birthday

this will be the last blogpost on seoulmateys. i will be shutting it down shortly. sorry, readers, but i assure you that you don't really care.
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so, today was my birthday. two years ago, i got into a huge car accident on the autobahn on the way to salzburg and fractured my ribs and sprained my ankle and dan broke his hand. while less dramatic, today seems worse. in an emotional, disheartening way. at least austria was dramatic and made a good story. this is just stupid.

- first of all, i'm in korea, stuck teaching at some academy but making almost no money. already the worst summer ever by far.

- then, we were going to go kayaking but it was a rainy day. okay, alright.

- third, we were going to have a group faculty lunch or something, according to jen, but that fell through so we just grabbed a quick bite. then since it was sort of a dreary day, we went home on the few days we get off from work early.

- the next 6 hours consist of sobs and phone calls to my mother asking her not to leave me in this godforsaken country when she goes back home next week. i beg her to take me with her - that i came to korea to either sightsee or make money but that neither is happening with this schedule/academy. six to seven hours of heavy sobbing and crying on the phone.

- it's dinner time, we don't want korean food. we walk around and go to this kalbi place. i ask for kalbi and the waiter also recommends something else. 1. it's not kalbi. 2. the something else is cow stomach. and very gross. 3. jen knocks down all the cooking utensils and i proceed to get 8 mosquito bites in 5 minutes.

- in the 6th minute, our grill goes up in flames. not small flames but over your head, burning everything in sight, licking the edges of our tables and flickering through our hands kind of flames. it continues to flare up, the restaurant watches us silently, all the staff run over trying to put it out to no avail. we'd never seen a flame so ferocious. "we're sorry, we forgot to put the water on the bottom," they apologize. we just watch. after what seems like eternity, the staff douses enough water all over our table to put out the fire. everything is burnt. "we will get you new stuff," they offer. no bother, i tell them, we're going.

- starving, we go to this place called twotwo chicken which is supposed to be like kyochon aka bonchon aka the korean fried chicken we know and love and have read about in the times. it's not. of course. we gag, eat some of it and then jet out.

this is just a quick recap. i wish it were more exciting to make this funny, but it was just lame. stuck in korea, went to work, came home, cried and worried over being stuck here poor, almost burned our faces and hands at dinner, then came home.

if i didn't already make this clear, i want to go home. i need to go home. as i was walking down the pedestrian un-friendly, sidewalk-less side streets, i thought, if one of these speeding, irreverent motorbikes or cars hit me, then i definitely get to go home, or at least leave korea. i paused and then narrowly sidestepped a delivery motorbike at the last minute. maybe, i thought, but not on my birthday.