WTF?! Wednesday ~ Please, Do Warn A Brother

September 25, 2013September 25, 20131 Comment

Happy Wednesday peeps! Guess who’s classes are all cancelled today in preparation for Sports Day this Friday? MINE! I do miss having my little baby doll 4th graders though. It feels like I never see them because we’ve had so many Wednesdays off in a row lately! But, I welcome any break I get!

Moving on to today in WTF?! I bring you something ghettosilly. I found this piece of fab a while back at a little boutique that I always used to shop at in my old hood while I’d wait for my pizza at Pizza School. I stood there for a good 30 seconds just shaking my head and laughing, and then immediately sent this photo to Tim who greatly appreciated it’s amazingness.

“If you see da police, warn a brother”

This is one shirt where I do regret not making the purchase. Tim was pretty mad at me as well. Le sigh.

I Battled Yo Mama, In 5-7-5

September 22, 20133 Comments

As I’m sure you all remember (because honestly, how could you forget), back in December my friend Jeremy, the head honcho over at Gosen Community Effort, had a fundraiser comprised of a 90s dance battle to raise money for those kids who want to attend high school way out yonder in Namibia. Word To Yo Mama’s High Waisted Jeans won the glory of the champion title, and my ass got a beating on the concrete. But a good ass beating is sometimes worth it.

Well, it was about time for another one of those fundraisers, and this time Polio swindled me into competing in his damn Yo Mama Haiku battle. He wooed me with bribes like “it’s an opportunity for self growth” and “you’ll probably win”, along with the daily Kakao’d haiku for good measure. I gave in, but as each day passed, I really wanted to bail because my nerves were rising. I couldn’t handle anymore nerves on my plate! Then all the shit that Polio would give me for bailing, coupled with that damned opportunity for self growth, cancelled my escape route.

The fundraiser went down at the new Southern Sons bar, owned by some chingus from Texas, where 8 battlers competed for the best in Yo Mama shit talking. Each pair of us were given a topic ~ stupid, fat, bald, and so on, that we had to write 3 Yo Mama jokes in haiku form for, except for the finals, which consisted of 5 haikus on anything shaming Yo Mama. For those who don’t know what a haiku is, I don’t know how you graduated 5th grade, but in any event, it follows a syllable format of 5-7-5.

After each battle we went around and hustled the crowd for raffle tickets that attendees purchased, and at the conclusion of each round raffle tickets were counted and winners progressed to the next round. The perk of having all your remaining friends still living in the country in attendance means you find yourself in the finals like so.

I actually cringe when I listen to my voice in these battles, but you gotta put on yo gangsta face when duty calls. This clearly proves that A) I don’t have a good poker face and can’t not laugh at my competition, B) I am so white, and C) this was a good outlet for my vulgar mouth.

Now here I grace you with the awkwardness of a Haiku Battle. A video of round 1 and the finals, and a photo of round 2 against the guy I thought should have won. HE WAS SO FUNNY! There’s no video of it though because I guess all of my friends were too enamored by my haiku spitting about yo mama’s mustache to capture a video.

“Yo mama so bald, She used all your dad’s back hair, To make her own weave.”

In the end, I came in 2nd place, or as I like to put it, 1st is the worst, 2nd is the best. It turned out to be so much fun and I’m so happy I did it, even if I wasn’t the 2 time fundraising champion. Also, given that I want to tackle doing stand up at least once in my life, ’twas a nice little segue.

I hope you enjoyed, and peace and yo mama’s mustache grease.

WTF?! Wednesday ~ The Pet Trashcan At 7-11

September 18, 2013September 18, 20132 Comments

Hello everyone! I have yet another Wednesday off (and Thursday AND Friday!) It’s Chuseok, which is essentially Korea’s Thanksgiving, and my happy excuse to not go to school / take care of “me” stuff. Last year at this time I was saying “konichiwa bitches” to the typhoon in Osaka and Kyoto, and this year I’m laying low and opting for that money sucking trip to Tokyo in 2 weeks over our NEXT long weekend! I love fall in Korea because it feels like every week we have another long weekend or random day off in the middle of the week. It’s quite loverly! Tomorrow I’m going to head on over to Chuncheon and Nami Island about 1.5 hours away by subway to do some exploring and perhaps some bike riding, my fave thing to do in foreign countries.

On with it now! Wednesday means one thing, and that is to grace your eyeballs with something weird and odd and bizarre and totally Korean. So, this week I bring you this trash can of a gem sign. I ran into 7-11 on my walk to the subway en route to school the other morning, and noticed this sign on the trash can that never seemed to grab my attention before.

I know Korea is quick to dispose of their pets once they outgrow that “cute” phase (whenever that happens), but ummmmm. I would advise against throwing your pet away in the 7-11 trashcan (or anywhere since we’re on the topic).

I’m still trying to figure out a logical acronym that “pets” could stand for, but I’m stumped. That, and the Korean “페트” literally reads “pet”. Maybe they meant pet poop?

Has anyone in Korea seen this and willing to enlighten a sista? Until that time comes, you are welcome to throw away your pet like an empty ramen cup 😦

Rocky Horror Madness Impulse

September 13, 2013Leave a comment

With my 3rd year off to a lovely start, I have recently felt the urge to do more random things that I’ve always loved but never really had the figurative balls to do. Well, a while ago I had signed up for Meetup notifications from Seoul Players, the group that puts on plays and those types of things around the city. Much like the dance Meetups, I never saw anything that quite tickled my fancy….until late last week.

There was a notification about auditions for a Rocky Horror Picture Show shadow cast that looked oddly enticing, and not to mention, a freaky little cherry to put on top of my favorite holiday that’s just around the river bend. So, I emailed the producers to sign up for the 2:30pm audition time slot on Sunday afternoon, and then cursed myself for the unnecessary nerves that I had bestowed upon myself as I took my ass to the audition. I was asked to come back at 3:30pm because the other 2 auditioners failed to make their time and it would just be awkward to carry on by myself. More nerves. I wanted to just get it over with!

So I left and returned. And I was nervous. Nervous until the introductions by me, the director and producer and 2 other hopefuls were out of the way. Then we did some warm up exercises. Building an imaginary machine with motions and sounds, and running across the floor pretending different scenarios were happening. Exercises that made me deathly self-conscious while in high school theater, that remarkably weren’t so bad 11 years down the line. I’ve grown up! And with age comes more “I don’t give a fuck-ness!”

Even so, I had still checked off to be cast as a not so large part because A) I don’t want to be prancing around in just briefs and a corset. I haven’t shaken that ounce of self-consciousness, and B) I haven’t acted in a while, and didn’t want something so boisterous on my first go at it.

After a 40 minute audition, I left with a huge smile on my face, from all the unanticipated fun I had just had, and desperately hoped I got cast.

Well, I am happy to announce that as of Wednesday night, I have accepted the role of Magenta in the Seoul Players shadow cast production of Rocky Horror Picture Show! I am so freakin excited for the fishnets, big frizzy hair and french maid attire that lies in my future! And because I had no clue what a shadow cast was, and I’m assuming you don’t either, it’s when we perform in front of the movie that’s playing behind us. SO, I will not be displaying my tone-deaf singing voice or having to memorize elaborate amounts of lines.

Rehearsals begin this Saturday, and we will be performing the weekend of October 25th and 26th in Itaewon. Words can’t express my excitement to perform and have a massive fan club attend yet another one of my ballsy wacko impulses.

I must say, it feels really scary in a good way to get outside my comfort zone and do something different! Cheers to growing old and growing as a human 🙂

WTF?! Wednesday ~ WHAT’S The New Black?!

September 11, 20134 Comments

As you know, one of my favorite things about Korea is the #justclickprint t-shirts that are everywhere. Well, today I found a new fave!

Tonight I was at one of the big shopping complexes in Dongdaemun helping my friend Dustin pick out some dapper new duds. While he was trying his shirt on, I spotted this gem just barely peeking out from behind a tasteful button down shirt.

I’d say I’m just as big a fan of this t-shirt as I am of that show by a similar name.

Weekly Travel Theme: The Moment

September 9, 20133 Comments

I can’t remember a time in my life where I wasn’t traveling. Ever since I was little Dani Tami, my parents constantly took us out of Agoura and onto either the open rode in a 15 seater van, or piled us into a plane to some country at the other corner of the globe. It is something I’ve always known. Spring and winter break never meant staying in town, and while looking back, these are trips that I am so grateful to my parents for. From a young age, they made me have to wander, whether I knew it then or not. So really, they shouldn’t be shocked at my current locale now should they? The answer is no. So Mama and Papa Schaeff, it’s all your fault!

This week’s travel theme is about “the moment”. The moment that you know your life is changed by travel either by a place, thing, time, person, whatever. I actually quite frequently get this feeling of absolute content whenever I’m traveling that’s much different from the feeling of the normal day-to-day. It’s one of those feelings that sparks so often, even in doing normal everyday things like taking a shower, that “real life” feels so far away in that second. Actually, since living in Korea, I’ve had so many of those moments. So many “I’m so happy I’m in Korea” moments, which helped me realize that moving here was the best decision I’ve ever made.

That being said, It’s kind of hard to pick just one moment that changed my life, so I’m going to pick two. The one that started it all, and a more recent one. Full circle that shit.

I can pinpoint that moment when I knew I needed to live abroad. I was in 4th grade, on a spring break trip with my family to Paris. I remember standing in a little street shop wanting to buy one of those collectors silver spoons that people used to collect like shot glasses. Maybe they still do, but I don’t. Either way, my dad gave me a few Francs to buy it, and then we made a mad dash out to the main street and into a random burst of hail. Across the street were the larger-than-life green and gold statues gleaming down at me in my yellow puffy jacket and red beret. The cars were driving haphazardly, yet somehow weaving in and out of each other in some fashion of chaotic order which I still to this day can’t place, even with my most likely ADD. We were trying to catch a Mercedes Benz taxi. A Mercedes Benz taxi! Wow, “Paris is rich!” I thought! That smell of the ice smashing on the pavement is one that I still catch random whiffs of in moments that are fleeting, and I am instantly transported back to Paris as the little girl in the jacket that could stop traffic. After that trip, while wearing our matching Sorbonne University sweatshirts, my sister and I both told our mom that we were going to go to college at Sorbonne and live in Paris.

That didn’t happen for either of us, but I still look at that certainty as the pivotal moment of when I just knew I wasn’t going to spend my whole life living in the States.

Flash forward to adult woman “mature” life and my first solo trip to the stunning, magnificent, lush Bali! I had found a guy named Gusti who offered to take me on a half day excursion on the back of his motorbike to see some temples and a Luwak coffee plantation. The plantation was actually something that I thought was going to be a scam and I’d be just nodding my head in a polite effort to get it over with. However, after about a minute of meeting Oher, and listening to him tell me about harvesting the different kinds of coffee beans, I was totally interested. I knew I wasn’t just asking random questions to appease him. Instead, I started to find him remarkably charming in a sweet old man kind of way. After teaching about all the different kinds of beans, showing me how to crack them open, introducing me to the pooping Luwak, and letting me smell all the various herbs, we sat down to taste some coffee and indulge in conversation.

Over 10 little cups of coffee and tea, Oher asked about the places I’ve traveled, explained how he’s studied English for 4 years just by talking with customers, told me about his 10 year old daughter, Wayan, who loves Hello Kitty, and how he has been raising her on his own since his wife of 25 years passed away 2 years ago, a subject that actually brought him to tears. As he teared up, it reminded me of why I am so in love with experiencing all the world has. I love meeting people on these journeys and getting a little glimpse into their world that’s so different from my own, but fundamentally so similar when you get down to the bare bones of being a human. Here I was sitting at a hand carved wooden table with a 45ish year old man who looked well into his 60s, who spoke remarkable English for being self-taught, some snakeskin fruit and 10 empty cups of coffee, enjoying one of the best moments I’ve had while on the move.

I actually happened to be wearing a Hello Kitty ring that I bought in Korea for 2,000won. I gave it to Oher as a gift for his daughter from an American girl. He was so shocked that I was just giving it to him. I said I could buy another, it was no problem. He said thank you about a million times and was so eternally grateful for that small plastic piece of jewelry that it just made me smile.

These are moments that remind me of why I’m so happy I’m staying in Korea another year. Another year of exploring this whack but stunning continent, and after that, who knows what the next moment will be 🙂

I decided to start writing some weekly travel theme pieces that other travel blogs will be changing up each week. So look out for some random variety 🙂

WTF?! Wednesday ~ Mrs. Lee, What Planet You From?

September 4, 20132 Comments

Hi everyone! It’s been a little while since posting my last WTF?! Wednesday jam because I was on a wondrous trip to Bali followed by a big move out of North Korea. But, I’m back today! And happier than ever because A) I just found some new bedding so my apartment will slowly stop looking like a college dorm, and B) because CORI is coming to visit me at the end of the month!!! She’s coming to Seoul and then we are planning to pop on over to Tokyo since I have a long weekend in the beginning of October. WEEEEE!!

Now onto this week in WTFness! I actually took these photos 2 weeks ago when I was forced to co-teach (if you could even call it that), with the laziest, sloppiest, most absurd ajumma (old Korean woman) I’ve ever come in contact with. I feel she, her wardrobe and just general demeanor are well deserving of their own post.

I am actually unsure if her name is really Mrs. Lee because she never even responded when I called her by “name”, but that’s what she told me it was… that one time she actually spoke to me. That brief moment in time was very brisk and almost non-existent. It was like she couldn’t be bothered to be around a dirty foreigner. She didn’t ask my name, didn’t say hello, but just tossed me this handwritten questionnaire and ran away. If you are confused, on the left side it says “Question 1-5”, and on the right it says “Answer”. So, I did as was asked of me and wrote her 5 questions that I was burning to know about her, expecting to receive some awe-inspiring answers in return. Never got those.

Then came the time to meet and do something called TEACH the students. You’d think that one would dress presentable for a day on the job, and also be a little more involved. But no no. Not “Mrs. Lee”. She showed up to work like so and carried on in the back of class reading the newspaper and catching up on some zzzzz’s. She also walked into each class carrying a box of glue sticks and a mug filled with pens that she never used.

The only bit of teaching that “Mrs. Lee” did was when she began class. She started by yelling at the students, followed by hitting a few so hard on the head, and finally, wrote a grammatically correct phrase on the board for the students to repeat 10 times. Only they weren’t grammatical at all, and the students knew it. Her phrase choices were stupid, to put things bluntly.

In the first 6th grade class the phrase was “How you?”, the second was “Where from?” and the last (which she finally got right!) was “Be quiet”, also quite suiting for that particular class, but that’s neither here nor there. I began class by asking the students how to correct their “teacher’s” English.

One of the biggest things that qualifies this as a WTF?! moment is the fact that she had ZERO idea of how to use a computer. She didn’t know what a mouse was or what to call the monitor. I know that she is older, but I found it bizarre that Jin had to spend a good portion of her time teaching “Mrs. Lee” the basic vocabulary that accompanies this technology that’s so abundant in our lives. Actually, the Vice Principal wanted me to teach “Mrs. Lee” how to teach, but I refused. My job is to teach the students, not to teach the teacher how to be a teacher. Especially when she had applied for this position under the pretenses that she was a teacher. Oh, and because she couldn’t be bothered to even ask me my name.

On top of no basic computer knowledge, she also refused to eat in the cafeteria with everyone else, but instead conned a student into bringing her lunch in her classroom, which the Vice Principal was outraged about. She also STOLE one of the 3rd grade point frogs and one of the 6th grade point monkeys off our progress board. A token of her time as a teacher, perhaps?

If I can find it within myself to find one thing that I am pleased with in regards to “Mrs. Lee”, it’s that I strongly believe she brought me closer to my 6th graders. They are usually too cool for school, but having her there really made them appreciate me and hands were actually shooting up to volunteer, which NEVER happens. So thank you for that wacko lady!

Alas, those two WTF weeks came and went, and now I have a brand new co-teacher named Shin hye and she’s young and sweet and pretty and I’m excited to have permanency once again!