Its a Puppie! And A Haiku Death Battle

BOOM! HALLA EXPLODES!

AJUSHIS RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!!

HARUBANGS…STAY PUT

I rescued a puppy this week. We think he’s a jindo but we know that he’s adorable and deserves a good life.

My puppy is doing fine so far. He’s already much more satisfying than my turtle.

I just have to make sure now that my puppie doesn’t eat my turtle. Not that this would kill it.

My turtle would probably come out the other end and just be like, “well that sucked.”

The puppy is a lot of work so far, and last night and today was pretty stressful. He’s teething and he has seriously bad separation anxiety. But then again, so do I. So for now I’m going to try to do the best I can, give him two walks during the day and two meals. My apartment is not ideal for raising him but this will be a learning experience.

March was highlighted by a Haiku “death” battle, an elimination-tournament which showcased the poetry of westerners on the island. Here’s a link to an article about it written by Lauren Flenniken for the Jeju Weekly:

http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=2492

The money quote:

“After almost four hours of head-to-head haiku battling, Aaron Dorman ultimately beat out Matt Leman to take over the title of Haiku Master from last year’s winner, Sean Ferguson.

“It feels pretty special to win — I’m glad I got to go against the gracious gentleman Matt Leman in the final round,” Dorman said. “Basically the night was as good as it could have been for me: I got to hear and enjoy some of the other poetry on the island, I made people laugh even when they were supposed to do their little hand-spaz thing, and I was genuinely delighted to be King.” ”

I’ll continue to post my haikus at the top of my blog entries. The article says most of what you need to know. Here are some pictures, and then a few more comments about the evening:

Here are some of the participants from the southside. Observe rule-breaking no. 1 right here: no costumes or props. Kathleen’s glasses match her watch which is kind of cool, but she doesn’t wear glasses and I’ve never paid enough attention to know if she wears a watch or not.

I broke this rule too, though, so I’m not judging. I used a black man as a prop (but it was necessary). I ran to the ladies’ room. I painted a narwhal on my stomach. More on that later.

There’s a lot of thinking going on this picture. People who write great haikus are great thinkers. Or maybe they just like to make funny faces.

Here’s the full roster of participants.

There was a nice variety of poetry. People spoke about landmines, cell phone vibrators, someone tried to make a rape joke. In the first round my opponent tried to summon the power of Batman.

This was a tournament, so there was some element of strategy. One poet went first, he challenger followed, and then a panel of inebriated judges voted on which one was the best. The winner then could choose whether he went first or followed in the next immediate head-to-head matchup. It took three out of five to win each round.

In the third round I went up against a guy who’s strategy mainly involved trying to insult his opponent. I was accused of having an STD, I was attack as dressing like a clown, things of that nature.