They call me 'Rain'

For the uninitiated, this is a bit of compliment. 'Rain' is the name of probably the biggest star in K-Pop, gaining a bit of international fame. Regular viewers of the Colbert Report might know what I am talking about. The most common mispronunciation is 'lion', which I have to admit, is sort of bad a**. But come on people, my name isn't that hard. Four letters, two syllables, that's it. Ry-an. Not hard.

So I have not posted in awhile. I assure you I am not dead. Though at times in the past few weeks I felt like it. Not only have I been sick off and on (same garbage I get every year when the weather changes) but I have also had my share of injuries, not all of them kickboxing related. I sprained my ankle playing basketball, pulled a muscle in my upper thigh, dislocated my pinkie, and oh yeah, my nose was broken. At least I think it was. Something popped out of place, it bled a lot (after the fact), and it was not fun. Despite this, I have yet to take a sick day. Some sort of record for me.

Oh, and if you are wondering where all the pictures are, there aren't any until I get my camera issues sorted. It seems to drain batteries constantly, and therefore everytime I want to take a picture I have to buy new batteries. The rechargeables are no better. Something's not right, it never did this before. The power will cut out sometimes, even on fully charged batteries.

My medical record aside, not too much to write home about, so to speak. I am settling into daily/weekly routine where nothing exciting or even interesting happens. I go to school, I go to Wu-Shu, I go home and I go to bed. That's it. One of the Korean teachers decided to take a month off to sort out 'personal issues', so I had to pick up half of her classes, but I would still say the workload isn't overwhelming. I still don't even have to work 8hr days like normal people, so I am not complaining.

I am still amazed by the little things: when I successfully buy something at a store, when I get on the right bus with no help, and read signs in Hangeul. The last one is huge accomplishment for me; I can now read the Korean script. When King Sejong introduced the Hangeul alphabet in the 15th century to increase literacy, it was said that the common Korean peasant should be able to learn the new alphabet in two months. I would like to believe that I am smarter than the average 15th century Korean peasant, but it did take about 2 months. I still don't know what the word means, but I can at least read and pronounce it in Korean, of course with a bit difficulty at times. However, sometimes the words are English words or cognates and just written in Hangeul (Orange Juice, for example). It definitely helps me to get out Samcheonpo when I want to, because out here in the sticks they don't Romanize the words for city names on the buses or schedules like they do in the big cities. When I went to Busan, I was able to navigate the subway system better because I can now read Hangeul. Busan is a big city, with a lot of English, but my cell phone has a subway map on it that is completely in Korean and rather useless to me if I didn't learn how to read the names of the stops. My English-to-Korean dictionary on my phone has also been the greatest thing ever. Basically my phone is the most important piece of technology I have ever bought (only because I didn't buy my laptop, it was a gift). Seriously, if lose my phone I will be severely depressed.

One weekend I was invited to a ten year old's birthday party. I have never eaten cake with chopsticks, so that was fun.

I went to Busan under very annoying circumstances. The city is about 2 hrs one-way for me by bus. I went one Friday morning, the day after I pulled the muscle in my thigh and I could barely walk. I didn't have to be to school until 5pm (before the Korean teacher left for a month I had an amazing Friday schedule), so I had to do my business there and get back without any mishaps. My business was with the American Presence Post, sort of the replacement for the Consulate they shut down several years ago. One State Department official and two native office workers is all it is, and they aren't open on the weekends. I needed to vote, and my absentee ballot had not come yet. I was going to get a federal emergency write-in ballot, which they didn't have, so basically a pointless trip (I found out later that you could actually download the forms online or something like that). So I barely got back in time to prepare for class and figured I would have to go back to Busan the next week when they got some forms in from Seoul. Well, my absentee ballot finally came that Tuesday, all crinkled up and mashed through my mail slot but it arrived nonetheless, so it all became a moot point. I know that the election was already decided by the time my ballot arrived back home, but at least I made the effort.

My time in Busan was frantic, and I didn't get to see any of the city, but depending on my health tomorrow, I should be making another trip over there this weekend with some English teachers from Sacheon. I think it is funny that one of the teachers is from Flint. The Michigander diaspora is amazing. In my travels I have ran into so many people from the Great Lake State. We are all very proud of our shared Michigan heritage, our sports teams (minus certain teams, ahem, Lions) and the schools and what not, we just don't want to live there.

I will end with a few things I probably shouldn't admit.

1.) In the U.S., whenever I would hear an annoying dog barking, I would always think, 'I wish someone would shut that dog up already.' Here I think, "I wish someone would eat the damn thing already.' I know it is wrong, and I apologize, but this is in retaliation to a remark one of my students made. I was showing pictures of the fam, and I had a picture of the family dog. The kid said, 'I want to eat your dog.' I'm sorry, nobody eats Dottie.

2.) I have picked my favorite student. It was tough, but I think I have a winner. She is the sweetest and cutest little girl I have ever met. She is one of my youngest students, I think 1st or 2nd grade. She is always dressed in neat little outfits and her hair done up in pigtails. Think of the girl that sang the Chinese national anthem at the Olympics (the one that lip sync'd it, not the little uggo that actually sang the song). She always sits quietly to learn, never disrupts class, answers all my questions, always does her homework. She always wants to help me make copies and staple handouts, and is always cleaning my blackboard (or at least the bottom half she can reach). So why is this something that I shouldn't admit to? Well there is one little problem, and that is she smells like a**. That's right; my favorite student is the smelly kid in class. I have 110+ different students, and this was the best I could do? It's not all the time, though, that she smells. Her parents obviously spend a lot of time grooming her, but I honestly think she craps her pants. I would write it off as a fart, but there is no way a little girl can pass gas like that. I would have to place her above my dad for the title of worst smelling farts. The other students have noticed, and I think they make fun of her, but I can't tell. I have talked to the other teachers about it, but apparently they are either already aware and are ignoring it, or they just haven't noticed, or they just didn't understand a word I said to them, which is most likely the case.

At least she wasn't the kid that threw up in his book bag. Someone at orientation said something like this happened to them, and I just laughed. Then it happened in my class.

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