50

As I approach a big decision, the ratio of time spent doing things which are personally constructive vis a vis time spent very slowly shuffling around the small neighborhood grocery store feeling every single tomato and weighing the 6 pros and 6 cons of the decision over and over again slides horribly askew in favour of the produce.  Unfortunately, I am the kind of man who is drawn to sit on top of a stack of monkey bars at cold hours of the night and let the wind push my hair while I think, an affection that I think we can all agree is best left to thin moody actor Keanu Reeves and his disciples.

I'm signing on for another year in Korea, if I can tell you plainly.  There are plenty of reasons but the main one is of course that it's a good idea.  If you're someone who I'm coming back to, then I can tell you I'm coming back in February sometime and I think I'm staying for a month.  And of course I'm looking forward to seeing you.

I have a new system/idea/illusion and I'm going to share it with you because I think it's one of those rare things that's both great and really foolish.  I am going to pay myself to work.

Like this:

Money from teaching "job" is deposited in bank account #1

Hours spent doing work (like writing this blog, this blog is now work) are logged.

Every Friday is payday.  I am paying myself 25,000 Won an hour.  Whatever I make is taken out of bank account #1 and put into bank acount #2.  I can only spend money from #2 of course.  (I already possess two bank accounts) 

Ledger #1

Date    Hours   Notes (Research, Writing, etc)  Total

I spend an amazing amount of time at my job sitting in front of a computer with all my "work" done with hours of the day left to go.  I am going to use this time to my advantage or I'm going to die trying, and the best part is that either way it goes 50 cent will be proud of me. 

Also, do you think 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books are an overlooked literary form?  I'm feeling something is due.

These are my days these days

School starts at 8:30 every day and it goes fast or it drags like a chain in the mud behind something with four wheel drive but I always leave here at 4:30.  By the time I walk home, and it's not a long walk, I already have to be out the door again in fifteen minutes to sleep on a bus for fourty minutes to make it to band practice by six.  Six to ten I'm squeezing the neck of my new guitar and then it's back on the bus, not sleepy now but with my head down reading a book and listening to the ring in my ears.  By the time I'm home, full, flossed and washed it's half past midnight even though I always want to be in bed before 12.  I kill on average 1.4 mosquitoes at 3:00 am every night after they buzz me awake, having already bit my arm or ear or brow.  If the timing is right I listen to the rooster that lives somewhere close by crow, or the drunk man who lives somewhere nearby sing.  They lead, and in fact are the only ones gracing, my list of things to strangle (mosquitoes are left off, having made their way to an even more select list of things I want to curse and smash).  When I wake up in the morning at 7:38 after hitting the snooze twice I squint through the morning to the shower where I rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat,

***

Here is the premise for my 9th grade boys class today:

You are stuck on a dessert island with thirteen different people (examples: Manchester United's Park Ji Sung, a Buddhist monk, a teacher, the richest man in the world etc)

What is something positive each person can offer the group for their survival?  What is something negative about this person that might hurt the group?


We are deep in the lesson with only ten minutes left.  A very earnest boy puts his hand up to answer the question.

"Yes, you.  What is something positive about number 11, the pregnant woman?"

"She can give milk," he said.  And forty-one sixteen year old boys lost their shit.  Runner up to this response went to the boy, who when pressed for a negative about the Buddhist monk, told me that the monk would eat him.

Good Morning

The office is quiet right now.  I have printed out all my print outs for the first class of the day and so I sit at my desk and waste the last 15 minutes before classes begin in nearly any way that I desire as long as I keep quiet and stare intently at this screen.

My desk has a long bookshelf at its head that's divided into three compartments by two bookends.  In the first is a fake plant that appeared on my desk about 2 months ago.  No one has claimed responsibility.  There are packaged napkins left over from a half dozen runny noses and there are my 7th and 9th grade text books that I stopped consulting for my lessons about the same time I got the plastic flowers.

In the second there are copies of the last seven days of 'The Korean Herald', all clearly unread with their sleeves still on.  When my vice principle saw me reading the Herald near the beginning of my time here, he decided he'd have the librarian bring me the newest copy every day at noon.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that if I was going to read the paper that day, I'd already have read it on the internet.  In this cubby there is also a picture of me drawn by a student.  I am spread eagle and favouring my left side, which is my good side so impressive work on the artists part.  On the page is written 'Flying Kyle' and there are the obligatory stars behind me and a sun and I am saying "Yeah".

The office is filling up.  The home room teacher's meeting must be over.

Behind my computer in the last of the shelf space are a half dozen envelopes containing the pieces for stock market game I made.  Strewn about my desk are wet peanuts (a gift, but why wash peanuts? A wet peanut is a bad peanut as I have just discovered), two juices flavoured grape and strawberry-apple-radish respectively (gifts), a paper cup of peanut shells and pencil shavings, a full page note I confiscated a few days ago (entirely in Korean of course) and a ceramic coffee cup given to me by my principle.  Oh, and papers everywhere.  In my largest drawer I have the remains of a huge bag of assorted candy that has now become a largely empty bag of only cinnamon candy.  Korean children hate cinnamon.

There's the bell.  Good morning.