update -

i don't have to work saturdays after all. the new hours were for teachers who had not already signed contracts.

in fact, i come out on top because with saturdays, the weekday school schedule is going to be about 45 minutes shorter.

therefore i work less, and he said already-contracted teachers will still be paid the same, even with 5 hours less work per week.

as well, we get the option of working saturdays if we want extra money. which i do.

so...

life is generally quite sweet.

i guess there's a lot of talk about north korea flexing its muscles lately in the western media.

i don't think i could be more bored with the whole "oohhh scawy north korea" horseshit than i am now.

see - you get your head around the way koreans do things, and the whole idea of north korea actually DOING something becomes so far-fetched that any one of you sitting at home in the US or canada worried about hordes of soldiers and ordinance flying over mt. bukhan into seoul need to chill.

firstly - do you ever notice that whenever the US gets busy with military action elsewhere on the planet, kim jong il freaks out and goes "wait!!! remember me?!? i'm CRAZY!!! and i have rudimentary nuclear weaponry!!! now please, send foreign aid".

so the way i see it is that the US has been busy in afghanistan and iraq since 9/11, and kim jong il, spoiled korean boy that he is, is feeling left out of the whole global political sphere.

i've talked about 'saving face' here before. when i quit my andong job, monster told people that i was fired for hitting a student - he didn't want people to think that his hagwon was as shady as it was - or that he had any sort of shady past, which he did.

so at my current hagwon - to save face and not admit that there might be something inherently wrong with the way we do shit, whenever there's a drop in enrollment we have a meeting to discuss what the TEACHERS are doing wrong, rather than to discuss the fact that we change our curriculum every time a mother complains that little ji-hoo is unhappy and bored (he's supposed to be bored. it's ENGLISH FOR FUCKSAKES).

anyways - apply 'saving face' - which kimberly duff calls "a cultural reluctance to change one's ideas or thoughts if they have been declared" applies to north korea as well. kim il sung, kim jong il's dad, the north korean mao zedong, set up north korea as this communist utopia... which rapidly went downhill.

in so many other korean father-son relationships, the business gets passed on. often it's passed on to the inept retard son who's been coddled and spoiled his whole life.
kim jong il never had to go through the building of an idealistic communist party for korea, he had it handed to him.

he promptly fucked it into the ground to the point where everyone in his country (who isn't on the payroll) hates him because they are starving; the military - while immense - has a huge morale problem on top of the antiquated machinery and lack of food; the world has absolutely no respect for this fruitcake who rides up his military budget but starves his people and puts them in what i believe are the only CONCENTRATION CAMPS left on the planet. he's piloting a sinking ship but won't admit it.

he's saving face. pure and simple. and as long as he does it, korea will remain in this stalemate.

it's the kind of thing that makes me think the US should just invade, beat the fuck out of him and hand north korea over to the south.

(naive of course since i'm not considering china's position in the slightest - but it's a reaction i get when the kid hasn't done their homework because he has been playing video games and then says "uh, the dog ate it"... just slap some fucking sense into him).

just teach him a lesson that saving face is retarded and nobody believes that "NORTH KOREA IS THE NUMBER ONE HAGWON IN KOREA" as so many hagwons advertise. it's horseshit.

check this link for more info:
http://www.g2mil.com/korea.htm

and those of you reading who actually KNOW the minutiae of the conflict and find fault with my broad-stroked generalizations of kim jong il's character and the state of the north... keep in mind i'm frustrated and talking shit. but i think i'm generally right about this one.

ok... people whining for updates. i guess i'm a celebrity, but there's a lot on my frickin' plate, man! back at work, educatin' the whelps, dishing out some discipline...

so... new contract, same job.

perks?

new classroom. bigger. has a full-length mirror, and i'm so vain i probably think this blog is about me.

new students. some of the old ones bugged the shit out of me, and i got a few students i get only during special summer classes as my regular students now, so that kicks ass. also, the ones that bugged me i can start to like now because i only see them for 30 seconds at a time when they say "hi teacha!!!" in the hall.

downside: saturday classes start in september. as soon as all the old teachers leave, and the only sucker who actually signed on for another contract is 4 months into another contract; 9:30-12:30 essay classes every saturday. and yes, it's in my contract that he can do that. i didn't think he would; otherwise i would have stipulated that i WOULD NOT under any circumstances work saturdays.

i can quit - mr. han is generally very reasonable about teachers leaving with just cause, and i just may do that after a month or two of working saturdays. the reason being - while i make more at this job than your average canadian working in korea, i have less free time and the real money is in private tutoring.

which is, of course, illegal, but how enforceable? the demand is higher than korea can fill legitimately, and the chances of me making up to 50 bucks an hour for teaching businessmen are very great. the vast majority of these jobs are just sitting and shooting the shit with really shy koreans and then correcting them.

me: "so, what did you do this weekend?"
mr. park: "well, maybe saturday i am drinking with friends, then sunday i going church and eating with my wife and mother".
me: "no, mr. park. it's "this saturday, i went drinking with friends. don't say 'maybe' if you actually did it. you should learn to be more definite. also, try to correct your verb tenses, you 'went' to church and you 'ate' with your wife and..."
mr. park (cutting me off mid-sentence): "ok-ok-ok-ok" (retains nothing, pays large).

so... i'm going to stay here, and perhaps look for a new less-hours job... since i am purchasing this on june 1:



it will enable me to navigate the quagmire that is seoul traffic like a mouse in an old house.

i also have this for my sanity, for the rainy season when the doing of privates enforces subway usage:



so... things may seem kinda shitty but i always land on my feet, as chronic readers of this blog may know.

our school "jackie's clinic" is having a reading/writing contest. the kids have to read a book then write a brief book report on it. whoever writes the most over the year wins some stupid prize and doesn't get beat by their parents for a week at least.

so... i decided to add some encouraging advertisements/reminders around the classroom.



that's where i stick the book report sheets.

and the door to my classroom, classic 1988 kerry king - before he started losing his hair...



yeah. it's a way to stay sane.

another way to stay sane is my HUGEST GYM IN ASIA. california WOW is its name and while both the name and the music played inside are ghae as hell, i'm making great strides under my good pal derek currie's tutelage.

since certain members of my family were ONCE curious about my progress, i'll tell you what's up. post holiday, of course. this is long-winded so if you're not even slightly interested in fitness, skip to the end and leave a snide comment about how working out is for jock assholes.

i'm down to 190. that's still a pretty good weight for 6 feet tall. the backfat is draining off like buttah.

my routine lately is this;
wake up early.
eat some fruit
drink some creatine (but take 4 months off at a time to restore liver function)
get to the gym at 9am
treadmill - 20 minutes absolute minimum, more optimum would be 45 but sometimes i'm late.

this is how we break it up. it doesn't always work like this, because derek has a dog and i often get insomnia and have to skip a day.

all exercises are 3 reps of 12 generally unless i'm experiencing muscle failure and then we'll do a drop set until i'm screaming because i'm unable to lift a 10 pound bar with no weights on it.

all workouts are generally ended with an intense ab workout - generally 300 situps or 300 leg raises. i also augment my diet with a couple protein shakes a day and a supplement called glutamine - an amino acid that helps your muscles restore themselves.

I HAVE ALSO ATTEMPTED TO CUT OUT WHITE RICE. which is near impossible, but one can only try.

monday - shoulders and back.
-military press with either flat bar or dumbells (i've been using dumbells lately since my left arm is much weaker than my right - gotta even the two out).
-3 different rowing machines that hit different parts of my back
-lateral dumbell raises
-lying-on-the-side dumbell raises to work stabilizer muscles (this is my only possible use for a 5 pound dumbell as anything higher burns like AIDS)
-deadlift - you have to keep your back straight on this, or you'll wreck shop
-workout ball lat raises
-rowing machine
-machine-assisted dips/pullups. these RULE.

tuesday - legs
this is my least favorite day; i did it today. i generally only warm up for 15 mins on the treadmill to give myself a break. i truly hate the way my legs feel when they're lifting weights.

-squats- regular if derek's there, squat rack machine if i'm alone - squats are scary and you can really kill your back with improper form.
-leg press- (this makes me feel good. i can lift 400 pounds with my legs).
-hack squat- also a good one if you're alone. it's a diagonal machine squat, you can move your legs around and hit the muscles in different places a lot easier without worrying about your back.
-calf lift - there's a machine for this but sometimes i'll use a couple of dumbells and a setp.
-leg curls, leg extensions. both are easy machine workouts for your quads and glutes etc.

wednesday - chest -
- basically all we do is three different bench presses - two different inclines and a flat bench. then we do some dumbell fly stuff or use a fly machine.
-since i have that left/right problem we've been doing all our bench press stuff with dumbells. basically the same as a flat bar only you are forced to equalize, something i really need to work out.

thursday - day off

friday - arms -
-this is the big workout stud one. it's fun, because there are so many different exercises.
-regular dumbell curls, barbell curls, which we'll often finish with a light weight and a '21' set - where you lift from the bottom to half way up 7 times, halfway up to the top 7 times, and then do the whole bottom-to-top rep 7 times. it burns.
-nosebreakers- these are for your triceps- lie down on a bench and hold a barbell above your nose with your arms pointed upward, then straighten your arms.
-preacher bench curls
-wrist curls - for forearms
-palms-down curls -also for forearms.

friday night is generally spent drinking and ruining the work done in the preceding week but i'm currently in a month long bet that i can stay away from beer. i plan to win.

so saturdays i'll hit it kinda mellow; just do some all-over body stuff, work what i've forgotten or whatever just doesn't hurt like a bitch. catch up on cardio, sit in the hot tub...

really, this gym, with all its gayness, is really amazing. i go there to shower now, my bathroom can take a flying fuck at a doughnut for all i care. i don't even have to buy shampoo anymore.

people in the o'leary (or extended o'leary... that includes pargiter, comeau, franco, whomever else) family who are NOT keeping up with fitness challenge '05, get your shit together. it's possible. 1.5 hours a day and you'll feel like a million bucks. or a billion won.

so there. if i am to dominate in the saitama shitkicking cup '2005 - also known as "showdown '05, the year the pasty 35 year old girl with the blog didn't have 50 SHARPs backing him up", i'm going to have to be buff and prepared. heaven knows those blogging poker players know how to gouge an eye or kick a pair of nuts. november is going to rule.

that is what we call, in the blogging world, a cryptic message.

slayer.