100 Happy Things

A friend complained that my blog has been too unhappy and I’m a big meanie. So here are 100 warm and fuzzy things about my life on Jeju:

1. Ptolemny Barnes, teacher of English, has a new blog, “Another Expat Blog.” He’s a competent writer, I look forward to his material.

2. Dinosaur World Theme Park

3. I get paid every month.

4. Onya, my puppy dog.

5. A delicious chocolate shake at Gwakji Beach

6. A delicious mango shake at Gwakji Beach

7. My favorite student is named Sarah, she is a tiny little first grader who strains with effort to try and do the very best job possible, whether that is writing a sentence or doing a stupid word search puzzle. It’s nice to have students who want to excel for no other reason than the challenge has been presented to them by an adult.

8.  I am slowly advancing my position as a VIP customer at Bagdad’s Cafe. Not only am I designated as “little brother” by the Nepalese owner, but I also frequently receive free tea and mango lassi. Excellent.

9. There were at least five Korean men and women who wore their swimsuits, and not their business suits, at the beach today. Progress.

10. The herpes dick statue at loveland.

11. I believe there is at least 500 won just sort of lying around in every room in my flat. I could probably find enough money for a nice meal if I went hunting around for 20 minutes.

12. Soggy citizens from the southside visited Jeju city on Saturday night. This was very exciting.

13. Spicy ribs at 2 am.

14. I snuck into Jane’s Groove last night. This never happens. I think I waved my hand and was like “I’m with ‘those people'”, even though in context that didn’t really make sense, but I looked purposeful and so the bouncer let me in.

15. Showers. I still haven’t used up my “modern woman shower gel” that I received at the wedding I went to in April.

16. Sandwiches. I went to Quizno’s for the first time today. It was delicious. Not NY deli sandwich delicious, but Quizno’s delicious, which is delicious enough.

17. batman

18. the dragon puppet I found in a basket at work which I use to entertain kids when things get a little boring.

19. No school on Wednesday

20. I won 160,000 won playing poker by working really hard this week. Thanks, Mr. Song!

21. Mr. Song.

22. Stephanie Danielle got a new apartment. And she made into the blog. Promises kept. Be happy Stephanie.

23. I just killed a bug. One less in the world.

24. I bought a line for Onya so she can roam around the grounds of the flat when I’m at work but I don’t have to worry about her chasing me to the cab stand.

25. We are discussing MY work at the writing club tomorrow night. I get to leave my job and then hear people talking about ME for 45 minutes, I’m very excited.

26. Onya made new friends today.

27. Dakota has new friends today.

28. Speaking of which, Dakota got butchered into “Duncan” this week, I was at a social gathering and people started calling me Duncan. My name is not Duncan. My name is not even Dakota. But people calling me Duncan made me happy.

29. My blog is an international sensation.

30. My school, Scholars’ Choice International, is an international sensation.

31. Facebook scrabble

32. Timo Latour returns to Jeju yet again this week. He’s having dinner at Bagdad’s on Tuesday but he doesn’t know it yet.

33. I think i’m going to play squash this week.

34. Dinosaur World Theme Park again.

35. In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the Nautilus is initially mistaken as being a narwhal.

36. Narwhals

37. The McKayla Maroney meme. The best one is a picture of her with Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi and the caption is “McKayla thinks the first Death Star explosion was cooler.”

38. Ruben Tejada

39. Fancy dress neourebang.

40. My landlord and I are “friends” again. Maybe we can go to the business club together, or if that’s too greasy maybe we can just have coffee sometime.

41. Onya is a chick magnet. This one’s not a surprise, but I should take more advantage of this. Onya will soon be accompanying me to more beaches, more parks, more Family Marts, more E-Marts, more casinos, more hotels, more more more.

42. The cute Korean/American barista who works at the Twosome Place across from my school is still here until the end of August.

43. I caught Onya reading the “Modern Arab-Israeli Reader” on my way to work yesterday. She was tearing the cover off, but this can only be evidence that she is a scholar.

44. I get to watch a bunch of videos tomorrow at school. Mondays are podcast days with the younger students and I found part of the “Adventures of Huck Finn” which I will show to my middle schoolers.

45. My job keeps me thousands and thousands of miles away from Paul Ryan, whose laughter sends chills up my spine.

46. The Mets still play baseball of reasonably professional caliber.

47. Sunshine

48. Butterflies

49. The laughter of children (except when Paul Ryan was a child, I’m sure it was terrible)

50. Dinosaurs

51. Snoop Lion

52. Gwakji Beach

53. My cowboy hat

54. I can read hangul now. The flirt bar across from La Vie is apparently called the “Tooshy Club,” Tooshy (or whatever the romanization is) means rabbit in Korean but it also means your bum so it’s very clever. I’m sure the Tooshy Club is only the most classy establishment ever.

55. More on the Tooshy Club…me and the boys (and Valeria who hangs out with boys) like to watch the “couples” come out and then go into the neourebang downstairs. That whole road is like a whorehouse resort: you have a flirt bar, a love motel, a neourebang where you can pay your hooker to tell you you have a great singing voice or whatever.

56. Onya has six nipples.

57. The purple couch in the lobby of the Tooshy Club. I wonder if there’s a cover charge to sit on the purple couch? One of these Trivia fridays I’m going to sit on the purple couch with my cowboy hat and sunglasses and just see what happens.

58. One of the last people to come out of the Tooshy Club was a man in a purple suit holding an umbrella…for a customer holding an umbrella. That is service, friends.

59. None of my bosses, current or former, have ever read this blog.

60. Matt Harris likes my blog.

61. At trivia night I got a question right-Hrothgar, the king that Beowulf serves. I earned my team one point.

62. The SOC omelette at Winnie’s Brunch. The S stands for spinach, the O stands for Onion, the C stands for…….cheese I think? Or croutons. But there are no croutons. Probably in all of Korea.

63. It’s not even midnight yet. This could be the first blog post I finish before 5 am.

64. Gangnam Style

65. Someone told me they like my dancing style. Excellent.

66. Dinosaur World Theme Park

67. I have identified what kind of teacher I am. I am a “facilitator.” My preference is to “inspire” my students and get the ball rolling, and then observe them from a distance, unless there’s a trainwreck, so that they discover and learn for themselves and not because someone is hovering over them.

68. I had always meant to write five nice things about Yale. I don’t think I ever got there, so I’ll use this time to write some. I am forever thankful for Mintak Kim for believing in my abilities and hiring me to be a teacher of English despite having no prior experience. Now I have experience!

69. I can tell people without lying that I was a part of the foreign language department at Yale.

70. Han prayed for me. I still don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus, but keep on praying, Han. It can’t hurt.

71. Yale was a convenient location next to a piano academy, a 7-11, and a place that sold kolguksu (or whatever the spelling is), the amazing protein-rich cold soybean soup. I still miss that soup. Someday soon perhaps.

72. I have fond memories of my Yale posse. It might be the only job I ever have where  I’m the only guy in the office. Unless I buy out the Tooshy Club. But that will be different. Also, there will have to be a man there holding an umbrella in case a fancy person needs two umbrellas.

73. discovered some candy in my refrigerator just now.

74. Onya one more time.

75. Dinosaur World Theme park

I don’t actually have 100 things  I can write about now, so the final 25 will be a very esoteric list of the Mets major league roster. Thanks for reading.

76. Josh Thole

77. Ike Davis

78. Daniel Murphy

79. Ruben Tejada

80. David Wright

81. Andres Torres

82. Scott Hairston

83. Ronny Cedeno

84. Mike Baxter

85. Rob Johnson

86. Justin Turner

87. Jose Rey…whoops

88. Johan Santana

89. Matt Harvey

90. RA Dickey

91. Francisco Rodriguez

92. Josh Edgin

93. Chris Young

94. Jeremy Hefner

95. Jon Niese

96. Jordany Valdespin

97. Bobby Parnell

98. Manny Acosta

99. I can’t remember the last two, but my poison ivy rash is finally going away.

100. I remembered one: Jon Rauch