A Fantastic Weekend

 The day started rather strangely it contained a tomato, mandarins, cornflakes, chicken and lettuce - topped with a gregarious sauce of unidentifiable origins.

This was supposedly a salad!

 The other half of the salad odyssey was this.  I can't figure out what half of the stuff is, so you'll have to figure out the ingredients by eye.

This random tool kept knocking my chair while I was eating.  Despite being four foot nothing, and weighing the same as whatever he ate, plus ten kilogrammes, he decided to play 'be a prick to the foreigner.'

Here you are, good sir.

Immortalised on the internet for being a complete wanker.

Good day, and adieu.

Christianity took off in a big way here when the colonising americans realised that ensuring religious devotion meant big profits.

As such, churches are everywhere.

A side-effect of this is the creation of novel (sic) ways of retelling the biblical lies.  One such way is via cutesy storybooks.  Koreans are nothing if not masters of indoctrinating their own young.

A quick trip to the arcade, to practice my rifle skills.  I didn't do particularly well, so we decided to venture into the real thing.

I went first into the range, but the pictures of me have magically disappeared.  For once, I didn't delete them.  I looked awesome holding the gun like a professional.

For those of you who are interested I used a .45 cal glock 21.

It was a monster.  The kick, although somewhat less brutal, is comparable to the shotguns we hunted with earlier in the year.  The noise though.

The sound this thing makes (Yoda).  I was listening to someone else using the same ammunition with a dirty Harry style six shooter thing.  That was just loud, obscenely so.  This thing, wow.  It was loud enough to make the people in the waiting room jump, but it wasn't just a frightful bang - it had character.

If the kick were less brutal, I could listen to that thing firing all day.

 Amanda used a sig sauer 228.

Also see the link above for this choice quote:

'Capacity counts when a pistol is the only weapon between you and a large group of machete-wielding third-worlders.' 


Reason number ten million, five hundred and eighty five thousand, four hundred and sixty seven why no one likes americans.


Stupidity aside, she wasn't sure which gun to take.  I urged her towards this choice, as I used this gun religiously during online games of counterstrike.  It was a balanced gun in the game, so I assumed it must be in real life.  As a 9mm it's perfect for girls.


Although I would have enjoyed seeing her fire one round from the .45 I used, she wouldn't have.

 This is her target.  As you can see, she did a respectable job with her first weapon; missing only one round out of the ten.  She even hit a few maximums!

 This is the close-up.

Out of a maximum possible one hundred, she hit seventy-eight.  Not bad at all!

The distance for both of us was 15 metres.

This is my target.  Yes it is being held down by a box of after-eights.  No, you cannot have any after-eights.  Remember that on the line counts as the most valuable section the line encompasses.  In this case, on the line is 10 points.

This is the closeup of my target.  I just grazed the line with that top-shot, meaning it counts for ten.  I got some nice grouping around south-west-south of the centre.

I'm rather annoyed by the one I missed however.

 This yielded me a total combined score of 99.  That  is 99, out of a possible one hundred.

(The next line is not safe for work)

Yipee Ki Yai Motherfucker

 The next stop after finding out that I'm the most badass human ever, was eating.

This time I finally got my wish; this is a hotpot containing dog!

If you're wondering, it's succulent, tender and extremely tasty.  It's even tasty after they try to ruin it with ridiculous toppings and flavours.  I'm not just saying this to be controversial - try dog, it's delicious.  (That should definitely be a new internet meme coupled with a picture of a glorious looking dog, possibly the winner of Krufts or something.)

And to top the day off, a cake of course.  This was a special mint cake!  Finding mint here is nigh-on impossible.  As such, the mint icing overpowered me.  Despite years of training, it was too minty even for my tastebuds.  The chocolate was exceedingly tasty however.

Truth be told, all cakes are pretty much the same, so I don't need to include any more shots of this particular one.

A Few Reasons Why I Love Being an Insomniac

Reason number one.  For every hour I'm awake beyond the normal, I lose five IQ points.  This goes on throughout the entirety of me being awake, until I level off at around forty-five points.  This essentially means, for the days that I am affected, I cannot do anything for myself.  I'm a chimpanzee, or an infant.

Reason number two.  Even when I do sleep, for up to twelve hours, I'm still tired.  No matter how much sleep I get, I'm always tired.  Not to the point of it affecting my work or behaviour, but the huge panda eyes, lethargy and headaches are a semi-permanent feature of life.

Reason number three.  There's no cure.  Drinking honey tea lemons and sunshine while upside singing 'gone with the wind,' may well be the cure for some people.  Drinking warm milk, or reading a book may be what works for others.  The truth is, none of these have any physiological effects.  They're all psychological.  It's all in your mind.  If you think these things will work, they will.  When you realise they're all nonsense, however, you're somewhat screwed.  The alternative is powerful sleeping pills which I tried in university.  Interesting fact: my doctor in university didn't believe I was actually sleep deprived, so gave me a placebo at first.  The problem with the real sleeping pills is that although they don't work in the stated doses, going overboard and taking enough to make sure you do sleep, ensures you have the crappiest nights sleep ever, and you wake up as tired as when you went to bed.  The only difference between taking the pills and not taking them, is that after a weeks usage you won't end up dead.

Luckily I've not had a week-long period of not sleeping.

I'm fairly certain I would get fired if that were to ever occur.

Then again, I would be dead, so I'm not entirely sure I would be worried about the job at that stage.




On an entirely unrelated side note.  Read this article by a moron employed by the BBC about why arts and crafts departments within English universities are failing.  Then, after laughing for five minutes because he's obviously a moron who had a terrible time during his classics degree at Oxford, (presumably because the other boys were bigger and bullied him) read some of the comments.  One of them stated that an american style degree, where everyone has to take compulsory Maths, English and Science classes alongside their own, produces more well rounded individuals who fulfil the authors requirement  that universities make better human beings.

Then read this.

Yeah that education about how to be all happy and alone is really working for them.

Dumbass.

Sitting in Gohyun Bus Terminal

So I'm sitting in Gohyun bus terminal, on my way to Seoul.  It's a five hour trip from the terminal in which I currently reside, to the door at my final destination.  From door to door it's more like six.

At this stage I feel like I've seen everything Seoul has to offer, despite only seeing a fraction of what is there.  I have been promised dog tomorrow though, and that should make things somewhat  more interesting.

I've manage to go however many months without a single venture into the grand world of canine delicacies.

I must admit, I love the fact that Korea is one of the only places in the world where canine delicacy can have different meanings.

One of the two new arrivals joined the group today.  It was his initiation (of sorts) into the group, as we had dinner in a restaurant (again, of sorts).  The pseudo-restaurant is nice enough, and a fun enough time was had.

I decided to break with social convention somewhat, by skipping the boring hours long smalltalk people use to seem interesting.  I arrived half an hour late, but was the first to dole out the spicy gossip, in a palm sized bundle.  Up to this point the conversation, while brisk, revolved around trivial nonsense.  I could tell this within the first two minutes of my arrival, and the looks every exhibited.  (Suicidal, in case you were wondering.)

The juicy gossip included all the stupid shit people have done in the office, and some of the stupid shit they've done outside the office.  This freed things up nicely, and everyone was embarrassed.  Everyone is going to be embarrassed at some stage when their secrets are found out, so why not just get the bullshit out of the way first, and focus on the people behind the nonsense?

Why would I do this?  I was forced to come to the dinner, despite the enforcer knowing I wanted to go to Seoul.  The upshot, I won't be forced to dinner against my will again, unless crossfire and casualties are expected.

Petty?  Yes, but more fun than I thought it would be.  Obviously I'm not beyond ridicule, I received a healthy dose, but I learned more about the new guy in this one hour dinner, than two weeks of pussy-footing and social mores.

The upshot - when you are bored and feeling like a child, act like a child.  It might be substantially more interesting than you thought it would be.


On a completely unrelated side-note:  I wrote this using public, unsecured wifi.  Logging onto any service via such a network is not recommended, and I'm such a nerd for this kind of thing that I'm going to change all my password tomorrow.  Less be, to all ye who listen.

Jobs

So I was officially offered the English department head teacher position yesterday; along with the highest class in the school.

The caveat being I have to renew my contract.

They offered me some more money, and the additional pay that goes with being the head teacher.

It would be nice to stay for the following reasons: more money, a couple of good co-workers.

That is all.

It would not be nice to stay for myriad reasons.

I also had some time to make a wishlist, for the computer I would like to have.  You can see it here.  There are two problems with it.  Firstly, it's been this computer for about three months, which means that it's probably only three months away from being updates in some way.  Secondly, there's a component that's not up to scratch.  Everything is completely top-end, except for one thing.  You can try to figure out which one it is.

It also doesn't come with a case or peripherals.  These would put me over two thousand pounds, which is a ludicrous sum; I'd prefer to just have it resting on a table instead of inside a case.

The wishlist isn't under my name - by the way.

A Miniature Pet Project

So I undertook two video projects over Christmas, this is the first and simplest.

Right-click save as.
Left-click to stream.

The second is a mammoth, movie-length feature, involving a play rehearsal.  It'll take at least a couple of months to finish, so nowhere near complete.

The Wedding

So we had to get up extremely early in order to go to this wedding.

We were up at around 10 AM!

Unbelievable right?

When we arrived the bride was waiting in a small room.  She was already doled up and looking rather nervous.

On a side-note, the venue we were in consisted of four separate wedding areas.  Are they chapels?  I don't know.

Each area had two weddings, totaling eight.  I don't know how much each wedding cost, but I think it's a fair assumption that they make an awful lot of money!

On a personal note, I rather like this picture.  This is the groom (is that how you spell it?  I've never read about, willingly listened to or thought  about a wedding before, so I've not a single clue about wedding terminologies.) amid the sea of chaos that is his wedding.

I'd never met either of them before, but they're awesome.  (I went with Amanda, who knew the bride from her previous job.)

I don't know what the groom is looking at *ahem*.

The man in the picture is the official photographer.

I was the unofficial photographer.

I wanted to show you the camera he was holding, and at some stage link the camera I was using.  Serious penis envy.

I wanted to get in close for this picture, but then you miss the psychadelic background and their literally perfect attire.

I know people go to all kinds of trouble to get the perfect look for their wedding, but jees, this must have taken hours to put on.

Not the hair though, Koreans love making their hair look like this every day.  (It's the same with the Japanese!)

There were some obligatory cutesy photographs.

Interestingly they both work with foreigners, I believe teaching English (don't quote me on that) so their views are quite progressive.

Therefore this display of Asian cute was rather embarrassing for all involved, but I guess the real photographers picture was good enough.

If I had access to a computer with some kahoonas I would edit the following orange images, levelling the colour balance and making them substantially less orange.

On the flip side, I enjoy these pictures because of the way in which their standing, and general composition.

I took a few different shots at different zoom levels to try and find what worked best.

The further out you go with the zoom, the more distorted things look.  This is obvious (look at the crazy toppling buildings you see with small numbers on your own cameras!) in theory, but leads to some complicated effects in practice.  I guess the difficulty comes in knowing when to use these different properties and when not to.

Another shot with Amanda and the bride.

I probably should have placed them both central - something I could do in post using any photo editing software.

If only I had a computer!

Now this is the real reason I agreed to take photographs!

Korean hanbok (sp?) is the traditional clothing in Korea.  Unlike Japan however, you rarely, if at all, see people wearing them.  Just like Japan they're extremely expensive; unlike Japan they're somewhat plainer albeit more frilly.  To clarify, I mean plainer colour wise.)

After talking to the bride for a few minutes, I realised what this recessed cave actually was.

It's a picture frame!

This would work a little better if your eye wasn't immediately pulled through the illusion to whomever is sitting inside; as the frame requires a wider perspective.

Nice idea though!

Being forced to sit for hours on end must be tedious; but there were no shortage of people on hand to ensure not a single strand of hair was misplaced.

I'm serious.  It was immaculate.  Perfect.  Whenever a hair fell out of place, three people jumped up to correct it.

Having never been to a wedding myself, this was the first time I'd seen the procession.  (Is it called that?  I honestly don't know)

I'm not entirely sure what was happening, but someone (presumably her dad?) walked with the bride to the altar, a lot of talking was done, and then everyone left.  (There were a number of photographs taken not including the man and wife.)  (I assume they're man and wife at this point, and not simply bride and groom?)

This was the best part!

The food was pretty nice, but I was forbidden from taking the free beer that was on offer home.  It was three PM, and I simply couldn't stomach the thought of drinking then; so I wanted to take a few bottles (that no one else was drinking either) home.  I was told off.

I wasn't told off by staff or bouncers or anyone official - but by my date.  How very galling.

In a random segway, here is a woman on the wii fit.

We went Christmas shopping after the wedding, and they were advertising the wii fit.

I've seen this thing in four different countries now, and the buxom wenches always wear the same thing.

I wonder if they ship the clothes around the world to save buying new ones for all the people who do displays for them.

She wasn't exactly enthralled by her positions as head performer of monotonous tasks, but she was good.

Really good.

How good?

See if you can do the 'stand on one leg while bringing your other leg up to your chest and holding it there for five seconds,' routine and get a score this good.

I defy anyone to.

Above:  A random building that looked cool, lit up like that.

This is a random picture I took of Amanda looking out of the window on the bus.  The  bus ride was looooooooong, so there was tons of time to mess around taking pictures and generally annoying the Koreans - who think it's a national crime for a Korean person to date a foreigner.

Interestingly, she's not Korean.  The dumbass Korean folk can't see outside of their little country though, and assume everyone who looks asian is Korean.  Statistically speaking, they're more likely to be chinese.

Learn some maths please, Korea.

This is the disfigured cake that was eaten afterwards.

There should be an extra ear and paw, but I got hungry and started eating.

I was rather enamored with this particular cake, hence the multitude of pictures.

The pink tasted like strawberries!

 

And finally a picture of the happy couple and an intruding presence.  They changed from their wedding garb to these matching, traditional  hanbok in record time.  I'm told that some weddings can necessitate four or five clothing changes, depending on which religion(s) they're choosing to observe.  I suppose your best bet is to always appease as many gods as possible; especially with divorce rates being what they are now.

The Great Job Hunt

I'm at a slight disadvantage job hunt wise, because contracts begin between early-mid April in Japan.  I become available at the end of April, which might be detrimental as the market is flooded with teachers.  We are all disposable commodities in EFL teaching; not like back home at all.

There is one particular job, teaching bi-lingual students literature, that is particularly interesting.  If I could get this job, I would probably wet myself with excitement.

Obviously, I don't have the necessary qualification - I'm shy a recommendation they make regarding teaching experience.  (Two years seems to be the norm for high-end jobs).  That won't stop me applying though, as it seems to be the perfect stepping stone for my future ambitions.

I don't know what my future ambitions are yet, but I'm sure they're somewhat related.

 

And a silly picture.

Weather

So there's nothing much to report.  It's currently -14 degrees in Seoul, which means about -8 here.  I'm making some burgers for a midnight snack.

It's the New Year.

Happy New Year everyone.

...

That's just about it.

I found a picture that sums Korea up nicely.

The Reasons Why I Haven't Posted

My boss made me do some bullcrap pointless work that's now, not five days after being implemented (that took two months to finish), been taken down.  This is reason number one as to why I've not been posting.

This then gave way to a fierce sickness.  That's reason number two.

My laptop mysteriously stopped accessing the internet, but still allowed me access to skype.  Reason number three.

These three reasons cover the past three weeks of zero posting.

Now, for the past few days I've slept terribly.  In normal human beings, being insanely tired would lead to a good nights sleep somewhere along the line.  Obviously, being the human freakshow that I am, I'm not allowed to sleep.  It's Christ knows when in the Christ knows when, and I can't sleep.  So the photos I uploaded Christ knows when go another few days without being illustrated.  Obviously illustrated is the wrong word, but I don't know what the correct word is.

When you have a picture and you write words to describe the picture, or what's happening within the picture.  Like illustrating a narrative, but in reverse.  I don't know what it's called.

The particularly frustrating thing is, I obviously do know what the word is, I just can't access it.  Being stupid is one thing, forcibly becoming stupid due to inherent genetic deficiency is quite another.  Ignorance is only bliss when it's not optional.

Another fantastic thing is that I went to the gym today.  I'm physically exhausted, and due to crappy sleep for the past few days, mentally exhausted.  The good news is that because I went to the gym I ache.  I ache really badly.  The fantastic news is that my exhaustion and fatigue have left me with no apetite, so my body has nothing to repair itself with.  This will lead to me aching for the next few days instead of hours, as it should be.

This physical and mental self-destruction is a generally fantastic way to go about life, and I  recommend everyone deprive themselves of sleep and food as I have.  I foresee it becoming the next fad diet.  It's all the more beneficial if a third party forces it upon an unwitting subject without knowledge or consent.  I find it all the more effective this way.

I can't wait to relapse into illness again, because the system shock of zero food and sleep makes my body shut down.  Yay, a solid month of undoing all the gym-work, fitness and health I've cultivated up to now.  Woo hoo.

This is one of the few times I will say this.  This post will have spelling mistakes, punctuation errors and grammatical anomalies.  I do not care.  I defy anyone to write in this condition and make sense.

The Wedding

So we had to get up extremely early in order to go to this wedding.

We were up at around 10 AM!

Unbelievable right?

When we arrived the bride was waiting in a small room.  She was already doled up and looking rather nervous.

On a side-note, the venue we were in consisted of four separate wedding areas.  Are they chapels?  I don't know.

Each area had two weddings, totaling eight.  I don't know how much each wedding cost, but I think it's a fair assumption that they make an awful lot of money!

On a personal note, I rather like this picture.  This is the groom (is that how you spell it?  I've never read about, willingly listened to or thought  about a wedding before, so I've not a single clue about wedding terminologies.) amid the sea of chaos that is his wedding.

I'd never met either of them before, but they're awesome.  (I went with Amanda, who knew the bride from her previous job.)

I don't know what the groom is looking at *ahem*.

The man in the picture is the official photographer.

I was the unofficial photographer.

I wanted to show you the camera he was holding, and at some stage link the camera I was using.  Serious penis envy.

I wanted to get in close for this picture, but then you miss the psychadelic background and their literally perfect attire.

I know people go to all kinds of trouble to get the perfect look for their wedding, but jees, this must have taken hours to put on.

Not the hair though, Koreans love making their hair look like this every day.  (It's the same with the Japanese!)

There were some obligatory cutesy photographs.

Interestingly they both work with foreigners, I believe teaching English (don't quote me on that) so their views are quite progressive.

Therefore this display of Asian cute was rather embarrassing for all involved, but I guess the real photographers picture was good enough.

If I had access to a computer with some kahoonas I would edit the following orange images, levelling the colour balance and making them substantially less orange.

On the flip side, I enjoy these pictures because of the way in which their standing, and general composition.

I took a few different shots at different zoom levels to try and find what worked best.

The further out you go with the zoom, the more distorted things look.  This is obvious (look at the crazy toppling buildings you see with small numbers on your own cameras!) in theory, but leads to some complicated effects in practice.  I guess the difficulty comes in knowing when to use these different properties and when not to.

Another shot with Amanda and the bride.

I probably should have placed them both central - something I could do in post using any photo editing software.

If only I had a computer!

Now this is the real reason I agreed to take photographs!

Korean hanbok (sp?) is the traditional clothing in Korea.  Unlike Japan however, you rarely, if at all, see people wearing them.  Just like Japan they're extremely expensive; unlike Japan they're somewhat plainer albeit more frilly.  To clarify, I mean plainer colour wise.)

After talking to the bride for a few minutes, I realised what this recessed cave actually was.

It's a picture frame!

This would work a little better if your eye wasn't immediately pulled through the illusion to whomever is sitting inside; as the frame requires a wider perspective.

Nice idea though!

Being forced to sit for hours on end must be tedious; but there were no shortage of people on hand to ensure not a single strand of hair was misplaced.

I'm serious.  It was immaculate.  Perfect.  Whenever a hair fell out of place, three people jumped up to correct it.

Having never been to a wedding myself, this was the first time I'd seen the procession.  (Is it called that?  I honestly don't know)

I'm not entirely sure what was happening, but someone (presumably her dad?) walked with the bride to the altar, a lot of talking was done, and then everyone left.  (There were a number of photographs taken not including the man and wife.)  (I assume they're man and wife at this point, and not simply bride and groom?)

This was the best part!

The food was pretty nice, but I was forbidden from taking the free beer that was on offer home.  It was three PM, and I simply couldn't stomach the thought of drinking then; so I wanted to take a few bottles (that no one else was drinking either) home.  I was told off.

I wasn't told off by staff or bouncers or anyone official - but by my date.  How very galling.

In a random segway, here is a woman on the wii fit.

We went Christmas shopping after the wedding, and they were advertising the wii fit.

I've seen this thing in four different countries now, and the buxom wenches always wear the same thing.

I wonder if they ship the clothes around the world to save buying new ones for all the people who do displays for them.

She wasn't exactly enthralled by her positions as head performer of monotonous tasks, but she was good.

Really good.

How good?

See if you can do the 'stand on one leg while bringing your other leg up to your chest and holding it there for five seconds,' routine and get a score this good.

I defy anyone to.

Above:  A random building that looked cool, lit up like that.

This is a random picture I took of Amanda looking out of the window on the bus.  The  bus ride was looooooooong, so there was tons of time to mess around taking pictures and generally annoying the Koreans - who think it's a national crime for a Korean person to date a foreigner.

Interestingly, she's not Korean.  The dumbass Korean folk can't see outside of their little country though, and assume everyone who looks asian is Korean.  Statistically speaking, they're more likely to be chinese.

Learn some maths please, Korea.

This is the disfigured cake that was eaten afterwards.

There should be an extra ear and paw, but I got hungry and started eating.

I was rather enamored with this particular cake, hence the multitude of pictures.

The pink tasted like strawberries!

 

And finally a picture of the happy couple and an intruding presence.  They changed from their wedding garb to these matching, traditional  hanbok in record time.  I'm told that some weddings can necessitate four or five clothing changes, depending on which religion(s) they're choosing to observe.  I suppose your best bet is to always appease as many gods as possible; especially with divorce rates being what they are now.

Latest

So I've not been able to update my blog for the last week or so, because  I've been incredibly busy.  I've also missed going to the gym.  I'm also sick.  I've busted my ass off doing my boss favours, like building a basic website for the english department, and making videos of the kids so we actually look like more than a ragtag bunch of chancers.

Being the only idiot willing to do this hasn't paid off, as she cancelled a half day (a week ago) tomorrow.  When asking her why she promised us a half day that she had no intention of keeping (it turned out that this full day seminar was planned three months ago) I was labelled ungrateful and told that many other teachers don't get breaks over Christmas.

I should, apparently, be grateful that I now have to sit in a crowded minibus with five people I loathe for two hours on the way to some god-forsaken place in the ass-end of nowhere, to look at a couple of books.  Then spend an hour travelling to the outer recesses of the ass end of nowhere to watch a half an hour class demonstration, to then travel three hours back to the literal arse-hole of nowhere (Geoje).  It turns out, the one nice Korean person; the person who I'd assumed everyone that I hadn't met in Korea was like, is actually abhorrent too.

Some countries have no redeeming qualities.  I give up.

I hate Koreans.  I hate Korea.

There I said it.  War is probably the best thing these morons can hope for.

Just start it when I'm not here, please.

Wow that actually makes me feel a lot better.  Maybe I can make it through the thirteen hour day tomorrow by repeating that phrase over and over to myself.  Or maybe I can play table tennis halfway through the day, to give me some energy?

You Son of a Bitch

So let me regail you with a short story.

This happened not long ago, in a land far away.  (This land happens to begin with a k and rhymes with diarrhoea).

I was playing table tennis, when a Korean arrived.  I suggested we play together, and he beat me two full sets.  The first was decided, 21-19.  The second 26-24 (roughly speaking; a number of extra points were played).  I decided I'd had enough, so proceeded to annihilate him, 21-10.  Having agreed to play five games/sets, he valiantly decided to call it a day, and left the table.  He didn't say a word, put his bat back or the ball.  He just left.

Asshole.

Although he won more games, I completely destroyed him mentally - and, afterall; isn't making new friends what internationalisation is all about?

(He was good at table tennis though, I'll give him that.)

(And he took about five forehand smashes to the face, so fair play to him for lasting that long.)