I Just Broke my Baby Laptop!

So I just dropped my baby laptop.  I was placing it on the kitchen side so I could watch TV while I made dinner.  Obviously, I didn't place it upon firm enough footings, and it came to a calamitous conclusion.

The screen is cracked, with no hope of repair or recovery on that front.  Luckily, I had the cable to attach it to my flatscreen (which also survived the aeroplane hold, amazingly) handy, and simply plugged it in.  When it landed, all power was cut immediately, so I feared some vital part of the computer had been broken.  I've not had any linux BSOD equivalents yet, and it's been running for an hour, so I think it's safe to assume that the hardware has remained mostly intact.

Asus make sturdy EeeeeePc's.  I accidentally tested this one to destruction.  If you're interested in finding out what will crack your laptop screen; a six foot drop onto the corner of the machine, hitting linoleum flooring will do it.

Also, as a general tip to everyone who watches TV on their laptops while making dinner - don't put it on your fridge.


I met the government type who's in charge of ensuring the language teachers in school don't step out of line (I think he has an acronym based title, but that's essentially his job description.)  He seemed nice enough; but at no stage did he stop smiling, which has me worried.  People who seem too nice usually are.

Also, one of the other foreign teachers living in the area (there are only two of us within half an hour of here, which is fine by me) walked into my room uninvited a couple of days ago.  I had never met him before, and there he was, standing in my house.  The funny thing is, he didn't apologise for walking in without knocking, he just explained that it was a mistake.  He then proceeded to apologise half an hour later, as he was leaving, not for walking in uninvited, but for leaving earlier than I might otherwise have liked.  Curtesy dictated that I not shout out, 'piss off,' after thirty seconds (he's a terrible bore, with an obnoxious manner) but it definitely crossed my mind to.

In terms of location, I'm very near to Ashikaga, and somewhere else that I've now proceeded to forget about.  I'll be teaching in two elementary schools and one junior high school (they follow the american system here) which will be an interesting mix.

I don't have any extra fingers or toes yet.

Blackouts are scheduled every few days, but never seem to  happen.  Apparently the citizens are well-behaved, and turn off unnecessary lighting and electronics when they're not in use.  This is fine by me of course, as it means there's more electricity for me to use.  Muahahahaha.

Everyone smiles in the shops, and people randomly say hello on the streets.  It's nice; if a little cold.

Ko-n-di-

Quick thought:  I just tried washing my hair with the shampoo I bought in the shop earlier.  While I was massaging my head, I was reading the label on the shampoo.  (Imagine a very small child reading, very slowly) ko-n-di-shit.  It wasn't shampoo.

Not Been In Japan Five Minutes

So I arrived in Japan around midday.  It's pretty much as I remember it, but somewhat greener (literally and metaphorically) due to my time in Korea.

And now there's been an earth tremor.  I'm not calling it an earthquake, because by my guess, it was only around a 2 or 3 on the richter scale.  Seismic activity after a major earthquake is common, so I expected there to be some more tremors; not quite this quickly though, I must admit.

The last day on Geoje was good.  I had to get up at ridiculous AM in order to.

Hold that thought, there's another tremor.  Blimey, two in two minutes.  This one is only a 1 on the richter scale if that.

So I got up really early, having packed and sent all my belongings (essentially) yesterday (Friday) in boxes marked fragile.  In the last attempt at annoying me, the guy who stuck fragile stickers over what he knew to be my computer, proceeded to throw it across the room onto the pile of other fragile items, right in front of me.

The flight was average, the  bus journey here was long, but I slept most of the way.  Come to think of it, I slept pretty much the whole time in the airport, on the plane and on the bus.  Quite good, considering.

In answer to a prior question, I'm nowhere near Kyoto, I'm an hour and a half away from the middle of Tokyo, so an hour away from Tokyo proper I assume.

I'll trickle updates along, as I find out more about my situation tomorrow.

P.S  Does anyone know how to get skype running on Slitaz?

P.P.S I'm fine, stop worrying.

P.P.P.S  This is the way Korea ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

*Update* Three tremours in five minutes.  A new world record?

Japan Here I Come

I'm (hopefully) leaving for Japan on Saturday.  The flight leaves at 10 ish, and I arrive in Japan around 1 ish.  Obviously, it doesn't take three hours to fly from Korea to Japan, so I've made a miscalculation somewhere.  I'll rectify that later.

I absolutely cannot wait.  I'm fearing the transport company will hold me in Korea for some reason, citing a nonsense problem with my passport or something.  It's stupid to get my hopes up at this stage, because tons can still go wrong.

Two boxes are packed, and I'm shipping them off tomorrow.  That might sound excessive, but they're pretty small.  I'm recycling ones that were sent to me filled with chocolate.  I've a third (my computer) that I'm in the process of packing, so I'll write e-mails and whatnot at work tomorrow, and (hopefully) see everyone on the other side.

Ciao for now.

And It Continues

So all the teachers had an after-school team building exercise today.  It was a cute, family friendly sports affair, with relay races and kickball (a combination of football and baseball).  Only the teachers were allowed, no parents or children, strictly staff.

These teachers complain, almost every day, that we are given too-easy a ride at Daewoo Elementary school.  For one reason or another, they lambast our department, inundating us with work and nonsensical complaints.  For example, a couple of our department feel it necessary to send children out of class if they are misbehaving beyond the control of the English teacher.  This only happens with the lower level classes who tend to have poorly behaved students, and those with learning disabilities.  (Of which there are only a few, as genuine disability tends to be confused with curable, rather than manageable illness.  Example, one child has autism, so his parents take him to acupuncture to fix him.)

The korean teachers (not the parents mind) complained that sending the children out of class was unethical.  Fine, I can see their viewpoint (in a skewed, liberal version of korea that doesn't exist) until you realise that these are the same people that beat the kids.  I'm not talking a rap on the knuckles, which they do with rulers regularly; I'm talking beatings.  Taking the kids shoes off and beating the soles of their feet so they limp for two days.

Suddenly a little time out of class seems rather mundane, don't you think?  This behaviour was made illegal, not fifty years ago, not a decade ago, but within the past six months.  Of course, rules are meant to be broken, and the foot beatings, knuckle rappings and bruises continue on.

If you work on the korean school board, for the love of god come and inspect daewoo elementary school.  I mean really inspect it.  Document the bruises on each kid, and ask them how they got there.  Of the hundreds of bruises I see, most are them walking into doors or falling over; but the ones that aren't, you'll generally find the child will talk to an adult quite openly about how his or her father or mother hit them; and the hated korean teachers are even more exposed - every kid knows who hits the students.  When new classes were announced this semester a child in my class cried because she had the worst beater in school.  A third grade teacher currently, if you must know.

So anyway, the koreans (even the nurse and administration) were playing; everyone invited.

Except the English department.

No invite, no welcome.  We, who work six consecutive classes a day every day, with two hours obligatory over-time at rates that barely cover a taxi ride home, versus the koreans who have a maximum of five classes a day, but whose average classload rarely exceeds four a day, are vilified for being lazy to the point where we aren't invited to a sporting event.

I absolutely, with all my heart, abhor korea.  Korea is a racist, one-eyed failed country.  They have no right to judge any other country in the world.

For the evangelical naysayers who attempt to post on this blog; come see the bruises on my kids and tell me korea is an amazing country.  Then go and thank god you didn't grow up as a kid here.

Welcome to Korea

Go to restaurant, Japanese earthquake on TV.  Parading piles of blankets around, dead baby leg hanging out.  Another pile of blankets, a dead baby arm.

Girlfriend translates what the koreans next to us are saying about the japanese deserving it, how the cars look good on the buildings.  Die a little inside.

Depressed for 2 days.