Poetic Justice

Saturday, I went to the dreaded refresher course at the Main Office in Jongno-3-ga. It's ironic that it's a "refresher" course, and I'm the freshest person at my school, and yet, I'm the only person who had to go from my school (on account of my boss hates me), but oh well. So I left good and early, on the off chance that I got lost or something, but I can get to Jongno pretty well now, since it's just a straight line (no transfers), and it's not particularly far away. I arrived with time to spare, so I went for the breakfast of champions: Vanilla Frappucino from Starbucks.

I arrive at the main office, and head in -- I was promised sandwiches. But there were NO SANDWICHES, so already I'm disappointed. I see Sam, who I met at training, who is very helpful and informative, and Casey who is... not so much. She's nice though. So of course it's Casey who is leading this session, which means group work. Same as at training. I'm put into quite possibly the worst group in the world. Two large sweaty guys, a Korean girl and a Kiwi girl, and me. Then they subdivide the groups for some reason? Instead of just making smaller groups at the start? So I'm with this bald, red guy, and the Korean girl who won't say anything.

Luckily the red fellow talked enough for all of us. Our assignment was to look at one page of "A Valentine for Miss Vanilla," so it's not like it's rocket science, or anything. The guy just droned on and on. But at least he sounded smart, not like the other guy (the one from the supergroup, but not the subgroup). Here are some of his classic moments:

[The page says that Ms. Vanilla is like such and such. A rainy day, or something]
HIM: So, this is like, this here, when you compare two things. What's that called? A euphemism?
ME: Uh... That's a simile
or
HIM: So when you're speeding, you go ZOOOOOM, and when you're hungry you say YUMMMMM, [and etc.], that's like poetic justice.
ME [thinking]: But what it's even MORE like is onomatopoeia.
or
HIM: We used to think that the Earth went around the sun, but now... We're in space.

Like... I get that I had four extra years of practice as an English major... But did you NOT PASS JUNIOR HIGH!?

I think that the theme of the class, and really the whole Korea/teaching situation in general, was summed up the best by Casey, in an attempt to explain the goals of ECC. "We want to get them to the fluent level. Or at least to emergent." Like... Do your best, and make sure they learn as much as possible, or, conversely, do a little bit less than your best, and if they don't learn as much, it's pretty ok too.

After the course I headed home to wait for BBro for our traditional Saturday dinner and night on the town. Alas, it seemed she made other plans to go to Olympic Park, so I set about making my own, better plans. I had heard from Anna teacher at work that there was a film festival going on in Seoul. I got the schedule, and there were only two days left, so I figured I had better check it out ASAP! There were a few directors whose names I recognized, but the only title that I had heard of is called Day Night Day Night. So, I headed toward the subway. I had only the vaguest of directions (Exit 5 at Konkuk University), so I figured the venue would be pretty easy to find.

…I was wrong. I got to Konkuk fine, and even found exit 5, but the theatre was nowhere to be seen. I wandered around for a while, and I found Rodeo Drive. I was pretty excited about this, actually, since being on the real Rodeo Drive was pretty much the best moment of my life, and I thought this would be similar. Whereas the real thing was amazing and classy and chic, the Korean version is, in equal parts horrible, tacky and neon.

Let’s compare their street signs, shall we? Real Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills is classy, understated. Korean Rodeo Drive (oh, wait, they called it Rodeo “Street” so that people don’t think it’s a rip-off) is enormous, first of all, and lit up. But only most of it.




Anyhoo, I browsed here for a while, then went back to the station and tried another direction. All of the people seemed to be moving in the direction of a giant mall I saw looming ahead, so I followed them. Conveniently, I saw a big poster outside for the film festival, so in I went. Next challenge: finding the actual theatre inside this behemoth. I walked around until I stumbled upon it. Then a bunch more embarrassing things happened, as they always do when I try to communicate with people, but they’re not important. Then on the way out, I walked for what seemed like forever to the end of the mall, and it was locked, or something, so I had to walk all the way back… Also, they have a store that sells nothing but Crocs, which is pretty much the worst idea ever…