But first, some happy endings: The drama of last week appears to be over, here’s hoping May is a less of an up-and-down month. I’m actually getting very excited about my new job, so much so that I have to be careful to take care of business and make sure things progress the way they’re supposed to, as well as do more than just mark time during my last month at Yale.
So now I have two T-shirts to make: one which says “Yale foreign language department” and another which says “Yale dropout.”
My parents came to visit last week, and we drove each other insane (maybe I just drove them insane), but they must have had a good time because they started trying to facebook friends all of my friends, which is delightful. I was very sad when they left.
I was initially worried because they indicated that pork and raw fish was off limits at meal times, which eliminated a bunch of potential “local” places, but I got them to the best Korean bbq place in Seogwipo (marbling) and I showed them around all of the western/non-Korean places that are ok.
We toured around the eastern side of the island on Sunday. Pictures will be posted at some point in the future. We went up Sunrise Peak, which is featured in 99.999% of promotional tourist material for Jeju, and its nice and all but I’m not sure why you can’t go into the crater at the top. When you reach the summit (it takes about 20 minutes) everybody is just sitting on stairs staring blankly down into the mountain. Maybe they were waiting for the sunrise.
I’ve started to really enjoy riding my motorcycle really take pleasure in taxi rides, particularly between here and Jungmun beach. The coastal roads are quite nice and if you go there at a certain point in the day, you can see the angry protesters trying to stop construction of the naval base.
Idiots. Where else are you going to play in sports or skin dive or study oceanography?
I was supposed to go camping and play sports this weekend but it rained on Sunday so I slept for 15 hours, and watched a lot of things happening on screens, like baseball and the Avengers.
Tomorrow marks my last time ever teaching Test-prep, which is a great relief. My students seemed to indicate to me today that I’m a human roadblock to their study time, or their computer game playing time, or something. Last week one of my students threw a hardcover book at a friend. They had been chucking paper balls at them, but once they realized that this caused no actual damage they moved on to the book. His punishment for this appears to have been…absolutely nothing.
But I’m not a punitive person. I just want to see some learning going on.
For some reason I thought I had a lot to write about. I guess not.
Lastly, a warm farewell to once-upon-a-time co-worker Charlotte Cummings, who is off to southeast Asia for a big adventure (bold for the right reasons) but probably won’t take the malaria pills (bold for the ???????? reasons).
Happy May 1 everyone!
Culture Time 
Drove you insane? Seeing Dubai great, touring Beijing and the Wall unforgettable, teaching your Mom game cast on ESPN surprising, hugging my son PRICELESS
Really?? We ate Korean, Japanese and Indian food, not McDonald’s. We used chopsticks and cut up meat with a scissor. We sat on the floor and cooked on the table. Who missed a flight? Who forgot there were two city halls in Seogwipo? Who had more drama than “the Young and the Restless” during sweeps week? Who left us to tour the hotel lobby all day after traveling around the world? Ok, so I bought you two regular stools and a four inch high table. Ok, so our phone didn’t work. (no quad band phones in Korea). Ok, so we thought the apartment needed a little, uh, decorating, and we want you to sell the instrument of death, uh, the motorcycle. But all in all, your parents were saints for not turning you into a haribang and dropping you over the nearest waterfall. We love you dearly, number one son, and we both cried when we left you. Good thing you live in Never NeverLand.