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Week 53- Y3(Mar 9th to Mar 15th) |
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Sunday:
So a couple weeks ago, there was a fire in Haebangchon
that left an American guy and a Korean girl in very
critical condition. The guy had 3rd degree burns over
60% of his body and the girl was in a coma. What a
horrible tragedy! Naturally, everyone has wanted to
offer support, and the medical bills are going to be
ridiculously expensive, so everyone was discussing
ways to fundraise for the family. There were several
benefit concerts in the works at a few different
venues. Sadly, today we learned that both the girl
and the guy have died. And still nobody knows what
caused the fire. I can't imagine having something
like this happen in a foreign country. His family and
friends must be absolutely devastated, and my heart
goes out to them.
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Tuesday:
Today I had to cancel my 1st year improv classes
because of a really lame professor's meeting. First
of all, the meetings are all in Korean, so I can't
understand it anyway, and second of all, most of the
content is entirely irrelevant to me anyway! I was
pretty irritated that I had to cancel my classes for
that-- my improv classes are huge, and they need all
the time in the classroom that they can get.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only teacher in Korea
who actually cares about the students' education as
opposed to bureacratic crap.
After the meeting, there was a big professors' dinner
at a Korean seafood restaurant. The food was really
good, but there was a lot of alcohol, and since I'm
"on the wagon", I was trying to find inconspicuous
ways not to drink. Actually many articles have been
written in the past couple of years about "corporate"
pressure to drink-- bosses frequently take out their
employees for dinners such as this one, and employees
are almost obligated to drink in excess, or they will
be looked down upon. This is usually particularly
difficult for women, who generally cannot drink as
much as the average man can.
Fortunately for me, Hye Jin wasn't drinking very much
either!
I had been planning on staying the night in Iksan, but
there was still time to catch the last school bus
after the dinner, and Jae was planning on going on a
big drinking night, so I decided to go back wth Hye
Jin. And thank god I did! I heard from Kenji later
that Jae actually made Kenji cancel his master class
that evening so they could all go drinking, and they
all stayed out really late!
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Thursday:
Busy busy busy. I've spent the entire day locked in
my room, arranging music for the jazz choirs. I'll be
thrilled when everything is sorted and organized.
Tonight there was a benefit for the guy who died in
the fire. It was so packed, and people have been so
generous, that the medical bills have been completely
covered, and the family can afford to pay their hotel
and flight bills as well. There's still quite a bit
of mystery surrounding the fire though, and some
people even suspect some kind of foul play.
Hopefully, everything will be cleared up soon, and the
family can grieve peacefully.
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Friday:
Today I started a new private student, and I'm kind of
wishing that I hadn't! Suzanne is an older woman who
was actually a recording artist in Korea about 20
years ago. She has recently decided that she wants to
record a new album after a 20-year hiatus-- a jazz-pop
album nonetheless. First of all, she wanted to "meet
me" to see if I was a suitable enough teacher for her.
Then she was 45 minutes for our meeting time. I
absolutely hate it when people are late! Then she
wanted to have a full hour lesson anyway. One of the
things that really bugs me about Korean students is
that they can be like vultures . . . sucking every
last bit of my energy and resources out of me. Why is
it that no one seems to have respect for each others'
time in this country? My time and my information are
valuable resources and I truly resent it when they are
not treated as such. Plus, I have such little free
time--I'm not willing to sacrifice that because some
student can't figure out how to show up for a lesson
on time. I'm starting to get meaner about private
lessons, and I don't care-- if someone doesn't like my
rules or my style, they can find another teacher.
They just won't find as good a teacher in Korea.
Later in the evening, I had a rehearsal with Drew,
Nate and Tommy-- Drew is putting together a Grateful
Dead tribute show, and he's asked me to sing on 6 of
the songs. Not knowing anything about the Grateful
Dead, I blindly agreed to contribute to the project,
and it turned out to be pretty easy for me anyway.
Unfortunately, tonight's rehearsal ended up being
another time drain-- what should have taken about half
an hour ended up taking 3 hours, due to talking,
noodling and general messing around. Again, why
doesn't anyone have respect for other peoples' time?!
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Saturday:
This afternoon, I worked up the nerve to walk into a
hairdresser's and ask her to blow-dry my hair straight
(given the magic-straght perm incident 2 years, my
hesitation is understandable!) It only took half an
hour, and she didn't actually do a very good, but it's
nice to have a change!
Of course by the end of 4 hours of salsa class, it had
expanded quite a bit . . . and by the end of the
night, it was almost back to its original state!
After salsa, I headed over to Funky Funky for an all
you can drink St. Patrick's Day party. It was packed,
and by the time I got there, the crowd was already
really sloppy! I stuck around to watch St. John the
Gambler and We Need Surgery play. Garan and my
roommate Summer are starting a podcast on the local
music scene in Seoul, and tonight was kind of the
first night-- after the show, Garan borrowed my mini
recorder to interview We Need Surgery. Every week,
they will pick a new local band, interview them, cover
one of their gigs, and play tunes from their CD or
demo. I'm going to be helping behind the scenes,
since I hate talking in front of people! After the
interview, we hightailed it out of there, having had
more than enough of the sloppy, drunken Funky Funky
scene.
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