To be blunt about it: I’ve been busting my ass the last few days. I have a hellish afterschool class that is best titled “Me Vs. 25 1st Graders”. I don’t blame them (THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: You are 5 years old. A weird Korean guy walks into the room and tries to teach you Korean, but he only speaks Korean. What do you do?), but it has quickly become the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. My spare time has evaporated as I scramble around trying to think up new ways to keep them from tearing ass around the room, ripping everything off the walls while I futilely attempt to hold back the torrents of trouble that are amassing. I’ll recount the finer episodes later. This is about “In C”.

“In C” is the piece of music that puts my head back together when it has been rearranged. It is the piece of music that almost single handedly sponsored the American minimalist movement in contemporary classical music. Dudes like Steve Reich and John Adams might not be about were it not for Terry Riley’s harebrained idea to change music by destroying it. Radiolab (The 100% foolproof barometer for how much I like a person is how diehard of a Radiolab fan they are) recently did a small piece on it. And it was wonderful.

Anyway, the original recording of In C, part one, here:

Those of you with ambitions can find literally dozens and dozens of covers, remixes and performances of In C. They are almost all totally lovely. They put me back together.

I don’t have enough on my to-do list. Add “Learn Guided by Voices covers” to that list.

So, we started school again last week. This was a ‘good’ thing, ‘good’ as in the way that going to the Dentist is good for you. It begs to a higher purpose, the supposed “greater” good, things which are ‘good’ for you. It’s generally better, in my estimation, to be busy and purposeful than to be allowed to stew in your own existential juices. It just happens to bring with several aneurysms worth of struggle, conflict and Kafka-esque, eyebrow-pitched stresses. Allow me to cite a few:

They got rid of my 5th grade “co-teacher” who barely ever bothered to show up and mostly slept when she did. But they replaced her with a woman who speaks not a word of English and looks to be about 8 months pregnant. This puts me right about back where we started from, which is fine.

The 3rd Grade got a new curriculum. Good! But we didn’t have any books. Bad! They actually asked me, with a straight face, to teach the new curriculum without ever having seen the book. Wrap your head around that. This is what they said to me. They wanted me to tap into the great, shared celestial consciousness of man and somehow divine the contents of the text. My co-teacher eventually just went out and bought a copy of the book from some unnamed text book depot, which gave rise to a new quandary: The teacher’s edition of the English textbook is, front to back, in Korean.

When the kids arrived for the first day of 3rd grade instruction they all had books. I asked about this after class and no one knew where they’d gotten them from. I pushed a bit and they made some phone calls and found out that the books had been delivered 2 days prior, but no one had bothered to tell anyone. There’s a very common complaint among English teachers here that no one ever tells them anything. I’m starting to realize that the problem is not exclusive to us. It’s like an episode of LOST- No one tells anyone else anything ever, no matter how important it may be.

It’s largely your ability to just sort of. Take it in stride and say, “Okay! I’m going to teach without a book!” or “You canceled all my classes and didn’t tell me? Okay!” that will 98% determine your happiness in being here.

I’m still working on photos. It’s on my to-do list right after “Lesson plans for 5th and 6th grade, Grade 3 sessions 1 & 2 and all 5 afterschool classes this week”. Busybusy! They also gave me an afterschool class for kids who don’t know the alphabet yet. It will be, charitably, amusing.

What’s the opposite of a groove? A peak? A sharp, prickly peak? Yeah, that’s what I got back into. First day of school in Korea is such an enormous nightmare. To wit: I’m now teaching 3rd Grade, which is fine in as far as anything that doesn’t kill me dead is fine, but they threw out the old books before the new ones came in. I literally have no book from which to teach. I’ve also been told that the new curriculum has no English language teacher’s edition.

Do with that what you will.

Mostly I’m glad to be back. I like having routine and purpose. But juggling my free time is always tricky. I have that very unannounced project lurking down in my task bar, I’m still staring down a stack of vacation photos a mile high and I’m pecking my way through learning to plot waveforms in a tracker so that when I get down and out about being a miserable guitar player I can make cute little Gameboy songs to cheer myself up. I like having lots of free time for goofy projects. I am not always the wisest executor of it, but when I get under the gun (Haha, that means “Have a job”) I get kind of frantic and hop from project to project without any real regard for making progress on any of them. I need a personal assistant or something.

We went to Mokpo this weekend. We slept in a 500 year old Buddhist temple! We meditated with monks before dawn! We went back to sleep! Then other things happened. We’ll catch you up this week. School starts again tomorrow which is a goodbad thing. We’ve been slow to update the last few weeks as a couple of other projects have consumed our free time. I’m not going to talk about them yet- The best way to make sure a project never gets finished is to start talking about it to other people and then it’s like INEEDTOGETTHISDONEOREVERYONEWILLBEDISSAPOINTEDINME and you get to a point where the PRESSURE IS OVERWHELMING and you get to that “Whatever, dude, I don’t need your approval!”/”NO DAD WHAT ABOUT YOU” point and then you get to the “I’m an adult, I do what I want!” phase and you’ve CANCELED YOUR PROJECT over an imaginary concern.

Does anyone else do that? Chew on this, gnarly finger-tapping action around the 2:00 mark:

We went to the Ice Gallery last week!

Take a Hike 4 from Scott Stephan on Vimeo.

First: I hate it when it rains here. Take a country full of the some of the least spatially aware people you’ve ever met, give them all an umbrella and it’s like a gameshow where the only prize is losing an eye.

Second: We’ve been putting off discussing vacation largely because it entails work, something we have no shortage of. Between personal projects and work-projects we run a busy little hive. Nonetheless! Here we go. At the end of everyday I took 5 or 10 minutes to write down a bunch of keywords that I later assumed would rouse the memories from my brain. Looking over these lists I am about 60% correct.

Most of these pictures come from Mary’s camera and some of them are weird sizes because I’m nabbing them from Facebook and not Flickr. I’ll have the rest of the pictures up this week sometime.

Today’s words:

College/Mos Eisley: Bangkok is 50% frat party and 50% Mos Eisley cantina, which is to say that you’re either getting drunk or getting swindled. There was a bar called “We Don’t Check ID” and literally dozens of fake ID vendors, some who advertised in neon. Fake student IDs, fake drivers licenses, fake TEFL certificates. Kids between 2 and 5 watch you tap out your pin number on the ATM and the scurry off to parts unknown. And if they’re not trying to rip money out of your pocket, the ATM fee was a flat $5 everywhere we went. Drinks come in buckets. Beer comes in long, tall keg-like non-kegs. We were only in Bangkok for about 12 hours and we never saw it in daylight. I’m willing to accept the idea that the rest of it is quite nice, although our experience at the border more or less reinforced what we learned here.

Beer: I have no idea what this means. We drank some, but not a lot. I caught a cold on the plane and getting drunk was priority #415.

Josh Dances:When we finally found a hostel with an open room we bumped into an amiable, tubby little hippie. His name was Josh. Josh kept telling us that money was evil and insisted on paying for everything. Later, he stripped naked and danced in the street.

Rich South African: At some point Josh befriends a South African who is dressed in a variety of gold and diamond jewelry. He lets us try it on like we’re at a costume party. I can’t remember the guy speaking a word of English, just that he appeared to be rich and probably, maybe dangerous, although THAT’S RACIST.

Food:We ate a little bit. Some kind of pancake made from a dough that looked like latex, tossed over a smoking grill, folded and dosed with condensed milk and bananas. Later, pad thai for a dollar from a guy on the street with a flair for cooking theater. One of my favorite things about cheap food in Thailand is the little basket of condiments that accompanies any meal: Usually a spicy vinegar or oil, sometimes peanuts and almost always sugar. Sugar in savory meals is a secret pleasure.

Air Thai : I guess I mean Thai Air? Flying anywhere outside the United States is always a delight, but Asian airlines tend to go the extra mile. They’ll pour you as much liquor, gratis, as you dare ask for and the food isn’t so bad, either. We accidentally matched our seats which is cute and unfortunate.

So, anyway, we got a little drunk and it got really late and we’d been up for like 22 hours and we went to sleep when everything got too loud and we woke up in the dark again to catch a train to the Cambodian border, but that’s Day 2.

Tomorrow’s words: AM Train/Border, ATM, Tuk-Tuk/Crossing, Max, 3 hours/Taxi, eating, fights/MoHome,River,Food

So, we have all of these vacation pictures and videos and writings, but then Mass Effect 2 came out and everything is on the BACK BURNER until I DEFEAT THE COLLECTOR MENACE AND SAVE THE GALAXY. AGAIN.

That should take me a few more days.

I started a new video series called TAKE A HIKE. I just turn on the video recording and take a walk. Here are the problems with this concept:

1: I am walking and the video always looks like it was taken from the back of a rodeo bull.

2: I screwed up the compression. I was actually not going to post this video because it looks so yucky, but we’re about to leave for Thailand for 2 weeks, so. I may as well.

TAKE A HIKE 3 from Scott Stephan on Vimeo.

TAKE A WALK 4: Thailand Boogaloo.

Bibimbap is my default lunch/dinner/breakfast of choice. It’s about $3.50 for a an enormous bowl of rice with mixed vegetables, hot pepper paste and a fried egg, gently touched with sesame oil and seaweed. Like PB&J, it’s just one of those things that works, each flavor in perfect harmony with the others. I’ve payed a lot more money for food a lot clunkier than this. It’s a dish that makes you feel stupid for ever paying more than $3.50 for food.

So I was a little bit bummed when this showed up in the New York Times:

Excuse the weird grammar, the casual Korean and the phrase “customers of funerals”, it just flops. It’s a fine example of how Korea is generally over thinking it’s global efforts. This could not have been a cheap ad, so who forgot to run it by a native English-speaking copywriter? Also, why Bibimbap and not Samgyupsal? Why a dish of mixed rice and foreign ingredients and not, well, meat on a grill? Like a lot of Korean things, there plenty of head scratching moments in this ad.

Anyhow, if you can find it, go for it. There’s a Bibimbap place called Bap on 9th Avenue in between 55th and 54th street. It’s hardly authentic, but it is delicious.

I wrote this for a friend who is coming in a few weeks. I figured it was relevant:

Drinking is like. The national pasttime. Now that it’s winter, eveyrone drinks inside, but in Spring and Summer, after like 10, EVERYONE is drunk. You’ll see these business guys in $1,000 suits puking their guts out, passed out in bushes. Koreans dont just drink, they drink until they puke and blackout. Just now Koreans are starting to realize the dangers of alcoholism, but it’s still not really viewed as a problem. You can get booze ANYWHERE. You can also drink outside, but culturally it’s appropriate to keep it to a minimum. As long as you’re not making a huge deal out of it, you’re okay. Most convenience stores will put out folding tables and chairs and you can pop inside, get some booze and drink at a table. This is a great way to meet people, they love to see white people enjoying Korean culture. Most C-Stores also sell little dixie cups for 5 or 10 cents a pop. I always keep a few on hand to offer to passerby or people at other tables. They’ll love you and start buying you snacks and all kinds of stuff from the store. Most street food vendors also have a small sitting area and serve booze, too.

Re: Booze. There are maybe 4 brands of beer here: Cass, Hite, Max and OB. All 4 taste like shit and are 3% alcohol. OB also makes some knock-off beers that are supposed to be like Corona or Guiness or something. They still suck ass. More expensive bars will usually have Heineken or Guiness, but at eye popping prices. I know of ONE microbrewery in Seoul. Most Koreans drink Soju, a rice liquor. It tastes like Vodka but sweeter. It’s also not made from rice anymore and is subject to any number of terrifying urban legends. It’s a buck for a bottle and 1 bottle will get you fucked up. Beer is mostly a “side-drink” for Soju. There’s also Magkolei (Mah-koh-lee), sometimes called Nongju. I don’t know why some places call it by a different name, no one can tell me what the difference is. Anyway, it RULES. It’s like milky white and kind of sweet and is apparently pretty good for you. It has a lot of vitamins or something. It used to be a peasant drink, but it’s really in vogue in urban areas and with younger generations. You’ll love it. There are special Magkeolli restaurants where they serve it with pindaetok, which are Korean pancakes, usually with seafood or kimchi. Good stuff. You can also get it in bottles at any C-Store. Sometimes it’s flavored, but I think I like it straight the best. There;’ this artsy/indie party once a month and some guy there brings his Mom’s homemade Makgoeli and it will get you drunk. Major.

Re: Beer, WIkipedia has this to say: “The South Korean beer market is dominated by the three major brands: Cass, Hite, and OB. Most restaurants and bars will only have one on tap, as they are largely regarded as similar in taste and price (they are mostly brewed from rice). Foreign beers are available but are generally expensive – generally at least ₩8,000 and as much as ₩15,000 for a pint of Guinness in downtown Seoul mainly due to the heavy taxation on import beers, which is 100% opposed to 20 to 30 percent on other types of alcoholic beverage. Microbreweries are starting to appear, and this area of the market is showing increasing signs of sophistication. Unfortunately, due to the law requiring 30 billion Korean Won capital for commercial sales, it is not possible to buy microbrewery’s beer off the shelf. Of all Korea’s mass produced beers, only Hite’s Max Prime brand contains 100% barley malt.”

Everything after Christmas:

Well, we did Christmas and you saw the pictures of that. New Year’s was, to be diplomatic, was a mixed-bag. We decided to go skiing! At this point it is important to know that I have never been skiing. But every Winter Mary begs and begs and I always manage to put it off until the temperatures rise to something more survivable. This year the invitation come from somewhere outside, Megan’s co-worker Rachel who, for some reason, finds us not only tolerable but entirely preferable.

So, after work we all packed into the back of Rachel’s boyfriend’s car and headed off to, uh. Somewhere. It was 4 hours away, which was just as well. We all took little car naps and watched movies on our iPods and generally enjoyed the now entirely alien concept of a long car ride. I haven’t been inside of a car that’s not a cab for months, let alone packed into one for a long trip. I know my parents probably came to fear long trips and I sort of hated them at the time, but I missed them in some deep way. You hate the trip but it’s ultimately just a signifier for going somewhere, usually somewhere fun. A change of pace, at least.

We got there around 11 and almost immediately packed back into the car to catch some fireworks down at the resort. New Year’s! I spent much of the fireworks show huddled as deeply into my jacket as possible. I hate the cold. Hate the cold. Hate cold. We got back around 1 and Rachel’s other friends had arrived. And a moment of cross-cultural awareness began: On New Year’s, Koreans start cooking and drinking somewhere around 1:30 AM. By 3 AM, being good company, we are all severely drunk and completely stuffed. What meal is it when you start eating around 2 AM? Early breakfast?

Anyway: Up around 10:30 because checkout was at 11:15 and off to the mountain. Cross-Culture Awareness moment #2: Lots and lots and lots of Koreans go skiing on New Year’s Day. Now, I’ve never been skiing, but saddled in something like 3 coats, 2 pains of gloves, 3 pairs of pants, 2 scarves and a hat, holding a pair of skis and 2 poles and waiting something like 90 minutes to get up to the top of the mountain should have been a sign that things were maybe going a little off-schedule. I had managed to rouse a pretty good mood, though. Our prior sports attempts had actually gone pretty well: I became an avid bike rider and a reasonably good ice skater. I was hoping that skiing would turn out the same. I had a lot of time to mull this over. Going up the top I began to entertain a ridiculous fantasy of becoming a ski instructor. My imagined-prodigious talent would surely carry me through.

Let me sum up the experience thus: If it took 90 minutes to get up the mountain, it took us the remaining 3 hours of daylight to get down. I am not good at skiing. I will never be a ski instructor and, in fact, I will probably never be a skier, either.