"Teacher, how old do I have to be to get some sweet-ass poon?"

This blog is suffering. I literally have no more photos. So here's a classic horsehead shot. When you're in a bind, you can never go wrong with the H-Head. I went out to Woodstock by myself on Friday night, just planning on having a couple beers and getting to bed early. But it was not to be. Two drunk girls started talking to me and they somehow convinced me to go with them to the crappy dance club in town. This is pretty unusual in the sense that it’s routine for drunk girls to talk to me just for their own amusement, then they tell me to call them and I don’t because they are either terrible or awful. But to actually leave a bar with two girls, they must have been really really drunk. Once we got outside, they insisted on holding my hand so I’m walking down the main drag in town in between two Korean girls. I was incredibly scared. Walking around town at 2am past a bunch of Korean dudes while two Korean girls are hanging on you is basically like me just kicking every single one of those guys in the balls. So I’m surprised they didn’t kick my ass. I might as well have challenged them to a “Whose got a bigger Schlong?” contest. That’s how embarrassing and deflating it is for a Korean man to witness white-on-yellow love.

I think the school director cut off the wireless internet in the office. I would ask about it, but they would know immediately I don’t need the internet for any work related purpose. “Um, hey, what’s wrong with the internet connection?” “Oh, I don’t know, Ryan, do you need it turned on so you can dick around the web watching baseball highlights and poking people on facebook? You asshole.” They wouldn’t actually say that, because even they aren’t retarded enough not to think it. So yeah, things have been rough at the office. I’ve been forced to download movies at night so I can watch them the next day at work. And that’s just inhumane.

I joined a gym last week for the sole purpose of losing 10 pounds so I can gain that all back in a week eating Taco Bell when I get home. Nathan, the other foreigner at my school, goes to the same gym so he’s helped to not look like a complete idiot. I still screw things up a lot, though, so the Korean trainer guys have to come over and yell at me all the time. I hurt my left arm, probably from doing too much the first couple of days after I forget I that the most strenuous workout I had ever done before that was pushing through my mother’s womb in 1982. So now I can’t touch my nose with my left hand. I may soon decide that I was right, and that exercise only ends up hurting you in the end.

The first day at the gym, an older guy helped me out when I accidently put about 200 pounds on a machine, instead of 20. So I was thinking alright cool, nice guy. Then last later on after I got out of the shower, the same guy comes running over to me pointing at the ground in an attempt to tell me to dry the floor. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Koreans, they will jump at the first chance to order around a foreigner. Nevermind I had gotten out of the shower 20 seconds ago, (and it is wet in the shower), and I had ever intention of drying the floor after I was dressed, I thought this guy was going to strangle me. Next time I see him in the shower, I’m going to smack him in the face with it.

A bunch of my classes this semester are speaking classes. But instead of having the kids actually use theirs head and converse with each other, they just read dialogues from the book for 40 minutes, it's plain torture and I'm surprised the students don't just say "Teacher, get the F out of the classroom, I could learn more watching English pornos all day." (Note- They probably don't watch porn. At least not the good kind.)

I love it when they broadcast soccer games where all the players are 5 years old. They have two announcers and it's pretty professional looking, besides the whole Blind Date type pop-up bubbles that spring up above a kid's head. Not being able to read the bubbles actually makes it more entertaining because then when a fat kid falls on his ass and it pops up, you can just make up your own caption. Like "I'm such an ass" or "I'm never gonna laid when I get older."

Who loses their virginity to a prostitute? You guessed it, more than half of Korean men! So romantic!

This video is of the kids playing heads up 7-up the other day. It's not that good, but if you have 10 minutes to kill, well, enjoy. I used to let them play it all the time, but then it quickly fell apart. Some kid would inevitably smash another kid in the head or one kid gets picked like three times. I know these kids don't understand much of what I say, but, come on, it's a pretty simple game. Listening to my voice on these videos is getting kind of creepy. I speak terrible English, basically just short phrases, usually not sentences, like "Light on! Light on!" and I also seem to have picked up a weird Asian accent.

As I was walking home from a bar last night, I saw a Korean guy punch a girl in the face. She fell down in the middle of the street, crying. After a few minutes, the girl got up and ran away. The guy stood next to me and said something like "That's Korea." The sickest part of it all was the crowd reaction. All these other Korean guys just standing around and watching. If a guy punches a girl in the face in the middle of NYC, he's getting tackled, plain and simple. I wonder what would have happened if 9/11 took place in Korea, would people just crowd around the rubble for a few days, stare at the victims, and then go home? The basic lack of human compassion in this country is pretty unbelievable.

The girl drawing on the board in the picture above is destroying me at school. First off all, it looks like she drew of picture of me getting run over by a truck and that's kind of cruel. During class, she's in her seat for about 20 seconds and usually that's because I'm holding her down. One of her favorite things to do is to get behind me and use her hands to give me angel wings. The 10 other kids in the class love this. In fact, they are entertained by just about everything she does. I've made a mistake of just trying to ignore her, figuring she'd get tired if I just didn't give her any attention. This has not worked. I've tried to kick her out of the class 10 times, but she's smart and calls my bluff every time. Usually I'll go outside and tell her to follow me, she then closes the door and locks me out. A new semester starts this week, and if there is a God, any God whatsoever, she will not be in my class. Otherwise I've got another seven weeks of torture.

I know the end is getting near since I've been having dreams lately about what life will be like in America when I get back. And let me tell you, the skies are blue, the air is breathable, edible food can found and there isn't a Korean within a hundred miles of me. Sorry, that's harsh. 20 miles.

Video Blog, Bitches.

This will piss off millions of Koreans. Niiiiice.

Another crappy article of mine gets published in the Korea Times. I might not show this one to the teachers at school though, they won't like it: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2007/08/137_8093.html

Here's the text if you're too lazy to click the link:

I’m no fan of George W. Bush. In fact, I’d put him right near the top of the list of America’s worst presidents. But when I opened up The Korea Times on Thursday and read Tom Plate’s column calling for a hostage-prisoner swap with the Taliban, I was, for once, in complete agreement with Bush.

To call America’s longstanding policy of not negotiating with terrorists a ``dumb ideology” is naive and callous.

My heart goes out to all the Korean hostages and their families, what they are going through is an awful, despicable experience. And it’d be wonderful if we could just release a few prisoners and send those hostages back into the arms of their loved ones where they belong.

Unfortunately, the world we live in today is bit more complicated than that. Plate says that terrorists don’t need any encouragement, that they will find ways to attack us no matter whether we negotiate or not. That’s like handing over a bag of cocaine to a drug addict who’s suffering from severe withdrawal.

Well, hey, the addict was going to find his next fix anyway and if you can make his pain go away immediately, it’s just the humane thing to do. Or so Plate would seemingly argue.

It’s basic common sense that if one rewards bad behavior that behavior will usually find a way of repeating itself. Here’s another example: Say you tell a child not to eat cookies because snacks cause obesity. The child disobeys the order and instead of being strong, taking a stand and punishing the child, you instead give the child a container of ice cream.

Being strong and determined not to back down to terrorists is what should be beating through every Korean heart today. The second you decide to negotiate with terrorists, you recognize them as legitimate, you suddenly make their hatred worthwhile.

Plate suggests that it’s a ``fair trade” to swap the hostages for female muslim prisoners. A fair trade? We’re not talking about a couple baseball players switching uniforms.

Let’s remember who we are dealing with here. The Taliban aren’t a bunch of lunatic nobodies trying to make the headlines. They are cold, methodical killers, always looking for their next shot to spill blood. Release any Taliban prisoners and not only is there no guarantee the terrorists will uphold their end of the bargain, but it’s also a stirring defeat for freedom and liberty all over the world.

One of my students told me the other day that America was being ``selfish” by not stepping in to solve the crisis. Although he’s only 12 years old, I know that sentiment is shared by many people in this country. All I can say is, it’s not going to be easy, but Korea must find the strength to look at the big picture.

Three years ago, the Korean government rejected terrorist demands to remove its troops from Iraq after civilian Kim Sun-il was kidnapped. Thousands of Koreans protested to urge the government to give in. To their credit, Korea’s leaders refused. Kim was killed.

As difficult as it may be to seemingly turn our backs on innocent people begging for our help, the facts remains this: to show weakness towards terrorists is to only invite them to come back for more. Freeing a couple dozen hostages at the expense of putting countless more lives in danger at the hands of emboldened terrorists is something that should not, and can not, be done.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live here forever, and then I wake up covered in blood and soaked in my own tears.

I’m at work on Saturday and the Internet is down. I can’t imagine many things worse than that scenario. I’ve got a five day weekend next week, but as is to be expected in Korea, holidays aren’t really holidays. I guess it’s a good tradeoff, one Saturday for three days off during the week, but right now it’s pretty awful.

I almost fought a kid in my class this morning. All he does is say how much he hates America. Bill O’Reilly would call me a far-left America-hating Kool-aid drinking liberal douchebag, but despite my lowly status, I still feel the need to defend America, especially in a country like Korea. This kid was going on about how America is selfish because it hasn’t helped free the Korean hostages from the Taliban. Well, look little kid, it’s the damn Taliban, what do you want America to do? Go up to them and ask nicely? Koreans would love it if the Afghan gov’t gave in and released the Taliban prisoners in exchange for freeing the Koreans. There’s a reason, though, why you don’t negotiate with terrorists, and it’s basically common sense. You make that swap, and guess what happens next week, and the week after that, more hostages, more demands. The thing is Koreans wouldn’t care if next month 100 Italians or 100 Americans were taken hostage, it might not even make front page news. As long as the almighty Koreans are free, all is well in the world, screw everyone else. I read an article that said the incident might sour U.S.-Korea relations. At this point, maybe that’s a good thing.

I never posted this on Saturday and it’s now Monday afternoon and I’m waiting at the dentist office for my 100^th appointment in the last couple months. I spend more money at the dentist than most people spend on food every year. I wish someone had told me when I was 13 that drinking 5 cans of soda a day and brushing your teeth once a week will cause serious problems a decade later. But I’m not leaving this office until they’re done, I just spent five minutes arguing with the receptionist, who kept flipping through the calendar and saying “appointment, appointment.” No chance, I need a two month break from the dentist. I’ll sit here until Wednesday if that’s what it takes.

A new semester starts at school in a couple weeks and the head Korean teacher called me out into the hall today to get my opinion on some of the books she’s looking at assigning. Earlier in my contract, I would have just said fine, whatever, they’re all great. But at this point, I figure I might as well tell them when they are being retarded, for the sake of the kids. The book she showed me had a bunch of newspaper articles in it followed by simple who, what, when, where questions. The book was 25 pages long. I could finish teaching that book in about a week. I told her it was way too short, another Korean teacher, who’s a moron, argued the book was fine, you could just give the kids tests to take up the time. What they should have known about my teaching methods by now is that I prefer, in fact I insist, that I put in the least effort possible. Making up tests takes time = I don’t do it.

I hate any kind of surprise gathering/lunch/dinner/anything involving me having to sit around a table with my co-workers. This happened on Saturday afternoon as I guess the director was feeling bad for making us work. So she ordered everyone Chinese food. I really just wanted to take mine, sit at my desk and watch a movie, but that probably would have pissed everyone off. The new foreign guy, Nathan, got his first real glimpse of what it's like to eat with these people. "So what's the weather like in New Zealand?" "Well, it rains a lot more there". Korean, blah blah, whine whine, blah. Five minutes later...."Do you like chicken?" "Yeah, it's great." Blah, I'm terrible, Korean, blah. At one point, Nathan told the director how the kids are always surprised when he tells them children in New Zealand only go to school from 9am-3pm. Director: "You didn't go to academy after school?" Nathan: "No." Director: "You must have been poor."

I lost my new camera over the weekend. I assume it was when I was grinding up against a pole again or jumping up and down in a giant circle jerk with Korean guys. So that means crappy photos posted here for a while (aka Bender half naked), unless I decide to go buy a new memory card for my old camera, but I’d have to leave the 1-mile radius around my apartment to do that, which doesn’t happen unless I think I have a chance to get laid.

I just read something online that said Rudy Giuliani’s daughter was in a ‘Barack for President’ group on facebook. Not only has his son to told him to screw-off, now his 17-year-old daughter is lining up behind a diehard Democrat. Now that’s just hilarious. It’s one thing to have a few family problems, but jesus, Rudy’s family is more messed up than a couple of crackheads living in a box trying to raise 9 kids. If he’s gets the Republican nomination with that kind of track record, Republicans will pretty much have to scrap the whole “pro-family” mantra. Oh, and the best part about Rudy’s daughter’s facebook profile. She’s interested in men and she’s looking for: random play, whatever I can get. Holy Shit. That’s what douchebags like me put in their profiles. The only chicks who do that are either really fat or really big sluts. Either way, I think I’m going to poke her later tonight.

"Bad Teacher I Hate you"- my last text message

I made a few videos at school today. I purposefully tried to plant the camera in the corner of the room so the kids didn't know it was on, otherwise they go nuts. However, this discreetness led to a number of closeup crotch shots of myself, and I apologize for that. The first video is of a class of 10 girls, all about age 8. They speak very little English and you can see they get frustrated at times and you can also see they pay absolutely no attention to me unless I'm standing right over them. This is one of those classes that if I had it when I first started teaching, I would have ran out of the room and started crying. Even watching the video now, afterwards I need to take a nap. The other two videos are just singing. A lot. I sound like I'm drunk in them because I sing way too loud and off-key. Like I've said before, I enjoy singing more than the kids.

I'm still pretty sick. I've coughed up enough phlegm in the last month to drown a small child. I still refuse to go to the doctor because even though it will only cost me 3 bucks, the doctor will look at me, probably prescribe the wrong medication and then I'll end up dying. Sorry, Michael Moore.

I have to work this Saturday because you can't just get vacation days in Korea. Kids must be learning English at all time. I'm supposed to meet the beat married chick at Woodstock on Friday night. I'm not sure why I agreed to this. Last weekend, her husband left and she kept touching me again, which was gross, and then later, even though she doesn't speak english well, she said something like "So we are just friends?" I wanted to say Yeah, I'd rather my manhood remain outside my body instead of shriveling up and dying inside my stomach. But I might meet her anyway, solely for entertainment purposes.

Since all of my poker income has dried up (Thanks, Bill Frist), I've been trying to think of other easy ways to make a lot of money sitting on my ass. Surprisingly, this isn't that easy. I did some research on currency trading, it seemed easy enough, I would just bet against the U.S. dollar since it's been in a freefall. So I signed up for an account but I didn't deposit anything, figured I'd try it out first with a free account. They gave me 50 G to work with. I lost 35 G in about three days. In light of this, I've decided it might be a bad idea to deposit money. If anyone knows of another easy way to make money while I watch movies and sleep, let me know (I already teach English in Korea).

I watched a lot of Dane Cook at work today. As much I watched it, though, I just kept trying to figure out what parts were supposed to be funny. I tried really hard to find the appeal because apparently college kids love him and I like to think I'm not THAT old yet. But man, for the most part, the guy just runs around the stage like an idiot, makes a few mediocre obvious jokes and then the crowd starts having seizures. I've been to few parties in America where everyone's been drunk and someone will be like "Hey! guys lets watch this Dane Cook DVD. It's hilarious, man!" And I laugh because I want to fit in and be cool, but wow, Dane Cook may be the least funny guy in America. It's similar to my feelings on Entourage. What came first? Did people watch it and actually say "Shit, this is a good show" or did it become so damn trendy to watch that once people did catch it, they were forced to like it or risk having to sit in the corner crying with no friends. Actually I shouldn't bash Entourage right now, since last Sunday's episode admittedly was hilarious, but you get my point. Shut up.