On apartment woes and the absence of flying ducks

I want to move out of my apartment.

In addition to two-thirds of my stove not working and the prolifically advancing mold spores, I've had water coming out of my floor for the past several days.  At first, I threw a towel down on the spot, assuming I'd come out of the shower and my hair dripped on the floor.  But it didn't go away and yesterday I spent a good hour mopping it up.  I thought I'd soaked up the bulk of it and I put a towel over the area to collect the excess.  When I woke up this morning, not only was that towel soaked through, but it was sitting in a massive puddle.  Aish.

On my walk to school, I dreaded telling Mentor Teacher about the water.  I've felt that our working relationship and potential friendship has been strained as a result to the issues I've had with my landlord and apartment.  To elaborate:

The weekend before last, I stayed the night at my friend Ashley's place.  Like me, Ashley is a public middle school teacher through the EPIK program.  Unlike me, Ashley lives in a functional apartment that wouldn't fail a health inspector's scrutiny.  After bitching over these observations to Ashley and later, to Kaela and Rudy, I texted MT about my ongoing mold problem as well as the absence of hot water in my shower.  MT replied, apologizing about the hot water and assuring me we could talk about it at school the next day.  As far as the mold, she relayed to me the landlord's solution: "He says to leave windows open for breezing to clear mold."  Sound advice.  (Not).  I insisted that the problem had only grown but that we could talk about it in the morning.  Pissed off as I was at the situation, I didn't want to blame MT for the landlord's mental incompetence or for the problems with my home.

The following day, MT set up an appointment for a repair man to fix my boiler.  I had to let my after-school students out of class 10 minutes early in order to arrive home in time for the appointment.  I'd mentioned to Math Unni and History Unni that I felt a little weird about having a repair guy come to my messy apartment.  "Oh, he won't care about that.  He's just there to fix the boiler," they assured me.  Fair enough.

However, when I reached the fourth floor of my building, I noticed that the landlord was waiting for me.  Why is he here?  I begrudgingly let him in.  Like I said, I hadn't expected company so my place wasn't at its best.  (My tendency for messiness is exacerbated because 1) I don't spend much time at home due to the mold 2) I don't make an effort to clean because I don't like being at home).  What followed was an incredibly awkward hour of standing around, staring at the wall as the repairman fixed my boiler and the landlord muttered in Korean.  He acted particularly pissy when he saw that I had closed the windows.  Well, genius, it rained this morning and I didn't want more water making more mold on my walls.  He made several calls on his phone; at one point I think he spoke with MT.

At any rate, I was happy to be rid of my uninvited guests once they both left.  I took the bus into Samsan-dong for the rest of the evening, once again avoiding my moldy home (which had lost what little comfort it had after being invaded by that freak).

The next morning MT pulled me into the teacher's lounge on account of something "serious."  She told me that my landlord had angrily called her complaining about the "mess" in my place.  To make matters worse, he had tried reaching her during her after-school class; she didn't answer her phone, so he'd called the school.  Who the hell does this guy think he is?  I felt awful, both embarrassed and angry.  And also worried.  I've been nurturing my relationship with MT very carefully since I started this job.  I understand that I started out as a kind of nuisance to her and I have done my best to rise above the helpless waygook persona into someone worth knowing.  Up until this point, MT and I had been bonding periodically... Who is this ajusshi with his mythic beliefs about mold to mess with my professional life?  I have tried to be patient but I'm really starting to hate him for coming between MT and me.

After that uncomfortable conversation I went to my classes and didn't see MT for a couple of hours.  When I returned to the Teachers' Room she was laughing (good sign) and called me over.  She even took both my hands (skinship is also good; she must not be mad) and said, "He called me again!"  I was glad that she was finding humor in the situation instead of anger, but I felt angry.  Apparently, she had left her phone at her desk during lunch.  He had called three times in a matter of thirty minutes.  "Aigoo, when this is all fixed, let's drink alcohol together," MT suggested.  YES, please.  I need a drink after this bullshit.  I would love to invite MT and Gloria and Math, History, and HomeEc unnies to my home, and I promised MT of this girls' night once everything is sorted.

Flash-forward to this morning: I relayed my water problem to MT and specifically asked her not to tell the landlord about it until tomorrow when I have more time to clean.  In what I've found to be typical Korean fasion, MT arranged for him to come over tonight at 7:00.  This leaves me exactly one hour to get my place ready for his scrutiny.

I've decided that, yes, I will clean.  But for MT's sake, not for his cheap ass.  Frankly, it's none of his business whether or not my place is clean.  As far as his opinion of me, I don't give a flying... duck. 

Flying duck I don't give

Most importantly, ajusshi, let's not be distracted from the real issue at hand here, namely your cheapness, incompetence, and utter failure to fix the stove and the mold in your slum-like establishment.

Wish me luck.  Pray for my situation.  I think that I'll have no choice but to go to the Office of Education and ask to be moved to a new apartment... but I worry about how this will affect my relationship with MT.  I hope this apartment nightmare will end soon so I can get on to writing about the better, more interesting aspects of my Korean life.

Peace.

In which I cry at school, am told that my head looks like an egg, and feel that I'm exactly where I should be.

Well, I finally have internet in my apartment... woo-hoo!  Unfortunately, I still don't have wireless, so my battle with technology has yet to be won.  My laptop is slow, old, and has a screen with the annoying tendency to flicker for no apparent reason; this is the device I can use at home.  My tablet is brand new and has an app to mask my location, thus allowing me to watch as much Hulu as my heart desires.  (Hulu has a multitude of subtitled Korean dramas available for streaming... this is one of the main reasons I have wanted internet at home with such an intensity).

Life in Korea is good, but I am a little overwhelmed by the prospect of blogging all I have failed to write about in the recent past. 

Korea has done strange things to me.  In two months, I have morphed from someone whose knowledge of Korean pop culture was limited to the Gangnam Style music video, into a Hallyu enthusiast.  For those of you wondering what "Hallyu" is, I will save your fingers a trip to Wikipedia by pasting their definition here: "Hallyu is a neologism referring to the increase in the popularity of South Korean culture since the late 1990s."  In other words, Hallyu encompasses the massive wave of pop culture originating in South Korea and spreading its addictive coolness to other parts of Asia and beyond.  This trend is quite visible in music, films, television, and fashion but it is so much more than just that.  Hallyu is a way of life and a living, breathing entity.  Like I said, I will devote a separate post to my new and ardent love for Hallyu because it's just that significant.  (So stay tuned, please!).

Two weeks ago, I rode the KTX express train for the first time to visit Seoul for the first time.  At EPIK orientation, almost every other teacher I became close to was placed in Seoul.  Because of this, I had an open invitation to stay with my friend Alison which I happily took up during my four-day weekend.  Seoul is an exciting place and I will be back soon; there wasn't nearly enough time to see or do all I wanted!  I found the subway system to be one of the most convenient to navigate (which is saying something, considering how many metro systems I've experienced in the past 18 months).  The best part of my trip to Seoul was reconnecting with friends from orientation; even though I am on the other side of the country, the gloriously fast KTX train makes my distance from these lovely people seem much smaller.

At Gyeongbokgung Palace

This past weekend, I went with Kaela, Rudy, and a few other people from the International Church to the Jinju Lantern festival.  Jinju is several hours away from Ulsan so we made a day of it.  We had a good time among the floating lights and lanterns.  My camera isn't designed for low light but I managed to get a handful of pictures in the dark.  I think between the six of us at the festival, there are plenty of good photos (although they haven't been uploaded yet, as far as I know).

The river before the lanterns are lit.



Besides my trips to Seoul and Jinju and my obsessive love of Hallyu, most of my life lately has revolved around teaching and my community at school.  As much as I enjoyed visiting Seoul, I wouldn't want to change anything about my location because I love my school.  I am about 10 years older than my students and about 10 years younger than most of the teachers, but I've been graciously adopted by several teachers.  (Particularly the three who brought me to the seaside).  The weekend before I traveled to Seoul, "Math Unni" ("unni" means older sister) took me to the hair salon to get my hair cut.  My bangs have grown too long for me to wear without pinning them back, so I hoped to get my split ends trimmed and my bangs restyled.  In my American way of thinking, this would be a simple procedure and I would walk out of the salon with freshly cut bangs.  My American way of thinking forgot to consider the ever-present reality of the Korean Surprise.  The stylist didn't speak English but Unni explained to me that the stylist thought my face was better without bangs.  "Forehead is too pretty; keep hair growing."  I confusedly sat in the chair, remembering that History Unni had remarked on more than one occasion, "I like your head, it's like an egg!"  (Being told you have a "small face" or a head "shaped like egg" is a compliment in Korea).  I resigned myself to waiting for my bangs to grow out as the stylist trimmed my split ends and left my bangs untouched.

Teaching has been frustrating and rewarding.  The ringleader of troublemaking in my third grade "demon class" was completely out of control this week.  It was bound to happen sooner or later: I was so angry and overwhelmed that I cried.  Thankfully, that was my last class of the day and I held it in until the bell rang.  But two of my room cleaners, Hareton (after Hareton Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights) and Donnie (after Donnie Darko) noticed before I had a chance to flee to the Teachers' Room.  Teacher Song, Math Unni, and Mentor Teacher were all very sympathetic, especially when I explained which student was particularly bad.  Apparently, he's a hellion to every teacher at school.  I also heard that his psychiatrist quit on him and his home life is pretty bad; I really hate having so many disruptions in class but more than anything I feel sorry for him.  I've worked with a lot of traumatized and behaviorally challenged children since high school and I love every single one of them.  But I found that the best way to reach the kids I've worked with was through one-on-one time and open communication.  I don't speak Korean so I am incredibly limited in the interaction I can have with this student... I'd like to simply explain to him that I am not his enemy and I want my class to be rewarding for all my students, including him.  But in light of my incompetance in the Korean language I'm stuck.

Anyway, the crying incident happened on Tuesday.  Wednesday was much, much better.  My first class of the day (with Gloria) had shown some pretty bad behavior before midterms.  I don't know what she told them in Korean at the beginning of class, but they were incredibly sweet and endearing.  Some of the boys in that class are fairly low-level English speakers so I don't know how much they actually understood.  However, when I would finish a sentence during my presentation, several of them would "wow" in awe.  I laughed about that and assured them it really wasn't necessary to "wow" (or clap, as some of them had) at everything I said, but I can't pretend I didn't enjoy it.  I also had one of the students who had given me (and apparently everyone else) a lot of trouble before midterms raise his arms over his head in a heart shape and say "Teacher, I love you!"

I teach after-school conversation classes every day until 5:30.  I have a handful of third graders Monday through Wednesday and second graders on Thursday and Friday.  One of my brightest and most respectful students, Patrick, told me that he doesn't enjoy school because there are far too many pressures on students; the only aspect he looks forward to, he said, is my class.  It is moments like these that ground me in my new reality and make all the difficult class periods completely worth my time.

My stream of consciousness is losing momentum and it's almost time for me to teach my penultimate class of the week.  I still have many things to write about (including a creeptastic language tutoring experience) so check back soon.  Peace!



Why my landlord kind of sucks (in my opinion).

Obtaining wifi in Korea has proven to be an evasive and seemingly impossible task.  In order to even apply for internet, I first had to receive my ARC card.  (In the meantime, I've either used my office computer at school or invested in the iced tea and muffins at Paris Baguette in order to use their signal... they're probably getting sick of my presence). 

It's been about two weeks since I received my ARC and yesterday MT finally pulled up the online application for internet.  It took me less than 5 minutes to fill out (which makes me wonder why she couldn't have shown it to me sooner... but I know she is a lot busier than I am so I will try to withhold judgement).  Anyway, I had to deliver my bank account information, my ARC numbers, and my address over the phone when a company representative called me.  This only worked out because I didn't have students during their midterm exams; I was available to set up a time for installation today for the same reason. 

Today, the installation team (two guys) came to my building at the agreed upon time.  They didn't speak English but they spent a few minutes on the phone when they got there.  Through his smartphone, one of the guys told me "the landlord is refusal."  ...Huh?  The other guy called an interpreter who explained to me that the installation team called the landlord but the landlord wouldn't let them install the necessary equipment in my apartment.  At this point, I was righteously pissed off.

The only time I've ever met my landlord was when he came over to fix the stove and left after an awkward hour of fixing nothing.  Only one of the three burners turns on; same as before he came over.  While he was there, I pointed out the copious moldy spots on the wallpaper.  He doesn't speak English so he didn't directly say he wouldn't deal with it, but he seemed to brush it off and since he hasn't done anything yet I don't think he ever will.  After this incident, I am confident that he completely sucks as a landlord. 

I'm sick of spending my money on muffins that I don't even like to eat.  I called MT and she says she'll talk to my landlord tomorrow to work something out...  I certainly hope it happens soon.  I have gone to extremes for the sake of wifi (including one instance a few weeks back in which I sat on the street corner outside of Paris Baguette at 4:00AM in order to Skype into my book club meeting.  If that's not a testament to my deep love for that book club, I don't know what is).

I hope that my next post will be written from the comfort of my own moldy apartment.  Keep your fingers crossed for me!