Where Did Everybody Go?

The public school kids have left for three weeks, to places where there is no snow and they can take stupid pictures of their stupid vacations and post them online even though nobody wants to see that garbage.

The hogwon/private school foreigners, meanwhile, get to experience the wonders of the Korean Hawaii.

This past weekend the island felt particularly empty. A good time to learn Korean I suppose. I lost a bunch of important things on Friday night, and on Saturday tried to do stand-up comedy routine at a particularly lackluster open-mic event.

I woke up Saturday morning really excited and spoke a 5-minute funny bit into my recorder. For whatever reason, either through lack of practice or lack of eating food, I was not in the proper state of mind and just didn’t deliver my material all that well. I don’t think it was BAD, but it wasn’t great. People were just drinking and talking, and I felt like I had to compete with them for attention in the bar.

At least Harold thought it was funny. Harold laughed. Thanks Harold.

I was hungry and wanting very badly to go back home after that, so I tried to sneak out of the bar before any more performances came on stage. “Aaron, you better not be leaving!” said someone.

Sorry, I did. Then I slept for 17 straight hours.

I got some terrible relationship advice this weekend as well. It was suggested to me that I find a 14-year old, for dating purposes or what have you I don’t actually remember. (note: this number was later adjusted to 18)

Then I was told before my next good relationship that I need to have several bad ones. This wasn’t a prophecy (I don’t think so anyway), it was simply stated as a fact, or trial that I must go through.

Now that I’m writing this, it doesn’t seem so bad. Whose fault does the badness of the bad relationship have to lie with? I’m perfectly willing to accept the blame.

All I have to do is find someone random, break up with them after a week, then find another person, break up with THEM after a week, and then I should be ready for something special. This sounds fine.

Back at school, there’s been a lot of turnover as this is the time of year when many students (and their parents) decide to stay at the hogwon or try out a different one. Some of my best, and worst students, have left without saying goodbye.

I’m getting a little tired of the younger students’ textbooks, although at the same time, since I’m teaching the same material over and over again, I’m getting better at knowing how to plow through it. Or not.

I’ve had to teach Base Camp 3 about 54 times since I started in August, and it’s my least favorite “textbook.” It’s about toys, which sounds like it’d be fun, but it’s a trick.

The lessons are insipid and this stupid boy in the textbook is flying kites which look more like girl’s panties. Nobody is ever going to tell this poor boy that he’s flying underpants, but he looks happy, I guess.

Every textbook has two songs. Once again, I go to bed tonight with these words stuck in my head:

ROBOTS. ROBOTS. I LIKE ROBOTS. HOW ABOUT YOU? I LIKE ROBOTS TOO.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH