How much did you know about Iceland before the volcano erupted?  Be honest.  I’m guessing most knew little to nothing, or maybe just that it was the first European country to announce bankruptcy after the global financial crisis.  That’s what I thought.  It doesn’t make international press too frequently.  I’m sure most people still don’t know very much about Iceland…including myself.  But this will soon change.

Long before any of this volcano business started last week, I had been planning a trip to Iceland on a super cheap flight via Icelandair, as the first stop in my trans-Eurasian odyssey.   Maybe for some people the eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull (say that five times fast) would put a damper on their eagerness to visit this North Atlantic island, but not for me.  I am as excited as ever.  I just hope they lift the air traffic restrictions soon, which as far as I’ve read, will hopefully happen at any time now.   It’s pretty amazing that this volcano has kicked up so much sediment and vapourized glass shards to immobilize all of Western Europe’s air traffic.  I am eager to witness the raw force of nature again.   I haven’t felt as vulnerable as when I was trapped in the dark in a Catholic Church dormitory on the southernmost tip of Taiwan as a typhoon raged outside my window.  I am strangely drawn to the mysterious and primeval forces that churn above and below the earth’s crust.  It’s easy to forget about how temperamental nature can be when you live in Canada, a land devoid of many of the worst natural disasters.

There sure have been some amazing pictures coming out Iceland from this natural disaster.  Be sure to check out the National Geographic website for some mesmerizing photographs.

This reminds me of a simple little poem by Robert Frost that always made me smile.

In other news:

I just got my super camera and now it’s only a matter of time before I disappear and put it to good use in Europe.  I have less than 20 days left in Canada.  I feel a little happy/nauseous just thinking about it.

I have my French examinations next week, and then I’m home for a week and off to New York before flying (with luck) to Iceland.  I keep making more and more connections from people willing to host me on their floor or couches in far flung places across Europe.   If any of you people have friends in any country in Europe who would be willing to host a silly boy from Canada whose got the wanderlust, please message me or put me in contact with whomever you know.  It would be greatly appreciated.

Starting now, I hope to make more regular contributions to this site, including videos, pictures and stories.

Stay tuned for more hilarity, sorrow, camaraderie and joy.

Also, this is a cool video

• To drive from Whitby to Montreal takes 6 hours.

By no stretch of the imagination can this be considered a long geographical distance, but after living here for the last two months, it feels likes its oceans away from the banality of Whitby.   Don’t get me wrong, Whitby has been good to me, and I am especially grateful to have been reared in such an beautiful area of the city, but Montreal just oozes character and charm like few to no other Canadian cities can.  I can’t help but feel like I’m in Europe already, with the different languages, different foods, architecture, fashion, music and lifestyles.  Montreal is just a delightful city and it has far surpassed my expectations.  I don’t foresee myself living in Canada for extended periods of time in the next 5 or more years, but if I do, I know where I’ll be.   Montreal has entranced me with her siren song.  She’s got me hooked.

I’m working out the final details for my next excursion.  I can’t help feeling giddy with anticipation.  My job is not the greatest, but I can’t complain too much, I have a job, and I was employed within a week of setting foot in this city by nothing more than luck.   I’ve heard innumerable stories from Anglophones who moved to Montreal looking for work and after 4 or more years found nothing or little more than part-time work for minimum wage.  My job isn’t flattering, but the hours are constant and the tips are decent.   Besides, every time I need to bus a sticky table for an ungrateful server, or listen to the grotesquely rich and arrogant brag about the fortunes while devouring their medium rare sirloins, I just think about the twisted corridors and alleyways, winding canals of a medieval city that I’m soon to explore, or the forgotten shorelines hidden on the Mediterranean or the ice cold beers to be served to me in the same fashion as has been the custom for hundreds of years.  I think of festivals and fireworks.  Fjords and siestas.   Glaciers and open-air markers.   No matter what stresses my job or school bring me, if I let my mind wander the path my legs will soon walk I can’t stay bitter very long.  Daydreaming has a way at alleviating my every worry.

Also, one another note...

My blog has a analystical stats recording feature.  It tells me the traffic on my site.  What search engines and keywords people use to find my website.   This is what the top three are…

1. RED LIGHT DISTRICT GWANGJU

1. KOREAN RED LIGHT DISTRICT

1. KOREAN SEXY BARBERSHOP MASSAGE

Man, there must be a lot of really lonely and perverted guys hanging in an around Gwangju.   Let me be clear about this…I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT RED LIGHT DISTRICTS IN KOREA.  I posted one lousy thing about how strangely translucent the sex trade was in Korea and now my website appears on the headlines of google searches by sex-crazed foreigners.  Hey fellas, from now on, search elsewhere for your jollies.

On yet another note…check out this beautiful video below.

Life in Haiti-Canon 5D MKII & Glidetrack from Leclerc Brothers Motion Pictures on Vimeo.

I haven’t found myself writing on this blog for quite a while.  I figure I should devote a few minutes and write where I am and what I’m currently doing.

I am living in Montreal with my girlfriend.  Starting next week I will be studying French in an intensive program, and today, I start my job at the Keg.  I’m planning my future misadventures and trying to enjoy my life and my short time in this charming city.

I have been reading like its my job to do so.  Mostly Hemmingway and Steinbeck.  There is something so captivating about the lives of these two authors, and of course, their brilliant works.  I’m unsure why the Lost Generation writers speak to me on such a personal level.  Maybe it’s because they write stories about the triumphs of the human spirit over the adversities of the world, the dignity in degradation, the struggle to overcome ones demons, or maybe it’s the authors’ biographies that stir me.  Hemmingway lived a life of mythos, and though it was short (he committed suicide on his Idaho ranch at the age of 61), he lived more experiences and survived more death-defying exploits than most could even imagine.   For me, the sympathies that those of the Lost Generation captured with their words have never ended.  I feel more at home perusing the pages of these books than the city of my birth.  They evoke weird sensations in me.  I want to sell all my worldly belongings and see how far I can get on my empty stomach and my calculated wits.  I want to get punched in the face for my principles.  I want to get arrested.  I want to be exiled.  I want to write something dangerous and compelling.

Here's just a taste of what I'm ranting about:

Afterward I went to bed and when they were all asleep and she was sure they would not call she came in.  I loved to take her hair down ans she sat on the bed and kept very still, except suddenly she would dip down and kiss me while I was doing it, and I would take out the pins and lay them on the sheet and it would be loose and I would watch her while she kept very still and then take out the last two pins and it would all come down and she would drop her head and we would both be inside of it, and it was the feeling of inside a tent or behind a falls.

Ernest Hemmingway – A Farewell to Arms – p.114.

and…

…Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among the ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe.  But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands.

John Steinbeck – East of Eden – p.280

and finally…

Names are a great mystery.  I’ve never known whether the name is molded by the child or the child changed to fit the name.  But you can be sure of this–whenever a human has a nickname it is proof that the name given him was wrong…

John Steinbeck – East of Eden – p. 261

I will try to write more often…I promise.

Buckles from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.

Kites in India from Macgregor on Vimeo.

Shaving It Back: Canon 7d from Philip Bloom on Vimeo

I’m really considering buying myself a Canon EOS 500D so I can make some HD videos myself

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?…I should grow myself a beard.

The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Waterlife

looks absolutely,

stunning.

I can’t wait

to watch it.

Check out the website too.

waterlife.nfb.ca

My Wordpress has stopped working correctly. I can no longer post pictures until I figure out what’s gone wrong or I reload everything, which worries me because I just got this site how I liked it and I’d hate to mess things up now.

I have lots of pictures to post and stories to tell, but until I devote the hours to fix the problem with my website’s script, I’m afraid these video links will have to suffice.

Iran: A nation of bloggers from Mr.Aaron on Vimeo.

Sia | Soon We’ll Be Found from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Cool.

Taking the advice from a few wise friends,

I’ve decided to look at my current state of stagnation as a fiscal test.   With all certainty, I am going to save as much money as I can in this country and see as much of the world with it as possible.  Of course, this is easier said than done, especially when considering that, as it appears to me, almost all the foreigners and local Koreans require alcohol to have any measure of fun in this country, and alcohol is surprisingly expensive in this East Asian peninsula.  Having said that, maybe inebriation is seasonal, and winter in Korea is just more bleak than that of which I’m accustomed.  It is gray and uninviting, with few outdoor activities to break the monotony of its damp and penetrating cold.  Maybe everyone gets drunk to warm their bones, and hopefully, once spring fully spreads it’s wings and the mercury rises, my possibilities will also expand.  Time will tell.

I’m currently/finally reading, Ernesto Guevara’s memoirs, “The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey,” after watching the movie adaptation time and time again.  I’ve heard former acquaintances in classes criticize the book, but to be honest, I’m absolutely spellbound by Guevara’s abilities as a writer to capture the natural spirit of traveling headlong into the unknown.  He’s adding to my landlocked blues, but it’s inspiring at the same time.  He illustrates the fear, the hunger, the excitement, the curiosity, the loneliness and the freedom that inhabits the mind of someone exploring an distant land, and at the same time, gives some pretty useful tips on ways to get out of limbo, advice I might need to use during my future exploits.

I read this on the train from Seoul and I had to close the book for a few minutes…

I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel…Still, there are moments when I think with profound longing of those wonderful areas in our south.  Perhaps one day, tired of circling the world, I’ll return to Argentina and settle in the Andean lakes, if not indefinitely then at least for a pause while I shift from one understanding of the world to another.  – Ernesto Guevara – The Motorcycle Diaries

There are few words or people who could explain this better.

If you haven’t watched this movie yet, do yourself the pleasure;

I’m going to keep on keeping on.  At least time is flying by, and before I know it my year’s contract will be up.  It won’t be long before I can walk the openroad again, answer my mistress’s wayward calls, whose whispers tease my half-sleeping ears.  I can float to her somewhere humid, feel her curves beneath me and breathe in her sweet scent.  We both know we will see eachother again, when the time is right, when I can yank my roots out and shake away the soil.

Lately, I’ve been feeling rather distracted and restless in the little world I’ve carved out for myself. This doesn’t bode well for my next ten months of employment—A distracted Lucas an impulsive Lucas.

I’m planning my prison escape. I’m looking for the weak point in the wall, the gap in the fence, the handholds to climb.

More and more, I spend work breaks surfing discount airline sites. They talk dirty to me. I can’t help it, really I can’t.

When I pass idling motobikes left alone as their delivery men run inside their noodle shops to pick up other deliveries, I ponder how far I could get on a single stolen tank of gas. Would anyone catch me before I got to the ocean? I doubt it. I’d make it all the way, windburnt and weightless.

I miss the ache in my neck from carrying all my worldly possessions on my back. I miss the rush of terror and the goose-bumps from crossing the street, parting the flow of all forms of vehicles, as they pass me by, only inches away. I miss buses and trains, delayed departures and cancellations. I miss sand. I miss my distrust and the way it keeps me sharp. I miss a little fear in the pit of my stomach. I miss the open road and my blistered feet to walk it.

Sorry, I got “tangled up in trite” for a moment there. Time to go teach some kids.

I just stumbled upon some new gems…give em a listen…trust me.

TV on the Radio – Dancing Choose

TV on the Radio – Shout Me Out

Erykah Badu- Soldier

High Places – Namer

Frightened Rabbit – The Twist

Frightened Rabbit – Poke

Holly Miranda – Slow Burn Treason – Ft. Kyp Malone

Check out more Holly Miranda and The Jealous Girlfriends.

Also!

My sister sent me this trailer. Maybe its because I’m still all too infatuated with Japan, or maybe it’s my film-snobbery, but whatever the reason, this trailer gave me chills…

So, I’m educating Korea’s next generation!

Yes, it still makes me laugh too.

I realize that I haven’t posted anything for quite some time. I’m a working man now, and I’ve still got to get settled into the flow of things around my workplace. I need to get my bearings still and make more time for writing and updating people back home.

To catch everyone up on what I’ve been doing with myself;

I teach very small classes of extremely intelligent 7-10 year olds for the first three hours of every workday. My favourite class has four students, one girl with a better vocabulary than most Canadian adults, another girl who I have personally molded into a confident and capable speaker in only three weeks, an ingenious and devilish 7-year-old who tries to trick me into buying him candy with almost Kantian philosophical poise, and another boy who was labeled a “trouble-child” in every other class he enters, but gives me no trouble at all because I was a hellion when I was his age and I know how to reason with his kind.

In the late afternoon I teach early teenagers, and just like teenagers everywhere, they are a handful. Little kids are so much easier to motivate. They want to learn, they are competitive and want to obliterate their fellow classmates and ridicule them mercilessly. All you have to do is mention BIO (assorted chewy fruit candies) and they straighten up in their chairs the their eyes widen, ready, in fully attention. However, the older students just want to fix their bangs and endlessly whisper gossip in their native tongue. I’ve finally gotten through with them, it just took some time.

In the evening, I teach some highschool students who are interested in reading English novels. Before I came they worked their way through several of the Harry Potter books, and currently I’m teaching them Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie. The previous teaching taught them simply by drilling them; “Who did this at what time?,” and close to thirty other questions, all of which I think were uselessly sterile. I’m working on making these kids understand what they are reading, and not just regurgitate the direct words from the novels. It’s really challenging, especially since the Korean education system stifles thought, opinion-making and individuality. I’m starting to sway some of the kids. It’s slow-going, but when one of the kids gets the meaning of some obscure passage I can barely contain my excitement.

I’ve developed a pretty good teaching-alter-ego. I try to balance somewhere between cool, funny, attentive, understanding, yet at the same time, demanding. I’m also allowed to yell at students and send them from my classroom, which I’ve only had to do twice in three weeks. One boy was cheating for his vocabulary test and then murmured Korean insults at me when I caught him, and another girl was trying to anger me by obstinately refusing to answer the assigned questions. You know how psychologists who have studied prison guards or other authoritarian jobs have concluded that power can change people and make the average compassionate person drunk on the authority of their position, making them live up to the roles of a heartless and condemning goon; Well casting a child from your room gives you a similar cold chill of excitement, not that I’m getting power-drunk on yelling at 14-year-olds, but I definitely can see how “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” so to speak. I guess I will keep this in check…but it is really fun.

I went to Seoul last weekend for Lunar New Years.

I will explain my trip in a few details;

Downed a few bottles of raspberry wine on the bullet train from Gwangju to Seoul at 10:30.

Stayed up until dawn dancing with an eccentric group of holligans.

Sang at the top of my lungs with a room full of foreign teachers.

Ate burritos, pizza, hamburgers, and fish n’chips.

Made the acquaintances of a delightful Korean girl named Jungsu.

Spent too much money from my first paycheck.

Graded homework the whole train ride home.

It was a great time, and the company was amazing. My friend Emily truly helped my enterage out by giving us free rein of her spare room and touring us around town. She’s coming down in two weeks and I hope to help repay the favour.

That pretty much sums things up. Teaching all day, five days a week, and then dancing the weekends away. It’s a pretty good life.

Here’s some good music;

TV on the Radio – Dreams

TV on the Radio – Family Tree

Frightened Rabbit – The Greys

Frightened Rabbit – Heads Roll Off

Erykah Badu – Honey

Crystal Castles – Courtship Dating

MGMT – Time to Pretend

Justice – Stress

Justice – No Stress

The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of Understatement

Lightspeed Champion

Your eyes do not deceive you.  I am officially employed at 2 Months Language School!  It is about time!  I’ll tell you about my experiences later.  Right now, I have to do some marking.

Christmas away from Whitby just didn’t feel right.  Those of you who know me well know I’m not the biggest fan of Christmas, or as I like to call it, Corporate Annual Gift Exchange Day, but my resistance to the material obsessive nature of the holidays still doesn’t negate the fact that from December 24th-January 1st nothing beats being well-fed at home surrounded by my closest friends and family.

I still had a good time hanging out in Gwangju for the holidays.  I don’t quite feel like explaining my adventures, so instead I’ll sum it up in a few simple sentences.

Saw an old man fight a bus driver.

Saw a drunk driver crash a motorcycle while riding with a passenger on the back.

Ate Christmas curry while drinking Japanese sake.

Read several more books.

Warmed my frozen body with a drunk Korean groundskeeper at a temple around a blazing fire.

Fell asleep at a karaoke room.

Fell asleep in a taxi.

That pretty much sums it up alright.  It was fun.  I’ve met a whole bunch new people with similar tastes in music, movies and books.  I’m working on making some sort of book exchange for foreigners in the city who are as desperate for English reading materials as I am.

I hope everyone’s holidays were as good or better than mine, and of course, I am thinking of and missing everyone back in Canada.

Before I get to the best of the bests, here is the first installment of a little project Brad and I have been tinkering with, called Soju Socials.

Soju is Korea’s most famous contribution to the world of alcohol. It is a pillar of Korean culture and can be said that it is the cause and solution to all of Korea’s problems.

Now, without further ado, The Best Music Videos, Albums and Songs of 2008.

The Best – Music Videos

by Culture Bully.

The Best – Albums #1

by Culture Bully.

Albums #2

by Gorilla Vs. Bear.

Album #3

by Stereogum

Album #4

The Best – Songs #1

My internet is acting up.  I’ll finish this later.

     It’s strange how without warning one day tucks into another like tattered yellow-pages; how an entire week can so easily slip through one’s grasp like loose grains of sand; how another month can crawl across the cold terrain to reveal its ugly grey head.  How exactly does this happen?  Maybe its because I’ve been waiting for a visa confirmation with no set time-frame as reference.  Patiently, I always thought to myself with optimism, tomorrow will be the day that I get the call, get the email, get the telegram, smoke-signal, carrier-pigeon, bat-signal, or any form of communication that grants me the peace of mind to focus on something else but the waiting; to end my expanse of listlessness; give me the desire to get outside and explore. For almost two months, each day passed the same as before, until weeks and months had evaded my recognition and escaped appreciation—wasted and worthless.

       I realize, in the grand scheme of things, a day or two, some overlooked weeks, or even a few months is absolutely nothing, but at the same time, I can’t help but look at how I was for the first four months of travelling, and feel rather disheartened.  While travelling, I felt it painfully hard to stand still in one place for more than five days—a week stuck anywhere was unacceptable, and a month was never even a remote consideration.  I did something productive every single day—museums, temples, beaches, forests, parks, mountains, rivers, markets, festivals, anything that kept me moving, thinking, energetic and excited.   I walked places without direction, got lost, found little hidden corners and crevices of cities forgotten by the eager gaze of time; I made friends with passer-bys and was invited into strange situations, to witness someone’s daily life, maybe a family’s reality, and revelled at what I before never knew existed.  In comparison, I can’t help but feel these last two months were morally disappointing and unfulfilling, and right now, as I write this, I also think that waiting here in Korea has temporarily cheapened, if not sullied, the great times I had while on the road.  It would be different if I had come home right after Singapore, but truthfully, I didn’t yet feel ready.   If I had the resources, I would have kept going at full-force.  The travel wasn’t always easy, and in my mind I can recall the hot, damp claustrophobia of over-packed bus-rides that made my skin crawl, but I always knew that the bus had an end destination, and I never felt fatigued enough to quit my wanderings.  I came to Korea because I ran out of money, not will power, and I stayed because of my stubbornness—I needed to defeat Korea’s archaic immigration policies.  What started as a moral crusade, soon turned into a long, drawn-out, bureaucratic mess, and my zeal got tangled up in red tape and my need for frugality.

  Enough melodrama.  The day I officially start teaching is January 5^th.  I could have started earlier, but to show my director’s good nature, she informed me that if I started earlier I would be shafted out of a paid vacation.  Seeing how I only get two in a year, I figured it be best to wait a little while longer (Dun* Dun* Dun*) and start instead, in early January.  Hot damn.

Here’s some music videos I like to watch…

Here’s a video recap of my misadventures;

Now that I have my laptop and a movie editing program, I hope to make a lot more videos to post up here. Stay tuned to see what antics I’ll get myself into next.

Staying couped up inside while patiently awaiting my visa approval is slowly driving me crazy. I have cabin fever. I don’t have enough money to go on adventures, but conserving my resources by waiting is making me crawl in my own skin. I’m planning a prison escape. Don’t tell the guards.

On another note, I’ve decided to do a…

***Public Service Announcement for Any English Teacher Hopefuls***

I admit, I should have done more research before wandering into this country with the expectation of easily getting a working visa and starting a job teaching. I was naive. I really expected it to be a simple process. I assumed I’d have a few weeks of waiting time and before I knew it I’d be at the helms of an English class. Little did I know, I had an arduous process I’d have to undergo and numerous hoops to jump through to get this silly piece of paper that states I’m qualified to legally teach English in Korea. For everyone who has ever considered the possibility of coming to Korea in the near future to teach, I hope my simple advice will save you some hassles and headaches.

The Korean immigration process is incredibly archaic, and in recent times, they have tightened the regulations making it even more difficult to ascertain a working visa. Don’t get me wrong, they have some legitimate reasons for tightening up their standards. Interpol did an investigation of the native English teachers in Korea and discovered that a large amount of these people had criminal records in their home countries, many of which were arrested in sexually-related or drug-related crimes, or had histories of violence. The most publicized story revolves around Christopher Neil, who was a Canadian pedophile, teaching children in Gwangju, Korea. You can read about the story here. I understand that ultimately, the education of Korean children and their safety is at stake, and it is essential that the teachers who are coming into this country should not pose a threat. However, having acknowledged that their is a need for regulations, I think they have a foolishly strict policy for preventing people from getting a working visa who are already inside Korea. You’d think they would be more interested in hiring someone who they could meet in person to interview, over someone who applies from their home country via an emailed resume with a photo attachment.    Strangely enough, this is not the case. I have had a harder time than most because I’ve had to wait for documents to be sent to me from home, just to send signed copies back to Canada to be approved, and then wait for them to be returned to me once again in Korea. In the technological era, it just seems strangely outdated.  If you are traveling and hope to stop in Korea to get a job, think twice.  It is very difficult and the process will drive you crazy.  Go home and apply from there.  Trust me.

So, for those of you who have considered someday teaching in Korea, I can make the following suggestions;

• Firstly, consider applying for a public school position. In theory, the pay is a little less than private institutes, but the working hours are better day-by-day and these jobs offer 90 days of paid vacation time per yearly contract. In my opinion, this is well worth a little less pay. Also, these teachers have nights off, and though it is technically illegal, you can easily teach private lessons on the side in your evenings and make enough to survive off your private earnings while completely banking your public school earnings. Because you are hired by the government, the hiring process takes longer. I’ve been told the hiring of public school teachers takes at least three months. Overall, most of the people I’ve heard speak about their jobs in public school, have nothing but positive things to say.

• If you want more immediate money, you should consider private institutes. They have worst working hours, usually 1PM-9PM, or 2PM-10PM, five days a week, with split shifts over the summer and winter vacation with hours ranging from 8AM-11AM and then again from 5PM-9PM. Private institutes only offer 10 days a year off for vacation time. Also, something to consider, private institutes are businesses, often with no governing body to regulate labour rights and quality of education. But ultimately, they pay better salaries, which for many people with mounting student debts, is the most important perk.

• Whatever job you decide to take, read the contract inside and out. You will hear bosses tell you things like, “In Korea contracts are not important because here in the ‘East’ the employee/employer relationship is based on trust and mutual respect.” With these sorts of sentiments, employers justify forcing employees to work tasks outside of their contracted services, often without overtime pay. This is mostly a problem with private institutes because as I said before, they are businesses that want to capitalize on their gains. Be wary, and don’t let employers bully or guilt-trip you into working above and beyond the duties listed in your contract.

• Take your time deciding what position to take. If sometime doesn’t sound right, it probably isn’t. Ask your employer or recruiter about the aspects of the contract that don’t sit well with you. If they clarify or verbally refute parts of the contract, ask them to put it in writing for you. From what I understand, Korean employers will go out of their way to avoid shame and disrespect. If you feel you’re rights are being infringed on, confront your employer in private. If things still persist, stand strong and even make a scene if you have to. They will concede for the sake of their business and their reputation.

• Come to Korea with enough money to survive for at least a month and a half–approximately $700 CAD. It is common in the industry for teachers to work for more than 45 days without receiving any pay. This is hard for people who’ve come to Korea to make immediate money.

Below is a site that is particularly helpful for those who are planning on teaching in Korea and also many other world destinations.  Give the site a read, or email me any questions you might have.  I’m no authority, but I learn more an more about teaching in Korea each day and I’ve spent the better part of two months discussing teaching with foreign teachers to know what the deal is.

• Dave’s ESL Cafe

It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough, it is your God-given right to have it.

Jon Krakauer – Into The Wild

So, I might have neglected to mention to you, my readers, that I am now a teacher of English Literature at Two Months Academy in Gwangju City, Jeollanam-do province, in the great Republic of Korea.

All my paperwork is yet to be completely finalized, but tomorrow I’m going in to do a demo class to get accustomed to standing at the front of a class room teaching Korean children the finer points of the English language. I’m experiencing a mixture of excitement and nervousness…mostly excitement, especially after waiting so long to get my documents in order to be granted a working visa within South Korea’s incredibly archaic application process.

The pictures above came from this weekend. Brad and I met some British teachers who just started teaching in the Gwangju area. Vikki is the blond-haired young woman and Bradley is the sharply-dressed bloke beside me in the pictures. They are a lot of fun. Gwangju is a great little city and I’m happy to finally settle down and have a bed to call my own–I’m looking forward to anything softer than a hardwood floor, which is all I’ve know as a bed for the last two weeks.

Funny story; Brad’s apartment is down the street from two of Korea’s most prevalent yet contradictory establishments. There is at least ten churches stationed beside or nearby a very active red-light district. This is not uncommon to anyone who has visited South Korea before. Almost every city in Korea has a skyline dotted with neon signs flashing advertisements for sex-motels, “VIP business clubs” and sexy-massage parlours. For those who are planning on visiting South Korea, a little pointer–if you need a haircut, make sure you go to a shop has a single spinning barber shop pole, not a shop with two spinning poles, because from what I gather, the “service” at a double pole shops doesn’t extend to anything above the waste.

Below is a video of Brad and I doing a walking tour of his entertaining neighbourhood…

    When I think about leaving tomorrow morning the saying, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” keeps coming to mind.  I have been bombarded with congratulations and well-wishing from all of my friends and family and I’m now beginning to fully comprehend how much I will miss you all.  Thank you.  Inevitably, I will change on my travels and those of you staying here and moving on with your busy lives will also change, but for now, I just want to say this; I hold all of you dear and you will be in my thoughts where ever I go.  I’ve also realized there is an inadequacy of the English language to describe how I’m feeling.  If I were to coin a term it would have to be “euphorasadness”, eu·phor’a’sadness- excited to go, but sorry to leave. 

Anyways, enough melancholy, here’s some cool songs…

Basia Bulat – before I knew

Lykke Li -dance dance dance 

Crooked Fingers -You must build a fire

The Black Lips – Bad kids

Lupe Fiasco – Daydreamin