rants 2.0

my goodness, it's true: americans are so fat. i'm not even joking.

in seoul they have designated seats for everyone and i used to get mad even if they were big enough to spill over the indfvidual seat line a little and squish me.

here, nyc has bench style seating on subways and good grief, not only do overweight people hog the bench to themselves, but in an unrelated rant....

some people are just not conscientious of what's going on around them and i can't stand those people.

people sit down in the middle of the bench with just enough space on each side to piss me off. why? if they moved over to one side someone else could sit down!

and if they're sitting down (usually the men), they've got their legs spread out so damn much that again, no one else can sit down in the limited space available.

most of this would never happen in seoul. i don't think koreans are any more or less conscientious than americans but at least overweight people don't dominate and can't take over your seat because the seats are individual. koreans would also never use their bags or do something else to prevent a what otherwise empty seat from being sat on.

rants

for the record: nyc transportation NOT the best in the world. in fact, it's a joke.

i am so angry right now. having to wait ten minutes for a subway in the middle of the afternoon is ridiculous in itself. but then, to stop and wait ten minutes between each stop is outright ludicrous.

it's rush hour and the subways are packed and i'm stuck on a train for an hour standing up when the trip should have only taken twenty-minutes! not to mention i'm claustrophobic.

get your act together new york city. you're the city on top of the world but you can't even get your transportation straight.

----

note: as a gauge, i never once had this experience living in seoul for sixteen months. during rush hour, there is a subway train at EVERY SINGLE STOP and during the off-hours i only had to wait ten minutes maximum a FEW times. and even though the subway closes at twelve, taking a taxi is very inexpensive compared to my nyc cab ride across the river for eighteen dollars.

stereotyped: fat people 'r' us

since i've been back to nyc, i've seen the fattest people i can remember from my entire life. one man i saw on the public bus was easily 400 pounds and his clan of three kids + wife were well on their way too. he alone took up !three seats on the bus.

so is it true: are american's fat?

no, not all of them. but for as many healthy people there are in nyc, there are just as many overweight people, even life-threateningly obese people. and in my opinion, it seems the average falls around slightly overweight, especially in the mid-section.

however, let it be noted that this trend hasn't prevented anyone from also wearing less clothes than i've seen in a year. bulging bellies be damned, sheer tank-tops with spaghetti straps will be worn!

the new york experience

it's been four days so far and woah. write about highs and lows.

the lows first:
.1 so far i've had to eat every single meal save one alone (thanks megan for our taco bell date!). the only reason i normally ate alone in seoul was because i was running around like a chicken with its head cut off during the week. here, i have the time but not the available friends. have i become more korean in that i don't like to eat alone anymore? besides, i'm frequenting all my favorite food joints and i'd like to share the experiences with someone.

.2 the subways are LOUD. and god forbid i have to wait more than five minutes for it. or try to read admist a crowd of people shouting and listening to music on their MP3s so loud i hear it even over my own MP3 music.

.3 i have to pay for internet everywhere. yesterday i paid six bucks to use the internet for one hour and a half until my battery ran out. and that's not counting the forty-minutes of walking around until i could find a coffee shop with wireless.

finally the pros:

.1 i heard more languages spoken in my first two days here than i heard in my whole sixteen months in seoul. that definitely speaks for nyc's diversity. or it's foreign-born residents unwillingness to learn english.

.2 the food: nyc pizza, mexian, colombian, chinese, turkish, et al. yom yom yom yom (which explains my weight gain)!

.3 the ability to watch trashy t.v.! of course i could have done this in seoul had i hooked up my television. but here i've gotten reacquainted with digital cable and my favorite channels E! and Bravo.

.4 shopping! all of the clothes i've been pining over for the past year i've been able to peruse and some, even buy! thank you sales and tax-free shopping. i am now the proud owner of Okslen and Yohji Yamamoto and Y-3.

.5 tonight i met my korean-english language exchange partner. i met him on craigslist after posting an ad and on a hunch, i picked him from all the replies because he attends the creative and famous Hongik University in Hongdae, Seoul. boy, did that pay off because he's a total dish! this plan could go awry but here's to hoping it'll work in my favor... whatever that means.

indie rock + commercial use = huh?

i just witnessed a bud light lime commercial featuring a soft-core version of santigold as its theme song. wtf? how did that happen?

the trek 2009

wow. these past few days have truly been a whirlwind. too many emotions for my own good.

packing. studying. packing. teaching. packing. drinking. packing. goodbyes. drinking. passing out ...waking up two hours late for my flight on korean independence day: terrifying! obscene language dominated my vocabulary as i panicked throwing everything into my suitcases.

taking the ten-dollar, two-hour ride airport bus was certainly out of the question so tae-hyun and i hopped into a 50-dollar, 40-minute taxi and i made it with time to spare! thankfully the traffic was low despite what had been predicted.

not over exceeding the luggage weight limit: excellent! ten-minute goodbye. long layover in beijing where i not only stole internet at the airport, but also broke the firewall on blocked facebook. the CCP just missed me when i boarded my twelve-hour flight to jfk.

due to having forgot to charge my mp3 the night before and packing all my books at the bottom of my suitcase, it was an incredibly long and mind-numbing trip. to my distress i had an airplane full of inconsiderate passengers who let their kids run around screaming and overzealous seat sitters whose one seat was apparently not enough for them. and unlike many others, i received the detested aisle seat so i had to deal with being poked while doing a rare airplane activity for me: sleeping! by my seat partner to get out. heyijuststoodupforthirtyminuteswhydidn'tyougetupthen?nothanksbye.

waiting for luggage for one hour at jfk worried me. and hitting traffic on the jackie robinson made me sigh.

but finally, i am here.

day one: 24 hours awake and running, i had my first bag of salt & vinegar kettle cooked chips and washed those down with two slices of new york pie - the best in the world. and then i washed down that with ridiculous amounts of shots with gushers (yes, the beloved children's fruit snack served beautifully as our confection) and et. al. with courtney + model crew.

day two: i made my rounds of astor place k-mart to pay homage to Miss. Liz and to buy all of the essentials needed to make me bootyful. nyc reunion #2. megan and i divulged in the next american bad food on my list: taco bell with wendy's frosty dairy desserts. grade D meat at it's finest. and since megan gifted her old cell phone, we made our way to verizon to set up service.
914-539-2476; call me! after that we met cheryl, checked out some vintage, sipped on coffee, and window shopped. then i bid the girls goodbye and headed for chicken & rice. another check.

tomorrow begins job search 2009 + errands = losing my mind.

i love new york. and linking, of course.

goodbye seoul, hello new york city

it's been over two years since i've lived in new york city. will i make it?

goodbye

tomorrow is my last day teaching the kiddies and not to get sentimental, but i'll miss them. i do love teaching (even if it is english, which i clearly don't use properly) and i poured my heart and soul into it. even though at first i was impatient and confused, i grew over the year and i know now that i'm a great teacher and that my students have learned a ton from me. i may have not been the most liked teacher but my students are freakin' smart. i will miss their cute faces, even if they didn't do their homework.

promises, plans, and other matters

in korean, the word that you use when making dates with people is 약속 (yak-sok). it means appointment in this situation, but it can also mean 'promise' in a different situation. i often find that when making appointments with friends, they deny my request citing already planned "promises" with other friends as the reason.

this small culture tidbit actually explains a lot about their 생각 (thinking) because here meeting people is a pretty important business and if you don't hold your end of the bargain, it can result in a lot of shame. there's really no such thing as a coffee date either; once you meet someone, you're with them for at least half the day, give or take an hour.

so this past year i've fulfilled a lot of promises, promises i didn't even know i made. next time i'll have to hold them to a pinky swear just to make it clear that we're talking the business of promises and not just appointments and that yes, there is a difference.

warning

practicing your korean speaking for over one hour on top of the hours already spent studying it may will result in a persistent headache. and the need to drink alcohol and go out to the gay bar on your last saturday night in seoul.

unsuccessful hacking may end in fits of laughter

tonight i decided to try to hack into tae hyun's cyworld minihompy, korea's version of facebook. he's logged into it on my computer before so i figured it'd be no problem. well, the first time i was unsuccessful accessing this web page so i joked to him about it via text message. at that time though, i became busy so when i came back to my computer three hours later to try to hack it again, i was unsuccessful again, but this time for a different reason. this time i found his minihompy but it was locked with just one diary message written:

never try to hack my cyworld
mr. kochenash

adorbs, if i do say so myself. and i do.

i'm destined for professional failure

today in university, our teacher invented an activity to help us practice the top class of language, used for situations like business interviews and governmental dealings. it involved four students being the interviewers and the rest of the students being the interviewees. i was one of the applicants, and therefore had to go through a rigorous round of interviews. in the end, the interviewers (remember, my classmates) had to pick the person they would choose for the job.

sean (american) chose maki (japanese).
mipi (chinese) chose sauli (japanese).
panuwat (thai) chose jeni (swedish). and with the final successful applicant to be chosen...
eli (japanese) chose maki (japanese).

with only four possible applicants, everyone who could be picked was picked (maki twice!) except me.

throw me a frickin' bone here. by defying the odds in korean role-play, this must mean i should start picking out my cardboard box now.

does age really matter?

ah, the age-old question (pun intended).

after over a year of proclaiming my disdain for members of the younger set, i recently entered into a relationship with a boy five years my junior. he still lives at home. he just started university last semester. he's innocent as hell. and i don't hate it.

although he still has to bow down to his father for everything, he's surprisingly mature for his age and incredibly proactive at making up excuses to explain to his father about why he can't come home at night (which i love).

but all-in-all, maybe he's opening up a new worldview to me that was impossible for me to recognize before: young'ns may not be that bad after all. his innocence is endearing as hell and it reminds me of myself at that age: brave and free of worries before i became jaded and cynical. also, because he's a student and it's summer vacation, he has all the time in the world to be my companion.

so this begs the question: just what is it that i desired in an older man to begin with? though usually financially independent, so far, even the older men i've met in korea are still living at home, still studying in university, still lying to their parents about their life, and still only getting by with having only one date a week on saturday night. and if they aren't living at home and are working, they're always working. what type of relationship can i have with that person?

this only introduces my point but i have to wonder: is age really just a number?