why i don't like umbrellas:
i haven't liked umbrellas since practically forever. this antipathy may have its roots in the peculiar but understandable fact that i have never had an umbrella of my own, and in fact, that the umbrellas that i saw and hung out with with any regularity were maltreated little creatures from eddie bauer, all bought on a whim by my mother and just as cavalierly reduced to garage decor status. it is not in fact as if we lived or do live in the sahara desert. but we did not view umbrellas as necessary. and so a certain pride, an aloofness developed. after all, raincoats smack much more of romanticism - molly of the american girls collection (i do own that raincoat and to this day get all hot and perspiry in it when it rains - it's REALLY lined in asbestos, just like molly's!) or the gordon's fisherman, or what have you. men on the newfoundland coast for whom umbrellas of course are a nonentity and um, fuck ponchos. (nothing against the occasional poncho escapade, but really). and so in a country in korea, where supposedly the rain is SO bad and SO just an aqueous compound of the shit in seoul's air and will SO make your hair fall out, i find myself doubly frustrated. i still am not the type of person to buy an umbrella and yet i am constantly exhorted to, what else, but "bring an umbrella! yes i know you have a hood. what is your problem just bring the umbrella!" and i don't, pretending in my convenient kyopo way not to understand anything of this bright and confounding world around me. and then! this terrible bondage that comes with sharing an umbrella with a shorter cousin who does not understand why you can't just walk straight, or in the right direction, or why you are so fricking tall that you are threatening ths umbrella's personal space. the other thing about umbrellas is, of course, the futility. no matter what sort of umbrella you are staunchly carrying, you will get wet. rain is not purely vertical and car tires are not always solicitous. when you shut the umbrella your hands will get wet. when you take a shower you will get wet. at least - i always get wet, my feet always get wet (my dislike of socks is a whole other story and an easier told one) and so just get over it, already! all of this applies by the way not only to korea but to america and um everywhere.

i'm only guessing, but...
sandy: ¾ß! ³Ê ¿ì¤À ±×·¡?!
skankpunk: yo...[distinctively smashed gesturesetc] yo...i'm drew park.

hongdae clubbing it's practically free! it's practically kyopo. and the name sandy should ring a few bells. two bells which are about the same size. but anyway like - she lives- breathes- and dances in a way so as to arouse such a response. introductions to be made accordingly when we go back to penn. until then i breathe in i breathe out. occasionally go the wrong direction.
* * *
every day a new thing - today is NO LIBRARY RIGHTS DAY! so like i have this book about t-shirts and they're not going to let me have it (10 day borrowing period anyway like where is the leisure factor) and i can't find the book that i came for anyway (and it doesn't suck) and like, what else, every t-shirt in this book is by hysteric glamour and i wish i were able to intern for this company. and when i say intern i mean of course, just to be able to steal from their warehouse because who PAYS this much for pretty things here? oh and obviously andrew is looking for love in all the wrong places. and i'm beginning to make lists again.

"fuck, like i was just standing there, bagful of all my little electronic words weighing down on my left shoulder and my feet weighing down on my tired jesus sandals - in the space between the subway cars two middle school boys were playing chicken or marco polo or some other game that would be more mobile elsewhere but probably rocked out by being played so darkly and jarringly. meanwhile the people sitting in the car proper looked ahead with shiny dead eyes or slept folded into a neat heron position - i was just waiting and looking a little dead too, thinking about money and headphones, when the subway cars began to really speed ahead, i mean nothing short of drag race hyperdrive and the walls started blurring past, we passed a crowded platform at sadang station and i could feel the entire subway car inching off the tracks with this new speed, but no one seemed to notice and when huge crunching demolition sounds came echoing back to our car from ahead i grabbed the pole next to the door. no one moved. and when i saw sunlight streaming in illuminating everyone's face i saw in one big moment the subway car windows rising up and out above a giant pit the train had made, while we hurtled over cars' heads and the roads of seoul. we must've been rising at like a 40 degree angle off the ground into the clouds. still no one seemed to be moving or screaming or much surprised, some turning their necks slightly to avert their eyes from the sun and others happily waving through windows to friends in the other trains that i could see now, also soaring above the city. what is this, i wondered, heart limping and breath coming jaggedly. while those sleeping still slept and one woman adjusted the heel strap of her pink shoes, looking left and right with big eye[lashes]. what is this, i thought - i'm not supposed to be here with you people, and turned my warm cheek to the subway windowpane, waiting."

i think i got a job! like i will start tomorrow kind of thing. 25,000 won/hour which is soo not extortion, maybe? and three times a week for two hours at a time for four or five weeks. i am not a wastrel! but ok a grand total of like $500 for the summer, ouch. if nothing else comes floating by. i think i always learn something (the same thing) when i teach kids and i hope i don't have to relearn it. it is probably "you don't need another best friend" or "smile you know you have to". and maybe...

this is the kind of weekend i have. okay this was my weekend, i won't generalize. timeline b/c i'm happy and chronological:
friday: rainy and $10 worth of ±è“V. the mugungwha train down to kwangju (4 hours) with ¿ø°æ and her electronic dictionary which is how i learn that ¹Ì·Ã is korean (or technically chinese) for lingering attachment. ahh. ³Ê¹« sexy ÇÑ°Í! okay and kwangju is obviously one of those ideas for me, and it turned out to be very like that. because
saturday: thanks to landscape architecture and monument designers and the thousands of foreign grassy mounds it takes to make anyone think. and then bamboo and more rain, Â¥Àå¸é, hyundai ¹éÈ­Á¡, and i'm sure this is so insignificant to anyone. going on!
sunday: fly back to seoul and sit next to some beergroggy korean tv star who like everyone else, knows i am terribly not from this country and nice about it. i still have no idea who he was. but came back and thrilled to the sight of male ballerinas because duh, and they were korean male ballerinas.
monday: coex mall ice cream blah blah, but then with ÇѼö went to ´ëÇ×·Î (?). this is probably where it got interesting. because when i recognize a bad mood in someone else i do try to figure out what would be the solution. the mood where you're sitting with your boyfriend in what you think is an uninteresting place which is cold, you can't hear very well out of your left ear, feel sticky, and want to be irritated by this american cousin who is dressed like some japanese milkmaid. so you plead stomach pains and leave shakily and gracelessly. that mood and i didn't do very well there. so we left shortly afterwards and got caught by those two obnoxious faux japanese girls (again) who made ÇѼö blush and hide his face in the wall of kfc because they are, no surprise, with an entire camera crew, i am wearing a towel on my head, and they are mtv (kbs) stars and i visibly couldn't think of what to ½Åû besides ¹Ú Áö³ç and sort of lost my korean, so ÇѼö whispered 'smashing pumpkins' and so if you watch kbs on saturday you will see us both looking ridiculous and i will request '1979' which throws everyone into a jawdropping panic. and the two girls say they're taking us out for dinner but they definitely don't. we get some cds though :^) and then the girls who are dressed like marilyn monroe give us ice tea out of the keg that their little slave boy is carrying on his back. then tgi fridays which means salad --> nutrients and expensive --> credit card. whatever. i'm done!