"Well at least you've been almost as bad about updating as I have about checking for updates."

-Mark

Well Mark was right, I’ve been terrible about updating this. This is because there isn’t really an opportunity to at work, and I’m there all damned day, and when I get home I just want to sit and not think and sometimes drink.

So Mark also asked,  "Settled into the job a bit better or still about the same?" And the short answer is I’m readjusting to hating my job? No, not really. Every Sunday, try though I might, I start feeling extremely stressed out and anxious. Monday mornings on my way to work it gets worse. I get through Elmo classes, it’s not as bad as the crippling anxiety of course, but I can’t even feel relief because I go straight into elementary classes, with just a slight break for lunch. Despite it all, the anxiety and stress doesn’t really go away until Thursday night.

 Eric is still a major issue, whereas Ian isn’t because thank God, he’s out of school for February. Maybe as part of the Lunar New Year holiday which was today, Monday, but we are blessed with Tuesday and Wednesday off as well. So I’m still stuck with the worst problem student, but it’s a bit less hectic because Ian isn’t occasionally throwing his own pint-sized monkey wrenches and whining into the mix. The other 2 kids, Allen & Jayden? Those 2 are fucking angels.

Part of this is undoubtedly because I absolutely and positively started bribing the little demi-monsters with lollipops. For the first week, it was for everyone who did their work and behaved. Now I’m starting to tell them that either everyone gets them because everyone in class did what they were supposed to, OR no one does because not everyone was behaving/working/what have you. I know that singling out kids (Eric) who are chronically misbehaving isn’t what you should do, but when it gives me a minute of some semblance of order, I couldn’t care less. Also? Glorified babysitters don’t have a responsibility to care that much. And as I’ve said, my job title notwithstanding, that is my actual job.

Adjustments all around too, because last week Jayden and Allen were excited to show me their new pencils, or something, and when Allen & Eric got into a fight and Eric supposedly head-butted Allen in the face (not enough to cause screaming, crying, bruising, marks or bleeding), Allen came to get me to fix the situation. So if nothing else, I’m seen as the disciplinarian! Which fits, since someone who’s been teaching in Korea for almost 10 years told me that Korean kids in general encounter very little of that. Particularly boys.

Outside of the kids, work isn’t my favorite place to be because I have no friends at work. Kiara and Sara answer any questions I have, but they converse together and ignore me the rest of the time. I’d prefer to have a friendlier work environment, but, well, there isn’t one! Lol. The Korean teachers are fine. What’s funny is, Kiara went through exactly this, none of the foreign teachers liking her before. Now she’s acting that out with me. But neither Kiara nor Sara offer the kind of company I’d miss anyway. For example, Kiara, “I-came-to-Korea-to-see-God-in-a-different-way,” enjoys philosophizing, and I get to witness it without having to worry about being dragged into the devastating wasteland of her lagging intellect through participation. Like when she wanted to ask Sara, who’s Muslim, if she feels weird about everyone at the school talking about Jesus loving them since she’s not Christian. If everyone around her were talking about some Muslim saint loving her, she’d feel that of course that saint and God doesn’t love her or care about her because she believes in Jesus. So she’d feel bad.

How bad does it feel to know that Kiara thinks Jesus doesn’t love you because you use the Arabic word for dad instead of Hebrew or English?

Beyond all of that, I’m at work a fuck of a lot. Aside from meaning I don’t have the time for keeping you knuckleheads updated in a timely, reasonable fashion, I also have less inclination to spend the 3-4 hours before bedtime working out. Suffice it to say that is a whole other issue. I’ve started doing shorter HIIT workouts. No more than around 10-15 minutes, though there’s usually a 10 minute cool down as well. I am currently getting those workouts in about 3 times a week, sometimes 4. There’s a gym with weight equipment kind of around the corner from me called the Personal Trainer Gym. I’d look to go there to join once I ACTUALLY have money again, but then wonder about how I’ll get myself to go there given my lack of desire to spend the precious minutes I’m not at work working out. 

Sometimes it's unhelpful when you know yourself well

I say this because I am teaching kindergarten, which I didn’t want to do, at all, but you kind of have to, especially to secure your first job teaching in South Korea.  And you’re in a country with a hard-on for youth and inexperience. Despite my initial reservations due to not being the Barney or high-energy-type who has the desire or patience to sing and dance like a clown for little tornadoes of energy, I figured it’s still going to be good experience, and I was keeping an open mind that I might actually enjoy it.

But my very first class helped prove that my self-awareness was too accurate for that to happen.

First, part of teaching in South Korea is that things tend to be thrown at you very last-minute, hence after a 30 minute tour of the school, I was given my schedule and herded over to teach my first class. Naturally there was no observation time, just me and 4, 6-year old boys (the Elmo class). Another thing it’s important for you to know is that a Korean child’s life kind of sucks. Starting from around age 4 or so, they are usually in school from 8 AM to about 8 or 9 PM Monday through Friday, though frequently Saturday as well. There is a truly ridiculous but rampant belief throughout Asia that simply forcing a child to sit in a classroom will imbue them with knowledge. Stick a teacher in there, and they should learn much more, faster. Memorizing is the really the name of the game here, which they think is learning, and playing is fun, learning isn’t, so playtime, play learning, recess, anything that children naturally want to do and should be doing, these kids have very little, if any, chance to do. Daily when we’re greeting the students when I ask a 5 or 7-year-old how they are, they say tired. What child is tired at 10 AM!?

Sadly, every child but the 4 in my class. I have them about twice a day every day for 35 minutes each class. They make me dread going to work, just those boys. There are 2 in particular who are the biggest little thorns in my side: Ian and Eric. Ian would be especially adorable were it not for the fact that between him & Eric I spend half the class telling them to stop running, sit down, get out from under the table, stop running, be quiet, read, leave his book alone…. Punishment is having them stand against the wall, which Ian refuses to do, usually resulting in me eventually helping him do so, followed by him saying, “TeacherI’msorryteacherI’msorryteacherI'msorry,” as soon as he is up. Ian is also a constant whiner. "Teacher my eraserrrrrrr, teacher my eraserrrrr!" because

1.) it's gone, or

2.) he's lost it.

Ian: we were at a field trip to a tea ceremony, so he was wearing Korean formal wear, and looking very serious because for once he seemed to appreciate he needed to be on his best behavior.

Eric mostly goes right to the back wall throughout class, then proceeds to dance and sing, leaving me to tell the remaining seated students, Jayden and Allen, to turn around and be quiet. Still, Ian at the very least can be surprisingly helpful: he always wants to erase the board for me. I’ve even seen him lend his precious, precious eraser to another student.

The one benefit to this age is that they know standing is punishment, and even worse is standing outside (unless you’re Eric and can resort to dancing in front of the glass-wall of the classroom). We teachers write biweekly progress reports to each child’s parent, which is the euphemism for lie because we are only allowed to say the children are precious little angels/geniuses/models of good behavior. There really aren’t any real repercussions to not doing their work or behaving, because bad grades and intimations that they are raising a problem child will cause the parent to pull their student and their money. 

If the students do something good, we put a smiley face next to their name. 3 smileys and they get a banana sticker which apparently once a year they can use to buy things from some market the school creates for the kids. (In elementary school it's stamps, and they always just hand me their stamp sheets. I assumed it was some sort of attendance thing until week 2 I said something and Kiara said, "Oh, yeah, I should have told you," and explained the stamps are the banana stickers for elementary kids... and about how the kids use them at this market. Because why would you tell someone that before?). Except for yesterday because 2 kids had their books out when I came in, for example, I hadn't given out any banana stickers in about 2 weeks. But I take them if the kids get 3-4 frowning faces OR I write their name 4 times because they've been speaking in Korean.

My one comfort is that the whole Elmo class, and Eric and Ian in particular, try the patience of every teacher in the school, even the assistant principal and native teacher, Anna-teacher. Every morning before class the kids are all gathered into a room and sing some songs, stretch, and generally warm-up for English. I watched as Anna-teacher had to send Eric to stand against the wall, and he continued to dance as he always does. Eventually she had him stand outside.

This is how Eric smiles for anyone at the school who's taking a picture of him, including for the month of January birthday party, where he was a guest of honor. As you can see, his charisma and charm gets him far with all the teachers.

I do have one other kindergarten class in the mornings, the Clifford class: Jessica, Lydia, and this ADORABLE, happy little boy named Prathit. I believe Clifford is 5, except for Prathit, who’s 4. Naturally because there are girls in the class, the chaos quotient is cut by 2/3.

One of the sweetest students we have, Prathit. Referencing the aforementioned charms of Eric, one of them is hating all brown people, so he will move to another table if Prathit sits by him at lunch time. Racism is rampant and unapologetic in Asia.

Oh, I should add that I have now had/made both Jessica and Lydia cry in class. Jessica because I (now) know she can’t read, and when I asked her to read and she said no, I thought she was just being difficult. Even after hugs and apologies she just wouldn’t calm down. She had to go sit for the next 30 minutes with the receptionist before she calmed down. Then on Friday Lydia start sobbing because I said we were going to read a story one more time because there are a lot of new words. She didn’t want us to, I said we were going to, and off she went. “Christ, not again,” I thought. I asked her if it was because I wanted us to read again. *shakes head;* is it because she wanted to read? *shakes head;* is she afraid I’m mad at her? *shakes head;* Finally, out of options I said, “Do you want a hug?” She nodded and cried herself out for a good 3 more minutes before she was ok and things went back to normal.

Lydia

Jessica

Of course, kids cry and pitch fits. And I worried a little that I was too stern with them, until I learned how overly dramatic Korean students are. Yesterday we had an all-school practice for graduation which is at the end of February. Kiara was lining the kids up, tallying who was gone: “John’s absent… Krystal’s still crying….” Krystal, 7 years old, was gone for a good 20 minutes crying. Kiara and Sara both mentioned how dramatic the students here are, so, it isn’t just me. In any event, during the rehearsal Lydia was pretending she was a cat, knelt next to me, and hugged my leg and leaned her head against me for much of rehearsal. So I guess all is forgiven.

In the afternoons the elementary school kids come in. One class I was told are brilliant, but when asking them to do their in-class activity that consisted of underlining the present and past tense verbs, the class acted confused and underlined “and” and “or” in addition to/instead of the verbs. I was alarmed at how confused they seemed, how slowly we then progressed and then fell behind. When I talked to June the owner, I was assured the kids definitely knew what verbs were and are very smart. Initially she thought maybe they couldn’t understand me, and were trying to take advantage of my being new by acting confused. It wasn’t until it kept happening and I talked to Kiara-teacher that I was told, first by her then also by June, that Leslie used to just write the answers for their in-class activities on the board. Not only that, but I definitely have to do that so they catch up, because they can’t fall behind.

So then I realized they’re not really learning and I’m not necessarily improving at teaching, so there’s no it’s-so-rewarding-working-with-kids, young and eager to learn. I decided it was time to accept that all anyone wanted from me was to give me money to be a glorified babysitter, so that’s just what I am going to do. I’m done worrying about researching games that won’t require anything that the boys can use as a weapon (read: anything) and engage them enough to trick them into learning and stem the mayhem. I’m focusing on remaining calm inside and taking no moment of my day seriously.

To add to the joy of all THIS, I get the other thing I despise about new jobs: not knowing how things are done and not knowing how or what to do. I absolutely hate the new-job learning curve. Meaning right now Jen is not experiencing much joy during the day. There are 2 other native teachers: Kiara-teacher, and Sara-teacher. Oh, and before I go any further, whenever Kiara spoke of other teachers, it was always their name-teacher. Even outside of school. So I’m doing it too because it’s what you do and how you refer to other teachers and introduce yourself to students. It’s considered respectful.

Anyway, Kiara-teacher is somewhat helpful but not super-warm/into socializing. This may be because in her youthful enthusiasm she was bombarding me pre-trip with the very basics of going-to-another-country. Shit that anyone who’s ever gone anywhere knows. Like, “You should get some Korean money before you come. They use the won. But they do take credit cards too!” And I was receiving these emails while still getting plenty of emails about last-minute preparing-to-leave stuff. I finally said I appreciated her help but I was a seasoned traveler and knew all of what she was telling me, and to essentially lay-off. So it occurred to me today that, being young and self-centered, she likely took that personally, whereas I only meant, stop telling me that I should bring prescriptions with me when I’ve been traveling longer than you’ve been alive, but DO give me details about the school, or helpful hints for dealing with the students. The other teacher, Sara-teacher, seems really nice, but likewise has her own life outside of school and not much more inclination to invite me anywhere. I’ve seen no other Westerns anywhere here, and while I have started studying Korean, I’m still only 1/2 way through the alphabet and know… only how to say, “hello,” “thank you,” “quiet,” and “sit down.” Heh heh. So befriending Koreans isn’t really going to happen quite yet.

So! I still have the whole this-past-weekend to write about, but quite honestly today was busy: after reading the news, I tested my new no-internet-GPS map directions to find a train station that is closer than the one near work; grocery shopping; put away laundry; cooked lunch & dinner for today and then dinner for Monday & Wednesday, my 2 late days. And some limes (LIMES!!!!!!!), so the expensive bottle of Bombay in my freezer is looming larger and larger than your boundless curiosity about Jen in Korea. So until… next weekend? Adieu/anyeong ga-something-o, which I THINK is goodbye in Korean.

In case you wanted to see the rest of Elmo, this
is Allen. He is the most studious of them
all, and will complete all assignments
asked. He has a speech impediment
which we're not sure if his parents do or
don't acknowledge (because
another benefit to being a Korean
child is if you need classes or have
a learning disability, the parents
will deeply deny it rather than get their
kids whatever help they might need.

Jayden. Interestingly, this is how he looks
all day, every day.

To managing the sizes of my bites

A truly new concept for me, I realize. Lol.

Today being the first day I’ve had to explore my new home since arriving just under a week ago, I had wanted to try to take a bus to find a hospital where I have to get a physical of sorts for my Korean ID card and so get to see a bit more of the city, but ultimately decided that baby steps were more in order, and more my speed, today.

My arrival made me feel alternately like a baton being thrown in the air or passed between runners, and like a toy being held tightly by an adoring child. After my post on facebook about flying through customs, I made my way to the information desk by exit 10 at the airport to put in a call to this Eunice as instructed by my recruiter. There was no answer. I had Kevin the recruiter’s number too, which he’d given me in case Eunice didn’t answer so we called that. What Kevin hadn’t instructed me on was if he didn’t answer, either. I had instructions from the teacher I’d been speaking with (Kiara) on getting out of the airport, and was emailing Kevin to say I was going to find my own way, when some guy said, “Jennifer?” and then proceeded to help me over to where the buses were. He didn’t say much, just got me my ticket, helped me get my bags on the bus, and told me which stop to get off at. Couldn’t help but wonder what the hell would happen upon getting there.

In addition to HOW I’d know which stop—he’d said something that sounded like “you-jong,” so I just hoped that it’d be clear enough to me when we were at the stop that that was the one I needed. Since my mystery airport benefactor had also spoken a little to the driver, I was also hopeful that he’d mentioned making sure I got off at the right stop.

Fortunately, I did hear that stop, and the driver looked at me and kind of/almost nodded as a sort of afterthought. I got my heavy backpack, suitcase (so much better than 2 I have to drag around behind me), and stationed myself at the stop, wondering what was going to happen next.

Interestingly, before I left and Kevin told me that Eunice was going to help me with heading away from the airport, Kiara the teacher told me she’d been told that June the school’s owner was going to pick me up. So, I mean hell, with 2 people working to get me wherever, I’d have to get there eventually!

I waited about 10 minutes, figuring I’d give the nearby fairy godmothers time to find me, when June pulled up to take me to my apartment. In a nod to, many things, including: convenience and familiarity, my front door’s locking mechanism is a key code:

June only knew how to turn on the heat, the bottom right button of 4. Hot water is only available when the heat is on. And I’ve discovered that the Koreans know how to heat a place: heated floors. Which, again is familiar since Kris & Bill have the bottom floor in the townhouse heated, but in a smaller enclosed space, it works like gangbusters. I officially love heated floors.

Though I didn’t so much love that, well, it looked like the previous teacher, Leslie, was still getting ready to leave. There were bags and some money strewn over chairs and the floor, a pair of tennis shoes and boots laying in the middle of the floor, loads of curlers, curling irons, lotions and perfumes on top of a dresser. June said Leslie had promised she’d clean before she left; I asked if she was sure Leslie was gone! Apparently she was, and in the I’m-leaving-this-country packing frenzy, simply left stuff where it lay.

I realized today that I hadn’t really posted any pictures of my apartment in Chile (I had 2, but the second was just a room in someone else’s apartment). But the apartment in Chile was pretty standard, whereas I have an Asian studio apartment.

It isn’t large as you perhaps can see, and the stovetop is not ideal (nor is the lack of microwave), 

but it does have a washer (yay!) and the standard Asian bathroom, which I don’t love:

 

Please excuse my unavoidable reflection as I augment your cultural awareness

because the entire room gets wet when you shower. This is a standard Asian shower (or it has been for me in all 3 countries here I've been to). However, this should reduce most bathroom cleaning!

So, after that I went for a walk to start getting an idea of my surroundings. My building is on top of a hill, and there are small streets behind and parallel to my own place with shops, particularly, curiously, a lot of car repair shops.

I found a restaurant that was open (it being Sunday, lots of places were closed), and relief of reliefs, a waitress who spoke some English. She would translate some of the menu, but when for example I heard, “chicken stew” and asked for that, she said they didn’t have any. O….k…. We finally settled on bibimbap, a safe, familiar entrée.

I was supposed to go meet Kiara at the nearby emart (like Target), but hadn’t been able to remember where I’d seen it, so decided to ask the people at the restaurant. Luckily they were able to point me in the direction I needed to go, since my phone (which still has my useless US sim card because you can only rent a prepaid sim card for about 5 days before you have to return it to the exact location you got it, which in my case would have been the airport) was unable to find an emart any closer than a good 1.5 hours away in Seoul.

Kiara had told me to bring the papers Leslie had left me. Interestingly, the ONLY thing Leslie didn’t leave me were papers pertaining to the school.

Kiara’s apartment is just down the same long slope I’m on, across from the emart, so my instructions are to meet her in front of her place tomorrow morning so we can walk to work together. Because oh yes! I start work the next day.

So I got a new job!

Well first, let’s all welcome each other back to my long-lost blog. Not much to write about when it comes to my being back, other than my sister having her 3rd child, a boy named Lee. He’s a low-maintenance, quick-to-laugh and smile little guy, who is happiest watching his two older brothers do… anything. Here’s a pic of the littlest one and me:

Beyond that, there have been the ups and downs of job searching. I immediately got back in touch with the original recruiter I’d used to apply to teach in Korea before, only last time it was for the Korean public schools (EPIK), and this time for the private schools, or hagwons. While EPIK only has 2 intake times, hagwons supposedly hire year-round. As it happens, I applied in July, just in time for 1 of the 2 high hiring seasons in Korea, coinciding with the Korean school year: August (the other is February). Nevertheless, the recruiter, from what I can understand, just sat on his hands and forgot about me. He sent me exactly ONE job.  I replied with some questions, he didn’t write back. I wrote the company owner, he nudged the Korean guy, but he never actually answered the questions I asked or sent any other jobs.

Before we get too much further, let’s talk a bit about the whole applying process. While you can look at job postings on ESL job sites, you’ll still almost always be talking with one of the 100s or 1000s of companies that recruit teachers for Korea. Many are good, many are bad, so there’s research there to be done.

I’d planned on being gone in August, and it was now going into September. It appeared that there weren’t any jobs for me, especially as the guy in charge of hagwons was incommunicado, so I asked the owner about applying for teaching in Taiwan. He referred me to Dean the Taiwan recruiter, and I FINALLY heard from hagwon guy: “I’m sorry I couldn’t find you job.” Sure dude. Sure.

My interview went well with Dean, there was just ONE LITTLE THING: I was TOO OLD to teach there. Most of the students in Taiwan are young learners, and overall, Asians believe that only kids in their early to mid 20s have the energy to handle young kids. Dean said he’d definitely try, but at least he was upfront.

So! WTF to do now? Right around this time, I got a friend request on facebook from Leeza, an ESL teacher who’d been in Santiago the same time I had. We’d never met, though we had commented on the same expat posts, etc. She sensed a kindred soul, and her instincts were right-on. Leeza was going to China. She couldn’t say enough great things about her new job, and how it was the opposite of being in Chile: lots of money, fewer hours (she’s at a university), great new apartment, and the school was treating her like a princess.

China is supposedly one of the biggest ESL markets now. But, well, it’s also China. That week I spent there was not REMOTELY enough time to get over the culture shock, and I just can’t fathom returning, or at least not yet.

Leeza wisely pointed out that Beijing is a megacity, which is far different from the rest of China. And that is of course correct… to a point. I looked at the site of the recruiter she went through, and I just didn’t see a city that looked like it would be that much better. I knew after Chile I needed a fully developed country, and China just isn’t there yet. Oh! And I looked at some expat postings: they were revolting. Mainly, I could only find posts by men who constantly talked about “banging dirties.”

So! I kept looking. I looked at jobs on the best-known site, and applied to anything that looked good, pretty much anywhere, but mainly Korea. Now I was getting responses because the recruiters were Korean. Basically, the job I was initially interested in was never available, but they looked on my behalf.

Interesting note for anyone who has never done a job search like this: your picture, date of birth, and marital status go on your resume. One recruiter that was recommended by alumni from my certification program needed not just my headshot, but a full body picture, because Koreans don’t want overweight applicants. Also? You won’t get the name of the school until the interview.

I got close to finding a job in Korea: there was a job just outside of Seoul. I really liked the head teacher, and the school wasn’t on the Korean Black List (schools that teachers had bad experiences at). Part of deciding on a hagwon is talking to a current teacher there to get the low-down on the school and how it treats teachers. The rule is, if a school balks or won’t give you a teacher’s contact info, you know it’s a bad school. I found 2 teachers, and they had good things to say about it. There was just ONE LITTLE THING: shared housing. Let’s be clear: I am NOT going back to sharing a kitchen and bathroom, especially when I’d be sharing them with kids in their 20s.

I had also been invited to interview in Chicago for a job in Tokyo. It would have been an 8 hour day with all the other applicants, which would consist of interviews and processes of elimination, including an English test and group presentations. Japan’s developed! But it’s also expensive. And, many people I’ve known have not liked Japan. There was a waiting list of applicants, so I bowed out of that.

Anyway, there was a trickle of interviews coming in. First was for a school in Yongin, a 30 minute bus ride from Seoul. It wasn’t anything special, though I liked the questions the owner asked. The same night, I had an interview with an elite school in Gangnam, of the “Gangnam Style” song, the prime neighborhood in Seoul. This position was for teaching English literature. A dream come true! 2.1 million won (about US$1800) is the offered salary for all jobs, but elite school paid 2.2 million. Except that the interviewer said it was a high pressure job. Usually this is due to the moms who have nothing better to do but harangue the teachers asking, “How many English words did my son learn today?!” all day, every day. This was a factor in the pressure, but it seemed that wasn’t all of it. I don’t like jobs that apply constant pressure. And dealing with that while learning the ropes of managing a classroom of kids for the first time seemed less-than-ideal.

The tricky part was these interviews were Thursday night. Elite school was interviewing other candidates, and planned on deciding by the following Tuesday or Wednesday. And I’d just found out that the Yongin school offered me the job.

I had a little time before I had to tell Yongin, because I had to talk to the teacher and look up the school. Alarmingly, the school was on the Black List, and it was under the current owner’s tenure. However, it wasn’t as bad as most other posts, and was a bit vague. When I spoke to the teacher at the school, she said she’d seen it, and there was truth to a lot of it (they worked more hours than other teachers in the area, for example). But otherwise, the owner wouldn’t try to cheat you, and the VP was awesome.

The Yongin school recruiter was pressing to get my decision, when I got word on Sunday night that the elite school offered me the job. And just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten that pressure was a part of this job, here’s what the recruiter wrote: “They usually pay 2.2 mil a month. But they offer 2.3 mil for you as you have more experience and they expect you to teach very well.” No pressure!

The clincher though was the contract. It’d have 30 teaching hours/week, which is pretty normal. However, not included in those teaching hours was a mandatory hour of class prep for each teaching hour. Meaning I’d be working 60 hours/week. If I wanted to be stuck at work 60 hours/week I could just get another job here in the US.

I signed the contract with the Yongin school. And yesterday I sent my documents to them so they can get started on sponsoring my visa. Naturally, I’m still really smarting from having to decline the Gangnam job. That is where EVERYONE who goes to Korea wants to go. When I told the recruiter, he replied: “Did you accept another job in Korea or U.S? If you found a position in US I understand. But if it is Korea I suggest you think again.” I was feeling the pressure before I even accepted the job!

So it continues to hurt deep in my elitist heart and soul to have declined the elite school. I know that the position was not right for me at this time, if it ever would be, but I still regret that I won’t have an elite South Korean school on my resume.

So, there you have it. Not to worry—there’ll plenty of my griping to fill this blog once there—businesses are run FAR differently than here, particularly in the way of giving you exactly NO notice of any big changes to… anything. So not to worry: I’d never forget to pack my grumpiness!

Before any other updates, Jason.

Having met one of those people you can't believe hasn't been in your life forever, my best friend here, I debated whether or not I should write one whole post about him. But he's the only thing that makes the idea of leaving Santiago difficult, so I suppose there's no reason not to. Besides, he'll likely come up a lot, so you may as well know who he is.

I met Jason, who's originally from Cincinnati, at the last Real Life English party in Santiago, in February. I think it was February. I knew at the time that it sucked I'd only met him with a few months or so to go before I left, and now it feels like we've known each other for years. So it isn't that easy to pinpoint precisely when we met. I remember asking the usual question about how long he'd been here, he said 2 months, and that he'd just gotten his residency visa approved. Ah, I thought, he's one of those irritatingly enigmatic people who loves it here, what with his residency status, and said as much. At this point, my memory is that he looked straight ahead, took a drink, and said, "I fucking hate it here." Once I'd said, "Oh thank fucking GOD!" the deal was sealed. He is my new Rita since she left, only more so.

Because he has the great good sense to love Indian food, I invited him over since my friend Rahul was coming over to cook Indian food. The unfortunate part of that was it was a Sunday, and Jason is even more of a drinker than I am. I passed out, failing to set my alarm, and woke up just in time to be missing the start of my Monday morning class way out in Pudahuel. Jason, who'd crashed on the couch and is completely fluent in Spanish, laughed as I tried to explain I was sick in hungover Spanish to my company's receptionist. Sadly, when he was trying to supply me with the fully coherent version of what I'd just said, Maiza was talking, so it wasn't much help.

2 days later, Jason was on his way to Chicago, because why wouldn't you have to fly back to the US to pick up your Chilean visa? At least his job, which plucked him from his beloved home in Colombia to Chile, pays for absolutely everything. 10 days without him around dragged, though it was mitigated by his texts that he was considering making an anonymous call to the embassy to tell them that his visa should be denied.

Since then, we're the other person's right hand, particularly when it comes to supplying some semblance of sanity after each day in purgatory.

It won't suprise... any of you that I could form a deep friendship with someone out of hatred. Jason half-laughs, half-mourns this, because he says he's not a bitter person by nature. And the thing is, Kristina et. al., he doesn't think I am! When I insist it as my birthright and nature, he says he just doesn't see it. But then, as plenty of you know, we're different people abroad. If there was any doubt that living-abroad Jen is different than the stateside Jen you've all somehow managed to know AND love, it's that Jason and all of the other friends I've made here don't see my biggest flaws... at all, actually. Jason can tell I have a temper, though he hasn't seen it yet. But as for my characteristic moodiness/grouchiness/bitterness...  I left it in my storage bins, I guess, lol. I mean, OBVIOUSLY I get angry/cranky/normal Jen/mom-like here, but only while I'm in the midst of what's pissing me off or remembering it to explain it to all of you. As soon as the irritant is gone, so is my bad mood. And that's in a place I hate. I wonder what'll happen when I'm actually in a place I like! Here's hoping we get to see that soon, very soon. Likewise, I hope abroad-Jen isn't going to leave me at customs, so you guys can see it for yourselves. So here's to what June will bring!

When you're at the grocery store sober, make green mayonaise.

All I wanted was a simple, healthy and Paleo Sunday dinner. I'm not sure what was hurting me most in accomplishing this: Santiago, it being Sunday, my desire for something lacking in difficulty, or my sobriety. Although I will admit at this point that I think walking outside of my apartment sober is a hindrance to my sanity.

But you know, there are a lot of things in my life vying for being the straw to break that camel's back, like my SLOOOWWWWW tablet and/or wifi. Just trying to type what I'm looking for into google can take a minute or more. But this is a constant, and it only bears repeating because I am incurably impatient.

I found a recipe, and planned out my shopping list accordingly. While I'd love to go to my sweet little green grocer lady (who gave me a little Nativity scene ornament for Christmas, because GOD are Chileans NICE!), I have hardly any cash, and I doubt she accepts credit cards, plus it's a tiny shop, and I needed more than just a few veggies she may very well be out of. Which brought me to the Santa Isabel grocery store right around the corner.

It's a small grocery store, so it won't always have the selection one would like. But I was (naively) confident it would have all I needed for these spicy mayo burgers.

I was doing ok until I, as usual, went to read the ingredient list on the surprising selection of mayo they have, because if there's one thing Chileans love besides avocado and bread, it's mayonaise. I wasn't hoping to find a real mayo like it might be possible to find in, say, Whole Foods (and I say MIGHT!), but one with minimal ingredients. Which quickly turned into one without soy oil as the first or second ingredient. To (over?)simplify, soy is bad for the thyroid, so I avoid it when possible, or just use it sparingly. Which was not the case with my wall of mayo. I was pacing in front of them, telling the bottles and bags that this country is unbelievable in English, which is my custom in the grocery store. Really, my talking aloud in frustration to the products in Chilean grocery stores is as normal to me as standing in line at the register to pay, staring in disgust at the fucking weird braided mullet the male cashier paid someone to do to his hair. In essense, food is my therapist.

While thus pacing and griping, the thought of just making the mayonaise myself occurred to me, particularly because I have the ingredients necessary to do so. So I decided that once I got home, I'd force myself to finally do what so many others before me have done (and I always think of Mercedes when we were in college who did this BY HAND), and make my own damned mayonaise.

Of course, first I had to go home with all of the other ingredients I needed for the burgers. It was toward the end of my list when I had to decide if "salsa" is the same as "limon" here, meaning it stands for at least 2 different things. Lemons and limes are both limons. I wasn't sure if the tomato sauce section included both sauce and paste, but one thing they ALL included was tomato juice from concentrate, plus additional sugar and salt, and any other number of questionable ingredients, by which I mean questionable regardless of being in Spanish or English. Naturally, this pissed me off more, because while I know that premade isn't ideal, sometimes you don't want to make this stuff yourself.

And that's the rub, really. I often made my own chicken soup/broth, but sometimes I'd run out and still have a recipe I needed it for. In the US, you go to almost any grocery store and you can get SOME soup/broth in a can at least, though your larger stores will have better options in a carton. They don't have canned soup or liquid soup, actually,  ready-made in Chile. The soup section of every store I've been to has been a wall of small packets. It's one thing to make soup using boullion; it's another to make soup out of mainly chemicals and wheat. Every last packet of soup, even if it was just supposed to be vegetable broth, contains wheat. It's actually one of the first 3 ingredients in all of them. Which, if you've been following along at home, you'll know that I'm supposed to avoid THAT shit as well. It's getting to the point where you see wheat as an ingredient in so much shit here that doesn't need it, that I wouldn't be surprised to find that they're pumping it into the smog we're breathing.

In the end, I couldn't let myself buy tomato sauce with all the other stuff, especially as I still have a tomato at home. So I took my stuff up to pay.

Which was going fine until we got to the palta (can I just type this? I don't think in Spanish or say anything-po, but when I think of avocados, I think palta. And it's shorter). Most of the stuff I get in the produce section doesn't need to be weighed, but apparently the 2 paltas did. It should be immediately understood that the registers don't have scales, because that would make life a little bit faster and easier, and that is NOT what buying shit in Chile is all about. No, it's about waiting in various lines in one store and employing a person in different parts of the store to do separate things. So I had to take the avocados back to be weighed.

Which brings us to the other thing Chileans LOVE with all their might: plastic bags. They want everything in at least one plastic bag, but the more the better. And the cherry on top is to either tape that bag closed, or tie it in a tight knot that no human can again untie. I had 2 paltas; that was it. I surprised the scale girl by telling her I didn't need a plastic bag.

But it turns out, I did. Or at least the guy at the register did. When I gave him the avocados and the scale sticker, he looked confused and asked me about the plastic bag. I told him I didn't want one, so then he wanted to know why she hadn't given me one. Eventually i thought maybe he thought I'd only had 1 weighed, and only the plastic bag would give him the confidence he needed to know they'd both been weighed? I'm not sure; I only know that he began calling to people across the store to have a fucking pow-wow at his register over these 2 avocados, THE LAST TWO THINGS I WAS BUYING. I was unable to comprehend, never mind peacefully and beatifically just smile as 4 Chileans tried to find meaning when there wasn't a plastic bag to give them one.

Thankfully, it only took all four of them 2 minutes' discussion to allow him to finally total it all up and let me pay. The dude had one more surprise for me: he spoke some English. He said to me in English that it wasn't his fault-- the girl had weighed them with the wrong code, so it was her fault. His words. Naturally I didn't much care; I just wanted to take my groceries home and rectify my sober situation at once.

Which I will do, now that I have finally made my very first batch of mayonaise. And why is it green? Because I needed a refined vegetable oil without a strong flavor (so no EVOO), and a lot of it. The bottle of grapeseed oil fit the bill. Interesting note: when I was in Argentina at a winery, they asked if anyone had ever heard of grapeseed oil, and explained it like it's a rare secret we're getting a privileged preview of. Really? That stuff was the shit in like 1999, right? Yes, I've heard of it. And since Chile has lots of grapes due to wine, there is PLENTY of grapeseed oil, cheap. The oil is green, hence my mayo is a little green. But it's SUPPPPPPER smooth & tasty and creamy, and that's really all that matters. That, and enjoying it while restoring my calm and sanity, one drink at a time.

Let's continue to beat this dead horse, shall we?

S1.) You know how the Japanese thought the Europeans were devils because some had red hair, or that some cultures believe that if you take their photo, you'll take their soul? Apparently, in Chile, they believe that envelopes are extremely powerful, therefore they must be hidden. That, or Chile just doesn't think I drink enough. Only those pure of heart and willing to go on A FUCKING QUEST may hope to find them hidden throughout the city. (Pure of heart, but not pure of mouth, since if I'm not in class or sleeping, I am most likely swearing about something.) Envelopes are Santiago's horrocruxes, I guess. Or, because Chile seems to still so love the 80s, it's King's Quest, and you must keep talking to the locals you encounter and try to divine where one would get such a crazy, crazy thing as a plain ol' envelope. Naturally, the location of a thing so powerful isn't common knowledge, so the Santiguinos are as knowledgeable as the lost girl in King's Quest 3 or whichever it was, who just keeps wandering around the countryside looking for her cat or something.

Minimarts don't have them, though the post office said they do. You cannot buy them at grocery stores, at pharmacies, at Target-like superstores, NOR AT THE POST OFFICE. Not even if you are mailing something express. No, you have to go to a mall and find a STATIONARY STORE. The first woman I asked, at the minimart I was directed to go to by the post office, didn't know WHERE one could buy them. You know, in Las Condes, the Manhattan of Chile. I asked 7 fucking people. No, 8.  It took me 2.5 hours to mail a fucking 1 page letter to CA. That's not counting all the trips to all the stores since I arrived, confounded as to how I could be missing ALL THE FUCKING ENVELOPES. And just in case it wasn't clear before, asking about where one can find envelopes gets you lots of, "I don't knows."

2.) You know how you go to the website of a company to find its address? NOT HERE! We're talking Liberty Mutual, the big ol' insurance company. They list Chile as one of the countries where they have a location, but when you go to the location page, they only list the 2 Brazil offices for all of Latin America. I have a class at 8:15 tomorrow with a corporate guy. There are 3 locations listed... in my  nifty map app, NOT the website. Oh, and when I finally found a link to Liberty Seguros in Chile? Just their webpage. No addresses, etc. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given how fucking insane the security is in offices here, and apparently how often people break into them.

After playing around with various arrangements and rearrangements of the words, I finally found a directory-type of page that listed only 1 of the 3 I had, so that's the one I'm going to. It will be SOOO awesome if it's not the right one! But then, it's 1/2 my fault: when they asked me to take this class 2 weeks ago, I said sure, thinking other information would be forthcoming, or that by giving me the company name, it would just be THAT EASY. I only remembered I didn't have an address when I checked the email, and didn't know I'd spend 45 minutes on this shit until I looked it up in 2GIS.

4. People, I still fucking hate the fucking pigeons.
(Wait, you skipped 3, you're saying. As did the Santiago metro system. There are 5 lines, numbers 1,2, 4, 4A, and 5. But then, in a place as chaotic as Santiago's metro, I guess it makes sense that logic will never be found.)

5. One does not simply walk ANYWHERE here. You are playing a live version of Frogger, only there are 10 people for every car in level 10 (honestly, I don't know Frogger that well), and they barely qualify as moving. So maybe it's like reverse Frogger? Sharks gotta swim, and bats gotta fly. I've gotta stand in this random spot until you cry.

6. I hate grocery stores. It's only remarkable because I could still get caught up in the excitement of, "Ooo, what's THIS? What's THIS?" at times in the US. Now, even though I remind myself before I go that I likely won't find one of the things the recipe I want to make calls for, I still get all bent out of shape. Also, I can't go into them after 5 PM, because that's when the lines start. The LOooooong lines. Plus the tomatoes are as bland in the stores as they are in the US. And green, unripened lemons are SUCH a thing here. Brazil isn't that far!!! You can IMPORT THAT SHIT! You know, like you EXPORT your grapes and wine? It's about a 50% chance any place will have limes at any given time. Especially when you need them.

Did you want chicken without additives and a solution? TOO BAD. Ground pork or BACON, GOD DAMN IT, FUCKING BACONNNNnnnnnn... No. Or, and get ready to LAUGH, fresh squeezed juice? The only way to get THAT is to buy it by the plastic cup during the morning rush from the girl on Teatinos or the top of the metro station selling them for breakfast. And only orange. So no Salty Dog cocktails for ME. And don't even get me started on the scotch.

7. Stranger danger! The city's past time is warning me that I will be robbed/mugged/whatever on a daily basis. But the Santiguino's distrust of fellow Santiguinos extends to living arrangements. My lease in my (too expensive for my pay) apartment is up at the end of February. Because I am FUCKING POOR (thanks to no more unemployment! But hey, it makes me more honest), I will stay in Santiago through about mid-April because classes will start up again so I can hopefully return to making at least as much in a month as my rent costs (hint: my January income was about 1/2 my rent). I decided it was high time I rented a room to live in, since it'll be cheaper. I have been looking on the roommate finder site here. And you know what's a deal breaker? Having guests over, never mind your pololo/a (boyfriend or girlfriend). No, you can't have your friend Tina over for drinks on Friday, because the other people don't know her, so she'll probably try to steal from them. And forget about overnight guests, should you have one! See, *I* thought that people made out on the subways because they all live with their families, and it's the only time they can be alone (aside from someone telling me about the rampant cheating that PDA is supposed to assure everyone that you're NOT cheating). But I think it's because couples can't have privacy ANYWHERE! The idea that you can pay your fair share of rent and NOT have friends over to your place is a new height of ridiculous. Just when I think you can't outdo yourself, Chile, you do!