Korean Newspaper Editorial

"U.S. President Barack Obama's two-day stay in Korea should be the most stress-free leg of his four-nation East Asian swing - after dealing with unyielding Japan and almost arrogant China."

I think Korea thinks a little too highly of themselves.

I'm Tall

Yes, believe it or not, I know that I'm tall. I've been tall most of my life. That's actually my favorite thing that I love to hear from people: "Wow, you sure are tall!" or "Did you know you're really tall?" or "Haha, you're taller than the van!" I can't get enough of it, seriously. I love people pointing out my physical attributes. In fact, I love it so much, that the next time someone points out to me that I'm tall, I'm going to point out something about their appearance to them. "Wow, you sure are ugly!" or "Did you know you are kind of overweight?" or "Haha, need help reaching that top shelf there?" This is how I was starting to feel living in the United States.

Now that I'm in Korea, I have to get used to it. Koreans are not an especially tall race. And as soon as I arrived in Taebaek, I knew I was going to get those height questions all the time. What I wasn't ready for was the staring. Everywhere I go, people stare at me. They are very obvious about it too. I've lost track of the number of times I have been standing at the bus stop down town, and a car slows down, almost stopping in front of me, with the driver staring wide eyed at me, the giant American, taking up space at the bus stop. Now this is probably a mix of the height and not being Korean, but still, they stare. A lot. It's kind of like I'm a celebrity. A very tall, akward looking celebrity.

Now I know that sounds awesome, but there are some drawbacks to being so tall in Korea, especially in a small-ish town like Taebaek. I had to go to 8 different stores before I found a coat that kinda sorta fit me. Beyond that, I can't find any clothes in town that fit me. I have to go to Seoul for that. Doorways? Most are low. I've encountered some that are really ridiculously low. Like bending over into a 90 degree angle to walk through low. I haven't hit my head that many times though, don't worry.

My height pays off sometimes though. My first and second grade classes love it when I jump and touch the ceiling. It's the best way to get them to shut up and listen to me. The teachers always make lots of room for me when we go out to dinner, so that I have room to spread my legs and stretch, which is nice. Aaaaaand that's about all I have right now. Those are two really lame perks of being tall. Damnit.

TV Shows You Should Watch

Even in South Korea, I manage to watch too much tv. Most of it is quality stuff that no one should miss. But many of you are, because you are dumb, preoccupied with things like "responsibility" and "having a life." Losers.



This isn't currently on tv, due to the third season finale airing last weekend. But that shouldn't stop you from going out and buying/renting/downloading all three seasons and watching them as soon as possible. Mad Men is one of the best shows on tv right now. Well acted, good stories, funny, serious, Don Draper, and hot chicks, all in one fantastic show. And it makes me wish I had a job where I could drink all day. (Prays parents don't read this part of the blog)



Funniest show on tv right now. Dumb, stupid situations created by a bunch of idiots, and I laugh non stop at it all. Charlie is probably one of the funniest tv characters of all time. Everything that guy does makes me laugh. Danny DeVito is also hilarious as Frank. If you like a show like South Park, you'll love It's Always Sunny. Watch this clip below, and I dare you not to laugh:









Another one of my favorites. It fills my desire for a sports show, and for a cheesy teen drama, only it's a well done cheesy teen drama! It's a show based on a movie that was based on a book, about high school football in the small Texas town of Dillon. The show is entertaining as hell, and somehow it makes you really care about what happens to the characters. It gets a little dusty in the room whenever I watch. The football scenes are well done, and the show handles the typical high school/sports cliches surprisingly well. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

Desperate Housewives

Haaaaaaaa just kidding! Seriously, I don't watch that crap. I don't even know who is in it. Doesn't Tony Parker play someone important? Yes? No? Maybe?



My favorite new show this season. Typical family comedy, only funnier. Three different types of families, all related, all interacting on a daily basis. The one dad acts a little too much like Michael from The Office, but it's more than made up for by the hilariousness of Mitchell and Cameron's relationship. (Yes, those are both male names. Sorry if that offends you. (I'm not really sorry, I just felt like that was a nice thing to say. Did I just do parenthesis inside parenthesis? Yup.)) It's also nice to see Al Bundy back in the picture.


There are more shows I'd like to talk about, but at this point you probably don't care anymore. So I'll shut up. Wait, no. WATCH THE WIRE!!!

Ok, now I'm done.

Catching Up

Since I haven't posted in a while, and nothing that exciting has really happened to me recently, it's time for a quick round up of my life for the last two weeks. Because I know at least one person out there cares. Hi grandma! (Waves at computer screen)

1. I've been teaching 22 classes a week. I have no idea what I'm doing half the time. I think/kinda hope these kids are learning something. No one has told me to do anything different yet, so I guess we'll see how this goes.

2. I made a 5th grade girl cry last week. I was teaching the class some simple past tense verbs. I told the students to write their own past tense sentences. One girl came up to me with her sentence, looking very confident. She had written down "Im cute." Now, that's obviously wrong, but for some reason I had the worse possible reaction to reading that sentence: I started to laugh. She saw me laughing, ran back to her desk, put her head down, and started to cry. Whoops.

3. I hiked up Taebaeksan last weekend. It's a very tall mountain, and I'm pretty sure I wrote something about hiking up there last month. The hike isn't so bad, it's actually quite nice. However, there are a couple things to remember before you hike up a mountain: a. If it's pretty cold at the bottom before you start going up, you can be pretty sure it's going to be FREEZING at the top. And really ridiculously windy. b. Hiking down a mountain in the dark is a lot more fun than hiking up a mountain in daylight.

4. No Shave November! I'm starting to look like a sober-ish Kyle Orton.

5. I know I promised more pictures, but like I've said numerous times already, I'm lazy. So I'm just going to sign up for one of those picture websites, and I'll post the link here whenever I put new pictures up. This would be a great time to give you the link for that website wouldn't it? Too bad I haven't set that up yet. Whoops.

6. Notre Dame sucks again. Weis needs to go. He should be replaced by one of the following coaches: 1. Urban Meyer 2. Bob Stoops 3. John Gruden 4. Eric Taylor 99. Brian Newsom.

7. I'm going to Seoul this weekend. Believe it or not, I can't find pants that fit me in town. (That's a tall joke, not a fat joke you jerks.) I'm sure I'll have a funny story or two to share with you all after the weekend. Because that's what I'm here for, your entertainment. Dance, monkey, dance!

Lazy Lazy Lazy

Yeah Yeah I know. I haven't posted in a few days. How lazy are you Brian, that you can't even write a post or two in 2 weeks. Wasn't the whole point of your blog to write short posts so that you could write frequently? Yes, it was. And obviously I'm super lazy. I'm going to change that from here on out, because I know you all can't live not knowing exactly what is going on with my life here. And I know you've all been going crazy with no new posts to read. So put down your pitchforks and torches, I'm gonna blog all over the place today. (Ew?)

Making Up For Slacking Off

Are you ready for one of those slightly longer than 7 minutes posts? Good, because I've been slacking off recently (a movie post, really?) and I'm about to make it all up to you. You're going to get a longer post than usual, with pictures for those of you that can't read so well. Don't say I've never done anything nice for you.

For family and friends I don't talk to that often:


1. I'm teaching at Hamtae Elementary School, grades 1-6. There are only 90 students in the school, so I have small class, the biggest being 17 kids. Depending on the week I teach 20-22 classes. Thats 22 hours actually teaching. I "work" 40 hours a week. Yes, I spend way too much time online. At least I can stay current on all my television shows.
The teaching I do is pretty simple. 3-6 grades have a book to work with. So far, with those classes, the Korean teacher runs the show, with me standing there and repeating lines from the book when he/she wants me to. The 6th grade teacher is the worst at that. Today I stood in front of the 6th graders for 40 minutes, and repeated one line. Because of that, here is a picture of the 6th grade teacher from last Thursday night. He was not happy I took this picture.

I do have after school classes that I have complete control of, and those have been pretty fun so far. Most of the time they just turn into playing some type of game with the classes though. As long as they are speaking English I think everyone is ok with that.


That's my 1st grade after school class. See that kid's hat in the back left? I want that hat. I asked him for it. He said no. Little punk.

2. I've enjoyed most of the food I've eaten here. Just this past weekend I enjoyed a lot of raw fish and squid. Raw squid is fun because the suction cups on the tentacles will grab at your tounge if you keep it in your mouth without chewing long enough. If you eat a large enough tentacle, I've been told it fights back against going down your throat. Fun times.

3. I live on the 2nd floor of an ex-congressman house. It's a nice place. Lots of space. I can see my school from my front door, so my morning commute is short. I do live pretty far from downtown, which is inconvenient at times, but not having to travel 30+ minutes to school in the morning is a pretty good trade off.

For everyone else:

1. The basketball coaching thing hasn't gone anywhere yet. I think the swine flu might have something to do with that. I keep hearing about all the other schools in Taebaek getting shut down for a week because of the swine flu, but nothing cool like that has happened at Hamtae. Stupid Hamtae kids able to stay healthy. What's wrong with them!?

2. This past weekend I went with some friends up to Gangneung, which is on the east coast. Lots of fireworks were set off and even more fresh shellfish were enjoyed at 4am. You enjoy your late night Taco Bell. I'll take fresh shellfish.

3. The other part of the trip was to a Unification Museum on the DMZ. That's right, I saw North Korea. My mom already freaked out a little bit about that, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. It felt more surreal than unsafe. All the military present might have had something to do with that. It was kind of cool realizing that lots of barbed wire and fences along the beach and a long empty road was all that was seperating me and this guy:



Again, scary huh?


Look at this picture!


See that? Theres's North Korea. Exciting, right? Looks pretty communist-y doesn't it?

Obvious Question: Hey Brian, wouldn't it have been a good idea to take a picture of yourself with that behind you?
Obvious Answer: Hey, we can't all be as smart as you, jackass.

4. Some of the students in my 5th and 6th grade after school class used some of the words I taught them last week in the game we were playing in class today. Am I actually teaching these kids something, or were they looking at the vocab sheet I gave them earlier? Don't answer that.

5. If you are reading this, and I hope that you are, I'm sorry I was a jackass this weekend.

Alright, that's all I have. I'll have more on the DMZ trip later. Until then, enjoy.

Fin.

Movies You Should Watch

I have too much free time when I'm not teaching, so I download (it's legal in Korea...I think) and watch too many movies. I'm going to tell you about a few of them now, and I hope that you will watch them. Then you will be as cool as me. Well, almost.



Anvil: The Story of Anvil

This is a documentary about a heavy metal band from the 80's named Anvil, obviously. They were pretty big for a year or two, then kind of died out. The band members still think they have another big breakthrough coming though, and it's kind of funny/sad. The movie follows a failed tour through Europe and the recording of their 13th album. White trash fans, crazy rationals for why they never made it big, a sister named Droid, and paintings of poop are just some of the high points of this movie.


(500) Days of Summer


Yes, I know it's kind of a chick flick. So what, quit judging me! I enjoyed it. It managed to take an over-used story from all kinds of other movies, and told it in an original way. It was funny and entertaining and Zooey Deschanel is cute as hell. And there's even a cameo from my favorite "Friday Night Lights" actress. The soundtrack is also really good. So there you go.



Paranormal Activity

This movie scared the crap out of me. Literally. I may or may not have had to change my underwear after watching it. Too much? Probably. Anyways, it really is the scariest movie I have seen in a long time. The shaky camera thing isn't that big of a deal, and it was a pretty good story as well as being scary. And don't watch it alone in your apartment at night. Or you might not be able to sleep that well after watching it. Just trust me on that. Am I a wimp? You bet.




The Hurt Locker

Best movie I have seen this year. It's the story of a bomb squad unit in Iraq. Great story, great acting, intense as hell. And no political undertones at all, like most of the other Iraq War movies that have been made. There were no "we shouldn't be here" talks or anything like that. Just a story about soldiers trying to survive. And it was a damn good story. Sgt. William James is my new favorite movie character, and makes me feel like and even bigger wimp than "Paranormal Activity" did.