i found a place that sells "barrilitos de cerveza" y "chasquitos".. both lollies from mexico? I was amazed.

The guy at the shop was asking me something, the only thing that i could understand was if children ate these things in mexico.. but he kept asking me the same question as if the correct answer wasn't yes. =) People often talk to me even though i say in my broken korean that i do not speak korean. I've picked up the frase "I don't know" from my kids, who end up saying 'bolayo' quite often during my classes.. 'bola' for short. Poor kids.

I've also have been forced to take a new class, which pushes my week's number to 21 80-minute classes. I'm not happy. I never really liked being the art teacher for all the little preschoolers and now I am incharge of yet another preeschool class. I am not only thier art teacher but I also have to feed them. Believe me when I tell you, feeding is not fun. I find Korean food not the most tasty food in the world, but bad Korean food is simply disgusting. =) The other thing is that it cuts into my morning planning.. now, i am definitely going to have to be at the school by 11 am each day and work five classes in a row on tu and thu.. Not only do i not get lunch, I also don't have a break at all until the last class...The only good thing of the arrangement is that because all the teachers got really upset about having to take this class, they are paying me overtime for this class .

The preschoolers are cute but they are insane. Our school didn't invest in a playroom so they have nothing to play with and go insane throwing things at each other and pretending to fight. Someone always cries. Today one of the girls that suffers from Princess Syndrome (this is a seriously defined syndrome in Korea) asked me if she could look down my shirt...'teachaaa.. only me'.. hehehe. I'll never know their names either.. I resolved this in my other classes by giving everybody english names.. this will come and bite me in the ass, i know it, but right now it is quite happy.

How did I ever end up as a teacher? I forget easily, I barely know things that are relevant to MY own life, am lazy, and i am very informal. I don't like to be defined by my classes.. I have several siblings in different classes and i wonder what they say to their parents: in once class i am brilliant, in the other I am absolutely terrible. The same activites will fail in some classes and in other classes they are true gems!

On a whole different topic, I have become quite curious in the linguistics of my life right now.. I am reading a fascinating book that builds upon the chomsky idea that if a martian where to come to the earth it would find that we speak one language.. (there's a very extensive explanation for that) but a lot of the book compares the difference between an SVO (subject, verb, object) language like english and an SOV language like Japanese and Korean...I am fascinated by how hard it is for the kids in a program like slp, which insists in oonversation-only and no grammar, to extract knowledge from what we are doing; or extrapelate ideas from their own life (in Korean) to English. After 4 years of slp they still say 'teach, you can do what?" EVEN THOUGH,in Korean, "mwo" has the same meaning AND position as what in english.

The first e-update from Korea has been long waiting to be written.. alas, here it is. It is long and I am surrounded by about 20 kids playing computer games , so please be patient w/ me.
The move here, as you know, was extremely hasty and I felt very unhappy to have chosen this path. It did seem at times, though, that this was THE path I was being thrown into. My apartment was absolutely disgusting when
I arrived, but after my roomate arrived we cleaned it and after two weeks there is still so much to do to make it be normal. I have a roomate, her name is Steph and she is, as she says, an oil brat: Her father is in
the oil bussiness and she has lived in many different places, like Kuwait, Texas, and before Korea, Malaysia. She is v. anal and organized and she paid
A THOUSAND DOLLARS in excess baggage to bring her shit here. hehehehehehehe. I was very fortunate to have my other friend Stephanie Macphail with me in Minneapolis because i might have paid 50 bucks or so to bring shitty stuff that I can buy here in a second! =) But Stephanie Nimckok (my roomate now) is really cool
and we get along great. There must be some wisdom embedded in all the perfect friends and roomates I have had. =) Anyways, my neighborhood is v. quiet, there is a big middle school right in front of my apartment, which is
very, very lucky as it is unclear exactly where we live and the only way to tell taxis to take us home is to say we live behind block 13 and in front
of the kognun school. It works great. I walk to work, its just about 15 minutes and the walk right now is gorgeous! Sanbon is really pretty, with its
mountains and hills, and they are all spotted in green, red, and yellow. Koreans' desire to rebuild what the japanese destroyed also means there is a
gigantic tree every few feet. This is v. happy at times, but the fact that besides all the trees there is so many koreans everywhere also means there is no place to walk in the sidewalk. =)

(o.k. kids are fighting behind me.. it seems i'm in the only computer that is not being used for games.. they must not like that.. computer game dominance)

Work is bloody hectic. I teach three classes of preschool (art and crafts) and I have to feed the little buggers, thus, three days a week i have to arrive at school at around 11 am. Food is delivered from a restaurant dowsntairs and i rarely eat it.. i am not yet used to the many unhapy smells of korean food. (this is only to my non Korean nose... i am certain many of my american and mexican happy smells are quite disgusting to people from other cultures) =) Besides of preeschool I teach three different classes on MWF and four classes on TTh. i get home at around 9 pm each day and i am pooped by then.

Seoul is about an hour train ride from where i live, and the subway station is just about a 30 min walk from my apartment. I am going to try and
go every weekend to a different part of the city.. There is soo much to do!

i am still amazed at how a person who is unable to utter anything more than the most basic greeting can manage to live in this country. =) I
haven't experienced any bad vibes from people in the streets. No, wait.. there was one time. I was in the metro and this old guy was sitting in the 'old peoples' section and I was standing, you know, me being v.
considerate... and one seat opened next to the old guy (let it be clear that he was
an old guy like a grandfather and not like one of those nasty old guys).. so
he swiftly slapped my bum and told me to sit nex to him.. so, I did.. no sooner had i sat down that another old guy ran from what seemed the other end of the bloody train, yelling at me... =) the original bum slapping old
guy just laughed.. =) But apparently besides being yelled at by old men, the only other bad thing that can happen is to be asked if we are 'ruskis' or russians.. some russian women who come to 'work' here are prostitutes. But talking about russians, I went to this part of town that has one of the largest shopping centers of Asia (I did not know this, of course, and was there to meet up with the Ecuadorian folk music players I had met last week) and saw so many russian restaurants. Actually I have no idea if there were restaurants or not. This market, though, was crazy.. crazy, crazy! i mean so much stuff.. and so cheap.. this is were all the arabs come and buy
their clothes.. hahahaha.. for real! and i would to if any of it would fit!

Other notes on Korea: they recycle everything! The kids have school on saturday and many people have to work on sunday too ( and i mean 12
hr days), I passed through the stalls of fried larvae twice today and wanted so badly to stop and try it but i was alone and didn't want to make a fool out of myself. Seoul is v. smoggy... very, very. Everybody has this tiny
little dogs and whenever you see a big dog there is ALWAYS a big crowd around them.
Pizza Hut costs 30 dollars per pizza and it comes with a variety of pickels..none of which are spicy... =( And Korea is soooo similar to mexico.. oh my god, i am starting to sound like a broken record to
all my coworkers.. "oh, this is just like mexico".. =) it is sooo strange. But then again, that's what I say of everywhere i go. Um, they do not ferment
their beer naturally and thus it is best to stay away from korean beer that has been chemically fermented. Actually everything is v. chemical.. =)
Korean is soo hard! =) but again, I feel v. happy that english is so close to me. There is
not that many foreigners around here, which is hard.. since for most of my life abroad i've tried to remain far away from foreigners and now they are my only hope for a social life. =) most korean in sanbon do not speak
english. Mind you, when we went to evangelical church in seoul we found all
the koreans that spoke english.. too bad they were crazy. Finally since in Korean there is no difference between the letter R and the letter L,
my last name is ra-ra.. =)

Ai.. Ai.. I just realized that I overdrafted my bank account and there is really no particular reason for that to have happened, except that I totally forgot to keep an eye on my money. MONEY IS FUCKING IMPORTANT AND HERE I AM WASTING IT!

I am a bit miserable.

But its my own doing that has caused this.. I am overwhelmed by so many emotions, I feel stuck, and I feel unloved despite the wondeful expressions of love from my friends and family. It is that feeling of emptiness and void when one's head is in a billion different places.

I also feel lost and abandoned by the system, by not having internet access except for the one hour a day I can have at the local library, if its open on that day. And for having a prescription filled but only partly because my doctor wrote it so, and for having to use a ridiculous bus system that costs too much, takes too long, and doesn't go most places; for having to pay so much for things that should not cost this bloody much! If I feel like this, like the absolutely lonely soul that I am, then imagine those that really have less.

I wasted money, and I don't even have anything to prove that I enjoyed it.

How can a person move on when there is so much guilt to bury them alive?

How to have 'no regrets"?

I also miss my family very much.

But things will be fine. I will be fine, won't everyone?

Today is my last day of work. My last day with this life - life as I have known for a year.

How sad and crushed I feel. How overwhelmingly repentent. In my mind I feel like nothing will be different, I can weave my way in and out of this life, come back when I please, but that, that, is not true. Someone will replace me, and this gap that I leave will be quickly filled. They'll be a new HUC (health unit coordinator), a new buddy, a new friend, a new salsa partner, a new roomate.

By the time I come back the places in which I fit will have become the inpenetrable wall of insiders; I will have become an outsider.

And that is where I am now, bouncing from one life to another, in a perpetual state of outsider-ness. In a way that's what I seek, what I want for my life, to drift amist worlds.

But I am scared and tired and depressed, selfishly so. Why would my life matter when big struggles are taken place right now? The elections in Afghanistan, the murder of Iraquis, the fascims of the world, elections in the US, and the constant violation of human rights. How can I really sit here and 'enjoy' the sufferings of my life? How can anyone?

Ai.. how can the inner struggle matter if one does not fight for a bigger cause than one's own?

Others perceive Mexicans as “the-lazy-mañana-Indian-with-a-wide-straw-sombrero-sleeping-next-to-a-cactus,” as “the-wetback-running-to cross-the-border-to-become-one-more-in-the-14-million-Mexicans-count-living-in-the-USA,”or the “night-shift-hospital- cleaning-lady-in-Milwaukee,” or “a-dishwasher-in-an-Italian-restaurant-in-Manhattan,” “a-uniformed-maid-in-Sacramento” or
“another-exploited-worker-in-a-sweat-shop-in-some-hidden-town-of-Alabama.”
These are partial descriptions of the national identity of our brothers and sisters.
A better way to describe us is: The Taco.

The Taco symbolizes Mexico. The Taco is not merely a tortilla rolled up and stuffed with food, nor just a Mexican dish, or a Tacobellish fast food item.

The Real Taco is:
A way of eating prevalent since Prehispanic times
A nutritional and balanced dish adopted by the “Conquistadors”
Our national Identity
An extraordinary culinary surprise for the senses
A mystic experience that opens new channels of consciousness
An orgasm for any ethnic taste buds
A festival of smells and textures
A parade of rich colors
A symbol and subject for Writers and Composers,
Literati and Poets, Politician and Civilians
A way of life
A exciting double conundrum,
An insinuating, codified, erotic language
A way of flirting and laughing
A social activity

The taco stands only for Mexico, its people and the colors of its flag. The Real Taco is the national symbol of every Mexican around the globe. The taco unites poor and rich, middle classes and beggars, farmers and city-dwellers, there is no distinction when we eat tacos. We all submit to the rules. We all know how to do it. Taco-eating is a happy and emotional ritual full of laughter, obeyed and follow by everyone, without doubts, opinions or remorse.

The taco represents the hot, sharp, mixed, colorful, emotional, and strong spirit of Mexico and its people. All those who where born or raised in Mexico or abroad, even those who have only visited us, can hear the call of our national identity: the “Real Taco.”

Colectivo de ArtencontrArte/Art versus Art Collective artencontrate@artstar.com

My father wrote this. He and I collaborated on a project where he used a variety of mediums to convey graphically and visually the variety of tacos.. different foods, different ways of eating them, different locations, etc.

If anybody is interested in using this project let me know. =)