It's official now, I'm going to Thailand. I don't actually know anything else yet except that I have my tickets bought and I'll be in country for 28 days. I know that I want to spend a lot of time on the beach. I want to eat some legit Thai food. I want to move around and see the country, not just the cities and the beaches, but the mountains and villages. I want to see the jungle, jump off waterfalls, see a few islands, snorkel in the ocean, and maybe even ride an elephant. I want to come home with some crazy stories, and the pictures to prove it. As Sam Jackson put it, just 'walk the Earth.' I don't know what will happen, except that it's going to be fun, and it's going to be an adventure. I'm actually pretty nervous though. I'm going alone, and I've never done anything like this before. Even though part of the point of this trip is to have the freedom to do what I want without plans, I still like to have at least a rough outline of what to do, but I don't like to be the one making the plans. I'm the kind of person that double checks the doorknob after I lock my door just to make sure, so you can see why something like booking train tickets in a foreign country in a language I don't know would stress me out. Also I don't want to get robbed...that would suck. But I'm not one to let fear keep me from doing something fun...well that's not really true...but for the sake of this trip, let's say it is. This is something that I've wanted to do for quite a long time, and even though it may not be quite what my ideal vision of it was originally, it's still a lot closer than what most people will get the chance to do, and for that I am grateful.
In the here and now of Korea, not much is new. The end of the semester is just around the corner, and the weeks are flying by with no sign of slowing down. I suppose I should be expecting that by now though. For the past three weekends, I haven't really had a weekend because I've been working on Saturdays judging for speech contests. It's a decent pay bonus, but also, I got to hear all kinds of crazy mangled English. Don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun of the kids, but I challenge you not to laugh, even quietly to yourself, listening to kids saying MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech with the tone of JFK and a thick Korean accent.
It may be my job to correct it, but even after three months I still get a kick out of student's English. The most common mistake is when they leave out words like "a", or add "the" where it doesn't belong, such as "I go to the home," and tenses are a source of confusion, as seen in this little gem, "I am become died." A lot of times they just write funny sentences though. Here are a few examples.
"I will settle down with my lover by the seaside"
"She is a damned sight slimmer than me."
Conversation:
A:Where do you keep your sports equipment?
B:Well, I keep mine in a clothes chest.
A:Ok. I'll Borrow it.
B:No, It's my parents.
A:I don't care. I'll borrow it.
B:No way please. I'll die!
A:That's not my business.
I've got a whole sheet running of funny quotes, I'll post more again someday.
"You know kids growing up, they have these wild dreams, and you find out the fat gets trimmed off them by life later on down the road"
-Brian Fallon
Now Listening To:
"Let It Out"
Girl Talk
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