The other 1,344,130,000 reasons North Korea is doing nothing

So a couple blogs back, I had a cheerleading moment, espousing the might of the U.S. military and the need for the Northern army to eat. While it was well and good to base all ny 'Pfffft'ing at North Korea on America's ability to Drone them back to the Joseon, I was actually missing a key ingredient.

"Is the key ingredient 'meat'? Seriously, I'm hungry, dude"

While America has been busy having lots of war and getting all the glory (classic Independence Day schtick), North Korea has been playing the rhetoric raise game and winning.  Any time they need something from the West (and South ) they got it. However, they don't get everything from us.

"I got what I needed." I hate you Freshman representing North Korea. HATE YOU! You broke my heart.

The current Chinese leadership have connections with the North. The new Premier of China was working high up in the communist rankings on the border with North Korea .One of the seven in the Poliburo Standing Committee speaks fluent Korean and studied Economics at Pyongyang's Kim Il SUng University.

I was going to make a joke about it being a party college, then found the only pics are of the swimming pool. Holy Shit, Kim Il Sung U is COMPLETELY A PARTY COLLEGE!

Speaking of foreign exchanges, and No, I don't mean a swirling rim job sixtynine with an old Belgian woman by the name of Michelle, I don't know why you would say that, look at the numbers of Chinese people now living in Korea. My friend Rob ( he's cool) said on my Facebook wall that all the Chinese generals and Politburo members send their kids to Korean Universities. Therefore, North Korea would never bomb the south That's not true, though.

 

This is Michelle. Ooh La La

Just over 500,000 Chinese live in South Korea. That is a literal drop in the ocean of China's popularity. population. Also, those Chinese living in South Korea have not been treated so well. They are viewed with suspicion and hostility. Meanwhile all the uber rich and powerful Chinese offspring are in America getting degrees in Harvard.

Like a Boss's Daughter.

All this means China is close to Korea. Chairman Mao described the relationship 'as close as teeth and lips." In 2008, China supplied about 90% of North Korea's oil, 80% of its consumer goods and 45% of its food. Beijing was Pyongyang's only formal military ally and its primary backer in the United Nations Security Council and other diplomatic forums. If it  had not been for the policies set down by Hu Jin Tao from the early 2000s (and the acceptance of that by George Bush), there would be no North Korean missile program and no North Korean nuclear program. 

"George Bush LOVES nukes! Kanye, you're just being mean now!"

Really? Another Katrina Meme? Haven't those people suffered enough?

Fast forward to now. Kim Jong Eun, Or Fatty the Third as Chinese Social Media trolls call him, is held to be responsible for destroying what remains of the relationship.


"The favorable opinion of the Chinese public toward Pyongyang is fading," the Communist Party-affiliated newspaper Global Times cautiously wrote in an editorial Wednesday. It warned that North Korea's "latest provocation is further damaging its reputation and exhausting its future ability to use deterrence strategies."  (LA Times)

"To many in Beijing, North Korea is looking less like a strategic asset and more like a strategic burden," said Cheng Xiaohe, associate professor at Renmin University's School of International Studies.(NBC News)

Look at it, Kim Il Sung University of Pyongyang. LOOK AT IT. It's called a library.

So again, don't worry about it.

Because when China does this,

North Korea will do this,

Hagwan to Hire Mannequins as Teachers

Hagwans to Hire Mannequins

A bold new initiative will see Ex-Pat TEFL teachers being replaced by a series of department store mannequins. The Happy Happy Sunshine English Yippee! School, based in Beomeo, is excited with the new venture.  Five used mannequins are to cover all classes starting from the beginning of the Spring semester. The school Principal, Park Tae Hoon, was well pleased with the decision.  "Foreign teachers are notorious for only being at work during their contracted hours. These bad boys will stay at the school 24 hours ad infinitum.   They don't need an apartment, or a phone, or vacation.  Plus they are fully poseable, which is great fun and, er, useful in the classroom."
Students will work on their own and then mark each other while the mannequin, dressed in a range of clothing yet to be selected, looks on.   The Director was keen to stress the mannequins would look western. "Parents and prospective parents really want their children to learn English from something that
 looks like it could speak it naturally. " said Park.   "Assuming they could speak. Which, obviously they can't, which makes staff meetings a lot more efficient".   
Students at the school were not surprised by the director's decision, some of whom claimed surprisingly to be a result of cutting costs. "He has wanted to save money ever since he first started working here and made us clean the classrooms before studying," said one anonymous Third Grader. "He hides the toilet paper and charges us for each sheet we want.  Before we go in, mind you, so we have to plan quite far in advance. Four first years have already pissed themselves". 
Principal Park responded to these allegations, assuring the wellbeing and education of minors was his primary concern, before driving off in his BMW 9 series.  "I assure you, these replacement teachers are no dummies". 
The mannequins were not available for comment