Last night I drank soju. I woke up this morning, make that 12:30 p.m. When I got to work, I bought two packs of mentos and a bottle of coke. And then I taught seven classes. By the end of the day, I felt like I didn't know where I was or if I would ever eat again. My last class really got short-changed. I decided to let one of the students be the teacher. Great idea, right? Her idea of teaching was to play hangman all class. But hey, she makes the rules, I was just a student. All of the answers were either computer games or robots I had never heard of. Well, the last one was Death Note. That was cute.

Back to mentos for a minute. They are called "the freshmaker," but they should really be classified as a narcotic. I've never tried heroin, but I gotta imagine it's nothing compared to these little pills of happiness. I go through four packs in about 20 minutes. I think I'm actually physically addicted to them. If I stop cold taking them, my heartbeat would probably go through the roof and I'd be dead within a couple days. Yeah yeah, it's just a candy, you're just joking around, that's what you're saying. No. Wrong. I have a serious problem. This is my cry for help. PLEASE SAVE ME.

I love it when I say thank you to someone in Korean "gamsa hamnida" and they say it back in English. It feels like some big cultural exchange. Or when something funny happens and it doesn't matter if you speak English, Korean or Alien, everyone laughs. Like tonight when I went into Mini-Stop and handed the cashier 2000 won and pointed to a 500 coin. He knew I was asking for change, but he mistakenly reached into the pile of 5000 won bills and pulled out a handful. He was about to hand them over before I started cracking up and well, the other cashier was also looking at him like he had four heads. Point is these guys look forward to seeing me each day. And I don't say that just because I spend most of my paycheck at the store. I do, but that's not important. I am the only white guy who goes into their store each day, I guarantee it. In fact, it wouldn't surprise if there haven't been more than 2 or 3 white people in the store in the past year. Soooo, when we do get to share a laugh, something that bridges that massive language gap, it's immensely gratifying. It sounds gay and I know this is what Bender is talking about when he says to read my blog for the sappy stuff, but hey, I've been known to swing both ways. If my grandmother is reading this: No, Grandma, I'm not really gay. I know you've always thought that. But it's just a joke. I promise.

I wore a shirt to work today that has a small hole in it on the right shoulder. No big deal, right? I'd worn it in America dozens of times. Maybe two people pointed it out. If the hole happened to be unfortunately placed over my right nipple, then OK, I understand the hysteria. But man oh man, Korean Rule #485- Never ever ever wear a shirt with a hole in it, no matter how small it is. I felt like I had just walked into work wearing nothing but a tie covering my sensitive areas. All of the students went crazy. It was like the funniest they had ever seen in their lives. During one class, one girl said to me, "Nice watch." Almost immediately, someone from across the room yells out "Bad Shirt!" The laughter subsided after about five minutes. When I went into one of the faculty rooms and one of teachers I'm pretty close with saw me and the beatup shirt, he turned pale and he may have thrown up a bit in his mouth. He actually may never speak to me again. I wonder what would happen if I ever forgot to button my fly before class. I think all of their heads would explode.

Bender and I went to visit this palace on Sunday. It was all pretty cool, except that a lot of it had been rebuilt. And not rebuilt in 1900. More like rebuilt in 2004. It's like, dude, my house has more history than this palace.

I'll tell you what, the "fat kid" at school really makes work quite enjoyable sometimes. As I think I've mentioned, he's easily double the size of the next biggest kid at the school and he always wears the same pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt everyday. He always needs to stay after class to take makeup tests and he never passes them, except for that one I offered him an American dollar if he passed and he was out of there in 15 minutes. But anyway, everyday this kid is off the wall. He learned some kind of chant at his public school that goes "What did you do yesterday? I went to ..........." That damn thing gets in my head everyday. The Korean teachers in the office probably want to kill me. Last night during the makeup test, I asked the fat kid if he wanted to just move his bed into the school since he spends so much time there. He goes, "Teacher, if my bed is here, will you sleep in the bed with me?" I almost died. Whenever I look out into the hall, someone is tackling the fat kid. The front desk guy. The school director. Basically you go into the hall at anytime when fat kid doesn't have class, he will be on the floor. Today, out of nowhere, he walks into the faculty room with a roll of toilet paper around his arm. I could seriously start an entire new blog just about the fat kid, but I think I'll be content with him just being a regular feature on this blog. Now I just have to get a photo of fat kid. But I'm a bit afraid if I try to take one, I'll also be in the photo and he'll be doing something inappropriate to me. And that will just be embarrassing.

(Photos- top-Gyeongbokgung Palace and me with some of the guards, I guess. Remember you can click on the photos to make them bigger.)