sarah is not here.

last friday i finally got my hands on a functioning korean cell phone, as my co-worker MK was leaving the country and hooked me up with hers. i collected said phone at about 3:00am in the morning, in the middle of a downpour. MK and many other people were still going strong, getting their party on, but mama likes neither being wet nor being awake past midnight. because i am your grandmother.

about 4am i got a call on the phone, from one of the girls, let's call her sarah, whom we were out with. she doesn't yet have a phone of her own, and she borrowed a phone from some korean man to call MK. suffice it to say, there wasn't a whole lot i could do for sarah from the comfort of my jim-jams. even assuming i was naturally a helpful person. which i am not.

the next day on the KTX to daegu (tales of daegu adventures to follow) my phone rang. it was the man whose phone sarah had borrowed the night before, looking for sarah. apparently sarah had promised to call him, and she hadn't. leaving aside that no one you ever promise to call at 3am ever gets a phone call, sarah borrowed the phone at 4 am and it was not yet 2 pm. dude hadn't even given her 12 hours before dropping the crazy bomb. i told him i wasn't sarah, didn't know sarah's number, was probably never going to see sarah again, and hung up. because you shouldn't talk loudly on the KTX. it's rude.

homeboy called back three more times, demanding to be put in touch with sarah. the last time he called i told him not to call ever ever ever again, and used my new phone's handy spam function to block his calls.

later, that very same night: dude calls from ANOTHER number, as number A is blocked. after i explain that i am not only not with sarah currently, but in a whole nother city, the following conversation takes place:

dude: where is sarah?
me: i. do not. know. sarah is not my friend. i do not know how you can talk to her again. stop calling me.
dude: are you with sarah? how can i speak to her?
me: i. don't. know. you must stop calling me.
dude: you are not sarah?
me: NO.
dude: may i have your name?
me: if you call me again i am calling the police.

second number: blocked!

a new spin on Christianity

so my nightly, post-work routine (booze. chicken and veggies. is Constantine on? c'mon, Korea, i know it's on one of these channels...and Yahtzee!) was interupted by a pizza ad taped to my door, which i discovered while taking out the recycling. side note: i live on the fifth floor, so, to my way of thinking, taking out the recycling and the garbage in separate trips is totally the same as going to the gym.


it's not uncommon to find food ads taped to your door here in korea. some of them have come in pretty useful from time to time, like when you want your blog readers to believe you're eating chicken and veggies, but really you got soy sauce chicken and a pizza. it happens.

anyway, the pizza advert i discovered not fifteen minutes ago had a very interesting addendum in the upper right hand corner.

it says, and i quote, "Jesus loves You. Since 1967." really? because that would suck for the puritans. i kind of love the idea that these people are offering me a pizza with tempura shrimp in the crust and the rather incendiary knowledge that our Lord and Saviour only started digging us at the tail end of all that dirty hippie nonsense.

spite vomit

(this story is not for anyone with a needle phobia. like my friend jenny, who tried so hard to be supportive at the hospital.)

the last time i was in korea i got a pretty nasty case of food poisoning, and ended up in a hospital. before having my IV shunt put in, i had been talking to a doctor, in english. this man spoke pretty good english, for which i am really grateful. i am not one of those people who thinks koreans should all speak english to make my life easier. because then i wouldn't have a job.

anyhoo....

the doctor put an IV shunt in the top of my left hand, but before putting in the IV line, decided to draw some blood for tests. at this point i was hit with a terrible wave of nausea (food. poisoning.) and asked the doctor to just hold off for a few seconds.

me: sir, could you please wait a minute? i think i'm going to throw up.
doctor: (throws his palm in my face, "talk to the hand" style) HEY! Calm. Down.

now, my friends, there are many things in this world that calm down. vomit is not one of them. i turned my head over my shoulder, because i sure as fuck was gonna puke, and i didn't want to get any on myself. then i thought, "oh, no. i warned the man." so i turned my head back to face the good doctor, and puked all down the front of him. because i had warned him.

at the time this happened i felt worse than i have any memory of ever feeling in my entire life. while sitting on a toilet puking into a garbage can, i actually told God that his two options were to cure me or kill me, but He had to stop dicking me around. however, in retrospect, if i still had the wherewithall to throw up on a virtual stranger out of spite, i should have known that a full recovery was emminent.

not playing in the mud

this weekend is the mud festival here in korea. all of my coworkers have gone, as have several other people i know. and i am in no way trying to disparage the tastes of others, but, seriously, mud is wet dirt. it is where pigs live. there aren't even, like, bands at mud fest. it's just mud.

it's worth mentioning that i have an aversion to large groups of drunken people. ergo it stands to reason that i will like them even less when they are muddy. it also bears mentioning that this is supposed to be theraputic mud, with healing properties. or something. fair enough. leeches are theraputic, but i bet leech fest would totally bomb.

today in class

in one of my afternoon classes the following conversation took place.

Me: A grown-up is the same thing as an adult. Who can name an adult for me?
Kid A: Mommy and Daddy.
Me: yes, Mommy and Daddy are adults. They are grown up. Anyone else?
Kid B: Adolf Hitler.

parking spaces

this morning before work (why, lord, oh why must i work? why? so unfair. the porn's not going to watch itself.) i ran into the supermarket behind my school. i've run into this building a few times before, after my early morning caffine fix, but today i noticed something interesting.

here is, you know, a parking space. nothing out of the ordinary. two white lines, betwixt which one deposits a car. and, a bit father down, there are more parking spaces. but wait...

there's something interesting about these additional additional parking spaces, namely that they are apparently for the ladies. believe me when i tell you that that's totally pink paint. painted pink parking spaces. for the ladies.

what? the fuck? wha wha wha? they aren't even chivalrous parking spaces as they are farther away from the store than the not-pink spaces. maybe it's parking for fat chicks, and taking the few extra steps will work off the berry mocha frapuccinos.

(you know what goes awesome with frapucccinos? porn. when you're not working.)