Dude

Okay, this is my last day in Ulsan... FOREVER. I'm pretty much insane with shit to do, but I've gotten most of it done. My major concern currently is all the stuff I've accumulated for my apartment, but can't take with me--housewares, etc. I'm going to try and see if I can just leave it all in a pile here and the Kate LA van can come over and move it to the apartment where the next two teachers (a couple) are going to live (which is where I used to live). I wonder how that'll go over...

So yesterday three of my classes finished and we had a "party." During the first class, we did what we always do for my parties, which is what the kids want to do: watch the Simpsons. For some reason either Heather never bothered to notice/register what my parties were like, or she's so desperate right now not to piss off parents that she's gone nuts. After the class, she gave me this spiel about how I can't watch cartoons in my classes, because they parents MIGHT get upset and think that's not a party. So I reminded her I've always done this, and as a Korean, she simply repeated herself and didn't acknowledge what I said. So I asked what a party is, because I guess I don't know. She said tell stories, sing songs, stuff like that. This of course is what we do every day, pretty much, along with other language-learning methods. Then she repeated herself again, I think, and said she knows it's a going away party and we want to watch a DVD, but parents might complain. So I said, we did the same thing last year when I went away. Did the parents complain then? But Koreans have this knack for evading questions they don't like the answers to, by yet again, repeating the main point. I didn't point out that when Kate LA has a party for Halloween, Christmas, or Children's Day, they show DVDs on a big screen.

Moving on, today I went to the national pension office to request a refund of my pension contributions for this year, as aliens from several nations are allowed to do. This process is a piece of piss, as my British friends would say. All I had to do was bring some ID, a voided check, and proof I'm leaving Korea, and fill out a form. I swear I almost spent more time in the elevator going to and from the 4th floor than I did in the office. I definitely spent more time on the bus. And I get the refund in like a month. Suite.

In conclusion, there are some things I really hate about Korea, but other things that are really awesome. The End.

(Not of the blog, just the post. I still have some backblogging to do over the next month.)