Aaron Wanders Through A Confusing Weekend

I’m not sure who won this week, me or the volcano.

Positive:

Went on an epic (but not EPIK) hike with another Yale teacher, Kate, walking from inland to the beach, along a really cool path lined with lemon groves and (we learned this the hard way) bee farms, among other things. I’m not sure if we really knew where we were going, we just kept on reaching forks in the trail and choosing a direction.

We also helped euthanized a sad little snake who we found closer to the beach. The poor guy’s guts were coming out and he was writhing and so we found a large rock and we (hopefully) painlessly enabled his journey up to snake heaven, where there are always mice and never any snake oil salesmen.

We also found some dogs and played with a really adorable black puppy in the middle of the road. Dangerous? Probably, but who cares, except for the little girl who was watching two foreigners play with her dog.

After that, in chronological order, we went north to Jeju City to meet up with people at a soccer match, ate at a Korean attempt at Mexican food, played darts, and then went dancing. I’ll try to fill in some of these details in a later post. If Matt Harris ever stumbles across this blog, I hoped he’ll be pleased that he had one of the nicest floors I’ve ever slept on.

This morning was soccer and pumpkin carving. That will also be discussed later.

Earlier in the week, I found a music academy with practice rooms, which I should be able to rent out monthly. So I now finally have a place to play piano and hear the sound of my own lovely voice.

Negatives:

The shower is getting colder. The cold water was already cold to begin with. Now that its mid-fall, I’m starting to get concerned that my showering will move from “uncomfortable” to “intolerable” to “staying clean isn’t worth the hypothermia.” I maintain that there is no hot water button or process or routine that functions in my apartment.

I missed the Korean/Russian foreign relations conference. That was a bummer. At least I got to watch Game 1 of the World Series.

Finally, I’m having some rather unusual issues with mistaken identity. I’ve had several incidences where I’ve spoken to someone thinking they were someone completely different than who they actually turn out to be. Here’s a conversation I had with someone this weekend:

Aaron: Hey there.

“Kim”: Hey.

Aaron: Did you have a nice time last Sunday (we hiked last Sunday)?

“Kim”: Yeah, I guess…

Aaron: Are you excited to go to Beijing?

“Kim”: I’m not going to Beijing.

Aaron: Why, what happened your boyfriend?

“Kim”: I don’t have a boyfriend.

(note: at this point in the conversation I just thought that she was being bitter and I had stumbled on a very recent and sore subject)

Aaron: oh my god…what happened? You don’t have to tell me what happened. Did you break with him this week? I’m really sorry.

“Kim”: No, I didn’t break up with anyone this week…what are you talking about?

Aaron: You told me you had a boyfriend!

“Kim”: No I never said that. Wait…who do you think I am?

Aaron: You’re not Kim, are you.

“Kim”: No. *laughs* My name is Amber.

Whoops! At least SHE took it well, or least pretended to. As for someone about a month ago, I think probably not.

Either way, last night was probably the worst. I was dancing with this Korean girl in a white dress, and then I went to the bathroom. When I came out, I realized that there were SIX Korean girls in white dresses who LOOKED EXACTLY THE SAME. And it wasn’t beer goggles, these were six different people. And I couldn’t tell them apart. That cut the dancing really quickly. Can’t people just wear name tags?