I did something very strange.

A new friend, Kim, and I were chatting outside a convenience store in Itaewon when a Korean man with earbuds, a tan jacket, and a rougher-than-usual hairstyle came into our vision.  He turned and said, "I'm hungry."  Kim and I stared at him in shock and for a lack of any other ideas.  He stared back, realized our confusion, and got a little embarrassed.  He laughed, bowed his head a few times, turned to look for others, laughed again, and then wandered a little bit away from us.

I looked at Kim.  I looked inside the convenience store.  I looked at the man.

When I see homeless men and people with signs asking for money or food by the street, when I saw those people in America, I always had a knot form in my stomach.  I had serious difficulty eating McDonald's on the way home from vacation once because we passed one of these men on our way to the restaurant.  But I was never able to help them, I thought, because I was too young, I was a girl, and I shouldn't enable their lifestyle of who-knows-what.  I hate that.  I seriously hate that.  I'd much rather just help the guy.  I swear, if I were a dude, I'd pick up every hitchhiker I passed.

This time, I could do something.  I felt that same sympathy I've felt a hundred times before, and I could finally act on it.  

I moved toward the man.  He'd put his earbuds back in.  I reached out and patted his tan coat.  He started and stared at me.  I had resolve.  I beckoned him over to me and to the convenience store and said something about "food" and "you want?"  Cautious at first, he followed me.  By the time we were in the small store, he was ecstatic.  I motioned to the food and did my best to show him that he could pick whatever he wanted.  He moved over in front of the beverages.  "Drink," he said.  He picked out a Vitamin Water.  I told him to take two.

I led the way up to the counter.  The man marveled beside me.  I paid for the drinks, only an American dollar fifty.  His smile was so big.  He bowed his head so many times.  I know happiness, and I tell you truly, I've never seen anyone so happy in all my life.

My friends and I were leaving.  The man kept turning to look, smile, wave, bow, and smile.  A beggar nearby caught drift of what had happened and rose up from his place as I rushed past him down into the subway.  My friend Drew followed me, calling to tell me to wait for our friends.  I stopped once I was safe underground, but I wanted to be away from what I was sure would be a pressing I couldn't bear from other beggars.

Anticlimactic maybe, but this is what happened.  The urge to try to make something right, the action, the glow from the helped, and then running away.  I've got nothing else to say, but I'm really curious about your thoughts.

Have you ever formed a relationship with a beggar?  Given a ride to a hitchhiker?  Gotten shy about helping and then felt strange afterward?

I don't know.  I feel like there's something here that I've left unprocessed.  It's just all so... strange.

Laser Hair Removal: I'm for real

I started having appointments in February.  I'm having laser hair removal done!

It's been a big splurge, but I am getting a killer deal:

Legs: Five sessions for 600,000₩  (approx. $534)

Underarms: Five sessions for 50,000₩  (approx. $45)

Lip: Five sessions for  150,000₩  (approx. $133)
Bikini: Five sessions for 200,000₩ (approx. $180)

I loosely calculated how much I spend on shaving my legs and underarms.  I use the Gillette Venus Embrace razor cartridges and change them about 12 times a year (more for summer, less for winter).  I never buy shaving cream; I just use Dove soap when I shave.  Assuming these razor cartridges stay at $18 for a pack of four, that's $54 I spend a year on the razors.  The combined price of my laser hair removal procedure is $667, and this procedure will pay for itself after... 12 years or so.  And that's not even accounting for the time I'll save from shaving and tweezing, the razor burn I won't give myself, and the confidence I'll get to flaunt.  (Middle school tauntings may or may not have had a mild influence in my decision.)  Keep reading for all the details!

Artist Discovery: William Wegman

I grew up watching Sesame Street.  I know a weimaraner when I see one.  What I didn't know was the name of the man behind the adorable genius I always looked forward to during my TV show.

William Wegman, I'm sorry for not doing my research earlier.  Now that I know who you are, I want to tell you that I'm a huge fan of your art.  Thank you for sharing your quirky work and your love of dogs.  I love them, too.

William Wegman, Header, 2000
via Panopticon Gallery

William Wegman, Hot and Pink, 2004
via Panopticon Gallery

William Wegman, Leaf Line, 2005
via WegmanWorld.com

William Wegman, Psycho, 2008
via Panopticon Gallery

Their faces look so morose and resigned.  I find them so comical and adorable.

Oh, lawd, I found this footage of a spelling lesson with one of his dogs.  It's probably the cutest thing I've seen all month, and I work with Korean children so I know what I'm talking about.  But really, it's short and sweet, and you won't regret it.  Watch it here!

William Wegman, Covered Bridge, 2001
via Candace Dwan Gallery

William Wegman, Mowing Alone, 1997
via Miami New Times, thanks to Lowe Art Museum

William Wegman, Lawn Chair, 1988 (My birth year! That just makes me happy.)
via WegmanWorld.com

Oh, I miss my chocolate lab so much.  All this dog talk's got me digging through my planner for a date to the closest dog cafe.

My last recommendation: watch some weimaraners make bread on Sesame Street.  I can't stop smiling.
I hope you like these pups as much as I do!

A Korean Galbi Restaurant

Marinated and grilled meat has never been so wonderful.

Dalk galbi: Marinated and grilled chicken
Served and eaten with chilli pepper paste, onions, and lettuce and sesame leaves
See how our grill is set into the table?  The waiter will come and chop and flip and necessary.  Sometimes there are large tubes that hang from the ceiling that act and vents and suck up smoke from the cooking food.  This restaurant didn't have any ceiling vacuums on the second floor where we were.

Gyeran jjim: Korean egg souffle
Served boiling in a stone bowl

Eel and samgyeopsal
The samgyeopsal (fatty pork belly meat) is so-so and is better when eaten like galbi with some thin rice cake on top, but the eel?  Run.  Just run.

The soju face

We sit on the floor at this particular restaurant and use thin mats to keep our butts from falling asleep too much.

Binny's Last Day

My favorite child in all the world (I'm completely serious) had to drop out of Elegance class because she lives too far away.  Binny cried a river, and Jinny and I contributed.  It was a sad, sad, sad day.

My connection with her was so strong.  I invested into her young life and became an integral part of her development.  I loved her fully and was loved in return.  Having to completely sever that bond hurt like hell.

I stayed with Binny while she was waiting for the bus.  She was weeping the whole time, and I just let her cry as I held her hand and whispered every positive thing I thought she would understand.  "I love you.  You are awesome.  You will be okay.  You are smart.  You are a good student.  You are beautiful.  I love you.  Your next school will be so fun.  I will miss you.  I love you."

Elegance Class is dimmer without Binny.  I've even dreamed of her once.  It was a real disappointment arriving in class after that dream and not finding her face bobbing there.  But, as I'll have to remember many more times, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Oh, Binny child.  You are the coolest.

Bar food

The only time I went into a bar in the States was to go to church there.  Ha, that cracks me up!  Well, now you know that I don't have much a reference point, but still something tells me this isn't normal in other parts of the world.

Teaching is awesome

I've been sick with a sore throat and a fever, and I've been discouraged by how little energy I've had for school, but I was still blessed with these little gems we culled this week.

The new spelling of "beautiful?"

"dutefly"

Aaron's answer to "Would you like to have Mr. Roy as your teacher?"
"No, because I don't like people with glasses."
Alex.  Same question.

"No, I don't like to have Mr. Roy as my teacher.  Because I like pretty and kind woman teacher."

Extra points for Alex.

An appropriate sentence to illustrate "leader?"

(Spoken softly behind a protective hand) "Teacher, I am the leader of the ninja group design."

Extra-extra points for Simon

March 14th is Korea's White Day.  It's the counterpart to Valentine's Day which is traditionally the day for women to give their men chocolates.  On White Day, the men give their women white things like candies or cakes.  This Wednesday, it was halfway through the day when I realized why I was getting sweets from the kids.  My favorite was a scone and a piece of chocolate truffle cake which Daniel's mom sent me from Starbucks.  As I said, I've been sick, so the appreciation was greatly appreciated.

My self-titled Korean boyfriend.

Besides the classes with my Korean class teacher, the best Korean lessons come from the weekend taxi drivers.  Today's lesson: 여자 친구 (girlfriend: yeoja chingu) and 남자 친구 (boyfriend: namja chingu).

Then came THIS little gem of a conversation (the italicized parts were in Korean):
"You have boyfriend?"
"Yes, yes! I have a boyfriend. He is an American ...Handsome man.  Love, love, love."
"Oh...  Boyfriend... kiss?"
" *Exaggerated gasp* Tsk tsk. No!"
"Oh...  Boyfriend no kiss.  You lesbian?"
"Ha! No! I am not a lesbian!"
"Oh...  You have KOREAN boyfriend?  You, Lindsay, my girlfriend!  You me kiss?"
"Ha ha! No! You kiss??  My mother (would say): 'Lindsay, WHAT??' My younger sister: 'Lindsay, WHAT?? My boyfriend… Love, love!"

But, I blew him a kiss after paying him for the cab and left smiling as he repeated, "Lindsay.  Beautiful.  My girlfriend."  :)

Ruby the rich girl

I teach in one of the wealthiest parts of the country.  Many of my students come from very well-off families.  Ruby, the spunk child of my preschool class (and my very favorite), has come into class sporting a few different Burberry coats and super fancy shoes.  Last week, she asked me an interesting question.

"Mmm.  Lindsay Teacher.  You have money?"
"Uh... Yes.  I have some money."
"Mmm.  You have little money or... much money?"
"Uh...  I have... some money.  SLP gives me money because I teach."
"Hmm.  ...I think...  I will give you money."

"Ahh, thank you, Ruby, that is very sweet, but it's okay.  You don't have to give me money."

How to change the language in Google Chrome, now with pictures!

May 29, 2012 edit:

Chrome's changed a few things around since I first published this post in March. Here's what you should do.  Just type in chrome://chrome/settings/languages to your address bar and skip to Step #3.

I'm more dexterous on Firefox and Google Chrome, while the Korean staff sticks with Internet Explorer.  In my own classroom, I recently re-installed Chrome after the computers were reset for the new school year, but the default language of Korean left me lost during some of my surfing.  I used every trick I could think of, but I could not get Chrome to display in English, at least not without learning Korean so I could read what exactly those option buttons said.

I digress.

Tutorials are better with pictures, and I'm going to show you with Korean pictures how to change the default language in your Chrome browser.  I'm going to use Korean pictures so you'll see that you don't need the English text to get it done.  :)

Step #1
Click the wrench in the top right corner of your browser.
Select "Options (O)" from the drop-down menu.
OR
Type this address into your browser: chrome://settings/advanced

Step #2
Select the third tab there on the left to open up the "Under the Hood" options.
Select that button there under the second bolded section to open up your "Languages and spell-checker settings."

Step #3
You will see a list of the languages already added.  If you see the word for "English" (or a different goal language) already in the list, go ahead and select it and go to step #5.  If not, click the "Add" button.

Step #4 (If needed)
Select your goal language from the drop-down menu.

Step #5
Once your goal language is selected, click this button on the right to "Display Google Chrome in this language."

Step #6
A yellow box will show up telling you to close and reopen your browser and then everything should be in the language you chose!

Let me know if you've found this helpful!  Have any other internationals been having tricky times with such things?


Just this week I found out how to change the time zone for my Gmail themes.  Turns out you have to change the city which shows as an option at the bottom of the Gmail themes page.  Finally, the ocean pictures on my email screen will correspond with the daylight in Korea.  I can't tell you how much that's been bugging me!

New-ish Obsession: Dance

 I know that dance is gushed about as being this transcendental experience that goes beyond the physical and reaches form the innermost being to something beyond through some ecstasy of movement.  How awesome would it be to be able to stand firm on that and to hold it as a banner for what would be my passion.  Perhaps that will happen one day, but for now, I'm just super psyched about the many opportunities for expanding my reborn hobby of dancing.

I wish I could say that I started young, that I have a good foundation, and that I have natural talent.  I don't have those things, but I've got rhythm, diligence, and serious interest.  My first shot at any kind of dance was the Sunday night swing jam off campus during my college days.  Then there were the occasional girl dance parties, one carefully choreographed hall project, two semesters of dance class, and I was involved in a small dance performance and dance team.  When I got to Seoul and learned that it's the Lindy hop capitol of the world, I started to hit up the swing bars in hopes of honing what I want to turn into something serious.  (Seriously awesome, that is.)  A few of my friends have started to come with me, two of them have gotten me hooked on the idea of trying out their salsa clubs, and, to top it all off, a dude at my church started offering a free hip hop class!  I'm religiously attending every Tuesday night session.

A lot of the people from my Bible study group are in hip hop with me.  We hang out a lot at Sim's place, and, the last two times, we've ended up watching battling dance movies.  Last time it was Stomp the Yard, and tonight's choice was Step Up 3.  Those movies combined, that's about 3 hours of awe, exclamation, and groovin' right along as best as I can.

I feel like I missed the boat to be excellent at hip hop (I'm already 23), but I will kill at lindy hop one day, and it's just fun to imagine myself as some great dancer with smooth moves and flair.  These movies are perfect for inspiration.  I'm going to recommend Dirty Dancing: Havannah Nights for next time.

Want some snapshots of the glory?  I've got a couple of my favorites for you!  (It took a long time to narrow my choices down, I tell you what.)

Sick step moves brought to you from Stomp the Yard

K, last one: The trailer for Step Up 3D which shows some sweet action and wraps in the happy good feelings that are associated with the freedom, the sweat, and the dedication of dance

Let's do it!

Character Development at 8 Years Old

I have one particular student, Kelly.  When I first inherited this class from the teacher before, there were 8 students, but so many of the others have dropped, moved, or gotten sick that lately it's just been Kelly and I.  Interacting with her on a one-on-one basis has been a real treat.  Without any other students to divide my time between, Kelly gets a personal English tutoring session for 80 minutes.  There's no way we can stretch out all our class material to take up that much time with only one student, so we've started a fun new routine.  When I come up to the classroom and Kelly's waiting outside the door for me with her long, shiny ponytail and large, inquisitive eyes, I ask her if there's still only one student today.  "Yes, Teacher!"

"Well then.  You know what to do."

"Exercise!"

I'll go over to the computer and fine some dance music on YouTube, turn the speakers low enough so as not to disturb our neighboring classrooms, then head to the open space between the desks where Kelly's already poised for our mini aerobics session.  We jump, jog in place, and do some other silly stretches.  Every once in a while, I can convince Kelly to show me the latest choreography from her K-Pop dance class, but I usually have to pry it out of her by showing her some of my hip hop class moves first.

After about five minutes of being perfect girls, we set ourselves before science and story.  I gotta say, I really appreciate how much both she and I enjoy our class material.  We started a new science session, and we've both been charging through it with our inherited traits discussions, lots of animal pictures from Google, and talk about what she saw at the aquarium last weekend.

It's funny to look at the energetic girl across from me and remember what I used to think of her.  She is quite sensitive to what people think of her, and I was slightly disgusted when I first saw her break down in furious tears after one of the boys offended her.  When this same ordeal began to happen twice a week, I was pretty sure we had some deeper issues going on.  I made sure to take her aside and try to work things out with her the next few times this ordeal occurred, but my last time talking with her about this was my favorite.  I'd put on my soothing intellectual voice and coaxed her into the conversation, she has calmed down enough to really be able to think through things, and we thoughtfully started to sort through it.  To make things more relate-able and more clear, I made a diagram.

(This was a joint project, so you've got some conflicting opinions and odd grammar here and there.)

Because Kelly was practically the only student left in her class, she was moved to a different group of students.  I'll miss getting to hang out with her, but I do hope that she learned more in my class than just how plants make their own food.

I finally went to the Korean bath house!

Via Wishbone Clever

Yes, I finally did it!  I went to the public bath house (the jimjilbang), and I'm just going to jump in and tell you what it was like!

The baths were not coed, but I was still quite unsettled with idea of being in the buff around others.  Call me crazy and sheltered, but the last time someone saw me naked was when my sister and I stopped taking baths together when we were really young.  Even in the high school and college locker rooms, most of us were pretty private with our bodies.  To say that I was uncomfortable with the idea of this bath house is an understatement, still, I knew that I wanted to go, and I knew that it would be best to go with my girlfriends Holly and Marie.  They are the most accepting ladies I've ever met, and I figured they wouldn't make me feel too awkward.  One of Marie's couch surfers joined us at the last minute, but once I saw her huge smile and her auburn dreds, I felt like I'd still be safe.

The first room we came through on the way to the baths was a shoe locker room.  That's pretty self-explanatory, I think, so I'll skip ahead to the counter where we got a $3 discount because we came before 9 pm.  We passed the large open room where people sleep on mats for the night, and we slipped behind the curtain that closed off the ladies only area.  There was a large square section with a few low square benches, counters and mirrors with coin activated hair dryers, and a small counter store where you can buy soaps, scrubbie pads, toothpaste, and other toiletries.  Off this section were three short hallways full of large lockers.

I was the only one from my group whose locker was in the second hallway, so I scuttled down by myself and inched out of my clothes while keeping an eye on the opening of the hallway.  I took my bag with me to hold my shampoo (and, let's face it, I wanted to use it as a shield for a while), but when I opened the foggy door to the bath room, Holly told me she just put her soaps and things in one of the wide shallow bowls kept in the locker room.  Foiled, I headed back to my locker, replaced the bag, and snatched up a bowl before heading back into the bath room.

To my left there was a line of shower heads against the wall where Holly, Marie, and our other friend were rinsing off already.  Ahead of me were three circular pools each with a different temperature of water flowing into them from a central fountain system.  Beyond those pools were two other frigid ones.  To my right were short counters and stools where some of the Korean women were sitting with their soaps and loofahs.  Back in the far left corner were doors to heated saunas, and in the close left corner were skinny tables set up for massages and scrubs which you could buy.

I was at least a little self conscious for the majority of my time there, and rinsing off in the shower was the worst part for me.  After coming away from the water and seeing how everyone else was comfortable with their skin and also with everyone else's skin, I started to feel a little more relaxed.  I headed into the hot pool with the other girls and sank into the soothing water.  With the distortion of the water's surface my nerves loosened, and I finally came to some freedom.  And how freeing it was!  Let me be terribly frank for a moment.  It's quite common for girls who've grown up in conservative homes to have some deeply rooted fears and inhibitions about nakedness, sex, and sexuality.  I'm one of those girls, and I know that I've got a long way to go before I've got a perfect relationship with this area of my identity, but sitting there in the nude and not only being okay with it but eventually becoming comfortable with it, man!, it was amazing!  As strange as it may be, I was secretly and seriously celebrating this milestone in reconciliation and redemption in my sexuality right there in a Korean bath house.  Asa!

We foreign girls talked a good amount about whatever we thought of.  We touched on religion, travel, and the jimjilbang itself.  Seems like it's a great hang out place for all ages.  Holly told me she was in the sauna one time and saw two teenage girls chatting it up over smoothies when one of their mothers came over and started massaging their shoulders.  I feel like the jimjilbang is a sacred place of sorts.  Amidst all the judgement and pressures of society and in the face of all those plastic surgery ads and gym memberships, here girls are allowed and encouraged to be themselves and just themselves.  They are safe here.  They are welcomed.  It was very special being let into this place, and I hope to go back soon.