A new red bike

A weekend of decisions, some bad, some whose consequences have yet to be seen. I had planned on going into Daegu early on Saturday, but stayed out drinking till 5am or so on Friday night. I was starting to be able to walk normally again, something the alcohol probably helped, and dead set on getting a new bike the next day. Frasier and Nino showing off their new bikes didn't keep me calm and level headed about the situation, so the next day when no bike really jumped out at me, I simply chose the last one I was looking at. The major contender before that had fallen through as a possible dud and this one was looking ok. Smooth ride, good back brake electrical systems worked well--from a laymens check it seemed ok. So I bought it. With Frasier's help I talked him down from 850,000w to 700,000. He originally said 900,000 in that bullshit form of prediscounting something. It's rampant in Daegu. You're buying something and you try to bargain with the vendor and they tell you that the price is really 15% higher and that they already cut price. I was itching to get a new bike, though, and Will had already bought what seemed to be the best bike for the money that day. There was another that I had a bad feeling about, but it probably would have been just as good. 700,000w and it had a performance pipe on that sounded great. It accelerating better, but something didn't seem right. By the time we were all done, parked at the train station, and taxied over to Arianna hotel, we had about and hour and twenty minutes to take advantage of the all you can eat and drink buffet. I managed to get down two plates of food and six pints of their normally quite overpriced pilsner. 0 to 6 in a hour can call for an early night, and I was continuously amazed at the time whenever it was mentioned. We went to Z bar, an overpriced really mediocre place that didn't sell draft beer on weekends. Then we bailed and went to the Frog an overpriced mediocre dance club. Entrance and two beers=20,000w. After some pretty lame dancing, Traci and I ended up sitting on a bench drinking beer in the street, something we should have done from the start. The doorman with a mullet was getting down, dancing with anyone that would walk by. Some military guys showed him up and left. It was only midnight or so when Traci and I suddenly got up and left, trying to get a train ticket. Next train 4a, so we found a motel around the back of the train station. A nice cabbie took us there the long scenic way. I don't know how much we paid, but it certainly was more that the nothing we would have had we just walked around the block. Needed food, had 7,000w, got some beer instead. Only drank one before going to sleep. The next day I met Will at the station and we road back to Gumi. I was a little nervous, my new bike and Will having sat on a bike for the first time just the day before. He did fine though, a little shaky in traffic, turning neither smooth nor fast, but he made it to Gumi alive. By the end of the day I noticed the ajossi had polished the forks to hide the fact that fluid leaks from my forks. I noticed a bunch of other little things wrong it, one of them being the fact that I can't ride it off curbs and up small trails on the way to work any more. What's it going to cost me and should I have just fixed my dirtbike, possibly neglecting one or two of the repairs that brought it up to 730,000 friggin won. The guy who I bought it from said he could do it for less, and 400,000 or under and I could probably be persuaded to do it. Two bikes, maybe Traci would want to get on one from time to time.

Lunatics

I've got a class of young students, just about my youngest in fact. There are three of them: Mini, Tommy and Jeremy. They have real names of course, but the English names are easier, and it's how I refer to them in class. Mini is a tiny girl who wears a lot of pink. Everyday she wears pink, though somedays the only pink things she wears are her pink framed glasses. But because of that, there isn't a day that passes where I don't see Mini in pink. Jeremy is a smart younng boy, seemingly typical, though tired often. Tommy is the newest to the class; he's been with us about 2 months. He's gone from shy to never shutting up in that time period.

Today was a day that is becoming typical. The kids shouted for most of the class, I got angry, and thus very quiet. I've learned that it does little good to shout all the time with kids. They merely mimic the behaviour or the grow immune to it. Rare surgical use is OK. They liked the song they sang yesterday, so today after the test, instead of starting the new chapter, they sang the the song over and over again. When they tired of that, they repeated whatever I said, fast and slurred. Then Tommy began to use the trick I taught him. The "what's that" trick where you point to someones chest until they look, they you bring your hand up to their face. Except he just just "look at this," and hits me. He does this repeatedly until I pick him up and put him in his chair. Then he does is some more. It's really cute, but very counterproductive to even the most minimal of lesson plans. Today Jeremy hungry for attention or fearing the load of homework threatened (it didn't stop the other two, nor did they blink when I assigned it) tried to do the exercises in the book alone with me, yelling be quiet every when Mini got real loud. I wonder what anyone outside the classroom thinks of it, screaming kids and a teaching begging for a bolt of lightening to bring an end to his suffering.

Bad week

There is no joy when you crash your beloved dirtbike into some moron's expensive car. Especially not when such an event comes at the end of a week of teaching with sinusitis, and just before your boss telling you that your schedule is imminently changing for the worse.

The moron was making a slow left hand turn and thought it might be a good idea to just stop halfway through the turn, before actually reaching the road he was turning onto. I breaked and swerved, but not enough, and hit his car going about 60 kmh. Enough speed to get me airborne for a few seconds and seven meters of road. I was lucky. I fell on my back and ass, rolling just a little and snapping my right ankle on the pavement. My shoe flew off down the road, and I rolled around in pain, not knowing which hurt worse, my ankle or my heart. I felt something strange jamming into my ass and at first thought it was the top knob of my femur. I thought I dislocated my right leg. When I regained a little sense, I realized it was my wallet in an unusual position. I was still in the road and my bike was still going, the back tire spinning. The throttle must have been pinned on.

The cops came, a man I knew just happened to be passing by and helped with the translation and all. My bike wasn't registered so there was nothing I could do in terms of the law, even though the accident was almost entirely his fault. Had my bike been registered I may not be looking at the repair cost that almost equals what I paid for the bike. I went to the hospital, got some Xrays. The doctor found nothing broken, so I got a brace and the advice to keep off it for a few days. The plans to go to GyeongJu were canned, and the weekend that followed a terrible week was boring at best.