The Here and Now

Have you ever been to an amusement park? Disney Land, Six Flags, Kings Island.

Have you noticed the constant playing of music?

The loud speakers adorning every lamppost and sign pole sing out in a near constant barrage of songs, announcements, and repetitive nonsense.
I have been to many parks.
I have barely noticed the noise.
I never gave a thought to those workers who spend every day listening to the same sounds.

I never once considered how bloody annoying it could be.

I live in an amusement park.
My bedroom window is 4 ft from one of those bloody speakers.

Every day I hear the same songs. Everyday they wake me up at 9:30 with some variation of silly sing song-y suffering.
For the past few weeks, while gearing up for Halloween we have one particularly heinous song that plays about every 15 minutes.

“Halloween Halloween, what do you mean?
Halloween Halloween, what do you mean?
Cats and bats and jack o lanterns too.
Halloween Halloween, what do you mean?”
And so on. And so forth.

It plays around in my head. Rattles me awake in the morning. Lulls me to sleep during my afternoon nap.

In the year that I have been here this atrocious song has ranked higher than any other in the levels of awfulness they put us through.

Worse than the jazz version of “10 little bugs in a bed, the little one said, ‘roll over roll over”
Worse than “I like ice cream, I don’t like onions.”
Worse than “Little bear little bear, what do you wear”
Worse even than George Michael sings Christmas Carols.

One week until Halloween is over, which means that in one week I will no longer be forced to listen to the childish vocals and creepy melody.

But then, they might just start the George Michael up again…

Yet another music video was filmed almost entirely on campus. This one almost drove the kiddies crazy.
The night scene at the end of the video was filmed just as we had to walk our students past that very clock tower.
But, they refused to pause their shooting for the 5 minutes that it takes to walk 400 kids past that special little corner.

Imagine, if you will, keeping 400 13 year olds silent and in a strait line while passing a fairly famous singer filming their brand new video.

If you think it was a simple task, you are missing a thing or two upstairs.

Kim Jong Kook - Today More Than Yesterday MV

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=mZkriKIyqEc

So I buddy of mine is being deported.
She didn’t do anything terrible.

She didn’t steal.
She didn’t kill.
She didn’t sell sensitive secrets to the North Koreans.

She simply went on vacation outside the country with an expired work visa. Upon arrival she found that the extension she had filed had been made null by that vacation and therefore she has to leave the country within the week.

She is one my closest friends here and I am torn up that she is leaving.

But at least she got a good story out of it.

“Remember that time I was deported from an Asian country…”

Here is a weird one.
Something I have missed as well as something I have seen far too much of.

Pickles.

I know, this is not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the differences between South Korea and the U.S.A. But, believe it or not, this is a huge issue.

Pickles.

This country loves sweet pickles. They love the pickles that you would consider the off brand, sweet as sugar, kind of fishy type pickles.

When you order pizza, it comes with a free side of pickles.
You order pasta of any kind, it comes with a free side of pickles.
You order any dinner really, something is going to come pickled.

What I miss is not having pickles with every meal.
What I miss is dill pickles.

This country is seriously lacking in dill pickles.

In the year I have been here I have not had one dill pickle. I miss them.
One day, one day soon, something dill-y will be back on the menu.

Or at least something dill-y at the grocery store.