Sorry

I've been really busy lately, and really tired. I'm also STILL waiting for the pictures from Japan to be sent to me on a CD. I was assured they would be sent last week, but it being the end of this week now, I'm not so sure they were. Also, nothing particularly important has happened to me lately, that I can recall, so very little to write about except my trip. On the up side, though, we're having another Halloween party this Friday at work, so I'll have something up about that come Mondayish.

Saddest Paragraph Ever

Recently I read a story with some of my classes about two slaves who escape from Georgia in the 1800's. Part of the lesson plan includes playing songs like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," which relate to the topic. I played versions of that and "We Shall Overcome" for my classes, and assigned homework in which they would choose a song and write a paragraph about what it is about. This is what Melanie, a third grader, wrote (with errors intact; it's still understandable):

**I think slaves didn't have any hope to be free. In this sentence "Tell all my friends I'm a-comin', too, Comin' for to carry me home." I think many slaves dead and many slaves was seperate from each other. After they had be taken by Americans, there would be only death.**

Heavy stuff, man.

Entering Japan

For Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) weekend, I went to Japan with Leon and Emily from work, Emily's boyfriend Michael, and her friends Carly and Sam. There is a ferry that runs a few times a day from Pusan into Fukuoka, Japan, and we set up the ferry tickets and hotel stay in Fukuoka with a travel agency for under $400 for two nights. That's pretty decent for Japan. I brought 300,000 won with me, which I traded in for 22,000 yen, which is about US$242, for spending. I spent it all very easily.

After we all got to the ferry terminal around 11am and picked up our tickets, we went through customs easily, except for Leon. Because he recently extended his contract, his ID card shows an expired date on it, but his visa was extended to December. This caused some confusion with the official, so Leon was taken into a little room for about fifteen minutes. The others, not knowing the true situation, for some reason automatically (jokingly?) thought it was a racial issue (Leon is half Indian) and got kind of (jokingly?) upset. I explained. I was slightly concerned they wouldn't let him go, but they ended up just having him purchase a reentry visa, since he'd already used the single reentry on his previous visa. Or something.

Finally, it was a smooth three-hour ride into Hakata Terminal. There were tv screens, one big and a few small, in the boat, but no personal plugs for headphones, and the motor was so loud that the audio playing from the speakers wasn't sufficient. So I missed Lassie on the way, and The Incredible Hulk on the way back. I was sad to have missed that one, but they play it on Korean tv sometimes.

We took a bus to the hotel. It was a little confusing, but not too bad. In Japan, you take a ticket when you get on the bus (in the middle, not the front), and it lists the zone in which you boarded. At the front of the bus, there is a digital sign with fares listed depending on what zone you end up in. When you exit, you go up by the driver and put your ticket and your money into a slot. There is a convenient change machine, so you don't have to worry about having exact change. We weren't exactly sure when to get off, although we knew the name of the stop, because the stops have all these stop names on the outside, and I wasn't sure which one was the name of THAT stop. I started to make us get off at one point, but then these two old ladies indicated with Japanese I didn't understand and gestures that it was one more stop. So I pushed the button for the next stop, and they corrected me again, saying, no, it was the NEXT stop. Who doesn't know the difference between one and two? (It's one, by the way.)

But we eventually got to the Central Hotel, which was very nice, and had a sauna/bathhouse that we didn't have time to use. Maybe next time. I got a single room. The rooms are nice, but pretty small. The bathrooms are cool, and a subject for another blog entry.

If you're looking for pictures, you'll have to be patient. I had forgotten to check which plug converter I would need to take to Japan for my camera and iPod chargers, and had half figured it'd be the same as in Korea. When I asked Leon about it from Busan, where I stayed the night before we left, he made the outlet situation seem so alien that I figured it would be useless to bring my chargers, and I might as well save myself some space and leave them in Busan at my friend's house. When I got there, however, not only were the outlets the same as in the States, but I found out that I had accidentally left my camera on and the battery was completely spent. So I had no camera in Japan. I am currently waiting for a CD with everyone else's pictures to come to me in the mail. I hope it comes soon, otherwise I'll have to force everyone to email their pics to me in increments. I'll add pictures to this and other entries once I get them.

Zombie Poems

Hey, everyone, I've been published online. Czech out this website:

http://zombiepoems.tumblr.com/

I'm writing under the name Alier.

Mass Freeze, Seoul

A couple weekends ago I participated in a mass freeze in Seoul. I heard about it from a mass email sent by the placement agency that got me here, since one of their other teachers was the organizer. I'd never heard of a mass freeze before--it's when a large group of people converge seemingly naturally in a high-traffic area and at the same time pause in whatever position they happen to be in for a predetermined amount of time. During this time, passersby generally take a moment to realize what's going on, then see that a bunch of people are completely frozen, and react accordingly. Then again at the same time, the freezers unfreeze and continue as if nothing happened.

Although the idea seems like a really awesome plan, and it some ways it was awesome, this was the worst freeze I've ever been to (and yes, yes, also the best).

The first problem was about where exactly to meet. Actually, no. The first problem was my fault--I don't have a Facebook profile and refuse to start one. All of the relevant info for this event was there. I was lucky enough to get a date (question mark?) from Seoul to go with me, and he was able to check the info and sign us up on Facebook. What he told me was posted there was that we were to freeze at 1:30pm on Saturday, September 26, by the COEX Trade Tower. Now, COEX is a huge mall, and even that one "spot" was confusing, because there are a lot of surrounding areas to the Trade Tower.

After killing time nearby and figuring we knew where to go basically, we waltzed into a courtyard with a bunch of foreigners at 1:29, and it happened to be the right place. The dozen or two foreigners dressed in blue (that was the code) that we saw in other nearby places probably didn't make it until a bit later.

The second problem was communication. I'm not sure if it was the organizer's fault, or my date's. Our understanding was that the actual freeze was to occur at 1:30, so when our vibrating cell phone alarms went off at 1:30, we froze. For the first few seconds when no one else stopped moving, it seemed like maybe our clocks weren't all synchronized, but after a bit more time, it was evident there would be no freeze at 1:30. Then I noticed a chick giving a quiet speech (despite holding a bullhorn) behind a bush. Silly subtle speech-giver. So we went over and listened.

Here are some photos of the other people there, listening to the speech:

The COEX Trade Tower. I've had bigger.

The next problem was again the location. Evidently the place she wanted us to all freeze in (which by the way, was nowhere near where we ended up at 1:30 and were told to go) was doing a game show and we couldn't double-book the location. So she decided to change the location to inside the mall, near the center, and it would be delayed until 2:30, for some reason. I was okay with that, though. We were able to grab a quick lunch beforehand.

When we got to the spot at just before 2:30, there were a bunch of people walking around going "2:40! 2:40! Spread the word!" Why the hell would they have to delay another ten minutes? I don't know, but apparently it didn't get spread well enough. According to another blogger who was taking photos and video, some people still started at 2:30.

FINALLY the mass freeze started, though. Because of all my physical issues and the fact that I'd not slept the night before, gotten up wicked early for the bus, then spent five hours on it, I chose a very simple, leaning-against-a-pillar pose. Because I was looking down with a relaxed, neutral facial expression and because the air conditioning dried my eyes out so much that they started watering profusely, I ended up looking very, very sad, I think. Two tears rolled down my cheeks, and I'm pretty sure at least one or two people in the world have photos or video of that happening.

Naturally I don't have any of my own photos or videos of the freeze itself, but there were people around who were specifically asked to do that. Here's a link to a blog of one of those people. He has a lot of other info about freezes from other cities at the top and bottom, and that's also interesting, but the meat of the entry is more towards the middle. I was disappointed to not see myself in any of his videos, nor the ones from someone else that he posted. The best exposure I got there was in a photo of the gathering beforehand outside. You can see me on the left side of the frame in a blue tank top covering my eyes. You can play Where's Waldo and see if you can find me.

http://kimchi-icecream.blogspot.com/2009/09/mass-freeze-in-seoul-at-coex-mall-south.html

That blogger made it out to be a much more interesting event than the one I experienced, but I guess I'm just not an optimist. On the upside, although not nearly as many people showed up as signed up (300-400 signed up on Facebook, allegedly), I noticed in the videos that there were still more people than I realized were there. It thought there were fewer than 100 people who came, since that's how many I saw at the meeting at 1:30, but maybe some people came and went before or after we were there, as other estimated are between 100 and 150 participants.

I tried for a bit to look for other blogs that might have different videos and pics, but to no avail as yet. I'm sad I never got to see my teary eyes, so if anyone is interested enough to help me look, please let me know if you find anything. I guess my location wasn't good for exposure--I was against the pillar in front of the bookstore, and a lot of the video is taken from the area adjacent to my side of it.

Here's a little article about the organization of the event, which I just found via google. Apparently the organizer wrote it, but she also quotes herself in it and writes in the third person. I find that very strange...

http://www.theyeogiyo.com/News/Articles/2009/08/11/Seoul-joins-mass-freeze-movement.php

I had kind of a problem with the idea of wearing blue. It seems slightly unnecessary. Anyone who knew what was going on would know what to do, and the only advantage I can see out of color-coding is that people were able to identify more easily anyone who was involved in the event so they could tell them new locations and times, the necessity of which could of course be eliminated by better planning and organization. It made me feel like we were already sticking out too much to be such a great surprise to onlookers, being that most of us were already sticking out because of our respective races and the fact that over 100 of us were congregating in a relatively small area. I would rather it have been a little less obvious that something was happening prior to the thing actually happening.

When the freeze broke (I think I was one of the first to unfreeze, actually), we were all supposed to go on doing whatever we had been doing before as if nothing happened, as I mentioned above. Not everyone can avoid being douchey, though, and a number of people clapped and hugged and did silly things, as my date and I walked into the bookstore and most of the other people continued on their own ways. There was supposed to be a postfreeze party that you had to sign up for on Facebook, but we didn't go. These people seemed like mostly people I would only freeze with, not actually associate with. What an asshole.