13 days: Found out my PLACEMENT!!!

It's been a long wait to find out my placement, two months to be exact, but I've finally received my placement!  I'll be teaching near Samcheok South Korea in what looks to be a really really small town called Miro at their elementary school.  The cool thing is I'll be near the ocean, looks like 2-3 miles, and will be close to some moderate sized cities Samcheok and Donghae (2-5 miles away).  I still don't know where I'll be living for another month so I could be in one of these cities or I could be living in Miro.  Who knows?

At the moment I have really no clue what it is like there, but I'll do a bit of researching.  I'll post my findings soon.

14 Days to Korea: Take Risks

Moving to a new country is a intense complex situation.  The joy, happiness, fear of the unknown, knowing that I will feel homesickness and miss my dear friends and family get all jumbled up into the situation.  On one hand, I have been getting really excited to experience the quirks and small details of Korea.  "What will it be like to...."  commonly runs amuck in my mind when I perform my daily activities.  Acquiring necessities at the store for my trip again brings me into that curious state of mind.  The sheer mystery of where I'll live or what I'll be doing in my free time keeps me on the edge of my seat.  The TaLK program couldn't put any more suspense into this then they already have.  Maybe next week I'll know my placement and the week after I'll have my plane ticket.

On the other hand, I've had to make some difficult decisions.  I was in a great relationship for two and a half years with a girl that I feel I could have potentially married.  We lived together for a long time and really got to know each other in and out, but recently decided to part. It was an extremely difficult decision but we both thought it was only best that we established ourselves before we really committed to anything serious.  My reason for adding this in the blog is that I learned a lot of good things from this relationship.  Mainly for you to earn anything (in this case knowledge, memories, experiences) you must be vulnerable (risk getting your heart broken).  It's similar to investing in that the more risk you take (more vulnerable and more potential heart break) the more reward.  I feel I took a large risk moving in with this girl, but I earned valuable experiences and memories.  Moving to Korea too is a big risk, but I feel that the rewards will be far worth it.

What I'm trying to say is to take risks.  Be vulnerable.  You'll always be able to learn from it and potentially be rewarded handsomely from it as well.  I would not trade my experiences that were risky for anything else in the world.  They have been priceless.

From here I'll start with a clean slate.

*Update on my Korea Preparation*
Bought large suitcase from Marshalls

Have stuffed the following in this luggage so far:

• Mini guitar amp
• 5 summer exercise outfits
• Dress shoes
• Suit
• 5 pairs of dress socks
• 2 pairs of nice slacks
• Pair of jeans
• First aid kit
• 3 polos
• (will put in 5 t-shirts)
• (will put in running shoes)
• (will put in 5 pairs of shorts)
• 10 undies
• 10 socks
• Blazer
• (might take a large towel)

I have another smaller suitcase that is full to the brim with winter clothes and gifts for my co-workers.  Now I just need to get an adapter and toiletries and I'm set.

16 Days till Korea

Need to Do List

1. Sell Car 

The smiley face says it all.

My car has turned into money!  Yes, I was able to sell my car to the first bidder for exactly what I was hoping to get.  Selling my car had to be the thing that was stressing me out the most because I thought it was going to be a pain selling it for what I wanted in my given time frame.  However, selling this car has been very easy and stress free.  The guy came over in the morning liked what he saw, said he wanted to come back later tonight, he came and signed the papers and gave me the stack of cash.  He'll be over tomorrow night to pick it up with his new plates and the car will be off my hands!  Good riddance Hyundai!  Wait I'll be seeing a million more of these in Korea.

2. Finish Investment Course and Start Retirement Course


I just got finished with the 12th unit on investing in options, which is quite an interesting topic.  Options are quite difficult for me to understand but I somehow did well on my test.  Maybe I do understand the material.  Simply put stock options - calls, puts or shorts - give an investor the option to either buy or sell a stock within a given time period.  Options can get quite risky as they are a short term investment using leverage.  I'll be staying away from these!
Anyway, I need to finish the Investment course and start the Retirement Course before my departure to Korea.  One thing that I am loathing is sending books for my last two courses to Korea.  Shipping will be like 20 bucks per book....not fun.

3. Start Packing


First, I need to get a nice large piece of luggage.  That calls for a trip to Marshalls where luggage is decent and cheap.  Then I'll need to hunker down and organize a list of things that I need to bring with me to Korea.  The TaLK program has a good guide of what to bring in my two pieces of luggage so I'll have to go through that and gather all of my belongings.  Then will I be able to start packing.

By the way, they make us bring two cases of luggage because we are only allowed one for the orientation period.  The TaLK program says that dorm space will be too small to bring both suitcases so they send one to your POE (head honcho) and they'll keep it till you make it to the school.  That means that I'll have to not only pack, but I have to strategically pack.  Using the word strategically makes packing sound more exciting.  Maybe then will I feel like I'm actually leaving.

4. Exchange a few dollars to Won

This isn't necessary but it would be very beneficial.

5. Find out my exact placement


6. Receive Email with Plane Tickets


5 and 6 really go together.  The TaLK program is really last minute and really leave me on the edge of my seat.  They said that I won't know my exact school and placement until at the latest the 20th and won't receive my plane tickets, get this, until the 28th.  That means I will have maybe two days to figure out a trip to NYC, where I'm flying out of.

Death by fan...

Many Koreans believe that if you leave a fan on in your room while you sleep you will die.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I heard it a while ago from one of the students that I tutored at HSA and was flabbergasted.  Today, however, I found out it isn't just Koreans who believe in fan death but the Vietnamese as well.  Kathy reblogged a story on fan death and kindly informed everyone that her Mother use to yell at her when she slept with the fan on.

Now I've slept with the fan on for years.  I use to live in a loft which reached temperatures unimaginable in the summer and a fan was an absolute must.  Tonight I'll sleep with my fan on, too.  It's also notable to mention that I haven't died yet.

The most damage that fan will do is chop off your finger, not steal all of your oxygen.

So what are the pundits saying?

• Fan death is frequently cited when police detectives are unable to determine cause of death.
• That fans contribute to prolonged asphyxiation due to environmental oxygen displacement or carbon dioxide intoxication.
• That fans contribute to hypothermia, or abnormally low body temperature.
• That if the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing.
• That an electric fan chops up all the oxygen particles in the air leaving none to breathe.
• That an electric fan creates a vortex, which sucks the oxygen from the enclosed  aand sealed room and creates a partial vacuum inside.

The media in Korea often feeds the urban legend by regularly reporting on fan deaths.  

Thank god Korean Doctors don't believe it...

Dr. John Linton at Yonsei's Severance Hospital, who attended medical school at Yonsei University, is licensed to practice medicine in South Korea:^[2]

There are several things that could be causing the fan deaths, things like pulmonary embolisms, cerebrovascular accidents or arrhythmia. There is little scientific evidenceto support that a fan alone can kill you if you are using it in a sealed room. Although it is a common belief among Koreans, there are other explainable reasons for why these deaths are happening.

Dr. Lee Yoon-song is a professor at Seoul National University's medical school and works with the school's Institute of Scientific Investigation. He has conducted autopsies on some of the people who have been described in Korean media as having succumbed to fan death:

When someone's body temperature drops below 35 degrees, they do start to lose judgment ability. So if someone was hiking and later found dead, that could be part of the reason. But we can't really apply this to fan accidents. I found most of the victims already had some sort of disease like heart problems or serious alcoholism. So hypothermia is not the main reason for death, but it may contribute.

Please refer to this wikipedia page for more information on fan death.

This is a wonderful example of how bogus media can be and how many people BELIEVE anything the media tells them!  So think twice when you are watching your news or reading your paper..

and....

Run your fan at night, you won't die.  Trust me I do it ALL the TIME!  I'm going to tell every Korean that I run a fan while I sleep and try to get them to do the same.

Hmmm What shall I cook in Korea?

I've been pondering what I'll be cooking at my apartment in Korea because I can't be eating out all the time.  Even though eating out in Korea is much cheaper than the states it still should be cheaper to cook at home.  Plus, I'll have a plethora of Korean goodies to cook with and should take the chance to learn how to cook more than one or two Korean dishes.  I also love how Korean markets will have a lot of stuff necessary to cook the Vietnamese food that I have fallen in love with over the past few years, so I'll be cooking up some of that.  So after perusing the Korean internets, yes I believe there are more than one internet because of the different languages, I landed upon a food blog called Mom's 행복 밥상 (very roughly translated to happy food desk).  Oh my are there tons of recipes of Korean dishes most of which I didn't know exist.  There's even recipes for the many banchan dishes that are usually always served at Korean meals.  I've always wanted to learn how to make banchan dishes but never could find any.

First thing I want to make is...

And this......

Now all I have to do is start translating these recipes and I'm set.

Noday Bang (노래방 Karaoke) Funnies

This is hilarious!!!

This is a clip from Flight of the Conchords that I remember seeing a while ago and when I did see it I laughed hysterically.  Bret does a pretty good job singing the song!  I've gone out with friends to sing at 노래방 (no-day-bang = karaoke rooms) in Boston and get the reference.  They are picking on the old time songs that Koreans sing at 노래방.  Notice how the background is of very random scenes.  This is pretty much exactly what you would see on the karaoke screen, random scenes and the lyrics at the bottom.  The Karaoke rooms are private rooms that are decked out (though the ones in Boston aren't) like so...

I'm looking forward to going to a 노래방 with the teachers and principles that I'll be working with.  Usually they have outings after work called 회식 (hwaye-shik = company dinner) where they all go out to eat and drink 소주 (soju = korean liquor) then go out and sing at a 노래방.  They have English and Korean songs so no one is left out but I'll sing a few Korean songs I know.

Until then, I'll learn some more tunes and maybe post some on the net.

My Ddokbokki (떡볶이) Recipe

As I said before, I thought I cooked better than the ddokbokki at H-Mart.  Well tonight I went to a friend's house to do a little jamming and we usually cook weird awesome food so I contributed some of my ddokbokki to the meal.  We started with the ddokbokki, bread and avocado before we had spaghetti with pesto.  Delicious.  No one in my friend's family had tried Korean food and they seem to enjoy spicy so I thought this was a good idea.  It was about a 100 degrees today so it wasn't the best choice because the ddokbokki made me sweat a little more but them seemed to enjoy it.

Anyway here it is in its poor photo goodness.

If anyone is adventurous and wants to try my recipe:

1 Bag of Rice cakes (ddok)
2 cups of water

half an onion diced (usually use green onions but this is all I had)

3 cloves of garlic smashed

a few fish cakes (didn't have any this time to put in)

Sauce:
3 tablespoons of red pepper paste (gochujang)
1 tablespoon of honey
1 tablespoon of ketchup
1 teaspoon of Soy Sauce
1 teaspoon of sesame oil


Directions:
Put some olive oil or sesame oil in a medium pan on medium heat.  While the pan heats up combine and mix all of the sauce ingredients in a small bowl.  If you can't handle too spicy then lower the amount of red pepper paste and add some more of the honey and ketchup.  Put the sauce to the side.  Throw on the garlic and onions and let them get golden brown.  Throw in the bag of rice cakes and two cups of water, let sit for 3-5 minutes or until the rice cakes start to get slightly squishy.  Strain the water from the rice cake, onions and garlic.  Put the pan back on the burner with the rice cakes/onions/garlic and add the sauce mixture.  Add a little water to made it somewhat soupy.  Let the sauce cook for 1 minute and serve.

Serves about 6-8 people.