rage against the machines

Let's start this post off with a young Korean boy's distrust of machines. This was a "paragraph" a student of mine wrote for homework:

Some people like machines, but I do not. Because machines have knives and are reproachful. So I do not like machines.

Stay strong, my little Korean friend.

I woke up this morning at 5 A.M to watch the Eagles lose another NFC Championship game. The bitterness, anger, and frustration that this loss wrought was almost enough to make me feel at home. Then I walked outside to go to work and almost stepped in a giant pile of spit, and was reminded that I'm 7,000 miles from home.

That's something I haven't written about yet: Korean men's predilection for spitting. You can't walk down the street without seeing half a dozen globs on the ground and witnessing a Korean businessman spawning a new one. It's pretty gross, and is probably why they don't wear shoes inside their homes. I know it's why I don't wear them in my apartment anymore.

The Korean businessman is a strange breed of human. They work 12 hour days on average and then go out drinking. There are no public intoxication laws, so if I'm outside past 10 or 11 o'clock I'm sure to run into hordes of them stumbling gracefully down the street, laughing and spitting. They're a jubilant bunch.

I figured today that I've been here 54 days. That seems about right.